Exercise

I own several workout DVDs and I often sit on the couch with my bag of cookies and watch them.  I don’t really watch the exercises as much as I watch the body of the woman doing them.  I wonder what kind of torture she’s had to put herself through to look like that.  None of my friends have a body like that, so what’s the point?  My friends and husband accept me just the way I am, even if I used to be housed in a slightly smaller version of the body I now inhabit. 

Something about giving birth for the first time at age 41 changed my metabolism forever.  There is scientific proof that we women go through major body changes after childbirth, and I know this must be true. In two days time I ate a pound of chocolates and gained five pounds. How is that even possible?  What kind of physiological warfare is going on inside my body that it could convert one pound of delicious food into five pounds of fat? 

I started thinking maybe I should get off the couch and deal with the extra-five-pound problem, but something always came up.  More importantly, I really don’t like to exercise.  Actually, I don’t like to sweat.  I don’t like the smell of sweaty bodies and I don’t like the feeling of sweat all over mine.  Not that I’m a clean and meticulous person, but the minute I start to feel a little perspiration, I have the good sense to stop what I’m doing and give myself the break I need to feel normal again.

One morning I was reading in the Old Testament portion of the Bible where God instructs His people on what needs to be sacrificed and when and for their sins, and all of a sudden the words about burning of fat being an atonement for sins, jumped right out at me. I was convicted. 

I know I was taking those words out of context, but I was certain that God himself was telling me to go for a walk or join a gym or do something to get rid of those five pounds. But gyms always seemed like such sweaty, smelly places and I just wasn’t that convinced.  But I continued reading in Leviticus and when I got to a verse that says, “burn the fat as an aroma pleasing to the Lord,” I knew I was doomed. 

Whenever I burn fat, I sweat.  But, if God liked the smell of my sweat, then so be it. And I can say with great confidence, only God himself could have gotten me off the couch that day to go sign up at the gym.

I struggled every time I did a workout – so much so that the employees often asked me if I was okay.  Of course I wasn’t okay, but what was I going to say?  “I’m here offering a sacrifice to my God?”  It has to hurt.  I have to sweat.  I need to burn the fat to atone for my sins!

I eventually quit the gym but I now own an aerobic workout machine, an exercise ball, hand held weights and a few new exercise DVDs.  Someday, when I decide to put them all to work, I may actually lose a few more pounds, but in the meantime; I’m trying to stay away from the chocolate.