I live in Los Angeles, so I have year-round outdoor work
out capabilities, which is both a blessing and a curse, if you know what I
mean.  But hey, I need to do it and
so I’m very lucky to be able to get a great workout without needing to join a
gym.

In fact, there’s a great hill just blocks from my house I
can walk up and down and all around for some good cardio.  There is even a set of steps – talk
about your stairmaster.

However, I have lived here (in Los Angeles) for 18 years,
and have become quite acclimated to the weather, meaning I don’t have a very
high tolerance for cold.  Or
really, any tolerance whatsoever.

So when it gets to be the dead of winter around here, like
about 58 degrees (any Steve Martin fans out there?), my hands are cold when I
go outdoors in the morning to take the kids to school and for my workout
walk.  I have suffered in silence
and in loudness my cold hands, and then I decided to stop “suffering” and wear
gloves.

 
Yes, I wear gloves in Los Angeles.  In our “winter”.  And even sometimes as late in the year
as April or May.  Go ahead,
laugh.  You know you want to.  It’s OK.  I understand.

 But I’ll have the last laugh, because my hands are toasty
warm.  Ahhhh.

 So, I in addition to the gloves, I wear a hat, since I’m a
woman of ADVANCING years, and so I don’t need any more help achieving wrinkles,
thank you very much.  And because I
grew up on Maui, in the 70’s, and we just didn’t really read the fine print on
the sun block memo.  Hence, we
spent most of our time in the sun NOT wearing any.  (Actually, we went in for suntan OILS at the time.  Hinano Tahiti oil, Hawaiian Tropic, and
good old Johnson’s baby oil.  Can
you sense it?  Feel the wrinkles
forming even in memory?  Yup.)

I tried a baseball hat*
 at first, but it didn’t cover the
back of the neck, or any on the side of my face, so I wanted more.  More coverage.  And I found this:  in the gardening section at
Target.  
I love it.  Perfect for weeding, except for the
fact that I don’t weed.  (Please
see previous post.)  So I wear it
for walking.

 And this being LA, one doesn’t go ANYWHERE without one’s
sunglasses on, so I don’t.

 Now, I’d like to lose a little weight while I’m walking,
so logic would dictate that in order to lose weight, you need to put on
additional weight, right?  Well,
you might think I’m crazy, but check out the WALKVEST.  You stick the little weights in the
little slot/pockets and viola! 
You’re 8 pounds heavier! 
Which means you’ve got resistance training going on, and you’re working
harder to work off the weight.

 Which is great. 
Except, you look ridiculous. 
That is, I look ridiculous. 
Patently ridiculous.  See?

 But here’s the cool part:  I don’t care anymore. 
I have realized that I am really a grownup now because I can go out in
public looking like this and not feel embarrassed.  Because I’m working out!

* When I did wear the baseball hat with the WalkVest, I
looked like an FBI agent, or maybe DEA, so I had to stop.  Talk about ridiculous!

An original post by Sarah Auerswald.