Sunday, October 4, 2009

potential and expectation

It is now October. Officially fall and my favourite time of year. The air takes on the smell of potential and expectation, a leftover conditioning from my school days. I am taking a physiology class, and I delighted in the trip to the school bookstore and picking up new notebooks and glistening pens that look like candy in their wrappers. The air is cool enough for a light jacket, and the grime of the streets is washed away nightly with the rain that pitter patters on my roof, lulling me and my family to sleep every night.

In this season of potential and expectation, I have begun going to the gym. I had to do the mandatory thing when you join a gym, which is when you go for a 'fitness assessment'. If you've never had one of these, picture this:

A man or woman in significantly better shape than you, with better highlights and more coordinated workout clothing makes you do cycle for as long as you can, do sit ups and suppresses a smile while you fail at a push up. At the end, they weigh you and inform you that you are 42% body fat, and the only way to get in the shape you want is through 2300 dollars of personal training over the next three months. But don't worry, they say, they have a fantastic plan that can stretch your payments out over a nine month period (!) and you can't really put a price on your health, can you? At which point you leave, thoroughly discouraged, and that is pretty much akin to death in the workout world. Discouragement means fatness. However, you swallow your pride, and return to the gym the next day, huffing and puffing and jiggling your way up a stairway that leads to nowhere.

Anyway, the end of this story is that I have 30 pounds to lose, and I'll be damned of I'm not going to do it myself, without any kind of personal training. I can put a price on my health, and it stops at the price I pay for a gym membership. I know I *can* do this though, because I've done it before. Though, before my technique was smoking and drinking the weight off, I'm sure this way works too. Plus, you get a total endorphin rush when you finish working out. I highly recommend it as an end to any argument with your spouse.

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