CW LaSart

It’s my birthday today and I don’t think I’ll spend it talking about writing. Nope, I’m going to talk about the gym, and moustaches, and my birthday. Because it is my birthday after all. 🙂 I turned 35 today. Yep, the big 3-5 and I’m proud to say I’ve still got it! Oh yeah, I’ve still got it. In fact, there’s a whole lot more of it, and it’s no longer where it used to be! Haha, no worries. I still feel like a rockstar most days…just fatter…and, um, older.

Last week, three guys I went to school with were sitting at the bar while I was working. These are the guys that always knew where the party was, or where you could score some decent weed for the weekend. As I walked over to check on their drinks, I was fully expecting to hear conversation about music or banging hot chicks or, you know, guy stuff. You can imagine my surprise when I realized the topic of conversation was cholesterol. Haha! Somewhere along the line, we had gotten old.

Something very interesting happens as we tiptoe out of our twenties and start that headlong rush into middle age (35 isn’t middle-aged yet, is it? It can’t be. IT IS ISN’T IT?! Fuck I need a drink!). I think that when we hit our thirties, it is the first time for most of us, that we look in the mirror and see our own mortality staring back. We can’t party quite as hard as we used to (we still do, but man do we pay for it!), anyone more than 5 years younger than us has become a PUNK, and those lines that weren’t on our faces just a few years ago, really accentuate the new white streaks in our hair. Soon, our automatic response to anything not going our way is I’m getting too old for this shit! By this age most of us have lost friends, but not just to stupid accidents anymore like when we were younger. Now, we start to here about how so-and-so was diagnosed with cancer, or died of what we think is an early heart attack, but isn’t really all that unusual. what I’m trying to say is, this is the age when most of us start to realize we should take better care of ourselves, whether we actually do it is another thing. But somehow I got all maudlin there, and I’m sure you’re still wondering about the moustache. All in good time.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I quit smoking 5 months ago. With the exception of the ultra rare cheat (trust me, that very occasional cigarette has saved lives. Someone would’ve died if I hadn’t smoked it to chill out!), things have been going fine. Of course, there has been significant weight gain. So I did the unthinkable. Two weeks ago, I joined the gym. I have always been at the very least, majorly annoyed by people who regularly went to the gym. All those skinny, happy, hyper fitness freaks really got on my nerves. What’s worse, when they found out I was going, they were all so happy for me and assured I would soon be reveling in the post workout endorphins too. And EVEN WORSE, they were right. I am quickly becoming one of them. Like some unwitting damsel in distress in a horror flick, I have been sucked into their cult. And I thought I would share some observations I have had over the last two weeks.

First of all, I have to say that I really like the gym. It’s bright and clean. There are no children allowed. No barking dogs either. It may be my new favorite place. Did I mention there’s no kids or dogs? How about the fact that I haven’t once, while in the safety of my new ADULTS ONLY clubhouse, stepped on a lego with bare feet and hopped around cursing while the dogs run in circles and bark at me. I like the gym. I may move in there.

I have bonded with a particular machine called an automated motion trainer. Think elliptical, but with a ittle more pizazz. Also think of a cross between Robocop and that machine Sigourney Weaver straps herself into at the end of Aliens. Yeah. It’s almost that cool. This machine has me in tears within the first two minutes, not because it’s kicking my ass (it is), but because it insists I enter both my age AND my weight.

I actually do feel great after the workout. It could be the sweating. It could be the feeling of empowerment. It could be the workout, feel-good endorphins. But I strongly suspect that it’s the crack in the diet pills that they talked me into taking. In fact, I think most of the people running the place are on crack as well. It explains a lot.

There is something called thermogenics in these diet pills. Their job is to make you sweat more when you work out. They work. Don’t believe me? Take some. Now walk across the room. I will wait while you mop.

I have so much more energy now. I rarely nap at all. In fact, I often feel like I could take over the world without breaking a sweat, except of course, for those thermogenics. I sweat a lot. The energy could be from all that exercise, but it’s probably the crack.

Now is when you will realize that the moustache ride in the title was just a cheap ploy to get you to read my blog. It worked though, didn’t it? So what does that say about you? Yeah, carry on with your freaky self! Anyway, I have caught a good deal of shit from some of my friends about the diet pills and all my excess energy. Many jokes have been made that I’m on steroids and will soon have a moustache. Rest assured, I have inspected the packaging and there are no steroids listed in the ingredients. Of course, cocaine isn’t listed either…

So, two weeks of daily trips to the gym and I am officially celebrating my 35th birthday, a full 10 pounds lighter! I feel good too. Better than I have in a long time. I should’ve taken up diet crack pills years ago! All joking aside, I hope that all of you will take the time this year to do a little something to improve your health. Eat a little better. Get a little exercise. Try to kick smoking one more time. Even if it means nothing more than a new hobby to alleviate the mountains of stress we find heaped upon us everyday. Take care of you. No one else will. But hey, it’s my birthday. I’m taking tonight off and eating whatever the hell I want. You know what? I’m thinking Arby’s. 🙂