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Last night it became abundantly clear to me that
in my Pilates class, I am the only "normal" person in
attendance. "Normal", that is, if you call it so to exercise
only as a means to eat like a big ole heffer. Every time I go to a
Pilates session, I begin by stretching out my mat and saying something
along the lines of "Whoo, boy, I sure need this. I just ate a
whopping big meal followed up by a huge scoop of ice cream." The
first time I admitted to my gluttony, the rest of the class just stared
at me. Finally, my instructor said, "You REALLY ate all of that?" She had
a funny look on her face; almost pained. "Of course!" I replied. "It's
time to exercise it all off." "But surely," one of the girls in the
class replied, "if you didn't eat it in the first place, you could
maybe burn off some of the existing fat. She gave a meaningful glance at
my preferred sitting area. "Well, YEAH." I said, sarcastically.
"But then when would I get to eat the good stuff?" "You could eat fruit." One of the
girls, who is as lean as a stalk of wheat suggested. "Or do the all protein thing." Another
super-buff fanatic chimed in. "First of all," I said, "I do eat
fruit. I just eat it BEFORE I eat my REAL dessert. And as far as that
protein thing goes," I was letting all these skinny minnies have
it, I tell you, "I don't even LIKE meat. I can only moderately
tolerate eggs, and cheese is only good with bread." "Oh no, " the protien-advocate yelped,
"You can NEVER have bread!" "Honey, "I said sadly, "I
couldn't last five minutes on that diet. I'd rather be DEAD than to have
no carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are MY LIFE!" Since that time, the rest of the class has
watched me kind of warily; with that "she can't be trusted- she
eats DESSERTS- kind of look. Oh sure, they allow me to exercise
among them; but their very demeanor suggests that if I am only there for
all the ice dreams I can eat from Chickfillet, well then, I am most
certainly NOT one of them. Which is fine with me. I've fought extra weight
ever since I had babies, and frankly, the only thing that actually works
for me is this whole exercise deal. I hate it, but I don't hate it
nearly as much as I would giving up my beloved treats. But last night I realized that truly, these
girls and I are operating on a different plane of being: mine, of
course, being "normal" and theirs well....... I was recounting with delight that my hubby, who
had been gone for three days on a business trip in Atlanta, had very
sweetly surprised me by bringing me home a big bag of Cinnabons.
"You see," I told the class, "When we were in California,
I had remembered that the Phoenix airport had a Cinnabon store. But when
we landed, I went up to the counter, ordered, and the man behind the
counter said, "WE'RE CLOSED!" even though I could see the
Cinnabons right behind him. That took a while for me to get over,"
I shook my head at the memory, "so it was such a great surprise
that he brought me Cinnabons tonight!" Here's where it gets ugly. Stop reading if you,
like me, really really love your sweets, because the following is kind
of unbelievable: "What's a Cinnabon?"
Wheat-stalk thin asked. "Yeah, what IS a Cinnabon?" Toned to
the max chimed. The rest of the class looked at me expectantly.
"You mean," I asked, "None of you have EVER had a
Cinnabon?" A chorus of well turned necks shook their heads
negatively. "They are:" (I amost made a drumroll
sound but refrained) "giant cinnamon rolls, roughly the size of my
head. I like the ones that come with nuts." Well, I swear I heard a stomach growl- I SWEAR
IT, but it wasn't mine. Mine was comfortably filled with dinner and
Cinnabons, and I was ready to work those suckers off, tell you what.
"Let's start burning off those Cinnabons!" I exclaimed,
flipping my mat down. "Ummm. Yes." The instructor looked as
shocked and worried as if I had just told the class that they would all
be required to eat Cinnabons prior to the next session. Even as I began the torturous workout, I was
happy and secure in the knowledge that all that hard work was not in
vain. And wasn't it, after all, quite normal to enjoy a one thousand
calorie dessert prior to suffering the rigors of hard exercise?
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