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This is a very humorous column written by a Ms. Edie Gross for the Free-Lance Star. And I would like to share it with you. "I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with the gym for years. We're currently off again. Way off. Part of my reluctance to commit to a regular workout stems from the way the gym makes me feel. After about an hour, my shirt's all untucked, my hair's a mess and I'm sweaty--all that and no one even bought me dinner first. Not my idea of a good time. Truth is, I've been looking for a reason to bag the whole fitness-club thing for some time now. A team of researches at the mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has provided just the excuse I needed. They convinced a bunch of volunteers to wear "special" underwear outfitted with sensors that recorded their every move. The data showed that you can burn up to 350 calories a day just fidgeting and pacing around the office--at least you can if you're wearing "special" underwear. StairMaster be damned. The study, published last week in the journal Science, goes on to suggest that some folks are simply not cut out for the gym life. Rather, they have a fundamental, inborn, biological drive to sit. That's me. I'm a sitter. And a damn good one. I've had a lot of practice. I've been athletically incompetent since early childhood. When I was about 5, my parents--visions of Peggy Fleming dancing in their heads--signed me up for figure skating. To say that I was dismal is an insult to dismal skaters everywhere. The instructor; recognizing a clear dearth of talent when she saw it, would place me at the far end of the rink at the beginning of each class and say, "OK, now when you skate over to the rest of us, you can join the group activity." Roughly two days later, when I had managed to scissor-leg my frostbitten, leotarded self across the ice, they'd all be packing up to go home. Sadly, my parents were not deterred. Next up: swim lessons. The thrill of the newfound activity wore off around the second week when I discovered that you cannot inhale with your face under the water. Well, actually, you can, but it's ill-advised. I also had an adversion to opening my eyes underwater. So my parents bought me a pair of goggles. I like to call them the Goggles of Death. The pool where I took lessons hosted monthly swim meets. At my first meet, I dived into the water--and when I say "dived," I mean that in more of a toppling headlong off the springboard sense--only to have those goggles rip away from my face and wrap murderously around my neck. I made it about halfway across the pool before I gave up and plunged to the murky 4-foot depths. Some teenage lifeguard had to scrape me off the bottom. Most families would've given up the dream at this point. Not mine. My father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan as a kid, so he was used to gut-wrenching disappointment. Immune to it, really. So he bought me a glove, oiled it up and shipped me off to Red Berry's Baseball Camp, where everyone's a winner. Every day, the staff would award patches to the campers: Most Skilled. Best Hustle. Most Valuable Player. When you show up on the first day of camp unable to pitch, hit or catch and then you proceed to throw up in the outfield, there's really nowhere to go but up. As I got older, I hoped I'd outgrow the awkwardness or at the very least stop embarrassing myself in public. In this pursuit, I took up yoga a few years back. The people in those videos always seemed so relaxed, so Zen, so not likely to be waylaid by their own goggles. But a few weeks into the beginner class, while attempting some maneuver named after a bug (dung beetle maybe?), my promising yoga career was cut short when my forehead became one rather suddenly with the studio floor. So from now on, I'll be burning calories from the safety and comfort of my office chair. I just need a pair of those "special" underpants." by Edie Gross –thedexter |