Top 7 Reasons People Give for Not Exercising

There's No Time

This is probably the top reason of all time that people give, not only for not going to the gym, but for anything remotely healthy, productive, economical, or character-building. People who say this apparently have no time to exercise because they are perpetually occupied in sharing and re-posting Internet memes and pictures (with typos, and sometimes transliterated Hindi) on such a wide variety of subjects as cats’ empowerment, Tupac Shakur, Bihu greetings, and the 10 most beneficial foods for a healthy pancreas. (Strangely, a lot of their posts involve "seizing the day," "living in the moment," and similar health and time-management catchphrases.) You can also spot some of these people by way of they stream whole seasons of TV series at a time, and are often found online at 3:30 at night, telling you via messenger, why they are unable to get up in the morning and, therefore, have no time to go to the gym.

I'm Too Fat

This epic reason has been cited by people for stuff as minor as climbing the stairs to the apartment. They elaborate by pointing an accusatory finger at other people and saying, "It’s okay for you; you’re thin." As applied to the gym, the logic is that it's too late and the risk of injury is too high—now that all this fat has mysteriously been allowed to accumulate unbeknownst to the individual—to be bouncing around on high-impact equipment. Or any equipment at all. Or stairs. Better play it safe and take some rest in front of the TV lest it get any worse.

A corollary reason given by people is poor health of some other sort (insomnia, joint pain, frequent colds, "piles/fistula, marriage, and other ailments"). Well, believe me, I talk from experience: you wouldn't have been in any of the above predicaments if you'd gone to the gym in the first place.

It's Too Expensive

I understand this concept in theory. Activity costs Rs. X; I do not have Rs. X. Or, alternatively, I have just about Rs. X, but I need it for my mom's hernia operation, to pay house rent, and feed my family. But what mystifies me is when people apply this concept to running in the free BBMP park on the corner. It also seems odd that the people who think gym memberships are expensive (maybe Rs. 3000 a month for a mid-range one?) seem to think that a much more profitable investment is throwing away their perfectly functional mobile phone and getting a Samsung Galaxy Note II (Rs. 34,500 a pop, but it is a phablet after all…)

The Gym Is Boring

I've heard so many people say this, and my response is: if you're bored in the gym, you're not working out right. There should be no scope in your workout to get bored; you should be getting bushed. The moment your body gets used to the repetitive nature of your workout, it ceases to be beneficial and it's time to take it up a notch, or at least shake it up a bit. Have you ever got on that upside-down-reverse-incline horse riding machine over in the corner? Well, then you’re barely scratching the surface of the gym's treasures and it's a little early in the day to say you’re bored.

Another claim made by these people is that they don't wanna be cooped up in a stuffy old gym and they'd rather be exercising in the great outdoors, in the arms of nature, and all that. Strangely, they usually say this from the arms of their office (or car or apartment). An interesting statistic in this regard: 71% of Bangalore-, Hyderabad-, and Pune-based populations cited their number-one preference for places they'd like to work out as the beach.

Note: If you want a non-exercise-related type of distraction to keep you on your toes, if you'll pardon the expression, pick someone hot and hit on them in a manner that is just inefficient enough to ensure that you do not actually get anywhere with them and yet avoid the restraining order.

The Gym Is Dirty

It's not.

It's Too Hot/Cold

Mostly, it's the same people who say it's too hot to run around outside or in the gym who also say it's too cold to go swimming. This strange fluctuating weather phenomenon seems to be isolated in a little cloud over their heads, though, because all the pools, parks, gyms, and BMTC bus depots are full. A lot of the people who manage to subdue this obstacle soon begin to notice that it's raining. Let's not forget the important lesson that Benjamin Franklin and Nikola Tesla taught us by getting struck down by lightning because they went swimming in the rain.

