I used to enjoy working out, exercising, sweating my butt off… whatever term you would like to use for it. In my younger days, I spent 2 plus hours in the gym daily when I thought I wanted to be a ‘body builder,’ like Rachel Mclish.  

I ate cans of tuna and mounds of broccoli and when nobody was looking, cake tops slathered with buttercream but still couldn’t shed my body fat, go figure. I trained and trained but just ended up looking like a line backer, I think the cake top buttercream sandwiches may have had something to do with it, although I am still not certain.

Fast forward 25 years later and now I must exercise to keep my metabolism up and my cholesterol down and I hate it. I have to force myself onto the treadmill to do some version of a HIIT workout and I hate it. 

How is it I was able to commit the time in the gym back then and actually enjoy it but now not so much?

After much contemplation, I think I have figured out why I hate it so much… I used up all my ‘gym genes’. I am convinced you are only allotted so many gym genes and once you use them up you are out of luck, no more going to the gym for you. No more motivation to workout, exercise or sweat your butt off… your gym genes are all gone. 

This is exactly where I find myself today… out of gym genes with a metabolism to maintain and cholesterol to lower… now what? 

I should eat mounds of broccoli and less sugar but that battle rages on 25 years later. I substitute miniature Reeses peanut butter cups for food, cuz they are small and technically don’t count no matter how many you eat, yet I still can’t get rid of my body fat. I crave sugar all the time and find myself in an unending battle against it. 

Who really craves a salad anyway? I am a vegetarian and I have never once craved a salad or a single vegetable… there is just so much chewing involved. 

What is a girl to do, seriously, what am I supposed to do? 

For 5 weeks, not a lot of time but for me an eternity, I did what was asked of me. I watched what I ate, I drank shakes for breakfast and lunch, ate a sensible dinner, I cut out chocolate, I exercised and finally saw a light at the end of my tunnel, or so I thought. I was on the right track, I lost 3.7 pounds of the 20 pounds my doctor so desperately wants me to lose… ok maybe not desperately but she is pretty insistent. 

Slow and steady wins the race, they say, which is totally not true. Who came up with that anyway? Nobody slow and steady has ever won a race I’ve seen.

After week 6, I stepped on the scale certain I hit the 5 pound mark or did I? After all of that effort, did I lose the poundage? Nope, not me, not this gym gene-less girl, I went right back to where I started. Six weeks of sad eating and sweating my ass off on the treadmill only to end up back where I began. 

Now what do I do… the only rational thing… open a bag of Reeses.