Denise

I started exercising not too long ago. Probably about 3 months now, and I've really noticed a change in my body. Richard Simmons has gotten too easy, unless I turn every knee bend into a deep squat, and add a hop every chance I can. But I didn't have Richard when I first began exercising. All I had was an old Denise Austin tape from 1986.
I hate that tape. It's from the early days of aerobics, so all it is is Denise running in place and waving her arms around different ways. For the first few weeks I would feel like throwing up after I was done with it. When I exercised, I would imagine she was a puppet. I would swear at her, say I hated her.
Then I discovered my library had a huge exercise collection, so I started doing those instead, leaving Denise as my "punishment" tape--punishment for not having the forethought to get something better at the library. Believe me, I did not revisit it for quite some time.
Then one morning, all I had was Denise and a Harry Potter movie. I put them on, side by side, (yes, on two tv's!)and worked out. The Denise exercises were easy, and I followed them out of the corner of my eye. Maybe because it was from the corner of my eye, I noticed this:

Poor Denise! Her '80's hair is all sticking up wrong, she's staggering about, her hand movements all limp and uncontrolled. And I felt really bad. I don't know how many takes it took to do this one half hour of film, but it looks like they ran her ragged--and I started to wonder if I were in better shape now than she was then, even with my beer gut.