Walking toward health and other tortures

At the gym — Yes, I was at the gym; don’t faint — I was asked what my fitness goal was. And I answered promptly, “I want to be one of those obnoxious skinny people.” You know the ones I mean: they eat like starving pigs, but they never gain weight. In fact, they are so used to their incredible metabolism that burns fat like a Congressman spends money that they are baffled by people who are overweight.

My brother-in-law has that metabolism. Despite being married to my sister who can cook the way Pavarroti can sing, he remains amazingly thin. Obnoxiously thin. Not that he would ever brag about that. He’s long since learned we Bagleys may be plump, but our heavy arms can slap a person’s ears back faster than the women on The View can talk.

And truthfully, he wouldn’t brag, anyway. He’s not that type of person. He just goes fecklessly through life, eating burritos and whole sides of beef without gaining an ounce while I can just smell a steak and gain five pounds.

Anyway, back at the gym, we had a long discussion about metabolism and dieting, exercise and other ways to torture people, low fat recipes and healthy food, and why Anna, one of the gym’s fitness instructors, doesn’t shave her legs. (She thinks shaving is unnatural. The other ladies think she is unnatural. I think she’s furry. Just think about how warm her legs will be this winter.)

You’re probably wondering who are the “we” who are having that discussion with me. I have my own walking team: Kyra, Eric, Lafern, Jennifer, Jeanette, Kathy, Kay, Dustin, Ricky, Sister Francis Mary Margaret Mary Celeste, Buffy the Fat Flayer, Valley View Hospital Cardiac Unit, Rudolph the Pot-bellied Pig, the Emergency Medical Response technicians, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but it is quite a group of us who walk together around the track. We tend collect slower moving people and sometimes small children and the occasional compact car, although we always make sure to return everyone and everything. Eventually.

I also have my own cheerleaders on Facebook. (They won’t wear the outfits, though.) Every fitness goal I reach is heralded as if I had discovered penicillin. (Which I didn’t, although I certainly have plenty of moldy things in my fridge, including a bottle of pickled pig feet that I don’t throw away because they’re such a conversation piece. Although a lot of those conversations seem to be about botulism and stomach pumps.) My cheerleaders post comments on my Facebook page like these:

Kyra: Good job, Stephen!
Jennifer: You’re awesome!
Eric: Keep up the good work!
Pam Anderson: Why won’t u call me back? Miss u. P.Obama: Wish my health care plan was as successful as your walking is!

And I appreciate all those comments, because privately I can tell you (and you and you and you, but not you) that it’s been quite hard. I dread it before I go, I dread it while I’m doing it, and after I’m done, I start dreading the next time I have to go.

Yes, I know that’s not the proper attitude, but I’m working on that, too. In fact, I have trained myself to yell, “Woohoo!” every time I hear about walking. My minister, however, was surprised last Sunday when he preached about Jesus walking on water, but when I explained later that “Woohoo!” was my personal and special way to say “Amen,” he was so pleased that he was speechless for several minutes. He even had tears in his eyes, which he often does when he talks to me. I must be such a blessing to him.

Truthfully, the walking isn’t that bad while I’m doing it. What I dread is how my legs feel afterwards. After the first day, I came home and sat down in my easy chair. Thirty minutes later, I tried to get up, and my legs actually reached up through my throat and screamed. I had stiffened up so much that I seriously considered starting life anew in that chair. But my roomie attached a cable to me and was able to extract me with no more difficulty than moving a barge and toting a bale.

My roomie even gave me a compliment the other day. He said, “You’re walking and barely whining at all.” I appreciated the words, although not the astonished tone in which they were delivered. Sometimes I think he’s jealous of me, but who can blame him?

So I’m going to get thin (healthy) and brag about it to everyone who will listen. But you have time, probably a year or three before that happens. Now let’s all say “Woohoo!”

Copyright 2010 by Stephen B. Bagley. All rights reserved. No copying without prior written permission by the author.

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