I’m writing this on Super Bowl Sunday. I start with that because I write these blog posts in advance. I just left Deano’s (also known as Dean Lorey, a guest blogger). He invited me to watch the big game. I didn’t really want to watch it. I don’t care who wins or loses. But it gave me a chance to hang out with a buddy and do guy stuff. The only tough part about watching the game was that it was a beautiful day in southern California and I had to get off my bike early. That’s OK though, I had a great time. I really didn’t care who won or loss. Well, first off, I’m not a fan of Ben Roethlisberger. I think he should be in jail, along with Michael Vick. Sometimes I think the NFL should stand for National Felon League. I told you that to tell you this. I tried my best to pay attention to the commercials, for no other reason than to know what will be talked about during morning drive time. Every yuk-yuk show will talk about the commercials and which ones were cool. There was one I liked more than all the others. These things are supposed to stick in your head but I can barely remember the company. It starts by showing products that used to be really hot but are now dinosaurs. They showed a guy walking with a turntable hooked to headphones. Of course now we have iPods. They showed heavy set women behind a glass window in an old gym. These women had that jiggly belt around them. Remember that? It was supposed to jiggle the fat off. There were several products like that when I was younger. One was an exercise bike that had an electric motor on it. This was a stationary bike and the pedals would spin automatically. The seat would raise and lower itself and the handle bars would go back and forth. It resembled something you’d see in a rodeo. The machine did all the work. It’s easy to look back on this stuff and laugh. How did we think this stuff would work? If this is true, which it is, will we be laughing one day about Sketchers Shape Up shoes? Will we laugh at the P90X workout videos? We look at Richard Simmons now as a joke. At one time he was the top fitness guy in the world. Is that the way we will Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser? As a joke? Products, whether fitness or not, get hot, then are gone. One of the biggest things I’ve dealt with in 30 years of professional training is that every time something gets hot, all of my clients want to jump on the bandwagon. I remind them that the human body hasn’t changed much over thousands of years. The way I learned diet and exercise at one of the top medical universities in the world 30-plus years ago works just fine. I use those principles on myself and my clients every day. My failure rate is very low. So the next time you want to get on a get fit quick program, ask yourself a simple question. Did I get out of shape quickly? If the answer is no, take your time and do it right.
