Hindrances to exercise (Ladies edition)

Exercise is linked to everything a woman wants. A relaxed mind, strong bones, toned muscles and good old fashioned nice ‘body shape’.

There is also a lower rate of heart disease and diabetes among those who exercise regularly. Menopausal symptoms are also ameliorated with exercise while anxiety, mild depression and stress are relieved by exercise.  Since women are generally go getters, why have they not all embraced an active lifestyle? Some do and some don’t. Speaking to a few people who don’t, a pertain emerges.

Self- image

With advancing age, depending on the culture where a lady finds herself, she starts to live out a pre-ordained image. After the age of forty some women change their walking style especially if they have children. In Nigeria she loses her name and is called Mama – (insert name of first child). The loss of identity always seems to be followed by a loss of fitness.

Since women are expected to look after the children, who in turn grow up expecting to be looked after for life, a mother’s world becomes one long arduous task of being the care giver to children who never seem to grow up. Some women take up residency in the kitchen in their twenties and are still there in their sixties. When you see yourself as a cook and cleaner that works all day and is on call all night, it is hard to see yourself as an athletic mum.

Standing in the kitchen is hard but it is not exercise. You can grow fat doing very hard things.

Life nowadays is all about CHANGE. Change your self -image and your body soon follows.

Repeat this affirmation after me, ‘I am as fit as Serena Willams’.

He loves me the way I am

Na so! (Yeah right). Moving on…

What will people say?

Someone asked me this question, ‘What will people say if they see a fat woman trudging down the street with all her moving parts flapping in the wind?’

She was a big lady and had told herself that an obese person walking was a better sight to behold than a running obese person. Now who cares what the people think?

My sista, juss tek wrapper tie yuasef like body-magic abeg. (Wear a well fitted sports bra and you would be okay). People will always talk.

Women are more sensitive to comments about their bodies than men. Call a woman a poor woman and the offence taken is small. Call her fat and it is war. Men are the ones who struggle with cruel comments about their financial status. Call a man obese and he is not as bothered. He might even smile as he remembers the juicy food and drinks that created his big belly. I digress.

Stroke and heart attack is not my portion

Sorry but Aunty your portion of eba and oily soups are larger than the prayers and faith you are professing. Large ladies cut their cloth according to their size but forget to adjust their faith to their portion sizes.

Why drink sugary drinks all day and pray against diabetes?

Exercise is hard and requires effort, while eating fried foods come naturally to us all. Discipline is needed and there is no prayer for discipline. You exercise discipline.

Which one is bind and loose the fat in the food again?

By the way Elijah the Prophet; a man of faith,  ran for miles and overtook a chariot.

I don’t like being sweaty in public

Ah! Aunty I saw you at the wedding last week rolling your waist as you were being sprayed Dollars. You were sweating buckets. Excuses, excuses.

I am not a small girl

Ah! Aunty, why state the obvious? We can never confuse you for a small girl!

You are a big girl in every sense of the word. But things can Change. First of all cut your age  (at least in your mind).

Next thing is to join a gym.

Now some ladies belonging to some cultures or Faiths  and would not like to share a gym with men. That is ok. A group of women can also press for a ladies hour in their local gym. Better still why not build a ladies gym. There are so many women societies in Nigeria that troupe in to social functions in matching attires. Their societies should have a fitness and health faction within their organisations. Rolling waist at parties is not exercise unless you can roll for thirty minutes daily vigorously.

Where there are no fit and healthy ladies as public role models then the ladies emulate the fat ‘women of timber and calibre’ who eat large portions and lament the health problems without doing anything about it. Well, if you find no role model, then be the role model. Being fit is not the preserve of the ‘small girls’.

 I have better things to do

Ha! Aunty. Bottled groundnut, Gala and four part Nollywood movies are better than exercise? Ok o.

Why not get the gym manager to put Nollywood in front of your exercise bike and you can cycle while watching the people in the film open the gates (People are always opening gates in Naija films).

I will wait till the fat is plenty and do my Lipo-suction

Dollar is now expensive. It is cheaper to reduce the Eba from that Everest format to the new and improved Zuma Rock format. Daily walks and stretches will add to producing the new you.

It is the children

They are all in University, so you cannot blame the pregnancies for today’s bulging belly.

Being the madam that calls a house help on the phone to come and get you a glass of water is the height of laziness. The madam syndrome is making many to balloon up. They just sit in one spot and send drivers, laundry men and ‘special assistants’ on endless errands. Any surprise that the staff members are all slim and madam is bloated. Next thing madam says the special assistant is trying to snatch her husband. No, it is the husband who cannot lift madam that is trying to snatch the lighter special assistant. Daz all.

