Fat shocker

You know how you aren't in the greatest shape, but you think you aren't doing so poorly health-wise? Well, I was there at one point, but recently that image was shattered into a million pieces.

Like most North Americans, I decided it was time to engage an active lifestyle and finally motivated myself to join a gym. Like all gyms, they do a fitness assessment to measure how physically fit and educated you are when it comes to exercising.

First off, I'm not particularly fond of the whole "fitness assessment" idea. Having someone measure every inch of my body in every possible way makes me feel like...well, like a pig. No, litereally. As the trainer writes down the measurement, I can hear farmer John's voice in my head, "Let's see here, 15"...that's a good size. You're almost ready for consumption."

Besides that, what I learn about myself can be quite frightening. You think you're doing fine and dandy, and you don't look overweight, so how bad can it be? Well, that's where the "fat-measuring thingymajig" will come into play. I rest my arm on the table, waiting for that (I expected to be relatively small) number to appear on the screen. It comes up, and I can't help but look at the monitor twice. 27.7%! A whopping 27.7% of my body is composed of fat. Eww! Thank you very much, I probably didn't want to know that (though I must admit this is very different from needing to know). My world just simply shattered. The whole "I'm not doing too bad" image? Poof! Gone! Outta here!

Now the up-side to that story is, yes there is an up-side, I better learn about this now than later. Why? At least it's easier to build up that metabolism now than 20 years down the road. I just need to watch that Royal Agricultural Fair commercial a little more frequently (for those outside of Ontario, the commercial depicts a piggy running on a treadmill) to keep me motivated. When I grow old and look back I can say, "Hey, I once had a pretty fit figure!"

I think that's something both myself and my organs will be pretty proud of.