Bathing Suit Season is on the Horizon

Bathing Suit Season Lurks

OMG! Are you ready to funnel that body into a bathing suit in another month? Because that’s what’s going to happen when summer creeps up on us before we realize all this cold weather is going to transition straight into hot weather without a warning. And it’s coming faster than you think.

We’ll wake up one morning, it’ll be hot, and we’ll be left standing in our woolies saying, “No way am I getting into shorts and a halter top.” This week’s warm wave is like a friendly hit over to head to remind us that it’s looming and we’d better get our winter tires off (and I’m not talking about the car, ladies). Soon the kids will be begging to swim at Pine Lake and we mothers will be cowering on the ‘beach’ in the shade, dressed from the neck to the ankles, unable to inflict our bathing suit look on innocent children. It’s going to be embarrassing, unless we do something about it. How much do you have to lose? Five pounds? Ten? How about firming all the jiggly areas? I can’t just count on gardening to take the winter weight off. I don’t have that much garden. Unfortunately, I must wage war on fat this year and be more aggressive, having spent months at the computer in an oversized T-shirt.

Try Googling “exercise classes, Sammamish” and you’ll find marshal arts, various dance classes (including pole dancing at Spinderella Studios), aerobics in Redmond, Hot Yoga in Issaquah, early morning classes at the YMCA, if you’re a member, and various websites for gyms such as Gold’s and Klahanie Fitness. The suggestion of Boot Camp comes up and, although I wholly support those early morning ladies in yoga attire who push their limits at the Sammamish public parks at 7 a.m. each morning, I am not one of them. I do not feel ready to rise at six and get my carcass over to a park to go full steam ahead before my children have even gone to school. I need something later in the morning when the coffee has had a chance to kick in. When my eyes aren’t puffy and my body isn’t closed up like a flower that only blooms in the sunshine.

So…I signed up for an exercise class after years of thinking I could do this on my own.  I wanted to think I’d get my exercise playing with my kids, walking the dogs, doing housework (Ugh). Not so. But if I have a date on the calendar every Wednesday and Friday (think of it as a girlfriend’s birthday lunch at Pomegranate), I will go. Especially, because I prepaid and being a cheapo, I will not throw money down the toilet. Accountability is a good motivator for me. It’s easy to think “Oh, I’ll exercise Thursday after next, if the wind is blowing from the northeast.” But having a class this way, I’m not tempted to answer the phone, check emails or do the dishes. I’ve set aside the full hour to exercise.

I recently discovered my perfect exercise class -- Barre3. It’s in Bellevue, just off 405, near Bravern so although it’s not here on the Plateau (yet?!) it’s a quick trip.

Their training methods concentrate on strengthening and elongating your muscles, making your body a better machine. It’s not aerobics. It’s not Pilates or yoga or ballet but a combination of the last three. All I know is that in the 60 minute class, I work my backside off and leave there feeling great. There’s parking, I show up 5 minutes before class, find my place at the Barre that overlooks a field where people walk their dogs and the hour goes by quicker than you can say, “I can’t flatten my hands on the floor with straight legs.” It’s not a fashion show, everyone works at their own degree of difficulty and the instructors are awesome. Check it out.

The Bellevue and Capitol Hill franchises are owned by two ‘Teau Mamas, Anna and Heather, which makes my choice even more awesome. I love to support other Moms when they re-enter the working world after launching their children into the school system. Both these ladies are certified trainers and know their stuff, which is important when they’re telling your body to do something that feels like torture. I want to know that if I take my leg and put it in an unnatural position someone has researched that it’s not going to maim me for life. They offer child care for a small fee and one of my workout girlfriends uses that feature for her one-year-old twins, while she gets her pre-baby body back to its fighting shape. I like Barre3 for lots of reasons, not just the orange walls which make me happy, nor the fact that the instructors look like the cover of Shape magazine and I work harder to get that look and not just because King5 voted the Bellevue facility the “Best of Western Washington” or that Madonna loves the workout, but because I can actually see results after two weeks. And I figure I only have another four weeks before I sausage this body into my leopard print bathing suit and hope for the best.

What about you? Are you ready?