349 Days until Dragon*Con 2012….

So it is now 7:20am and I just got back from The Gym, where I did 35 minutes on the elliptical again today. I nearly died, a fact alluded to by me passing gas while on the whirly torture device I was on. I had lost control and my fate was in the hands of the JFZ gods.

The Gym, and the JFZ, are my local Planet Fitness. JFZ stands for “Judgement Free Zone” because, supposedly, you can go in there if you are fat like me, or old (getting there), or whatever, and no one will judge you… at least not vocally. They have rules against “grunting” and even have an alarm that goes off if you “drop weight”. Grunting is the feral noises that bodybuilder dudes make when they’re about to blow out their bootyho’. Dropping weight is when you get a ton of weight up, but it weighs so goddam much that you hafta drop it like it’s… just too heavy for your weakling ass to pick up. All of the rules are there so that fat losers like myself can feel at home amongst the Hardbodies. And it works, most of the time.

I haven’t been to a lot of gyms (duh), but most of the ones I have been to are filled to the brim with Hardbodies 2 already, and they eyeball your galootness (credits to JDH for that word) with both disgust and ridicule. At least in my mind they do. But when I’m in The Gym amongst a few fit folks, a few fatasses, and a few old people, I don’t stand out as much. And I like that. And not just because I don’t want anyone to notice that I wear the same workout britches every damn day.

It’s so weird to me that Americans, myself included, will pay for a gym membership and then drive to the gym… to walk. Or simulate jogging, which is what I think the Whirly Bird is (the elliptical). Then, we pay someone to come do our yard work! That’s free exercise just waiting for us! Maybe other countries do that too, but it just seems like a very American thing to me.

As far as the workout itself goes, I have no doubt that there are plenty of people out there in the internet. And the vast majority of them have no clue what Dragon*Con is. Out of the people who know what Dragon*Con is, an EXTREMELY small minority are aware of this blog. But even out of those 2 people who may be reading, I am sure that they are probably thinking, “35 minutes on an elliptical??? That’s it???”

I realize that is not a lot of working out, but it is a lot for me. As I was telling a friend of mine yesterday, I don’t have a plan or schedule worked out yet, I’m just in the beginning stages, but I do know that I am fat because I take in more calories than I use. And that’s it. Sure, there are contributing factors; psychology, crazy work schedule, etc. But it really just boils down to the fact that I love pizza and buffalo wings and hate exercise.

So, for now, my Fitness Plan consists of the tried-and-true “eat less, move more” school of thought. I’m sure that soon I will get a schedule nailed down and I will gladly post it here.

For breakfast today, I had some yogurt with some granola, the rest of an Odwalla smoothie I started last night, some water, and now I am having coffee. The Irish Stew I started last night wasn’t ready in time for dinner, so it is now on the menu for lunch and probably dinner.

For snacks today, I have lined up my usual snack of cocoa almonds, but I also bought some Soy Butter yesterday at the store, so I’ll have that with some celery. The soy butter was on sale for 99 cents! I had never had it, but for 99 cents I bought four jars of it and I will love it like it was a free lapdance.

Tomorrow we will address the “About Media” portion of this blog, in which I’ll try and give you an idea of what sort of crap you will see here, and what you won’t (there will be little to no Star Trek content, for instance).

Until then, a video of a song on my workout playlist: