The Bean Blog

Exercise Kills

Oct 7, 2008 At least I still have my health?

I’ve been having some trouble sticking to a regular exercise program. I have good intentions. I get all excited and jump on to the treadmill three to four times a week and all is good. Then a few weeks down the road the couch starts too look a little more comfortable than the treadmill, but I still drag my butt on to the treadmill. Another couple weeks go by and I don’t even give the treadmill a sideways glance on my way to a glorious nap on the couch.

But I am not deterred. Eventually I decide I need to stop being a lazy bum and get back to exercising. That is usually about the time I have to take deep breaths in just to button up my jeans and I have to perform lunges in the bathroom to loosen up the fabric on my thighs.

Last Thursday was one of those acrobatic days with my jeans. It had been a few weeks since I was on the treadmill and Lee and I haven’t been on a bike ride since I drove over my bike with the truck (on accident I swear even though I really, really felt the burn in my thighs on our last bike ride). So I realized I (once again) needed to stop being lazy and get my body moving.

I thought maybe the treadmill is just too boring for me. So instead I decided to work out to a video; the Abs Diet for Women DVD. Or as I like to call it…the DVD of death. It has taken me five days just to get enough courage to talk about this workout.

The beginning of the DVD was fine. There was a warm-up. And then one abs workout. Followed by another abs workout. I was feeling pretty good. I could already feel that six pack coming together under my flabby, stretch-marked covered twin skin. I was woman. Here me roar.

Then came the cardio. Cardio and I have a love/hate relationship. Cardio loves to hurt me and I hate cardio with the passion of 10,000 suns. So, you know, we’re tight.

Cardio started out easy enough. We were just marching. I can march. In fact I was starting to get a little cocky, egging the instructor to get on with the cardio for crying out loud.

Then we moved in to a jog. I’m not really a jogger. I’m more of a fast walker. But I refused to be a wimp. I did, after all, encourage the instructor to make it a little more difficult.

This DVD takes a pyramid approach to cardio. You start out with 30 seconds of vigorous activity. Then back to a jog. Then 45 seconds of get-your-heart-speed-racing activity followed by a jog. Then 60 seconds of keel-over-and-almost-throw-up-activity until you’re back to that god forsaken jog. Then 90 seconds of fall-down-and-die activity followed by more fucking jogging. And then you work your way back down to 60 seconds, 45 seconds and 30 seconds. Or at least I think so. I died halfway between the 60 seconds and the 90 seconds and I didn’t have that little button you’re supposed to push when you’ve fallen and you can’t get back up.

Immediately following a good cry as I scraped myself up off the floor, I got a really bad headache. Apparently I stopped breathing and with no oxygen to my brain I almost had a cerebral hemorrhage. Of course I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the problem was. (Of course I’m exaggerating here. There was no real brain damage. You know, other than the damage that was there pre-workout.)

If that wasn’t bad enough I immediately started sneezing uncontrollably. Or I guess non-stop would be a better word, because is sneezing ever really controllable? Apparently I knocked that pus left over in my upper sinus cavity from my last surgery. (Again, I’m no doctor. I just make this stuff up as I go along. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?)

And if that was all that was wrong I would have been happy. But no. No, something much worse happened the next day. Friday morning I woke up and my calves hurt so bad I’m pretty sure I heard them screaming. Walking up a flight of stairs brought tears to my eyes they hurt so bad.

Lee offered to massage them for me, but if you’d ever had a beat down massage from Lee you’d know it would just be easier (and less painful) to shoot rusty nails in your leg. My aunt suggested we get PVC pipe and roll it on my leg. Instead I chose to get crabby and tell people to “GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY LEGS.” That seemed to do the trick.

Today, five whole days later, my calves are still a little tender. But at least I can walk again without wanting to punch the nearest person in the face. So there’s been some improvement.

And I’ve decided exercise is overrated. Naps are much safer.

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Tags: Abs Diet for Women, cardio, exercise, workout