"If you want to eat food that makes you obese, that's your right," but you should help pay the societal costs.“

This is a quote from an article in USA Today, 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-16-fat-tax_N.htm

discussing a tax on soda companies. Democrat Rep. Bill Pascrell states, "There's a good argument that can be made" for taxing the causes of chronic, costly illnesses.” 

Of course there is opposition. But how do you mount a convincing argument against these facts, in the article, taken from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: 

Sugary beverages contribute an average of 8% to 9% of total calories for children and adults.

People in the USA consume about 16% of their daily calories from sugars that are added to all foods.

About 47% of those sugars are from sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages such as juice drinks and iced tea.

Earlier this week the Fox News Morning Blathering Gabfest ran footage of town hall meetings of health care reform and what should be done about it. Overheated tempers, physical violence. I asked myself a very simple question . . . 

Why don't people get this motivated and outspoken and vitriolic about their own personal health and wellness?

Let's be honest and not pull any punches here. First, its amazing how people whine and protest about government intervention into their lives, right up until they need someone to blame for their problems. Hey, the White House is still located in Wash, DC, isn't it? It must be their fault! Second, there are far too many health related illnesses and conditions stemming from laziness, slothfulness, personal indolence and a general apathy of taking responsibility for yourself and your body. Last time I checked, the Secretary of Commerce didn't tie your ass to a chair and force you to consume ungodly quantities of anything not categorized as a fruit, vegetable or whole grain. God forbid you gorge yourself with something that doesn't taste sugary sweet.

Side Note: you assholes that borrow a relative's car because it has a handicapped sticker, then park in a handicap spot and jog across the street? Someone who really is disabled needs that spot. Not you. Stop it.  

In case anyone hasn't figured it out, there are no free lunches. Everything comes with a price. Everything has to balance. It's the way of nature. The yin and yang of it all. You want your guilty pleasures? It comes with stipulations. It comes with a hefty price tag. And you will pay it. Now, or in the future.

Don't believe me? Then why are you bitching about the spiraling costs of health care? They didn't become what they are because of an undocumented bug in Windows, even though that's the second area you'll point accusatory fingers.

It's called cause and effect. Read this article, taken from Science Daily, located at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090810024825.htm

Here's a snippet from what was said - Research has shown approximately 25 percent to 35 percent of American adults are inactive, Blair said, meaning that they have sedentary jobs, no regular physical activity program and are generally inactive around the house or yard. "This amounts to 40 million to 50 million people exposed to the hazard of inactivity," Blair said in an interview. "Given that these individuals are doubling their risk of developing numerous health conditions compared with those who are even moderately active and fit, we're looking at a major public health problem."

It's a good article, definitely worth reading the entire post. It states what the rest of us have been saying while many of you were trying to convince us the harmlessness of a bowl of ice cream. (True story. I work with a woman who was told "It's only one bowl. It's just a little bit. It won't hurt." That one time became a dutiful, daily religious experience. She now looks like she could play pulling guard or weak side tackle for the local pro football team. And not in a good way. Believe it or not, the government had nothing to do with it. I know, I was just as astonished as you.)

You can either choose to send your already high blood pressure temper towards a mind numbing, arm tingling stroke that your high cholesterol clogged arteries are on the verge of executing . . . 

Or you can decide today is Ground Zero. The day you take matters into your own hands, take charge of the direction of your own well being, and stop trying to set records for the amount of food stuffed in your face while awaiting the return of Grissom and his jar of bugs on CSI. 

Besides, do you really think Marg Helgenberger, now in her young fifties, is the hottest MILF on CBS because Cookies, Cakes and Pies Unlimited had a midnight blowout sale?

Hell no. 

Age with as little pain, physical disease and discomfort as possible. Wow. There's a title worthy of a mouthful to digest. And yet, how many of us really care about the above statement? Enought to actually do something about it? All of us do stupid things or make unintelligent decisions in our lifetimes. I can think of three of them I would not have done in life if I could turn back the hands of time. (No, they aren't felonies. Stop guessing. I'm not telling you.) What really pushes the needle off the dumbass charts is ignoring the facts when they are right in front of you as plain as daylight. Your health and wellness is the most important part of your life. Why needlessly throw it away with reckless abandon?

Look at some of the people around you. One would be led to believe they think their bodies and lives were meant to be lived with the pedal to the metal and their hair on fire. Vital information staring them right in the face, and they deliberately choose to ignore it. Right up to the point where they hit the brick wall and point fingers at others because it must be someone else’s fault. 

