Special Olympic Edition: The Thrill of Chocolate and the Agony of de Feet

Hi there. Just blogging away while watching the Winter Olympics, wondering when it is exactly that we became a nation of fitness hypocrites.  

For every Olympic sporting event that turns into a television ratings bonanza (yes, even curling), we're subjected to everything from "Celebrity Fit Club" to what I like to refer to as TLC's Half Ton Trio:  "Half-Ton Mom", "Half-Ton Dad", and "Half-Ton Teen".  For every "P90X" infomercial, there are a hundred "it's not your fault your jeans don't fit" messages. 

Just this morning, I saw a commercial on TV for something called "Perfect Fit Buttons". These little contraptions allow you to "move the button" on your waistband without having to actually, well, move the button (or, God forbid, lose some weight). I think they were something like $9.99 for four buttons.  Guess that's the going rate for denial and escape from the middle-aged death sentence that is elasticated pants and foundation garments.

The question is, are we obsessed with fitness or fatness? Personally, I think I'm just obsessed with chocolate and how to get more of it. For me, that makes fitness and exercise just a (very painful) means to an end.


JUST WARMING UP

I've never considered myself to be much of an athlete, unless you'd consider jumping to conclusions and running off at the mouth to be Olympic sports. Although I work out at the gym regularly, the fact is that exercise and I have never really gotten along. In fact, you could say that at this point in our relationship we are so estranged that I actually hate exercise (not to mention those capri-length "Mr. Spock" pants you have to wear for maximum aerodynamics). I have my reasons.

It all started to go downhill about three years ago, when I signed up for a three-month membership with the local health club.  The first time I went to the gym, I was feeling pretty good about myself until I went out to the parking lot after class and realized I had locked my keys in the car. Then, to literally add injury to insult, my arms hurt so much that I couldn't raise them above my shoulders for a week.  This is what led to Lesson Number One learned at the gym: Always carry a spare key and a cell phone. Oh, and invest in some Advil.

The second time I went to the gym, I smashed my pinkie finger in the weight rack while putting my weights away (and here I was thinking that the suffering for that day was over). The nail eventually turned black and fell off, but not until someone had accidentally knocked my free weights off a shelf while I was bending over and I got an earful of iron that made my ears ring for two days.  This led to Lesson Number Two learned at the gym: Be careful handling your weights, because they're really heavy, and they mean business. Oh, and invest in some Advil (preferably chocolate-covered).

At this point, I was pretty much ready to pack it in and forfeit my membership fee without further ado. Perhaps if I just lay down and clear my mind, this sudden urge to exercise would go away?  Nonetheless, I kept going back, for some reason (okay, for many reasons, all of them covered with chocolate). So I suppose you could say I deserved what happened next.


THERE'S A REASON WHY THEY CALL IT "MUSCLE DEATH"

My primary reason for hating exercise should be obvious: IT'S TOO DAMN HARD, nothing but a spandex smackdown: HEAD UP! SHOULDERS BACK! ABS TUCKED! KNEES SOFT! CHIN IN NEUTRAL!  On those rare occasions when you're not getting yelled at, you're getting beaten with reeds. And it just never gets any better, does it?


Allow me to illustrate.  They have this thing called the “chest fly”, which I believe must have descended from the medieval torture device known as "the Rack". Chest flies are usually reserved for my Tuesday class, Thursdays being "I hate my thighs" day.

Anyway, when you are doing chest flies, you are laid out flat on your back and helpless.  In the meantime, only your quivering arm muscles stand between your weights and your face, preventing those heavy dumbbells from crashing on to you, through you, and into the floor beneath you. If you do it correctly (and somehow manage not to pull your shoulders out of their sockets), the idea is that you'll look something like Arnold Schwarzenegger on steroids (or is that redundant?). Problem is, I don't want to look like Ahhnold. I'm also way too worried about dropping my weights to concern myself with being that ripped. Of course, that doesn't stop the trainer from yelling not to grip your weights too tightly.  Well I'm sorry, but any time there's a twelve-pound pair of weights (collectively, 24 pounds) hanging over my face, I'm hanging on like grim death and to hell with proper form.  Ever see that old episode of "The X-Files" where there's this guy whose face has been hollowed out by some severe (and no doubt supernatural) trauma, leaving nothing but an empty hole filled with charred ash and debris?  Well, that's the image I see when I do chest flies, and ain't nothin' gonna change it.  Moving on.

