The first weigh-in. One of several.
The battle with the scale, much like the rest of life, has its glorious ups and its despairing downs. In the rare case of the scale, the majority of us usually like to avoid the ups.
This column is devoted to that abstract term fitness that continuously throws me for a loop. It’s a simple concept, isn’t it? It never presents itself as rocket science. We’re continually told that the secret to being fit is to work out, eat healthily (and regularly), and sleep.
If it’s so simple, then why is it so hard? One theory: because being fat tastes so good.
Sundae Sundays at the caf? A big bag of Doritos to fuel my brain through that 15-page paper due tomorrow? Yes, please! I’m guilty: when my brain works, so does my stomach.
Then there’s those other choices: go to the gym, or go to buckets? Cardio or flip-cup? Dancing for a couple of hours at the Social Club counts, right?
Well, yes and no.
As students we work hard, so who can blame us for wanting to reward ourselves? And even if we don’t work hard, we work hard at not working hard. It takes a serious effort and commitment to play Tetris for five consecutive hours, or to watch the entire series of 30 Rock until 4 a.m. even when we have an 8:30 class the next morning. And there’s always those times when “just one more game” of Rockband turns into 20.
A social life can be a full-time commitment and sometimes our minds and bodies fall victim to too much fun. All those high aspirations of ‘I’m going to go the gym every day!’ or ‘I’m going to do all my readings!’ or even ‘The salad bar will be my best friend this year!’ can quickly and surprisingly fall to the wayside of immediate gratification. Again, I’m guilty.
In the quest for physical fitness it’s surprising how much one’s mental fitness comes into play. My body (as long as it’s free of injury) can always do the workout, it’s usually my mind that protests. If I want an excuse not to go to the gym or to not eat salad that day, I don’t usually have to look very far and a lot of the time friends are only too happy to provide me with many reasons to stray from my healthy regimen: mall or gym? A late-night trip to the Dip? Oh alright, if you insist.
There’s the curse of the freshmen 15, we all know that… and we know that in recent years with the increasing availability of junk food and deep-fried options at the caf that the freshmen15 can sometimes turn into the freshmen 40 and even 50. Second, third- and fourth-years aren’t free from weight gain either. As our education grows, so does our scholarly ass.
