Diary of a Fat Woman---Entry 1

It is with shame and disgust at myself that I even should have such a diary to keep, but I must face this dreadful fact in order to correct it.  I am a fat woman.  I couldn’t tell you my ‘BMI’, as I haven’t a clue….. I’m sure if I did know what my “number” was, it would make this whole thing that much more shameful and disgusting.  My weight I do know, but I probably won’t reveal that until I am on the other side of this “Fat” thing and am writing entries in what will, with pride, be referred to as “Diary of a Has-Been Fat Woman”.  But, that is getting ahead of myself……

My girlfriend (whom I will call “Ginger”) and I began this veritable ‘assault on fat’ on Wednesday this week.  We joined a local ‘Zumba’ class.  Basically, it’s the new and improved version of what was the craze known as ‘Jazzercise’ in the 80’s…..Only this version includes strapping a multi-colored scarf covered in tiny bells and miniature cymbals to your rear.  Talk about adding insult to injury…..not only are you fat, but now you are fat and noisy!!  This is another one of those activities that my sense of humor benefits me.  You most certainly have to be able to laugh at yourself while enrolled in such an activity!  You do strange and sometimes complicated dance moves, odd hip thrusts, and other various pumping/circulating gestures using your pelvis.  All while wearing the aforementioned jingling butt scarf.  

As the class progressed, I became increasingly aware of how out of shape and un-coordinated I am.  The head “zumba-er” is quick and agile, while the rest of the class attempts to mimic her precision moves.  It’s strangely comforting to see others in the same boat jingling and jangling to cranked up, peppy and rhythmic pseudo-techno music.  In all honesty, I spent a good third of the class doubled over in laughter at myself and Ginger struggling to follow along with the ‘thrusting this way’ and the ‘wriggling that way’, ‘step-step-hop-ping’ and the ‘pump-pump-kick-ing’.  My girlfriend is a few notches above my coordination level, so seeing her moves made me realize just what I had to be looking like with a sort of brutal honesty.  I fell into another bout of laughter at the fact that as my hips and attached bells are going one way, the flab and fat go in the opposite direction…..Between that and the fact that the two of us nearly knocked each other out in our failure to ‘step-step-punch’ in the same direction, it was an hour filled with noisy humiliation and hilarity.

We have only done this Zumba thing once, but we have plans to participate in two such classes this coming week.  I’m unsure how much jingling and bouncing it will take to lose my giant goal of 50 pounds, but I am assuming with the amount of laughter Ginger and I did, that has to count as some kind of bonus calorie burning, right??