I Work Out

Special thanks to my sister for taking this (amazing) photo!

Recently, in an effort to become the best possible version of myself, manage my struggles in a productive and positive way, and mostly to fit into last year's shorts, I decided I needed to work out.

About five years ago, I had a fairly regular workout routine.  I would go to the gym once a week, and while I don't know that I was ever working particularly hard, I was also growing a lot and was just more physically active in general.  It was effective enough.  Since then, things had slowly been going downhill.  When marching band season would roll around, I would get reasonably in shape.  I would go to the gym just often enough to quell my mom's threats to cancel my membership.  I liked the idea of being physical and healthy better than actually putting it into practice.

It's not that I have an aversion to physical activity, it's just that I really love good food.  And maybe some not so good food as well.  The problem with living in a first world country is that there's usually an abundance of good food available for me to stuff into my face.  Plus, my sister, who is supermodel skinny and has concerning affinities for cheese, chocolate, and steak (usually not at the same time), only ever works out when forced, and never gains any weight.  She's not exactly the best motivation for getting off the couch.  She just makes me angry that I don't also magically look like that.

So I've discovered that I really love granola, yogurt, and yogurt with granola in it.  I'm also a big fan of fruit and fresh veggies.  It's not necessarily a chore to eat healthy; it's a chore to avoid eating everything else.  I am usually an equal-opportunity eater.  I don't like to discriminate against a food just because of its fat content.  That's just unfair.

But I've learned a valuable lesson in the past couple of weeks.  Perhaps it was something of which I was always aware, but never really found application for until now.  Whenever a tasty and gloriously unhealthy something enters the house, all I have to do is debate eating it for a day or two, and my 12-year-old brother will usually have consumed all of it before I can decide that I really did want some and decend upon the sugary morsel of goodness in question like a swarm of locusts.  It's working so far, except that when my brother has finished devouring all of the sugar in the pantry, he turns his preteen appetite on my granola bars.  There will be a throwdown one of these days, and since I'm basically ripped now, he won't stand a chance.