1000 Calories

I hit a milestone today.

As part of my ongoing campaign to keep my feet from falling off, I go to a gym 4-5 times a week. As anyone that’s kept to an exercise routine for any length of time will tell you, boredom is generally your worst enemy, and the endless lifting of weights and counting to 10 over and over and over can really get stale. Staleness leads to excuses not to go and, well… you get the drift.

So, I now take the organized classes offered by my gym. They keep me motivated. I don’t really care that I’m generally one of the only men in a roomful of women during these times. Let the mouth-breathing jocks stare - by my calculations: 1 man (in a room of) 50 hot suburban moms (divided by) an hour’s worth of hip-gyrating salsa music (equals) one damn good time.

I guess math isn’t their forte.

I also wear a heart rate monitor while I work out, in order to gauge my current level of sloth or virtue at any given time. When I am virtuous, I can burn through 700 or even 800 calories. When slothful… less. A goal I’ve had for months now is to burn at least 1000 calories in a single hour, and tonight, I did just that.

My favorite class at my gym is something called “Latin Fusion”, taught by a wicked little sprite of a woman named Jeanie. She’s no more than 5’4”, maybe a buck-oh-five dripping wet, with wide, smoky eyes over a bow mouth and a head of curly dark hair.

The legends surrounding Jeanie are legion, but my favorite is the one about Jeanie being an ER doc that put herself through college and med school on a dance scholarship. I can believe it: I’ve witnessed Jeanie on more than one occasion seemingly disconnect her hips from the fundament of her spine, in order to move them independently from the rest of her equally gyrating body. To say this is enticing is an understatement. It’s also distracting to we mere mortals, as well as intimidating as hell. I often felt like quitting, but something kept me going back.

Tonight, on my triumphant 1000-calorie night, Jeanie gave me a treat: she played my favorite song, the Black Eyed Peas cover of Sergio Mendez’s Mas Que Nada, which is also, co-incidentally the only dance in her routine that I’ve mastered. This being the case, I generally join Jeanie on her little instructor’s platform to lead the number, an exercise that always leaves me gasping for breath and streaming sweat. Tonight was no different, and I like to think that I accounted for myself well. As my friend Susan often says: "the man who can dance gets the girl". I don't know about that, but it sure feels good.

So... thank you Jeanie for kicking my ass all those months in your class. You really did make a difference. My feet (and the rest of me) appreciate it.