Coincidence?

It's always "fun" when a customer starts off a conversation with "I have a problem." That's how I was greeted immediately after a Friday meeting... This customer did surprise me by saying "Never give up" twice.

Went to Saturday Zumba which I haven't been to in over a month. The Zumba teacher's mother surprised me by being super chatty. She said that, lately, she struggles M-F and Sunday to get in 10,000 steps. She's been averaging 4,000 a day and she's also been eating way more than she had been eating.

All that to say that "the struggle is real." Her story is a reminder that we all struggle, duh!

I've been requesting a lot of CDs from the library, including Bob Marley's Live! Have I never heard Get Up, Stand Up live or does the refrain Don't give up the fight... resonate with me right now?

Played Damian Marley's Stony Hill while cooking earlier and the lyrics Don't you give up on yourself ... from  Looks Are Deceiving stood out to me. Coincidence?  I think not.

Ha, just realized that the Aretha Franklin CD that I got from the library was due two days ago. There's totally a waiting list.

Your Abs Should Be Talking To You

Sometimes I like to do a gut check or, in this case, let's call it a back-to-back date with Kate.

I went to Cardio and Muscle class on Tuesday and Kate wore me out as usual.

There are times when I imagine myself as a delicate flower or something and somewhere, in my brain, I negotiate this situation where I'm not able to do back-to-back hardcore exercise.

As I was walking around earlier, I was checking my body. Yeah, I had a hard workout yesterday and other than a little tenderness in the leg region, there was nothing to prevent me from going to Drills To Make You Sweat.

Does anyone else get tired (and hungry) right before exercise? I'm trying to figure out how I'm so fatigued at the end of the day when I've been practically sitting on my behind for the most part. That's when I just tell myself to suck it up because, surely, if I've been sitting down for the bulk of the day, I should have no problem putting my backfield in motion.

I delivered myself to Kate and she wore me out again. We went through this whole sequence with legs and when we came out of squats, lateral runs etc., she wanted us to do fast feet. My legs felt like rubber and I made some animalistic sound and the girl in front me went Yeah, she doesn't stop.

When we were on the floor for abs, we had one leg raised to meet an arm. Kate said: your abs should be talking to you and, indeed, they were quite loquacious.

Is your body talking to you?

How do you convince yourself to exercise and gut it out?

Did you see this article, Stand Up While You Read This!, in The New York Times about how sitting all day is one of the worst things that you can do to your body?

To borrow Bob Marley's lingo, are you rocking your workouts and are you keeping your fitness dates? As Kate would say, don't stop -- do the lower modification when you can't go all out.

Lightning and Thunder

I was planning on going to The Wreck Center to swim but didn't because the pool was closed due to the chlorine level. I took a look at the Mehlville Pool brochure but afternoon open swim wasn't on tap until Thursday. So, I decided to pack my gym bag and head to the faraway Wohl Center.

As I'm driving toward Wohl, I see lightning and the zigzag pattern continues to divide the sky. I detour and head home because I know that there will be no swimming with the lightning and thunder.

A funnel cloud is spotted at I-255 and Telegraph and there are storm warnings all over the place.

I miss the pool when I don't go. It's been only four days since I last swam but it seems like forever.

I decided to nix the gym too since I've been exercising for 11 straight days.

I had to live vicariously through my aquatic frog whose breastroke kick is superb. Well, he's not kicking it in this pic; you'll just have to take my word for it.



And, of course, lightning and thunder reminds me of Bob Marley's Revolution.