Gluttony, sloth and mini-eggs

My family's annual Easter face-stuffing came and went yesterday... prime rib, rolls and twice-baked potatoes for dinner. Chocolate fondue AND chocolate pie for dessert. Corn Pops for a late supper, but that's not important right now. It left me feeling a bit tubby today, and I wasn't exactly svelte to start with since March Madness has kept me glued to my couch (which, since I work from home full-time, is also my desk), gorging myself on Cadbury Mini-Eggs.

(I'm one paragraph in, which means it's time for the obligatory digression: I'm snobby about lots of things, but there aren't many food items on that list. Easy Cheese? Box wine? Hot dogs? Yes, please. Cheap chocolate? God, yes. You snobs can have your Dove and Godiva and god knows whatever else. I'll be sitting happily in the corner with my milk carton of Whoppers and my bags of Mini-Eggs that I've been hoarding for six months because the evil genius bastards at Cadbury only sell them for a few paltry weeks out of the year.)

Anyhow, with the belly swelling, it was time I got myself to the gym. In my experience, most people who go to the gym fall into two categories: runners and meatheads. They're either toiling away on a treadmill for hours at a time, reading magazines and wearing short shorts, or they're top-heavy frat boys clad in cut-up t-shirts doing endless variations of the bench press between long breaks spent staring at their muscles in the full-length mirrors and discussing protein shakes. I've got pipecleaner arms and a healthy distaste for all things cardio, so I don't really fall into either camp. And for long stretches of time I don't come within hailing distance of the campers, either; today was the first day in months I've actually darkened the corridors of the local rec center. I also go at certain times to avoid as many people as I can; obviously, I'm not getting up at 6 am to fight for equipment with the overly-motivated morning crowd. I also try to avoid the lunch-timers, who are on a tight schedule and glare daggers at you if you're using a machine that they want.

I've found that 10 am is ideal, because at that time the rec center is populated by a good mix of senior citizens and soccer moms with the stray high school dropout meathead to liven things up. The soccer moms are there to do pilates or spinning or yoga or whatever they do that involves the wearing of black spandex pants, and the senior citizens mostly sit around and weigh themselves on the scales, so I can do my leg exercises in peace. When I first started lifting weights, I was a little worried that the meatheads would mock my pathetic arms and chest, but most of them are nice enough fellows who ignore me entirely. The ones who do take notice are so dumbfounded that I'm not doing bicep curls that they avoid me because my crazy might be contagious.

So it was a successful session today, because I avoided passing out or hurling, and whoever was running the music in the rec center kept me from yearning for my iPod. (Marvin Gaye! Wilson Pickett! Morris Day and the Time!) Might want to rethink my post-workout diet, though. I downed two Cherry Cokes with lunch when I got home, and the subsequent crash from the sugar high, coupled with the first-day-back exercise exhaustion, left me nearly lobotomized. Which is why I can't figure out a good way to end this post...