Fat Chance

by Nick Spalding

  Like with the Electromax 2000, I have another go on the Ab Lunge a week later when Zoe is once again out with her cronies.

  I do a good hour on it and get off feeling very pleased with myself.

  Pleasure turns to disgust when I wake up the next morning and my stomach muscles feel like they’ve had a hammer drill run over them in the night. The mere act of sitting up is painful. Going for a shit is nigh on impossible as every time my bowels contract it sends pain right through my stomach region. This causes me to become constipated for the next few days.

  . . . which of course gives me the chance to use the Electromax one more time.

  The Ab Lunge is now in the loft. I did consider putting it on eBay, but I’m a truthful kind of guy, and I didn’t think I’d get many bids based on my description of the thing:

  For sale. Ab Lunge. Used twice. Ever wanted to rape a bicycle? Now’s your chance! Warning—may cause severe backup of the bowels.

  Having now dropped three hundred and fifty quid on these useless contraptions, I thought it best to budget a little more sensibly and go for exercise equipment that wouldn’t break the bank.

  I immediately discounted the trampette, as I’m not five years old and have grown out of the desire to bounce up and down until I feel sick. Similarly, the gym ball wasn’t an option either. If Zoe was in hysterics at my attempts to hump the Ab Lunge, the sight of me rolling around on a giant squishy ball like it was my first lover would likely end up in her going to casualty for oxygen deprivation.

  Then I saw the StretchFit resistance band.

  Oh holy Hell, I really wish I hadn’t.

  On the surface, the StretchFit seemed like the cat’s whiskers. It was cheap at twenty quid, and looked like a very simple piece of exercise equipment to use. All it consists of is two long pieces of strong rubber, with plastic stirrups and handles attached. You pull at the rubber band, which provides resistance and tones your muscles.

  An overabundance of exercises is available if you buy one of these things. You can put your feet in the stirrups and grip the handles to do any number of resistance activities, such as lunges, rowing, arm curls, and overhead presses—to name but a few. But then you can also attach the StretchFit to your wall, banister, or other sturdy object and do even more stuff with it. Pull-downs, pull-ups, lateral twists—all sorts of interesting and varied workout methods are open to you. It’s a whole gym in one easy package!

  . . . One of these days I’m going to stop falling for this marketing bullshit. This will also be the day I stop believing what I read in the Daily Mail and realise that my local mechanic has been ripping me off for years every time I take the car in for its MOT.

  The StretchFit resistance band duly arrives (free postage and everything!) and I immediately set to work.

  Of course it turns out to be shit.

  Your feet go in the stirrups; you grab the handles and pull. This does very, very little. Why? Because by the time you achieve any real tension on the rubber band, you’ve already stretched your arms out to their maximum limit. Unless I suddenly develop the ability to extend my limbs like Plastic Man this particular product is largely pointless.

  For the sake of being thorough, I try a few more of the routines laid out on the A3 poster that comes with the StretchFit. None of them work any better than the standard arm stretch. I do work up a sweat, but it occurs to me that I’d be working up the exact same amount of sweat if I just put the bloody thing down and did the routines without it.

  As a final resort I attempt to attach the StretchFit to the end of our banister. This might provide more tension and resistance than I am able to supply using just my body.

  And indeed it does! With my back to the banister and each length of rubber band over either shoulder I am able to step a few feet forward and extend the bands out far enough to actually get some resistance on the go.

  I spend a happy five minutes pushing my arms out in a boxing motion, and by the end of the routine my arm muscles feel like they’ve had a workout.

  Then I swap to lateral twists. This exercise requires you to stand side-on to the StretchFit, pulling it around your body in a twist motion that’s meant to work your lats and abs.

  This exercise works, too, though after a couple of minutes I have to stand further away from the banister to get the full effect and maximize my workout. This strains the rubber bands to their limit. I’m not worried, though; the instructions state that the rubber is incredibly strong and will not break no matter how much tension is placed on them.

  They are absolutely right. The rubber bands do not even come close to breaking.

  Which is more than can be said for the end of my banister.

  As I’m at full stretch and enjoying the burning sensation in my abdominals, the rounded end of the banister pole gives way in spectacular fashion. With an enormous crack! it flies off, catapulting both it and the end of the StretchFit across the living room.

  The banister end shoots straight into one of the conservatory windows, smashing the entire double-glazed pane.

  The fun isn’t over just yet, though, as the rubber band now springs back towards me at an ungodly speed. The hard plastic foot stirrups fly at my head, and will do some serious damage if I don’t get out of the way.

  I duck as fast as possible to protect my face. I am not quick enough to stop the stirrups whacking me in the back of the head, though.

  In a concussed daze I stagger into the newly ventilated conservatory and survey the damage.

  I then go back inside and pull the Ab Lunge down from the loft.

  I figure that once Zoe sees the damage I’ve done, the Ab Lunge is the only thing I’m going to have the opportunity to shag for a long time to come.

  In the end, the StretchFit resistance band cost twenty pounds . . . along with another six hundred pounds to fix both conservatory and banister.

