Family Fitness Challenge 2012

On Monday morning, I was sitting on my aunt’s bed as she tried to pawn off her old clothes to me.

“Is this your style?” She held up an algae-green tulle skirt. “It’s a nice color,” she said hopefully. I shook my head. She held it up to herself and made a disgruntled sound.

“I should exercise more,” she said. I jumped up and clapped my hands.

“Fitness challenge!” I shrieked. She startled at the noise. “Fitness challenge!” I said again. “Come on! We’ll get started today. It’ll be so fun. I’ve been looking for someone to do it with me.”

There was a need for such enthusiasm. Dutch cuisine is not world-famous, but for the uninitiated, let me introduce you: coffee and sandwiches.

Those sandwiches, by the way, are eaten with any of the following: nutella, hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), vlokken (bigger chocolate sprinkles), suikerbuikjes (tiny cookies), appelstroop (apple sugar syrup), or gestampte muisjes (literally, just sugar). My personal favorite is ontbijtkoek, which is essentially breakfast cake.

So it may come as no surprise to you that my body is “adjusting” to this new diet. In my defense, licorice is a food group here.

My aunt agreed to the challenge, albeit with less motivation than I had. Then the news of a competition hit the rest of the house.

We live with two men.

My aunt has since dropped out, and my uncle, who can do a headstand and casually mentioned that after the 300 mark, he finds sit-ups boring, isn’t too concerned. My cousin and I, however, are in it to win it.

In addition to completing the daily workout he and I have set up, it’s my goal to be able to do a single pull up (shush). His only goal to beat me.

But hey, I finally have a workout buddy. I can’t complain.