Back to the Gym

Today I climbed a fake hill on a StairMaster.  It was as fun as it sounds.  The fake hill machine told me I burned 112 calories but if you had seen the amount of sweat I produced, you would agree with me that it was more like 1,012.

While I was having the time of my life, I remembered why I haven’t been to the gym in a few days er…weeks…er…months. 

It’s my iPod’s fault.  My selection of catchy get-up-and-go music really does motivate me to move.  But it also motivates me to sing and dance, and that just really isn’t socially acceptable when you’re climbing a fake hill next to somebody who is running to nowhere.

It’s terribly difficult to resist dancing to Black Eyed Peas so I allowed myself to at least “climb” to the beat instead.  When that wasn’t satisfying enough, I threw in a tiny bit of sass with each step.  But then I remembered how “awesome” I am at dancing on stable ground and realized that when my sass transfers to the StairMaster, it could be mistaken for a seizure.  So I stopped with the sass before somebody had to call 911.

And I was sad.

Fall Out Boy’s rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” was up next.  How in the world can you NOT belt out those “BEAT ITs?”  That’s like asking me to not make a special trip downtown to my favorite cookie shop whenever the urge strikes (which is quite possibly the reason why I must go climb the fake hill).

I held those “BEAT ITs” inside my head for as long as I could.  But when the lady running to nowhere left her machine to instead run circles on the indoor track, I gave myself permission to hum along quietly.

But did you know that quiet humming is less than satisfying?  And do you know where I CAN satisfyingly belt out “BEAT ITs” and dance along to the Black Eyed Peas?  In the car, while eating a cookie from my favorite cookie store.