Windsor Pilates Journal

On a cold, rainy January afternoon, I did something terribly embarrassing - something I thought I'd never do. I found myself parked in front of the television entranced by the wild promises of a trim, blond woman in a skintight tank top. Mari Windsor told me that if I stuck with her Windsor Pilates program for 10 sessions, I'd see a difference. In 30 sessions, I'd have a new body.

Maybe it was because I hadn't been able to bring myself to go running for about eight weeks because my blood has thinned to the point that Texas winters feel Ukrainian-cold. Or maybe it was because of that "Sex and the City" episode in which a naked Kim Cattrall explains her knockout body in one word: "Pilates." (Pronounce this like Joan Rivers saying "Pah-leeeze" with an "aht" in the middle.)

It doesn't matter why I did it. It just matters that I did. I gave in to an infomercial, and two weeks and - ka-ching - $46.85 later, three videotapes arrived.

I had no idea what I was getting into, but I figured 30 days of anything couldn't be that bad.

Or could it?

Here are the high- and lowlights of what happened in my 30 first dates with Pilates:

DAY 1: One of the three tapes in the Windsor Pilates packet is called Basics Step-by-Step. I leap out of bed in the morning, toss on some sweat pants and follow Windsor through the motions. It feels like nothing.

Having grown up in the Jane "feel the burn" Fonda era, I am vastly disappointed. It can't be working if I am not feeling extreme pain.

That night, I skip the 20-minute workout and dive right into the 57-minute Accelerated Body Sculpting video. There are several exercises I realize I can't do and never will be able to. I had scoliosis as a kid and have a long, steel rod in my back that keeps me from keeling over sideways and also keeps me from bending my lower back or lying on my stomach.

I skip exercises in which you're supposed to sit down, curl up like a ball and roll backward. I skip exercises in which you're supposed to sit down, lift both legs straight up in the air, grab your ankles and roll backward like a v-shaped ball. I skip half a dozen exercises that involve lying facedown on a mat.

The three women demonstrating the exercises on the tape move smoothly; I move spastically. And, I have trouble with the breathing. I'm always breathing out when Windsor is saying, "Breathe in." She keeps talking about "the powerhouse." She keeps saying all these exercises are "powerful." They don't feel powerful.

They feel like nothing.

DAY 2: One thing I love about this program is that I just have to roll out of bed and turn on the television to do it. One thing I don't love about this program is that I still don't feel a thing while I'm doing the exercises. They can't be working.

But at lunchtime, I stand up from my desk and feel a pain in a place I never imagined I had a muscle. Who knew the lower butt could hurt so much?

Around 6 p.m., my abdomen feels achy, like it's been stretched too far. The pain is more subtle than the usual after-sports ache. It's insidious.

DAY 3: With 27 days to go I still have my same old body, and it is finding these exercises harder, not easier. I suspect it's because I am actually starting to do them correctly. I start to feel discouraged about all the exercises I am skipping. I count them: eight.

Windsor irritates me. She never says anything new. I have developed a deep hatred for the woman on the main demonstration mat who does all the moves in an effortless manner. I am also annoyed that this morning exercise cuts into my Katie Couric time.

DAY 4: A choreographer in town working with our local ballet company tells me that Joseph Pilates was a German fitness freak who developed his exercises for injured soldiers in World War I. He built some springed contraptions into hospital beds, which is why the Pilates machines he later developed look kind of like someone from "Catch-22" should be lying in one with a full-body cast that has one hole for his mouth.

When Pilates moved to New York City in the 1920s, he started a studio where he practiced "contrology," a program combining yoga, gymnastics, martial arts and ancient Greek training methods. Ballerinas went nuts over the program because it builds long, lean muscles. When he died in 1967, Pilates passed his studio on to Balanchine-trained Romana Kryzanowska.

I learn that at the age of 80, Romana, as she's known, has just put out her first Pilates exercise DVDs. They show her swinging like a monkey on the steely apparatus.

DAY 5: I am finding my powerhouse, which turns out to be the bands of muscle that run through the abdomen, lower back and buttocks. Several exercises cause my body to give off offensive sounds. I skip them when my husband's in the next room.

DAY 6: I decide I must finally get a mat, as one of my elbows is suffering severe carpet burn. I find one up in the attic covered with dust and hose it down. Who needs to spend more money on this thing, I think.

