Do you live outside Georgetown? Are you faced with the problem of having nowhere to go jogging? Is the flab piling up in places you never thought it could go? Congratulations, you’ve probably knocked ten years off your lifespan.
Well, if you live on the East Bank Demerara and decide to go jogging along the Public Road – like I did a few weeks ago – then forget about shaving ten years off your life. You, my friend, have just given yourself up for dead! Dead!
How did I survive? Well I’m a special and lucky little creature. Though I have to tell you, when my gym buddy pushed me out of the way of that truck I was afraid of drowning. You see he’s a lot bigger than I am and the Demerara River runs on that side of the road. The force of the shove very nearly sent me into it.
I haven’t been jogging since. So you’re wondering why I just don’t get a treadmill. Oh please. Would you be willing to pay my electricity bill? Heck, I can’t even afford to buy one of the screws attached to a treadmill.
So I did the next best thing to burn the flab. No, I did not go on a diet. I started going to the gym more than once a week. Yes. I happen to be one of those people who used to pay their gym fee just to say that I’m a member of the said institution.
I’ve been pumping the iron, as they say, even and straight with the guys. Oh the pains my vanity puts me through. Nevertheless, I’d rather be vain and good looking than ugly and…well whatever goes with that.
Recently, someone in the office pointed out that people in our profession begin the journey to broadness around the age of 25. At the time I was sympathetic to my broader colleagues. All sympathy left me one night during the last week when one of the much broader ones stepped on my toe. Of course, it wasn’t a decent word that escaped my lips after approximately 200 pounds worth of meat and bones stomped my delicate toes.
It was as I had my toes stomped that I really began thinking about becoming overweight. How did it happen to me? I guess I’ve never truly understood the importance of becoming fit. It hit me hard one day when I realized that I could barely run a few yards with feeling as though my lungs would burst.
Then there is the lack of facilities in which to pursue fitness driven activities here. Yes, there is the National Park and the sea wall. But if you live nine miles out of town, like myself, then I’m pretty sure you won’t be too inclined to travel all the way to Georgetown just for a “safe” location to jog.
The average Guyanese and even those who haul in a good chunk of gold at the end of the month get heart palpitations whenever they think of “light bill”. I’m surprised that between the phone company, the electricity folks and the water people I haven’t yet had a heart attack. Gosh if we can hardly afford these then how on earth can we afford exercise equipment or gym fee?
Well, let me share some good old Guyanese wisdom with you. It comes from my grandmother. She says that if you’re looking for a cheap way to lose weight then you can come weed her cassava farm in the hot August sun this year. She’s got about 10 acres worth. Come sweat, have fun, lose weight and get fit all for free! (srh.midnight@gmail.com)
