Sweating To, Make That WITH, The Oldies

All right, my worst fear has been realized. The side effect that I have most dreaded (once I learned I didn't have to have infusion chemo and lose my hair, anyway) and tried to avoid has happened.

I'm fat.

Both drugs I take, Zoladex and Arimidex, can cause weight gain. Not for this girl, I thought (erroneously, it turns out). And I held it off for 10 months.

And then BOOM - 12-15 pounds in the blink of an eye. Okay, it doesn't help that I had also taken a sabbatical from my exercise regime at that time, but I didn't increase my calorie intake, so I can only imagine (shudder, shudder, shudder) what would have happened if I had starting pigging out as well.

Two weeks ago, I vowed to resume my workouts. Hauled my sorry ass out of bed every morning for the past two weeks (and even got my husband to join me), and the beast has been unleashed! Elliptical machine and weights in the mornings, Zumba on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

Then I saw that a new class had been added to the Y's line-up on Monday and Wednesday evenings - AquaZumba. (Fortunately, the ability to swim is not a requirement of the class). And I LOVED it. No sweat exercising - how much better could it get? Here's how much - there's also a class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings as well. I am ON IT. 

So, Monday morning, I arrived at the Y about 8:45. The lap lanes had several elderly people paddling around with pool noodles and aquatic weights. I didn't see anyone there for the AquaZumba yet, but I went ahead and eased into the water. 

Another elderly woman showed up, then another and another.

A very bored looking lifeguard was sitting in a chair on the pool deck where the instructor had been for the afternoon AquaZumba class I had attended. Seemed odd. I kept watching for the teacher to show up. And the class.

Right at 9:00 this, shall we say, pleasantly plump woman came over to the edge of the pool and tossed pool noodles into the water. Now, I had never met the morning AquaZumba instructor, but I knew her name was Whitney. And this woman did NOT look like someone named Whitney who taught Zumba and AquaZumba.

The elderly ladies began to gather and each take a pool noodle. And that's when the reality set in.

This was not AquaZumba.

This was Aquacise. 

AquaZumba is at 10:00, not 9:00.

And there was no way to escape gracefully, especially after the instructor approached me to ask if I were new.

"Have you ever done Aquacise before?" she gently asked.

"Nooooo," I answered, while inside my head, I screamed, "BECAUSE I'M NOT 80 YEARS OLD!!!"

The little old lady next to me said, "Don't worry, we'll help you with the moves."

Oh, dear God....

We held the pool noodles and walked sideways, back and forth, across the pool. 

We hooked a noodle under our foot and used it to move our knee up and down.

We stood on one leg and swung the other leg to the front and back.

We did jumping jack moves with our legs (which caused some very weird whooshing of water in my nether regions, in a douchey way,  not in a good way, or I would say I have figured out why these old ladies do Aquacise).

We held the side and kicked our legs.

As we did each move, the instructor came over to me to show me how to execute it. I felt like I was 10. Or 110. (I did bring the median age of the group down by about 25 years.)

It was the longest 45 minutes of my life. The only thing that kept me from slipping under the water and drowning myself were the words, "blog fodder, blog fodder" going through my head. (God knows I could have done it; the lifeguard had her eyes closed half the time.) I mouthed "Help me" to the lifeguard, but she had her eyes closed, probably also wishing she weren't there.

When the class finally ended, I climbed out of the pool, dried off, and, with a Mona Lisa smile pasted to my face, serenely left the building, got in my car, and then laughed until I cried. 

I'm not sure why I'm surprised about this whole mix-up, since I'm the one who showed up a month early for my ob/gyn appointment a few months ago. 

Maybe I've finally, FINALLY, learned my lesson.