How Low Can a Punk Get?

A summer ago after 2 River Runs, nearly daily surf trips, and doing my best to try and at least curb my eating habits, I had started tipping the scale at around 228. When I started on this trek (by which I mean the first time I really said I need to make a change -- which was followed by many starts, false-starts, binge quits, and just flat out surrenders ago) my weight was veering towards 280, and perhaps points beyond.

All of which made 228 feel really frikkin' good. I was actually wearing large t-shirts instead of X-Large, which as small of a thing as that sounds like -- was a huge deal for me. I felt better, I was active, and the combination of all those things sort of spilled over into other areas and my world hit a pretty cool stride.

Then (as unfortunately it sometimes does) a lot of bad emotional things hit me in a row. My mother passing, the divorce becoming an inevitable truth, losing my job, having people I care about move away.. It was a karmic body slam. I dealt with it the best I could, but as anyone who's struggled with weight problems knows -- emotionally charged eating is just as bad as any snack binges or genetic dispositions towards obesity that you might have.

228 quickly became 250.
Shirts went back to X-Large.

Since then I've been able to dig out of a lot of the holes I fell into, even to the point where I was able to join a gym recently. While I was sticking to it like crazy for a while -- I have missed a few days here and there as a result of having too much to do in a given day or whatever. Still, it's a part of my regular routine for almost a month now, and its possible the effects are starting to show (last time I weighed in I was almost 247).

I'm currently doing my best to get to the gym 5 days a week (followed by 2 days off). Monday/Wednesday/Friday are cardio days, Tuesdays are for upper body, Thursdays for lower. Lather, rinse, repeat. What's better -- I'm getting to a point where my body gets mad at me for missing days. I still need to work on my eating habits (temptations are everywhere), but hopefully the more I do the better I will get.

The real key this time is that even though I want to look better and ultimately feel better about myself, a big part of my motivation this time are the things a doctor told me a few months ago. Things about my blood pressure and cholesterol levels that I kinda knew, but didn't want to admit. But now I have numbers in front of me, and a 6-year old who sits beside me at the supermarket blood pressure machine who asks what the numbers stand for.

So now it's not just something I want to do -- now it's something that I just flat out have to do.

The good news though is that even if the motivations are very serious, it doesn't mean the solutions have to be. Which is why I'm counting last night's Fishbone concert as a full body workout. Yeah I had to work late, which meant I had to miss the gym in order to get out to the show on time -- but the way I see it, 2 hours of crowded floor Ska dancing and full-on mosh pit action is easily equivalent to any time I would have spent spinning or lifting weights.

Or to put it another way, Here it is a day later and I'm friggin' exhausted.

All of which has me thinking, maybe there's a market for this kind of thing. I mean, the whole punk rock workout thing they had a few years ago where rooms full of soccer moms learned to pogo was just kinda sad -- but what if you went to the gym once a week, put on your doc's -- and then proceeded to mosh the hell out of that fucker in the muscle shirt who's always hogging the bicep machine in the afternoons?

The gym I'm at has these awesome training rooms that are basically an open space equipped with a big sound system. What I'm proposing here is that instead of the god-awful techno-bullshit that comes out of those rooms every afternoon, we pump some Bad Brains through the speakers, lower the lights, and get a circle going.

It's guaranteed cardio time, better physical contact training than kickboxing training, and if we can get some crowd surfers going overhead would certainly suffice for weight training (especially if that one fat fuck from last night's show could be available on a regular basis to act as the dead weight).

Of course, if it catches on there will be the inevitable marketing campaigns mounted on TV with some half-wit bimbo spokesmodel pretending to be completely dedicated the workout and the amazing results it gives.

"Hi I'm Brooke Burke -- and like a lot of you I found it hard to get back into shape after having my last baby. I tried all the fad diets and wasted countless dollars on gimmick exercise machines that never gave me the results I wanted. That's why I was so relieved and excited to discover the energy boost and long-lasting weight loss results that come from Slam Dancing®

All it takes is 15 minutes a day, 3 days a week to get to a slimmer, sexier, you. Each kit includes a pair of combat boots, instructional DVD, and this handy dandy lip ring and tattoo accessory set to help you feel like you're really out there on the floor. Order today and we'll include free of charge one undersized karate-kicking Emo kid that you can slam slam slam your way to the look you've always wanted!

It worked for me, so what are you waiting for -- order your copy of Slam Dancing® today!!

I don't know about you -- but I feel like this thing's got real potential. I mean think about it -- Iggy Pop, Wendy O'Williams, Joey Ramone, Johnny Rotten.. All skinny.

I mean ok, sure -- some of their weight loss was probably drug and self-abuse related, but the way I'm seeing it -- every weight loss plan I've ever read about talks about coordinating diet and exercise, right?. If you look at it the right way, all that smack they took was probably just the food part.

So I suppose maybe that could be a possible marketing problem we'll have to deal with, but who knows -- maybe we can get Kirstie Alley or someone to help us out marketing that part of it -- you know, some series of commercials where she's slapping the veins on her right arm and saying

"Hey - have you called Fast Eddie yet?"

[Listening to: Fishbone, "Drunk Skitzo"]