Lack of Motivation

So when they've finally run to the end of their litany of excuses for not going to the gym, which reads somewhat like a life-insurance policy disclaimer (Vagaries of Nature, Acts of God, Coercion, Insolvency, and Unsoundness of Mind ab. initio), people play the motivation card. Exactly who, that is more personally interested in YOUR fitness and physical well-being, do you think is responsible for "motivating" you? I've actually heard people, in all seriousness, complain that they left the gym because the trainer was "not motivating enough." Well, unless your trainer told you not to bother doing pectoral exercises because "you got nothing" (a la my trainer, to me) then you've no business saying that. I've also heard of people leaving the gym because the "music wasn’t going their way," but I consider these people beyond the scope of this discussion. If they had just waited long enough, any self-respecting gym would have played Enrique Hero.

Goofy-Footedness & the Top 7 Things I Learned from "Hindu" Culture

In the aftermath of the death of my beloved and mostly irreverent grandfather, my dad shed light (if you’ll pardon the expression) on some of our country’s funereal practices that are carried out, to this day, including—but not limited to—bathing the body, waving a fiery brand in front of her face, and clanging bells next to her head. He told me, at the time of their inception, they were a form of vital-sign detectors, pretty similar to the stuff we learned in Emergency First Response class, to make sure that the poor dear was actually dead. At any one of the stages outlined above, there was a good chance of her sitting up in her coffin and declaring that it ain’t over till the fat poojary sings. So what do you think my dad’s next words were: “Yes, my child, that is why it is a good practice that has been passed on by our revered ancestors and you must, in turn, pass it on to your children and grandchildren after you…” WRONG. (I believe his exact words were “bloody bullshit.”) When we now have medical instruments that indicate, to a frightening degree of accuracy, the vital functions and the level of patient participation, what would be the point? Couldn’t we just bid the deceased farewell with a little more dignity and introspection and a little less self-importance? Now, there are Paleolithic people still inhabiting parts of the Nicobar Islands. That’s right, people whose lifestyle has changed little since the Old Stone Age. Maybe the bells-and-whistles routine is the most effective means of confirming death available to them, and I don’t blame them for it. But what of our most highly esteemed doctors and engineers, who set their iPhone 5 on silent (and their facial expression on “holier-than-thou”) to conduct these “rites” every day in our metropolises?

It was in such an environment that my mother, not having had the pleasure of hearing the Konkani word for urn (asti) before, mistakenly (and loudly) interpreted it as elephant (hasti). She got no props for this as you can imagine, was met with a cold glare, and had to retreat—much like Alice in Wonderland—muttering, “Father would have laughed.”

Incidentally, this would not be the first time my mom’s putting her foot in it, if you’ll pardon the expression. After her wedding when she arrived at the house of her impending in-laws, she made the grave mistake of stepping over the threshold leading with her left foot. There’s a simple reason for this: my mom’s regular, not goofy like me. In the course of my surfing-related research (I tried to find out the origins of the word “grom,” too, and got absolutely nowhere) I was investigating whether left-footed people are called “regular” (as opposed to right-footed people who are “goofy”) because more people in the world are left footed. I did not find enough information to substantiate this; it appears they are equally distributed. Though I can’t help wondering, if this is the case, why the word “regular,” which implies normality and majority? Once again my dad, to the rescue, pointed out that since most people are right handed (especially in our country where left-handedness is still beaten out of you because everybody knows that’s the ass-wiping hand), and the left foot naturally syncs with the movement of the right hand (for things like walking), voila! most people are left footed. This is plausible enough when applied to the whole world, too, because throughout history, left-handedness was suspect in most cultures. I stress the word “history” here, though, because we have since discovered the phenomenon of soap. (Another fact documented by science is that the Disney character Goofy surfs right-foot-forward on his Hawaiian holiday.)

