IF THE BODY'S A TEMPLE-MINE'S A SHRINE TO SLOTH

So, what I’m beginning to discover is that being a pretty girl is hard work. I mean, I am actually having to sweat a little here, people. I have also come to the harsh realization that going from fluffy to fit involves a great deal of knee lifting, backbends and learning that lactic acid is not my friend.

I’m really trying my best to blend in and do what all ‘Pretty Girls’ do. Which is being equal parts disguisted and obsessed with my body and how thin I am.  Or not. In the PG World everything revolves around how I look and what I’m doing to improve my looks. It’s boring and fascinating at the same time.

I mean, I always cared about how I looked before (I’m not a careless hobo or anything) but I didn’t obsess about it. I had made a kind of peace treaty with myself and accepted what I did and didn’t have in the beauty department. But the truth is I didn’t think I could actually compete on that playing field so I never even tried to play. Not really.  I never committed to seriously trying my very hardest to make sure I looked the best I could every single day of my life. And for once, I am truly committed 100%. I even threw away my super comfy, elastic waisted ‘eating pants’ that doubled as pajamas. So, I’m definitely all in!

The most important thing I’ve discovered is that it’s exhausting. Between exercising and preparing healthy food (and performing bizarre beauty rituals), I barely have enough hours in the day to catch up with RHOBH. For the record, I am #TeamVanderpump-Brandi all the way!  My family thinks I’ve gone off the grid, my friends are annoyed and my DVR’s pissed because we don’t spend enough time together anymore.  “I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry. I love you…don’t ever leave me!”

What’s my total body transformation secret you ask? Well, I know there’s a lot of losing weight programs out there but I’m just doing the common sense stuff. Like eating healthy and working out. All the duh! things I never bothered to actually do consistently before.

So, I’ve been eating a lot of chicken. And broccoli. And kale. I didn’t even know what the hell kale was until last week. I thought it was another slang word for cool…like, “That’s sick dude, it’s so kale I can’t deal.” “Word, bro! Watch this, I’m gonna go totally kale on his ass!”  I even tried a three day “goopy”-type detox cleanse where all I ate was veggies and fasting tea. I know, I’m shocked myself that I made it through.

But I did. It wasn’t so bad actually. It just involved a lot of green stuff going in and…coming out. The upside though is that I totally caught up on my reading. Too much? Sorry…but *spoiler alert* that’s pretty much all a cleanse involves. Moving on.

 Now that I had the food situation sorted, I checked out a bunch of exercise classes. I’m not gonna lie, it was intense. I’m still standing…but just barely. Last night I went to Walgreens to get some Tiger balm and spent twenty minutes quietly eyeballing a walker as if it was a prospective lover. I eventually decided that it was too soon for us so I left without one. For now. But I’ll be back, I’m sure of it.

I began my exercise adventure as a PG, by going straight to the belly of the beast and taking a FlirtyGirl Fitness class.

 Flirty Girl Fitness

Ninth circle of hell or innocent pastime? I wasn’t really sure but I was determined to find out.  This class was advertised as “sexy cardio fun”. I’m thinking they’re gonna teach me how to be a stripper or at least twerk better than Hannah Montana. I dressed accordingly. Head to toe in stretchy black and hot pink spandex. Yup! I was legit, y’all. Once inside I was relieved to find out there wasn’t a pole in sight. So it wasn’t a serious stripper class just more of a sexy hip-hop dance class.

The instructor was extremely energetic, and insanely perky but friendly so I suddenly got really cocky thinking, “I got this” even though I have almost no formal dance experience.  The only two other girls in class were college students wearing next to nothing (Like if they could have worn just a g string and leg warmers they would have been ecstatic) and they couldn’t care less about me, I didn’t exist. Probably because they spent the entire class texting their boyfriends in between dance moves. Annoying doesn’t begin to describe it. Especially since there was only the three of us. Four counting the teacher.

The class consisted of various sexy dance moves like, “The Ashley” “The Britney” “The Cheerleader” and “The Cowgirl” Seriously. I’m not making this stuff up.

