I realised when I joined this fitness programme that I wouldn’t exactly look the part in my mis-matched exercise gear, in fact I can’t even really call it exercise gear since the term suggests it was bought for that purpose, and actually none of it was. Well, all except my new trainers of course. Anyway, before I got started, a good root through my drawers turned up a couple of pairs of stretchy pants that I’d bought for some holiday or other in the past which I thought might be fit for purpose.

One pair were three quarters length, but a size too big now, and the second pair fitted a bit better but finished just below my knee with a turn-up, which was totally in the wrong place for kneeling down, which I seem to have to do a lot. Pulling the hems up above my knees made me look ridiculous – trust me I tried – so it seemed that a little bit of internet shopping was required.

I soon established that exercise pants with built-in knee padding were as-yet uninvented. It’s definitely a gap in the fat-girl-exercise-wear market, you know? My knees have been so sore all week, in fact I even googled knee-pads at one point when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself. The only reason I didn’t whip out my credit card immediately was because it occurred to me that God of Pain would probably run me out of town if I dared to rock up with a pair strapped to my legs so I didn’t bother in the end.

I was surprised though, to see just how many options there were for roly-poly bodies on a fitness kick. Apparently, lots of fat girls exercise, who even knew? So there was a lot of choice but I’ve got to be honest, they were all modelled by women with the proportions of a toothpick so it was hard to get a feel for how these lycra exercise pants would look on a body like mine. Anyway, in for a penny and all that, two pairs of them ended up in my shopping basket.

They duly arrived, and I was a bit baffled when I took them out of the packaging…they looked like they’d fit a five-year old. Man those things have some stretch, I mean I put my arms inside the waistband to see how wide it would go, and it just kept on going, it’s amazing stuff.

So the first thing I learned about Lycra exercise pants was despite them looking like something from Barbie’s wardrobe, it is possible to squeeze the equivalent of two normal-sized arses inside one pair. But then under no circumstances should you go near a mirror. I tried them on, and…well, lets just say they didn’t look like they did in the pictures and leave it at that, right? They felt as light as a feather and very comfortable, but Sweet Jesus it wasn’t pretty.

I was a bit nervous about wearing them for the first time, you know? I imagined silence descending on the room when I walked in, as people took in the full horror of what they were seeing. These pants take no prisoners, and I’m not even kidding when I say once they’re on you can pretty much see the outline of every hair on my legs. In the event, nobody batted an eyelid so that was cool.

However. The second thing I learned about Lycra exercise pants is how perfectly they demonstrate that well-known phenomenon…

for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.

Put simply, arms up, pants down. As soon as we got cracking with the warm up, it became obvious that Lycra exercise pants are pre-programmed to roll as far down your body as possible every time you move. I’m just grateful it wasn’t a boxing class, because with gloves on, the crotch would have been round my ankles within the first thirty seconds. I probably burned an extra hundred calories in the first ten minutes just trying to keep my pants under control.

Through trial and error I discovered that the only way to prevent the continuous downward march from happening was to pull every single bit of stretch as far up as humanly possible, so swathes of lycra disappeared between my bum cheeks. Think Rudolph Nureyev and tights, and don’t even get me started on how I worked that look on my size twenty backside, but at least finally they stayed put.

At one point I found myself in front of the mirrored wall, eighteen of my finest stones squashed into those Lycra pants, red in the face from exertion with dripping wet hair plastered to my face whilst I jogged on the spot. My bingo wings were having a party all of their own as my arms tried to keep up and I was sweating like a stuck pig.

The tune pounding out of the speakers at the time..?

Don’t ya wish your girlfriend was hot like me….  🙂

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