Sustained Beauty

I looked in the mirror. My face was a weird shade of purple, my hair was sticking out at all angles around my head, and all of my visible skin was shiny and red.

My Italian Mama stood next to me. Her face was slightly tinged with pink, she wasn't shiny. She didn't look rumpled. She looked pretty.

Believe it or not, we just finished the same workout. We did the Zumba "Sculpt and Tone" followed by the "Flat Abs" routine. Looking at the two of us, one could assume one of two things: 1) I worked out wayyyyy harder than she did or 2) she's in unbelievably better shape than I am. While the second may be true (though she denies it), the first is simply not true. She wiggles and bounces right along with me.

Then why do I need to cool down, shower, change, and rearrange my face, while all she has to do is put on different clothes? And the only reason that she even has to do that is because neither of us is in in the habit of wearing work-out clothes around the house or the town.

My face turns red when I merely think of working out. It proceeds quickly through the shades of red to a blotchy purple within minutes of beginning to exercise.

She has what I recently dubbed "sustained beauty." She can Zumba her heart out and appear no different for it. She believes that this is a disadvantage because people assume that she isn't working out as hard. I am jealous. While I collapse on the floor, panting and dripping, she sits on the couch and calmly and coolly checks her twitter. So much more ladylike.

One thing that is not different between the two of us is the result of this Zumba-ing. We both sweat (although I appear to do so to a greater degree) and we've both gained (yeah, that's right) three pounds over the past three weeks. What the heck?! Shouldn't a70 minutes of cardio and light weight training every day help you lose weight? Or at least maintain your current weight? What's with the upward tending of the scale's needle???

Now I've come to grips with the fact that my Italian heritage will not allow me to have slender hips, and small bum, and little thighs. What I got ain't goin' nowhere. I will never be skinny or slender or elegant. The most I can accomplish is a curvy cute due to the combination of short stature and genetics. All I'm asking is that I don't gain weight when I work out.