Tag: Yoga

  • Working Out Together

    Who does this? I’m not judging; just wondering if I know any friends, couples actually, who go and workout together? I see this couple activity depicted in tv and movies, and there sure does seem to be a great number of people on social media presenting videos of them and their significant other lifting weights, running, or drinking protein shakes together. They seem to be enjoying each other’s company. Now and then, at the gym or in the park, I will see a couple running together, so I know it happens.

    The reason I ask is that the wife and I might start working out together. OR to be more accurate, both of us will be in the gym at the same time. See, I run and the wife does yoga. Recently, after a back issue, her doctor suggested that she might want to start lifting some weights. She does have a membership to the gym I go to, a perk of her job, so she thought that we should go together on the same day… you know, to help motivate each other.

    I’m not opposed to this idea. I just never saw us as a workout couple on our life BINGO card. When this happens at the gym, she’ll go to her weight machine, and I’ll head to the treadmill. After thirty minutes, we’ll leave together. Maybe we’ll talk about “gains” but I doubt it.

    And I would say that this is the unexpected path that middle-aged life is taking us on. I still hate working out, but I at least know that working out 30 minutes a day, five days a week, can have a huge positive impact on your health. So, I’m not stupid. It’s just not my favorite thing to do. Call it an “eating your vegetable” problem – I know it’s good for me.

    I never really thought about what being middle aged would be like, because I never really thought that I’d be middle aged. Not that I would die young or anything like that; I just never thought about being bald, with a little tummy pudge, worrying about retirement and the cost of college for the kid. Thinking about my life with the wife, I just assumed we’d get older, but look the same, and drink and smoke, eat food we want to eat, never change, and and stay up late every night.

    Didn’t turn out that way. I’m not unhappy about the way things worked out; most of it is pretty great. But now I have things in my life that I want to spend as much time with as possible, and though it’s like fighting the tide, if I can snatch some extra time, I will.

    So, we’re going to the gym together.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Eyes – A Follow Up, NFL Schedule Release Videos, Up and Running, Mother’s Day

    (Education is Social Justice)

    Earlier this week, I talked about going to the eye doctor to get a new prescription for glasses. I also mentioned my thin-skinned-vanity about not wanted to get bifocals just yet. Well, I did not get prescribed bifocals. The Optometrist suggested that I get readers, and also gave me a prescription for that. So, I think I split the difference here. I don’t need bifocals, but I no longer can see close, nor far away.

    I didn’t know this was a thing, but I should have known it was a thing. When NFL teams release their schedules for the upcoming season, they make a little video for it. Makes sense as everyone releases a video for everything. Most are okay, but two stood out for me. First was the Chicago Bears which was a take-off on the show “The Bear.” (And if you haven’t watched The Bear, do it!) The other one that made me laugh out loud was the Tennessee Titans asking people on the street to identify other team logos.

    The A/C’s are up and running in the apartment. Summer has officially begun!

    Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Call your mom. Don’t text, actually call. And if you can, give her a visit. The wife and mother of my kid wants to go to a yoga class and have lobster rolls. I think I can do that for her. And let her know that we love her. Which is what mom’s want. That and visit more.

  • Going Back to the Gym

    Not many people know this about me, but I haven’t been to the gym in almost three months. And now that I say it, I think I have told people this information before. Anyway, let’s all act like this is new, and not me rehashing a subject to meet my daily blog quota.

    I got in shape for “Swimsuit Season” by not getting in shape. I know that this was a bold choice, but after spending the Summer at the beach and water parks, I can see that for other middle-aged men, I was not alone in this decision. My dad bod is stellar!

    I stopped going to the gym because the school year came to an end, and I wanted to spend my time with the kid. And I also wanted to sleep in. But, I admit that was not the correct decision, as now I have to redevelop my habit of going to the gym.

    And I hate going to the gym.

    But I go to a nice gym in the neighborhood, which makes it not so bad.

    Yup, come Thursday, when the kid is back in school, I will be able to drop her off in the morning and then head over to the gym, which was the old system. And I do need to get back into it. I don’t like working out, but I also don’t want to die early. All the extra time I can have with the wife and kid is apricated, and the easiest way to attain that is just go work out for thirty minutes a day. So, it’s a pretty good deal.

    But I am lazy. I mean, I will do it, but I am really lazy. And I will hate every minute of it. And I will come home and the wife will ask me how my workout was, and I will shrug with an expression of not caring either way.

    My wife, on the other hand, when she come back from a yoga class, she’s all jazzed up, and excited, and happy, and full of energy. Good for her, and I’m happy that she gets that out of her workouts, but that’s not for me.

    Maybe one day, but not today.