Boot It!!

I was reading the newspaper this morning and came across an article about these boot camps that women are taking. Apparently, they are popping up all around the country and women of all ages are flocking to them to get fit and “look the best they can”. One camp had 1200 people on a waiting list. The writer described the new fitness craze as military style exercise with a tone of guilt if you couldn’t keep up with the pack. Yelling was integrated as a motivational strategy, and slowing down or giving up was not an option. “No, thank you”, I thought. I wondered if I was the weird one when I read that one camp had 1200 people on a waiting list for this voluntary torture. I have absolutely no desire to sign up for any one screaming at me to perform lunges, squats, push ups or strides continuously for 60 minutes. As for the guilt, I have spent an endless amount of time ridding myself of this useless emotion for most of my life; why on earth would I want to voluntarily invite it back in, and pay for it as well.

Interestingly enough, I have also surrendered to the fact that no matter how “good” or “bad” I look, it really doesn’t matter. How I feel is much more important, and I really don’t think that beating my body up is going to make me feel any better than I feel right now. I know this for a fact. Years ago (25 years to be exact) I was a fitness instructor, mainly an aerobics instructor. If you were alive in the 80’s, you will remember how hard we worked during that hour of “dancing” our way to the perfect “10”. The music gave us the illusion that we were having fun because we were moving and grooving to some great songs. We looked coordinated, got our heart rates up, and were able to go home and eat whatever we wanted. I often taught 2 classes a day (a beginners and an advanced), and would go for a 30 minute run afterward. Talk about imbalance!!  We would go from one extreme to another; work out for 3 hours and then eat enough to compensate for lack of energy and calories.  And yes, I did hurt most of the time.

In the 90’s we moved away from this “no pain, no gain” concept and focused more on low fat, no carbs diet fads to balance out our decrease of exercise exertion. This was a little easier on our bodies, physically, but we were lacking in nutrition and, once again the balance pendulum swung in the other direction. The new millennium promised some equilibrium as we started to welcome the concept of eating well and exercising in moderation; balance.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of exercise. If I don't move, I am in big trouble.  I rarely miss a scheduled workout, which is simply a function of my dysfunction (another blog post entirely), however, my workouts consist of power walks, hikes, and bike rides. To compensate for not punishing my body through a gruelling exercise regime, and in order to maintain a healthy weight, I simply eat well (previous post).
Alas, balance!!

Boot Camps; ugh, have we come full circle again? “No, thank you”!