The Laughing Cow – Post 3

This is sponsored content from BlogHer and The Laughing Cow.

When I went off to college I felt pretty good about my weight. Granted, I wasn’t thin by any stretch of the imagination, but I was healthy. I liked how I looked in my clothes.

But – and you know the drill – it didn’t take long for me to start packing on the pounds. And while I’d love to tell you a kicky little story about how I went home for summer vacation bound and determined to kick the freshman 15 in the teeth, the fact of the matter is that I was waaaaay past “15” at that point. I’d passed “15” sometime around Thanksgiving. Something about eating cheeseburgers and fries really late at night and developing the misguided mentality that a two-piece fried chicken dinner (with red beans and rice, French fries and a biscuit) constituted a perfectly healthy lunch.

Needless to say, I was big friends with elastic the summer after my freshman year.

I lost a little bit of weight that summer thanks to a whole lot of exercise, but since I was working in Atlanta and eating out a ton, the weight didn’t fall off like I’d hoped it would. So flash forward to the end of my sophomore year, when I was still carrying around some of that excess freshman baggage plus a few pizza-related pounds from my sophomore year. I wanted a diet that would give me results. And fast.

This was right around the time when liquid diets became wildly popular. Lots of people bought different flavored shakes in the grocery store, and other folks favored a liquid diet that was supervised by a doctor. I decided to go the doctor-supervised route since I was such a bastion of maturity and responsibility. After all, I had once tried to lose upwards of 15 pounds over the course of 4 days by eating nothing but popcorn for my meals.

Be sure to let me know if you’d like any other diet or fitness tips!

In retrospect I’m not entirely sure why I thought a liquid diet would work for me; after all, I’ve been known to crave the texture of certain foods so much that I’ll plan a whole meal around them (I’M TALKING TO YOU, GUACAMOLE). But since the liquid diet promised big results, I figured I could endure it long enough to drop those pesky extra pounds. And I figured that if I was really desperate to chew something, I could go to town on some sugarless gum.

Extra Wintergreen and I became very close that summer. Inseparable, really.

The first week of the liquid diet was fine. It actually felt a little bit like detox, which wasn’t a bad thing given all the junk I’d eaten during finals. I don’t necessarily know if our bodies are meant to consume a two-liter of Mountain Dew and a bag of Cheddar and Sour Cream potato chips in one marathon-study sitting, so I kind of enjoyed the break from sugar and your various and sundry simple carbohydrates. And after about seven days, I felt GOOD. Sassy, even.

The second week was a little more difficult. I wasn’t just hungry. I was HAWNGRY. And even though there were a few “foods” I could eat – chicken or beef broth, for example – they didn’t really have the crunch or texture or, you know, flavor that I was looking for. But I was a good little dieter, and I felt so encouraged by the nurse and the doctor who were supervising me that I was resolved to keep on keepin’ on. With my Extra Wintergreen by my side AT ALL TIMES, DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT ASKING ME FOR A PIECE.

At some point during the fourth week I made a trip to a big discount store with my mother. By that point I’d lost about 12 pounds, I think, so the good news was that my clothes were fitting better than they had in awhile. The bad news was that I was weak as a kitten. Mama and I hadn’t been in the discount store more than five minutes when I had to find a patio set on display so that I could sit down for a bit, and Mama knew me well enough to know that I just wasn’t feeling well.

I’ll never forget how she leaned over me with a look of concern on her face and said, “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything that would make you feel better?”

And y’all, I will never forget my response. My 19 year-old self looked up at my mama and said one very important word with determination and clarity: “Meat. MEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.”

I kid you not: we left that store, drove home, and Mama cooked me two petite sirloin steaks right then and there. Cooked them in the cast iron skillet. And if you’re wondering how I remember that, it’s because OH MY LANDS IT IS A PRECIOUS MEMORY.

I learned a great lesson that day: any weight loss plan has to have balance at its core. I continued with the liquid diet for the rest of the summer, but I also ate small meals with real food. It took me a few weeks, but I finally figured out that man should not live by liquid alone.

Or, for that matter, popcorn.

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Comments

  1. Julia Wurst says:

    I did a dance workout video with my 23 year old brother. Let’s just say, he shouldn’t dance ever!

