I'm Bringing Sexy Back

Dear Friends,

I'm not really bringing sexy back. Sorry. I just needed something to put in the title line. Please keep reading, anyway.

So...long time, no see, right?! I used to spend so much time on this damn blog, but something happened toward the end of the summer and I kind of lost touch with it. What was it again...? Oh, right. I went back to being to being a productive human being and returned to work after my nervous breakdown recovery period year off. I knew something was different...

I'm sure one millions of you are wondering how it has been for me to go back to my job as a middle school guidance counselor after spending a year as a major lazy ass slacker/part time liquor store employee. I gotta tell you...it's going really well! The kids are awesome, and surprisingly, even after two months of being back, I haven't considered beating up any of my co-workers! It's a beautiful thing.

I hate to disappoint you...but please don't expect to read any school related stories on the blog now that I'm back to work. Granted, there are many humorous tales I could tell, but I value my job greatly, and I think if someone caught wind of me writing school stories online, my next blog post might be called "Tales From the Paper Route."

Anyway, I'm doing great, life is good, work is fantastic, the meds are working fabulously, and so forth. Thanks for asking.

Now that I'm back to work at school, I can't really talk about working at a liquor store anymore, and writing about being an obsessive, anxious maniac on sabbatical is so played out...so what's a girl to do? Hmmm...well, friends, I guess I'll just write about my recent life adventures, if that's OK with you. Not to brag, but I think my life is pretty interesting...and I think it's safe to say that the little, mundane things I do on a daily basis are probably way more fascinating and inspiring than anything you do. Ever. (Especially you, Steven. Your life is a complete waste.)

So now that we've established that, let's get cracking.

Today I think I'll share something about me that has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm hoping that by sharing it, it might inspire me to actually do something about it. The chances of that happening are incredibly slim, but whatever. Anyway...here's something I want you to know about me:

I am a fat, lazy, blob.

It's OK. Really, I'm totally fine with sharing. I think embracing your inner Jabba is the first step toward recovery. And though the idea of being compared to a giant, smelly, evil space gangster is kind of appealing (on a few different levels), I think I have reached a point in life where I'm ready to make some changes.

Let's backtrack for a second so I can share some physical history with you. Many of you already know the kind of Atlas-like physical specimen I was growing up, but for those of you who didn't know me back then, let's just say I was in pretty fantastic shape. I was very involved in sports and spent the majority of my middle, high school, and college years on a softball field. And even though softball isn't exactly a physically demanding sport, when you play it for 8 hours a day and 350 days out of the year, it tends to keep the body in shape.

I was also blessed(?) with mutant DNA that gave me an abnormal amount of muscle at a very young age. I'm not kidding. Look back at baby pictures. I was seriously jacked at age 2.

Looking back now, I can appreciate how having tree trunks for arms and legs helped me to dominate at sports, but at the time, I didn't exactly appreciate being challenged by boys to arm wrestling contests at recess. Or the fact that in college, members of the baseball and men's basketball teams used to line up around the perimeter of the weight room to watch me do my mandatory strength (lifting) tests. I guess they were impressed that a girl could bench press 200 pounds without trying, but from my perspective, it wasn't exactly the kind of attention I was looking for.

The weirdest thing about my freakish strength was that I have no idea where it came from. As I mentioned before, I was just kind of born that way. I never worked out or exercised or did anything except play softball. It wasn't like I spent hours (or even minutes) at the gym to become strong or fit. The first time I was really introduced to rigorous exercise was in college...our brilliant coach forced all of us into a ridiculously unhealthy "fitness" routine that was notorious for turning previously healthy, confident, athletic young women into obsessive, self-deprecating, loathsome robots with a variety of eating disorders and other assorted shit that I'm still paying for in therapy. Good times!

Whatever. Where was I? Oh yeah...so the point is, I never really had to work out growing up. I was just in shape without really making any kind of effort. The other cool thing about growing up as a female hulk was that I could eat ANYTHING I wanted and never gained weight. It was a beautiful thing to say the least. I'm sure watching me eat was never a beautiful thing, however. I tended to (and still do) eat food at a very rapid and superhuman pace. I'm not sure where it came from...it wasn't like we had a shortage of food growing up. I was never in much of a hurry to get anywhere. I think I just enjoyed the taste of food and decided it was best to savor as much as humanly possible at each sitting. And, since no one ever told me that it wasn't normal to eat one taco per minute, the habit formed and never went away. Looking back, I'm kind of sad that I didn't enter competitive eating contests as a child, because I think it's an untapped area of expertise that could have helped fund some of my college education. Oh well...you know what they say about hindsight.

So, time passed, many delicious morsels were eaten, and I grew up. Fast forward to my twenties, and now to my early thirties, which brings us to today. Needless to say, things have changed a little bit. How can I put it? Well, let's just say that the young She-ra is all grown up...and she has morphed into the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman. Not a pretty sight.

OK...so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I'm not exactly a Discovery Health Channel documentary (yet). But it is safe to say that I have packed a few pounds on since my glory days. And it's driving me a little crazy.

So what the heck am I supposed to do? In addition to being a glutton, I also tend to be a very impulsive, scattered person. (I'm making myself more and more attractive by the minute, aren't I?) So if something appeals to me, I tell myself that I need to have it, then if I end up having it, I get tired of it pretty quickly and move on to the next great thing. This approach especially applies to exercise. I will set my mind to trying something new, do it for a few days, and then dump it. For example, there was a point in time a few years ago when I needed a treadmill. I didn't want it. I NEEDED IT. So I begged my husband for a treadmill, saying how it would solve all of my exercise problems, motivate me to run, eliminate any weather obstacles, cut down on my knee problems, cure my acne, make my teeth brighter, etc. You get the picture. My husband surprised me that year at Christmas with a brand new, shiny treadmill. He even put holiday lights around it and bought little accessories like a water bottle and a gift card to the sporting goods store to help inspire me to get started. It was the nicest, cutest thing ever.

I have been on that treadmill six times.

Here are some other things I have "needed" (then received, then dumped shortly after...) over the years:

Dance Dance Revolution

The Biggest Loser video game

Wii Fit

Turbo Jam DVD

A giant inflatable ball

Some stupid triangle shaped mat that is still in the package and I have no fucking clue what it even does

In conclusion, I have tried a bunch of gimmicky crap with very little results. It has nothing to do with the fact that I do something for two days and then quit. It's all the fault of the game, the DVD, the giant ball, or the stupid yellow thing.

I am in such denial.

So that is a little history lesson for you. The basic summary is:

-I am a fat mess
-I am a lazy ass
-My metabolism isn't what it used to be
-My former ripped muscles are now kind of muscly blobs of half muscle and half something else
-I have zero motivation to do anything about it (except whine)

In my next post, I will tell you about the newest discovery in my world of physical fitness. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for how I can lose 40 pounds in the next week or so, I'm all ears. Stay tuned...