By Lisa Scottoline
Well, it happened.
I joined a gym.
It was a New Year’s resolution and it’s almost April.
I finally got started because I was on a plane and I couldn’t lift my bag into the overhead.
I tried to, but it fell back down.
Then another woman tried to help, and neither of us could get it up there.
I was doing yoga at the time, via zoom, and I loved it, but my cardiologist told me that I needed to do weight-bearing exercises.
Agree, because I can’t bear my own weight.
My other impetus was Daughter Francesca, who joined a gym in New York City and goes three days a week. She’s gotten superfit, and she’s lifting all sorts of weights, plus doing squat thrusts and Bulgarian whatevers.
And she told me, “Mom, you can do it, too!”
Please tell me I’m not the only mother trying to impress her daughter.
Who raised this kid?
In any event, to return to point, I just got back from meeting my trainer.
He’s 28 and he looks 14.
He’s handsome, but that doesn’t matter to me anymore because I didn’t even wash my hair.
I hope he doesn’t read this.
First, we met in his office at the gym, and he asked me what my goals were.
I did not say, to meet and marry Bradley Cooper.
I was trying to be professional.
So I get said to get stronger and that I would love to use those weight machines like Nautilus, back in the old days.
And he said, “Well, those machines isolate only one muscle group.”
And I said, “I know, I would like to isolate as few muscle groups as possible.”
Actually I used to love those Nautilus machines because you did the exercises sitting down.
I’m great with exercises you do sitting down.
I’m even better with exercises you do eating popcorn.
Not to brag, but I’m great at multitasking.
Sitting and eating is my superpower.
I can also walk and eat.
In fact, I have a treadmill desk and I used to eat popcorn on it while I worked. The dogs learned to sit at the end of the treadmill and get the popcorn I dropped delivered to their mouth like a conveyor belt.
Good times.
But that was then and this is now.
So my trainer devised a series of exercises for me, and I did them so he could watch me and see how bad things were.
The answer is real bad.
I don’t know what any of the exercises are called, but I did one exercise which was lunging on one side of my body, with my knee touching the floor.
But I had a hard time getting up again.
In front of everybody else at the gym.
At least I was wearing a bra.
I put it on special for the occasion.
I almost took it off in the car.
But I waited until I got home.
The other exercise was squatting, so I suppose it was called a squat.
Impressed?
Anyway I squatted the way he told me to, sticking my butt out and stretching my arms forward, but I couldn’t get up and down without grunting very loudly.
People looked over.
And then I had to do something called Farmer’s Carry, which was taking weights in each hand and walking around, like you live on a farm.
Okay, you think this sounds easy?
It’s not.
My hat is off to farmers everywhere.
I did it, but by the end I was huffing and puffing.
What’s funny is, I actually do live on a farm.
So the way I look at it, anything I carry is a Farmer’s Carry.
Even a Snickers bar.
Copyright © 2026 Lisa Scottoline
