The Lockwood Echo

Round is a Shape

A single small lifting weight comprising of silver bar and a black weight attached to each end, set against a plain white background.
Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay

As we head into the year’s Comfort Zone (Autumn) we can start to cover up our bods, neglect our shape and quadruple our carbohydrate intake in order to survive what may be a harsh winter ahead. It might not be a harsh winter ahead, but I’m an ‘Err On The Side Of Caution’ kinda gal. In our house, we also call this Comfort Zone period ‘The Same As The Previous 250 Days’.

I like to think I look after myself. I’m fairly fit. Decades of mostly manual, certainly on your feet, employment has helped take care of that. I’ve never really felt the need to supplement that with any form of self-torture, i.e. Exercise.

My attitude towards exercise can be summed up quite nicely by taking a look at The Lockwood Echo’s Sport’s Page. No need to even click on that link. All there is to see is here;
Underneath the heading and words is a photo of the back of a scruffy fat brown cat. It's sat next to a dirty leather football.

Now you know how I feel about sport.

I’m equally rejective of words such as ‘Participant’, ‘Team-Player’, ‘Twice Round The Track’ and ‘Run, Forrest, Run’. I know some think of sport as a hobby, but a comparable hobby for me would be to peel all my skin off and use it to make macrame pot-holders. Or create fuzzy-felt pictures with strangers’ belly button fluff. Or use roadkill to stuff hand-embroidered cushions. I’m not smitten with the idea or enthusiastic about buying equipment to enable any of the aforementioned hobbies to reward me with maximum fulfilment. Sport slash Hobby is not part of my remit.

‘But Lockwood, if you exercised you may live longer. Don’t you want to live longer?’

Sit your ass down and listen up, because thus far, you haven’t been paying attention.

You know how they say you spend a third of your life asleep? Let’s use that kind of maths to explain my relationship with exercise.  If I spent, let’s say the equivalent of five years cycling – an activity that I will despise with every ounce of my crumbling bones – to live five years longer; what have I actually gained? Five years worth of misery when I could spend the same amount of time dead and at peace and not cycling.

Whilst we’re on the subject of cycling and ways to ruin your important little places; I don’t have children, so I don’t have anyone to stay fit and healthy for. There’s a fifteen year age gap between me and my partner (advantage – him), so we’ve already accepted the likely fate of my going first and leaving him to discover how much fun life is without me and finally learning why that Tupperware dish won’t wash properly if you insist on stacking it like THAT in the dishwasher. Talking of dishwashers, that’s given me an idea regarding that roadkill. Because no-one wants to sit on a cushion whilst the innards buzz with flies. I’m sure the filter will deal with the worst of it.

I digress.

Seems to me, keeping fit by exerting oneself is the surest way to pain and discomfort. Running leaves me with an eyeball hanging out. Sit-ups remind me why I like lying down. And what the hell is Spin? If it’s got nothing to do with Pete Burns, I don’t think that’s my rodeo.

If God had wanted me to exercise, surely she would’ve found a way to make me look pretty whilst I sweat? The grotesqueness which takes over my face is the Universe’s way of saying ‘put the weights down and never ever be tempted to pick them back up’.

And any activity that requires a change of clothing? That ain’t happening. Loose and comfortable? My pyjamas fit that criteria perfectly. I find it traumatic enough putting on ‘day clothes’, let alone three bits of glow-in-the-dark elastic that pinch your intimacy into submission for all the world to see. Obviously there’s a very strong chance that was because I’d put my leg through the wrong hole, but either way, no-one needs fluorescence there.

‘But Lockwood, it’s important to look after your heart. You need to frequently partake in activity that raises your heart rate.’

I do. Some days I leave the house.

I did once wake in the night with such chronic chest pain, I was scared I was experiencing cardiac arrest. The more probable cause was indigestion. I have family and friends who have had heart surgery, so I know enough that you can’t burp your way out of a heart attack. Although I jest, I feel a responsibility to say, don’t take any chances. Get someone (preferably a medical professional) to listen to your ticker if you have unexplained chest pain.

I have been known to partake of some exercise. In the privacy of my own home. Bouncing along with something I’ve found free on YouTube. But don’t they go on? Breathe. Hold. Extend. Rotate. Repeat. Repeat? I just did 5 of them! Give me a break. Actually, when is the break? Asking for a friend.

My loathing of sport was evident during my school years. Though that may have been mistaken for my all-encompassing loathing of school itself. Very intertwined, one exacerbating the other. ‘When I blow the whistle; climb the rope!’ Errr, with what? I’m happiest to cheer from the sidelines. Well, I would be, if I was interested.

