Review: Wait on the Weight
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 26, 2012
When it comes to fitness, I am the ideal candidate for its remedial class.I have flunked out more times than I care to remember. In fact, I've taken a perverse pleasure (what the Germans call "schadenfreude") in not wanting to physically exercise. I have no desire to do so and I gain no pleasure from it.Yet my intellect keeps reproaching me for my obstinacy.The harsh truth is that I am thirty pounds overweight, have plantar fasciitis in both feet, lousy posture, an overpowering sweet tooth, a high triglyceride count, an underactive thyroid, and a tendency to get depressed every so often.You'd think I'd somehow reconcile my woeful physical attributes with what my brain knows. Which would explain my obdurate, mulish attitude and approach to staying in shape.Perhaps it all hearkens back to elementary school, where I was forever being teased and tormented for not having the dexterity to throw a baseball. (Read: I threw like a girl. I still do, to my everlasting chagrin.)Being labelled as clumsy and ill-coordinated doesn't exactly win you the admiration and envy of your peers, especially living and attending school in an area where physical prowess was adulated and encouraged and overt nerdiness was banished to the social hinterlands.I occupied the latter's social rung for so long, I could have been its ambassador.All I know was that, in order to survive in this adolescent world that was mercilessly unforgiving in its rigid social castes, I had to develop a sense of humor that is still being honed three decades later. Ironically, I learned to master the art of self-deprecation and all of its accompanying social misery without truly believing anything I said about it.In other words, it took plenty of trials and countless errors, but eventually I developed the ability to laugh at myself and take personal insults in stride. At my age, I can't afford not to.So perhaps all of these grimace-inducing memories may have influenced my disdain of exercise because of the numerous bad memories I have held for all these years hence.Stephen Williams has written another exercise book, "Best Exercise to Lose Weight: Make the Dream of Losing Weight a Reality", with people like myself in mind. Williams's tome makes a valiant attempt to connect with those of us who find exercise a tedious chore and would sooner undergo a root canal than seek out a Nautilus.We live in a society that promotes healthy living and healthy lifestyles with countless advertisements for exercise equipment, Tae-Bo and Zumba videos, LaLanne juicers, dietary supplements, and numerous celebrity-endorsed cookbooks that promote the wonders of Thai and Indian cooking and also veer into the latest food fads a la Atkins and South Beach.On the other hand, drive through any middle-sized community in America and you eventually encounter all-you-can-eat buffets and other establishments that promote gluttonous, sedentary, corn-syrup-based lifestyles. Supermarkets sell products consisting of refined white flour, yellow dye number 2, red dye number 5, aspartame, and other assorted chemicals that Con-Agra and Monsanto would be proud to recognize.So why this schizophrenic existence?Such a conundrum may stem from our relative affluence and access to technology. Advances in these areas have created workplace environments that promote sedentary lifestyles. People working with computer-based technology sit in cubicles for up to eight, nine, even ten hours at a clip, getting up periodically for coffee and bathroom breaks. Telecommuting from home means working in one spot while discouraging physical activity. Additionally, in certain environments, the pace of work and the accompanying stress levels have increased exponentially, with modern trends demonstrating fewer people performing tasks that require greater and faster output.While some enlightened workplaces have recognized these potential health issues by creating environments that promote exercise and stress-reducing activities, most work venues lack even the basic amenities for dealing with the potential long-term health problems that can affect work output. While Williams doesn't explicitly recognize the culprits responsible for why our society has a severe weight problem, he does acknowledge that people with such issues have the ability to do something about it."Exercise" demonstrates that one does not need to spend inordinate amounts of money in order to adhere to an exercise regimen. Williams exhorts the reader to first adjust their attitude towards the purpose of exercise and view it from a new perspective: exercise is what we make of it, and it is actually fun if we find something we enjoy doing. To wit: "It takes a simple paradigm shift to change what we always thought...that losing weight can mean spending a fortune...without sure results...(T)o lose weight doesn't have to require you go elsewhere (other) than the very comfort of your home." (intro.) Williams suggests doing activities such as swimming and walking - activities that do not place severe wear-and-tear upon the body, yet are effective enough to incur weight loss and promote active burning of calories.The fact of the matter is that it is up to the individual to want to do this. There has to be an inherent motivation for seeking weight loss, and to impose such a program upon another person, especially in light of our highly individualistic society, will not work. People work (or choose not to work) for very different reasons. The key to success comes from within ourselves, regardless of the subject---exercise; finances; occupation; etc.Getting in shape has many proven benefits, such as fighting depression and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Some people choose to make changes on an individual basis; others prefer to set and achieve their exercise goals within a group. "Exercise" provides many useful suggestions that are invaluable for self-motivated people to lose weight and thus improve their physical and mental outlook.Eventually I may decide to get in shape. Despite Williams's exuberance, there's a part of me that will proudly resist the clarion call to engage in a push-up."Exercise" is a useful, persuadable book that points out the benefits of getting in shape on a budget.