Before and after…What’s wrong with this picture?

by Paul M. Lacayo

More often than not, between episode segments of a TV show, I usually like to switch channels so I can avoid the monotony of having to sit through another hyped up commercial regarding urinary problems, erectile dysfunction, yeast infection or some other God awful physical problem that perplexes the human condition on a daily basis.

However, I hesitated for a moment and before my remote control could assist me in escaping the commercial sinkhole, the advertisement for the Bowflex Tread climber came on showing how your feeble, disgusting fat can be sculpted into a lean mean work of human muscle power that might have aided the ancient Egyptians into building the pyramids faster.

Now, I admire people that “hit the gym” on a consistent basis as well as those that will do what it takes to lose weight by exercising their hearts out for improving their health. Yet, it struck me that the people on TV pushing this work out machine always seem to be the end product result of what the machine claims will happen to you if you purchase the Bowflex.

There never seem to roll out some overweight person, ready to give the Goodyear Blimp a run for its money declaring: “I’m fat as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore! I’m buying the Bowflex!” Then come back 6 months later with the same person and show them lean and muscular end result of hitting the machine.

No! It’s always some busty woman with push up work out bra, tighter than a Hilary Clinton facial gesture at a George Bush Look-A-Like convention or an Adonis looking guy with a flat washboard stomach hunk posing for the camera as they go through the work out motions of exercising on the Bowflex.

“But Paul!” someone may say, “Sex sells!”

Yes, I know, ask anyone working in the porno industry in Chatsworth, California.

Yet, can anyone devise a true before and after testimonial? Roll out some average Joe or Jane who has had their couch cry in Ancient Hebrew Lamentation to get their fat cheeks off their cushions and get to exercising and then have their bodies looking like the end product in the Twilight Zone Episode, The Trade-Ins.

Well we know what would happen then. Probably after the first few days of hitting the old Bowflex, Joe or Jane would either be suffering from muscle cramps, pulls, a ligament or joint injury and be so disgusted that they’ll never get to look like some Greco-Roman God or Goddess, that they’ll never workout again and revert to a sedentary mass with its own orbit.

How can they not get a body like the one on TV in one week?!

They’ll yell: “What a Crock of shit!”, “What a bunch of liars!”, “I want my money back!”, “Where’s my Hot Dog?”, “Pass the mustard!”

Well it’s your own fault because if you would have paid attention, you would have realized that everyone in the commercial was pretty fit and trim to begin with while shining their pearly whites at the camera and lied about how about great the machine made them change their body shapes.

“But what about those pictures Paul?!” “Those people were really fat before they worked out and look how good they looked afterward!”

If you take a closer look, those people in the before category are not the same people as in the after pictures. They’re just an amazing likeness.

My advice to you is – and this is someone who works out occasionally and is overweight and loves to eat – is do something that you love to do in order to get exercise and no I don’t mean lifting food to your mouth or running to the refrigerator!

Take care to avoid shelving out money on an exercise machine that may have been better used instead on a down payment on a house. Also, the point of exercising is to make your body look and feel better and not laying paralyzed in your bed or on the floor because you over did it and now your muscles refuse to acknowledge movement commands from your brain.

The point is: exercise to improve your health, not exercise in manner that leaves you wishing you could steal Steven Hawking’s Wheel Chair so you can get to McDonald's!

As Dennis Miller says: “That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong”