The nasty culprit responsible for my lack of exercise? Athleisure wear

When the pandemic began and we stayed home every single day, I delighted in the ability to choose comfortable clothing to lounge around. Despite gyms being closed, I knew that it would be easier to fit in a workout at any point in the day, because we had nothing else to do!

But as hours ticked by, and days became weeks, and the pandemic had no federal or state leadership by which to curb it, my anxiety rose. I voraciously read the news, and I didn't have a physical fitness routine. My dear friend was encouraging me to set an achievable goal: just get 15 minutes of exercise a day. It seemed simple enough. How many chunks of 15 minutes happen each day? Surely I can allocate one or two of them to getting exercise.

In April: I found a Youtube channel that had quick high-intensity workouts. I jumped around in our TV room, finding all of the creaky floorboards, bumping into the couch and coffee table, becoming increasingly aware that I am not as young as I used to be. Certainly not as young as some of the 20-something fitness instructors on the screen. I modified my Youtube search to find the workouts labeled "easy."

One warm day in May, feeling the need to move, I decided to create my own backyard workout plan. I ran up and down our two flights of steps leading to the second floor back entrance of our duplex. I got down into the grass and did pushups. A couple of them. Until I realized there was dog poop a couple feet away. I got crazy and did some lunges, until something in my knee moved the wrong way, and then I promptly stopped doing that.

June and July saw some weeks of practicing yoga regularly.

August and September saw a resurgence of walking the kids to school, taking the dog for a stroll in the park, breathing in the cooler air and watching the leaves change. 

The crowning achievement has been in October and November: a couple walking jogs on the treadmill in the basement that my parents brought with them when they moved into our first floor apartment. 

But no exercise routine or wellness habit has stuck during this quarantine. Nothing has become second nature or intrinsic to my quarantine days.

When getting dressed this morning, I discovered the culprit: the athleisure wear, which has been with me all along, IT has failed me. 

This hybrid fabrication of workout clothes that look cute enough to be worn out in the world, it has led me to believe that by putting it on, I would be more likely to DO the workout. Instead it lulls me with a false promise of, I will get to the workout at some point in the day. It makes me believe that because I’ve not chosen the "snappy casual" attire that my Texas alma mater taught me to wear, that there’s still hope for my body to reverse its course. There’s still a glimmer of hope that I will roll out the yoga mat, turn on the music, and prepare to down dog my anxieties away. 

By wearing the athleisure wear I silently communicate to other people – Hey, I’m not really done with this day. There’s still a workout coming. No, I haven’t showered yet, because I know that workout later today will make me so sweaty that I’ll have to shower AFTER. So no need to get all dressed up now when the workout is still coming.

Adding insult to athleisure injury: I might wear the athleisure all day (no workout to be seen), but then I spill food or coffee on them, so they must go in the dirty clothes. The very clothes that are meant for the workout are now far away – lost to the bottom of a heap. Those loads of laundry won’t see the light of day again for another couple days – maybe a week, depending on how busy my empty calendar appointments make me. 

Do I have another pair of yoga pants? Well of course I do, but those don’t stay up as well, the elastic doesn’t seem to agree with me, or the place where the pantleg ends only highlights that I haven’t shaved in weeks. That becomes distracting, because if I am on the yoga mat, and if I successfully do the forward fold, tucking my belly into my spine (which let’s face it, is more of a pleading with the pooch that’s hanging there to please talk to your group of friends all congregating around my middle. This is definitely a gathering of more than 10 people, and that is not CDC approved. While you’re at it, could you just slow your roll. And by that I mean slow the rolling of fat and gelatinous substances that seem to be on a cruise beneath my skin. We’re not even to Thanksgiving, yet.) - if I do all of this, only to see how I'm growing an Amazon rainforest of trees on my legs, then it defeats the purpose of ever getting on the mat in the first place. I'm trying to feel good about myself here!

When will I get that particular pair of yoga pants back? Probably not until Saturday. Maybe even Sunday. And hell, even when the clothes are clean, they might get folded, if the stars align, but that means they’re sitting in a laundry basket somewhere. Probably in the tv room, next to the empty wine glass and chocolate ice-cream stained bowl and spoon, right beside a collection of crumpled dryer sheets that seem to be having a meeting on the coffee table. I’d hate to disturb them. So that leaves me with no choice but to put on jeans. And we all know the jeans can’t possibly facilitate a workout. It takes too much already to cajole the jeans up over the mom hips and belly, to ask that muffin top to rise a little less, please in the oven of my life. No workout will happen once the jeans are on.

This doesn’t even begin to address the anger I feel towards the athleisure clothes for hugging my body in such a way that I believe I haven’t put on the Covid 19 pounds. That perhaps my body hasn't changed that much, as though the workout clothes make other people believe Hey, this person much be working out regularly, she's wearing workout clothes and they seem to fit. I know this is false when I turn to the pants or cute skirt that used to fit me last winter and now seems impossible to zip up.

Because the athleisure has failed me, because this pandemic was supposed to be its time to shine, I will relegate it to the misbegotten drawer in the dresser. Instead of its rightful place in the shirts and pants drawers respectively, all athleisure wear must now live next to the pajamas. That bottom drawer of the dresser is known for its anarchy; its wild-unfolded-ways. The athleisure wear may return when it can successfully display the desired outcomes for which it was purchased.