Fox Network Morning Blathering Gabfest ran an interesting segment earlier in the week during their discussion of health care reform. About how much money the U.S. spends in costs related to obesity and illnesses related to it, and how the funds could be spent elsewhere in health care. 

Here’s a revealing figure, taken from healthaffairs.org - http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2009/07/29/obesity-spending-estimated-at-147-billion-annually/?source=promo

Medical spending on conditions associated with obesity has doubled in the past decade and is estimated to have reached an annual rate of $147 billion in 2008, say researchers in a new study published July 27 on the Health Affairs Web site. The study was presented at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Weight of the Nation” conference in Washington, where the CDC issued 24 new recommendations on how communities can fight back.

Ever notice the healthy ones who keep themselves fit aren’t the ones complaining about the health care system? Aren’t the ones pointing fingers at President Obama and Congress to do something about it? How about YOU do something about it? Take a wild stab at it . . . leading a healthier nutritious lifestyle, including physical fitness? After all, it wasn’t the President and the 535 members of Congress that forced you to eat your way to record setting waistlines.

And don’t get me started on this “I deserve to treat myself, I was good this week.” Who in the hell are you bargaining with?

A smoker says, “I haven’t smoked in seven days. I knew I could quit. I’m treating myself to a cheat day this weekend. Smoke as much as I want, I was good and I deserve it.” How much sense does that make?

An alcoholic says, “I made it! Haven’t had a drink in seven days! I worked hard at it, I deserve a treat. I’m going clubbing and getting my drink on. Besides, it’s only a couple beers. I can handle it.” Really? (True story. Someone from the gym who is an alcoholic went out with a few friends who told him he wasn’t supposed to drink. He said he could handle it. After all, it was only two beers. Long story short, alcohol and drugged himself high, right out of a good paying steady job. How much sense does that make?)

If the above two examples don’t make sense, why do people convince themselves the huge, intensive, ‘Oh, God, that was hard, how will I ever recover’ effort they put in over a blink of an eye time span deserves their original, horrible eating habits that deteriorated their health and wellness in the first place?

You want to lie to yourselves, go right ahead. Wait until your first major health scare. Or second. Or third. Better yet, go to your local pharmacy. Watch some of the people that frequent the place, constantly refilling prescriptions in order to get thru their day. Is that who you want to be in your advancing years? Taking pills every three hours or less, where the side effects are worst than the original reason you are taking the pills? 

Check out some of the facts and figures here - http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/critser/

You want to self medicate yourself to a quicker grave? Be my guest. Don’t expect the rest of us to carry you and your pine box for you.

Overheard a conversation in the gym this morning. Guy #1 was holding up Guy #2 from completing his workout. After all, it’s a real treat to drag your tired ass to the gym at five in the A.M. to hear about last night’s viewing events on the boob tube. 

Guy One was deep into last night’s plot of some cable show he believed to be the Second Coming, or the drool on his chin was the excitement of his riveting storytelling abilities. Anyway, after several minutes Guy Two wished he could retrieve and relive all over again, Guy One commented about his desire to lose weight and get into shape like the rest of us who make the predawn trek to The Temple of Iron and Other Heavy Stuff.

I personally wanted to shout something in the neighborhood of “Then shut the f#@k up and do something”, but that might have been far too obvious. Everyone possessing the ability to detect sound waves was then given the gift of listening to the great new discovered flavor of potato chips, the economy sized bucket of hot wings, the copious amounts of beer and other edible sundries Guy One consumed last night, not to forget the drive thru lunchtime treat awaiting him at the stroke of high noon. 

Folks, food is not a substance to provide yourself for no other reason than it is available. Think of your body as a moving vehicle. Just as you wouldn’t fuel your car every time the needle hits the three quarters full mark, you are not required to shove food, and bad food at that, into the chewing portal mounted on your face because the bottomless pit you call a waistline is beckoning. Also, having a gym membership is not a free ride to the all you can eat buffet of life. It doesn’t work that way. 

People who have the body, who have the look, put effort into it to make it work. In and out of the gym. Sitting at or away from the dinner table. It’s that simple. They aren’t taking the easy way out. They aren’t making excuses or passing responsibility and accountability onto others. 

Wake up and smell it. You aren’t getting any younger. Life is hard. Life is harder when your preferred wardrobe is a loose fitting sweat suit, and you aren’t wearing it because serious exertion is on the horizon. 

