Do the Jane Fonda

I joined a gym the other day. I even met with a personal trainer. What I thought was going to be a complimentary ass whopping turned out to be a sales pitch for mega-expensive PT sessions. Having never been a member of a gym before, I had no idea this was a risk.

Pinching chubby spots, the trainer’s brow furrowed. “What do you eat?” he asks.

“Pasta and cream sauce,” I reply. The brow tangles even more.

“Do you drink alcohol?”

“Yes, bourbon.” He shakes his head.

“How much?”

“A lot.”

And so the conversation went… He scribbled down notes and returned to me with a hopeful look. “I think I can help you,” he grinned, “but you’ll have to be on a diet and work out all the time.” Disappointed, I slump over to the elliptical machine.

What I think was missed in my PT evaluation was that I wasn’t at the gym with aspirations of supermodel stick-figureness. I like my curves and, even more, I like my lifestyle. I’ve already reconciled the fact that my love of pasta will never allow me arms like Madonna and I’m ok with that. Furthermore, I’m chronically lazy; the Mistress of Excuses, the Princess of Bad Influence.

What I’m looking for in an exercise program is the exact least amount of effort I need to put forth to keep eating and drinking whatever I like and stay relatively the same size, accounting for age and seasonal changes. I don’t need rock-hard abs or buns of steel…I just want to look ok naked and have a happy life. I need more than a celery stick, a cigarette, and a laxative (thanks for that C.V.) to be at my best. I’m not fooled by those starving, unhappy faces in magazines.

And for $75 an hour, I think personal training is for the birds. I usually don’t spend $75/hour having fun, after all.

I fired my PT before he even got to make me sweat. Not because I don’t think he could have transformed me into a 5’4” brick house, but because it just doesn’t sound like much fun to eat lettuce instead of noodles and run in place instead of sipping champagne with my friends.

I do plan to show face at the gym every now and then though. They do have some (almost) fun-looking classes and yoga. As long as nobody (and by “nobody” I mostly mean meathead D-bags looking for a screw) talks to me, I think I could be self-persuaded to lift a weight in addition to my pasta fork. Wish me luck!

Jane Fonda by Mickey Avalon