Hear me out. As a fitness and wellness influencer with 987 followers on Instagram, I’ve found a semi-controversial, yet effective method of cardio: running with scissors. I’ve found the added layer of stress and sheer adrenaline (no pun intended, except of course pun intended, except shear like the scissors is spelled differently because homophones, duh!) of holding the scissors in your hand as you run really gets my heart rate up in a way regular running never could. People always tell you not to run with scissors, but what they don’t tell you is that as long as you don’t trip and fall, it’s totally worth it.

I know what you are thinking, “That sounds dangerous! Aren’t we supposed to slowly and carefully walk with the scissors, blade facing down?” That’s what society wants us to think. But I have found my own personal oasis and now there is no turning back.

I mean holding the scissors the opposite way that you have been taught to hold them since you were a child, but rather blade side up is exhilarating. It also requires a level of concentration and focus no other cardio can give you. I’m not using safety scissors either, I’m talking about chicken shears or adult-sized metal scissors. 

Am I sweating from the exertion or is it a flop sweat from sheer terror, who’s to know for sure? But my pores have never looked better, and I don’t need Biore strips any longer. I could never run a five minute mile before, but the scissors give me the strength of a mother lifting a car off of her toddler vibes. My Fitbit has my heart rate beeping off the charts, to the point where it reads “call 911,” a feature I didn’t even know it possessed until recently.

I think terror stimulates your hippocampus or amygdala or one of those parts of your brain and causes your cortisol to spike. I’m not a doctor, but that doesn’t stop me from giving other people medical advice. Am I sleeping well at night, no, not at all, but the tradeoff is worth it.  

As a fitness influencer on Instagram, 143 of my followers are interested in this new method. Some are like, “Wow, I want to try this as well!” And some are like, “Every time you run, I fear for your safety, both mentally and physically!” followed by several prayer hand emojis. Have I gotten thirty new followers since trying my new method? Definitely. I call my method Shear Fitness, get it?

Full disclosure — I have fallen more than once while running with scissors during Shear Fitness. What they don’t tell you when you are a child is that your instincts kick in. You scream a blood curdling scream you never knew could possibly come from your mouth and soul. Also, you either protect your eyes instinctually with your arm or you try to throw the scissors away from you to avoid face contact, all while screaming. But that being said, I could also see how easy it would be to fall and not have enough time to react and actually poke your eyes out. 

Since I am, as I previously stated, a moderately successful wellness and fitness influencer on The Gram, having a huge gash from scissors on my face or causing permanent vision loss from scissor-to-retina contact would hurt my brand and make people fearful of my fitness advice. I know this for sure because of my last April Fools’ Day post. I had a friend who is a special effects makeup artist, or special FX as they call it in The Biz, put a gory, bloody scar across my face and I wore an eye patch and posted a selfie captioned with the famous Del Close quote, “Follow the fear,” which I remember from a college improv class I took. But I didn’t credit Del Close because I wanted my followers to think I came up with that myself. I totally “yes, anded” those scissors.

My followers wrote comments like “Sending thoughts and prayers” and “Time heals all wounds” and “My dad is an ophthalmologist. You can call him if you don’t have health insurance. I’ll DM you with his info.” I posted “JK! LOL! April Fool’s Y’all!” at midnight. Did I lose 127 of my 987 followers, including my Grandma Patty? Yes, absolutely. But who doesn’t love a solid prank involving your health? Look, all I’m saying is that if I can do it, you can too.