  I considered suing the company. Zoe stopped me when she pointed out that as I’m a local celebrity at the moment, if the press found out about it they’d have a field day. It’s one thing for the local population to know you’re a fat bastard. It’s quite another for them to know you’re a fucking moron.

  The experience of Electromax, Ab Lunge, and StretchFit hammers home the fact that these fad machines do absolutely nothing for you, no matter how good they claim to be.

  They are all designed to make exercise seem easy and carefree. The problem is that exercise is resolutely not easy and it is never carefree. It is hard work that tests your endurance and stamina—which is kind of the point when you get right down to it. It’s the effort you put in that squares with the weight you lose. The more hard work you do, the more pounds you shift. It’s as simple as that. Any time you try to make shortcuts or avoid any actual exertion, all you’re doing is wasting your time and draining your bank account.

  Bearing all this in mind, I elected to take a more biological approach to exercise.

  . . . No, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. Don’t be so disgusting.

  What I mean is that I spent a couple of days researching human biology to get a better understanding of how our bodies function. By doing this I learned what kind of exercises we are actually designed to do—on an evolutionary level, so to speak. If Darwin tells me what exercise I should be doing, then I’ll damn well do it!

  Sadly, the main exercise the human body is designed to do is running.

  Fuck it.

  Long before we had cars, bicycles, and horses to ride, we got around by putting one foot in front of the other. For thousands upon thousands of years the human race relied on Shanks’s Pony, often conducted at a brisk pace to either catch prey or to avoid becoming it.

  Deep down I knew this horrible fact before I even started my research, but I thought I might find something else that wasn’t as painful, boring, or time consuming.

  I failed.

 
After having this annoying revelation, with a sigh and a heavy heart I laced up my (very expensive) Asics running shoes and prepared to do battle with the pavements of local suburbia.

  ‘You look happy,’ Zoe remarked from the kitchen. ‘You’d think you were going off to war, rather than a jog around the block.’

  This has become a very unhealthy habit my wife has developed since we started this competition. She seems to take great delight and amusement from my failed attempts to find the right exercise regime for me.

  ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to do this, but Darwin tells me I’ve got no choice, the hairy bastard.’

  ‘So you don’t like jogging, then?’

  ‘Of course not. It hurts. And I feel like a right plum.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I look like an idiot when I’m jogging. It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘Ah, so your ego is the real problem here?’

  ‘Oh, give it a rest. What else am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Buy a treadmill and do it at home?’

  This is the irritating thing about Zoe: her suggestions and comments may be saturated by sarcasm, but nine times out of ten they’re also bloody good ones.

  I unlaced the running shoes, picked up the iPad, and went back on Amazon.

  Four days later I had a treadmill. At four hundred quid it’s the most money I’ve dropped on self-improvement so far, but I’m confident it will be a wise investment.

  The treadmill goes in the conservatory and I embark on a daily routine of running myself into a dazed stupor, only stopping when funny white lights start flashing in front of my eyes.

  And by Christ if it doesn’t actually work!

  I’ve found my niche!

  Running on the treadmill is far less painful than on the street, thanks to the give in the machine’s belt. The shin splints and thigh cramps that usually plague me whenever I go for a jog do not materialise. What’s more, I have control over the gradient and distance I run, so if I’m having an off day I can just run a couple of miles on the flat, but if I’m Captain Enthusiastic I can do four miles on an incline.

  The treadmill is very convenient. All I have to do is stick on my running clothes and saunter over to it. I can even watch the television, if I angle the machine around so it points into the living room.

  Marvellous stuff!

  In fact, I eventually reach the point where I don’t even wear most of the running clothes.

  I mean, why bother? Our conservatory is not overlooked, so I see no problem with having a three-mile jog in my boxer shorts and t shirt. No-one’s going to be looking at me, so why go through the inconvenience of getting my clothes all sweaty and having to put them in the wash?

  If I’d just stopped there, everything would have been alright.

  But one day it occurred to me that there was no real need even to wear the boxer shorts and t-shirt.

  Our conservatory gets quite hot, especially during the summer months. If I run naked I will stay cool and not have to bother trying to work that flaming washing machine, with all its strange dials and incomprehensible settings.

  It’s the perfect solution. Provided I shut the lounge curtains at the front of the house I will be able to run completely in the nuddy, without fear of discovery.

  And so I embark on a new fun-filled regime of naked exercise—and before long I start to wonder why I ever did it with clothes on.

  There’s something tremendously freeing about running in the nude. There are no shorts or jogging bottoms to chafe you around the delicate parts, no t-shirts to get covered in sweat and hang off your frame like an uncomfortable second skin. The whole process takes on a new, liberated quality I find extremely agreeable.

  Zoe’s not so sure, though. ‘You only do that when I’m out of the house. The last thing I need to look at while I’m watching “MasterChef” is your penis bouncing up and down in front of me.’

  I don’t know what she’s complaining about. I take a great amount of joy in looking down and seeing the old fella swinging merrily back and forth as I pound my way to a slimmer figure.

  All in all, naked running is where it’s at, as far as I’m concerned.

