Welcome Back to the Gym New Year’s Resolutioners… Or Not

For those of us who actually go to the gym on a year-round basis, we have officially entered the most dreaded time of the year — New Year’s Resolutioner Season. This is time of year when everyone on the planet magically decides to start following a healthy diet and get a gym membership. And then gives up on it two weeks later…

During the last few weeks of December, all is well, your gym is at normal capacity, and you’re in and out in no time. Then January 2^nd rolls around and magically you’re standing in lines equivalent to those at Disneyworld to get a chance to run on your gym’s half broken treadmill.

Raise your cyber hand if you’ve stepped into your gym locker room this week (and the past two) only to find a large older nude woman flopping around. Yuck. Yes, it’s a locker room, but no it’s not a nude ranch. You won’t see too many seasoned gym members parading around like they’re the star of a live porno.

There’s signs like this all over the cardio area of my gym now, due to “overpopulation.”

Why Regular Gym-Goers Should Get Priority

It seems unfair to me that there isn’t there some type of VIP line for us dedicated “regulars” who’ve spend the last 365 days putting in our time to zoom up to the front of the line? This is why I think our gym membership should be upgraded during this time of year:

• We were there first.
• We will still be customers in March.
• We know what we’re doing, so we don’t get the treadmill stuck in “emergency mode.” (Yes, before I could use a treadmill a couple weeks ago, I had to get it out of that mode, which I previously did not know existed).

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great when people decide to get a gym membership and start following a healthy diet. For those of you who made one of your New Year’s Resolutions to get healthy this year, I applaud you. Now stick with it! If you’re still using your gym membership and eating salads in June, you have officially worked off your stereotypical title of “New Year’s Resolutioner.”

For those of you who are already planning your exit strategy from your new healthy lifestyle — shame on you! If you’re seriously giving up this easy though, do it now, as it’s really cramping my style to have to wait 15 minutes to get on the half broken treadmill.

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Stupid Weight Loss Tips Decoded

It’s no secret that losing weight isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would have rock hard beach bodies! Obviously. In an effort to avoid eating healthy and exercising, many people try out stupid weight loss tips in a sad attempt to shed those pounds with very minimal effort.

I decided to take one for the team and try out some of the stupidest weight loss tips I could find, to see once and for all if they magically made losing weight easy. Here’s what I found:

• Drink One Large or (Two Small) Glasses of Water Before Eating. I dutifully drank one large glass of ice water before lunch and dinner to test this genius method of losing weight, by filling my stomach with water instead of food. Clearly drinking a lot of water is going to fill your stomach up for a bit, but it did not keep me full until my next meal (or really even until I was done eating that one). Strike one.

 

Oranges are a fantastic component of a healthy diet, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it’s just as filling regardless of when you peel it.

• Peel an Orange Before Lunch. Ironically I’ve been bringing an orange to lunch everyday for awhile now, as part of my healthy diet, so this was probably the absolute easiest of all weight loss tips for me to follow. If the magic that was supposed to occur by peeling an orange at my desk, instead of doing so the night before and putting it in my trusty Tupperware container, was having a sticky desk that smells like oranges, then mission accomplished. However, that has nothing to do with losing weight. If anything, peeling the orange on the spot actually made me hungrier instead of curbing my appetite. Strike two.
• Drink a Glass of Hot Tea After Eating.While I’m not really a raging fan of hot tea, I was definitely willing to become a tea addict if drinking it meant losing weight. I made a nice, hot cup of tea after dinner one night in hopes that it would keep me from evening snacking. No such luck. The tea was good, but it did nothing to satisfy my appetite. Strike three.

Wow, that sure looks filling.

• Eat Portions No Larger Than Your Hand.Perhaps this rule would make sense when eating something super fatty, but if you’re following a healthy diet this weight loss tip is just plain stupid. I mean really, am I supposed to eat a hand-sized salad? Perhaps a hand-sized omelet? Or maybe a handful of oatmeal? Strike four.

Moral of the Story: There’s nothing like the good old method of following a healthy diet and exercising regularly when you’re working on losing weight. Eating hand-sized portions of food and chugging massive portions of water will not help this process. Sorry to burst your bubble if you were counting on these stupid weight loss tips to fit into last year’s bikini.

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Practicing Healthy Living by Getting a Physical Exam

After reading my blog for 30 seconds, any genius could tell that I’m a huge fan of healthy living. I follow a healthy diet and exercise like a lunatic. I think this alone is pretty good, but I recently decided to take my healthy living one step further and get a physical exam from an actual primary care physician. (Don’t hide it, I know you’re impressed with my very adult-like responsibility).

I guess you could say I get a mini physical exam in the conference room at work each year, to save money on health insurance premiums (way less creepy than it sounds, but yes, I really will do anything to save money). In this annual screening, health stats such as cholesterol, blood pressure, height and weight are checked to make sure you’re generally in good shape. My love for this service is typically perceived as odd, but whatever, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I love a good free health checkup.

Anyways, until recently I haven’t had a primary care physician since high school. I’m fortunate enough not to get sick very often and when I do I either go to MedExpress or just ride the wave until it passes. My boyfriend recently did a little research to find a good primary care physician in our area and went in for a checkup. Hearing about his visit inspired me to find a primary care physician too, because although worksite wellness screenings are cool, they really don’t take the place of having an actual primary care physician check you out. And in order to retain my self-described designation of the queen of healthy living, I felt it was necessary to actually have a doctor.

The Physical Exam

Since I haven’t had a primary care physician for like 10 years, I was pretty nervous before my physical exam. You might say I’m a bit of a hypochondriac (during the winter I had itchy legs for a few days, consulted Dr. Google and afterwards was genuinely afraid for a good half a day that I had Hodgkin’s Disease or Lymphoma), so I came up with all sorts of crazy scenarios in my head of what would be involved in this process.

So as it turns out, a physical exam is not a big deal at all, especially compared with a trip to the lady doc. My new primary care physician, that’s right I have a doctor now, was super nice. We discussed my family medical history, he asked me a bunch of questions, felt me up in a few places and a little blood was drawn. It was that simple. This may not be normal, but I swear, I actually had a good time at my physical exam! And I was diagnosed as being in perfect health! Yay!

Moral of the Story

You should follow a healthy diet. You should exercise regularly. And you should go get a physical exam at least once every few years. This is a great preventative health measure to ensure that you’re really doing everything you can to promote your own wellbeing.

Follow @ljerpi