Chubby Mommy

I’ve always envied people who have a separate exercise room in their homes. Half of my reasons why I don’t exercise regularly have to do with lacking both a comfortable space and complete privacy.

My exercise bike, for instance, sits in a corner of my bedroom which, during the summer, feels like a sauna from around noon until sunset. To use my bike I have to move my reading chair aside then wheel and reposition the thing until it faces the TV… which gives me all of 3 inches of space between the bike and my side of the bed. It’s quite cramped, needless to say.

That space in my bedroom is too small for aerobic workouts, though. I learned that the hard way after injuring my foot while doing a roundhouse kick during Tae Bo. So aerobic workouts require a trek downstairs to the basement where I have to move my son’s PlayStation stuff, his video game rocker chair and our coffee table. By the time that’s done, I’m almost too tired to work out!

In either location, my husband and son are guaranteed to pop their heads in at least once while I work out. I hate that. I do not want to have to think about where we keep the ice cream scoop while I’m grunting through my third of five miles on the bike, nor do I want to hear from my husband how much he likes watching my “wobblies” wobble while I’m jumping up and down to an aerobic tape.

Lately, I’ve been eying our back patio as the ideal location for a sun room. Right now the only things on the patio are a plastic storage shed and our hot tub — something I don’t use very often precisely because it’s sitting on a patio near a storage shed, and not in some nice, clean spa-like room.

I mentioned to my husband the other day how nice it would be to turn that patio into actual living space. We’d use the hot tub, sure, but we could also put a TV out there once there were walls up. There would be room for my exercise bike, for aerobics, for my yoga mat and ball, and even room to spare for towel racks, spa supplies and a plant stand.

He, naturally, came up with all sorts of objections. First, it was the money: then I reminded him that he’s perfectly capable of building the sun room himself for a very reasonable price.

Then it was the fact that the room would get too hot in the summer. I pointed out that window A/C units are about to go on sale.

Sure, he said, but what about in the winter? I rolled my eyes and reminded him that between the hot tub’s steam and using the room to exercise in, freezing isn’t something I’d need to worry about. Besides, I said, we could always put in one of those portable wall fireplaces that use vent free gas logs, and wouldn’t it be romantic to sit in front of a fire while we soaked together in the hot tub?

So, OK, I played a bit dirty by reminding him that with actual walls and blinds on the windows to screen us from the neighbor’s prying eyes, we’d be soaking naked in the hot tub, bathed in flickering fire light, maybe even with a shelf of cocktails conveniently located within reach.

I woke up this morning and found a rough sketch of my future sun room laying on the kitchen counter and was thrilled… until I remembered that, once built, I won’t have any reason not to work out regularly.