Category Archives: Exercise

Spinning: My Long Lost Friend

Posted by ljb in Exercise and tagged with , ,

I reunited with an old friend last night and while there were some painful moments, I felt good about us meeting up again. We aired out a lot of dirty laundry, laughed, almost cried and sweated like you wouldn’t believe.

Yep, I finally hopped on the ol’ stationary bike again and pedaled away in spin class. If you don’t know what spin class is, it is basically a group class where you ride a stationary bike for about an hour to music. You control the resistance put on the bike in order to simulate hills and give you a harder workout. It is a great way to get in shape without putting a lot of stress on your knees.  A couple things about my first day back:

  1. Ouch
  2. My rear-end = sore
  3. I forgot how much I hate myself during class
  4. I forgot how much I love myself after class
  5. My stupid little water bottle didn’t do the trick. Must bring my bigger one.

In the process of writing this post, I wanted to provide you with some awesome visuals so I did a Google image search for “spin class” and some of the images I found were quite hilarious.

First of all, I don’t smile when I take spin.

smiling spin class

I am more like the second girl, dying on her bike.

spin class

Secondly, what woman decided it was a good idea to let someone photograph her butt while on a spin bike? No one’s ass looks good from this angle.

spin bike

Thirdly, there are no thumbs up ever. Let alone in spin class.

spin thumbs up

I’m pretty sure I never get this buddy buddy with my friend JJ in spin class. The only time we acknowledge each other is to signal to the other “I am dying. You can have all my vegan cookbooks.”

spinning

And, this has never happened in my class.

spinning

And lastly, I love that this picture came up in my search. Gotta love Google and its SEO techniques. I see no bikes and no sweating in this image. Although, I do see some bad hair which is legit and absolutely going to occur when you spin.

clinton in spin class

All kidding aside, I’m super happy that I went. I definitely missed it and needed it. If you haven’t ever tried spin, get your beautiful butt on the bike and see what you think! The first few classes can leave you a little sore, but the more you go, the easier it gets. You may be thinking it is a little too intense for you. Remember, you control the intensity of the class. Most of the time, the room is dark so no one can see how fast you are going or how much resistance you put on your bike. It is a guided group workout that you can control! Lovely, eh?

Honestly, any form of exercise is better than sitting on the couch watching The Bachelorette, which I am super guilty of doing as of late. Walking, hiking, taking the stairs, jogging, whatever! Get your self up and move throughout the day to keep yourself healthy and sane. And when you try spin, let me know. We can share a love/hate relationship.

L signature

Get Some Air

Posted by ljb in Exercise and tagged with , , , , , ,

Up until yesterday, it had been raining for, like, 50 days straight. I kid you not. 50 days of gloomy skies and water falling from the sky causing the whole New Haven area to flood. The worst part besides my straight hair frizzing? All the drivers that think the rain will suddenly make their cars malfunction so they need to drive as slow as possible so their precious clunk of metal on wheels isn’t over worked. People just hate the rain in the city. It ruins all their plans of sitting outside on the cafe patio and drinking their expensive coffee. And I must admit, after 50 days of rain, I was over it too. Where I grew up, rain was rarely a bad thing. I remember so many times going outside as a kid to play in it as my mom watched from the window smiling because we were in desperate need of rain for the crops. Come to think of it, it might have been lightning too, but whatever. There were very few times that I can remember my parents actually being upset because it rained. It also meant that my dad would come in from the field with that amazing smell of fresh air and dirt. Call me crazy, but I think that is what a man should smell like. In fact, I believe it so much, I married a man who regularly comes home smelling just like that. Except he brings in bits of concrete as well. Tisk tisk.

But…..I digress.

Here is where I am going with this. The sun made an appearance yesterday so I took advantage of it and put on the ol’ running shoes. As I was running (er,  jogging), I was just so happy. I had this amazing feeling of nothing flood over me. I couldn’t even relate it to any sort of emotion (and if you ask Andy, I have at least half a million of them). I saw this quote today and it made me think that after being cooped up and somewhat stressed over stupid things. I think this is what I was feeling.

I was reminded that I do like to run (sorry, jog). I was reminded that the rain isn’t so bad and is essential to my family’s happiness. I was reminded that being stressed over dumb things just ain’t worth it.

Feeling stressed? Upset? Angry? Anxious? Get up from your desk and go outside for 10 minutes. I promise they won’t miss you. You have my permission. Take a deep breath and just “be”, pray, think, or whatever you need to do to realize who you are and who you want to be.

PS. It didn’t really rain for 50 days straight. It was only like 3. I’m sorry. I won’t lie to you again. Until I do.