Rock climbing can be a great fitness date

One night I was sitting on the couch watching TV while, unbeknownst to me, Awesome was taking candid photos of me talking to him with his iPad.

Once I discovered the source of his uncontrollable laughter, I grabbed the iPad away from him and swiped through the photos, growing more horrified with each one at the sight of what I unaffectionately call my “farms,” or “fat arms.”

Of course, as soon as I mentioned this, Awesome immediately told me I was being crazy, but those damn photos don’t lie. Obviously I’ve gotten a little off my exercise game since I got into my cozy relationship.

It’s not that I never work out.

It’s just that Awesome and I have been in the relationship bubble for almost two months and it’s thrown us both off our exercise and diet regimen.

I used to do Zumba once or twice a week, yoga, kickboxing, running, you name it, at least four times a week. Awesome, a part-time rock climbing instructor, was climbing nearly every day, but between his full-time job, his newly acquired part-time job teaching, and me, it’s been cut down to a couple times per week.

Plus all these dates we were never going on before add up to one large scale calorie bomb apocalypse.

Going to the movies? Obvs you gotta get the large popcorn so you can graze hands through the buttery goodness. Snuggling on the couch watching The Big Bang Theory = grilled-cheese sandwiches and potato chips. Not to mention all the dinners out: steak and baked potatoes, sushi rolls and rice, bison burgers and greasy fries. And as the summer comes it’s only going to get worse. Snowballs, ice cream cones, funnel cakes, beer gardens, hot dogs, barbeques, crabs…I could go on but I’m about to eat my arm off.

We both decided as a pair that we need to step up our game and start working out a lot more and watching what we eat. By this I mean Awesome climbs an extra day a week, continues to eat whatever he wants and not gain weight, and I cut out soda, desserts and anything delicious, run my ass off, and stay exactly the same weight. Not to mention becoming slightly frustrated every time Awesome complains about how he needs to lose weight (he doesn’t.)

But luckily, dating Awesome is like having a built in personal trainer. Even if he isn’t eating healthy, he constantly wants to go rock climbing and has gotten me into it as well. I’ve already been gifted a harness and special climbing shoes, and we try to go climbing together at least twice a week, whether inside or outside.

So even when we are both feeling super lazy, and want to stay in bed all day long eating Ho-Hos and chips, if I even mention a rock wall, all of a sudden there’s an Awesome-shaped hole in the wall of my bedroom and a cloud of dust where he was sitting just a millisecond before.

And with enthusiasm like that, it’s not hard to force myself to work out with him, so hopefully soon I’ll be looking at bathing suits without running off screaming in the other direction.