I'm Not Anti Exercise, I'm Just Anti Doing Stuff I Don't Like!

There’s a line in “Sex and the City”, where Carrie says that shopping is her cardio. There’s a lot of things I like about Carrie Bradshaw, her fabulous shoes, her ability to wear clothes that would quite frankly make me look like a crazy bag lady and the fact that despite spending most of her evenings drinking Cosmopolitan’s in a fancy New York bar, she really doesn’t have a weight problem! (Weight Watchers fans, a Cosmo is 6 pro-points!)

  Alright, I’m sure there’s a wealth of personal trainers who would argue that shopping isn’t cardio, but they would be wrong. I can only assume they’ve never spent a proper day shopping, walking in and out of shops, up and down stairs, spending hours and hours traipsing around the streets of your favourite city, looking for that one bargain! Plus, sitting to enjoy a coffee / glass of wine on your trip is not only a chance to rehydrate, but is also sort of like doing squats….. I went too far didn’t I?

  I think the point Carrie is trying to make, is that whatever it is that gets your heart pumping and the blood racing around your body, should be something you like doing. P.E lessons for me as a child, were not fun, running around a school field in P.E knickers in the freezing cold, getting bashed with a hockey stick and trying to make head or tale of what the bloody hell lacrosse was. None of these things made me happy or indeed want to continue them in later life. In fact having an amenable music teacher meant that he was quite happy to schedule my flute lessons for then!

  As part of my “Happy Katie” plan, and knowing that eating less and moving more helps with the slinky mission, I have decided to only do things at the gym that I really like. The classes where I don’t notice the ticking of the clock and spend it wishing the teacher would get a phone call telling her that a heard of goats had attacked her car.

  So the last few weeks, I’ve been trampolining. Planet Bounce has opened in Nottingham and if you haven’t been, then I’d really recommend it. I went with my friends and godchildren and bouncing is for EVERYONE! Turns out an hour of bouncing is quite a lot, but it’s one of the most fun things I’ve done all year!

Bounce selfie!

Shooting hoops is far easier with the help of a trampoline!

  I’ve carried on with Burlesque dancing, because lets face it, if more exercise classes involved top hats and feather boas, gyms would be happier, feather-covered places.  I’m doing Just Jhoom (Bollywood inspired) and today I booked myself into a Zumba class that I had never done.

  Turns out I didn’t read the small print with the Zumba class because it was the hardest class I have ever done! I’m not really sure why.  I’ve done Zumba a lot in the past, but for some reason my feet and arms had declared war on each other and were refusing to work in perfect harmony. There was one routine that involved so much spinning around, that I think even Kylie would have refused to continue! Still my new 71 year old BZF (best Zumba friend) kept checking I was OK and we had a lovely discussion about “Strictly Come Dancing”, she’s rooting for Jay & Aliona, she doesn’t like Peter Andre and she thinks Jeremy Vine is very brave to take part, because he’s all arms and legs.

  By the end of the class, I was slightly dizzy, very sweaty and a crazy red face!

  However I loved it and I’ll be going again next week, although maybe, just MAYBE I’ll get my limbs to work together.

Turns out I’m not anti-exercise, I’m just anti doing stuff I don’t like!

Don't Cha!

If I'm REALLY honest, food wise this week hasn't been great, exercise wise I have been an angel Lots and lots of walking and I've even got round to one of my New Year's resolution. Somehow this has all collided to mean I've lost a pound, so I'm happy with that. This week I intend to be good both food and exercise wise!

There are two outstanding memories I have from my clubbing days, one is the image of the women of Mansfield attempting to woo the men of North Nottinghamshire with by recreating the Eric Prydz video to “Call Me” and the other is, girls "slut dropping" and  pretending they were Nicole Scherzinger. 

  Now don’t get me wrong, I love to dance and harbour secret hopes of being asked to be a contestant on “Strictly Come Dancing”, paired with Artem Chigvintsev. This would subsequently lead to a long term love affair and possibly marriage. I am the girl who throws herself around the dance floor in a comedy way, I am not the girl who struts and thrusts in a sexy way, because lets face it I’m not sexy and I have never felt sexy regardless of what weight I've been.

  One of my new year’s resolutions was to do something to make myself try and feel a bit sexier. Even though I am losing weight and my body is changing it’s a slow process and I don’t feel sexy, I still feel big. So I decided I would do something where the whole premise was to love your body and show it off! So with the aid of a Living Social deal and two of my bessies I managed to convince them we should try pole dancing! Shoulder injuries better (Paula) and boxing match fought and won (Laura) it was time to do it.

Pole dancing like the pros...

   I booked us into the class and the lady e-mailed to say we needed to bring loose trousers, shorts, trainers and heels. I refuse point blank to get my legs out for anyone so I ignored that bit and took everything else. When we arrived, it became quite apparent that me, Laura and Paula were the oldest  ladies in the class, and in my case, the largest. It felt a little bit like we’d walked into a university party, everyone else in the room  seemed to be 19, in micro hotpants, vest tops with neon bras peeking out from underneath and banging bodies! As we waited for the class to start we noticed that the girls seemed to be greasing their thighs with baby lotion. Not only had I not bought shorts, I'd completely forgotten the baby lotion, it's all I can do to remember my keys when I go out!

  Please don’t think that we’d walked into a room with lots of mean girls who stared and pointed at us, because we really hadn’t. These were pretty sexy girls who smiled at us; the women who were quite clearly heading for an age where dislocating a hip could be a real possibility. The teacher was an Amazonian goddess and as she talked us through the “fireman spin” and the “ankle twirl” (I might have made up the name of that last one) she made it look REALLY easy! When she said who wants a go I found myself stepping confidently towards the pole, grabbing it with both hands and then executing what can only be described as the “fireman falling on his ass spin” 

action shot! Yes I really am spinning that quickly!

  Undeterred I tried again, Laura commented I was less pole dancer and more a skipping Mary Poppins! Julie Andrews is sexy right?

 As we took turns to twiddle around the pole, occasionally stopping to wipe it with a flannel (cue lots of greasing the pole type jokes) I watched the other girls, the longer the class went on, the more items of clothing were removed; tracksuit bottoms became hot pants, vest tops became crop tops and I think one girl even put on a corset.

  These girls were amazing, they were far more advanced than our fireman spins, they were hanging upside down, holding on by a thigh, spinning left, then right. It's hard to believe that I will ever be able to do anymore than spin around with one foot clearly routed on the ground, although the Amazonian goddess instructor seemed to think that we would be able to! I promise if we reach this stage, I'll video it for you! There is something about dancing around a pole that makes you feel sexy! Even me in my tracky bottoms, man's t-shirt and socks with a hole in, for the first time possibly ever I felt a teeny tiny bit sexy and led to a moment where I felt the need to do a Miley Cyrus type twerk!

  Apart from the fact that today I can barely move my arms and I have some interesting bruises on my shins, I loved every second of pole dancing. Sexy is more about a state of mind and attitude than what you look like, it's about pushing your shoulders back, holding your head high and feeling good in whatever you're wearing. 

  Just recently I've found myself so focused on the end result of losing weight, I've forgotten to enjoy what I'm doing and not be afraid to do different things. So whilst I won't be hanging upside down on a pole anytime soon, when I do and I fall off I will do it with a Slinky smile!