So there are the Stone Age adherents who do the rituals without question, adopting convenient loopholes sanctioned by said fat poojary when necessary, and don’t even bother to go into the why’s and wherefore’s. And then there’s this whole other bunch of people, who consider themselves a cut above—the Harappan hipsters, if you will—who’ll give you lame pseudo-science “rationales” for why these things were done in the Stone Age, as if this in some way mitigates their extreme irrelevance and provides justification for doing them 10000 years later in the age of the iPhone. I came across one such person (from an illustrious family of doctors, financiers, and IITians) who insisted on telling me the benefits of climbing 50000 stairs cut into a hillside in some village at 3:00 in the morning to “see” a stone idol in some temple at the top. “It is a form of self-discipline,” I was told. He was not amused when I pointed out that he had never shown up on time for a social appointment a single day of his life, and maybe he ought to look for more opportunities for self-discipline in the practical realm of daily life.

In his defense, though, one of this guy’s decadent personal coups (like any progressive scientist, hiding in the toilet) was defying his mother and cutting his nails at night. I don’t know why he had to hide, though. In the total absence of electricity, how could she possibly see his axe?

Rangoli was another of his hobby-horses. Apparently, the rice flour that the lines were drawn with kept all the ants occupied long enough so they didn’t get in your house. So naturally, we should obstruct everybody’s path in the two-foot-square apartment complex stairwell with ever-more-elaborate chalk drawings to this day, despite the advent of Gamaxene (and a gamut of other non-toxic options). Another explanation I’ve heard for rangoli is that it provided “entertainment” for the little women who had to stay home while their husbands were out constructing great granaries and drainage systems or whatever it is they did. All the more imperative then, to have them outside your door, albeit by outsourcing the drawing to your domestic help while you watch The Real Housewives of Orange County.

When some such medieval ritual was being conducted at a relative’s house, their beloved cocker spaniel cross came wandering up to the altar and promptly started sniffing up the various unfathomable objects strewn across the living room. The hyperventilating elders and the odd cousin muttering, “The sanctity of the whole thang’s gone to the dogs” were all put at ease by our old friend Fat Poojary, though. He assured them that dogs were kosher because some three-headed “god” likes dogs and that there is, in fact, a body of photographic evidence in support of this fact. So, if they’re good enough for Him, they’re good enough for me is the premise here. But what I want to know is, why can’t we just love dogs for all that they are? Or, for that matter, emus, or whale sharks?

I could go on. If people are gonna murder animals for their meat one day of the week, why are they so sanctimonious about not doing it on some other random day, just because it has an unpronounceable name? Why this hatred and outrage towards feet (goofy or otherwise)? Why are they equated with disrespect and dirt? (If there’s no word for this let’s call it misopedy.) I wanna know how far those hataz could run up the 50000 steps without them. And people have told me in all seriousness, in the new millennium, that menstruating women can contaminate a whole bottle of pickle with the touch of a finger (the HH are quick to point out it’s because of “elevated body temperature”). Well, good to know I’m instantly transformed into the Human Torch from Fantastic 4 whenever I get my period, with the superhuman (and useful) ability to turn preserves to ash. Flame on, I say. Don’t even get me started on the gender-biased ones, like how women have to wear symbolic shackles around their necks, toes, wrists, or ankles (depending on regional subculture) to scream that they are married, but men have nothing to show for it. And that widows (if they inconveniently decide to live on) transform into walking ghosts who can’t wear any colors and are not allowed the tiniest pleasure for the rest of their lives, whereas men who’ve lost their wives do nothing except, possibly, marry someone younger.

So it’s probably that time when I need to provide my disclaimer to the local-area-network lynch mob. I’m not saying Hinduism is intrinsically bad, or in any way worse than any other organized religion. Most religions, in fact, have similar base tenets that are pretty sensible and timeless. But the ever-increasing ritualistic trappings concocted by self-serving men at every stage in history need not be perpetuated. Haven’t we evolved enough to be able to tell the beneficial from the loony? Like my man Markandey Katju said, it would be sick-tastic if people in this country started opening their eyes and minds and stopped living a double life of supposed scientific advancement on the one hand, and pre-historic superstition on the other.

"Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log—shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabout: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There’s orthodoxy!"

- Herman Melville  | Moby Dick