body fat.

As a part of my new years resolution (tone up my dough-y arms), I have been lifting arm weights twice a week since January. I have never really been a weight lifter, and I am always very intimidated and also a little mad at the people who seem to know what the hell they are doing in that scary area of the gym that I go out of my way to avoid. As I was going through my new arm toning routine (aimlessly wandering the weight-lifting area), Dan the Trainer approached me and asked me, in the nicest way possible, just exactly what I thought I was doing. After stumbling through an explanation of my "logic," he promptly signed me up for a free training session where he would teach me how to actually work out my arms, not just pick up a few random weights and call it a day.

Well. After Dan the Trainer decided to humiliate me by weighing me and then taking my body fat percentage, he sat me down for a firm lecture on the rights and wrongs of working out. Apparently cardio is not all that effective if you're not lifting weights as well. Apparently boys are on to something when they lift "muscle groups"- they aren't just too lazy to do it all in one day. Apparently eating french fries really can cause weight gain, and it turns out that muscle DOES burn fat. Worst of all, boozing it up 5 nights a week does NOT help my "fatty area covering my abs." I was floored. My head was spinning with all this new information. He had me at "fatty area." He talked me into signing up for personal training for an entire year. I sold my soul to the devil, and there is no going back now because he has my credit card number.

My only issue is that now that the opportunity to tone up and really learn how to workout has presented itself, I'm not sure that I'm up for it. I always trash talk celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, or those foolish real housewives, because they have trainers and all the time in the world to work out.. but now so do I- and damn it, I don't want to ! What is so wrong with showing up for a half-assed work out, and rehydrating with a nice cold blue moon? Or better yet, the delicious low carb option of whiskey and diet? Who cares if 30 minutes on the treadmill is what Dan the Trainer called a "poor excuse for a work out?" It makes me feel better and my legs sure don't feel like hell the next day, like mine did after his ridiculous display of lunging and medicine balling. So we'll see how it goes. I have made the conscious decision that I am going into this next 12 months with a chip on my shoulder, and I have already told Dan that if he thinks I'm giving up late night Q-Doba, he has lost his ever loving mind.