I am the Biggest Loser....

...but not for the reality show reasons. No, I am your usual, garden variety loser, one who sets out to do one healthy, productive thing and ends up doing something really lame instead.

A couple weeks ago Melissa was talking about switching up her work out routine. One of her ideas was to do strength training in the morning and the aerobic portion in the evening. I don't know that this really made a difference for her, but last night as I was going to bed and it was approaching 11:00 pm, and I knew I had to exercise early due to an 8:00 am dentist appointment, I thought I might give it a try. I didn't think I could handle the treadmill, but a couple of push-ups and some bicep curls might be feasible.

So I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the closet to change into my work out gear, went downstairs and set up the portable DVD player with the next episode from season 4 of Felicity, and dragged out the 10 lb. dumbbells. I did one set of biceps curls and moved on to a set of lateral raises, and thought--Who am I kidding. This is ridiculous, I do not want to do this, I do not have the energy for this, this is stupid. By this time it is 6:00 am--too late to go back to bed (remember that 8:00 appointment), but now that I have made the decision to NOT workout, I have some extra time.

And guess what I did. I made two batches of cookies. Yes, there I was at 6:00 am, dressed to sweat, but instead churning out the cake mix cookies and picking at the dough. Now by way of explanation, I really did need to make these cookies for Andrew's kindergarten celebration tomorrow, so I guess I was kind of being productive. I did have the fleeting thought that I could use this time to make an extra nice breakfast for the kids, something nice and hot and yummy. Nope. They had cold cereal and oatmeal.

Some people use exercise as a stress reliever. And I have to say that even though I don't cherish my hours on the treadmill, and I dream about never sweating another drop in my life (ok, we know THAT'S never going to happen, exercise or not), I am better off for hanging in there with the work outs. But sometimes it just seems like one more thing to do, one more reason to be under pressure, and instead of turning to it, I crumble under it. And today, I could not rise up to the challenge.

In all reality, I am not filled with as much self-loathing as this post might suggest. Yeah, I didn't work out today and I had some cookie dough for breakfast, but I am fine. Is that another lesson that comes with getting older? You learn to give yourself a break, you know deep inside that you are doing your best and it has to be good enough.

So we'll see if I step on that treadmill this evening. You never know. I may not be such a loser after all.