It should come as no surprise that exercise is my enemy. Me and cookies, we’re bffs, but exercise not so much. The last time I really put any effort into making my body move more than to the cookie jar was when I was playing hockey. For the record that was almost 6 years ago. I’ve walked the dog on occasion, but never really did anything to make myself physically fit. I have a naturally fast metabolism and couple that with my normal low food intake (except for the cookies) I’ve managed to be fairly thin most of my life.
Last Spring I started working and despite working in a nursery, where you would think that I heft large trees and bags of soil, I have gotten fat. The problem is this. I work with two middle twenties bachelor boys who don’t cook for themselves and we have a cooler that is perpetually stocked with soda. Because the boys don’t cook they order in food on a daily basis. Their favorite thing is to “pick up the tab” when it comes to food so I usually eat what they eat. Again, they are bachelor boys in their twenties and they don’t always make the best food choices. We frequent the greasy pub down the street. I also have become lazy when it comes to nursery work because I work with boys. I let them do all of the heavy lifting. Add on top my cookie habit and you see where I’m going.
We have grand plans of joining the Y this Spring, but we have to wait until I start working more so we can afford it. The Y has a pool and I’m likely to swim before going into work. Walking or running isn’t my favorite because of messed up knees and hips and swimming is something I love.
“Spring” is still two months away and I thought I’d do a little exercise in the mean time.
I spent the last weekend with my girlfriends (consuming waay too much food) and Jenny was telling us about a workout that she heard about at her MOPS group. I thought it was a great idea. Yesterday I put the idea into action.
Here is how it works. Get a deck of cards and assign an exercise to each suit. For example hearts would be push-ups, clubs sit-ups, diamonds lunges, spades leg lifts. Deal out a set number of cards (10 is a good starting point) and do that many of the corresponding exercise of the suit you drew. For example, I just dealt 10 cards and got the jack, 3 and 5 of diamonds. I would do 19 lunges (with each leg) (jacks are 11, queen 12, king 13, ace 14).
I started this little workout yesterday and today I can barely walk. It is mostly evidence that I’m fat and need to get off of my butt. However, I like that I didn’t have to think about it, it was short and a good starting point for someone like me who doesn’t exercise regularly.
Give it a try.
You are awesome! I’m so tickled that you tried it! Now I have to keep up, we did eat well, and much, didn’t we? 🙂 I miss you already.