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Getting fit used to be easy. I'd jam on shredded Keds and spend the day with my brothers and cousins climbing trees, playing baseball in rutted fields, and diving into barns and sheds for games of hide-and-seek / sneak attack.
Oh, and we slung beat-up buckets of water and loaded pitchforks at chore time. It's amazing how toned tossing manure can make a kid.
So I figure I'm not fit now because I don't have any cows. Also, my metabolism conked out 20 or 30 years ago.
That logic did not satisfy the medical professional assigned to cluck over my case file.
"Put down that ice cream, empty those Oreos out of your pockets, and go get fit," Dr. Rooster cackled.
Oh, like no one's ever brought snacks to a physical examination before. "I would," I said, wiping my mouth, "but I don't have any cows."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Everybody knows you can't get fit without workout equipment," I said. "Since I left the farm, all I have to sling is the remote control. It's not the same."
I wish I could make my face change colors like my doctor can. It's why I call him Dr. