Winter Fitness

It's cool...it's DIET Coke! Oh, and he has a thyroid problem..
(photo courtesy of The Onion, OBVIOUSLY!)














By Friday it's supposed to be colder than a mother-in-law's heart here in C-Bus. That always leads the athletic types (not me, the ATHLETIC types) to do one of two things....throw up lunch or spend countless boring hours on the windtrainer or in the gym on a wheelless bike. That is kind of a funny thing, the gym. One hundred years ago, we didn't have the free time or energy to go to a gym. You didn't need it. You spent your day hefting eighty pound bails of hay on a wagon, or plowing a field, bringing in the crops, or shoveling in a railroad bed by hand. We also didn't have all the crap in our food. Fast food was a potato and a beer, and there was no desire at all to drive across town to a treadmill-laden facility to "work out." The work was actually done AT work. It's amazing how much the Industrial Revolution changed the human lifestyle through automation so rapidly. The thought was to "free up time" so we could relax and let the machines do the work. The free time was just filled up with other, less physically demanding crap...like BLOGGING! :)













Bert Blanchette doesn't go to the gym. He just stands on his roof, spots the tallest mountain he can see, and rides to the top of it as fast as possible. Twice.








BAM! The indoor fitness industry was born. Instead of walking around your own neighborhood, or (GASP!) buying a bike and riding from HOME in the FRESH AIR, we drive for miles to a gym and PAY monthly installments to look like we would if we actually maintained our own homes, cars and yards. How much does it cost per year for the gym? Typically more than a bike and a helmet would in a calendar year, and that's not counting the cost of gas to get there, or the added costs of attending special classes like "strippersize."









Vanessa has a rock-solid bod. My guess is that she isn't a "dollar menunaire" and doesn't spend a ton of time pouring over which tub of Haagen Dasz to buy. That's MY JOB!












So what to do? Do we all move out to the country, forsake the laptops and roll up the sleeves? As good as that may be for a great majority of folks, unless an EMP hits and shuts everything off, that probably won't happen. I do think that it's not up to the government to provide every fatty-fat-fat with free health care though. You can do yourself a TON of favors by breaking that seal your butt has on the couch and stepping outside. The initial burning of the pasty white flesh will subside in a few minutes, and your retina's recover from the natural light, I promise! Is it just me, or is a thirteen year old kid with early-onset diabetes (from poor diet and lack of excercise) unacceptable?











Keep shoveling in the happiness, it'll hurt when the harpoon hits for a second..