  With the end of the competition fast approaching, Zoe and I have really started to knuckle down on the exercise.

  For instance, on Saturday morning she headed off down to the gym for a lengthy swim with Elise, so I decided that a good solid hour of naked running was in order.

  At eleven o’clock I stick Metallica on the stereo at an absurd volume and bound onto the treadmill, ready to burn some calories. It’s a lovely sunny day so I point the treadmill out into the garden to give myself a pleasant view.

  With heavy guitar riffs and strident vocals as my accompaniment, I’m off . . . running like a man possessed.

  After twenty solid minutes I’ve built up a healthy sweat. It’s running down my back in rivulets.

  My hair is stuck up at all angles thanks to the perspiration, while downstairs, my cock is slapping about to and fro on my thighs in perfect rhythm with the heavy metal sounds chugging from the stereo behind me. The heat of exercise and constant motion have made him agreeably large.

  I’m feeling good.

  I’m feeling strong.

  I’m feeling fit.

  . . . then I look round to my left and see Wilf the postman staring at me from next to the garden shed.

  I wish I could say he’s looking at my face.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ I screech and promptly lose my footing. I start to stumble and have to grab the treadmill’s hand bar to stop myself from shooting off the back of the machine and doing myself a serious injury. I stab the control panel, bringing the treadmill to a halt. I also shut off the pounding heavy metal coming from the stereo.

  Breathing heavily, and holding one hand over my genitals, I look up to see that Wilf has disappeared from sight.

  Odd.

  Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

  Maybe all the running has starved my brain of oxygen and I just thought I saw our postman standing in the garden, looking at my naked, partially engorged penis. In reality, he might not have been there at all!

  Ding dong goes our doorbell.

  Oh, fuck it.

  I’m going to have to answer it, aren’t I? He knows I’m in the house, after all.

  I run upstairs and grab my dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door. As I descend I try to think of something to say to the poor old bastard when I open the door.

  Hi Wilf! How’s your morning going? Say, did you think my cock was impressive or not? On a scale of one to ten, what would you give it?

  No, I don’t think so somehow.

  In the end I elect to go with the good old-fashioned awkward British apology. ‘Morning, Wilf. Sorry about that,’ I say as he hands Zoe’s latest purchase over to me.

  ‘That’s okay, Mr Milton. I should’ve rung the doorbell a few more times.’

  Bless him. I’m the one who’s just indecently exposed myself, and he’s sorry for not being more proactive about announcing his presence.

  A crushingly uncomfortable silence then comes between us, as is only natural when one man has accidentally seen the other man’s cock.

  ‘Yes, well, have a nice day,’ I offer blandly.

  ‘You too, Mister Milton. Enjoy the rest of your . . . er, exercising.’

  He’s saying exercising ; you can tell he means wanking.

  ‘Yes, thank you very much.’

  Having little else to contribute, I shut the door slowly in Wilf’s face and go back into the lounge. I then spend a good five minutes rocking back and forth on the couch.

  Needless to say, I have been forced back into my clothes following that incident. My balls now chafe after half an hour of running and the sweat stains on my t-shirts are hell to shift in the wash, but at least I’m n
ot risking a criminal prosecution every time I go for a jog.

  I have also banned Zoe from ordering anything online until such time as Wilf the postman is dead.

  Regardless of unwitting exposure to a divorcé in his early sixties, I have found the treadmill to be the best form of exercise for me. It’s helped me to shift five stone of bulk already, and in the next few weeks until the final weigh-in I intend to drop another, no matter how many hours I have to spend pounding along on the never-ending path the machine creates.

  I guess that’s really the gist of what I’ve been trying to say here. You have to find what works for you. There are a thousand companies out there that will claim their product is the perfect weight loss tool for everyone, but it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just create a catch-all product that suits every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Especially Dick.

  We all have different tolerances, strengths, and weaknesses, and it’s only through trial and error that you arrive at the right method for you.

  Hopefully you can learn a bit from my mistakes, though.

  There is no shortcut when it comes to exercise. You have to commit yourself to it properly—and understand that you do have to put a lot of effort in. Don’t be fooled by websites, infomercials, or magazine advertising claiming an easy way to a thinner body. They’re lying to you, and taking a great deal of money from your pocket that could be used for something far more productive.

  Keep it simple, that’s my new motto.

  Actually, my new motto is ‘Don’t exercise in the nude if you don’t want an old man to see that you’re not circumcised,’ but that wouldn’t look quite so good on a tea towel.

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

  Saturday, August 9th

  10 stone, 3 pounds (4 stone, 4 pounds lost)

  My relationship with Greg is by and large a non-competitive one. We’re not the kind of couple that thrives on rivalry. We both appreciate that there are things the other can do better. I, for instance, am absolutely awful at ten-pin bowling. I am equally terrible at parallel parking, discerning between a good Merlot and a bad one, putting up shelves, and poaching an egg. Greg, on the other hand, cannot play table tennis to save his life, is dreadful at pub quizzes, wouldn’t know how to knock up a stir-fry if you put a gun to his head, and defers to me in all matters involving holiday arrangements on the internet.