First off: many many congratulations to my best friend and her husband on the birth of their perfect, and "so teeny!" baby girl today. Good job guys, I can't wait to meet her! I'll post more thought on that later, when I'm feeling sappy.
On the the post. I thought that maybe a way to get back into blogging was to just write about mundane things, and see if anything amusing came that I could mold into a post. Then, like a lycra-clad bolt from the blue, Callanetics came into my life.
A few years ago, there was a TotalFark thread about losing weight. Several people mentioned this "Callanetics," saying things like "OMG, it works. It's hilariously 80's, but damn will it get you in shape."
Curious, I ordered the DVD from Amazon. And it has sat unopened in a pile of DVDs for at least three years. Tonight, after a horrible day at work that left me almost in tears, frustrated, and unable to work out at lunch or after work to release the tension, I scrounged around and unearthed it. In all its glory, here was my "Callanetics: 10 Years Younger in 10 Hours" box, still in its VHS-to-DVD shrinkwrap, a coating almost as shiny as the spandexed torso adorning its cover.
It's very 1986. Like, totally.
You know that one part in Ghostbusters when Dana comes home in her workout gear and talks to her mom on the phone and says she's going on a date with a Ghostbuster, "yes, those guys from TV," and then Zuul takes over her living room chair and makes it zoooom into the bedroom where he does Raimi-knows-what to her? (He gave her eyeliner, the voice of a 95-year old lifetime smoker, and a UT orange heftybag shift, we do know that much)
Well, I'm pretty sure that the pre-possession workout was Callanetics. (The post-possession workout was Louis Tulley, acting as Vince Clortho the Keymaster, and even when I saw the movie as a youngster I knew that, unaltered, she NEVER would have slept with Louis.)*
But I digress.
So I put on my workout gear and, with the cool mountain breeze drifting in through the open french doors and the soft padding of Pookie's IKEA Lekplat playmat under my bare feet, I began my first hour of Callanetics. I am not going to lie: it was hard. Not the stretching so much, but the repetition of the movements. There were several of the exercises I couldn't do as many as she demanded. So it's a good workout I might be feeling tomorrow, but that just isn't the point.
This is the a conceived and narrated by Lwaxana Troi's thin, sinewy sister, who was 49 at the time of the filming and had a hotter body than most people half her age. There is a whole subsection on "Pelvic Rotation" (which was very difficult, by the way), and the 80's synth soundtrack plays like a soft-core porn filmed on the holodeck. And a Brazillian ain't anything new, by the way. If she hadn't had one, I'd know. Those high-cut skinny crotch leotards they were all wearing didn't cover up much, and there were lots of tight-cropped shots to help one refine form. Throughout the video Callan says things of varying degrees of hilarity, including my favorite (referring to reshaping one's bottom), "You can turn that pear into a tight sweet peach."
The previous paragraph might lead one to think this DVD is sexy, sultry, erotic even. It is not. It is simply shot that way to show you how you too, in just 19 hours (the TITLE says 10, but she repeatedly stresses 19 hours) can go from flabby to fabby. And yes, everyone in the video, despite the belted leotards and frizzed up hair, is amazingly toned and thin. Not like the Paris Hilton meth skank look they have today, but sleek and long, like backup dancers in a Duran Duran video.
So where is this all going? Well, I'm going to go for 19 hours. I don't know in how long; the video says "Just twice a week!" on the cover, but as I've discovered, it fudges a bit on the numbers. I'll try to do it every night and report back. I'm leaving in a week for vacation, it will be interesting to see if I have anything to report by then. I'll measure the parts Callan repeatedly emphasizes will be reduced (saddlebags, rear) and see if they are. Or so I say - with my luck I'll be too sore to get out of bed tomorrow. (If so then hey, it's working something!)
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* - If you ever ask me a question or need something from me, and I reply in a husky voice, "There is no Dana, only Zuul," it is in your best interest to let it go. It means I'm having a pissy, pissy moment and it likely won't end well for you. Just a warning.
(If you have the wherewithall to reply, "What a lovely singing voice you must have," then you'll be granted leniency, because you are both quotey and ballsy)
