Welcome to Jim's Gym

There’s nothing more important to our quality of life than our health. No matter how much money, fame, talent, prestige, friends, family, or any other important things we humans have; we can’t enjoy or appreciate them very much if we are sickly, unable to leave our beds, hospitalized. Yet, despite its importance, too many Americans are less healthy than ever before. Over two-thirds of us are at least overweight, and one-third are obese (defined as roughly thirty pounds over one’s ideal weight). Diabetes cost us about $245 billion in treatment and lost productivity in 2012, and its incidence is increasing at an alarming rate. We have made progress in treating life-threatening diseases like cancer and heart disease, but there’s only so much medicine can do when it comes to lifestyle-generated illnesses. Sure, the numbers of cigarette smokers and drunk drivers have decreased; however, we are less active and more prone to debilitating problems than ever. We live longer, but the quality of those extra years has worsened even as miracle treatments keep us miserably alive enough to keep using expensive drugs.

And since we’re not stupid, we know this and spend lavishly on all kinds of things we think will improve our health. Diet books, weight loss programs, health clubs, personal trainers, and special foods consume billions and billions of Americans’ disposable income every year. And that’s not taking into account the trillions we spend on health care—insurance, doctor’s visits, prescriptions, and hospital stays—much of which is directly related to our lifestyle choices. There’s really no need to belabor the point: It would benefit both how well we live and how much money we save if we could improve our health. And that’s where Jim’s Gym comes in.

I’m neither doctor, certified fitness expert, nor dietician; but I have been reading, studying, experimenting, and practicing ways to be healthier for a long time. It all began back in 1981, at the beginning of my third year of teaching. Up until that point, I had been blessed with few health issues and a metabolism which allowed me to skip working out while indulging in one of my favorite activities: Reading the Sunday Trib while consuming a large bag (about ten ounces) of Doritos in one sitting. That year, however, as I was shopping for my back-to-school wardrobe, I found that I needed a 31-inch waist size on my new khakis, up from the 30 inches of the previous year. And that came after moving up from 29 inches the year before that. Even though I taught English, I was skilled enough in math to recognize that if this trend continued for the next thirty years of my teaching career, I would retire with a 61-inch waist. That really gave me pause, and within a month I had made my first exercise purchase—a cheap exercise bike. I also started another habit which continues to this day when I checked out a book on nutrition and diet. I was on my way.

Flash forward to today, over thirty years later, and I’m still a work in progress with plenty to do and weaknesses that continue to plague me. I did finally give up cigarettes (but not until I was diagnosed with asthma several years ago). I do work out regularly, but I’m easily vulnerable to available junk food, especially the chippy/salty/fatty kind: A bag of Cheetos and I cannot be in the house at the same time; one of us will have to go, and Chester, it’s always going to be you, my tasty foe. My flexibility, neglected for many years, is not catching up as fast as my core, equally ignored but apparently faster at recovering from my inattention. I have lots of techniques, not to mention blind alleys, I’ve discovered over the years, but the main thing I am here to state unequivocally is that you will feel better after you’ve embarked on a regime of regular physical activity and efforts (damn those backslides!) to improve your diet. Once you’ve incorporated that belief into your being, you will be on the path to just that—feeling better.

There are many, many, many paths to this Promised Land, which is part of the problem. People become discouraged when it’s sheer drudgery to follow some routine or just so hard to motivate yourself day after day, but the art of physical well-being has to be tailored to suit only one individual—you. Sure, your friends, relatives, co-workers, talk-show celebs may have discovered some great formula which has worked wonderfully for them. It would be so awesome if all you had to do was mindlessly follow some other person’s habits and have them succeed for you. It probably won’t work, though; not necessarily because that program is awful (although MANY of them are), but because it’s a bad fit for you. The next one (or next) might be just what you need in exactly the right format, yet that’s pretty unlikely too. Instead, you’re more apt to find a workout from one program, some recipes from another, a group activity from a third, and a piece of equipment from a garage sale before you’ve created a system that will lead you to where you want to be: Feeling better.

Once you’ve achieved this state, you will then be ready to try other activities and recipes, and the possibilities for what you can do, eat, and enjoy will expand. Again, probably not at light speed, but you will have the tools to recognize things that you would like to do and that would be good for you. And the more you do this, the better you will be able to endure the initial pain of starting something new because you will now have a foundation of experience to reassure you that once you’ve slogged through the beginning challenges, the activity will help you to feel better.

One of the motivational sayings many fitness gurus like to throw at you is, “If you can push yourself to work out and modify your diet, you can do anything!” To be honest, I’m not wild about that kind of “Every Journey Begins with a First Step,” summing-up-life-on-a-poster, quasi-philosophical nonsense. (I do recognize that mental junk food like that can be scrumptious to some people, but that doesn’t make it any healthier, does it?). Instead, we’ll be as matter-of-fact about the process as possible—yeah, you will have successes and you will have failures, but as long as you keep at it, you will achieve your overall goal: You will feel better. And that’s a pretty good thing.

In future entries, then, we’ll be looking at all aspects of fitness and trying to sort through the things that have potential from the hype. We’ll throw out lots of ideas in the hope that some of them will work for you. Ken Kesey’s quote will come into play often, however: “Take what you can use and let the rest go by.” Unlike for-profit health programs, Jim’s Gym will have no hidden agendas or miracle cures; we’ll just see what has worked for some people, analyze why it does, and then leave it up to you to pick and choose the things that you see as possibly workable for you. You just have to accept that no matter how great something sounds, no system is right for everybody. You especially need to be careful when any “answer” involves your spending big bucks; there’s nothing as frustrating as watching your fitness stagnate while your expensive purchase serves only as a clothes hanger or you’re making a monthly payment to a place you never go. Just take it slow, don’t worry too much, and realize there are plenty of things you can try based solely on what you might like and can afford. Sooner or later, if you keep at it, you will discover ways you can work out, eat more nutritiously, and of course, feel better.

So I hope you will join us as we explore the many approaches out there to getting to that point. From workout routines to vitamins to health clubs to diet programs to motivation to organic vs. local food, we have lots to cover. And I certainly hope that if you choose to come along, you will feel free to share your own experiences and knowledge with the rest of us—nobody has all the answers and we can all benefit from that which others have learned. I’m looking forward to our time together.

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