While shopping at a local department store, someone approached my gym partner, asks if he lifts weights. My friend replies yes. Stranger asks his age. Gym Partner says 56. And you still lift? As if it’s an unheard thing to care for your health and fitness into your fifties and beyond. Stranger says he used to lift ten years ago. Knowing my gym partner, he tells the guy to get back into it. Here it comes . . . I don’t have the time. 

I had to ask. Ten years and he didn’t have a single moment of free or spare time? Where’s this guy been the past 10 years, Witness Protection Program? Always on the move, attempting to stay one step ahead of the law?

Pretty thin excuse. In this day and age, when everyone thinks multitasking is a God given right that you’re supposed to perform so they can have it easy, (even notice the more balls you juggle in the air, nothing really gets done or completed? As the saying goes, there's never enough time to do it right, but always time to do it over). No one has the time. You MAKE the time. Let’s be honest with one another. I don’t have the time means you don’t want to put in the effort. No one is bothering me and a host of other people at 5am when we’re hitting the iron. Many others are either coming home at 5, or trying to get as much sleep as possible before hurrying off to work, still arrive late, and complain they didn’t get the best of the donuts someone left in the break room. And why isn’t the coffee made?

Take a few sheets of paper. Take three to five days out of your week. Each day from the time you arise until the time your head hits the pillow, annotate everything you do, and how long it takes you. Everything. At the end of the experiment, take note of how your time is spent. Three to five hours a night watching TV? Untold hours spent forwarding email jokes to everyone in the three closest time zones? (Trust me, they aren’t funny, hilarious or giggle worthy. Stop it.) Happy hour every night? Really? And that thing you do where you come home, collapse on the sofa and don’t move any faster than the arctic glaciers? Why do you think you constantly feel that way?

And you say you can’t find 30 to 45 to 60 minutes, at least three times a week to devote to your health and well being?

There’s a great YouTube Nike video about excuses. It’s pretty comical listening to the many excuses, until the very end, when you realize why the particular speaker was tapped by Nike to do it. Give it a watch, then ask yourself if you really can’t be bothered because time is a factor. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obdd31Q9PqA

Physical fitness, like many other endeavors, is a journey. Somewhere along the way obstacles appear to test your mettle, your resolve. When it does happen, success is predicated on a deciding factor - what’s more important - advancement, or failure.

The more we age, the easier it becomes to pack on the extra pounds. What’s the answer? This is a no brainer. More physical activity, eat less. And consume quality foods. No, baked potato chips do not count as a quality edible substance. If it makes your fingertips glow orange, it does not belong in the dairy section of the four basic food groups, no matter how large the manufacturer printed the word ‘Cheesy’ on the packaging.

Placed in this situation, one should ask themselves, “What’s more important . . .?”

No matter if your goals are the ripped, shredded six pack look, or being able to ascend a flight of stairs without the assistance of a cardiac team on standby, you should always ask yourself how important it becomes to you whenever temptation lurks around the next corner or boldly stares you in the face. Stop blaming the dry cleaners. The button on your pants didn’t shoot across the room, mortally wounding an innocent bystander because a different fabric softener was used this week. Your ass was fat long before the invention of pants, stop asking some poor soul in the nearby vicinity to drop a huge pile of horse manure and lie for your benefit.

In a previous article I mentioned the seriousness of diabetes. Another cause for concern is a completely different condition, known as the silent killer. It sneaks up with the stealth of a skilled ninja, striking when you least expect it. As you read this you may be one of many who have this affliction and don’t realize it.

It may not be a huge deal now, but think about this, taken from Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070928180348.htm 

High Blood Pressure May Be Due To Excess Weight In Half Of Overweight Adults

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2007) — As many as 50 percent of overweight men and women with high blood pressure may have hypertension as a result of being overweight, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association's 61st Annual Fall Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research.

Researchers in Italy found that about 50 percent of overweight, hypertensive adults, ranging in age from 29 to 65 years, achieved normal body weight and blood pressure after six months of treatment with a reduced-calorie diet.

"This is important because it means that in these patients with elevated blood pressure who were overweight, the blood pressure was not a form of essential hypertension but was hypertension secondary to body weight," said Roberto Fogari, M.D., lead investigator of the study and professor of medicine at the University of Pavia, Italy. 

