I wrote a blog post last year about how to lose one million kilos in a week.
Running's like having a baby without an epidural. The end result is pretty good, but the labour hurts!
Funnily enough that blog post has had a huge amount of traffic over the past week as everyone gets back to their normal routine the equivalent of 50 Christmas puddings x 5 = heavier.
That post wasn’t about weight loss, so much as it was about going home and wanting to look my best. This post is however about weight loss, and exercise and ritual pavement humiliation. If you haven’t reached this stage in your New Year’s resolutions rollout, don’t worry these experiences are coming to a pair of jeans half a size too small near you too.
Today I actually did something about the naggy little voice in my head that goes: “You have to drink less. You have to exercise more.
“If you do not exercise more you will never be healthy and fit again. They will no longer call it the Michelin Man blimp, they will rename it in your honour. Oh yes, how does Vegemitevix blimp sound to you then? Huh? Huh?”
So, mastering all I’ve learnt about motivation over the past twenty odd years, I started to prep myself. Bear in mind this is the first run in about three months and in between times I’ve been a dutiful follower of Baccanalia. I eased myself down onto my bed and opened up the channels to the argumentative teenager inside my head.
“You are more than what you look like.”
True, about 2 stone more.
“It’s cold out there and you’ll catch cold, then asthma which will go to your chest and create a bronchialitis den of vipers, and then you’ll die.”
Or, I could sit inside in the warmth and eat myself to death. The news would read: Short woman, the size of a Pacific nation, found deceased with a box of Hotel Chocolat in one hand and a bottle of Jacob’s Creek in the other. And besides it’s not that cold out there, we even get 10 deg C in Auckland, and I used to run then!
“You can’t find your running knickers, you may as well call it off. You can’t run in a g-string (think of the chaffing!) and if you were to run commando, just think of the ambulance men’s faces when they retrieved you from a pile on the pavement. What’s more you can’t find your sports bra and you can’t run without it, your boobs are likely to flatten you. Or they’ll stretch so badly they’ll get in the way when you zip up your jeans.”
Ha! Alternative sports bra found in drawer and you can sort the other problem out, without announcing to the world what you decided. You’re not running in a wet t-shirt competition!
The snotty teenager in my head huffed, retreated to her bedroom and slammed the door. At which point, now neatly dressed in suitable sporty looking attire I wandered downstairs. Bailey the Lab pricked up her ears at my clothes and hair up.
Teenager of the mind was back: “See, that’s just cruel. You know you can’t take her, she’s too old to jog with you now. You may as well stay at home and ruffle her ears.”
The dog can’t run, so you can’t?
The neutered dog can’t have sex either so…?
Severely brow beaten, but determined, I plugged in my mobile, flicked it over to Cardio Trainer and stuck my headphones in. What do teenagers know anyway? I was going to take the town’s footpaths by storm. I remembered the glory days of running 8 kms three times every week and running the Ladies 5k in London. I could bloody well do this. I am woman. I am more than the sum of my chocolatey parts.
And so, with gusto I went.
All went well for about 1.8 kms and then I hit a snag. It’s difficult to run when you cannot breathe. Or rather when you are breathing but only through a Wonder Wall of mucus. That wasn’t my only problem. My carefully selected running top had ‘shrunk in the wash’, and was now riding up and sitting just under my boobs. The old lady spryly walking her terrier stopped to look, and no doubt to calculate how many months pregnant I was. The guy driving the truck honked and waved, whilst I swore at his cheerfulness under my breath. They were both smiling at my fat-girl efforts.
Oh F—k off!
I was dying, of embarrassment! Could they not see the athelete within? Could they not see the thin woman inside me? No, not the one I ate, as the joke goes.
But, to my credit I did not stop. With the same stubborn determination that saw me sitting through the University photo session with a sweater top that was somewhat see-through and therefore having a student photo of me in the front row advertising my breasts for posterity, I continued on. I pumped up the volume of Green Day and zipped up my sweat jacket. Now, I was effectively running in my very own Bikram Yoga micro-climate.
I wheezed on. Decades passed. Children grew had babies and then their babies had babies. I, kept running until mercifully I reached home. Funny how the body doesn’t remember these juicy aspects. Like, how hard it is to get back into exercising. It’s up there with childbirth. The body blots it from memory in order to preserve the species. And each New Year we jovially try once again to ‘get fit, and healthy’ completely forgetting that it is simply unbearable this ‘lightness of becoming’.
So that was my first run of the year, how was it for you?
