"They say working out is 50% mental and 50% physical. Pant! Pant! Puff! Puff! Wheeze! I'll do the other 50% some other time. "
- Garfield the Cat

Summer, 2001

God! Does this suck or what? It just never ends!

I cannot tell you how much I hate working out. I workout 6 days a week to the Bill Phillips: Body for Life plan. If I'm not grunting from weightlifting, limping from a hard leg workout, or sweating buckets off of a stairmaster, I'm silently letting everyone in the gym know that I had garlic this week.

Why do I work out?

Well, I commute to New York City five days a week. Timewise, the distance from Freehold to New York is about an hour and thirty minutes to two hours there and about two to two and a half hours back to Freehold. So, basically, 4 hours of my day are committed to riding on a bus. I have found out from experience there is nothing worse you can do to your body than to do this kind of commute. This has caused me semi-regular visits to my brother (a chiropractor) and the discovery that my metabolism stops completely on these trips.

Shortly after college when I got my first job in New York, I went from being 150 lbs. to 185 lbs. At the time I was commuting from Howell to New York, which was about two and a half to 3 hours each direction during rush hour. It was during this time I opted to move closer to the city (Jersey City, Exchange Place. Commute time, door to desk: 20 minutes). After some diet and excersice I dropped to 160 lbs. I stayed up in North Jersey until about two years after marriage. I enjoyed my commute and did not venture any further than Secaucus (commute time, desk to door: 50 minutes via local bus and PATH train).

After my wife and I moved down to Freehold (where the real estate and taxes are oh-so-low, and my mortgage and taxes are less than what I was paying in rent for a Secaucus apartment), I started my commute nightmare, waking at 5:AM and leaving the house at 6:AM to beat the rush hour traffic into the city. (I usually arrive at work about 7:30 AM). My weight started to creep back to 180 lbs... and then to 190... and then to 200... and then ultimately to 218 lbs. I went from a 32 waist to a 38 waste in a year. That's usually when a little voice inside you says, "ENOUGH!"

I joined the local gym. NYSC in Freehold. Truthfully, it's not the greatest gym in the world, but It's within spitting distance of the house and I don't pay an arm and a leg to use the facilities. I've been going there for about a year now and I've gone from being 218 lbs of fat to 190 lbs of muscle. With some amount of modesty, I look pretty good. The stomach is flat. The arms and chest are larger. The legs are muscular (something I really never lost since my karate days, but it's good to see more muscle on them). And my butt.... well, my wife smiles more than she used to.

But looking this good comes with a price. I have to work out and diet to maintain this and ultimately to get a head. In the meantime, I grunt, I sweat, I stink, and I stay in a constant state of soreness. Remember, body building means that you are tearing muscle fiber and rebuilding it. When you rebuild muscle, lactic acids in the body will cause some amount of pain. If you are doing some amount of cardio during this painful period you discover just walking at times can be a REAL pain.

Cardio is a real purgatory. You start out with your music to keep you motivated (I, personally, prefer JOCK JAMS 94, but that's me. If not, I have my own music mix that I sweat to). And you do need it at times. I found this out when my walkman battery ran out of juice on the stairmaster and I had to continue just as my routine cycle hit its peak with no music. Not fun. My attitude starts out pretty good until after minute one. After minute one, It becomes, "when the f#@k is this going to end?!!!" I remain in this state until the last minute of the workout. In that minute, I sound like the fighter pilot in STAR WARS saying, "Almost there.... almost there." Then it's done and I opt whether or not I'm going to do an extra set of abdominal exercises. Usually not.

The first couple of months had a pronounced weight loss. I lost the first 20 lbs to cardio and weight lifting. Then it stopped. Guess what I had to do as well?

That's right. Diet.

I started the Body For Life: eating for life facet of the plan. Good-bye doritos, pizza, and beer! I still cry at the thought. I can have all of these things once a week. But that's it. Plus in order to make the diet really work, you must drink MYOPLEX and stay with his eating plan. Let me stress, it does work. MYOPLEX: That's Bill Phillips' protein shake. I enjoyed the first couple of shakes I drank, but then I let a female friend I know try some. She said that it was okay but it reminded her of something else. When I pressed her and asked "Like what?" She said that it had a warm semi-viscuous texture that reminded her of a certain sexual activity.

I haven't been able to drink them happily since. It makes me think how Bill Phillips might be making these shakes to begin with.

Personally, I'm waiting for the pill.

I really want one of the chemistry wiz kids to come up with "the pill". This would not be the "wake up thin" pill. It would be the "wake up with Arnold Schwartzneger's body". Don't get me wrong. I'm completely against steroids and quick fix "snake oil" plans. That's for fat people who are not even willing to pay the price. It's just why does the price have to be soooo long and arduous? I know that I've probably increased my life expectancy 10 extra years. I'm just afraid that those will be the 10 years that I will be walking around peeing myself not knowing who I am.

I love having a body in shape, but working out bites the big one.

I recommend these products. Who knows? They could help you as well. - Vikar