Or this one, taken from Harvard Science Medicine and Health http://www.harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/smoking-high-blood-pressure-and-being-overweight-top-three-preventable-caus

Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight top three preventable causes of death in the U.S. New study finds hundreds of thousands of deaths each year due to diet, lifestyle.

APRIL 27, 2009

TODD DATZ
HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Smoking, having high blood pressure, and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature mortality in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. 

The researchers found that smoking is responsible for 467,000 premature deaths each year, high blood pressure for 395,000, and being overweight for 216,000. The effects of smoking work out to be about one in five deaths in American adults, while high blood pressure is responsible for one in six deaths. 

It is the most comprehensive study yet to look at how diet, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors for chronic disease contribute to mortality in the United States. The study appears in the April 28 issue of the open-access journal PLoS Medicine.

“The large magnitude of the numbers for many of these risks made us pause,” said Goodarz Danaei, a doctoral student at HSPH and the lead author of the study. “To have hundreds of thousands of premature deaths caused by these modifiable risk factors is shocking and should motivate a serious look at whether our public health system has sufficient capacity to implement interventions and whether it is currently focusing on the right set of interventions.” Majid Ezzati, associate professor of international health at HSPH, is the study’s senior author.

The researchers also found large effects from a series of other preventable dietary and lifestyle risk factors. Below are the numbers of deaths in the United States due annually to each of the individual risk factors examined:

•    Smoking: 467,000 

•    High blood pressure: 395,000

•    Overweight-obesity: 216,000

•    Inadequate physical activity and inactivity: 191,000

•    High blood sugar: 190,000

•    High LDL cholesterol: 113,000

•    High dietary salt: 102,000

•    Low dietary omega-3 fatty acids: 84,000

•    High dietary trans-fatty acids: 82,000

•    Alcohol use: 64,000 (alcohol use averted a balance of 26,000 deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, because moderate drinking reduces risk of these diseases. But these deaths were outweighed by 90,000 alcohol-related deaths from traffic and other injuries, violence, cancers, and a range of other diseases).

•    Low intake of fruits and vegetables: 58,000

•    Low dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids: 15,000 

All of the deaths calculated in the study were considered premature or preventable in that the victims would not have died when they did if they had not been subject to the behaviors or activities linked to their deaths. All of these risk factors are modifiable through a range of public health and health system interventions.

While earlier studies had quantified deaths linked to a few factors, like smoking and alcohol, this is the first to look at a wide range of risk factors, including those linked to diet, lifestyle, and metabolic factors, and the first to do so for the whole U.S. population. This is also the first to use methods that allowed a true comparison of a diverse set of risks in terms of how many deaths each of the risk factors is responsible for. The researchers analyzed data from a number of public sources, including from the National Center for Health Statistics and numerous published epidemiological studies and clinical trials.

The researchers also found differences between the preventable causes of death among men and women. High blood pressure was the leading cause of death in adult women, killing nearly 230,000 American women each year, 19 percent of all female deaths. By comparison, that is more than five times the 42,000 annual deaths in women from breast cancer.

Smoking was the leading cause of death in men, killing an estimated 248,000 annually, or 21 percent of all adult male deaths.

The mortality effects of many other risk factors were about equal in men and women, with alcohol use being a major exception. Seventy percent of all deaths caused by alcohol were among men and represented 45,000 deaths, a result the researchers said reflected the fact that men consumed more alcohol and engaged in more binge drinking.

“The findings should be a reminder that although we have been effective in partially reducing smoking and high blood pressure, we have not yet completed the task and have a great deal more to do on these major preventable factors,” said Ezzati. “The government should also use regulatory, pricing, and health information mechanisms to substantially reduce salt and trans fats in prepared and packaged foods and to support research that can find effective strategies for modifying the other dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors that cause large numbers of premature deaths in the U.S.”

It’s a large mouthful to digest. So ask yourself.

What’s more important . . .

Fitness Spotlight recently posted a great article, (it's true to life, go read) located at http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2009/06/11/5-urgent-vocabulary-today/ about five well worn and well traveled excuses used to deflect responsibility for your own health. If you look at some of the bad behavior perpetuated every hour of every day, continuously without fail, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise when an individual feels like yesterday’s discarded crap when everyone else around them are on the top of their game. 

Cigarettes are being taxed to new record highs, and people still haven’t read the memo. Just to use round numbers for the mathematically challenged, a pack a day smoker shells out a hard earned five dollars to deliberately ruin their lungs. (Just because you have two doesn’t mean the second one is a spare.) At thirty five dollars a week (7 x 5, keep up with the action) multiplied by fifty two weeks, we’re looking at $1820 being pissed away, per year. A two pack a day smoker, $3640. Tell me that wouldn’t purchase a sweet HD big screen TV and still have change left over for gas to drive it home. And you would have enough energy and lung capacity to suck your ass off the couch and search for the remote. 

Bad eating and alcohol consumption habits, extreme sedentary lifestyles, at what point did you earn the right to complain about the cost of health care? You’re the reason it costs so damn much. Of course you contribute to it. You can’t swing a dead cat without striking a doughnut shop (or three), and at least two or more brand name coffee shops hawking hot ice cream in cups as large as a three year old toddler. And let’s be honest, coffee is a regular eight ounce cup, black. Everything else is an excuse for today’s version of a large banana split - sugar, whipped cream, more sugar, a syrupy topping and sprinkles, and no banana. Let’s not omit three of four competing burger joints, more twenty four hour convenience stores, and the ongoing battle of which is tastier, Coke or Pepsi, with the other sodas clamoring “Look, at us, we’re caffeine free”, when they never had it from the start. 

Why do you think these places appear quicker than pimples on teenagers? You keep spending money at these places, chasing the same downward spiral, until one day your co-workers are passing a jar around the workplace while you’re listening to a doctor tell you about the expensive prescriptions and meds you have to purchase due to your lifestyle induced heart attack / high cholesterol / block artery / failing liver / bad kidneys / diabetes / cancer / or just plain grossly overweight.

On second thought, maybe you’re right. It probably is due to your advancing age, bad genes, some alien mutating virus from another world, a sinister CIA plot, or some hateful co-worker is out to get you.

It’s never your fault.

Depending on your approach, learning a language is what you make of it. Your studies can flow, leaving you questions why you previously spent so much time resisting it, or it can become an unenjoyable undertaking. Start, stop, quit. Bitch and moan. Rinse and repeat.

One of the barriers of learning a foreign language is trying to make the second language fit into your native patterns, instead of bringing your methods and thought patterns into the new language.

An excellent example would be Japanese. There are far too many words and phrases that have no direct translation into English. Which means you have to direct your thoughts, your preconceived methods (which weren’t working so well) in a different direction. 

You ask, “I know you're steering this comparison towards fitness. Is this going to require effort on my part?”

Yes. (Damn, I knew you were going to say that.)

Six months into the year. Now that beach/bikini season is in full swing (it never ends in Florida) how close are you in reaching your New Year resolution. You are still pursuing them, aren’t you? See, that’s why it’s time for a change, a different method to attain the same goal.

One of the most successful methods of learning a new language is immersion. This involves jumping into the deep end. Getting off the porch and running with the big dogs. Every possible available moment is spent reading, listening, watching, studying, thinking and absorbing the new language. Does it work? Hell, yes.

You’re asking how this applies to you. (Yes, you are.) 

I once read on a website of someone who used this very immersion technique, an interesting yet very true observation - do you know why young children are so adept at learning a language? They don’t have an adult’s lifetime experience of making excuses. 

How many times have you said, “Yeah, I know I should be doing this. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t eat this. Yeah, I know I should do something about it. Yes, I need to get my butt in gear. I know my current routine isn’t working, but the exertion factor is low, the comfort level is high and the amount I bitch about it is acceptable.”

Since you’ve said all of the above, maybe there’s something you should start asking yourself - “Is this going to help or hinder my progress?”

Is that fifth doughnut/pint of ice cream/bag of barbeque-salt and vinegar-sour cream and cheese chips you think no one notices going to aid or detract you from your goals? Is that time honored excuse of “I’ll do it tomorrow” going to assist, or impede your moving forward? Is that ninth pitcher of beer going to improve or obstruct your daily musings about your growing waistline, which, unbeknownst to you, recently applied for its own zoning laws. 

Here’s a final example of two bodies in motion, traveling in two different orbits . . .

A very good friend recently lost 20 pounds in two weeks. I’ve noticed the shape of his face has become more slender and his waistline has definitely slimmed down. (Even though there was that late night french fry incident several weeks ago, but he paid for it the next day. We surmised the oil used to fry the potatoes was in direct existence when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.) I asked how he did it, and this is his direct quote. “Clean eating, running, tennis, strength training, improved diet, increased water consumption, plenty of indoor/gym cardio and jump rope.”

