So, getting older means that things don't work as well as they once did. Anything I do to myself now will determine what, if anything, my doctor has to do to me in future decades. Goody for me.
I see my friends, co-workers, and acquaintances adopt new, different, and sometimes crazy habits in order to cheat time, age, gravity, whatever. (Vegan? Are you kidding me? I give you a month without bacon before you crack.) Some of these people are successful, and some just go to such extremes that all I can do is bite my tongue and wish them well on their journey, even if I believe that journey is doomed to failure. But hey, who am I to judge?
I just want to be healthy so that over the remaining four or five decades that I have left I stay as active as possible and my doctor has to do as few invasive and painful procedures as possible.
To this end, I have resolved to make it to the gym every single day and to avoid eating all things that a toddler would eat and enjoy. I can't remember the last time I tasted a slice of pizza. *sigh*
Have I been successful? Not completely, but you have to keep trying, right? Am I demoralized by my failures? Not at all. If I resolved to make it to the gym for a minimum of one hour per day, seven days per week and I only make it three or four days, I'm still doing better than I was a year ago when I was paying for the gym membership but not using it at all. I feel like less of a sucker when I get there...and once I'm there, I might as well stay an hour or longer.
I make a game of doing cardio, which is thankless, boring, and has seemingly little immediate reward. I know that it will save me when the zombie apocalypse comes, but being able to listen to loud, obnoxious music while watching the gym drama unfold in front of me is the best I can hope for at the moment.
I watch the muscle heads grunt, sweat, and worship themselves in the mirrors. I see the gym vixens who wear their underwear on the outside and I amuse myself by speculating whether their sports bras were more expensive than their matching sneakers. It's also a lot of fun to see them preen with the hope of catching a muscle head's attention, particularly when I already know the muscle head who's been targeted is more interested in his reps and audible grunting than in anyone else.
I like being the fly on the wall. I can assume that these two people are more interested in being admired for their respective physiques than in being able to engage in adult conversation. But I could be wrong. Perhaps they're both highly educated, as well as beautiful, and I'm just too old and bitter to accept that they have it all. Well, clearly not all, else they wouldn't be working out in a cut-rate gym in the middle of Bluecollarville, Bergen County, New Jersey.
But these are the thoughts that keep me amused while I spend 45 minutes on the stationary bike or the treadmill. If I wanted to watch television, I'd have stayed home on my couch. If I have to go to the gym (and, according to my doctor, I really have to), then I would much rather watch the human drama unfold in front of me with a soundtrack of old-school punk cranked up to 11 in my ears.
I see my friends, co-workers, and acquaintances adopt new, different, and sometimes crazy habits in order to cheat time, age, gravity, whatever. (Vegan? Are you kidding me? I give you a month without bacon before you crack.) Some of these people are successful, and some just go to such extremes that all I can do is bite my tongue and wish them well on their journey, even if I believe that journey is doomed to failure. But hey, who am I to judge?
I just want to be healthy so that over the remaining four or five decades that I have left I stay as active as possible and my doctor has to do as few invasive and painful procedures as possible.
To this end, I have resolved to make it to the gym every single day and to avoid eating all things that a toddler would eat and enjoy. I can't remember the last time I tasted a slice of pizza. *sigh*
Have I been successful? Not completely, but you have to keep trying, right? Am I demoralized by my failures? Not at all. If I resolved to make it to the gym for a minimum of one hour per day, seven days per week and I only make it three or four days, I'm still doing better than I was a year ago when I was paying for the gym membership but not using it at all. I feel like less of a sucker when I get there...and once I'm there, I might as well stay an hour or longer.
I make a game of doing cardio, which is thankless, boring, and has seemingly little immediate reward. I know that it will save me when the zombie apocalypse comes, but being able to listen to loud, obnoxious music while watching the gym drama unfold in front of me is the best I can hope for at the moment.
I watch the muscle heads grunt, sweat, and worship themselves in the mirrors. I see the gym vixens who wear their underwear on the outside and I amuse myself by speculating whether their sports bras were more expensive than their matching sneakers. It's also a lot of fun to see them preen with the hope of catching a muscle head's attention, particularly when I already know the muscle head who's been targeted is more interested in his reps and audible grunting than in anyone else.
I like being the fly on the wall. I can assume that these two people are more interested in being admired for their respective physiques than in being able to engage in adult conversation. But I could be wrong. Perhaps they're both highly educated, as well as beautiful, and I'm just too old and bitter to accept that they have it all. Well, clearly not all, else they wouldn't be working out in a cut-rate gym in the middle of Bluecollarville, Bergen County, New Jersey.
But these are the thoughts that keep me amused while I spend 45 minutes on the stationary bike or the treadmill. If I wanted to watch television, I'd have stayed home on my couch. If I have to go to the gym (and, according to my doctor, I really have to), then I would much rather watch the human drama unfold in front of me with a soundtrack of old-school punk cranked up to 11 in my ears.
1 comment:
Great post. Going to the gym is a very important thing to do in our sedentary, automobile-dominated lives. If you can be entertained, all the better. Before long you might get caught up and become a participant in the musclehead/vixen dramas!
But also just incorporating moving around more, like parking as far away from the entrance to your building or the store, it adds up. As you embark on this journey, look into other activities that you might have blown off--biking, rollerblading, etc. as the weather gets better.
This isn't a sprint. It's a marathon, training for life. Best wishes and I look forward to more posts!! Love ya!!
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