minalisms

Somehow, my coworkers persuaded me to participate in the Go! St. Louis Marathon Relay with them.

I’ll be part of a four-person, matchy-matchy team that will run 26.2 miles altogether — 6.5 miles per person — on April 19.

Training begins Monday, and my boss, who is captain of my team, sent a peppy, “Yes, we can!” e-mail today offering a workout schedule that team members can execute at our company’s fitness center. All that did was annoy me.

“Does everyone have to be so serious about this?” I thought, realizing a nanosecond later that my posing the question is precisely why I haven’t been able to lose, and keep off, the excess pounds.

Aside from the slices of cantaloupe (and honeydew melon I had already consumed), my holiday plate was full of delicious rubbish consisting of:

1. fudge
2. brownie
3. macaroon
4. pecan pie

It’s likely there was a cookie on here, too. But I must have nibbled it up before this shot, which was taken after I realized that today’s 50 minutes of stinky cardio will not be worth a damn.

So what if it’s not a word; the truth is that there are at least two people acting as my conscience.

News got out recently (likely from my big mouth) that I’ve implemented an exercise routine. Now I’m being held to it.

My co-worker Julie piped up yesterday around 2:30 in the afternoon to ask, “Minal Gandhi, did you go work out today?”

There was a pause. And then a look — from me to her, and vice versa.

She raised her eyebrows in a no-nonsense manner, waiting for me to respond.

“Umm, no…?” I said finally, trying to make my guilt sound adorable.

I wasn’t successful.

Julie told me that I never should’ve let her know about my fitness goal, because now she’s going to check in regulary to ask whether I made my promised visit to the company’s gym. This was after she revealed that she’s been exercising every day since March (or was it May?) and that she’s lost 30 pounds altogether thus far. She added also that she gets up around 5 each morning to get her workout in.

I sat there quietly for several minutes — vexed.

And then, a half-hour later, I was sweating on a treadmill.

Even if my conscience isn’t effective, I can at least say I have another one that is.

Google Analytics is quite the marketing tool. From the time it was set up for this Web site, I’ve been able to track the number of daily visitors, where my visitors reside and which posts/pages were most popular — among other data.

But one insight I’ve gained is too disturbing.

It comes by way of the keyword section of Google Analytics, which tells me why some people visited my blog.

To say that we are a country obsessed with a woman’s weight is the biggest understatement of all time. Keyword searches such as “measurements average woman,” “size 2 women’s measurements” and “36 24 36″ have brought at least one visitor to my site every day since I wrote this blog.

Is it a wonder why young American women, including myself for the past many months, consistently grapple with their weight? We’re so busy seeking the answer for the perfect body that we’ve yet to realize the heaviness of our self-inflicted misery.

• drank too many margaritas at my bachelorette party.
• damned the creep who dented my parked car.
• married Benny Sheps.
• bought a house.
• hyphenated my last name.
• ate just one helping of turkey.
• thanked God I wasn’t living in the apartment anymore.
• wiped water off the floor of a flooded kitchen.
• warmed up in front of my fireplace twice.
• drained water out of a flooding basement.
• met three handymen.
• experienced buyer’s remorse.
• pored over Consumer Reports recommendations.
• hugged my very own washer/dryer.
• tightened up a leaky water faucet.
• swooned over the water and ice dispenser in my new fridge.
• shooed cats off kitchen countertops thrice.
• grimaced over my appearance in wedding photos.
• incessantly called myself fat.
• stopped calling myself fat.
• started working out.
• cried twice.
• laughed daily.