Back by popular demand...

Well hey kids! So I'm not gonna lie - y'all take this blog seriously. I have received wall posts, status comments, emails, and even a few text messages asking (and some shameless begging) me to start this blog back up again!! It hasn't been updated for one whole year, and yet people still seem to remember it and want to read it. So why deprive my adoring public? And by public I mean the like 25 people who read it. But still. I have people.

I'm gonna dive right in before I catch you up on my life. Last night I went back to Zumba, also for the first time in a year. And may I just say, it did NOT disappoint. I was actually scared to go - not just a little nervous or somewhat worried. No, SCARED. Like, in a dark forest surrounded by spiders scared. I was convinced I was going to bust my ass or be forced to stand next to badonka donk girl again. But I made myself go.

Immediately, before the class even began, the free entertainment began. There was this couple standing in front of me, a guy and a girl probably in their mid-20's. You don't see many men in Zumba. Then again, you don't see many men in black cutoff t-shirts and spandex, but who am I to judge. So before the class he is massaging her neck, holding her waist, and then they start full on kissing. Just, you know, chilling in Zumba with 100 rhythmically challenged women, MAKING OUT. I seemed to be the only one appalled by this, so I can only assume they must be regulars and everyone has just de-sensitized themselves to this process. I, however, have not. So I start blatantly staring at them, my mouth open. I figure if you're going to do it, Ima make you feel the shame.

The class starts and homeboy starts dancing like his life depends on it. I kid you not, his hips make Shakira look Amish. Every move we did he put his own flair on and added spins and dips and extra feet and arm movements. I, meanwhile, am behind them wheezing but managing to actually keep up. We did a lot of the same songs as last year and my body remembered probably 75% of the moves. Well, every 3-4 songs we get a quick water break. On the first break, what do they do? Kiss. Big, sweaty, hot mess kissing. In ZUMBA?!?! I'm sorry, am I ON the set of Young and the Restless? No. He massages her neck, they kiss, we dance. Next break - he massages her neck, they kiss, we dance. Then, the icing on the damn cake - we are dancing and MID-DANCE he leans over and kisses her.

Now, I am all about a happy couple. I really am. I love my boyfriend with ALL my heart and I love kissing him and being all honey-mooney and obnoxious.....AT HOME. So picture me, in all my glory, standing behind them. I am fat. I am sweating. I have rosy red cheeks. I am wheezing. I am not pretty at this point. And I can't. Not. Look. It was like a Zumba Lifetime movie.

Now, all that aside Zumba was actually a lot of fun and I survived. The only number that I had trouble with was some song where our instructor yelled, "PART THE ROOM!" So I, outloud, say, "Like Moses?" and the next thing I know the room has divided in two and we are all facing each other from our respective halves. Well, because I was right in the middle of the class to start with, I end up being in the front row on my new side. This dance starts and the object is to mirror the other half of the class. Well, thats all well and good when you know the dance and have your wits about you. I, however, did not. So we start walking and turning and spinning and every single time we walked, I went the wrong way and ended up facing about 50 women (and salsa dude) facing me. Then I would spin and be face to face with the other 50 women (and no salsa dude) facing me. I was a hot. damn. mess. I never did catch on. At one point, during a fancy footwork moment I finally gave up and started marching to the beat and waving my arms like a hoodlum on holiday.

Okay, now that my Zumba stories are out of the way (don't fret. I go back tomorrow.) I will explain a tiny bit about where I am right now. As we all well know, Thintervention went fantastic last year, and then I quit. I went back to my normal anti-healthy little lifestyle, and of the 35 pounds I had managed to lose, I gained about 15 back and was probably on my way to gaining it all back. Well, for the last 6-8 months I have been having some mystery health problems that have landed me in the ER/Urgent Treatment/Doctor's office multiple times, and they can never solve the mystery. I ended up having a cat scan done in late-Spring/early Summer and things were found. Not good things, and basically was told that in about 10 years I am looking at lovely things like organ transplants, death - you know. Sunshine and rainbows. I was told I HAD to get on a doctor supervised weight loss plan and do something. Well, after exploring many, many, MANY options of the best route to take with all of this I finally settled on entering a program, doctor supervised, through a medical weight loss center. NO surgery, which I had considered briefly but ultimately decided was not for me personally. I meet weekly with doctors, nurses, nutritionists/dieticians, counselors, etc. I eat what they tell me to eat when they tell me to eat it based on everything in my body makeup. They hooked me up to a machine and measure every single aspect of my body - weight, metabolic rate, BMI, muscle mass, lean fat, bad fat, etc etc. Then they did blood work and measured my cholesterol levels, sugar levels, thyroid function, liver function - the works. Based on everything they set me up in a program that is 26 weeks long (I am in week 3 now), the first 12 of which are VERY strict. I exercise every day, I fill out a food journal, I go there every week and get checked on. It is super hard, but super awesome at the same time. I have so many people helping, and the knowledge of the doctors and nurses walking me through it all is amazing. I have lost 13 pounds so far, which equates to 52 pounds of pressure off my joints, and I already am feeling better. I am back at the weight I was after I lost all my weight on Thintervention, so now I am just getting back in the swing of things. And I don't have the choice to quit. It is very sobering to sit down and see things about your body that basically tell you the ways you will die in 10 years because of various diseases.

Okay, enough of that. But I felt I should at least fill y'all in since you're dedicated enough to read this business. I will Zumba tomorrow and make it my mission to find the most interesting thing in the room and report it immediately. Or perhaps I will just take Chad with me and sit in the middle and make out whilst we salsa. Tomato, tomahto.

Peace, love, and Zumba,
Micha