|
I do not claim to have a Marcel Proust-like iron grip on memories, but while reading an
article about a weight-loss gadget called the Lay-Z-Trimmer in a recent issue of L.A. Weekly,
I thought of past personal attempts at quick fitness. But first, what is the Lay-Z-Trimmer?
Allow me to quote from the article for the full effect:
Whittle Your Waistline while You Sleep
“My muscles got so hard,” says Douglas Brooks, pounding his rock-hard abs as
20-year-old Sylvia Nicholas straps what looks like a weighted fanny pack around her waist.
“The more you wear it, the more you lose.”
Brooks is standing at his wagon-like booth at the Whittwood Mall in Whittier drumming up
sales for the Lay-Z-Trimmer, which promises to whittle your waistline while you sleep.
Leaning on her baby stroller, Nicholas decides to take a chance. “I just don’t have
time to exercise, because I have a baby,” she says, pulling $20 out of her purse. “I want to get
rid of the flab.”
And she’s not the only one. Brooks expects to sell 40 to 50 Lay-Z-Trimmers a day during
the Christmas rush. Salespeople have been doing it since 1979. That’s when Brooks’ sister,
Barbara Haisley, invented the device because God told her the Lay-Z-Trimmer would work
without diet or exercise, she says. How, you might ask? According to a sales brochure, the
belt is filled with sand, magnets, ION oxides, crystals and minerals that break down fatty
tissue.
Your Body Doesn’t Work that Way
After reading this article, I filed it away under the category: gullible. It reminded me
of language tapes you listen to while asleep. The simple fact remains: You can’t reduce
fat and build muscles by lying down on the job. Lay-Z-Trimmer or no Lay-Z-Trimmer, your
body doesn’t work that way.
The Lay-Z-Trimmer made me remember the times in junior high school when I used to walk
around wearing five-pound ankle weights. The goal was to strengthen my legs so I would
become a faster runner and someday dunk a basketball. Neither happened. Genetics got in
the way.
Ironically, in college, I wore heavy hiking boots that probably weighed five pounds apiece.
A friend called them my Frankenstein boots, and they lasted for several years until the
soles melted one summer when I was a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service in Montana.
There is no shortcut to fitness.
Exercise Bike or Pedi-Cab?
When I was 12, my parents brought my brothers and me to their friends’ new home in the
Cleveland suburbs. My father had gone to high school with this friend who made a fortune
building shopping centers (last year he tried to buy a professional football team). We got
a tour of the house. Apart from their space-age looking kitchen, what I remember most
vividly from that visit was an electric-powered stationary bike in the den.
I was intrigued by this cycling gizmo, though I wasn’t allowed to try it. But here’s how
it worked: You sat down on the seat, slipped your feet into the pedals, flicked on the
switch, and off you went. The pedaling was done for you. (Kind of like riding around in
one of those Fisherman’s Wharf pedi-cabs.)
As I said there is no shortcut to fitness.
A Free-Standing Objet d’Art
In the mid-80s, I happened to own one of those all-in-one home-gyms called The Lean Machine.
Instead of employing weights, this multi-purpose contraption used a large spring to provide
resistance. I definitely felt the burn working out on The Lean Machine, but its one
drawback was that you had to rearrange the settings and parts for different exercises. It
was a time-consuming nuisance. Its other defect was that it took up a lot of floor space
in my house. Because I had a huge kitchen (the house was poorly designed), I decided to
keep The Lean Machine there. It stood guard, unused, between the refrigerator and me. You
might even say that it found its rightful purpose in the world.
When I later moved to a spacious warehouse loft, The Lean Machine was transformed into a
freestanding objet d’art. (Lots of artists lived in the warehouse; I was trying to fit in.)
But after awhile, The Lean Machine assumed a new and more functional identity as clothes
rack.
The company that manufactured The Lean Machine later went bankrupt.
When I moved out of the warehouse, I sold the $900 machine for $50. It was a good deal
considering that I wouldn’t have to cart around the heavy, giant erector set anymore. Come
to think of it, one of the best workouts I ever got on The Lean Machine was carrying it up
a flight of stairs.
These days, I make do with a 30-pound dumbbell and miniature floor dip bars. Both slide
easily underneath my bed. And a $20 chin-up bar bolted into a doorframe completes my home
gym apparatus setup (though I miss my sit-up bench which was a casualty of the ’89
earthquake; back then, I liked nothing better than to start the day out with 1,000 sit-ups).
I also like doing pushups. And pushups merely require a few square feet of floor space. No
equipment necessary. And it builds muscles—for free.
|
