I’ve taken to the road for a week and as usual I’ve been looking for excuses to skip my workouts. My hotel boasted a fitness center on its website, and true enough it has one. What they didn’t say was it’s the size of my closet back home and has exactly three cardio machines- a treadmill, an ½ rack, and a lounge chair bike. I can make do, but it’s tempting to use the modest size as an excuse. Believe me; I’ve thought of more excuses than there are gators in Florida. Some were legitimate, some not so much. I did deserve a break after a cross country trip that along with the beginning of daylight savings time took four of my twenty-four hours away, but that was the only one that had a chance of keeping me from the pit.
I started out my first day with a biscuit smothered in artery paste and a glass of orange juice that everyone knows is the antidote for cholesterol, so I really didn’t need to go to the pit. Lunch was a modest salad I followed up with a bag of peanut M&M’s. Everyone knows peanuts are a good source of protein, so I had nothing to feel bad about there.
Rationalization is something I do very well, but alas, I sucked it up and went to the mini pit. Luckily my fellow transients aren’t much into physical fitness and I had the closet to myself. This had a few unexpected advantages. I cranked the air conditioning down to arctic blast and selected what I wanted to watch on the television. No arguing, no wishing I could change the channel. I was in complete control. I considered locking the door from the inside just in case someone else was into self inflicted torture, but I stuffed the remote control out of sight instead.
In a sorry attempt to make the room look twice its size some moron covered one whole wall with floor to ceiling mirrors. Only a decorator who’s never seen the inside of a pit would do an asinine thing like that. No one wants to see what they look like while they’re working out, especially me. I understand certain dance type classes benefit from mirrors so participants can see and emulate the instructor, but this is a closet. There’s hardly enough room to walk around the machines much less do any sort of dance or yoga moves. So there I was, dewing all over the place, trying to concentrate on a good soap opera but the scary reflection in the mirror kept drawing me back. Egads! There was the breakfast biscuit, the bag of peanuts and a whole host of other dietary indiscretions staring me in the face. It was a kind of scared straight moment. I vowed then and there to give up my wicked ways and eat nothing but lettuce and broccoli from then on.
A half hour later I crawled back to my room, changed into a clean tent and picked up Daughter #2. Of course she was hungry. This little town doesn’t have much to choose from in the way of lettuce and broccoli laden menus so we chose a Mexican restaurant. My cheese enchiladas came with a pile of shredded lettuce with a dollop of salsa on top which I shoved to the side of the plate. It was still there when the nice busboy took it away. My resolve lasted a whole four hours, maybe less. I guess I need to go back to the mini-pit and take another look. Maybe I should put a big mirror in front of me at the table so I could watch myself eat. Perhaps then I’d have more willpower. I’ll be home in a few days and looking for a new pit. Maybe I should look for one with mirrored walls. Or not.
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