Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

This Gym Thing Isn't Working...

After shoulder surgery last fall for a torn rotator cuff I became quite sedentary and the steroids I was taking added to the munchies I already have a problem with, and the result as logic will tell you was a ballooning of my weight.

Now, I am not talking about putting on an extra three pounds and I was already a stick, I am talking about adding more like fifteen pounds on two stick legs so I started looking like a short version of Babe Ruth with that special “ball belly” feature.

With the New Year came a new vision of my slimmer but still short body. Since I am probably not going to get a growth spurt here in my late fifties I can’t cure my overweight issue by adding a few inches on my height. So I figured I would have to do something to lose the weight. So I joined a Gym. With a cool name that evoked what I hoped to achieve, the place is called BRICK BODIES. That says it all. In a few short months of constant workouts, along with my change in diet (bye-bye bagels) I was going to soon have a Brick Body. Looking like a sculptured athlete like Alex Rodriguez, only shorter, was more to my liking than being a shrimp version of THE BABE.

There were twenty visits in January and another fifteen in February. Miles on each visit on the treadmill and stationary bike. Then some arm exercises to get my shoulder back in shape. Oh, yeah…there were twenty other visits to the physical therapist for arm and shoulder workouts. Man I am going to look good in the pool this summer.

But, only if I stay under the water and the water is black.

I now weigh four pounds more than when I started.

No desserts, not one slice of bacon in three months, countless hours staring at a TV screen fixed to the exercise equipment and I am gaining weight. They say the Gym stuff is adding pounds of muscle! Crappola!

My wife has an interesting philosophy about this seemingly opposite outcome to my expectations. She says if I wasn’t going to the Gym I probably would weigh twenty pounds more by now, not just four. What? Does she see me munching those chips when I am alone in the basement watching a movie? Has she been counting the Coca Cola cans in the trash? Apparently she doesn’t believe the cat is responsible for those empty Hershey Bar wrappers in the waste basket.

Here my readers is the point…I am telling myself it’s OK to snack since I worked out so hard. It’s OK to cheat a little because I deserve a treat after busting my butt. But the lies we try to hide behind catch up with us in time. I can quit the Gym and achieve the twenty extra pounds my wife knows I would gain, or maybe I should keep the Gym and try giving up the snack, cheats and treats that are really responsible for my weighty outcome. What excuses do you have for your failure to achieve a goal…and what are you going to do about facing the truth and changing something.

I gotta go now before the Gym gets crowded.

• Posted: 27 March 2008
• Comments: 1
• Category: Business success

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