Basically all the moves I learned that night were either based on pop stars or sexual positions.  There was a lot of “Yeah!” “Whoo-hoo” and staring at ourselves provocatively in the mirror while we flipped our hair around.

Nobody was dancing like the rent was due but it was actually sweaty, slightly sexy fun. And I didn’t totally suck. Sadly, I didn’t earn any tips either but I did learn how to perform “The Fallen Angel”. Which could come in handy once I start internet dating*. *Which will be…*gulp* next week. Start praying for me now, please!

Yoga

I signed up for yoga because I thought it would calm and soothe my mind in addition to helping me learn to be more flexible.

What I encountered was a non-stop menu of poses and positions that I didn’t understand. The class started with our teacher directing us to,

“Gently pull the flesh away from your sitting bones.” Wait, what? I didn’t even know I had “sitting bones.” But sure enough, once I pulled away my super fleshy neither regions…Shabam! There they were. Hiding this whole time. Hmmm, who knew?

Next she shouted out a completely foreign selection of moves that I tried desperately to learn before we moved on to the next one. I was frantic and stressed out…so not the soothing experience I had hoped for.

“Ok, ladies let’s go. First we go into a plank and then tabletop, then lunge to the front into full warrior pose then tree into downward dog into kneeling grasshopper into Wal-Mart clearance section into espresso tears into boxed wine, variation twelve.” What?

Eventually, I gave up and just laid on my back with my eyes closed breathing heavily. I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn that this was actually the final position of the night! Well look at that. I guess I’m a natural!

YMCA

There’s a brand new mega million dollar YMCA that just opened up in town. It’s like a glowing, three story, chrome & glass shrine to good health. I’m not actually a member but my friend Heather snuck me in and I checked out a few of the classes.

Spinning

I know how to ride a bike so I figured how hard could this be? Yeah, right! Newsflash! Spinning has very little in common with riding a bike. It’s basically boot camp to techno house music with a drill sergeant screaming in your face and with the added bonus of wheels. I don’t have a lot to say about this class because I think I blocked it out. However I do remember at one point mouthing the words, “Help me” to Heather halfway through. She just smiled and said, “You can do it!” Smug bitch. How did she know? I was just barely hanging on. After class, she wanted to spin again later in the week but I value my life so I politely declined. Instead I suggested we try something else. Hopefully something easier. Little did I know that I had just made the foolhardy decision to jump from the pot all the way into the fire…

BodyPump

I was nervous once I noticed the people lining up outside the door for this class. They were focused. Lean. Like long distance runners but with lots of humongous muscles. All artfully displayed in very tight bicycle shorty shorts and miniscule brightly colored sports bras. And that was just the men. I panicked as the teacher strode purposefully to the front of the class and yelled at us to “Get it together” because, “We body pump in five people!” Everyone else whooped it up in excitement. I froze. Frightened by what I could only assume was going to be more exercise than I had previously done in my entire life combined into one intense class…I wasn’t wrong.

Take your worst fitness nightmare and multiply that by ten. Then understand that it doesn’t even come close to the hardcore ass kicking I received in this class. The Gung-ho instructor, Alejandro, had us deadlifting, rowing and bicep curling with a weight rack while we also did squats. SQUATS! With no breaks. FOR AN ENTIRE HOUR!!!! The weird part? I didn’t die and I actually kinda liked it. It was like being a submissive or participating on a forced march. You just put your head down and do what you’re told because at some point you know this madness has to end. Of course for the next three days my body hated me as every muscle group was seized up like I spent my entire weekend dancing The Harlem Shuffle for my office’s version on YouTube. But whatevs. I survived.

Planet Fitness

But by the end of the week my body was screaming for me to stop. Or maybe that was me screaming. Hard to tell because it was so loud inside my head. My neck won’t turn to the right, my calf muscles feel as hard as volcano rocks and I’ve lost all feeling in my toes.

So I’ve temporarily retreated to the comfort and convenience of Planet Fitness where I will slowly walk on a treadmill until I can recover.

This super cheap but clean & friendly gym is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and only cost 10 bucks a month so really, what’s not to love?

The best part? They have massage chairs! And massage beds. I love it here. Does massage count as working out? God, I hope so. I’m so tired…so very, very tired!