Hindrances to exercise - Male Edition

Hindrances to exercise (Male Edition)

Exercise has many proven benefits to the body and soul. The risks of dying from cardiovascular disease are diminished and many diseases are kept at bay by regular exercise. Obesity (yes it is a disease) and its complications such as Diabetes, Heart disease and joint pains can be eradicated with a structured exercise programme.

However, like all ‘universally accepted to be good’ things e.g. making money, dressing well or speaking well for that matter, it is always easier said than done.

During a trip to Nigeria, I noticed that friends, who are mainly over forty years of age, had all sprouted ‘pot bellies’ to go with their receding hair lines. The only fit men I seemed to see were the young students, the street vendors who ran after cars all day and the brick layers who displayed astounding muscular anatomy as they went about their duties bare chested. I was so impressed I considered doing two weeks of brick laying and labouring at a Lagos building site to help me re-acquire my six- pack that went missing twenty five years ago.

But (there is always a but) I could not bear to have calloused hands and feet seeing that people who shake my hands comment about how soft they feel.

All men have excuses on why they do not have the aerobic fitness of street vendors and the beautiful chests and abdomens of labourers. Let us dive in.

I am not a labourer!

Many men especially the educated ones work with their brains usually sitting in a chair and sipping tea with sugar all day long. This lifestyle in which the body does no activity makes excess fuel to be stored in the abdomen.

Everyone looks down on a labourer but the body was built for labour and not for sitting down. A sedentary life style will cause muscles to weaken and bone strength to diminish.

What is the purpose of working hard for money and committing nutritional suicide with the proceeds? Eat well, exercise hard and postpone that befitting burial! We may not all have the opportunity to lift bags of Dangote cement all day long but we can lift weights in the gym after office hours.

Do you know my age?

Well if you do not like the age you have cut it! Men generally, as they get older start to be called daddy by their wives (If they are Nigerian). Nothing slows your muscles down like being called daddy. To hide the bald patch and big stomach, the ever intelligent Nigerian culture has devised ‘fila’ (hat) and ‘agbada’ (voluminous robes) which are better than lipo suction in making a rotund man look fetching. Dressed like a daddy, you get fed like a daddy; five planets of pounded yam and twelve pieces of beef with a bottle of Guinness to wash it down.

Two groups of people have a way to a man’s heart. The cardiologists who go in via the femoral artery during angiograms (investigations of the coronary arteries) and the wives who serve fatty foods that travel through the stomach and ultimately get to the heart where they block the coronary arteries.

Daddy, madam is simply plotting a homicide via Ogbono rich in poly-saturated fatty acids and your only escape from a certain heart attack is to exercise like a farmer who does not own a tractor but just a hoe.

Men gather and start to talk about ‘we need to be careful at our age’. Run from such groups. Watch football matches, see young men running for the ball and affiliate yourself mentally with them. Fifty is the new twenty five

I do not have time

Uncle! Haba! No time for a thirty minute daily work-out? But that your small girl-friend on West street, you see her thrice weekly. (Should I really be writing this?). And then there are the Barcelona FC games and the English Premiership games that consume eight hours of your time weekly. May I remind you ‘Uncle’ that you watch these games drinking beer and pepper soup?

Ironically, you are getting unfit while watching young men get fitter and richer.

Please make the time to benefit your body.

I am too ill to exercise

What people usually mean is that they are too ill to do a particular type of exercise.

The one with knee pains may not be able to run but can swim or lift weights while seated.

No one is asking the dying to exercise for obvious reasons but exercise is actually more important to people who have chronic conditions like Hypertension, Diabetes or a previous stroke. Consult your Doctor before embarking of any exercise program if you have a medical condition

I live in a dangerous area and I cannot go running

That is true for some areas. Some streets have no places for pedestrians to walk on talk less of runners.

I suppose that was why skipping was invented. There are so many exercises that can be done at home and a quick YouTube search will provide you with something that is do able

I cannot share the gym with small boys

Uncle I have already told you to cut your age. You are a small boy!

Some older men are embarrassed to turn up in gyms due to that feeling of intimidation you get when you walk in with your tight T shirt and find out you are the oldest and least fit person in the gym.

Not knowing how to work the equipment can also be embarrassing. I suppose that is why you should have a gym induction. Also go to the gym when it is less busy which gives you time to learn to operate the equipment without every eye gazing at your big fat stomach and tiny legs.