Yes, it's true, I own a wii and I work out at least three times a week, seven times a week if time permits and my stress fracture is up to it. Since I am not thin, the fact that I work out religiously surprises a lot of people: once you see me effortlessly lift a heavy object, such as a school chair with a student still in it, and effortlessly bring it over my head, you will then begin to credit my claim that I do indeed put in sweat time.
I do love to eat, but I love my work outs too. I used to think working out was a punishment, a feeling that I garnered no doubt from growing up in a family of readers. "She has to work out EVERY DAY to keep that figure," my mother would hiss, looking up at the tv screen just long enough to take someone in while flicking pages in her book. You know what? Having trained first as a dancer, then not having the time or money to train or work out and becoming a fat chick, I have found something out: Working out is a privilege. It means you have the time and freedom to devote to your own health, physical and mental, and those are very, very good things.
If you are a single parent and your kid is a whiner, or ill, or takes up an unusual amount of your time due to some situation (in my case, my delightful daughter had a TV career) you don't have the time to sweat. First of all, if you don't have a baby sitter, you can't just leave your kid at home at four-thirty to go run around the block. I know a lot of Chinese parents who think nothing of leaving their infant unattended while they go party, but I'm not like that, thank God. I used to take my little girl down to the park with me when I studied Wu Shu, but she was jealous and angry and inevitably ran up to me from behind just as I was performing a spinning back-kick: she'd rather get hurt and get attention than to play quietly right in front of me. I gave up Wu Shu, finally, because of the daily battle: she'd scream and cry about having to get up and go to the park (literally ten feet from my doorstep) and every day she'd time it perfectly so that she sprang into my kicking foot at just the right moment to achieve total mastery of the situation. "MOMMY KICKED ME" she'd gasp while a crowd gathered. It was hell.
I moved soon after that and got into a real hell--having to get up at four-thirty to walk her to her training (Peking Opera) by five--and by the time I walked back to my home, got ready for work, walked back to pick her up and got her to school--and me to my job--I was exhausted and covered in sweat and filthy and didn't have much to give to my own career. Poverty has its uses and its blessings but there are moments when, as a poor single mom, a girl just wants to scream, LEAVE ME ALONE LONG ENOUGH TO WORK UP A SWEAT I CAN CLEAN UP AFTER! Poor people sweat all day, nervous sweat that they're going to be late to Job One or Job Two, sweat as they run up the stairs, sweat as they ride two hours on packed buses to work...but it's not the sort of body-shaping aerobic activity that results in great abs--or at least, it wasn't for me. You would be surprised by how many women would relish a trip to the gym if someone else would watch the kids and cook their dinner--throw in a pair of the right sports shoes and some bike shorts that fit and you'd see the birth of a gym rat before your very eyes.
I'm single, and except for walking those two morons I live with, I have zero responsibilities. I can turn the three-times-daily walk into mini-workouts because I now have an Ipod and tons of music and good walking shoes, things I didn't have in my single-poor-mom days. I also have work-out clothes and I don't have to worry about "wearing out" my good clothes. I also have sufficient time and space to move the coffee table after dinner and get down to doing squats and yoga with my wii, which effortlessly tracks my moves and calorie burns. I also can make myself a yogurt parfait if I want without hearing "I thought Moms were supposed to COOK for their families!" or other criticisms. Poor people--especially poor fat girls--don't have the resources to join a gym, or get a wii, or even walk around the block 10,000 steps. To do so shows that you have sufficient time to do something for yourself that goes well beyond subsistence survivial. Yay for me.
I do love to eat, but I love my work outs too. I used to think working out was a punishment, a feeling that I garnered no doubt from growing up in a family of readers. "She has to work out EVERY DAY to keep that figure," my mother would hiss, looking up at the tv screen just long enough to take someone in while flicking pages in her book. You know what? Having trained first as a dancer, then not having the time or money to train or work out and becoming a fat chick, I have found something out: Working out is a privilege. It means you have the time and freedom to devote to your own health, physical and mental, and those are very, very good things.
If you are a single parent and your kid is a whiner, or ill, or takes up an unusual amount of your time due to some situation (in my case, my delightful daughter had a TV career) you don't have the time to sweat. First of all, if you don't have a baby sitter, you can't just leave your kid at home at four-thirty to go run around the block. I know a lot of Chinese parents who think nothing of leaving their infant unattended while they go party, but I'm not like that, thank God. I used to take my little girl down to the park with me when I studied Wu Shu, but she was jealous and angry and inevitably ran up to me from behind just as I was performing a spinning back-kick: she'd rather get hurt and get attention than to play quietly right in front of me. I gave up Wu Shu, finally, because of the daily battle: she'd scream and cry about having to get up and go to the park (literally ten feet from my doorstep) and every day she'd time it perfectly so that she sprang into my kicking foot at just the right moment to achieve total mastery of the situation. "MOMMY KICKED ME" she'd gasp while a crowd gathered. It was hell.
I moved soon after that and got into a real hell--having to get up at four-thirty to walk her to her training (Peking Opera) by five--and by the time I walked back to my home, got ready for work, walked back to pick her up and got her to school--and me to my job--I was exhausted and covered in sweat and filthy and didn't have much to give to my own career. Poverty has its uses and its blessings but there are moments when, as a poor single mom, a girl just wants to scream, LEAVE ME ALONE LONG ENOUGH TO WORK UP A SWEAT I CAN CLEAN UP AFTER! Poor people sweat all day, nervous sweat that they're going to be late to Job One or Job Two, sweat as they run up the stairs, sweat as they ride two hours on packed buses to work...but it's not the sort of body-shaping aerobic activity that results in great abs--or at least, it wasn't for me. You would be surprised by how many women would relish a trip to the gym if someone else would watch the kids and cook their dinner--throw in a pair of the right sports shoes and some bike shorts that fit and you'd see the birth of a gym rat before your very eyes.
I'm single, and except for walking those two morons I live with, I have zero responsibilities. I can turn the three-times-daily walk into mini-workouts because I now have an Ipod and tons of music and good walking shoes, things I didn't have in my single-poor-mom days. I also have work-out clothes and I don't have to worry about "wearing out" my good clothes. I also have sufficient time and space to move the coffee table after dinner and get down to doing squats and yoga with my wii, which effortlessly tracks my moves and calorie burns. I also can make myself a yogurt parfait if I want without hearing "I thought Moms were supposed to COOK for their families!" or other criticisms. Poor people--especially poor fat girls--don't have the resources to join a gym, or get a wii, or even walk around the block 10,000 steps. To do so shows that you have sufficient time to do something for yourself that goes well beyond subsistence survivial. Yay for me.
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