I wrote a blog post last year about how to lose one million kilos in a week.
[caption id="attachment_4439" align="alignright" width="229" caption="Running's like having a baby without an epidural. The end result is pretty good, but the labour hurts!"][/caption]
Funnily enough that blog post has had a huge amount of traffic over the past week as everyone gets back to their normal routine the equivalent of 50 Christmas puddings x 5 = heavier.
That post wasn't about weight loss, so much as it was about going home and wanting to look my best. This post is however about weight loss, and exercise and ritual pavement humiliation. If you haven't reached this stage in your New Year's resolutions rollout, don't worry these experiences are coming to a pair of jeans half a size too small near you too.
Today I actually did something about the naggy little voice in my head that goes: "You have to drink less. You have to exercise more.
"If you do not exercise more you will never be healthy and fit again. They will no longer call it the Michelin Man blimp, they will rename it in your honour. Oh yes, how does Vegemitevix blimp sound to you then? Huh? Huh?"
So, mastering all I've learnt about motivation over the past twenty odd years, I started to prep myself. Bear in mind this is the first run in about three months and in between times I've been a dutiful follower of Baccanalia. I eased myself down onto my bed and opened up the channels to the argumentative teenager inside my head.
"You are more than what you look like."
True, about 2 stone more.
"It's cold out there and you'll catch cold, then asthma which will go to your chest and create a bronchialitis den of vipers, and then you'll die."
Or, I could sit inside in the warmth and eat myself to death. The news would read: Short woman, the size of a Pacific nation, found deceased with a box of Hotel Chocolat in one hand and a bottle of Jacob's Creek in the other. And besides it's not that cold out there, we even get 10 deg C in Auckland, and I used to run then!
"You can't find your running knickers, you may as well call it off. You can't run in a g-string (think of the chaffing!) and if you were to run commando, just think of the ambulance men's faces when they retrieved you from a pile on the pavement. What's more you can't find your sports bra and you can't run without it, your boobs are likely to flatten you. Or they'll stretch so badly they'll get in the way when you zip up your jeans."
Ha! Alternative sports bra found in drawer and you can sort the other problem out, without announcing to the world what you decided. You're not running in a wet t-shirt competition!
The snotty teenager in my head huffed, retreated to her bedroom and slammed the door. At which point, now neatly dressed in suitable sporty looking attire I wandered downstairs. Bailey the Lab pricked up her ears at my clothes and hair up.
Teenager of the mind was back: "See, that's just cruel. You know you can't take her, she's too old to jog with you now. You may as well stay at home and ruffle her ears."
The dog can't run, so you can't?
The neutered dog can't have sex either so...?
Severely brow beaten, but determined, I plugged in my mobile, flicked it over to Cardio Trainer and stuck my headphones in. What do teenagers know anyway? I was going to take the town's footpaths by storm. I remembered the glory days of running 8 kms three times every week and running the Ladies 5k in London. I could bloody well do this. I am woman. I am more than the sum of my chocolatey parts.
And so, with gusto I went.
All went well for about 1.8 kms and then I hit a snag. It's difficult to run when you cannot breathe. Or rather when you are breathing but only through a Wonder Wall of mucus. That wasn't my only problem. My carefully selected running top had 'shrunk in the wash', and was now riding up and sitting just under my boobs. The old lady spryly walking her terrier stopped to look, and no doubt to calculate how many months pregnant I was. The guy driving the truck honked and waved, whilst I swore at his cheerfulness under my breath. They were both smiling at my fat-girl efforts.
Oh F---k off!
I was dying, of embarrassment! Could they not see the athelete within? Could they not see the thin woman inside me? No, not the one I ate, as the joke goes.
But, to my credit I did not stop. With the same stubborn determination that saw me sitting through the University photo session with a sweater top that was somewhat see-through and therefore having a student photo of me in the front row advertising my breasts for posterity, I continued on. I pumped up the volume of Green Day and zipped up my sweat jacket. Now, I was effectively running in my very own Bikram Yoga micro-climate.
I wheezed on. Decades passed. Children grew had babies and then their babies had babies. I, kept running until mercifully I reached home. Funny how the body doesn't remember these juicy aspects. Like, how hard it is to get back into exercising. It's up there with childbirth. The body blots it from memory in order to preserve the species. And each New Year we jovially try once again to 'get fit, and healthy' completely forgetting that it is simply unbearable this 'lightness of becoming'.
So that was my first run of the year, how was it for you?
Tagged as:
diet,
exercise,
funny,
humour,
New Year's resolutions,
running
