How’d I do it?  With the kind advice of many, I found proper motivation and her name is Rachel Maddow.

It was not coincidental timing that my Ipod Touch arrived a couple weeks ago.  Not only did I want it because I promised myself I could have one after my special fields were done but I specifically had that device in my sights because…it plays tv shows…whichever ones I want…whenever I want…and with better clarity than my regular tv.  This thing is truly amazing.

I knew I would use it to take to the gym because I can push through just about anything physically painful if I’m watching tv.  There’s something so very calming to me about it.  But I also knew I needed to find “just that show” that would motivate me.  And it had to be something I would only watch at the gym, so in order to indulge televisionally, I’d have to go step onto that crazy elliptical and get going.

Her name? Rachel Maddow.

I’m pretty sure I’ve extolled her virtues before, but I’m renewing my accolades.  This woman is just…amazing.  I am in no way a political junkie but now I want to be one just so in case I meet her on the sidewalk I won’t embarrass myself.  Oh man, she brings it.

And I was thinking yesterday as I was “ellipticalling” away that I find great comfort in her show because *it evens out the playing field.*  It’s no secret she’s progressive–she jokes about it openly–but it rights the balance (actually it “lefts” the balance) of the media coverage we’re fed unless we’re being really aware and listening only to NPR.  When I go to find the news (maybe sadly), I’m not vigilant about where it’s coming from.  So, I take in whatever happens to be around (unless it’s Fox News which I consider on the same plane as E! News)…Rachel Maddow serves as a “corrector” of sorts to a lot of mainstream media and I’m thankful for it.

PLUS…I love that she’s somewhat set herself apart from her counterparts Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman who really come across as loud, grandstanding foils to the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world.  I don’t think she does.  She just “breaks it down.”

The bottom line for me, though?  She’s very cool.  She makes smart cool.  She makes reason and fact-checking cool.  I can appreciate her commentary on particular issues but I appreciate even more that she’s teaching all of us how to de-mystify the political process (a lot of her fact-checking comes from public sources).  She’s teaching how to create accountability.  That’s amazing.

So, agree or disagree…I say watch her…at the gym if you have to.

It’s motivation to work out.  I have none.  I currently have a fully functional gym membership, all the time in the world, and I live three blocks away and I cannot force myself to go.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I view it as “the worst thing I’ll do all day” (even though once I get there, I actively disagree with myself).  Maybe it’s because my gym clothes suck (but I love them…).  I don’t know–I just cannot force myself to get there.

So, here’s what I need.  All 3 of you who read this…I need to know how you motivate yourselves to go.  Respond in your inner monologue, using the exact phrasing you use to tell yourself the gym is a good thing and you must go.  Maybe I just need an inner monologue update.

Until then, I think I’ve talked myself into yoga as a workout again.  Yoga’s wonderful…but it’s not making my jeans any looser, if ya know what I mean…

Which I did for about 2 weeks.  And then I couldn’t get Foghat’s “Slow Ride” out of my head for weeks and the “Cliffs of Dover” on the hard setting would haunt me through the day.  So I set the whole thing aside for awhile.

But harkening back to that fateful Thursday when I met the dude off Craigslist who was scalping selling this thing to me for the bargain price of [ahem], ladies don’t talk dollars, because he worked at Best Buy and could grab ‘em up with an employee discount.  We exchanged the goods in a parking lot.  I payed cash.  It was shady and somewhat exciting.  I couldn’t let that story just go to waste.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago when EA Sports introduced Active for the Wii.  This is their far superior answer to Wii Fit and I can’t believe I’m saying this but Active makes me wake up to work out.  I wish it didn’t. But it does.  With its little red resistance band, awesomely cool “leg band” that makes ya feel like an athlete just wearing it, and the perky trainer who tells me, “I have nothing but respect for that performance.”  And I get trophies…and charts and graphs…and calorie counts.  It’s ridiculous and amazing. I’ve burned 1000 calories already.  How do I know?  I got me a trophy that says so.

I do have a little workout guilt.  After years of the grind…walking to the gym, hating the gym, hating the treadmill for 30 minutes, hating the elliptical less than the treadmill but more than the recumbent bike…I feel like this is a game.  And yet I’m a sweaty mess when I’m done so something good must be going on.

And it’s fun.  Can workouts be such a thing? Wii says yes.