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!
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| Bounce selfie! |
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| 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!
