Guilt-Free Trend Follower

I've felt guilty about liking barre as much as I do. 

Let's operationalize that a bit. 

I started out fine, just one class a week. And then, on a week when I couldn't go to my regular Saturday class, I went to a Thursday class. And found that class, while somewhat less intensive than Saturday, to be more laid back. 

So then I started going twice a week. 

And then I realized that for cheaper than the cost of two classes a week, I could get an unlimited pass, thanks to getting a 12-month contract. 

And that is how you give a mouse a cookie, she spends half of her clothing budget at Athleta, and she goes to Pure Barre four days a week. (She has not set foot in Lululemon, because they seem to excel at body shaming as a corporation, and body shamers don't get my money.)

But I feel guilty because barre is so damn trendy. And I've never exactly been a fan of that trendy thing, because apparently I've always felt better than that. Or something. 

Yet here I am, happily going four times a week, feeling guilty if I don't, and feeling somewhat bashful when I start discussions about fitness with "So, at barre," or "I went to barre," or "We were doing this thing at barre."

My first class started out innocently enough. I was going to run my first 5K the next day, and I didn't want something super intense. (I learned my lesson quickly...) 

The instructor greeted me, and laid out the expectations pretty cleanly: I was probably going to feel awful at it at first, and everyone does, and that's OK. She was going to correct me, and was going to touch me when she did so, and she was going to correct everyone. It wasn't just me. But that after a few classes, I'd start to feel better at it. 

The first 15 minutes? Sucked. Sucked hard. And it was a harder workout than I would have imagined (literally, I thought the rest of the day that I had some GI bug, because my abs had never hurt like that before).

But I realized I loved it. I loved how my body felt when I did it -- and that part was the shocker. 

I liked that I felt competent at something. And that I didn't feel like the fattest person in the room. And that here was something positive I could do with my body, without fighting my body.

That combination is what's kept me going back. Trendy clothes, activity, and all.