Another person I recently met follows the time worn creed sung many times over - “Since I come to the gym, I figure I can eat whatever I want.” Second verse, same as the first. His personal mantra is clearly on display. As we were comparing notes on our eating habits, his was so bad I thought I gained weight merely by standing near by, listening to his culinary regimen. I started to reach for my own jump rope in order to ward off the evil food spirits.

Which direction are you heading towards?

Maybe its time to change directions. Immerse yourself towards the original goals. At this point, what do you have to lose, other than the old, unsuccessful habits holding you back from meaningful strides forward.

Progress now awaits.

I love to read. One of my favorite modes of relaxation. Give me a great, interesting novel that makes me care about the characters and the situations they have to resolve, I become voracious. Can’t put the book down.

One of the first novels I began reading sight unseen, no prodding necessary, had to purchase the entire series and never miss a book, was Robert B. Parker’s Spenser For Hire.

For those unfamiliar with the book, Spenser is a Boston P.I. who follows his own code of honor. Spenser and his close friend Hawk, used to fight on the same undercard as boxers. Back in the day they trained at Henry Cimoli’s Gym. A real boxer’s haven - a ring, a bag, a speed bag and the unmistakeable atmosphere of sweat and hard work. Individuals who came to train and put in the time, to dish out the pain and accept it as well.

As each novel progressed further in time and in Spenser’s life and cases, Henry Cimoli’s Gym became Cimoli’s Fitness Club and Spa. Brand spanking new machines, silver dumbbells glistening in the bright florescent lights, plants hanging from the ceiling, a juice bar, complete with young hip and with-it types happy to get through three sets of ten and calling it a day. As a homage to Spenser and Hawk, Henry keeps the speed bag, punching bag and Olympic bench in the back room for their personal use.

Two guys bringing it - pain, sweat. Every time.

Cut to reality - Pick an infomercial. Any infomercial. Has the simple act of working your abs become such an arduous task, that it requires pulsating belts, rotating seats, moving handles, rolling cages and other apparatus found in any S&M workshop, all for three easy payments of $19.95?

“But it hurts my neck when I do crunches.” How about using proper technique? “But this is easier!” Ever think that’s the problem? Or the guy doing 25 pound dumbbell curls because that’s going to carve his size 48 size waist into the sleek, chiseled likeness of Apollo, the Greek god of messengers whose position on Earth is the timely delivery of floral arrangements for FTD. Why biceps curls? It’s easier.

How about the home fitness system sitting in the bedroom corner. Pretty sweet on the big screen with the hot blonde and buff stud with the gleaming teeth (in HD) working the machine as if it was a frolic in the lilac fields, majestic mountain range in the background, small woodland creatures of nature in the foreground, purple hued sunset tinged skies setting the perfect mood.

How long have you employed the home system as a second clothes rack?

Let’s face it. Moving out of your comfort zone hurts. Lots of exertion, sweat, hard work, heavy breathing. You’d swear we’re discussing sex, only not as satisfying. (By the way, who do you think is having all that sex you hear about? The ones leaving their comfort zone. Lots of exertion, sweat, hard work, heavy breathing.)

We live in an era where we want it, but it has to be effortless. We have more hypocrites bashing anyone caught using performance enhancing drugs. What do you always hear? Cheaters taking the easy way. Don’t allow them in the Hall of Fame, they’re ruining the integrity of the game! What about the children??

When you decide to circumvent correct technique, stay well within your comfort zone, patronize the latest apparatus guaranteed to sculpt the body you want in only a few minutes a day, and gee, doesn’t it look fun to use? And look, no perspiration necessary! Let’s not forget the latest over the counter supplement, complete with 3-D visuals depicting a slimmer, toned personage of your former self, and ignore the fine print because the warnings on the label really doesn’t pertain to you. Why do you think it’s so small?

Through all of this, who are you cheating? Yourself.

Amazing how so many accusatory fingers are pointed to our sports heroes seeking an edge, but it’s perfectly fine if we cut corners. (Side note: Get off A-Rod’s back. Stop the hypocrisy. Really. “But he hasn’t won a World Series championship!” Neither have you. Stop it.) 

Here’s a barometer to determine if it’s time to get serious and get busy. With years of corner cutting shortcuts, jumping from one quick fix to the next, how much real, long lasting progress have you made?