  2. My husband and I took a personal training session together last week. He’s very slim and mostly lean and I’m shorter and stockier. Well, the trainer kicked our buns…we did squats, weights, and, the best, ab workouts. The next day, I felt just mildly sore but really good. My hubby–my lean, slim, looks-like-he-can-run-a-marathon man–could barely walk around because his abs were so sore. It was the first time in a long time I was super thankful for my solid, more muscular, and shorter stature. Who says thin is fit? Not me.

  3. I was doing a “Biggest Loser” workout video a few months ago with a friend and my 4 year old son came in the room and immediately began to try to do the leg lifts and cardio with us. His movements were hilarious, but honestly, I think he might have been doing the moves better than I did!

  4. J. Johnson says:

    I was walking on the treadmill when my trainer wanted me to do some arm exercise with the bands. While I was figuring out how to do it, I forgot to keep walking and went right off the back of the treadmill!

  5. When my littlest daughter was about 2, I was working out with free weights (the little like 5 lb dumbells) with my arms (in an effort to somehow have Jennifer-Aniston arms in like one day – which did not happen), and she went into the kitchen, got the beaters from the hand-held mixer and brought them into the living room and starting “lifting weights.” It was the CUTEST thing. :)

  6. When I lived in the sorority house in college (Mississippi State, holla!!), my “exercise” was walking to class instead of taking the shuttle. I had a backpack full of books on my back when I was crossing a street when all of a sudden my zipper gave away on me from the weight of all the books – IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROSSWALK!! Traffic had to stop for me while I picked up all my books and scurried away. I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed!

  7. Welcome to my world! At least my world in the summer of 1990, when I, too, did the doctor-supervised weight loss program. My personal “Extra Wintergreen” happened to be Diet Cokes, which I had enjoyed before and which I could enjoy on this program and still feel normal. Well, normal is relative, but you know. Anyway, once I went with friends to a Mexican restaurant while on the program, and of course could eat nothing. But I allowed myself to have a spoonful of salsa. I mean, it was fairly benign, right? And I proceeded to eat a whole (big) bowl of it over the course of the evening because it was the closest I could get to real food in that circumstance. I just know I looked crazed, and I think I might have been.

  8. Anthony Byars says:

    We tried P90X, we couldn’t get off the floor at the end of it.

  9. I begged my husband to buy me a Bow Flex so I could lose weight. I promised him would use it every day. We found one a friend was selling & I never could figure out how to use it. Too many cables & pulleys & things. The worst part? When I tripped over it & hurt my knee. Doctor says I need surgery!

  10. As a freshman in college I decided that I needed to lose a few pounds so I did my own version of “Aerobics” to MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This played OVER and OVER and OVER. I looked like an idiot but it worked.

  11. I got on this tear about walking 10K steps per day. And perhaps I got just a leetle bit obsessive about it, because one night I realized that I hadn’t hit my step quota so I got back out of bed and ran around the house until I got to the magic number!

  12. Wii Fit. It works. After all those squats and trying to keep the little moving dot in the circle… I couldn’t walk the next day. :)

  13. I once hurt my low back while watching an exercise video. I am not kidding people.

  14. The first day after doing The 30 Day Shred, I couldn’t sit down or get up from the toilet without a lot of help from my aching arms because my legs hurt so much!

  15. Hmmm…well, I bought Jillian Michael’s Ultimate Fitness 2010 for the Wii, did it one day, and honestly could barely walk for the next three days. I think I’ve done it once since then. She’s MEAN!
    Also, I was doing a dance workout video and strained my back, so I couldn’t do IT for the next few days.
    This all goes to support my theory that exercise is, in fact, BAD for you.

  16. Jillian Michael’s Shred with a helpful (aka: bossy and involved) 3-year-old boy.

  17. Did a “Baby Food Diet” once because I read Jennifer Anniston’s personal trainer put her on it to loose some weight quickly for a movie she was about to start shooting. It was the grossest thing ever. I couldn’s stay on it.

  18. My 2 year old daughter thinks it’s absolutely hysterical to watch me do my pregnancy workout video. She actually requests it! Come to think of it, watching a woman with a belly the size of a watermelon do squats probably IS pretty funny looking :)

  19. Dear Laughing,
    I think fondly on the Summer I learned to love running. It was amazing.

    I hated it.
    I loved it.

