Want to Exercise? Pick Your Poison.

Sweat by Jog, Gym, or Treadmill?

Jogging the Wallet

Eau de Gym

Gyms are self-contained exercise hubs impervious to outside weather conditions and stimulating conversation. Now, I love human contact as much as the next person but would rather not pay for a club membership. In addition to the obvious expense, I refuse to get in shape next to people who have toned hard bodies with nary a ripple of fat. I’m convinced that there is a secret gym where those people go to get in shape before they join a gym . . . to get in shape.

While those hard-bodied people can wear stylish form fitting workout clothes, I have to wear fat gal clothes with fancy flap traps to hide a sagging stomach and bouncing butt. I worry every time I lift my arms that the fat folds hidden beneath the trap will unravel, frantically flopping, and possibly flattening the gal doing Pilates next to me.

No. Gyms are too stressful. Besides, I’d rather not have to smell other people’s sweat.

No Will to Treadmill

I already have enough stress from the treadmill that glares at me from the family room, a technological marvel that is both accessible and evil, as it eliminates the need for any possible human contact. It glares at me because lately I’ve been avoiding it. After only exercising for a month or two, I started skipping days, then weeks, and finally skipping past the treadmill completely and heading straight for the couch where I routinely exercise my thumb on the remote.

I’m officially on an exercise hiatus while I reevaluate my pudgy doctor’s advice — to shape up or die.

Frankly, my doctor and working out scares me. Stretching and straining muscles is masochistic. In fact, I believe that exercising is more like exorcising and that its only purpose is to keep the mind in shape by working out limitless creative schemes in order to avoid the harmful effects of exercising.

How do you tread?