Outside My Comfort Zone: On butter and boot camp

Why, oh why, did I sign up to start a 90-day boot camp program at a local gym?  And why did it have to start the same week I arrived back from a site visit to Mobile, Ala., for a large convention I’m planning in 2012? Did I know somehow that I’d spend four days in Mobile eating at restaurants named “Stick of Butter” with creations by Paula Deen?

She toured the USS Alabama, docked in Mobile, while on her "Stick of Butter" tour in Mobile. It's Deb Ferns and a battleship.

I found out first hand that my hosts in Mobile, as do all the natives I met there, like to enjoy their meals in a very civilized fashion, i.e., two hours for a leisurely lunch and three to four hours for a wonderful dinner with several courses. Service was good, food was great and I didn’t see a glimmer of a “light” menu anywhere I visited. Truthfully I was grateful that as I left Mobile I could still fit into the airline seat without using seatbelt extenders!

Then the dreaded next day back at my home base in Tucson, where the adage of “all good things must come to an end” was proven true as I checked in for the first day of boot camp. First, my trainer, retired from the military, used the worst swear words of all: “Deb, we have to do a body fat analysis.”

Then, he went on to torture me with a cardio program that included a resistance bicycle with the smallest (and sharpest) seat I’ve ever sat on.  From there we went on to finish our camp adventure (sarcasm intended) with something called “functional training” exercises.  Now I didn’t think this last part was too awful, except at one point my trainer asked if I was suffering from Parkinson’s.

I looked at him and shook my head no, wondering why he’d even ask. That’s when he mentioned that those are the only people he has ever seen whose arms and legs shake as much as mine did during the various functional training exercises. I finally came clean with him about my “stick of butter” overdose and that what he was seeing was actually something like the DTs since I’ve also started somewhat of a diet at the same time I started boot camp.

My trainer agreed the diet was a good idea; he encouraged me that laying off the sugar and butter was an even better idea.  Then to add injury to insult, he mentioned that most people getting off the resistance bicycle don’t hold onto their buttocks, muttering as they go into the locker room, “I’ve been crippled.” He then went on to add that stops in the locker room between each area of boot camp also wasn’t part of the routine. That’s when I informed him I visited the locker room as a favor to him since I threw up the coffee and donut I had eaten on the way to the gym.

Deb saw this sign in a shop window in Mobile. She wants to order it.

I sensed by now my new trainer (who is a tri-athlete  by the way) was starting to feel like he was losing ground, so he went back to military mode with a loud command of “No coffee, no donuts on the way to boot camp – understand!” To which I replied in my normal voice (which is loud), “I do understand, coffee and donuts AFTER boot camp, not before!”

I like my new trainer, I really do and I want to make this a win-win for both of us so I’m going to work at the diet and exercise with a bit more diligence. However, in reflection, it would seem the moral of this story is that you can take the stick of butter away from the girl but you can’t take the stick of butter off the girl without some serious effort.

© Deb Ferns

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