Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age | Tags: aerobics, Exercise, humor, pandemic, pool, quarantine
Like a lot of people, I’ve gained some anxiety pounds during this pandemic, even though I have all the means I need to eat less/better and get more exercise. For the last week or so I’ve been staring at my flapping arm wings and the growing tire around my tummy while drinking wine and eating jalapeno poppers like it’s the end of the world (if you watch the news every night, that’s exactly what it feels like).
I knew I had to do something when my sports bras started making it hard to breathe, causing me to question if I have the “‘rona”, until I remember it’s just that extra layer of fat squeezing into the modern-day corset causing the issue. For more on sports bras, read “Sports Bra Removal – The Struggle is Real.”
Even my exercise shorts, designed to be stretchy and provide lots of leg room, were cutting into my stomach and making my muffin top flop over and nestle against my also-tighter workout shirt. I basically feel like a moon pie that’s being held too tightly.
One of my Quaran-Tuck It List items is to start doing an exercise regimen in my pool. I’m lucky enough to have one, so I should get my butt in there and use it, right? I downloaded a couple of YouTube pool exercise videos and started doing them yesterday.
That shit HURTED! (To quote Daughter #2)
I had forgotten how hard it is to run around a pool while swooshing your arms and pretending you’re doing certain dance moves under water. That night I was sore and tired, but that means it’s working, so I’m going to keep it up.
But here are a few tips for those of you who might want to try the same thing:
- Check your dignity at the door. You’re going to look ridiculous, even if it’s in your backyard. If you can, get a friend to do it with you – then you have blackmail on each other.
- Make sure your bathing suit fits snugly – that 3-year-old Target suit isn’t gonna cut it. I had on my old bikini bottoms, and they were so loose that they kept making a THWOCKA THWOCKA sound every time I jumped around as they scooped up water like a sail, smacking it against my back. It was so loud I couldn’t hear the instructions, and I had to keep stopping and pulling them up again.
- Make sure you’re standing in the right water depth – a couple of times I slipped on the ledge going to the deep end and went under. Again, check your dignity at the door.
- Don’t try to watch the videos on your cell phone at the edge of the pool. It’s really hard to flap your arms around effectively while squinting at the lady in the video, and also not get your phone wet. I suggest you watch the videos a couple of times and write down the exercises on a piece of paper that you can prop up somewhere – for those of you 40 or older, make it BIG.
- Wear water shoes if you have them – nobody wants those weird red sores from the bottom of the pool on your toes – people will think you have COVID-toes.
Even if you don’t have this on your Quaran-Tuck It List, go ahead and make one. It’ll help you focus…but be realistic. “Have sex with Brad Pitt” is not realistic; however, “Dream about having sex with Brad Pitt” is certainly an achievable goal.
What’s on your list?
Here are the videos I was using (thank God at least one of those women isn’t a 20-year-old in great shape!):
Filed under: Exercise, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: COVID-19, Exercise, Food, quarantine, self-improvement, writing
We’ve all seen the memes about gaining weight while under quarantine, and how we should all be trying to better ourselves during this time. So, after 4 months of working from home, I have come to the conclusion that the Quarantine-15 is a real thing, and that I’m pretty much as lazy as I thought I was. I was secretly assuming it was me just being too hard on myself.
I don’t have any excuses.
I have extra time because I’m not commuting, and I can drop in a load of laundry when I need to get away from my computer and stretch my legs. I live out in the country, so not going to the gym should have been replaced by lots of activity outside, like running (which is solitary and free) or the 50 million online exercise apps available. I even am lucky enough to have a pool, which I’ve been in only to just stand in the shallow end, like a hippopotamus.
Instead of bettering myself, I have coped by consuming copious amounts of wine, opening the fridge and staring at its contents for minutes at a time before eating yet another vat of pimiento cheese, watching too much tv after dinner and reading smut novels with heaving breasts and raised lettering on the covers (some are so bad even a book addict like me has to put them down).
I have not learned a new language, edited my novels, blogged nearly enough, or even tried more than one or two new recipes.
So here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m going to create a short Quaran- Tuck It List (like a bucket list) of things to do during the pandemic that might get me moving forward again. Feel free to make your own, or if you need some accountability, share your list in the comments!
- Lock the refrigerator on a timer.
- Attempt to not drink any alcohol for one week. (Don’t judge – there’s only so much I can inflict on the Fam all at once.)
- Sell stuff on my local FaceBook market page – yep, Hubby is probably going to have a heart attack when he reads this. Dude, RELAX….I’m not touching your t-shirt drawers.
- Let the cats live. I CANNOT clean up anymore animal body fluids. If one of them shits on my outdoor cushions one more time, I’m going to lose it.
- Actually do the stretches every doctor I’ve seen has said I should be doing. The problem with thinking of yourself as 30 in your head is that your body likes to laugh and go, “let me remind you…”
- Edit and finish the fantasy novel I started 20 years ago. Not 50 Shades of Gray fantasy…magic and swords and stuff. If I had to write the 50 Shades of Gray novel it would have ended after her interview with him and all the red flags she could only miss if she’d been locked in a box for the first 20 years of her life.
- Write an alternative novel to 50 Shades.
- Create an author website page.
- Publish a bunch of these blogs in a book so future generations can just hand it over to their therapists and say, “See? It’s genetic…”
- Start a workout program to do in my pool (see next week’s blog).
What’s your Quaran-Tuck It list?
Subourbon Mom 