The Trials of Gob
After the holidays, many people are recommitting to a program of healthy eating and exercise in the new year. But the time you spend on a treadmill or elliptical can quickly seem endless, even if it is not, because it is boring.
Obviously, the best thing to do would be to pray-you could pray the office, or the rosary, while on the treadmill.
But if you’re like me, you can only improve yourself in one way at one time–it’s too hard to improve oneself physically and spiritually simultaneously. So I’ve been in search of the perfect workout television show. It has to be not too difficult to follow, funny, and a little bit off-kilter and absurd, because (after all) the idea of getting on a machine to make you exercise is absurd, when you think about it.
And I think I’ve found it: Arrested Development, which debuted on Fox in 2003. Each episode is 21 minutes long (good for those restarting programs). And you can get them all on Netflix streaming ($7.99 a month). That’s the wonderful thing about Netflix. All the series you ever missed are available, instantly, in a neat little row. You just click from episode to episode.
And Gob-that would be George Oscar Bluth II, played by the wonderful Will Arnett.
Yes, it’s pronounced “Job.”
So I guess I get a little bit of religion in after all.
Cool! Also, I’ve been in gyms where they have “cardio theater,” where a bunch of cardio machines are in the dark, facing the big screen, movies playing all day. I found it’s hard not to go faster at the end of, say, “The Guns of Navaronne,” (not to mention staying longer than I’d intended to see how it all ends!) Your basic tear-jerker romantic comedy, though, can be hard to sweat through.
In my apartment building’s new (and very nice) Fitness Room, I discovered over the holidays that one of the options I had to watch on the treadmill was Channel 11 (WPIX), which was running the “Yule Log,” an endless video of a fire in a fireplace. I had forgotten my iPod, so I didn’t have a set of headphones to plug in for the Christmas music that accompanies the video. I suppose a roaring fire might be motivational on a treadmill, but it would have to be behind you, so you are running away from it, not in front of you.
I’m watching the original “Dark Shadows” series on Netflix now. (A new Dark Shadows movie will be released this year with Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, so I thought I’d check out the original). Streaming Netflix is very fabulous.
I have used this in the past. It does help with pacing and can be motivating although personally I find it annoying after some time.
http://runningtothebeat.com/
Generally though I follow P90x or Insanity.
And if I am walking and wish to listen to something, I like to listen to some jazz.