After your chest flies, the second test of endurance in this gymtastic Stations of the Cross is what they call the “compound exercise” (sounds like "compound fracture", and for good reason). Let's just say the compound exercise is enough to make you long for the days of the chest fly.

Now, the idea with compound exercises is that instead of working one muscle group at a time and doing it well, someone came up with this bright idea of working several muscle groups at once, thereby exponentially increasing your chances of injury. So, for example, you might do a lunge while doing a bicep curl while standing on one leg and singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.

Okay, that last bit was an exaggeration: They don't actually make you stand on one leg while you sing. But the whole thing requires way too much coordination. Kind've reminds me of when I was a kid and would try to do that thing where you rub your belly and pat your head. Ah, nostalgia. Couldn't do it then. Can't do it now. Let's move on.

Oh, and I'm assuming there's no need to go into the well-documented horrors of the abdominal crunch and the squat? Good.


I SQUAT, THEREFORE I AM

If all this isn't bad enough, during this whole unholy process, the trainer has the nerve to ask why everyone looks so serious. “Why isn't anyone smiling?”, they ask. Well, speaking for myself, I'm not a masochist.  Besides that, I'm too busy thinking about those pins I'm going to stick in my very own voodoo doll with my trainer's face on it while simultaneously imagining what I'm going to eat when I get out of this hellhole. Oh, I also read somewhere that it takes dozens of facial muscles to smile, and I'm not working any muscles I don't absolutely have to work.  Therefore, the second reason why I hate exercise is this: THE TRAINERS ARE SADISTIC CONTROL FREAKS!

Now, what do I mean by this?
 
The better question is, What don't I mean by this?  Fact is, if you've ever worked out with a trainer, you already know what I mean by this. But for the rest of you, I'll reveal the ugly, untoned truth: They literally treat you like DOGS (and not foofoo lap dogs named PeePee, either). 

I have this one trainer in particular who cues us from one step to another by yelling “STOP! STAY! SIT!” Before I know it, I'm flashing back to that summer I spent in obedience school (although I suppose it's preferable to when she yells for us to "STOP!  SQUAT!" (which makes me feel like I'm expected to give birth right there next to the elliptical machine)). I half expect to be rewarded with snausages and a fine eau de toilette of recent vintage. Yip yip hooray! There's a reason why they're called trainers, you know....

And once they have you panting like a dog and doing your little doggie tricks, it's not that big of a leap to where they're controlling everything you do during class (and that includes your breathing). They tell you when to inhale, when to exhale, how to inhale, how to exhale. They tell you, “Don't purse your lips when you breathe out!” (huh? what possible difference could that make??) Jeez, you can't even breathe in peace. You have to exhale with purpose, and that purpose is to work your abs! Well, my feeling is that breathing is my time to take in some oxygen, and I'm really not looking for style points.

Now, I don't want to suggest that the trainers are completely heartless: Sometimes they'll let you take a 30-second water break or they'll even set out troughs of water at the back of the room to save time. Whoop-de-doo. To put this in perspective, that 30 seconds is typically the amount of time that you gargle with mouthwash. That's what trainers consider a “break”: A Scope rinse.

But in the event someone gets dehydrated and passes out, they just crank the music up louder so no one can hear the hyperventilating and weeping (an aerobicized Rod Stewart followed by Led Zeppelin, if I'm not mistaken). As a side note, remember when rock and roll used to be the beat of hot monkey love and jungle sex, dirty stuff like that? Now, it's just a step class soundtrack with a snappy backbeat. And people thought DISCO was a societal scourge (which it was, but that's not the point)!

