If all that kept me from working out this week was the edit of my Ira Newble radion piece set to run on Boston's Only a Game, I'd have had a perfectly reasonable excuse — Soundtrack Pro
can overwhelm a brotha at first. But I was also doing the whirlwind New
York thing, and the closest thing to exercise was brisk walks from bar
to restaurant to bar to home. (Coming out of Wenner Media, I did spot that David cat who won American Idol; absolute shrimp that guy.) I'd count the brilliant sex (not with David) but sometimes one must just lay back and enjoy the ride.

So,
by the time my flight landed at LAX on Wednesday night, my body
resembled a brownie about 15 minutes before being fully cooked; soft
and vulnerable. Disgusted, I forced myself out of bed and into the gym
before sunrise with the aim of getting my shit together. The trick
would be doing so in such a way that would not turn me off from hitting
the gym again in the following days. Any schmuck can have one strong
session; I want to re-establish a pattern of productive exercise.

The
brain plays as big a role in pulling this off as anything below the
neck. Like, if I feel like I'm getting away with watching TV, I'll work
the LifeFitness
machine toward eternity. Toward this end, I made a point of exiting the
locker room at exactly 5:30 a.m. SportsCenter stacks its broadcasts so
that the top of the hour portions contain fewer commercials. Combine
that with inherently more interesting stories that then appear on the
channel's sports news loop and you have a recipe for boosting
performance when your workout most needs it.

I didn't even set a
target time for my cardio. Rather, I told myself: 600 calories burned
and yer done, Donnell. My performance level, 15, was moderate enough
that when highlights from last night's Detroit-Boston basketball match-up
ran, I was just winded enough to make things interesting. By the time
Disney failed to sell me on Big Brown — about the only thing less
interesting than animals forced to work out hard for humans'
entertainment was one dominant animal forced to work out against lesser
animals for humans' entertainment — I had made my numbers and was off
to do some work on my big belly.

My
gut really isn't what it used to be. Thing is, as I've dropped tonnage
over the past nine months or so, my midsection lagged proportionally.
Sure, I could stop swilling beer. (At least I tell myself I
could.) Sit-ups though are bound to disturb my friends' expectation for
top-notch barroom shit-talking. I did 150, then moved on to my routine
of upper-body work. This component of my regimen is down from the past
as it's finally become clear that whatever weight-loss benefits
lifting, curling, and benching might bring, I haven't mastered the
proper technique. Now my only goal is a rippling back. Stay tuned.

Two
hours later, I'm out of the gym and feeling like I could do more.
Tomorrow I'll do another easy session, concentrating again on aerobics
and doing the arm and chest work that consistently gets me laid. On
Saturday maybe I'll have the storied hoops contest that pits my girl
and my sixth-grade boy against me and my first grader. (That little boy
better play to win, man!) And if I'm smart I'll trade in the beer for wine. Simple as that, it will be like New York never happened.