Over-gym-ulation

Before I begin rambling on about this post's topic, I would just like to share one thing:

Well look at that: 142.8.  Better late than never I guess.  19 pounds down; 16.8 away from the Big Carrot.

But enough of that, today's not a weigh-in day so no more harping on the numbers.  Today I'd like to reflect about my new home away from home: the gym.

It's been about three weeks now since joining the gym, and I am proud of myself for going as often as I do (typically for at least 90 minutes on Saturday/Sunday and an hour every day after work except for Wednesdays which I take as an off-day).

Making the shift from primarily walking outdoors to using a treadmill has been an interesting one.   For starters, the biggest difference is that walking on a treadmill is mind-numbingly boring.  Seriously.  There are ways to cope (which I will get to in a minute), but the mere act of treadmilling--without more--might be the most boring activity in the world.   

In contrast, the mere act of walking outdoors through nature and neighborhoods and an urban jungle is anything but boring.  It can be beautiful, transcendental, and at times downright scary. 

Not so much with treadmilling.   But treadmilling has a ton of benefits (which I will get to in a minute), so in the interest of getting healthy and staying healthy, I have to learn ways to cope with the boringness that is treadmilling.

So I am sure that people are judging me, but I've been coping with treadmilling by bringing an entire arsenal of "stuff to do."   It's actually kind of ridiculous.

My typical set-up is something like this:

....except without the cords and with a water bottle. 

Seriously.  The first line of entertainment is the TV screen that each treadmill already has built in.  Normal people simply bring a set of earbuds, plug them into these built-in units, and watch TV happy to not be simply staring at the wall.  

Not this blogger.

First of all, TV has commercials.  If you want to make 3 minutes of cardio seem like 30, spend it watching commercials.  Nope, not happening. 

So I bring my iPad and rest it on the center console just below the built-in TV.   On the iPad, I will either watch movies/tv from Netflix or Hulu, or--more often--I will listen to music on Spotify. 

But that's not where it stops.

If I am listening to music and not watching Netflix, I still need something for my eyes to do or else I inadvertently begin staring at other WOPs.  So I leave on the built-in TVs and tune it to a station that doesn't require volume to understand what's going on--like CNN. 

But it doesn't stop there either.

Listening to music and watching the news without sound is still pretty boring. It's all "Government Shut Down-This" and "Congress-That" and "Something About the Economy."  A girl can't live like that.

Enter Tetris.  

So if you're following along, at this point we've got a TV on silent with captions, showtunes as background noise, and Tetris on the iPad. 

And you'd think that would be enough.  

But you'd be wrong.

You see, even though at this point of the process I am completely entertained, I still have the need to be connected to the world outside the gym.   

Enter the iPhone.   I keep it tucked in one of the cup holders in case someone texts, or work calls, or I get a a work email.  

Shame moment:  I actually had to upgrade my Verizon data plan due to this over-gym-ulation. 

I've been observing the other people who go to the gym at the same time as me and I am quite confident  that there is only one other person with as ridiculous a set-up as mine, and that's this old bat who has got to be 90 years old who brings her own personal fan that she mounts to the front of her exercise bike after snaking an extension cord from the wall to her exercise unit. 

And she's on to something.  It can get stuffy in the gym. 

So why do it?   If it's so boring, why do it?  

Because it's AWESOME.    

I can add an incline to my walk and literally burn twice the calories in a fraction of the time.  

It's air conditioned.

Its calorie tracker is decidedly more reliable than Runkeeper's. 

It's safer than walking around NOLA alone at night.

And it comes with FREE COFFEE.  

What more could a girl ask for?

So I'll take the weird looks and the judgment that I get for basically turning my unit into a home-office-entertainment-plex.   It's working and the pounds keep melting off.