Burn, baby, burn
So after a too-long hiatus, I've been starting to get back to the gym on a more regular basis lately. I always feel happy after I'm done, and glad that I've gone, but I'm still not accustomed to the new (well, new to me) equipment that doesn't have the reverse cross-train program that made me very happy on the old ellipticals, or the bikes that don't quite have the same setting that makes me feel like I'm properly positioned to work my abs as well as my legs and my butt.
So sometimes, as I'm trying to the new programs (like "cardio" or "interval" or somesuch), trying to find my new favorite course, I discover halfway through that it's kicking my ass, and I'm too out of shape to have gone down this road, but by god I'm not going to quit before that 50-year-old in the khaki pants (!) next to me does, so I stick it out and push through and I'm a big pink sweaty mess and I think I might die, but at least I didn't quit (except last week, when I inadvertently hit "reset" on the elliptical instead of changing the display on the timer, and took it as a sign not only of my idiocy but of a higher power guiding me to hop on over and do a brisk walk on the treadmill instead).
The newish set-up of the gym also has tons more of the machines facing a mirror, which is always fun to me. I'm ghost white and then, as I said, pink and just soaked, and it's just not a pretty picture. So I distract myself by reading a magazine, or listening to music, or watching the TVs that are above the mirrors. And on Saturday morning, the nearest TV was showing infomercials the whole time I was on the elliptical, first for a miracle acne drug, and then for the Sauna Belt.
I am consistently grossed out by these kinds of contraptions, but I was fascinated by all of the places one can burn fat while wearing the Sauna Belt! Watching TV! Making a grand entrance down an elaborate spiral staircase! In bed with your spouse!! Which, double ew, and weird. The closed-captioning told me, roughly, "I love taking off pounds and inches in a sauna, but sometimes it's just too inconvenient to get to the spa, and who wants to do all that work at the gym? I lost 3 inches off my belly in 50 minutes with Sauna Belt!"
I still can't quite decide if this room full of exercisers was the best or the worst possible audience for this infomercial. I kept looking around, expecting people to be either looking disgustedly or raptly at the TV, even hoping one of them might take a dramatic leap off a treadmill, with a, "Screw this! I'm getting a Sauna Belt! Terminate my membership, YMCA!" But no, sadly. I think people -- or this lot, anyway, mid-morning on New Year's Eve Day -- just pretend to watch the TV so they don't have to look at the clock on the exercise machine, but they don't really absorb any of the content. Because, really, blank stares all around in response to the Sauna Belt, and I felt very alone in my amusement.
I usually feel quite alone at the gym, which I find to be a good thing. I don't use the gym at work because I don't want to have to talk to anyone while I exercise (although sometimes the Smelmooo and I go to the gym together, and I'm fine with that, but it took me a while to get there), and I don't want to be all pink and sweaty in front of my colleagues and my boss and my boss's boss, and I certainly don't want to see them naked in the locker room.
When I went to Gold's, I always used the locker room, and there was this one totally crazy woman who would, in her sports bra and underwear, ask random other women to help her weigh herself ("my vision's not so good"), and people always looked kind of horrified, but no one -- myself included -- ever said no. And although I don't expect that any of my co-workers would pull that, it's still unsettling to me to have any interactions with them in any state of undress, mine or theirs.
And that, to my mind, is the most compelling reason to get a Sauna Belt.
So sometimes, as I'm trying to the new programs (like "cardio" or "interval" or somesuch), trying to find my new favorite course, I discover halfway through that it's kicking my ass, and I'm too out of shape to have gone down this road, but by god I'm not going to quit before that 50-year-old in the khaki pants (!) next to me does, so I stick it out and push through and I'm a big pink sweaty mess and I think I might die, but at least I didn't quit (except last week, when I inadvertently hit "reset" on the elliptical instead of changing the display on the timer, and took it as a sign not only of my idiocy but of a higher power guiding me to hop on over and do a brisk walk on the treadmill instead).
The newish set-up of the gym also has tons more of the machines facing a mirror, which is always fun to me. I'm ghost white and then, as I said, pink and just soaked, and it's just not a pretty picture. So I distract myself by reading a magazine, or listening to music, or watching the TVs that are above the mirrors. And on Saturday morning, the nearest TV was showing infomercials the whole time I was on the elliptical, first for a miracle acne drug, and then for the Sauna Belt.
I am consistently grossed out by these kinds of contraptions, but I was fascinated by all of the places one can burn fat while wearing the Sauna Belt! Watching TV! Making a grand entrance down an elaborate spiral staircase! In bed with your spouse!! Which, double ew, and weird. The closed-captioning told me, roughly, "I love taking off pounds and inches in a sauna, but sometimes it's just too inconvenient to get to the spa, and who wants to do all that work at the gym? I lost 3 inches off my belly in 50 minutes with Sauna Belt!"
I still can't quite decide if this room full of exercisers was the best or the worst possible audience for this infomercial. I kept looking around, expecting people to be either looking disgustedly or raptly at the TV, even hoping one of them might take a dramatic leap off a treadmill, with a, "Screw this! I'm getting a Sauna Belt! Terminate my membership, YMCA!" But no, sadly. I think people -- or this lot, anyway, mid-morning on New Year's Eve Day -- just pretend to watch the TV so they don't have to look at the clock on the exercise machine, but they don't really absorb any of the content. Because, really, blank stares all around in response to the Sauna Belt, and I felt very alone in my amusement.
I usually feel quite alone at the gym, which I find to be a good thing. I don't use the gym at work because I don't want to have to talk to anyone while I exercise (although sometimes the Smelmooo and I go to the gym together, and I'm fine with that, but it took me a while to get there), and I don't want to be all pink and sweaty in front of my colleagues and my boss and my boss's boss, and I certainly don't want to see them naked in the locker room.
When I went to Gold's, I always used the locker room, and there was this one totally crazy woman who would, in her sports bra and underwear, ask random other women to help her weigh herself ("my vision's not so good"), and people always looked kind of horrified, but no one -- myself included -- ever said no. And although I don't expect that any of my co-workers would pull that, it's still unsettling to me to have any interactions with them in any state of undress, mine or theirs.
And that, to my mind, is the most compelling reason to get a Sauna Belt.
1 Comments:
I saw that infomercial and my face was totally saying "what the hell?" the entire time. I have seen some horrific things in the JCC locker room as well. I don't get why people need to have complete conversations while stark naked in front of my locker yet it happens far too frequently. I wish I could just change at home every day but I just don't have the willpower.
-S
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Anonymous, at 12:42 PM
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