Working it out

I hate when people talk about working out, tell you how many miles they ran or how many push-ups they did.  

Writing about it, however, is a whole different story.

I can’t even remember anymore why I exercise. I’m pretty sure I stopped liking it years ago. I have no idea how to calibrate calories when I eat, so I definitely don’t know how to subtract them when I work out, and I don’t believe it when the treadmill does it for me.

I would say I do it for my health except that I’m so sore most mornings that I make squeaking noises, so I’m not buying that so easily either.

I do know that it makes me feel productive somehow, particularly when I’m not feeling so much otherwise. But then I can turn a load of laundry into a constructive experience if I really try hard enough.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I exercise in the morning, mostly so I don’t have to think about it, just go and get it over with. Also, I think I have less chance of throwing up with less in my stomach, though I’ve never researched that thoroughly.

Tonight, I went to the ‘Y’ because my daughter Amanda wanted to use the elliptical machine. She would like us to buy our own elliptical machine for the house, but much like her wish for a Cadillac Escalade to replace our embarrassing minivan, we ignore her.

My husband Rick wanted to take a walk, which we often do at night during the summer. And Alec, having no conscience at 11 to bog him down, simply wanted to eat another snack and play his new Wii game.

Our compromise was to all go our own separate ways.  

Exercising with your kids can be fun. I especially love it when the women in our aerobics classes bring along one of their cocky (re: cute and skinny) college-aged daughters and halfway through, the kid drags herself out red-faced and has to wait by the snack machine.

I didn’t watch Amanda tonight as I was busy hyperventilating on the treadmill while listening to Campbell Brown interview Whoopi Goldberg on CNN. I like watching TV while I am in extreme pain and don’t know how people managed in health clubs before each treadmill had its own little set attached.

I especially like watching Oprah and feeling very haughty as she and Dr. Oz talk about avoiding cardiac plaque build-up with exercise. But more often than not, I’m tuned into the Today Show watching Matt and the gang scarfing down Emeril’s jambalaya at 8 in the morning and feeling very jealous that they have such great jobs.

Amanda listened to her i-pod, which I embarrassingly referred to as a Walkman (they tell me this is not unlike when I leave the room in the middle of something good on TV and ask my kids to “freeze frame” so I won’t miss anything).

Then, after lingering just a little too long near the cute guy doing stomach crunches, Amanda and I debated how hungry exercise made us.

We all met up again, as we so often do, back home in the kitchen. There, we bored each other with our tales of exercise while watching Alec eat a giant bowl of ice cream.

It’s just not right.