One only has to look at me to know that I spend a great deal of time at my local gym. You can tell by the fluorescent light pallor to my skin. I truly spent a great deal of time at the gym but something must be terribly wrong. I began to investigate.
The first thing that I noticed is that many of the other guys (and girls) seem to have many more visible muscles than I do. What was the difference, I asked myself.
Firstly, most of the guys (and girls) seem to have many more tattoos than I have. This was easy to determine because I have none. The reason is simple: my home trainer forbids it. She seems to think that I might look like an idiot at my age. I am still working on that although I have given up the idea of having a ponytail.
Many muscle guys seem to show up with a cute blond on their arm. My home personal trainer advises that that method might be too expensive for me once I had to find a new place to live, etc.
There are TV notices warning you not to stare at others while they are working out. Yeah sure. You ought to see some of the gorgeous women doing all sorts of stretches, etc. at the gym. I admit to staring with the hopes that I might learn something from their techniques.
I was told that I need to learn to walk (strut) properly or no one will even notice my physique. I am still working on that.
What else separates these muscle people from me? Apparently it is impressive to attempt to lift some very heavy weights and then drop them on the floor with a loud bang. Although there are usually signs all over the place asking you not to do this, it does attract attention and makes it appear that you are really working out. It also helps, if you let out a loud groan as you do this. I will be attempting this in the near future once I find weights light enough for me to lift and still able to make a loud bang as they hit the floor.
Another tactic that seems to work well for me, at least, is to make many friends at the gym and spend lots of time talking to them. This will make you one of the boys, but more important it allows you to spend many hours at the gym without actually building up a sweat. Now when you meet your friends in the street and they say what have you been doing lately, you can answer that you spend a great deal of time at the gym. How impressive is that?
Of course, I see many people sitting on the stationary bicycles going approximately 1 mile per hour, reading a book or newspaper, chatting with friends as they come by, and getting the equivalent exercise of my aerobic napping. It does allow you to spend time at the gym, which you will be duly credited for and not necessarily get all sweaty and tired while you are doing it.
Some of the equipment at the gym actually tells you how many calories you have burned while exercising. Don’t pay any attention to these. They are there just to convince you how much more exercise you need, Example: one half hour on the treadmill equals about one small chocolate chip cookie. Disgusting!
I even tried a spinning class and following the instructor’s advice to keep my heels to be ground promptly tore my Achilles tendon. So much for spinning. I began doing an exercise that I see many people doing called “flies.” This resulted in a torn rotator cuff, which I was able to correct with surgery and a great deal of therapy. Of course the therapy counts as exercise, which makes me even healthier.
My six-pack: I am sure that I have one but finding it is a bit problematic. Over the years, I have developed a large amount of adipose tissue, nature’s way of arming us against a possible new ice age that some scientists are predicting. Do you want to believe your trainer or the scientists? It is up to you.
The really healthy people tell me that a lot of what I am trying to accomplish could be done by eating a sensible diet. I do maintain a sensible diet according to my own standards. I learned through my research that calories are actually a measure of heat. My next logical conclusion was that if you eat sufficient amounts of ice cream, which is cold, it will negate the calories that you had earlier in the day.
My home trainer, who spent many years managing weight loss centers, disputes my theory, but what does she know. FYI (A professor at Kansas State University claims to have lost 27 pounds in two months eating just one Twinkie every three hours. He not only lost the weight but he dropped his LDL (bad cholesterol) 20 percent and increased his HDL (good cholesterol) by 20 percent (Source, NY Times).
I haven’t given up my quest for the perfect body but should you see me in the street it would help if you said something like: “Gee, you look great. You must be working out.” That would go a long way towards achieving my goals.o better health? A Twinkie may be the answer