    I died.
    I breathed.

    I ached.
    I stretched.

    I started.
    I stopped.

    Love,
    Searching For Gumption in NE

  20. I tried to do Jillian Michael’s 30 day shred but spent much of the first two weeks fast-forwarding through it!! When my friend called to see if I’d done it, I told her what I’d done and she died laughing!!

  21. P90X! All I can say, though, is I look like an uncoordinated Steve Martin doing his dance in “The Jerk”. Awful.

  22. I did the Shred. The next morning (Saturday) I could barely move. (So I didn’t) Then Sunday-church day-I work in the nursery. Needless to say I was walking around barefoot because the pain in my calves from The Shred just about killed me. It. Was. Awful.

  23. Tina Brewer says:

    I flunked WW 78 times, tried Debbie Sievers’ Slim in 6, Charlene’s Kickboxing classes, P90X (I’m with the peeps who couldn’t get off the floor)…
    I did great on Jenny Craig…now I’m running a boatload and training for a half marathon…woo, hoo!!
    I LOVE CHEESE!!

  24. Well…how timely. Just today I decided to lace up my running shoes (despite ongoing plantar fasciitis I’ve been dealing with.) It’s been a frustrating week, and I just needed to ‘run it out’ (or kill someone), but running will typically not get you sent to prison. Anyhow, my husband said he would go with me. HA! The man runs daily. I knew this would be a joke. We ran together for about 30 seconds and then he said see you back here and took off. It took me about 30 min. to run 2 miles, then I sat by the van (which he had the key for!!) till he finished his 5 mile run in 45 min. Good times! And you know WHY I ran?? So I could eat something sweet. Calories in, calories out. Desperate for chocolate. That’s me!

  25. Lets just say I have put on a few pounds since childbirth, but I am working hard to shed them. My kids like to tell me all of the exercise moves I am doing wrong as they watch me to The Shred, or 6 Round Slim Down…..never a moments peace!

  26. Just before I was to get married I knew I had to lose some weight because I was going to wear my mother’s wedding dress. I knew I had to lose a certain amount because the dress could not be altered. I was OK for a while, trying to eat well. But,as we got closer to the wedding I got a little paranoid that I would not fit into the dress so I started “exercising” which consisted of me putting on loud music and dancing around the house every free minute, complete with vigorous arm shaking and butt wiggling for about the last month. I know I looked like a complete fool but it worked. I fit into that dress. There was even room to spare.

  27. A few years ago I wanted to lose some weight and decided to go join a Health Club. On the way to sign up I went through the Wendy’s drive thru thinking … it may be the last time, better make it good! I ordered my meal and got a thing or three for the kids and went on to Lifetime. I gathered all our trash to throw away when I went into the gym (it was all balled up), but I didn’t see the trash can on the way in. As I walked I asked where I could throw it away and made a joke (that I thought was funny) about how I guessed I wouldn’t be seeing anymore of that for awhile … AND THE GUY DIDN’T EVEN CRACK A SMILE.

    I decided then that I was pretty sure skinny people didn’t have any fun.

  28. I was attempting to do the 30 day Shred last year. I had to endure the ‘pointers’ and laughter of my obnoxious teenager son (love him!). The most difficult part for me (this is so embarrassing) was the jumping jacks in between the sets. Jumping Jacks? Oh yes, you see I’ve birthed four children..naturally, so um, jumping is not one of those things I do anymore. So at almost the end of the 30 minutes..I look behind me and there is a HUGE puddle of water. What?!? I mean I knew I had to pause the DVD 3x already for a potty break but am I so bad now that I didn’t even know it was…well, you get the picture. thankfully about that same time my sweet baby girl said, mom, I’m sorry I spilled your water bottle all over the floor…whew…..

  29. Has anyone out there ever heard of Body Flex? I have tried a lot of different exercise systems, but this is by far the most unique. I got myself into a routine of doing the tape (yes the old VHS) first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. The routine involved a lot of weird breathing (loud breathing) and some pretty funny looking stretches from your face down to your legs. I had some initial success so when it was time for our vacation a few weeks later I brought my tape along and fully intended to stick to my routine while at the beach. Our family always rents a vacation home together and this year my sister and her new husband were with us. I got my tape out very early the first morning thinking I would get my strange contortions out of the way before anyone else was awake. I started the routine with my (loud) breathing as usual. I guess I should have warned my family because my new brother-in-law came running out of their bedroom with the wild look of fear all over his face – like some kind of wild animal was loose in the condo! Evidently my breathing exercises were a little disturbing to a young married couple trying to sleep in!!!

