I’ve decided I’m going to be morbidly obese within the decade if I don’t have a pool installed behind the apartment. Don’t laugh, you lithe little thing. It’s in the cards. Dick Simmons is now on high inspiration alert, proactively dry cleaning his bedazzled tank tops and carving God awful honeydew melons into the shape of my thinner self. Ugh. My wardrobe has been reduced to a handful of skirts and tarps that accommodate my growing figure, a menagerie of double digit sizes and dark colors. Browns, blacks, and darker blacks. I’ve still got the skinny clothes, of course, including a luscious beige summer skirt with delicate embroidery, one I last remember wearing in 2003. It chuckles at me each time I open the closet doors, that bitch, telling me to lay off the Pinot and the baked Doritos and to get my fat ass in the pool already.
Let the record show that I have a perfectly clean and functional District pool within half a mile of me, but getting said chunky self into said pool takes more than the usual effort. I shower before I swim, because I’m a woman with atrocious bed head, but also because MY MOTHER RAISED ME RIGHT, and dirty people don’t plunge themselves into a collective water source without a good brush and rinse beforehand. Then there’s the driving, because I’m lazy by nature, and because walking home from the pool with your shorts sticking to your thighs is no fun at all. Then there’s the swimming, which is the glorious part of it, the bath of chilly water that reminds me that I’m alive, that I’m an active woman, regardless of whether or not my fat parts keep trying to float to the surface to breathe. Catharsis, it is. I make it 40 minutes tops, and generally it’s the more agile 8 year old in my lane who gives me cause to pack it in rather than the fatigue of my own muscles. For the final 10 minutes of the swim I dread peeling the cold suit from my skin and the bare breast festival that is the locker room. Children, it isn’t polite to stare.
Let the record also show that I am never, ever as toned and comfortable in my skin as when I’m swimming on a regular basis. When I was living in Florida, and pools were more abundant than afternoon thunderstorms, I’d swim once if not twice a day. I didn’t bother with the bed head, didn’t bother with clothes, to be honest, and instead flip flopped my way to the complex pool in my suit and beach towel. I’d swim in drizzle and in darkness, in warm evening water and chilly morning temps. I had zero technique at the time and was likely a flailing sight to behold, but it mattered not. It was me and the water and an intense concentration on the rotation of my shoulders and the tension in my thighs and the point of my toes as I kick kick kick kicked my way to each end. I was a force and I was in motion. And it was glorious.
Now I’ll find every excuse not to do it. It is delightfully easy to recline on the couch to watch golf, even though I care not about Tiger or his woods. There’s always Banana Republic to surf and travel window shopping to do, a movie seen twice already to watch yet again. Recipes to look up and promptly file. Twitter, anyone? Lazy is a beautifully blissful spot, my friends, one with a palm tree and shade and a margarita on the rocks, extra salt. But this visitor is expanding. And she needs to get herself back to the pool.
26 Comments
Gah. Also? I’m not 6′2″. The BF is 6′2″. I’m a wee 5′5″ and shrinking, according to the Ob/Gyn, killer of all hopes and dreams.
I’m right there with you. There is a pool at my gym and I never feel better than after taking an hour to swim a full mile. But, it’s so much extra work to shower first, bring the goggles and the towel and the swim cap, shower after, dry off and change.
It’s much easier to run up to the cardio machines and bang out a quick 30 minute workout and then dash home to shower. Yet I find myself flabbier and flabbier no matter. I need to get back in the pool myself.
Wait, what BF??
And I really am not sure what to say seeing as how I’ve gained a solid 30 pounds in about 365 days.
What I can suggest – I guess – is to do it in the morning or if you can in the middle of the day. That’s when I’ve been working out and I bring my stuff with me and physically force myself to make time for it. So that’s all I’ve got.
P.S. I’m assuming now is not the time to attempt to make dinner plans with you…
Would it help you to know that I and my menopausal (read: pudgy) middle are heading back to the gym at o’dark thirty Monday morning?
I didn’t think so.
I have this same thing with running. When I do it, and I’m into it, I am in heaven. But getting myself started is so hard I haven’t managed it in quite a while.
For a friend of mine, committing herself to go to the gym was the hardest part, so she used this method. She would drive to the parking lot after work but not commit to going in. Once there she’d make her decision. Usually she’d go in.
Going to the pool is my new therapy (on top of actually, you know, GOING to therapy). It is the best exercise I have ever had and the only one I’ve ever loved (since being a kid).
GO!
I can work up a pretty good guilt sweat watching the P90X infomercial while eating a bag of Doritos.
I went through a brief phase of going to that pool, but it’s so chlorinated that I swear my skin was starting to sizzle off. I have yet to go back…
Oh what I would give to be 5′5″! *sigh* I am when I wear my heels anyway :)
Miss Kris get thyself to NoVa and I shall take us to the gym. It will be glorious, I promise. Hell, I’ll even take you to the gym with the pool so you can take revenge on me after I make you run the dumbbell rack for bicep curls. ;)
Okay, I have a lap-sized pool at my condo and I still don’t swim. And I’m down to oversized shirts that cover my muffin-top.
Boyfriend is keen on getting one of those “lap pools” that just shoots water from a jet at a high pressure at you underwater and then you’re supposed to strain to swim “through” it. That just sounds too much like life to me. I like pools because you can glide through, not struggle to overcome. Sweet Lord.
Once you’re done installing the pool in your back yard, would you please put one in mine? Thanks!
I suppose the promise of a margarita, extra salt, by the pool is missing the point here, isn’t it?? ;-)
exercise? what is this strange word you speak of?
I heard there was a kid who used to swim in the Y pool every day. Then a shark somehow got in through the drain and ate him.
It’s true. I swear I know a guy who knew that guy.
You are not even close to being house bound, Kay. Also, what’s all this about 5′5″? You’re 6′3″ if I’m a foot. And? I wouldn’t let the BF rumor leak out too much further — your secret husband will be angry.
One word, one solution, girlfriend – YOGA!
seeing as i’m no longer pregnant but wearing maternity shirts while polishing off a bag of flamming hot cheetos – my advice is useless at best.
It is unfair beyond words that gaining weight is SO EASY and losing it is SO HARD. Good luck to you and your pool adventure. I, too am on a mission to shed some pounds and in all fairness? It sucks.
Can I come swimming with you? Pretty please?!? I’ll carry you the half-mile!
Please make sure to take lots of pictures of Dick when he arrives.
My virus checker complains about your web page, you might want to check the modules used by your Content Management System
Maybe you should find some exercise other than swimming. You could always jog in Rock Creek Park. It’s a great way to lose weight and/or find dead bodies.
Wait…There’s a FESTIVAL?!
I miss going to the pool so much since I’ve moved here. Although, I definitely don’t get the showering beforehand — but we’ll blame that on my past as a competitive swimmer. I find swimming the easiest exercise to do in the morning, if I were to work out before going in to the office. I tried to run, or go to 530am spinning (crazy!), but I just feel too tight. And swimming has this “oh hell” moment right before you crash into the cold water, when you know you can’t back out anymore. I love it.