Sorry for the long absence, dear, readers, but it seems my "please don't let anyone get sick before Disney" prayers were answered...and everyone got colds after we got back, including myself. So I've been using every spare moment this week to lie on the couch and fall asleep in front of the same DVR'd Bachelor episode.
So I'm sure many of you heard, fitness legend, Jack LaLanne died this past Sunday at the age of 96. I never wrote about it before, but this guy was sort of one of my role models. Most of my generation only knows LaLanne as the freakishly strong old guy we'd see on TV once in a while, but he was a pioneer in the health and fitness industry and his goal in life was "to help people feel better, look better, and live longer."
As I have written before, I endure exercising, not only to work off all the peanut butter I eat, but also so I can live longer and have a better quality of life as I age, for myself and for my children - and LaLanne personified this belief. He was also a trail blazer for women. His first fitness show aired in 1951 and his approach was directed at his female, homemaker audience. Back then, it was absolutely unheard of for women, not in organized sports, where they still wore skirts anyway, to exercise. He even acknowledged the children plopped in front of the screen, back in those two-channels-but-stick-the-kid-in-front-of-it-all-day-regardless-of-the-programming days, encouraging them to go grab their moms for a workout. Sure, his collared unitard was a little creepy, but his dedication to at-home fitness is the reason we have all the workout DVD's and the Fitness Channel, all of us trapped at home with children who refuse to be n the care of the teenager tapping away on her phone at the day care of the local gym, benefit from.
Speaking of working out at home, I had my first workout in public in about a year when we were Disney. Knowing I could potentially turn into Clark W. Griswold every day, dragging my family manically from attraction to attraction, a morning jog was just what the doctor ordered to calm me down and work off some of those funnel cakes*. I packed my public-appropriate workout gear, (which you will be happy to find out has actually become my regular work out gear, although I still rock the schemata at home), my Yankee hat, and headed to the gym. And I discovered I can never workout in a gym regularly again.
First of all, on the second morning, I had to wait for a treadmill. It took all my effort to drag myself out of bed after wine and room service with H the night before, now I needed to wait for the privilege of torturing myself on one of these things? Luckily, the Lance Armstrong wanna-be (you can NOT be serious with that yellow, spandex top) finished a few minutes after my arrival, preventing me from monitoring who was breaking the 30 minute limit, and standing in front of them tapping my foot in an agitated manner. And the freeweights. Do you really need the twelves, the fifteeens and the twenties** there, Grandpa? Let me inform you, you only have temporary ownership of the pair you are using, put the others back on the rack to prevent my giving judg-y looks while I sweetly ask my rhetorical question, "Mind if I grab this pair since you're not using them?"
Working out with the elderly is a benefit of exercising at six in the morning at a vacation resort. You get to really enjoy CNBC the other old guy put on all three televisions at ear-splitting volume so he could watch his retirement portfolio in surround sound. I have never seen so many Cialis ads in my life. Other equipment fouls abounded. You know that dispenser with the sanitary wipes? Feel free to use one after you're done Snorty McHock-A-Loogey, since I don't feel like catching the plague you are sure to have. And I can sweat with the best of them, so let me justifiably judge you Back Sweat guy for not either putting a towel down on the recline weight bench or wiping it off when you are finished.
Some of the issues I have with working out in public are my own. Let me just put it out there - am I the only one who farts every time they exercise? It can't just be me letting them fly when I run. So what does one do? Yes, I have been the victim of a few gym gassings in my life, but not every single time. Are you all just holding it in? That's just not healthy. I also don't want to be looked at like a weirdo when I try the strange sit-up thing I saw in Shape, n or do I want to be judge when I am having a bad Monday morning workout due to too much wine over the weekend and need to hop on the side rails every three minutes during my run. Or, conversely, if I am really kicking it up having a great workout, and sprinting, I don't want anyone witnessing my labored huffing and ugly "run face", including myself. Working out plus mirrors equals bad! I don't want to see the bat wings I'm trying to get rid of, thanks. I've really enjoyed the last eight years of pretending I already look like Jillian Michaels during my weight routine.
So it was with great joy that I returned to my basement routine. Schemata firmly tied, beginning my workout when I want to, all the weights at my disposal, farting and sweating away. And thank you, Jack LaLanne for making this all seem normal.
* Seriously, those damn things were everywhere and they fit them into whatever theme the park had. In Animal Kingdom, they were served out of an African hut, at the Magic Kingdom, they were Colonial America specialties served at The Sleepy Hollow Pub. They also did this for smoked turkey legs, which I think is odd for a theme park with a usually hot climate. Ice cream everywhere I can understand. Fried dough and smoked poultry? Weird. I still ate though.
** No pinks and purples for me! I swear, half the motivation I had to lift heavier weights was to escape H's derision at the girly colors the five to eight pound weights usually come in, and graduate to a heavier set that only came in black. Why do they do that? I'm sure there are poor, skinny men at somewhere, trying to get stronger, who have to hide their lavender, five pound dumbells when their buddies come over.
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