DAY 8: "I'm on Day 8 of Windsor Pilates," I tell my husband. "Well," he says. "They said you'd notice a difference by Day 10. Do you notice a difference?" "Yes," I announce. "I'm crippled."

DAY 9: I discover, happily and unhappily, that now that I'm getting stronger, I can do many of the exercises I'd been skipping. When I say I can do them, I don't mean I can do them the way the stick figures on the video do them. The stick figures gently glide their legs over their heads while they're lying on their mats. Then they stretch their legs up to the ceiling in one poetic movement. I need at least two other appendages to help me do this exercise, called the jackknife. When I look in the mirror, I don't resemble the smooth-moving stick figures. I look like someone whose car has flipped and is in serious need of the Jaws of Life.

DAY 12: My 10-year-old daughter watches the video with me. She makes me laugh. When Windsor implores not to "let your hips do the hula!" Hadley stands up and starts hula dancing. The next morning, despite mostly playing and not Pilates-ing, she tells me her stomach hurts. She says it feels like it's stretched.

DAY 15: My husband tells me I'm not slumping as much since I started doing Pilates. "I slump?!" I shriek. "I slump?!?"

DAY 20: I've been working out for three weeks and I don't feel more in shape. I go for a run and have to stop every five feet or so to breathe. Pilates has been challenging but in a nonaerobic way. My lung capacity is shot. I also need to work on my middle-aged arms, which aren't addressed in the workout I've been doing. In the afternoon, I see a Pilates Bodycircles video kit in a bookstore. It includes two foam-covered hoops that one apparently circles hula hooplike on the wrists to tone the arms. It's about $30, but the flabby arms must go. I have the cashier ring it up. Ka-ching.

DAY 21: My child continues to liven up my Pilates sessions with her comic parodies. "Here's my variation, Mom!" she shouts gleefully, moving her small finger back and forth as I struggle to do the Teaser, a torturous movement in which you are supposed to do a sit-up when your legs are in a 45-degree angle from the floor.

The Ana Caban Bodycircles video is equally vicious. It brings tears to my eyes. But when I put my mat away for the day, my 10-year-old challenges me to a dance contest. I leap about the room, feeling more flexible than I have in years. I jump in the air and try to touch my toes. So this is the joy of Pilates, I think.

The next day in the dentist's chair, my hips ache so much even after two Advil that I don't feel the hygienist digging deep into my gums.

DAY 26: I find myself fast-forwarding through the Windsor Pilates tape, which is becoming tedious in its long explanations of how to do the exercises. I need something faster. I need Romana, the princess of Pilates, and her four-DVD set. It sells for $69.96.

DAY 28: Romana barks out orders like a Nurse Ratched ballet teacher. The pace of her workouts is quicker, as I had hoped, but I miss the perky Ms. Windsor and her cheerful background music. I try Romana's hardest workout. It involves doing push-ups and clapping hands in the air in between each one. I think it involves clapping the feet in the air, too, but I'm not really sure because I just end up sitting on the floor and laughing. I am not ready for Romana. I put her in the closet.

After a feverish online search, I find a new Windsor Pilates Maximum Burn Super Sculpting and Body Slimming DVD. Finally, the Fonda burn I've been craving. I order it - and a shorter, 20-minute Maximum Burn, packaged together for just $27.95 plus shipping, a total of $32.94. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

DAY 30: The 30 days is over. I have not lost a pound, though my wallet is significantly lighter. The DVDs lined up in my closet total about $180.

I know that if I had been running instead of doing Pilates, I would have lost weight. But I would also have sharp knee pains. Instead, I feel better than I have in years. More flexible. Stronger. Less overall over-40 achy. I was thinking I'd be Kim-Cattrall-fit, but perhaps this is what they really meant when they said I'd have a new body in 30 days.

I resolve to keep doing Pilates the recommended three times a week and decide to add an aerobic workout twice a week. In fact, my husband and I make a spring workout pact. We'll skip the chocolate snacks at work. We'll limit ourselves to one glass of red wine when we drink. We'll exercise five times a week without fail.

He suggests that we stick with our new program for 30 days, and I say it sounds good to me.

I mean, why not? How bad can it be? And, you know, I tell him, maybe it will help you with your slumping.

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