"Stay Fit And Healthy Until You’re Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barry Dave)

Four Reasons Why You Must Get Fit Immediately

1. YOU OWE IT TO YOUR COUNTRY. You can bet that the enemies of your country are fit. People in Communist nations are on a strict fitness program of waiting in line a lot and darting their eyes about nervously. We, too, must be fit, in case these Communists invade us. We must be ready to fight them in the streets and the alleys. The problem is that many of you have eaten so many Enormous Economy Size bags of corn chips and so much bean dip that you probably couldn’t fit into the alleys without the aid of powerful hydraulic devices. So you’d have to fight them in the streets, where you’d be easy prey for their blimp-seeking missiles.

2. YOU OWE IT TO YOUR CAREER. In the old days, your successful business executive was generally a spectacular tub of lard who had to be transported from business deal to business deal via private railroad car. But today’s top executives are lean, sleek, and fit. They eat nutritionally balanced meals, run ten miles every day, play tennis and racquetball, and work out regularly on Nautilus machines. Consequently, they have no time whatsoever for their work. Many of them don’t even know where their offices are. This is why the entire U.S. economy is now manufactured in Japan.

3. YOU OWE IT TO YOUR SELF-ESTEEM. There is no feeling in the world quite as wonderful as the feeling of being physically fit, except the feeling of eating pepperoni pizza. No! Wait! Disregard that last remark! What I’m trying to say is, when you become fit, everything about you changes. You have to buy new pants, for example. And you develop a whole new attitude about yourself. Instead of constantly thinking, “I am pasty and flabby and disgusting and nobody likes me,” you think, “People like me now, but only as long as I can keep from becoming pasty and flabby and disgusting again. I wish I had a pepperoni pizza.”

4. YOU OWE IT TO YOUR FUTURE. There’s nothing like regular, vigorous exercise to prepare you for the pain you’ll inevitably have to endure when you get older. Let’s say you’re in your mid-20s to mid-30s. Most of the time you feel pretty good, right? The only time you feel lousy is when you ingest huge quantities of alcohol and wake up the next day in an unfamiliar city naked with unexplained chest wounds. But as you grow older, you’re going to start feeling more aches and pains caused by the inevitable afflictions of age, such as the Social Security Administration, condescending denture adhesive commercials, and your children.

People who exercise regularly are prepared for this pain. Take joggers: you see them plodding along, clearly hating every minute of it, and you think, “What’s the point?” But years from now, when you’re struggling to adjust to the pains of the aging process, the joggers, who have been in constant agony for 20 years, will be able to make the transition smoothly, unless they’re already dead (see Chapter 12, under “Fitness and the Afterlife”).