Maybe it’s the craziness of the holidays, but my exercise schedule has been a bit… different. Sure, I’ve thrown in some traditional workouts at Shocker Fitness. But mainly I’ve been sticking to “Carlycise” – the act of drinking copious amounts of red wine, watching bad reality television like Jersey Shore, eating fried food and running my mouth. No calories are burned except when laughing, no muscles are exerted except when moving my hand from my plate to my mouth and no sweating happens except when having a little too much wine which always warms me up. When it comes to Carlycise, I got this.

In between workouts at Shocker Fitness and Carlycising, I also tried the Dancing with the Stars: Cardio Dance DVD.

The Good: It was upbeat and had fun music. It wasn’t too difficult yet I felt like I got a good workout in.

The Bad: The instructors were a bit too perky for my taste. I like my instructors to be energized, but this felt fake and pretty much annoyed me the entire time.

The Ugly: Despite repeatedly doing this workout I am still not a star nor am I someone who can dance. What kind of nonsense is this?!?

I’ve also been blogging over on Tumblr, the blogging community that allows you to follow other users – kinda like Twitter, but with blogs. Lately I’ve noticed that a lot of the people I follow are starting new workout routines and/or changing up their diets. It’s been fun to follow along and see what works for them whether that be counting calories, cutting out sugar or trying a vegetarian diet. While none of those are things that I personally want to do because I will never give up chocolate or meat, it is nice to feel a sense of community with people who are switching up their routines and trying new things.

As for me… I think I’ll just Carlycise for the rest of the year. As 2009 comes to an end, my stress level continues to rise and frankly a bottle of red wine and some mindless television is the way I handle that stress. It may not be the healthiest approach to stress management but it’s my approach so I think I’ll just stick to what I know for now and that is:

1. Relax Cool Red is delicious and cheap.
2. The Anchor makes my favorite quesadillas ever.
3. “Fist pumping like a champion” never fails to make me laugh.
4. Cupcakes from Sugar Sisters make it all okay.
5. Training for a 5K is a long road on which I am currently experiencing turbulence.

Related posts:

1. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can: Week 4
2. [move] Running Just as Fast as I Can: Week 8
3. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can: Week 2
4. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can: Week 3
5. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can: Week 5