Couch 177: I Get a Strange Magic - ELO

Thanks Lemoncake!

You totes inspire me........to contemplate going to the gym very very hard.

Are you also going to grade your students on how much weight they can lift? Staying true to ancient times and whatnot.

I wear sweats and too-baggy tees. The tight stuff just makes me sweatier.

Free weights, all lbs., cheap at Target and Walmart (in pretty colors too). I use the 10-lbs. ones at home.

I think the trick with gyms is to find a serious one, not one that practices gymtimidation. Often these are smaller gyms that don’t have a lot of fancy equipment, but that’s OK. Mine has the basics, plus a pool, and is only $13/month. And there are a good number of heavier users.

There’s a very cheap — 15 bucks-ish — weight set I got from Walmart for a total of 40 lbs.

It has four 2.5lb weights and the rest are 7lbs.

I forgot this until now - we also made our own weights with a set of old water bottles and dry beans and one set of old water bottles with sand before she was ready to actually commit to buying some. (She was a huge diy recycle fiend).
We ate the beans after we got her real set.

Ugh, paintings.

I think my favorite weapons museum is the one on Malta, mainly because a display there years ago finally got the concept of the main gauche across to me.

My brother was in a museum somewhere in Europe I've forgotten where now but there was a part of an ancient wall on display and he said he stood there looking at it forever, just thinking to himself it's SO OLD I just HAVE to touch it! I just HAVE to! and he watched and waited for the opportunity when no guards were facing his direction and he reached out and touched it and all these alarms went off and he had to run away from the guards chasing him! Can you imagine? He's such a goof. He would have talked his way out of it if they had caught him, he's good at that... he's a very interesting person that way. I think that's why he's had so much success as an Army chaplain, he's a Lt Colonel now, he can talk his way through anything that kid. I say "kid", he's 53 now but he'll always be my little brother haha

I completely understand the mentality of not going to the gym because you're fat or out of shape. Eventually, I just came to the realization that I didn't care if I was being judged at the gym because I'm there to be not as fat and out of shape.

I mostly lift weights at the gym. My weight loss has been slow, but it's been consistent and I'm feeling better.

Maybe because gyms are a expensive waste of time?

Yes, we have a lot of the “chain” gyms around here...like planet fitness, LA fitness, Giant Fitness, etc..
We have a few independently owned gyms that look like they are in a warehouse. Maybe I look into one of those.

Expensive and a waste of time compared to.........shoring up a pretty crappy and continuously deteriorating quality of life?

Not that gyms are the only solution but gyms aren't all expensive (even if it's in relation to one's income situation, I'd argue there might be room in some instances at least to look at budget priorities) and I'm not sure how they could be considered a waste of time, especially given the near-universal agreement from evidence-based research studies around the world on the physical and mental health benefits of working out.

Aw, you beat me by 0.10 mile! That's awesome though!

I just hate going to the gym. I can do "I'm going for a walk" or something like that. It's a different mentality than, "I'm going to go exercise" or "I'm going to go work out now." Even "I'm going to yoga class" is OK. When I get in better shape, might try one of the aerobics sort of classes at the gym where we have a family membership (H uses it and D uses the pool there. I also hate treadmills--they make me dizzy.

Here they're expensive and a waste of time, expensive because they cost a lot (I looked at the prices and was like "you got to be joking, you can do those activities for nothing"


And a waste of time because the stuff the gym here has, you can do at home, like walking around, walking up and down the stairs, lifting items in your own house, going for a run, etc (the local gym here is a piece of crap )

Even though I don’t currently go to a gym..I would not consider them a waste of time-especially here in the US we have a very very high obesity rate.

I am not that much of a gym person myself. I prefer to work out alone or with a couple of friends. It probably helps that I have several close friends who were pe teachers and are still work out fiends. I think gyms can be useful for those who will actually go use them. I know I would not. I have weights, my bicycle with a trainer stand for winter, and an elliptical machine (I use the elliptical more than the bike and do intervals with it and free weights). I also found using the wii was quite fun and really need to set it up again. We changed tvs a while back and I just did not get around to hooking it back up while person was so sick.
That I am even considering it is probably a sign I am doing better with grief.

There’s not the use of machines that would be very costly to buy? Maybe they pay off seasonally like when it’s too cold out or snowing or oppressive heat.

It really did help, I felt much more stable when I was running daily.

I loved my wii that I had years ago. I had a dance pad that attached to it. So much fun.

I liked ours, too--made working out more fun!

Perhaps they are to you. Not everyone has to like gyms or exercise.

I go to gyms because they have the equipment I want (which works more efficiently in terms of reaching my goals than the weights I use at home) plus a pool (try swimming at home).

I also think consistent exercise over the past few years has helped me deal with depression, anxiety, SI and SH better. To me whatever I use to improve my life (and stay alive) and mental health is not an expensive waste of time, whether it’s a gym or a daily massage.

And I am just about to go to my gym, which costs me something like 45 cents a day.

I am not saying they are for everyone. But they work for me.

So h wants to go hiking Monday, yeah! I'm glad now that I didn't tell him I was thinking about seeing t that day. He said he's been thinking about how good he felt the last time we went, and wants to go again. And since they probably won't have much work on the holiday, he said let's go Monday so we're going to. A different trail this time. I will have the opportunity to try something t and I talked about the other day, a way to tell him something about how I've been feeling about our marriage in a way that isn't pointing fingers at anybody and sounds natural to me in fact I was the one that came up with it and she goes yes that! say that! lol I don't want to jinx myself by sharing it before I get a chance to try it so... stay tuned Monday lol.

Laundry is started and grocery shopping is done for the week. I'm thinking about how I can continue my walking once I'm working at home, a very easy way - that even includes sleeping later than I do now! I can sleep til 6am, get up and walk around the long block (almost a mile) and be back in time to shower and start work at 7 and eat breakfast after I start working. That way I get the walking done before my workday even starts, and still get an extra 30 minutes of sleep cuz right now I get up at 5:30am. Now I just have to put it into action once I'm working at home!!

I'm not too sure what I think about the therapy poem that came today, but I definitely relate to the feeling: American Poetry Review – Poems

Wow. That's... that's really powerful for me.

This part in particular hit me:

"Maybe it’s enough to recognize

ourselves unsolvable, half trash,
half glitter bomb, dropped along
the trench by dying stars."

I'm really not sure if I feel sad, or just simple recognition, or.... ???

Thank you for sharing it.