LET’S TALK : Exercise offers a body of excuses
Posted on Sunday, June 25, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/158746/
The health-related benefits of exercise just keep coming.
CNN reported recently that exercise is not just a perfect weightloss tool, heart-health aid, multidisease-repellent, stress reliever and antidepressant. Pumpin’ iron and sweatin’ to the oldies also leads to better sleep, curbs smoking urges and puts some zing in your sex life.
But you’ve been preached to enough about exercise, right ? In spite of the ever-mounting evidence that getting moving is the best thing you can do for yourself next to avoiding a screening of Basic Instinct 2, you hate moving. Just hate it. So you’re still wallowing on that couch, snarfing bonbons and watching all the judge shows on your digital video recorder.
So we will not preach. Instead, we will motivate you to move your booty by sharing the hidden benefits of exercise... benefits not mentioned in the CNN story, by the doctors or the fitness trainers. You have an excuse for leaving the house looking ugly.
Remember how your mom made you paranoid about setting foot outside unless your clothes, hair and makeup are perfect — even if you’re just going to take out the trash ? Exercising outside the home allows you to leave the house without having to fix yourself up. This is especially satisfying if you are not only paranoid about leaving the house looking less than perfect, but are also of an age, or a degree of natural attractiveness, that necessitates several hours of beautyand-grooming regimens in order to look perfect for the day. Sure, you have to go through all that rigmarole eventually, but at least you have one opportunity to step outside looking like Jason-vs.-Freddy without guilt. You have an excuse for stinking.
You’ve just completed a grueling workout in the gym or at the track. Yes, you look even more like Jasonversus-Freddy. You’re sweating bullets and you smell like Dead Caveman. You really do intend to go home and take that shower as soon as possible. But first, you badly need to run a couple of errands. Your fellow errand-runners, sweetly scented with soap and cologne but not nearly as in shape as you, frown, cover their noses or faint as you walk by. But like construction workers, plumbers, custodians, sewer workers, stevedores and others who engage in hard manual labor, you can still hold your head high. Yes, you’re funky. But it’s good, honest funk ! You have an excuse for parking as closely as possible to your destination, and taking the elevator instead of the stairs.
Look, you just got finished with that grueling workout. Maybe it was all you could do to put one foot in front of the other afterward. But then, the holier-than-thou, selfhelp magazine article starts to dance in front of your eyes... the article that gives such everyday-fitness tips as “When going to Wal-Mart, park on the far end of the lot,” or “When you arrive at the office, take the stairs instead of the elevator.” No ! Look, you’ve done your time. You deserve to drive around Wally World’s parking lot for 20 minutes in search of a nice, close space. And when you arrive at work, you deserve to schlepp onto the elevator, prop yourself up against the wall and zone out until you get to your floor. You deserve to make faces behind the backs of the co-workers who do take the stairs. And if the elevator is out, you definitely deserve to moan and gripe.
You have an excuse for wearing spandex, even if you still look awful in it.
You love the way those comfy leggings feel on you. But your big hips and thunder thighs aren’t reacting to your workouts as fast as you’d hoped... and how many times have you heard that people with your figure shouldn’t wear spandex ? How many comedians have you heard joke about this ? Hey, it’s OK. If you’re an exerciser, you have leave to wear the stuff. Even if you’re not in the gym, you can always pretend you’re headed there, or that you’ve just been.
Since exercise helps with sleep, you now have a wonderful excuse for falling asleep at your desk.
Boss caught you snoozing again ? Tell him you exercise, and wave under his nose the National Sleep Foundation report linking exercise to faster, deeper sleep. If he fires you anyway, look on the bright side... you’ll have virtually unlimited opportunities to get the superior quality of sleep afforded you by your exercise.
So what are you waiting for ? Get moving.
There’s really no good reason not to. Let your fingers do the power-walking ! Send an e-mail: hwilliams@arkansasonline. com