Saturday Mornings are for Exfomercials

When I was a boy (I know, I can almost hear the collective groans at that statement and man did I feel old writing it) Saturday mornings were magic.  Getting up early was not a problem because I knew what was waiting for me…home cooked breakfast from Mom and a comfy couch where I could watch cartoons.  Between 7-9 I would fill up on eggs, bacon, Spiderman, Transformers, and Challenge of the Superfriends..by the way Challenge of the Superfriends was the best cartoon ever.  Justice League versus the Legion of Doom…so solid.  Then you get older and all you want to do is sleep in.  Once you have a kid, you are again up early on Saturday after years of sweet, sweet hangover sleep.  I hit the living room with my son, a cup of coffee in hand, and hard gas from the previous nights pig out after my wife is in bed…we are supposed to be dieting and counting calories, which is about as much fun as counting moles and skin tags on the lower half of my body.  Fun fact…there are lots of them.  Getting old is really smelly and gross.

So I get down on the floor with my son to play Legos or Superheros or whatever weird thing he is into these days.  I flip on the TV in the background so I can catch up on some news or sports while I pause my play to take some sips of the nectar of the gods…that is coffee for all you lay people, or those of you in denial who still pretend Chai Tea tastes good.  As I flip through the guide each week I began to notice a trend…the exercise infomercial.  It is a 30 minute advertisement for some type of workout program involving overpriced DVDs and diet plans.  Eventually, I found myself tuning into a few of these.

They all start the same.  Exciting music with solid voice over narration of the superb benefits of what you are seeing.  They talk about your hopes and dreams from a fitness perspective while simultaneously preying on your insecurities..it is a 30 second jedi mind trick to totally suck you into the exfomercial (that is what I have decided they should be called).  Then we make a quick cut to some big workout room filled with  a group of people using the exercise program and shockingly, all ethnic groups and genders are properly represented.  It is like a Benetton clothes advertisement with lots of pointless jumping.  They of course are the test group, and they all have that “perfect sweat good looking while I do anything” thing going on…not like the usual disgusting people sweat that you and me get when we exercise.  Ugly t-shirt with pit stains and sagging colar combined with random sweat around areas that you never though should actually be sweating.  These people’s sweat is perfectly placed all over their body..like they have been painted with ham glaze and of course, they are all smiles.  Who smiles while they work out?  Most people look awful.  Don’t believe me.  Take a look at the face of the next jogger you see on a hot day, you will know the face of pain when you see them.  They wrap this up by usually some ripped due and hot chick standing together, making you think if you do this workout, you can bang super hot people too.  Even though we all know this is bullshit, for some reason I can’t turn away.  I find myself in my head saying “yeah right, this is total bullshit” almost like I am trying to convince myself it can’t work.  By this point, its too late.  If you are saying this they already have you.  The hook is in my cheek, now they have to pull to set it.  That is easily done.  Cue the testimonials from “real people” who have done the program.

The first one is a guy, just your average Joe looking kind of dude.  They unleash his before picture, fat gut, hairy, pale, large man boobs.  Unconsciously I find my eyes drift down to myself…fat gut, pale, man boobs galore…that would be a really gross James Bond character, Man Boobs Gallore.  Pussy Gallore was way better.  It then pops in my head “hmm, that dude looks a lot like me” and just like that, I am toast.  They show him working out in his living room, small child quietly playing by themselves while he sweats to the oldies in front of his TV.  No gym to go to.  All the items he needs right there in the TV room, no child or wife to bother him.  A home workout Utopia.  They hit you with the after picture, dude is lightly tanned, in shape, no gut, man boobs gone without breast reduction surgery…not that I have thought about that or anything #manzeer.  Subtly I hear my brain say “wow, there might be something to this”.  They then finish the 25 minute show with talk of diet plan, calendars, and 3 easy payments of $39.99.  Why the hell is everything 3 payments of 30 something dollars?  Must be some research behind that somewhere.  So there you sit, with the phone number and dreams of in shape hotness dancing through your head but of course, it is complete bullshit.

No matter what workout program you use it requires one main component…hard work.  I hate working out, which is odd since after I do I always feel great.  Its just the whole process.  Getting started is usually painful and these shows never show how damn sore you are after your first workout.  You wake up, can’t move,  and feel like you belong in a park covered with pigeon shit.   And that home workout Utopia is the biggest load of shit ever.  I live with a 4 year old boy, he is a lunatic.  There is not any 3 combined minutes that he is not asking me to play or destroying my house.  I walk around just waiting for him to go full chimp and throw his shit at me for not making him chicken fries fast enough.  The person on TV working out with a child or baby quietly sitting in a swing is a joke.  That doesn’t even factor in the wife angle which is far worse than the kid.  I love my wife but she is a pain in the ass and would say the same about me.  My only chance to exercise is at 5am, which is cold and dark, and would make me vulnerable to vampires, werewolves, and any other number of made up things.  But they get you with the slick sales pitch and the “only minutes a day” line.  If that were true do you really think there would be shows like My 600lb Life and the endless string of fat people you see everyday?  Fast food places wouldn’t exist because no one would eat their armadillo meat burgers…I know some armadillos out there might be offended by this but I don’t care.  You are gross.  You look like a rat banged a giant stink beetle and had a child.  I would like to say I am above all these tricks and have never spent any money on these things, but alas, that would be a lie.  I have…several times.  Each time the first month starts out great but before I know it, I am on the couch with a soda in one hand, a burger in the other, and a belly button filled with nacho cheese dip.  After my third failure I realized something, exercise is hard and requires hard work.  If you aren’t going to put in the time, no infomercial, DVD, or other 7 minute workout is going to change that or make it happen any faster.  It is the one constant in getting in shape.  It is hard, and it is why most people are flabby and out of shape.  Well I have decided to dust off one of my old purchases and try it out for a full 90 days to see if I can get into some semblance of shape.  I am not going to blog about it and take pictures about “my journey” or “transformation” or other crap like that.  There is nothing I hate more than before and after picture social media work out guy.  I will update progress or failure at some point and my DVDs will either be the key to my success, or most likely, I lovely set of designer coasters for my coffee table…speaking of which, I need a cup right about now.  Don’t judge, it is a medical condition called “I have a crazy 4 year old so don’t fucking judge me”-itis.

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