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I've been pretending to exercise from about the age of 15.

I would dress up in a tee shirt and running shorts. Complete with trainers/takkies/sneakers. Tie my hair back. Get the dogs and proclaim I was taking them for a run.
In actual fact what I was doing, was jogging down to the next road where a Boys Town was, palming my dogs onto the little boys who would take them for a much longer, harder run than I ever would have, in exchange for a few lollipops. What I would be doing was flicking my hair out my ponytail, batting my eyelashes and flirting with and at the older boys (my age). I don't think my mother ever knew that.

This pretending to exercise continued when we moved to Port Elizabeth. I would have to do some running but then it was time to sneak a ciggie out my shorts and smoke while the dogs ran riot in the quarry. Those Keep Out signs didn't even flicker onto my brain.

I have been quite proud of the fact that I have NEVER done a circuit of a gym. I look at the running machines, akin to how a lot of people look at asparagus and olives. With a mixture of horror and revulsion.

I did Boxercise for a few weeks - thankfully, I then broke my hand and had the ideal excuse not to attend anymore. Incidentally I did not break my wrist/hand/etc to avoid Boxercise but it did come at the right time. I tried body conditioning but I thought I was going to die.

I've got enough exercise DVD's to start my own exercise dvd shop but they bore me after about two go's on them.

Suffice to say - if you want me to do exercise, I'll find an excuse to bail out of it. It's not that I don't like exercise, it's just that I felt I was slim enough without needing it really. And it all requires just so much effort. Effort and energy I could spend doing something else, like writing this blog for instance. I have the attention span of a goldfish..... oooh look I'm making excuses again.

My point being that after having a great metabolism for the last many decades, it's finally caught up with me and I'm beginning to resemble the baby Buddha I was prior to being 2. I no longer burn fat just by staring into a book. I don't want to stop my lovely food - therefore I realise I have to stop the procrastinating and literally get off my arse and do something.

So I've got a contraption. I don't know what it's called. A gym buff would...but I refer you to paragraph 4. It's got steps and swingy arms and legs.

And I think it tried to kill me last night.

It folds up like an ironing board (another thing I struggle with) and it quite perplexed me as to how it unfolds. I took so long trying to logically work it out, that the damned thing bit my fingers - much like an ironing board does. Eventually The Teenager had to do it for me.

I then decided to start off slow and build up the speed. This worked. I got into a stride and then I ....double bounced? I overstepped? Anyway, I nearly fell off it at great speed. My heart was so shocked at the activity I was doing, it nearly climbed out of my chest and there were bits of me wibbling away, that I didn't know existed on my body!

BUT, I quite liked it too.... and since it's only me I'm fooling by pretending to do exercise, I might just continue with it.

There's also the fact, I have no room to buy new clothes to fit the ever expanding me.