Yoga makes you fat.

With its dotted line to the marijuana munchies, the yoga lifestyle is a one-way ticket to the Salon Z plus-size boutique at Saks.

O.K., so I’m exaggerating a bit. Not every yoga devotee is a raging pothead. But here’s the truth: If you want to be part of the new super-skinny, toothpick elite, you are not going to get there via downward dog alone.

You gotta spin to win!

Yes, spinning, that demented, disco-infused, ’90s-era calorie-burning Tour de France innovation is totally back! Competitively cadaverous New Yorkers are now augmenting their sun salutations with sweat-drenched spinning classes. All over Manhattan, hordes of Lycra-clad, underemployed overachievers are humping rows of stationary bicycles and a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ away the rolls of blubber. Everyone is doing it … except moi.

Spinning class is no place for a delicate flower such as myself. Being locked in a low-ceilinged room with 40 mouth-breathing zealots gives me a grim Brad Davis–in–Midnight Express kind of feeling. On the occasions when I have partaken of this grueling “sport,” I have invariably come down with a horrid cold. It’s not easy being a precious little lotus blossom.

And then there’s the décor: Spinning environments seem to take their cue from the grimmest, gayest, leather-and-SM clubs of the 1970s/’80s: black-painted brick walls, mirror balls and black light being the preferred decorations. The last time I was at a spinning class, I felt like I was back at the Mineshaft, where, coincidentally, I also caught a cold, and I scraped my shins.

The notorious Mineshaft was located on Washington and Little West 12th. No visit to N.Y.C. in the pre-AIDS 1970s was complete without a trip to this dank dungeon of erotic abandon. I won’t attempt to describe the activities that took place at this clothing-optional Sodom and Glocca Morra—I would not want to put you off your organic croissant. Suffice it to say, it was no place for a delicate petunia such as myself. The shin-scraping was, I hasten to add, a fashion injury rather than a result of any masochistic arrangement. When the tip of my super-pointy New Wave shoe failed to engage with the top rung of a ladder that accessed one of the dungeons, I plummeted, my scraping fall ending in a puddle of God knows what. Bon appétit!

Like all delicate flowers, I function much better in the fresh air. Jogging is my preferred exercise. In this regard, I am wildly out of fashion. While spinning is le dernier cri, jogging is now everyone’s bête noire, and for all kinds of deranged reasons. Two socialites of my acquaintance, both of whom have asked to remain nameless, warned me last week that “jogging causes jowls.” That relentless gravitational pounding can and will, according to these gals, turn even the tautest visage into that of a basset hound. This lame excuse for avoiding physical exertion falls into the I–don’t–lift–weights–because–I–don’t–want–to–get–all–muscle-bound–like–Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of statement.

We earthlings seem to specialize in inventing hyperbolic rationales. I am no exception: I avoid Pilates, not because I find it unendurably silly, but because I have a fear of becoming excessively elongated, thereby incurring the cost of a spanking new wardrobe.

Spin that, sister!

sdoonan@observer.com