I'm Going To Feel It In The Morning...

For the past three months, at least three times a week, I've been working out. I wasn't sweating away on gym equipment, or pounding step after step on a cushioned track or hard pavement. No, I worked out on stage.

Twice in my acting career I've lost significant weight while doing a show. Shows consist (at the theatre where I am usually cast...) of two months of rehearsals--usually every weeknight and Saturday mornings--and then one month of shows, three shows a week fo the run of the show. If the show requires a lot of physical moving about, i.e. dancing and/or a lot of blocking, I've lost weight. Back in the mid-2000s, I was one of Joseph's brothers in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Our choreographer was tough--she worked us hard. After the show ended, I was twenty pounds lighter.

This latest show that ended last week, wasn't as strenuous, but it pushed me, and I dropped between five and ten pounds (not sure where I was when we started...). After losing that weight when the first show ended, I let it come back. I'd like to avoid the same fate this time, so this morning I went to the track and walked/jogged a few miles. I pushed myself hard this morning.

As I age, I remember the days when I could run a few miles as if it was walking a few blocks. Those days, unfortunately, are gone. If they ever come back, I'll need to work at it. It felt good to lace up the shoes and just go.

I'd like to go at least three times a week. I'd also like to retire early, write two best-selling novels a year (at least...) and live off the royalties. We can dream, can't we? I suppose getting off my butt and doing it is the only way to make it happen. This whole post is very long way to say that, come tomorrow morning, I'm gong to be sore.

To Gym Or Not To Gym...That Is The Question

I've worked in the same building, off-and-on, for over seventeen years. And for almost all that time, there's been a little gymnasium on the first floor. Each year the "fitness room committee" tries to recruit us non-members to join the fun and enjoy the benefits of the gym.

I might have joined for part of a year once. It's been so long I don't remember. Today I'm considering joining again.

Really, there are few downsides to this arrangement. I should have gotten a picture of the layout while I checked out the facilities today. It's a very well-stocked gym. They have treadmills, elliptical machines, free weights, and every Wednesday from 11am to 12 noon there's yoga with a certified instructor. I actually joined the yoga class today and I was impressed. I've never tried yoga before.

And the best part of gym membership is it only costs $35/year. I really have no excuse not to join. My employer gives me an hour a week--on the clock--to work. And, it's just two floors down. So maybe next week at this time my joints will ache and my muscles will scream due to overdoing it at the gym. As long as they don't ask me to serve on that fitness room committee. That could be a deal-breaker.