I've already noticed an increase in my energy. I hate working out with a white hot passion, but I have to admit that it does make me feel better. And it inspires me to eat better, which is also great.

But I don't want to bore you with diet and exercise stuff. Instead, I want to bore you with anecdotes about my exercise videos.

Okay, first, we have yoga, Suzanne Deason's Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss. I like this video quite a bit. It's a one hour workout, and it's both relaxing and a real workout. The best part about it is that it features four yogers at various levels of ability and flexibility. And yogers, of course, is not a real word.

Suzanne Deason herself does the full poses. If you're really good, you follow her moves. If you have decent flexibility, you're supposed to follow someone else. If you have little flexibility, you follow the third woman. And if you're me, you follow woman number four.

No, just kidding. I actually follow all four of them from time to time, depending on the pose. I follow the wuss woman the most, though. Which isn't bad; it means I can track my progress according to who I'm matching up with, and it also means I can keep challenging myself.

My favorite yoga pose is Bridge Pose. You lie on your back, knees bent, and press your feet, shoulders and arms into the ground, thereby lifting yourself off the ground into sort of a bridge shape. Then you sloooowly roll your spine back to the ground, one vertebrae at a time. Try it! It feels fabulous.

So, where I'm really going with all this is that one of the sections of the video involves twisting poses. So she's talking, in her soothing voice, about how this aids digestion, and lengthens the spine, and so on. And then she says, and this is a direct quote, "Among many benefits, twisting poses also help you to squeeze toxins out of your inner organs."

Eeeeew.

So every time I do my yoga, I try to go to this relaxed mental space, where the effort of doing the Upside-Down-Triple-Tipi-Torture Pose won't bother me, and she starts talking about my inner organs. My toxic inner organs, releasing their poison into my bloodstream. Is this supposed to be good for me? To have toxins released from their little prisons and running amuck in my body? I seriously doubt it.

And this thwarts my relaxation, and then I fall down on my head.

Then there's kickboxing. Denise Austin Power Kickboxing .

The coolest thing about this video is that one of the worker outers (not a word either) reminds me strongly of Jen. She has the same badass haircut, cool clothes, kickass shoes and NYC attitude as Jen. It makes me feel as if I am working out with a friend.

But on the whole, you know how this has been going. It's a twenty minute workout, and there's a lot of stuff I just don't do. She jumps invisible rope, and I walk from side to side. She does squats; I walk from side to side. She does standing ab crunches, and I do them too, until my abs get tired, and then I give up and walk from side to side.

When the combos come up, I try to do them, really, but I just get so confused. I have no idea when to punch with my left and kick with my right, or when to switch legs between kicks, or how to jump to the front and kick to the side at the same time. All I know is, I just sort of fling my arms in one direction and my legs in another, and think, to hell with it, at least I'm exercising.

Denise Austin is fairly annoying, in that perky, chipper way of people who just love to work out. In the middle of the video, she's got us doing back kicks. She says, "Squeeze those buns, because if you don't do it, nobody else will!" What an obnoxious thing to say. I just glare back at the TV and think, "If I spent twenty minutes a day eating Ding Dongs instead of doing roundhouse kicks, I guarantee you that I will still find someone who wants to squeeze my ass."

Then after the video is over, and we're doing the cooldown, she says, "I'm proud of you. You're a CHAMPION. You did it. You're a WINNER. You WON." And then I think, "What the hell do you know? I just spent twenty minutes walking side to side instead of doing these exercises. I'm the champion of jack shit, is what I'm the champion of."

But I'm trying, and I'm improving, so there you go. I'm a winner. I'm a champion. Bring on the Ding Dongs.

"So converting Jim to my way of thinking isn’t my goal here. I’m making this argument for myself. Because I feel like it. Because this is my forum. Because I think it’s an interesting debate. Because I think it’s worth talking about. And because I want everyone who reads this to know me a little better.

Now you do."