  30. My roommate and I started a diet with the Jenny Craig program. We worked for a program that delivered food from the gov’t, and coming home one night we found an entire “flat” of pints of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream. We had gone hard core on the Jenny C. program for, I think, about 2 weeks at that point. We came home, saw that ice cream, sat on the floor of the kitchen, each with a spoon, and picked out and ate the cookie dough pieces out of about 10 pints of the ice cream. Worth every calorie!

  31. Tammy Elrod says:

    The Carb Lovers Diet is working for me right now and my husband is doing it too.

  32. In college my roommate and I decided the best way to lose some weight was to skip dinner every night and go exercise instead. Unfortunately we ended up ordering pizza at about 11pm 3-4 times a week because we were so hungry … So that diet didn’t work out so well for us. ;-) and don’t get me started on the time I tried the Atkins diet, not the best choice for me considering I am not a big fan of meat!! :)

  33. My mom got into Richard Simmons Sweatin’ with the Oldies at one point. I joined her. Wasn’t funny then, but the memories I have provide me countless minutes of delightful laughter at random moments.

  34. A couple of years before I married I decided to lose weight & joined a Weally Wonderful (WW) organization. I ate better, exercised, lost 65 lbs. Chips are my weakness, I went OVER A YEAR without eating even one. We got engaged, some friends threw us an engagement pool party, and, wouldn’t you know it, they had chips. I decided just one wouldn’t hurt. Then maybe two. Then just a handful. By the time I finished, I had made up for the chip-free year!

  35. I may or may not have accidentally passed gas during the sit-ups portion of the Presidential Physical Fitness program in the 6th grade. I was mortified, especially since a boy was holding my feet. A 6th grade boy! Sweet boy kept my secret. I am forever grateful.

  36. “A girlfriend of mine” was told if you exercise naked in front of a mirror you would stay motivated and lose more weight. So she complied (back in the day we did plain old aerobics). One morning she heard her young daughter dry heaving in the hallway after peaking into her exercise room. That was the end of her cardio work out……

  37. after exercise I used to go get ice cream and diet coke. not any more,now I eat protein

  38. my friend and I took a workout class once a week and every week we would leave and go eat lunch somewhere. it was the highlilght!

  39. My kids love to snuggle with me. I had committed to P90X and was just starting round two. I was enjoying a sweet snuggle with my girls and they kept moving around like they could not get comfy. Finally my youngest said “Mama, you gotta stop that working out, you are loosing your squishy stuff, it’s not so comfortable!”

  40. we just started doing a bootcamp for a revamp blogging project. i was afraid i wouldn’t be able to lift my baby when i got home. things are slowly getting less sore but i still have to concentrate when i sit down not to fall down (especially with the baby!)

  41. I fell off the balance board on the Wii fit, and my Wii ‘trainer’ asked “do you have poor balance often?” or something similar….

    I then heard my husband yell from another room “IF YOU ONLY KNEW! IF YOU ONLY KNEW….”

  42. jennifer kimberly says:

    I fell off my bike into the mud, in front of a school bus letting the kids off… I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!

    chatterboxchick81@yahoo.com

  43. i tried dancing with the oldies when I was 10-so embarrassing. To this day when I hear some of the oldies i want to do the moves. I hate to tell people now but i did get in shape.

  44. Rebecca Hamilton says:

    I tried to earn some extra money in college by working at the local ice cream shop. I quiet when I could no longer fit into any of my jeans.

  45. I walked to day with a friend. She is much more fit than I, and she talks a mile a minute. I kept up with her, but only because I let her do all the talking. I just kept saying “Hmmm” and “Ohhh”. GIve me a few weeks and I will be able to my share of the talking while we hustle around the park!

  46. When we signed up for our gym, I got two free sessions with a personal trainer. On BOTH sessions, I started seeing spots and had to lie down 10 minutes into the workout. Needless to say, we did not finish and I never went back to see either trainer. Maybe I should have. It did, however, get me free Gatorade both times, so it was well worth it!

