Adventures in Dietland Part 1 : The Sit and Spin

I used to be a large woman. It was only after I stepped on a scale, however, that I realized just how much I had gained. I was 85 pounds overweight. But I swear it wasn't my fault! During both of my pregnancies, my body just had to get up to 262 pounds. And I was just assuming that I was having a sixty pound baby followed by a forty pound placenta. That's the way it works, right?
My babies came out happy and healthy, but one was a mere 8.5 pounds and the other 9.5 (these were not at the same time, mind you). Needless to say, there was a lot of explaining to do after the birth. And the weight that I thought would just evaporate into love annoyingly stuck around and multiplied yet again. SO I took it upon myself to lose it all. Twice.
Working out became my solace, my one place where I had my time and I loved it. After sixth months the majority of the baby flab came off. Not effortlessly, but I managed. And then there was the last 15 pounds. That damned elusive 15 pounds. I still battle it to this day.
After moving a few times, I found a gym in the area with childcare and started working out with a new friend Laura who had a baby six months prior and was in the same boat that I had been in ( What? Where's my 60 pound baby?) So in our efforts we decided to start taking random classes together.We ran, we lifted weights and then moved on to bigger and better things.
When Laura and I first walked into the spinning class, it was like walking into a club. Bass unsettling the mirrored windows and dimly lit, save the disco ball dangling over the instructors head. Laura and I both shared a glance, but before we could nonchalantly edge our way to the door, the perky instructor Elisabeth Dawn caught us in her gaze. "Hi y'all! Fixin' to come spin with us? Let's get you ladies some bikes!"
I'm not sure how perky one needs to be, but somehow she managed to exceed all perky expectations of a spinning instructor. She leaped off of her bike, and helped us on to our own, bouncing and swaying the whole time. (She would undoubtedly be one of those people that not only bounced when teaching but I'm sure bounced while cooking dinner, brushing teeth, driving etc.,etc.) Laura and I were stuck and from the look of it, it was going to be a long hour.
The one thing I noticed first off when I sat down on the spinning bike, is how, um, angular the seat is. "That's less entertaining than I thought it would be." I Told Laura. She silently grimaced, and loudly cursed my name.
The biking was fine for the first few minutes. Dare I say, it was easy. But after about ten minutes in a closet like room with 15 huffing athletes, the room started to grow it's own jungle-like atmosphere. A sweaty haze hover just over the tops of our heads, and the humidity and heat coated the window, leaving beads of precipitation to meander down them.
I was determined to survive the class, but I did not know if I could survive that seat. But there we sat. When I felt the nerve endings in my ass start to die, Elizabeth the emphatic instructor yelled, "Great job y'all! Let's all stand and run!" My ass had just received it's redemption.
Up and down we went, over imaginary hills, past flat roads that stretched for miles, and finished passing our neighbor in a dead-out sprint at the end. The cool down was damned near intolerable, sitting way back on the seat leaning all of my body weight to one side and then the other. Releif finally came with the words spoken by Elizabeth the emphatic instructor, "See y'all on Wednesday!"
I went to get off of my seat, when I looked over at Laura who was sitting there, winced in pain, and whispered to me, "I think my ass ate the seat."
After quite a bit of coaxing, we finally got her down.
I called Laura the next day;

Laura: I don't know what the hell you were thinking, Rose. That was evil.

Me: Hey! What happened to trying new things?

Laura: New things! I feel like Jenna Jamison!

Me: Oh, come on now, it wasn't that bad. Want to go again on Wednesday?

Laura: The only thing I'll be sitting on for the next week is this frozen turkey, thank you very much. So you can take your spinning class and-"

Laura is a sweet lady, but she just really hasn't been the same since. I have to admit I'm still in recovery mode. Perhaps I'll try it again, after all it's a great workout...
The things we do to our bodies baffles me from time to time. Paying to be told to work out on a stationary bike, forced to marinate in a sauce of sweat and tears. We pay for a gym membership and the diet accessories. We squeeze into ridiculous workout gear and pray for the scale to drop. And then we go to the Chinese buffet and order a Diet Coke. The search for perspective continues on....