Sweat

You know, that icky by-product of getting hot, or nervous?

I hate it.

I reserve the word hate for only a few things, like snakes, mice, bridges, most household chores, and sweat. The quickest way for me to back out of exercising? Breaking a sweat. I wish there was some full body deodorant that I could apply that would allow me to go outside or exercise without sweating.

Here is why I hate it:

*It makes my skin itch.
100 degrees outside and as soon as my flesh hits the outside air sweat starts forming on my forehead and then making my skin itch. If I itch it or wipe it off, I wipe off all the make-up I just applied. Not that I'm vane and want my skin to look flawless but I would prefer if my forehead and cheeks match. Of course by 4pm all this goes out the window and there is nothing left on my face except scratch marks from my itchy skin.
It also makes my back itch. Ever go for a walk when it's a billion degrees outside wearing a tank top style sports bra? Well, if you haven't I can tell you that itching your back through that girdle thing is quite difficult.

*It feels like bugs crawling around on my head.

I think this ranks at the top of the list on why I hate sweat. After I've been outside exercising for awhile the sweat on my scalp join together and have a party, like a slide down the head and pretend it's a water slide party. Drives.me.insane.
We recently decided it would be a good idea to go on a bike ride after the little kids started school but Jacob hadn't. The idea sounded great when we were sitting inside the house on a cool, cozy couch. But shortly into the bike ride I realized that 9 miles at 12 noon when it's 95 degrees outside was one of the stupidest decisions I have ever made.

Was it the screaming-for-relief muscles that made me want to give up? No

Was it the tailbone who convinced me it was broken and threatened to force me to sit in a donut for a week that made me want to give up? No. (Well, OK that did make me stop a few times.)

It was the sweat having a water park frenzy on my head which was confined under a helmet that made me stop, grunt, scream (ok, maybe that's overkill) and want to give up. I stopped numerous times to jam a finger inside my helmet and relieve the feeling of 1,000 tiny bugs running all over my head.

I haven't gotten on the bike since.

Some people love the feeling of sweating, saying things like it feels like a cleansing of the body's toxins. My husband doesn't particularly like to sweat but once he gets that way he feels empowered to make the sweat worth it; so he exercises more. I am so not in this group. When I start to sweat I want to turn my walk around and go back home leaving the toxins firmly in place.

A good solution would be to walk on a treadmill in the cold basement, right? I know that is what you're thinking. I can almost read your minds, it goes something like this: "well duh, if you hate to exercise outside so much why don't you do it on a treadmill?" The alternative to getting sweaty by walking outside is to vomit all over from getting motion sickness on a treadmill. That's right I get motion sickness on a treadmill, pretty lame, right?

So, while I hate to sweat, I guess there are worse things.