I’m worried about my delts (and I don’t mean a sorority)

Before my trip to the Dominican, I wondered what the food would be like. What exactly is Dominican food?

(Hey! Have I mentioned my trip to the Dominican? My word, it’s overkill at this point and I apologize.)

I still can’t really say for sure but Dominican food seems to involve various unidentifiable meats fried into a ball-like shape, vegetables steamed beyond all recognition and color-definition, plantains, some kind of fried chicken (Please God, I hope it was chicken.) and something called Monfogo that involved pork-cracklings.

Mmmm…just like mama used to make.

And really nothing made me feel better before a meal than when our leader Brian would say, “You can eat the fruit. It SHOULD be okay.”

The difference between SHOULD and DEFINITELY is a big gamble. And losing means you might find yourself doing the walk of shame to the airplane bathroom about 152 times. In ten minutes. I believe I’ll take a pass on the papaya.

Thank goodness for beans and rice. They were the light in my darkest culinary hour.

Needless to say, since returning home, I’ve been on a bit of a food binge.

I’ve eaten untold quantities of Mexican food. Seriously, if you hear rumors of a worldwide avocado shortage, it may be my fault. I’ve had breakfast tacos, tacos nortenos, puffy tacos, crispy tacos and quesadillas. And that was just yesterday.

Thank you. I’ll be here all week.

I made chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner last night and washed it down with an iced sugar cookie in the shape of a turkey that I’d bought (and HID from my beloved family) earlier in the day.

Gulley invited me over for lunch because she’d made chicken salad and she knows I love her chicken salad. What she didn’t know was that I would eat 3/4 of the bowl by myself.

The eating isn’t the problem so much as my lack of activity over the last two months. My morning exercise regimen has basically consisted of multiple reps of lifting a Starbucks Grande cup to my mouth.

When Caroline started Kindergarten way back in August, I had the best of physical fitness intentions. Mimi and Bops have an elliptical machine, so my plan was to drop Caroline off at school every morning and then go work out on the elliptical.

I have executed that plan exactly NONE times. Really, I blame my car and its obsession with the parking lot outside of Starbucks.

I told myself that I was just enjoying my free time for a little while, but would really get serious in September.

But then it was still so hot.

Then I got bronchitis.

And then I broke my toe.

Clearly, I have been the victim of some kind of mass anti-cardiovascular health conspiracy.

But after evaluating my intake of cheese, tortilla chips, and refried beans over the last several days, I realize it’s time to step up my exercise game.

Which is to say I’m actually going to do some.

I think the lowest point came yesterday morning when I attempted to adjust the strap on my bra and my deltoid and pectoralis major totally cramped up from the over-exertion.

Sadly, that’s a true story.

And even more sad, I just shared it with the internet.