Shaping up, Part 1

Here's what's been happening. At the beginning of February, I went to Fort Myers, Florida with my mom. It was awesome. I almost never go on trips in the winter so I forgot the novelty of stepping off of a plane into weather that's 80 degrees warmer than when you stepped on, not to mention several orders of magnitude more humid. Florida is awesome in February.

(Quick semi-related story about this: I went to college in Iowa, and when it was time to go back after a break my mom would drive me down. We'd leave in the morning around 8 AM, drive straight through, and arrive right before noon. WITHOUT FAIL every single time we did this my mom would remark on how much warmer it was in Ames than in Bloomington, because, in her words, "it's in a whole different planting zone." Not because we were four hours into the day. Not because the sun wasn't up when we left. Not even because Ames is 200 miles closer to the equator than Bloomington. Planting zones. I thought about asking Mom how many planting zones Florida was away from home but really, why open that can of worms again?)

My goal was to spend as much of my time there in my bikini and I think I did pretty well. (Maybe too well, once you stop and realize you're essentially wearing the same spandex-y pair of underwear for five days straight. Whatever; I rinsed them out.) We went to the beach twice, kayaking once, and on a whole bunch of nature hikes (or as we call them in my family, "death marches." Guys, listen to me: Do not go on vacation with my mom) and if you've seen my pictures of the trip there I was in my swimsuit the whole time. As someone who hates pants and probably doesn't get enough Vitamin D, I'd say this trip was a huge success.

But here's the thing: Once you get back from vacation and you've had a couple weeks to distance yourself from the experience, you start to notice things. For example, I noticed that my swimsuit doesn't cover as much of my butt as it used to. And while I'd like to blame that on the repeated washings on the trip, I'm pretty sure that spandex doesn't shrink. So that means I've either got some fabric that's displaying properties it's never been known to have, or I put on some weight, and I'm guessing it's the latter, because fuck you, Occam. Fuck you so much.

Fact: Asses should not have double chins.

Now, I know that I am not overweight by any stretch. I weigh about 15 pounds more now than I did in college, and in college I was borderline underweight. I don't want to go back to that; I have boobs now, and that's pretty cool. But things are starting to expand, and I don't have the best habits (my idea of eating healthy is "maybe if you're going to have nachos for dinner again you should eat a piece of fruit, too). So now, faced with the prospect of a whole season of bikini-wearing; now, when I can make this a purely vanity-based project and not have to think too hard about my actual health, I have decided to start exercising more.

And now it's on the internet, so I have to stick with it. Otherwise I'll be no better than a politician, and I don't think I could live with that shame.


Okay, I just got back from the gym and I've sat here for too long without taking a shower. Stay tuned for part 2, in which I recount my first experience with Zumba (spoiler alert: It was awkward).