I am NOT getting savage with it

I watch too much television. I’ll go ahead and own it. I like TV. Now to be fair, I am easily distracted and like naps so the actual television watching time needs to be reduced by the time spent multitasking and sleeping. I mean it’s only fair. The main thing is I have idiopathic hypersomnia (yes, it is real and even has a foundation) so I always wake up in the middle of the night and then come downstairs and turn on the TV for company. It feels lonely to be the only one awake and the voices of Angela Lansbury and Andy Griffith are like a cozy blanket.

During the pandemic, I have come to notice the large number of commercials for home gym equipment available for purchase. You couldn’t get a stationary bike or weights to save your life during month two or three, but now you can get just about anything to make sure you stay in shape while in the comfort of your own home. Gyms just aren’t very practical now and people don’t have a lot of space in their houses for entire gym set-ups so these are all designed to fit into small spaces and look like museum pieces that anyone would be proud to display in their living room (or their large and unexplainably empty room at the top of a skyscraper with a view of downtown and their really hot neighbor who also happens to have a large empty room in his apartment across the street).

I have come to absolutely despise these commercials. There are three to four bikes and they all come with monthly subscriptions you buy so you can participate in classes with people from around the world over video and not feel so alone during covid. And the instructors are these overly fit and insanely cheerful men and women who use terms like “let’s slay” and “you crushed it.” There are also some pieces of equipment that hang on your wall (well, not our walls because our drywall is like tissue paper) and also have a video display so you can join in with all of your new best friends and show off your fitness progress. My least favorite item and only because the song gets stuck in my head, is this bench thing that uses your own bodyweight for resistance. I’m sure it’s fine, but the song says something about being a hero because you have worked out. What? Working out does not a hero make. Saving kittens from a tree or children from a burning church (omg, remember the The Outsiders? Wasn’t that the best movie??)…are pretty standard hero moves, but using your home gym equipment, while certainly admirable, does not make you a hero.

And it’s not just exercise equipment that’s taken over the airwaves (or I guess everything is digital now right?). There are also several commercials for diet programs and foods. You can have all of your food delivered and lose 18 pounds in three days.

I have found that I have zero motivation to exercise during this pandemic and all I feel like doing sometimes is eating. I find it extraordinarily difficult just to walk the dogs and some days salad just tastes like ass. I’m probably depressed. Aren’t we all? That absolutely could explain my aversion to these commercials. But I also think it’s something else. It’s that all of the sudden, I’m noticing that all of the commercials I see are basically saying that I’m not good enough and that’s really not okay with me. I may be carrying a few extra covid pounds and I may like watching too many Hallmark movies, but that doesn’t make me a big loser that needs to go buy a $5000 treadmill (not kidding, google it) so I can be a glorified aerobics instructor and hang out with people I’ve never met and pretend that they are all my new family of friends.

It is absolutely great if you have found solace in exercise and eating healthfully. It is great if it is getting you through this pandemic with a modicum of sanity. All I’m saying is that’s not me. It ain’t me babe, no, no, no, it ain’t me babe. And like it or not, I’m just not going to be ashamed of myself for it. Yes, I understand exercise is great for mental health and I totally agree. And I do exercise on occasion. But I do other stuff too, like gardening and sewing and talking to friends and petting dogs and hanging out with my husband. And I watch TV. I found myself getting so mad at myself for not sweating it all out on a daily basis and I just can’t do that right now for whatever reason. And no commercial is going to make me feel bad for not crushing it or being savage (what the fluff does that mean anyway?).