Working Out

I’ve never “worked out” in my life. I mean I haven’t spent more than a few seconds in a gym, I’ve never owned a set of weights and the most exercise I’ve indulged in at a stretch (forgive the pun) would be reaching for the TV-remote from under the couch. Somehow, this would always surprise people who knew me -- or at least thought they did.

“You?” they’d say, incredulity writ large upon their disbelieving countenances, while quietly sucking in their over-flowing bellies. “You’ve NEVER worked out?”

The cause for wonderment lies mainly in the fact that I’m as thin as a rake. I have a body-fat figure that’s well below the national average and I’m about 8 kilos under the weight range for my height. Besides, I have -- and I say this will all the modesty in the world -- a fairly decent upper body. Okay, so there aren’t muscles overflowing in all directions, but I think that just looks plain ugly. But for a skinny guy, it’s pretty damned neat.

Cut to last week. I decided to join the gym at work. These were the some of the side-advantages I saw:

1. It’s free.
2. It would force me to stop work at a fixed time everyday.
3. There are some cute chicks there.

I’m a big fan of side-advantages and so it seemed like a good deal to me.

This morning I had my “check up”. I enter the gym and there’s only a single instructor on duty. She hands me a sheaf of forms to fill in. The first page seems okay -- name, employee number, phone number, etc. The second page asks me about my medical history. Apparently, they want to know whether I’m liable to drop dead on the treadmill or collapse under a set of dumbbells. I answer “no” to everything. Wouldn’t be wise to let this chica think I’m a weakling of some sort.

After the forms, she takes my pulse and blood pressure.

“Hmmm,” she notices. “They’re a little higher than they should be. Not too much, but slightly on the higher side.”

“Yup,” I mutter to myself. “They’d probably be okay if you weren’t holding my hand while measuring them.”

She asks me to remove my shoes. I’m a bit surprised but I figure, “Yea. Okay.” She does a little height and weight check with this fancy machine of hers and informs me that my fat percentage is too low as is my BMI. Yea! Like I didn’t know. Thanks for rubbing it in.

She then asks me to lift up my shirt. “Uh, uh. I can see where this is heading. First my shoes, now my shirt.” I raise it a little, tentatively. “Higher,” she says. “I need to be able to see your navel.”

“Huh?” It’s just a normal navel, I want to tell her. I raise my shirt. She does a little more measuring with a tape. My hips, waist, etc. Scribbles down some figures and tells me she’s done.

She carefully studies all the stuff she’s written down and lets me know that I need three days of weights and one day of cardio per week.

I start tomorrow.