where wildly different is perfectly normal
Friends don’t let friends have muffin-tops
Friends don’t let friends have muffin-tops

Friends don’t let friends have muffin-tops

Oh, the best laid plans…I had planned to get this posted earlier. Instead, I had to drive just slightly north of southeast fumblebuck, which is one town over from “Are We There Yet?” and just a little ways from “How Much Farther?” One hundred and twenty-freaking-five miles round trip. To pick up 1/4 side of beef. Because the processing plant that I can see from my back porch didn’t receive my fax. Hitting Bessie the Hitchhiking Cow would have been a much easier and faster way to get my year’s supply of beef.

And then, a stop to Costco was in order. We were having a coffee crisis..as in, out of.  And then, once I was home with my 80 pounds of frozen cow, my ginormous Costco purchase (including a trip to the attached liquor store, where I had to have a conversation with A that Bud Light was NOT good beer, and in fact, the Smithwicks I was putting into the cart was greatly superior…does anyone else have these conversations with a 6 year old?), I had to find a place for all this foodie greatness. And that entailed cleaning out both freezers and the pantry. And because I am type A, that meant I wiped down the pantry shelves and labeled all the baskets. And then labeled the canisters, because I am really sick of hauling out the brown sugar only to discover it is actually cornmeal. Yes, it is a disease. No, I will not come to your house and do this for you. Go buy a labeler and experience the joy yourself.

But this wee lil’ drive gave me plenty of time to contemplate my rapidly spreading arse. Well, it was either that or do the mental math figuring out just exactly how much gas this trip was burning and the equivalent cost and frankly, considering my rapidly spreading arse was less painful.

Colorado has long been considered to be the fittest state in the country. They say (who is “they?” Do “they” live in Colorado?) that it’s because our weather is excellent for outdoor activities, that communities are committed to bike paths and nature trails, that this is just a healthy place to live. I have a different theory.

Peer pressure.

I figure one lone person, way back in the 1970s or so, took up jogging because his car broke down and he needed a way to get to work. Others met him, thought he was a pretty cool guy, and took up jogging to be like him. And it has just snowballed in the last 30+ years. It mutated from jogging to include bicycling, nordic skiing, snowshoeing…and then blew past the whole “getting from point A to point B” thing to include aerobics, syncronized swimming (I’m not kidding, there are classes for kids in this), mountain climbing, and pretty much any other sweat-inducing activity. Yoga was brought into the mix to stretch out the knots from overexertion.

And then, the peer pressure began. Subtly, of course. Friends talked to one another about how they’re preparing for the Bolder Boulder (kids as young as elementary school prepare for and run this 10k; my parents wouldn’t let me run a 3k fun run because they were afraid it would stunt my growth. Uh-huh…I’m 5’11″…a little growth stunting wouldn’t have been a bad thing), about the day-long family bicycle ride, about the exercise class they’re teaching.

Thus, Colorado is known as a healthy, fit place to live when it’s really just peer pressure rearing it’s ugly, albeit very fit, head.

Our town is getting a New! And! Improved! rec center next week, complete with New! And! Improved! programs. I have two friends teaching Body Pump and RPM classes. One of them has essentially told me that I will be in her class. I nodded and smiled because I had no earthly idea what she was talking about. And then I went and checked out the classes online and promptly passed out. When I came to, I babbled incoherently about being a couch potato, only mashed with heavy cream and butter, then put on my big girl panties and dealt with it.

So beginning in January I will be hitting the New! And! Improved! rec center to create a New! And! Improved! me. I’m out of excuses…the place will have childcare, there are all sorts of classes I’m interested in, and if I’m going to work out, I have to be out of the house. There are too many distractions here, too many ways for me to talk myself out of it. And I have friends who will make sure I don’t hurt myself, who have promised they won’t laugh at me, who will flat-out ask me WTF I’ve been if I don’t show. Sigh…

Peer pressure sucks…at least until swimsuit season.

2 Comments

  1. So now that you’ve moved your operation uptown to the higher rent district of wordpress, does this mean you will forget the dull moments you left behind with the rest of us?

    Does being born on the East Face around the corner from the Garden of the Gods mean I never have to work out again? That my fitness comes naturally because my first breath was at 6,000 feet in the pristine thinner air of the Rocky Mountain State.

    Sounds good. Think I’ll go with that. Your theory about peer pressure just doesn’t feed any fantasy I want to be part of.

  2. tell me you aren’t dissin’ the synchronized swimming!

    And yes, I used to have conversations just like that about beer with my own little demons. Although we do give bud a bit of a break due to the fantastic commercials & their horses. (not that we drink it)

Whaddya think?

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