The Cat is on Atkins and I Want Hip Hop Abs.

Bella the cat stood on the scale earlier this week. 13.5 pounds, down from a career high of 14.5 at her last vet visit.  At the suggestion of my sister Blondie, she's been on a mostly wet-food diet with a maximum of two treats per day for about three weeks. It does seem to be working.  I'm not sure if this is connected to her new svelte frame or just a function of the house being covered in SHINY SHINY SHINY, but she's also been racing around the house like Lindsay Lohan after midnight for the past week. Interesting.

I, on the other hand, have already hit the high end of my five-pound comfort range three weeks before Christmas.  So not good.  Usually I don't hit it in until my birthday in February, when I'm forced to admit my jeans don't fit so well. I've just sort of let myself go a bit this fall.  There was the book tour thing, and the work-is-insane thing, and the it's-really-hard-to-work-out-when-you-quit-the-YMCA-near-the-office thing and the I'm-exhausted thing.  There's also been this business of drinking wine all the time.  How are all the Europeans so damn thin? 

In my quest for better jeans-fitting, I've been upping my time on the elliptical machine at the little workout room at my homeowner's association clubhouse.  (I know, that sounds so WASPY I could die, but it's free, or at least covered in my dues, and I like the price of that.)  Anyway, it seems that my fellow exercisers like to watch infomercials, so right before Thanksgiving I was subjected to a thirty-minute infomercial on Hip Hop Abs.  It's just another workout DVD, really, but the testimonials really were quite convincing, and seeing my abs leave a lot to be desired now, I decided to get it.  I immediately Googled it to see if it was similar to BMG (for which one purchase dooms you to a life sending back unopened shit), and lo, it is. The complaints about this company were all over the Internet, how once they got your credit card, you were screwed forever, etc.  So I did what any red-blooded female would do:  I went to Ebay instead.  A week later, my DVDs arrived.

So far, I've done two of the workouts. On Sunday, I did the total body burn. And yes, my body burned.  However, I have to say that Shaun T dude (I've probably misspelled his name) is cheery.  Yes, he makes me want to funk it up a little -- HEEEEY.  I gave it a rest on Monday, then yesterday I did the total body burn AND the shorter starter workout.  By the end, I could barely raise my legs above knee level.  Strangely, my abs don't hurt.  My thighs and butt are killing me.  Apparently I'm not doing the tilt, tuck, tighten thing correctly.  It could also be that despite years of dance class, I have never been able to get down with the hip hop.  I have killer body rolls, my jazz hands outshine all others, and I can hold second position, but I can't walk funky.  I don't know why. I just can't.

As I was doing these two workouts yesterday, I was relieved my husband wasn't home yet.  I must first master the funk before I allow other people to see me doing this.  In the meantime, hopefully I'll be unwrapping a six-pack (or more realistically, losing five pounds without resorting to X-treme Dieting, which I avoid like the plague since that little anorexia incident all those years ago) by New Year's.  Even with pie.

HEEEEEY.

Or at least keep up with my cat.