Now, before going any further, I'd like to take a moment here for a word about “Rest”. And that word is “myth”, because it DOES. NOT. EXIST! Instead, they have something they call "active rest", which appears to be some type of modified karate kick combined with a kick-ball-chain Cincinnati time-step move that's supposed to work your core and your balance (and improve your tap-dancing skills, too). Speaking as someone who considers true "rest" to be sacking out on the sofa in a potato chip coma, I don't think that this strictly counts as rest. Oh, and you definitely don't want to attempt this stuff with an inner ear infection.  I know.

Which leads me to the third (but hardly final) reason why I hate exercise.


IF THERE'S SUCH A THING AS MUSCLE MEMORY, CAN MUSCLES HAVE SENIOR MOMENTS?

The third reason why I hate exercise is that TRAINERS EITHER CAN'T COUNT OR THEY JUST PLAIN LIE!

I've already exposed the big lie about “rest”. However, trainers also can't seem to count the number of reps in a set, either. I'm here to tell you that I can take almost any amount of pain and torment, as long as I know: a) it's going to end; and b) precisely when it's going to end. Therefore, when a trainer says “four more!”, I'm banking on it. Unfortunately, on "Planet Fitness", my bank is not member FDIC. You see, the problem is that you can't trust trainers, because time and again, that “four more!” rapidly escalates into eighteen.

And none of them seem to count the same way, either. For some trainers, a single rep is actually comprised of four counts: "ONE-two-three-four; TWO-two-three-four; THREE-two-three-four; FOUR-two-three-four". Sound familiar? By my count, that's actually sixteen. Just who do they think they're fooling with this? I've gotta say, at this point during class my knickers typically aren't just in a twist; they're in an uproar of righteous indignation.

Furthermore, I'm guessing this inability to count might also explain why they can't seem to tell time either. Case in point: The "one-minute" forearm plank, also known as the longest one minute of my life, primarily because it's more like a minute and a half or even two minutes. I know this, because the whole time I'm doing this golden oldie from the Spanish Inquisition, I'm counting: ONE Mississippi, TWO Mississippi, THREE Mississippi, OH, MOTHER OF GOD WHEN WILL THIS BE OVER Mississippi.
 

COOLING DOWN

So that's why exercise and I are estranged: It's too hard; the trainers are sadistic; and they lie. So why do I keep going back?

Well, you might remember that the first two times I went to the gym, I locked my keys in the car and smashed my finger in the weight rack. But the third time seemed to be the charm. You see, not only didn't I hurt myself (not too badly, anyway); but I realized I could reward myself with a second brownie for dessert (and this one with NUTS). Yeah, baby!

Which led to Lesson Number Three learned at the gym: When power corrupts, chocolate cleanses (with apologies to JFK, who said it with much more eloquence and vigah).

The next day, I signed up for a lifetime membership. Oh, and I ordered three sets of those "Perfect Fit Buttons" just to be on the safe side.

Bloviation Nation

Watching the news or reading the newspapers or surfing the Internet these days is like entering a mineshaft. It should come with a warning: " Welcome to the Misinformation Age. Enter at your own risk."

Remember those days when you could actually believe what you heard or read in the media? Me neither. You see, over the years, the media has undergone a sea-change that is not necessarily rich but most definitely strange. And with the rise of the World Wide Web, 24-hour news channels and hundreds of cable stations all vying for dwindling viewer attention and ratings dollars by ratcheting up the entertainment factor, the line between so-called legitimate and illegitimate information sources has become so blurred that it's all but impossible to tell what's real and what isn't anymore. The fact is that today's media is all too often guilty of reporting the story first and asking questions later, much to our collective detriment.

So when, exactly, did it become open season on the truth? I have my theories. Time for a brief ride in the way-back machine.


