From the "Sweatin' to the oldies" department
With all the days I spend burning the midnight oil for work, my slowly worsening case of Dunlap's Disease made me realize it was high time I started burning some calories. So I broke down and put a grand of my hard earned cash towards a treadmill. Sure, you *say* you're going to make time to get outside and walk or run. But then it's raining, or it's too hot, or it's too cold. You're going to get a gym membership though, right? But you have to go out in the heat, or the cold or the rain to go there. "Well", you say, "The $3000 its going to cost me for Bally Total Fitness is going to *make* me go to the gym". Yeah, I've heard that before. I even did it. You'll go for a short amount of time, and slowly drop off, and beg them for a refund and then they'll laugh at you. Do yourself a favor and take the advice of me, your pal and fellow workin' man. I'm *just like you*. That's right. I don't really need to lose weight; I'm just out of shape. "Skinny Fat" is what they call it. Ironically the six pack I used to have is gone probably due, in part, to all those six packs! (of beer, obviously).
Still with me? Some People will tell you to get up early, so you can get more done. If you're an early bird, so be it. Get up 20 minutes earlier than you normally would. Open the shutters and throw up the sash. Greet the world with your big trademarked shit-eating grin, you early bird you. If you're a night owl, like myself, just squeeze in 20 minutes before you go to bed. It's 10 PM; enough work for one day. You're a couch potato, I know, so one thing you will need to bear the burden of exercise is a TV. It doesn't have to be a big TV. Fine, Music lover? Ipod fan? Great, that's ok too; Just something to distract you from the awful realization that you're doing exercise.
Now, if you're like me, you're too lazy to go to the store and "try out" all the treadmills. You're in the middle of a department store, you're certainly not going to give it your all and really replicate your actual exercise routine. You're not going to jog for 15 minutes in the store to see how you like it. Thankfully, there are those folks who *have* gone to the store for you and have done the dirty work. Viva la Amazon reviews. So I took someone elses word for it, and now you should take my word for it; for the price, this treadmill is the one.
It's a treat to get on. It's big, and heavy, and well made, and its got wheels and folds up so you can cart it around if need be (but don't expect to save any space). This thing is a monster and yet they say it's the smallest one in the series. It's more than enough to "get your jog on" and has different programs to mix it up a bit for you. There's Fat Burn and Cardio, and Hill climbing; the thing automatically creates an incline as you're walking and even tells you how high you've ascended when you're done. All these extra's are bonuses, of course. I bought the thing because I wanted to get up off the couch, plain and simple. I managed to go 1.2 miles in 20 minutes. Not too shabby. You put in how much time you have to work out, how much you weigh, and what's the fastest MPH you're willing to go (you'll get the hang of what you can handle when you start using it); then, it calculates what your routine should be. My heart rate was definitely up, and the routine was definitely challenging. And I did it all in 20 minutes. 9:50 PM to 10:10 PM. I watched the last ten minutes of a family guy re-run, checked the weather channel, listened to some Fox News BS, and before I knew it, the machine went into cool down mode, which is about 5 minutes of walking really slowly so you don't get a cramp later on and you can wind down.
Then you feel pretty good afterwards. You're already in the house so just go jump in the shower if you got all sweaty. So spending day after day on the couch with no exercise is definitely worse than spending day after day on the couch, but you take a 20 minute 1.5 mile walk/run every day. So go get yours. You'll be glad you did.