My Incredibly Efficient Sweat Glands

For the first time in my life I plan on purchasing a scale. I have, as a rule, never owned one as I can see myself obsessing over every pound. This thought is not without reason. At one point, living in my parent's house, I stepped on a scale twice a day, if not more. I worked out the averages for morning and evening, before a potty break or after a meal. I knew this behavior was obsessive and that, lacking the willpower to stop myself, the easiest solution was to never have a scale stare at me from the foot of my home commode ever again. This plan has worked out great and I can currently only guess my weight within 15 pounds. I am willing to revisit my willpower over my former obsession, or possibly just purchase a scale as a disposable item, to answer one burning question, "Exactly how many pounds of sweat do I shed in one class?" I, up until this point, have squelched my curiosity, feeling it was just too odd to disclose, until yesterday. Yesterday, The Boy expressed the exact same desire. 

You see, The Boy just had his first tactile experience with what I have explained to him many times is a phenomenon beyond explanation — the amount of sweat my body can produce in a one-and-a-half-hour period. It happened because The Boy and I got home later than intended from Occupy Chicago. In order to get seven hours of sleep before a planned 6am (zombie) yoga class The Boy and I divvied up the chores I had left that evening. The only chore I could delegate to him (could he brush my teeth?) was laundry, which included the yoga gear I had been lugging around downtown with me for the past four hours. I was hesitant, but he was insistent. After he promised me he would still sleep with me after handling my grody towels I acquiesced — I really wanted to get to bed. 

As I was picking out clothes for the next day I heard a shout from the laundry hallway (it can't really qualify as a room), "This is all sweat?!?" While I was expecting some variation on this exclamation, I was not expecting the tone. There was no disgust in the voice. He was expressing sheer curiosity of the scientific variety. "Yeah!" I shouted proudly back.  

The Boy is stymied by my glands' efficiency.

I am not saying I sweat a lot for a girl; putting to shame those who "glisten." While I have never been a "glistener," my current capacity for water release puts most men to shame. I am captivated by the new efficiency of my glands.  If I can weigh my towels before and after class Im pretty sure it would be a figure of epic proportions. I may be able to get into Guinness for this!

At my studio, we frequently discuss the 'top sweaters' and my name is always in the top three. Of these three, the other two are men. I like to play a game with those other two, you know, like "Monkey in the Middle" only way grosser. One of these two fine gentlemen will set up on one side of a good friend yogi and I will set up on the other. We form a wonderful sprinkler system in eagle; sweat flying off our swinging fingertips in giant arcs. Our friend in the middle gets an unwelcome shower if they don't move to the back of their mat.

One of our teachers is such a good sport, when teaching from behind me she once exclaimed, "Whoo! You got me!" I apologized and she quickly retorted, "I like it!" I have also gotten the comment (from a much taller member of the top three tier), "I didn't know such a small person could produce that quantity. I mean, there just isn't that much surface area!" 

This might seem incredibly gross but it is just how comfortable I have become with myself. At some point you just shrug it off. There is even a "two towel club" I am proudly a member of. Yup. I sweat right through one bath towel and my teachers have kindly requested I lug not one, but two towels around with me so as not to form a marsh around my mat.

So, when The Boy had his first confrontation with what I had been trying to explain to him was a miracle of the human body and reacted in the same sheer wonder I experience every day, I was all too happy to puff up my chest and proclaim, "Yes, that is my poundage of sweat you are hefting!" And that, is why a scale may just make it back into my house.