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I guess it's rather dumb to ask someone whether they eat or not because somehow, despite our terrific work schedules, we always find time for food. It may be a quick snack of greasy, soggy fries and frizzled sausage or a packed-in-polythene lunch from Mama's kiosk around the block.
In the days when we were fit and trim, meals weren't always guaranteed which served as a natural check for our waistlines. As cash flow regulated, we found ourselves still limited to measured portions. We were forced to keep in shape without actually doing anything about as a result of the financial depression in our formative years. However, one bright prosperity checked into the door, as our fitness priorities bolted right through the back window. The result? A distended belly. As we all know, obesity is a luxury that only the rich can afford. Back then, it was okay to be overweight. After all, what other way was there to prove to the world that you were moving up the ladder? Your prosperity had to be seen in the extra layers straining against the fabric. Not anymore. Overnight, everyone has joined the bandwagon in a mad rush to get trim before the next general elections.
I understand women rushing to gyms, delicately mopping their faces lest the sweat ruins the make-up. They have been under pressure for a long time. It's the sad realisation that a firm backside and an impressionable waistline could get you a lot more attention than some overrated Master's degree. Call it biased but any woman with an iota of sense will tell you how weighty, matters of weight have become. Unofficially, it is perfectly acceptable to look for a mistress on the grounds that your wife's droopy state is directly responsible for your lacklustre attitude towards conjugal obligations.
Society has turned a blind eye to flagrant male excesses while clamping down hard on women because of the odd bulge here and there.
But the old order is slowly chipping away. Today, men are under great pressure to stay in shape. Medically, and doctors never tell you this out of courtesy but, a bulging stomach is just full of stuff that should have been flushed down the loo. "Delayed bowel transit time, resulting in excessive baggage" is what that lisping medic called it. What it is still doing in your stomach is the medical mystery that health club owners have learnt to exploit.
Branchi is on a diet, something devised by some Europan doctor with a strange name that requires that he lives off meat. Tito is a global trotting executive who finds time to run two marathons a year. Peter is co-ordinated in aerobics and Jeff has taken to fruit salads over lunch and swears it has nothing to do with cost cutting. Perfectly normally overweight men are worried about the state of their waistlines.
These men want us to believe that they are now health conscious, but I don't buy it. Anyone who has spent time in the dating game knows that women will be more impressed by the price tag on your Armani jacket than some flat stomach that they might never get to touch.
However, who takes advice from a tired columnist these days.
So tomorrow, you will drastically cut into your beer budget and join a gym for supposed health reasons. Who are we kidding? The only guys in the gym for health concerns are those corporate toads on doctors' orders. The rest are caught up in the body image hype. I believe esteem and self-confidence levels have hit rock bottom. Soon it will be acceptable for a man to have a pedicure and people won't raise eyebrows at a man applying lip balm in public. Health clubs are now all about aesthetic and illusionary beauty and the number of men buying into this hype is upsetting, to say the least. I can stomach the constant stream of desperate females in body constricting spandex, huffing and puffing all over the place in the sweaty quest for slimness. However, we cross the line when we allow men to start jigging up and down for dodgy reasons like weight loss. Everyone knows the excess pounds come from those beers and choma. Lose the booze,
cut back on the greasy steaks, and then run around the block.
The gym environment should be left to professionals, those muscular gym instructors who make the rest of us look fat and give women the impression that we are lazy. I believe health clubs couldn't have been designed for guys. Until I joined a health club, I had never seen my body from so many different angles. Now, I see men not flinching at the slightest thought of examining themselves in the mirror, wan act which was hitherto a preserve of women. Secondly, men are the major fashion violators in the gym. Have you ever looked at their socks? Ghastly! This is where you will see them wear office socks with trainers. Then those shorts they pick that come in very visually disturbing colours. Have you ever noticed that all those men with puffed chests and bulging biceps stay clear of shorts? Trust me, they don't do this out of modesty. It is the John Bravo syndrome. I kind of enjoy examining the faces of the boys when they come out of
the sauna. Somewhere in their minds, they believe that their attraction potential increases after a session in the hot house. Another thing I can't stand is all the noise they make in the name of heaving poundage. Weight plates are clearly labelled so the question that goes through the female onlooker's mind is why the joker pressing a measly 50 pounds is experiencing labour pains. The drama that unfolds in the name of exertion is comical. There is a clown at the gym who gives everyone the creeps every time he starts squatting. You would think he was suffering from severe constipation.
The moment a man gets so much as a potato bulge for his efforts, it's showbiz all the way. So guys with fat arms opt for the sleeveless look and the big-breasted ones love their tight T-shirts. Women know how little such purely superficial values are worth because they are resistant to the so-called beauty in men for the simple reason that such beauty is mostly imaginary. What men mistake for physical beauty in themselves is usually nothing but the superficial splendour of a vain prancing animal. Invest in your character instead. You will reap greater returns.
JUST THOUGHT
Myrian says "There is one thing every man can do better than anyone else in the world. Read his own handwriting".
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