My, you're looking very obese these days.

Earlier this year, when discussing our resolutions for 2008, a friend of mine said that one of her goals was to be overweight. Well that's a twist, right? Someone who actually wants to be overweight? Yes, because according to the charts (and you can keep all your BLAH BLAH BLAH'ing about BMI charts and what bullshit they are to yourself because I KNOW, but it's not a mystery that I'm fat and I don't use them to measure my value as a human being or anything so RELAX) she was currently obese and she decided that she'd shoot for overweight.

YAY, OVERWEIGHT!

Me: Hello, Anonymous Friend! Myyyyyy, you're looking overweight today!

Anon Friend: Awl, thanks Elizabeth...that's the nicest thing I've heard all day!

So if her goal was to be overweight, then my goal would be to achieve obesity. Huh? Now listen little children, I'm not going to get cut out of my house anytime soon (have you SEEN those shoes on TLC? Like the guy who sneaks Chinese delivery through his bedroom window with a pulley system??), but according to the charts (BLAH BLAH BLAH), I am morbidly obese. So my goal: ACHIEVE OBESITY! WOO HOO!

(Incidentally, I was recently pleased to discover that I weigh less than Yao Ming, but of course, he's a foot and a half taller than I am. At 32 (!) a growth spurt is unlikely, but YOU NEVER KNOW!)

So all of that is just a lead up to the fact that this morning at boot camp I shaved 21 seconds off my timed mile. I'm not a big "let's gather around and cheer each other on" kind of boot camper but I couldn't help but exclaim that OMG THAT'S 20 SECONDS FASTER THAN MY BEST! and I was kind of caught off guard by the OMG THAT'S AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! response from the crowd.

Damn those girls for getting me choked up before 6AM.

But anyway, I'm proud of myself. Really ladies, it's the best $210 I spend each month and I really hope that getting a job doesn't mean I can't keep going, particularly since employment will mean that I can actually afford to go and won't need to keep financing it through the Bank of Mom & Dad. I haven't lost much weight, and on a good day I can squeeze into a smaller size jeans, and I really wish I had lost a lot more weight, but the fitness test results are the inarguable proof that I'm doing something good for myself.

At the beginning of my first session I could do the following:

8 girl push-ups in one minute
10 second wall-sit (where you lean against a wall and pretend like you're sitting in a chair)
10 second modified plank (on the knees & forearms)

And I couldn't even run a whole mile at the beginning. I did a run/walk that clocked in around 15 minutes and at the end of the first session I could run a whole mile in 14:30. I know this is a snail's pace (and sometimes when I go to the track there are walkers who are lapping me) but I'm proud of it anyway.

This morning's results:

23 girl push-ups in one minute (my goal is to graduate to non-pussy push-ups)
90 second wall-sit
35-ish second (I can't remember exactly) REGULAR plank
14:09 mile...still a snail's pace, but the 13's are within reach!!

All of this is awesome and it makes me feel happy and strong (except I'm kiiiiinda bent that I couldn't hold out a few more seconds on the plank because as soon as I dropped, two others dropped right after me and if I had KNOWN they were waiting for ME, I would have been waiting for THEM and a sweaty, quivering plank-off would have ensued). Still morbidly obese, but also happy and strong. Of course, it isn't without a whole new crop of problems that I didn't have when I was alternating couch-sitting with a few weekly step classes or bouts with the elliptical machine. Like HELLO, RIGHT KNEE! I never knew I had knee problems before, but good gawwwd it's a bitch. Plus, I have overall aches and pains (and not in that good aching muscle kind of way) and I feel like an old lady sometimes, but USE IT OR LOSE IT, ELIZABETH!

I'm even kind of thinking that perhaps boot camp is the cause of my recent hermit lifestyle. See, wearing heels has become somewhat uncomfortable but I'm going to hang on TOOTH AND NAIL because once I give up on heels it'll be a slippery slope to crocs and SO HELP ME GOD I'd rather die. D-I-E. Dead.

So boot camp = bad knees = sensible shoes = I'd rather just stay home.

That said, boot camp also = me kicking your ass in ways I never thought possible.