Wanted: A pair of pants that cover my butt

It’s time for a new pair of workout pants. Let me tell you why. Because of my old, worn out pants, this is how my workout went today. First, listen to Kayne West’s “Love Lockdown” while very subtlety doing a little air drumming with my right hand. The percussion in that song is just awesome, makes me want to go back in time and sign up for marching band. I tend to move to the music in some form while I workout. It amazes me how people can stoically pound away on the treadmill, listening to music on their headphones and not move to the beat in any way. No sudden hand movements, no head bopping, no slight shoulder shifting, nothing. They pump their arms and throw back their feet like a human metronome. Watching them from behind it’s just, slap, slap, slap, and elbow, elbow, elbow. If we had the space at home for a treadmill, I would sing/dance/run as much as safety and lung capacity would allow. I’ve often imagined what would happen if I just started singing along to my favorite song at my club. To just once really let it go, to belt out the song with reckless abandon while playing the air guitar and running up an incline on the treadmill. There should be a group class that encourages such behavior.

Anyway, despite this great new song, my workout ran into a little kink. My pants kept slipping down. Not just a little bit, but a lot. Already these pants are “low rise” workout pants. Today they morphed into “butt crack” pants. Now, I knew these pants were past their prime. I think they were given to me right after Elizabeth was born, which makes them about 6 years old. But, with no other clean workout bottoms to wear, I thought they would do for the day. Wrong!

Things started out ok, but as the workout went on, the pants continued to stretch out. By the last 20 minutes on the elliptical machine, I was cycling through the following pattern: three head tilts to the beat of “Love Lockdown”, one yank to bring the back of my pants up over my crack, followed by a swift pull- down- and- over- move with my shirt. The goal was to overlap the shirt with the darned pants for some additional butt crack protection. Finally, I did three confident slides on the machine knowing my crack was covered before starting the cycle all over again. After the fourth round of this, I wondered if I wasn’t attracting attention to myself with the constant pulling and tugging of my clothes. I probably looked like some lady with an unusual form of OCD.

Those pants need to be thrown away, which means I’ll have to go out hunting for new pair. And what is worse than shopping for bathing suit? Shopping for workout clothes, those of you who have done it know exactly what I mean. But I’ll take my own advice before I head out the door for a new pair. Which is: “Embrace your butt. “ Or your thighs or whatever part of yourself you are sure looks horrible. Who cares? I have this thing about appreciating your body no matter what form or shape or size it is in. Whatever hang ups you have, let ‘em go. Appreciate what your body can do for you today. I’m ok with my butt, my thighs and everything else. Listen, they are not perfect and will never be perfect and nobody really cares. Last time I checked, I didn’t have any big modeling gigs lined up and hooray for that. Honestly, there is amazing freedom in truly loving your body just as it is, no exceptions.

So while my butt and the new pants may not appear in the latest fitness magazine, it will at least stay securely covered up in a brand new pair of pants, leaving me able to get my groove on and thoroughly enjoy my workout.