Wii Guilt

Lately (the past two months, say) I have been eating whatever I want in enormous quantities while sitting at a desk all day. Now, for some mysterious reason, my pants are a little tight.

I'm not sure why I am putting on weight, but it's probably genetic. Either that, or it is society's fault for making everything so darn delicious. Wait.. wait... if the lawmakers would get off their backsides and implement a mandatory 5-day waiting period for a can of Pringles I wouldn't be in this mess. That's who's to blame! The gub'ment!

Banning trans-fats is a good first step, but it doesn't go nearly far enough in protecting us from ourselves. Congress should mandate that waiters and waitresses describe appetizers in such colorful and artery-clogging terms that you actually experience chest pains half-way though their speech. If you proceed to place an order for unhealthy things anyway then the servers should at that time look you up and down in disgust and say “Are you sure?” If you still place your order they are allowed to hurl direct insults for the entire time you are there: “Are you enjoying devouring your grease-laden cheese blobs, there, fatty? Good. Should I hook you the defibrillator now or do you just want a feather and a bucket to puke into before your probable six or seven desserts, you disgusting, disgusting person?”

The servers might comment that this would result in a drop-off of tips but they should know that helping a fellow human being has rewards far beyond the measure of mere money. If the cash turns out to be important after all, maybe some Stimulus Money could be used to subsidize the restaurant industry to make up for the slight decrease in pay and huge increase in civil cases... call it Cash for Chunkers.

Speaking of which, I heard that Obama's Health Care Plan has free, quarterly, and (for some bio-diesel related reason), compulsory liposuction sessions so I am really looking forward to that. After voluntarily treating myself like a veal calf for so long I barely have the energy required to wake myself up after falling asleep mid-way through my fourth lunch-time Big Mac. Something had to be done and I am glad that someone in charge stood up to take care of me because, let's face it, I am in absolutely no condition to be standing up under my own power.

Okay, Okay... Fine. I'm going back to the gym starting tomorrow, but hear me out.

Actually I have a pretty decent reason for not going to the gym for so long. It's not a great excuse, but at least it's plausible. I needed to work late a lot over the last several months to cover some projects at the office. This pushed the time that I would have eventually gotten home after my workout to about 8 or 8:30 or so, which is near bath-time/bed-time for my one-year-old. I see little enough of my son as it is so that was not going to happen. He comes first.

Those of you that know me know that the above paragraph is 100% true while being only about 10% convincing. Friends and family should be muttering: First, even if you don't have time to go to the gym at night how do you justify your abrupt change in diet from mostly low-carb to almost entirely drive-thru? Second, couldn't you just get up a little earlier and go to the gym in the morning, or at least walk around the neighborhood? Third, you can tell when you have had enough pizza way, way before the shooting pains you get from distending your stomach force you to stop. Fourth, don't you own a Wii Fit?

Ah, yes, the Wii Fit. Bought in a moment of misguided ambition to augment my gym workouts and help me spend more time with the wife doing something competitive and healthy without having to worry about the baby. Unfortunately, even if you were the type to want to ignore your child completely, you cannot do anything remotely non-toddler-related other than sit very, very still while he is playing and hope he doesn't notice you blatantly not paying attention to him. If he does, he is coming over to see just what the hell could be more important that watching him put together and take apart the same two Duplo blocks 1,200 times in a row.

Jumping around on the Wii board is completely out of the question with him underfoot – he would never in a million years be content with merely watching when daddy is “dancing” or doing other crazy stuff. And we can't use it while he is napping because of the noise it would make.

Yes, this is, again, 100% true without being 100% straightforward. There are plenty of activities on the Wii Fit that aren't hazards to curious toddlers. There are even more that are nice and quiet, like the yoga and leg lifts. So what, really, is the real reason, really, for not using it, really?

It's that smug little Wii Fit icon. It's so damn cute that I initially found myself anthropomorphizing it and actually wanting to please it. I felt just crummy when I didn't. As a matter of fact I felt guilty as hell whenever I didn't meet its (admittedly perfectly reasonable) goals that I avoided using the Wii Fit for long stretches of time. That only made things worse because whenever the unit was fired up (like if I wanted to play Mario Carts or something) I could see a slow passive-aggressive scroll across the Wii Fit channel icon that said “Last Workout: over one week ago”.

So now I don't turn the Wii on at all now if I can help it. I just know that as soon as I log into Wii Fit it will ask me where I have been and ask me to weigh myself and inform me in that adorable little voice it has that I am overweight. And then I will feel sad and probably cry and eat Doritos. Man, I feel like I am in the lamest made-for-TV movie about abusive relationships ever.

But my son and wife deserve a father and husband that at least tries to look like he isn't constructed entirely out of Chicken McNuggets, so I am going to suck it up and get back in the game. Tonight I am getting on the damn board, checking my BMI, and posting it weekly in the sidebar of this blog. As time goes on I might put up little graphs to show how well or poorly I am doing. We'll see.

Like I said, I am going back to the gym as well. It's is something I really enjoy doing so hopefully nothing will get in the way of that. And who knows, maybe if I work hard enough the little Wii Fit icon will finally stop calling me fatso and love me again. Like in the old days...