Detoxification

The last two months have been eight weeks of excessive food and drink.  First, I got engaged and two plus weeks of celebration followed.  How could I say no to sharing my happiness with friends who offer free drinks?  Following that, there was a slight lull as we moved out of our apartment, but the wining and dining came back in full force in the three weeks prior to my departure from the east coast with numerous farewell dinners.  I thought things might settle down in Portland, but I continued to drink even more wine with my family at various dinners and constantly went out for meals while we were on the road.  Family gatherings and the convenience of eating-out aside, we were beginning to plan a wedding, and that is of course a cause for celebration.

I exercised occasionally, but mostly didn’t do much more than walk around the venues we checked out.  When I arrived in Seattle, I decided that it would be time to get back in shape.  If my aunt offered me wine at dinner, I would have it, but that would be the end.  Once I got to California, I was detoxing.

On my second (and final) evening in Seattle, my cousin invited me to attend an exercise class.  In the spirit of detoxing, I gladly accepted.  She gave me the choice of Pilates or weight training and I chose weight training because I thought I would be more out of it; I’ve never done Pilates and would end up spending most of the time figuring out what was going on.  When we got there, the teacher asked why we picked this class, and my cousin said something along the lines of I was scared to try Pilates.  “Oh,” he said in a tone that revealed this class is much scarier than Pilates.

We were in for some trouble. 

The other three women in the class, which was essentially torturous circuit training, were in amazing shape.  Amazing shape in the Pacific-Northwest-lesbian-weight-training sense of “in shape,” not the Pilates/yoga sense.  This was another sign that we were going to die.

After our first circuit, I was close to either vomiting or blacking out, and my cousin reported that she was in a similar place.  Our second circuit included stretching and was a lot more manageable, but nonetheless, I couldn’t even open the wine bottle (yes, wine was offered) back at my aunts house and was sure to be in significant pain the following day.  

I did not expect this class to have such lasting effects on my body.   

The next day, which was yesterday, I was sore, but could still walk and was pleased that I wasn’t the complete wreck I anticipated.  As the day wore on, regular movements caused more and more muscle pain, completely exhausting me.  I left Seattle at 2 PM, and when I got to California at 4, I was drained.  I fell asleep at 9 PM and awoke no less than 12 hours later.

My first morning in California was clearly off to a bad start.  It was officially Detox Day 1, so I had to at least try to exercise.  After a disappointingly slow jog, which deteriorated into a walk, I watched Internet TV until I regained enough strength to dig through my suitcase and pull out some expired muscle relaxers.  The rest of the afternoon was spent at the pool, because based on the lingering childhood notion that being out-of-doors is the best possible thing for you (which is caused by parents telling you this), I feel that doing nothing outside is somehow less lazy than doing nothing inside.  Eventually, it got cold enough that I didn’t feel guilty going back in.