I bought my first aerobics DVD 3 years ago, and have not used it since. I don't remember what its title was – I have since left it forgotten and dusty somewhere in the back recesses of my home, and have not seen it in months, but I do remember several things about it. It was bright pink in color, and featured some big hair, grinning guy in spandex on the cover, screaming out messaged that make you think you should get thin this instant. I thought that the aerobic DVD would inspire me to get my rear in shape, but it was not to be. Instead, my brand new aerobic DVD just decided to stale away in the corner, gathering dust while I continued being a potato-couch, growing fatter and less in shape.

My second workout video was a step aerobics DVD, but it shared the same fate. I think I did try that particular aerobic DVD a couple of times, but it did not really work. I just felt so stupid sitting there at home, pretending to suffering along with an imaginary group of people who were not even in the room with me, fooling myself that I was doing something that was not completely ridiculous. I just could not incorporate this routine into my life.. I had originally planned to start each day with the aerobic DVD and a shower, but when I finally dragged sinful self out of the comfortable bed in the morning, aerobics was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do.

I have had three of four aerobic DVDs since then and, to be completely honest with you, none of them have done what they claim to be able to at all. It simply is not that fun to do aerobics by yourself in the living room, watching your aerobic DVD on the television. Nothing really happened to get me in shape from watching the aerobic DVD. Finally, I had to do what I had been avoiding all along; I had to join a gym.

Once I began to get my exercise from aerobics classes and not an aerobic DVD, it suddenly became so much easier to adhere to the program. The classes got me out of my house, and the people in them were real and so encouraging that I just could not come back to my old lazy self. Almost immediately, I was hooked on taking exercise classes to get in shape. It was almost like you could not tear me away from them. Meanwhile, every aerobic DVD I have ever owned quietly gathers dust in the house of a newer, fitter me. What a waste of money, you might say. Well, not really. They eventually make me realize how I can get in shape. By not following them.