Food, Exercise and Demosthenes

I missed Boot Camp last night.
I wasn’t out of town.
I was only eight miles from the action, attending a dinner.
The dinner was work associated.
I went from the office to a sit down dinner.
The food, beverages and lack of exercise were not good for body or soul.
There was not a Brussels Sprout within miles of the entrée.
There was no green leafy vegetable adorning the plate other than a wisp of over-steamed spinach.
I assumed the spinach lent an artistic touch.
The main ingredient was beef, so raw and tender; it crawled onto the fork by itself.
The shrimp were seared in a sea of butter.
The starch was a Risotto held together with heavy cream and long strands of pure cholesterol.
A desert of pears lying in sugar based confectioners icing rounded out the menu.
I was “slumping” by the time we left the evening behind.
My metabolism was in an uproar in spite of leaving a significant portion uneaten.
I woke up feeling out of sorts, tired, achy and still digesting the previous nights fare.
I was stiff and had a new back pain that had not existed the day before.
These are all of the symptoms of the wrong food and too little exercise.
I had eaten not from the recommended dietary triangle but from the dietary funnel.
I had both physical and mental symptoms including guilt.
I had missed Boot Camp.
I had missed my exercise.
“You are just a fanatic”, I can already hear some saying, but even sane people need to exercise to maintain balance.
The same has to be said for eating.
Everyone needs to eat.
But as my brother once told me, it’s not so much about taste or presentation, its more about feeling full.
“That’s why I chew on rocks”, I always feel full with a mouthful of warm rocks and therefore I eat less and I don’t need to worry about my weight”.
This same brother would do 500 sit-ups every day.
He knew early in life the need for dietary restriction and exercise.
But life had other plans for him.
His good intentions along with his good habits soon dissipated after marrying a lady that knew nothing about sit-ups, chin-ups or any other form of exercise and even less about cooking rocks.