I played DDR for 100 minutes last night. Almost completely naked, in my room, with the air conditioner blasting. And it felt good.

That’s just not something you can do in a public gym, you know? And playing a video game to get your heart rate up to 80% of its maximum is WAY more fun than mindlessly trudging on a treadmill or an elliptical or a stationary bike. I’m motivated to keep playing because I want higher scores and better grades. It truly is phenomenal, and I know from experience that it does qualify as a healthy form of cardio and it does help me lose weight. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of more people using DDR as exercise (intentionally).

I used to go to the school gyms, before I got my first DDR game (which was Mario Mix for the Gamecube, by the way). I only went a few times, though. Here’s why: Yes, I live in Manhattan at school and probably a majority of the people that live here are at least somewhat physically fit. But I was the ONLY. FAT. PERSON. at those gyms! Every single time! Sometimes I’d be paranoid that people were staring at me, simply because they were shocked at seeing a fat person at the gym and couldn’t contain their bewilderment.

There was one particular trip to the gym I remember quite vividly; in fact, it was my last trip to the gym. I’d been busting my butt on the elliptical machine for half an hour or so, sweating to death and watching 10 Things I Hate About You on my video iPod. After I was finished, I went to the women’s locker room to get my bag and leave. (I never showered at the gym for reasons involving my body image.) As I was getting my things together, a woman came up next to me. I looked at her, and I vaguely recognized her as the person that was on the elliptical machine to my left a few minutes ago.

I’m not sure if she followed me all the way in there, or if she just happened to finish at the same time I did, but this is what she had to say:

“You did a good job out there. Good work.”

I just stared at her. I mean, it wasn’t P.E. class. I wasn’t running a marathon. I did not know this woman, and I didn’t care about her opinion. So basically, she came up to me to tell me, in subtle terms, that she was impressed that someone as fat as me could move so well on an elliptical machine. Once I realized this, I hauled my ass up the stairs and out of the building, fuming with rage and embarrassment.

That is why I no longer go to the gym. If I ever get to a normal weight, I will probably start going again to tone my muscles and everything, since it’s harder to do that with the resources in my bedroom. But I won’t go again for cardio, because I now have confirmation that all the skinny people are staring at me, judging me, assuming I must be totally out of shape. No thanks, I don’t need that kind of bullshit.

4 Comments   -   Link directly to this entry   -  

I mentioned in the Tinkerbell post about the Tinkerbell tattoo I’d like to get someday (with the “Young at Heart” banner). Well, there are more tattoos I want than that one. In fact, I’m not sure I’d even get all of them, as I really don’t want my own body to be covered in ink. Don’t get me wrong - I love looking at them on other people - there’s just something about the idea of looking down on my torso and seeing cartoonish imprints everywhere that kind of makes me cringe. I don’t know why.

But there are at least a couple others I will probably get. One is a Nightmare Before Christmas related tattoo, most likely Jack and Sally in a romantic design. I know that just about everyone with a tattoo has a Nightmare Before Christmas tattoo, but I don’t really care when it comes to my motivations for getting one. I have loved that movie since I was six years old and it first came out. And this is not exactly a normal movie for a 6-year-old to become obsessed with, but I have always loved it, have always wanted to own anything related to it (and the amount of merchandise they make for that movie has gotten to the point that it is completely impossible for me to own all of it, even if I spent every penny I earned on it). I realize the romantic storyline isn’t even that important to the film, or that complicated. But that’s what I like about it. Jack and Sally don’t go through some ridiculous drama where he cheats on her and she slaps him and runs out of the restaurant and gets hit by a car. After Jack stops being a selfish asshole, they simply realize at the end of the movie that they are meant to be. For no explained reason. And that’s what I love.

And the other one, well, now I’m not sure I still want it, but we’ll see. When I graduate film school, I had planned on getting a couple of film reels tattooed on my lower back, with the loose strip ends floating up towards my shoulders. But, even though I still love movies and editing, I don’t know if my career is going to be explicitly related to filmmaking, and I would feel like a sham for having that kind of tattoo if it wasn’t. We’ll see, I guess.

That’s actually pretty much it. I won’t do names for the usual reasons. I won’t even do my kids’ names, because if something tragic happened to one of them, a tattoo would be a daily reminder of it in the mirror, you know?

The real reason I haven’t already gotten one or more of these yet is not so much because of money, but because I still plan to lose a substantial amount of weight. My skin will shrink, and I may even need/choose to have surgery to remove excess skin. Wouldn’t it suck if they went chopping away at one of my tattoos? That’s why I just have one on my lower leg right now, where the skin isn’t likely to shrink much.

I don’t think people spend enough time deliberating their tattoos, and that’s why they end up regretting them. I’ve wanted all these tattoos for several years now, so it’s pretty safe to say I’d be happy with them. And yes, I have a tattoo of a cartoon monkey in a chef’s coat and beret holding a steaming hot stack of buttery pancakes on my leg. But it was well-planned for, and I still love it. Who wouldn’t love a tattoo that never fails to make you smile?

No Comments   -   Link directly to this entry   -  

To be honest, there is really one reason and one reason only that I am truly happy to be back up here at school. And that is the ability to exercise naked in my bedroom and buy my own food.

Over the past two years, I lost almost 70 pounds. This was through a combination of playing Dance Dance Revolution on a daily basis and eating a lot of Lean Cuisines and counting calories most days.

But when I go home for the summers, it all goes to hell. I stop exercising because there’s always someone home and I can’t do it naked and I hate sweating into my clothes. I stop eating healthily because Jennifer is doing the grocery shopping and the cooking and regardless of not counting calories, I know I allow myself to overeat at every dinner.

This past summer was particularly bad; I didn’t exercise a single time. And while I was in Ireland last semester, I got a double instead of a single bedroom like I was originally told, so I never exercised. And the food there was so expensive I couldn’t afford to eat healthily (because we all know that sadly, health food is almost always more expensive than junk and pasta).

As a result, over the past 8 months I have gained back a total of 25 of the pounds I lost. I did the math, and if I’d played DDR for 50 minutes, 6 days a week during these past eight months, even without dieting I would’ve not only kept off those 25 pounds, I would’ve probably lost a couple more. This really puts into perspective how important exercise is in my daily life. I can eat total shit all the time, but as long as I’m exercising, I can keep myself stable.

But now that I’m back in New York and have a single bedroom, I can play DDR naked. And I have been the past couple days. And I’m about to walk a mile to one of the cheapest grocery stores in Manhattan so I can afford to buy some SmartOnes meals and get other foods that I know I can eat and lose weight.

Hopefully I can stay on the wagon through Christmas and after I graduate, because I really want to be at a healthy, comfortable weight by our wedding. It’s just heartbreaking to have to start by losing these first 25 pounds all over again, because that will probably take at least 12 weeks (if I do it healthily). I can’t wear any of the jeans I brought with me for this fall. I mean I can get them on but I’ll die from not breathing. But I refuse to spend more money on pants just because I let myself go for several months, so as punishment to myself, I’m going to wear the one pair of capri pants I have that fit every day until I can fit into those jeans. And people will probably start to notice and say, “Hey, there goes that girl that wears the same pants EVERY DAY. Gross.”

No Comments   -   Link directly to this entry   -