There have been attempts to make sport and exercise more appealing;
‘Fun Run’.
Never will you find a more classic definition of an oxymoron.

Jogging. Don’t get it. But thankyou for taking the time to read my comprehensive coverage of that subject there.

I know as I get older, taking care of myself will get more difficult. I’m hoping to develop some kick-ass old lady attitude, along with my shortening sight and lengthening appendages. I will do my best to keep in shape. After all, round is a shape.

I shall leave the final word on exercise to the marvellously funny Suzanne over at MyDangBlog. Whilst I was in the throes, burning many brain calories, of drafting my thoughts here, Suzanne published this post. After reading it, I almost scrapped mine. Suzannne is a published author, she knows how to do this stuff, and her blog is hysterical. This one line beats anything I’ve just written;

Another person was going to Aquafit, which is exercise that takes place in the water. I call this “having a vigorous bath”.

If you enjoyed this piece and feel this is your brand of humour, do yourself a favour and read some more. Start here.
If you didn’t enjoy this piece, do pop your thoughts on a postcard and use it to wipe your bum. I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.

28 comments

  3. Agree 100%! I do NOT enjoy exercising at all. I have to force myself to do it. My husband bought an exercise bike for our living room. That’s the only way I’ll get on it – if I have the ability to watch TV while I’m on it. And even then, all I’m thinking about the whole time is how much longer I have to stay on the damn bike.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • TV is a good distraction, or playing some music rather than listening to whatever they’re playing on the work-out DVD. If I’m vaguely in time, that’s good enough for me! Anything to make it not feel like exercising. Just dancing along to MTV counts. 😉

      Liked by 1 person

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    • ‘Suddenly not cycling whilst cycling’ is a whole other workout discipline, for hard-core practitioners only. Hope the scars have healed well. I haven’t been on a bicycle in years. I have enough trouble with co-ordination when walking!

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    • Thankyou. I remember that saying from years ago, ‘I’m in shape. Round is a shape’. Wondering if it was something I’d heard on TV, and now feel bad I can’t from memory credit whoever said it. I may have just stolen someone’s gag!

      Liked by 2 people

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  8. I am using my recuperating broken ankle (from the beginning of the year) as an excuse to not walk anywhere more than a few hundred steps.
    Of course I may have actually been using the premonition of this occurrence for several years before it happened to avoid exercise, but you know you need to practice these things to get to a certain level of avoidance perfection.
    Great post as always, so I will not be sending you a PC for your wiping pleasure – you’ll just have to buy toilet paper like everyone else!

    Liked by 1 person

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  9. I have to say that I, too, fit the bill here (and so does Mrs C). Oh, we TALK about better diet, exercise, and cutting back on beer intake all the time but my internal dialogue always loses the argument around the “you only live once” refrain.

    So, this autumn and winter I’ll start that conversation again, several times, usually at halftime during a Rams game, while downing an ice cold blue mountain and wolfing down some syrupy pancakes. There will always be “next week,” for sure.

    Brilliant and funny and worth every moment of my time. You rivaled the published master!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thankyou Tom for your endorsements there on all counts. I fully accept my responsibility in keeping myself as healthy as is reasonable, I don’t want to be a burden or be incapacitated due to my own laziness. However, I also accept my responsibility to try not to live my life miserably, and I will do what I can to balance those two ideals. Like you and Mrs C, I’m very much in the ‘live for the day’ camp. My partner ENJOYS exercise and spends a lot of time engaged in such, including being a Martial Arts Instructor, so it would be mean of me to start exercising and overshadow him. He does quite enough for both of us! Thankyou so much for reading and commenting. I believe it’s now the done thing for me to sign off by saying ‘Go Rams!’ Did I do that right? 😉

      Liked by 1 person

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  11. Reader’s Award For Best Comment is on it’s way to you! It’s important we also stay agile mentally, so walking into the kitchen also presents the perfect opportunity to flex those brain muscles too; by trying to remember why we’re there!

    Liked by 1 person

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  12. I’m more and more convinced that you’re me lol
    I’m pretty much like this too. People keep telling me I need to exercise to live longer. Not sure the cost is worth a few more years of life. >.>
    Or maybe I’m just lazy, who knows. I’ll just pretend there’s a Fate that has decided how long my life will be no matter what and escape exercise this way!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • I think that is a very logical standpoint! I try to strike a balance. I don’t feel the urge to live till I’m 100, but I don’t want to live a short life in poor health. And I definitely don’t want to live a long OR short life having spent much of it purposely doing something I hate 😉.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • Same, I’m not planning on living a short life in poor health. But I don’t want to spend my life doing something I really don’t like doing for the sake of extending it either. It’s a complicated balance there. x.x

        Liked by 1 person

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