  47. With my second pregnancy, I was determined to stick to workout plan to minimize the aches and pains I’d struggled with during my first, even if it was only doing a few simply exercises before bed each night. I stuck with it for a while, but as my baby girl got bigger, my workouts got fewer. But my three-year-old son wouldn’t let me quit. Before bed each night, he’d tell me “We TANNT go ta bed, Momma! We not done our EXA-CIZES yet!” All the while mimicking my squats and leg lifts. I was humiliated into keeping it up!

  48. you know how they say you never forget how to ride a bike? well, i tested that theory. i hadn’t been on a bike in probably 10 years when my friend offered me hers to ride with my daughter. within the first five minutes, i had crashed into my daughter and in my attempt to catch her, fell flat on my face and ended up with a huge bruise on my chin. i told people i’d been in a car accident. preferable to i fell off a bike.

  49. I did a Jillian Michaels video exactly once. I felt like I was going to throw up the rest of the day, so I decided it wasn’t worth it…although that lack of appetite would have made a valuable component to the diet/exercise plan :).

  50. 30 day shred with the devi… I mean Jillian Michaels. I modified it because this girl does NOT do jumping jacks. I like to skip jack and all those plank things… silliness, I just rested on that part.
    Wonder why it didn’t work?

  51. I was once trying to do Denise Austin’s pilates video and the resistance band accidentally slipped from my (sweaty) hand and came around and popped me in the face. Needless to say, it was the last time I did pilates.

  52. My 3 year walked in on me doing Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred one day during nap time and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It was so sweet, though, because he just sat down on the floor in front of me, tirelessly cheering me on until I finished the workout.
    I almost couldn’t finish because I was trying so hard not to laugh at his running commentary on what I was doing, saying things like “That is such great jumping, Mommy!” and “Keep going, Mommy- You’re almost finished- I’m so proud of you!”

  53. In college I signed up for a “Weight-lifting and Nutrition” class in order to toss my Freshman 15-ish pounds. In the weightlifting portion, I was paired with a very muscley and beautiful Samoan boy. He was kindly kneeling on my feet as I strained with my entire being to do sit-ups. The expression on his face when the strain caused me to, ahem, “break wind” caused me to instantly drop the class and try to embrace my extra huggable physique.

  54. I joined a gym earlier this year and worked out with a personal trainer the first week so he could assess my situation. My legs felt like jello afterwards and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to walk out of the gym to go home when we were finished. The whole session lasted probably less than 10 minutes and I had trouble walking the rest of the week. The good news is that I continue to go to the gym despite the devil personal trainer!

  55. Funny? Today was funny as I ate the leftover Butternut Squash Risotto from last night’s dinner and felt like I was giving the proverbial finger to Weight Watchers as I ate every bite.

  56. Let’s just say I found out the hard way that it’s not the best idea to try a yogilates class for the first time if you are slightly gassy. I have never shown my face in that class again.

  57. Melissa B. says:

    My husband and I tried a detox program together once. During the first week, you were allowed to eat very little. I remember we both came home after work, looked at each other, and I knew we were both waiting for the other to say the same thing – Let’s order a pizza!

  58. When I was trying to lose my freshman fifteen, I did Buns of Steel. In fact that is what I was doing when I met my future husband!

  59. chris anne says:

    finding my husband putting butter on his lean cuisine and he wondered why the diet didn’t work!

  60. My BFF and I go to the gym regularly, and one day we thought we’d try a spinning class. After five minutes I was in so much pain it felt like labor, and after ten minutes I looked at my friend and whispered, “Wanna bolt?” We ran out of that class as fast as our numb backsides could take us.

  61. My BFF and I where making a mockery of an attempt to do “Insanity”….THERE. ARE. NO. WORDS. Her 12 year old walked in, rolled her eyes and said “PLEASE do NOT do that if my friend are here!” It was a VERY said sight!

  62. The first day I bought my Ab Circle Pro, I got to going so fast that I flew off the thing and landed on my left kneecap. It turned black and blue and green and yellow over the course of the next few weeks. The Ab Circle has been collecting dust ever since.

  63. One of my first yoga classes included many people passing gas and the instructor encouraging everyone by saying “that’s good, just let it go.”
    I giggled like a 12 year old boy.