MEDIA'S RISE INTO THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX

To some extent, people have long been accustomed to hearing "tall tales" from our political leaders and government officials. Heretofore it has been the American media that has assumed the role of "fact-finder", ensuring that such stories were properly vetted. Especially after the fallout from the Watergate scandal, a whole industry of government and corporate watchdog shows like "60 Minutes" and "20/20" sprang up for just that purpose. While the public viewed the media with a combination of suspicion and grudging respect, relatively few questioned the integrity of a Walter Cronkite or a Roger Mudd.

At the same time, the "fringe" media and scandal sheets were safely segregated and relegated to the supermarket checkout stands, good for a few chucks if you were willing to risk the humiliation of being caught reading them. On some level or other, we all knew never to cross the streams between the legitimate sources of information and the "twilight" world of the tabloids.

But at some point, we did cross the streams. While it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment, I think the consensus is that this "shark jump" happened in the 1990s with the OJ Simpson murder case. After all, that case is generally acknowledged as the first time that the “mainstream” media made widespread use of information taken from a tabloid in reporting a major news story. Think about that: We got our "serious" OJ news from the very same source claiming "Idaho Mom Gives Birth to Tater Tot" and extolling the virtues of an all-Kaopectate diet. It had to be a sign of the coming Apocalypse! What it actually was, however, was a seminal moment in journalism from which there was to be no turning back.

Instead, the trend really took off with the rise of the Internet (with a big shout out to Big Al Gore). With no real barriers to entry, the Internet became a clearinghouse for both real and imagined information. Anyone with a keyboard and an opinion, however uninformed, was (and is) free to post at will with precious little in the way of filters. As a result, when you go online, it's like entering the lair of a lifetime hoarder. Only instead of being filled with spoiled food and useless bits of paper mixed in with "the good stuff", on the Internet you find authentic information co-existing side-by-side with the untested, the unseemly, and the untrue (sometimes right on the same Web page). Put another way, if it's true to say that the most effective lie is sandwiched between two truths, then the Internet is a Subway sub shop and Wikipedia its deluxe club.


FOOL ME ONCE...DOH!

I remember being bamboozled by a story just last year involving a man, a lung, and a pine tree. In a nutshell, a guy in Russia had supposedly inhaled a spore and sprouted a pine tree in his lungs. I wasn't inclined to believe it at first, but there were pictures and everything! I could almost see the pine cones in the X-ray that accompanied the story. It was weird, I'll grant you, but if you could grow a watermelon in your digestive tract by swallowing a watermelon seed, who was I to question this story? Besides, I was tag-teamed on this one, with the heady combination of the Internet and the heretofore trustworthy local news station both carrying the story and conspiring to rope me in. No surprise it turned out to be a hoax. It just would've been nice to know that before I passed the story on to several people, thereby forever sealing my fate as the butt of future jokes.

And just as this blurring of fact and fiction has happened with the Internet, it's happened with other media as well. We are bombarded daily with its progeny: Photoshopped magazines; "mockumentaries" like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield"; fictional history like The DaVinci Code; “scripted reality” shows too numerous to count; and, most significantly, 24-hour news channels that are really just entertainment shows with political agendas, culpable partners in the relaying of half truths and innuendo. Ironically, if programs like "60 Minutes" arose to weed out the truth from the stories coming from the government and corporate America, then websites like snopes.com arose on the Internet to examine the stories perpetuated by the media itself.


TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES?

While some of these stories are funny, the consequences of not being able to believe what we see, hear and read are not. And those consequences can run the gamut, from being ill-informed; to loss of money and reputation; to loss of the public trust.

And all of these consequences are already at play. Just last year there was a prank video making the rounds on YouTube showing a Domino's employee supposedly sneezing a piece of cheese out his nose and onto a Domino's sandwich he was making. When the video went viral (along with the sandwich, no doubt), Domino's had no choice but to spend a lot of time and money trying to offset the negative publicity. Nevertheless, their reputation was damaged, because there were quite a few people who saw that video and believed it.

Perhaps harder to quantify is the number of people who saw the video, knew it was a hoax, and still didn't believe Domino's. Check out any public online forum and you're likely to see this type of cynicism on parade. It's almost become like some skewed badge of honor to disbelieve what we see and hear, because the alternative is to be viewed as foolish and naive. However, erring on the side of cynicism and disbelief is no more intelligent and informed than is blind faith. There's a price to be paid for a lack of belief as well.

