On Exercising

Unsolicited fitness update: I am extremely out of shape.

I say this a lot, but that's because it is usually true. I would like to say my relationship with exercise is complicated, but it's actually very simple: I don't really like it. I like the results, and so sometimes I can fool myself into thinking I like it. When I am in shape I am happier, I know that much. And so exercising is worth it. But I get bored. I get distracted. Most of all, I get sore muscles and want to quit.

October is a particularly bad month. My old roommate from university and I used to call it Fat Month (full disclosure: we still do) because of all the Halloween candy we used to (still) eat. This October was no exception, and now I find myself afraid to get on a scale and more than a bit uncertain about how to stop all of these bad habits. What to do?

Enter Vicki Essex! A soon-to-be-published romance novelist and friend of mine, she has decided that instead of doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, as she is already a very disciplined writer, she is doing NaNoExMo. (I am still not quite sure what the "No" means, but the "Ex" is exercise.) The gist is that she's vowed to work out for thirty minutes three times a week throughout the month of November. And because it's such a good idea, I've decided I'm going to join her. She didn't ask or anything, but too bad! I'm going to plague her with calories burned and lunges lunged all month long anyway. Hopefully this will create some good habits to replace the bad, and at the end of it all I hope to have more energy and motivation for this blog as well as other projects.

Wish me luck! I promise not to do too many boring exercise posts.

P.S. Regarding the photo: this is a picture of my family's cat, the Hulk. He is adorable but, let's face it, a little on the chubby side. So I figured it was an appropriate picture for this post.