  64. we just started a fitness boot camp and i was really perky for the first 40 minutes. the instructor said i might feel nauseous or light-headed but i just laughed him off. then the world started to close in, i couldn’t see more than a small circle in front of me and i was afraid of seeing my bagel and peanut butter again…

  65. All i can say is.. my kids don’t tell me I’m cool when I wrok ot out to a dance dvd… When they were young I was awesome…now I am NOT!!

  66. My lovely niece invited me to go to Zumba with her. Being the wonderful aunt I agreed. So off we went–me, my sister, my 24 year old niece, my 23 year old niece and my 14 year old daughter. All of the adults learned that we can’t shake only one part of our body at a time and laughed more than we danced! I also discovered my 14 year old could shake her hips very well and has since been banned from ever dancing again:)

  67. I have every exercise video/dvd known to man. All are in their original shrink wrap. Apparently my approach is that OWNING the workouts is enough.

  68. It’s not at all funny that I couldn’t sit, stand or lie down without excruciating pain when I started the 30 Day Shred (which lasted about 8 days for me).

  69. Probably telling everyone in my office that I’m officially on (insert name of crazy diet here) and then a few days later being found cramming donuts in my mouth. I will find one that works eventually!

  70. I decided to take up bike riding a few years ago. I was in my neighborhood and sitting still at an intersection with several cars when I fell off. I wasn’t even moving and I just fell right off right there in front of a bunch of strangers.

  71. I’ve been going to “Zumba” classes. You should see all us not so young ladies dancing around! Love it! :)

  72. While in a yoga class, a VERY QUIET yoga class, the instructors soothing voice talked us through the poses. You could hear a pin drop. You could hear quite another noise emanating from my intestinal tract as she guided us through the “wind removing pose”. Loud guffaws followed…. (I never went back!)

  73. I was ‘working out’ with the Wii fit and doing the hula hoop challenge. I was burning it UP!!!! I didn’t realize that my brother-in-law was video taping me!!! They still laugh about that!!!

    Melanie

  74. All this talk of dieting…..now I have to have a cookie!

  75. My soon to be husband and i were gifted a few free training sessions at golds gym. Around 15 minutes into the 1st session i got very shaky and pale and blacked out – came to and they had me laid out in the center of the gym! i was thoroughly embarrassed! lesson learned:when one hasnt exercised intensly for a few years – START SLOW!

  76. I go to the gym at work a few days a week and I only do the eliptical machine. All of the other eliptical machines were taken so I took the last available and it wasnt working. I tried to walk on it to get it started and still- not working! No lights, nothing. I kept going though thinking it would kick on. Then about 10 minutes into my hard workout on the dark eliptical machine, the trainer walks by and says “You may want to plug it in”. I looked behind me and sure enough…it wasn’t plugged in! DUH!

  77. carolyn guerriero says:

    I was so excited about buying $70 worth of workout videos. When I received them in the mail, I immediately put them in the dvd player and did the workout. Funny thing is, I have NEVER done it since. I kid you not. One time. 70 US dollars.

  78. I was trying to think about some really fabulously funny story involving my exercising habits, but…I would need to have some exercising habits in order to do that.

  79. I did this 3 day diet after I graduated college…you had 3 days of a fixed menu (no deviations) and 4 days of moderate eating…with the promise of losing up to 10 lbs in 7 days. I did it for about 3 weeks in a row and lost maybe 17 lbs total. Not bad but to this day I can not eat canned tuna!!

  80. My husband went to the gym and grabbed his sweatshirt out of the trunk of our second car. He put it on the seat beside and drove to the gym. He noticed that there were tiny holes in his sweatshirt…and as he unrolled it, lots of mouse poop and a mouse nest rolled to the floor of the car! He threw the sweatshirt into the gym parking lot and had no desire to work out! We joked with our three year old that he left the dazed mouse there to workout :).

  81. Having my sons come in and do the Pilates DVD with me was a blast . . . and then watching them make up their own moves later (with names like Superman Flies, etc.). :)

  82. OK, so back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, my mom bought me Cindy Crawford’s first exercize VHS. I never could get past the very first warm-up part because it played this cool sounding song that just made me do my own thing, and after the song went off I was no longer interested in the rest of the tape.