Which leads us to what I would consider the most subtle, insidious consequence of this constant exposure to misinformation: Namely, forming our political and social viewpoints based on uninformed half-truths. Economic policy. Global warming. Stem-cell research. Terrorist threats. The latest pandemic. All important and complex issues that have been distilled and filtered into 2-minute sound bites by a wide array of media, each with its own spin.

Now, that's not to say I'm looking to be bombarded with facts and figures. After all, there's a reason why there's a long history of people and government and corporate entities burying controversial or unpopular information in an avalanche of typesetting (the current health care reform bill and the so-called "bail-out" bill, neither of which was apparently read by anyone in Congress, spring to mind). But what's missing here is the reliable filter that at one time might have been the media, with "reliable" being the operative term.

Perhaps it is obvious that commentary from the Bill O'Reillys and Keith Olbermanns of the world should be viewed with a jaundiced eye, given their demonstrated personal agendas that color that commentary, but what about the others in that broad spectrum of news and information? When you get right down to it, how do we really know that the information on which we base our beliefs and convictions is true? How do we know?


TAKING RESPONSIBILITY: THE BUCK STOPS HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE

Here's where I believe that we can all be better consumers of information: By pulling our critical thinking skills out of mothballs and questioning everything that relates to our health, our environment, our economy, and our beliefs. Is the information itself based on actual investigation or merely a press release by an interested party advancing its own agenda? By the same token, when we hear the results of some new scientific study, how much do we know about the source of that study, its source of funding, and the potential bias of the reporter?

We can and should seek out alternative viewpoints in an effort to get a more balanced view. It may make us feel better to have our opinions validated when we watch the partisan bloviating that goes on in the public discourse (or in Congress for that matter), but gone are the days when you could expect a fair and balanced reporting of facts and events (if those days ever really existed). When we hear only what we want to hear, you can be sure we're not hearing the whole truth. We need to challenge ourselves.

And ultimately, we need to “Trust...but verify”. Notice I said “trust”. For I do believe that informed trust is vital. After all, if we don't know what to believe (even if it's just some dumb story about a Russian guy who inhaled a Christmas tree), we run the risk of believing nothing. And call me naive and foolish, but I'm still not ready to go there.


IN CONCLUSION: ELIMINATING THE IMPOSSIBLE

Chances are, we've all heard some variation of that old adage about believing only half of what you see and none of what you hear. With pitch-perfect irony, I'm here to report that various sources on the Internet actually attribute that quote to everyone from Ben Franklin to Lou Reed to the Bible. I think even Jay-Z was mentioned somewhere. So much for living in the Information Age.

Perhaps sager advice for today's world would be to get your news and information from MSNBC and FOX, and then split the difference. After these two polar opposites have canceled out each other's self-serving agendas, you just might get the truth somewhere in between. To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and this source I am sure of, since the source is Conan Doyle himself): "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains--however improbable--must be the truth."

Welcome to the Misinformation Age. Enter at your own risk.

Patriot Acts and Other Misdeeds

Well, here's my first blog entry that I think could get me into some serious trouble with Patriots Nation (assuming anyone's reading this!). First of all, let me be clear about something. While I do live in New England and am a somewhat enthusiastic sports fan (and a Red Sox fanatic), I've not had much use for the New England Patriots for a couple of years now. Why? Bill Belichick. Tom Brady. Talk of Dynasty. Talk of the “Patriot Way” (whatever that means).

