Go ahead and ask 2008 Adam if he’d ever starve and torture himself to look good for a wedding, like those idiots on his fiancée’s shows on that Slice channel.
He’d just laugh at you, tiny bits of smoked meat pinging out of his maw. For I was sure I would never work out extra hard or diet for the sake of my wedding photos. I look how I look and that’s that, went my attitude.
And yet. Things change when you’re actually faced with being a fat groom. I am overweight by something like 25 pounds, and have been during most of the decade since I reached 21 and my metabolism turned traitor. Now I want to run back the fat clock.
So I set a pioneer foot on the alien shore of a gym last week for the first time in many years, the new membership being a necessity now that I no longer live in a building with a rudimentary exercise room and a pool.
And alien indeed is the gym for me, because I simply am not the same kind of creature as those obsessed with physical activity. The gym employees don’t understand my Earth banter, which spooks me. People (Canadians!) who don’t laugh when I make a good joke scare me more than anything.
Another way homo gymnasicus and I are different species: Exercise has always been to me one big meh, a chore with a place on the pleasure scale above going to the dentist but below doing laundry.
My close male friends from high school now bond by the kilometre as often as they do by the pint, but I absolutely loathe running and won’t do it even for the sake of friendship. Yes, I’m lazy, but that isn’t totally my fault; genetics played a role by apparently giving me almost nothing but fast-twitch muscles.
To borrow a phrase from The Onion, I’m powerful good at punching. Endurance sports, not so much. My limbs fill up pretty quickly with the throb of lactic acid and I’ve never, ever experienced anything like a runner’s high. Also, I bet I can eat more than you.
All of that being said, I’d kind of like to make it past 60, and look better to boot. So work out I must.
It will be nice to shed that Molson muscle and look suave in my wedding day tux. My fiancée poked gentle fun at my “one-pack” tummy last night. She also called it Bubba Keg. For the sake of dignity alone it’s time to muster the discipline to reverse the fatty sins of my twenties and chart a painful and humourless course to planet fitness.
Image courtesy of Giles Clement.
i bid you a good luck on your endeavours!
to lose the excess baggage, you’re going to have to do more than excercise though. the old saying of “it’s 20% excercise and 80% diet” I fear is actually true.
I started working out regularly about 3 years ago. what I did not do was change my eating habits (i love food too much, and dammit sometimes a baconator just hits the spot!). result: I’ve put on tons of muscle but the belly is still there. my pants fit exactly as they have always fit, I just fill out my shirts alot more in the arms and shoulders.
my advice: get to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, but watch what you eat. OR, work out, eat what you want and deal with increased muscle and a stubborn belly like me.
Ah yes, Ian, a good point. I actually do intend to eat better as well (and cut out like 95% of the beer), but didn’t quite have enough room to get to that.
Dinner last night: trout and spinach. Tonight: trout and wild rice. Et cetera, for six months.
Thanks for wishing me luck.
Skip the running especially if you do not enjoy it. Lift weights and follow that by 10 minutes of high intensity interval cardio (lots of choices for cardio other than running). Men are designed by nature to build muscle and get rid of fat. Start light and build up to heavier weights, low reps and full body movements (e.g. squats, rows, lunges, push-ups, chin-ups, planks, step-ups, presses etc) using free weights. Talk to the Renegade Trainer. I personally follow Toronto trainer Craig Ballantyne at http://www.ttfatloss.com There are other programs out there like P90X etc.
Also clean up your nutrition. Replace food in bags and boxes with whole foods and don’t drink your calories. Good luck. You can do it.