Exercising, even moooooore!

As I have mentioned, group classes are excellent punishment, sufficient set appointments I can convince myself I have to be at, and also wonderful masses of social pressures not to wimp out and only half do the moves. I have twice now committed turbo kickbox suicide, and also kamikaze-styled my first spinning class, only to realize that spinning is an easy one to coast through, because only you know the resistance your bike is set at...dangerous! It took the bones in my butt a full week to recover, a good two days before I could sit on anything but the couch, and I could share more, but for the sake of modesty, I'll stop there. So far, I'm still in love with group classes, and I'm sure they will continue to be a staple of my workouts.

I have a lot of fun people watching while at the gym, which now that I write that, I realize people probably watch me back, creepy. Just the other day, I saw a woman, in her 50s, white, appearing to be affluent, on the treadmill in a JNCO cut off tank shirt....is that legal? I know for a fact, when I was in 7th grade, which was probably the last time I saw a piece of JNCO clothing, that this entire package ensemble was most certainly not legal, for just about every descriptive reason listed above. Is that judgmental? Perhaps, but what is people watching without judgement? Boring!

I have also learned that exercise also cures depression! This is wonderful news! Amazing! Because folks, I live in Spokane, and it's January, and I'm a full sun kind of plant, raised and thrived in the AZ desert. My first winter here, absolute hell! No, I'm sure hell is much warmer and brighter, what with all the flames and such, than Spokane in the winter. My second winter, I learned to self-medicate with a lot of sunscreen in the tanning bed. I would lather up and just lay there, letting the artificial sunlight permeate to my bones! Ahhh, it felt so good! My third winter was just an amazing mixture of adventure, nightmare and glee...see we got at least 4 feet of snow, that stuck around for MONTHS and temperatures in the single digits. Life was so exciting that I didn't have time to miss the sun too much. This winter however, has finally come to the grey dreary "did I move to Seattle?" winter that I remember. This coupled with the fact that I am (or shall I say WAS, YIPPEEE) unemployed, was depressing enough for me. On more than one occasion, I admittedly found projects I could sit on the floor in front of the couch with the TV on, and pretend to be productive. Finally 5:45 rolled around and I was up, showered, and off to catch the afternoon spin class. Nine minutes in to the 60 minute class, I realize once again that I am going to die, right here on the bike, and that there is no way I will be able to finish. Somehow I keep going, amidst absolute fountains of sweat (although in walking out of the class, I saw a bike that was literally sitting in a perfectly round puddle of sweat, and I was shocked, er, disgusted). And by the end of the class, I feel great! Literally! Like incredible! I turn on my workout mix, plug in the ear buds and hit the weights. And I am literally buzzing with energy! I'm ready to hit the clubs! (on a Wednesday, at 7 pm, drenched in sweat) This isn't the first time I've felt the literal endorphin high, and each time I feel it, it is wonderful and amazing. It's almost like caffeine jitters without the jitters, you can just feel raw energy pulsing through every vein, and you body just wants to move! Best of all, your brain! Talk about mood-altering! I can go from Eeyore to tripping in approximately 45 minutes. It's crazy!