Perhaps it's just the contrarian in me. Try as I might, I have a really hard time following the crowd. When I see “Patriots Nation” calling Bill Belichick a “genius” and blindly intoning “In Bill We Trust” in response to his every move (no matter how mystifying) and when I actually hear references to Tom Brady being “infallible” without a trace of irony (and from people who reallyare in a position where they ought to know better), well it all just becomes too much for me. Or maybe it's not even the team at all that is off-putting, but rather the aura of entitlement that has surrounded them these past few years courtesy of the local media and fans. What had once been a somewhat “loveable loser” identity associated with the team has, over the past 9 years, morphed into something else entirely. And as much as it pains me, that something else is arrogant and obnoxious and entitled—all characteristics that I have always associated with (gulp) the New York Yankees. Whomever it was who some time back stated that rooting for the New York Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel had a point. I'm thinking that rooting for the Belichickean New England Patriots is like rooting for the New York Yankees (which I guess would therefore mean it's like rooting for U.S. Steel all over again, if I remember my Euclidean geometry correctly).

So, why this post, you might be wondering? Why now? Well, I'll tell you why. After watching a really exciting Super Bowl last Sunday that saw the New Orleans Saints defeat the Indianapolis Colts (I won't say upset, because it's not like it was shocking or anything), this is what I woke up to on the morning after the Big Game: More entitlement, more defensiveness, more false chest-pounding on the part of Patriots fans. While the rest of the country was talking about the great shot in the arm the victory was for the beleaguered city of post-Katrina New Orleans, the local wags were taking a “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” approach towards Indy that is dog-in-the-manger at its best. I mean, hey, the Patriots weren't even IN the Super Bowl, but we can still get our vicarious thrills because the Colts didn't actually WIN it. I also saw in-depth QB comparisons, not between Drew Brees and Peyton Manning, but between Manning and TOM BRADY (who, last I checked, wasn't even playing on Sunday).

Now, I understand heated rivalry (and yes, hate) as well as any sports fan. It always warms my heart to see the Yankees choke (*cough* 2004 *cough*) or the L.A. Lakers lose, mostly because of that entitlement thing again. But what in God's name is there to hate about Indianapolis or Peyton Manning? Indianapolisans (or whatever they're called) don't strike me as the entitled blowhard type. Hating Indy is like hating Kansas or Nebraska. I just can't do it. I just can't care enough. And Manning? Seems like a regular joe to me (as regular as multimillionaire joes can be).

So what can explain this sour grapes reaction among Patriots fans? All I can come up with is jealousy and, ultimately, insecurity. I think it's a “love me, love my team/quarterback/coach” mentality. For all those people who were and are so relieved that Manning lost so that Brady can still wear the mantle of supreme pigskin poobah, I can only say that I'm pretty sure that Tom Brady isn't losing any sleep over it one way or the other, and neither should you.

Rant over.

Half-Baked Beans and False Perspective*

Welcome to my blog! If you're curious, the name "Napalmed Karma" derives from a combination of mine and my husband's first names. But aside from that, it also speaks to me as a good name for my blog because it suggests a certain perspective. And when you get right down to it, life is all about how we look at things, isn't it? Perspective determines how we see others, and how we see ourselves. And it changes with each new experience.

I remember reading somewhere a theory that the cells in the human body completely regenerate every 7 years. If this is true, that means that physically we are completely different people than we were 7 years ago. In a similar vein, I like to think that our perspective regenerates a little bit every single day. We're not the same people we were yesterday, and we're not the same today as we will be tomorrow. And that can only be a good thing.

I also think that “perspective” is a particularly apt theme for introducing this blog, because each and every time I post an opinion or a viewpoint here (or any time one of you comments on a blog entry), we reveal a piece of ourselves and our individual perspectives. And while we may disagree on some of the finer points (or even the bigger ones), it just means that we are each viewing things through our own unique lens.

Opinion is neither right nor wrong (unless it's someone else's!). It just is.

In closing, I'll leave you with the following amusing words of wisdom from a guy (Napoleon) not generally known for his sense of humor. What Napoleon said was that “From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.”

Somehow, I think that this blog will be a mix of the sublime (if I'm REALLY lucky), the ridiculous (more often than not), and every step in between. Enjoy the ride.

*Oh, and the title paraphrases something referenced in one of Stephen King's stories. Bonus points to anyone who can identify the reference.