In between my bi-weekly training sessions with Jennifer (an hour of high-intensity circuit training supposedly burns calories up to 36 hours - whereas running only burns for an hour after, for those not in the know) I squeeze in at least three cardio workouts for the week.  I tired spinning, but my back end was simply not genetically designed for it.  I tried running as soon as I found an adorable running skirt, but one trip around the block and I was bored.  I tried swimming laps, but the water was much colder than I remembered it being in my high school pool.  I tried a fancy step aerobics class at the gym, but ten minutes into the class I twisted my ankle.  I tried a kick boxing session and really got into my element when my inner tough girl broke through, but managed to give myself a quasi black eye before the end.  How hard is it to find a cardio activity you enjoy, besides lifting a toddler to and from a minivan car-seat a dozen times a day?

I tried Zumba.  And fell in love.

"There's no one around you."  The bubbly instructor started the class.  "Imagine yourself in a music video."   Her hips swayed left and right and then left again before exploding into a perfect merengue motion.  She not only looked good but was also so believable.  Although I struggled to see her from the back row on my first visit I left breathless, sweating and feeling pretty darn good.

I moved up to the middle row for my second visit.  "It's your body!  Move it, like you want to move it.  Imagine yourself alone..."  As soon as Jai Ho came on, I got my sexy on.  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and thought  "not too shabby."  The instructor knew it too because our eyes met right before she cranked up the volume.  I threw my hands up, swooshed them like a bollywood star and thrusted my hips to the side.  I left in very good spirits.

The third, fourth, fifth time I visited Zumba I high fived the "regulars" and placed myself directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. "You are the star!  You are beautiful!  You are sexy!  Dance like no one is looking!"  The perky instructor smiled to her brightest pupils.  Without giving out too much information I rocked the sessions so much that I was sure I had finally landed my first job in eight-years as a Zumba instructor.  It was obviously my calling.  Or perhaps God had bigger plans for me, such as being the first ordinary SAHM mommy blogger on SYTYCD ("So You Think You Can Dance" show, for those not in the know) because I went from "not too bad" to "oh em gee I am seriously THE best dancer ever."

Enter the four girls with COLLEGE written across the bottoms of their mesh shorts and the  "Delta Delta Delta formal I got laid" t-shirts hugging their perfect bosoms into my Zumba class this morning.  They giggled through the merengue warm-up.  Laughed during the salsa.  And howled during the Jai Ho swooshing of the hips I've enjoyed for weeks.  I couldn't find my sexy  and now it's lost.  I thought out side of the box, for their sake, and imagined my twenty-year-old-self stuck in-between SAHMs thinking they were sexy.

I need a new cardio exercise.  Stat.