The Long-Term Hospital Stay Workout

Fig. 1

Is your child in the hospital for a prolonged period, and are you staying with him/her most days and nights? Do people keep bringing you calorie-rich “comfort foods” like mac and cheese, lasagna, and homemade muffins and cookies? Is your child taking corticosteroids that make him or her crave Cape Cod potato chips, pizza and other crap that you are powerless to resist sampling yourself?

And — as if all that isn’t bad enough — have you not been to the gym or taken so much as a brisk ten-minute walk in weeks?

Here are three easy ways to attempt, futilely, to make up for all of the above!

1. Hospital room floor (on a towel, if it’s before the cleaning guy comes) pushups. Do 15 or so pushups every 2-3 days, each time telling yourself you’re going to do them every day from now on.

2. Coffee run stair climbing. Whenever you go downstairs to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee, or to any other destination beneath your floor, eschew the elevator. Take the stairs down and up. Ignore the annoyingly fit 20-something medical students running past you taking two steps at a time as you trudge wearily but doggedly upward, panting.

3. Microwave/Toaster Lunges. (fig 1.) While you’re in the kitchenette waiting for your coffee to re-heat in the microwave or a Mama Celeste frozen pizza for your steroid-crazed child to cook, do lunges. For added challenge, hold a tiny can of Shasta ginger ale in each hand. (not pictured in fig. 1)

But remember: flabby arms and a muffin top are signs of your devotion to your loved one. And that’s almost as important as looking fabulous and fit!

Good luck!