    And this was back when I was 115 pounds in high school and thought I was SOOOO fat. I’d give anything to be able to go back in time and slap myself. LOL!

  83. I am now training for a half marathon and have dedicated myself to running 100 miles in September!

  84. I am probably really dating myself, but when I was in high school there used to be something out there called “Aids” I think. They were like little pieces of candy that you ate to help curb the appetite. Ha. Right….they sure didn’t work for me! After I went to college I returned one summer to clean out my closet and found a partial box of those candies. Hard as rocks.

  85. I’m guessing circa 1984, when I was at aerobics and my husband called the gym (no cell phones) for me to COME HOME! EMERGENCY! my 2 year old son had stuffed a chocolate covered peanut up his nose.

  86. One morning a group of friends and I decided to do Darren’s Dance Grooves together. We were just doing it to be silly and luckily at just the right moment I had to pee because a friend ended up snapping pictures and sharing them all over her site and blog. For that I now only exercise or dance when I am alone.

  87. I went to a small Christian school in Chicago and I would jog around campus for exercise. Well it had snowed recently, but all the sidewalks had been plowed and salted so I thought I was safe. I was running along and I was distracted by a group of students being let out of class. Well in that one moment of taking my eyes off the sidewalk I hit a small patch of ice and landed on my butt in front of about 100 students! I never ran again unless I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ground was dry!!!

  88. Courtney McIlwain says:

    I’m thinking that everybody has the same opinion of Jillian Michaels. Only made it half way through. So sad. Now I know why the Biggest Loser contestants cry
    cmcilwain6493@charter.net

  89. I tried to do Zumba last year for awhile. Let’s just say I fit in better with the 85 year old women in the class than my fellow 20-somethings in the class.

  90. I was caught on video hula hooping on the Wii Fit when I was 9 months pregnant!

  91. In high school, one of my fellow journalism classmates came in on crutches. Why? Because she hurt herself doing Miss Piggy’s workout video. For. REAL.

  92. Hmmm, a funny story… well, there was the time in high school when I ran cross country (I know, what was I thinking? :) when myself and another girl were pacing each other the whole race. At the halfway point my shoe came untied. I knew if I stopped to tie it I would never catch up so I just kept running. And do you know, a shoe will get really loose after a mile and a half!
    At the end of the race you’re supposed to kick it and sprint to the end… except my shoe was so loose it flew off, sent me off balance, and I almost ran into a tree! Unfortunately for all my heroics, she still beat me.
    But you can bet I always double knotted my shoes for race after that!

  93. I used to have my garage fixed up with a TV and vcr player. The neighbor ladies would come over and we would exercise to Richard Simmons “Dancing to the Oldies” then we would go in the house and eat.

  94. When I was in highschool prepping for the prom, I was eating as little as would sustain me and going to the tanner each night. I fainted in the stand up booth and when I came to, I had my face pressed against the metal bars with my nose grazing the tanning lights! I started to eat more after that!

  95. I went on the one cup diet. You can eat anything thing you want as long as you only eat a one cup of it. So when I went to a restaurant, I would pull out my measuring cup when my food was served. I actually measured out one cup of the meal and asked for the rest in a to-go box. The servers and restaurant patrons must have had a good laugh at my strange diet.

  96. My friend, Kari, and I would run a lot in the evenings. One night we were so into our conversation that she ran right into a mailbox. It took us about 5 minutes to get back running again because we were laughing so hard!

  97. Due to a long commute I am up and out the door by 5 am. My husband gets up later and works out at home before getting our children up and ready. One day I got a text that read “Kids were up early. Tried to finish Pilaties with a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and the beagle in my lap. Didn’t work so well.” Exhibit A for the defense of paying my gym membership.

  98. Gosh, we have all made Jillian Michaels a millionaire, haven’t we? And why? Because we enjoy the punishment? I have a very sweet, very large 105 pound Goldendoodle puppy who licks me in the face every time I do the floor abdominal work in the Shred video, which as we know is one minute out of every four. My dog LOVES Jillian Michaels. Me, not so much…

  99. My husband used to run an athlete training facility. On Saturday mornings we would go up there together to workout. He would run me through their typical warm-up (which made me want to pass out) which included skipping down the field and back. I would always try to hold his hand while we skipped and he would get so embarrassed. Anything to keep a workout fun! :)