Does your butt feel like it's waving at people?

• Being a semi-pro cheerleader, I have to be in the gym at least semi of the time. But I like to go a lot. It makes me feel good to know I've busted some of the fat deposits in my love handles. But nothing really chaps me more than the girl popping diet pills, whining about how she never has time to work out and eating a whole wheat bagel doused in half a tub of light cream cheese because she eats healthy for the most part, right? People prioritize what they want to. So on that note, while I'm procrastinating grading papers, I wanted to give women my list of the do's and don'ts of the gym.
  
  
  Wanna actually make a dent in those thunder thighs?
  Do's and Don'ts:
• Come with your iPod charged and with songs that actually motivate you. Playing with your iPod throughout your workout does not excuse you from actually working out.
• Sweat. Push yourself. I love the women that come to workout and they get to their third rep or 1.5 minutes into their fast walk and give up because it hurts. Of course it hurts. That's the feeling of e-x-e-r-c-i-s-e. The last time you used that muscle or joint was to pick up the 6000 calorie macadamia nut cookie with marshmallow creme filling you called five second rule on.
• Pick up a weight. Not one that has a single digit on it. It must have two numbers, like ten. My favorite gal at the gym has it all: yoga pants, the skin tight Affliction t-shirt, Nike Shocks, huge fake boobs and weightlifting gloves. And she's lifting 8 lb. weights 65 times. Your purse weighs more than 8 pounds, empty. Here's a tip: lift some REAL weight if you want to lose some serious fat deposits. You know the kind that actually makes you feel fatigued and like you maybe moved a little. It's no secret that toned muscle tissue sends your fat-burning metabolism into another dimension. You don't have to be the Incredible Hulk to do it either.
• Change it up. If you're still a flabby carcass doing the same workout that worked for you in high school, figure it out. Times have changed and so has your metabolism. You're aging. Act like it and work out like it.
• Plateau? Are you giving muscles a challenge by doing different moves? When you're bored, you do nothing. When your muscles are bored, they do nothing either.
• Do not bring your cell phone to the gym. If you're that desperate for attention that you can't leave your phone for an hour to give your side boobs some love, you need Dr. Phil, not a health club. Tonight, I saw a chick doing leg extensions. She was lifting an ever impressive 5 pounds and texting the entire time. You should see her thighs. Man they're hot..... a hot freakin mess.
• Holy crap. There's the lady on the elliptical who is moving so slowly it doesn't even register on the machine. She's too absorbed watching the HGTV channel to know that she's burning more calories in her mind learning how to Flip That House than her legs are combined. My dead grandmother moves faster. If you're gonna show up, at least pretend to work out.
• Do not wrap yourself in Saran wrap. It does not help.
• Don't eat a loaf of whole grain bread, a bag of lima beans and half a chicken because all of a sudden you're hungry from working out. You deserve it, right? WRONG. You deserve a pimp slap for not having any self control and for ruining the one workout you did this week. Eat less food more often. And put down that damn brownie.
  
  
  Listen, many people have asked what I do to keep myself in shape. That's not an arrogant statement. It's a humbling compliment with a harsh answer: I WORK HARD FOR IT. And so does that other girl you wish you could be. If you want to be fit like you have never been, you muscles have to do what they've never done. So... hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Zumba we go......
  
  
  
  MEN: You're not off the hook. You've got another thing coming, Julia Sugarbaker style. Most of you are tools at the gym. You're efforts and gawking are not appreciated and are mostly laughable. We'll talk more about that later. I have to go grade papers.