Cerebral Exercise

I wish you could see the thought process that goes through my head every day when I prepare to work out. It would look something like this:
Procrastinate, procrastinate, okay dude you better go, or you'll skip out. Millions of excuses; I should get to work early, I could sleep in, I'll go to a power pump or pilates class later today. Yeah later.

Later rolls around and I'm all: oooh, there's the calendar reminder for the class... Hmm, I'm in such a good rhythm at work though. I can't stop now. And I'm hungry. I will have lunch instead, the go do cardio later this afternoon. Yeah, I can't stop working on this project now.

Then the afternoon rolls around, and I drag my feet more: gaahhh I guess I HAVE to go now. Where are my snow boots to put on? Where are my socks? Did I forget athletic socks, because that'd be a great excuse to skip the gym. Oh shit, there's my socks.

Grab the gym bag, out the door, walk two blocks to the gym and into the locker room. Change into athletic gear, reach for my lock to secure my stuff. Oh shit, did I forget my lock? Because that'd be a legit excuse... Oh, there it is.

And yet, once I get on an elliptical, a bike or a treadmill, this whole exercise thing isn't so bad. Its me, music or trash tv, and a magazine I'd never pay for, for about an hour. I leave feeling slightly slimmer, and surprisingly recharged. Its my little space of time just for myself, and I often don't carve out that kind of time.

But every day its the same struggle to make myself exercise. But I keep showing up, driven by the specter of genetic propensity towards heart disease and diabetes. And pride that I'm not spilling out of my jeans. And fear that there is a morbidly obese person inside of me who wants to use chocolate covered cinnamon bears to get out.

So I go, six days out of seven, I go. And maybe more than my muscles, I'm exercising my self will to make myself do something that I don't want to.