Hire my Hubby (if you want a sadistic trainer)

I love the man. Oodles and buckets. Working out with him is one of the smartest decisions I have made in a long time. The end results will prove this. Meanwhile for now my muscles scream in terror when we get to the gym.

He won’t let me overdo anything, which is great. I want to start with heavier resistance than I should, and it’s great that he is preventing me from doing that. But he makes me do 3 sets of ten reps on 3 or 4 machines and laughs – he laughs an evil giggle – when I grunt or spit fire at him because my muscles have turned to jelly and are protesting vigorously. His laugh as he increased the resistance on the elliptical is still echoing in the gym. How was I supposed to know that level 1 was for wussies??

However when the KoD is massaging his sore muscles from the insane workout he does I am all tea and sympathy. No evil laugh anywhere to be found. Why is this? he keeps telling me it will be worth it in the end.

I’m so impatient though. I want results. I want them now. And I see no change, no muscle definition, no six pack – although I do have more energy. KoD tells me I have to give it at least a fortnight to start seeing any difference.

I told him he is the trainer from Hell. He does not let up. He says that he has seen trainers that are way too easy on their clients. You are paying for their service – they need to provide the right bang for your buck.

Maybe this could be a career shift for the KoD? Would you hire my sadist husband to train you??

(Blogged with permission from his KoDness)

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WWYD – gift from ex spouse

I received this email from a reader.

Dear Mama H,

I hope you can help me out. I recently celebrated a significant birthday and my ex husband sent me a sizable gift card to an online store. We have been divorced for a number of years and I have since remarried. Our children live with me, and their father constantly gives me a hard time about his duty to provide child support. No matter that it has been years and that I have obviously moved on, he still feels emotionally tied to me.

I just want him to support my children, not send me gifts. My new husband said I should spend the money on stuff for the children, but another friend said that keeping it sends the message that it is appropriate. She says I should send it back.

WWYD – please help me do the right thing!

Rachel

Hi Rachel.

If we were talking about my own ex husband I am not sure what I would do. We have both moved on emotionally, remarried and are living our lives peaceably and are not fighting about anything. Our issues are dead and buried. Yet, still, on some level, such a gift from him would make me feel awkward. What is the message behind it?

I am not sure what I would do in your situation – I like the idea of spending it on the children BUT as your friend said, that doesn’t get the message across to your ex that this was inappropriate.

Let me open it up to my readership – WWYD in this situation, readers? Has this happened? How did it make you feel? What did you do?

JTA Twitter 100

The JTA has named its top 100 Jewish influential twitter users of this year. I was so absolutely shocked to see that I am at #14!! You can see their whole list and their explanation of the results by clicking this link.

I want to wish a huge mazel tov also to my dear friends who also made it to this list – @primetimeparent, @kvetchingeditor, @benjilovitt, @mottel, @jyuter, @vboykis and @dovbear. And a hearty congrats to EVERYONE that made it to the list and was nominated.

Help Me Understand – Tales from the Gym Part 2

So my gym has facilities that are co-ed, and separate. If you are male and want to work out with just men – there’s a room for that with ample machines and weights. If you are female and want to work out in front of just women – you can – with machines and weights. If it doesn’t bother you either way and you want to work out in a huge room with the best selection of machines, and a track etc – there is the huge co-ed work out floor.

If you are so frum (religious) that you won’t even wear work out gear, if you are so frum that you are on the treadmill in your white shirt and Shabbat pants and dress shoes, if you are so frum that you work out with your payes and tzitzit flying and cannot even begin to imagine putting on a pair of sneakers – why are you working out in the co-ed room? Why are you not in the men’s only room? If you are so frum that you have to work out in a long skirt and a sheitel (yes, I have seen it), if you are so frum that you cannot wear sneakers with your long skirt, but are wearing crocs on the treadmill because they are more kosher than sneakers, if you are so frum that if a man who is not married to you spoke to you you’d run the other way – why are you not working out with all the other women?

Seriously folks – this makes no sense to me. I respect everyone’s right to work out and get healthy. I just don’t understand the mind set that doesn’t allow the change of clothing for work out purposes at all, yet seems to permit working out in full view of the opposite sex, some of whom are not modestly attired, when there are facilities to do so in a single sex venue.

Can someone explain this inconsistency to me??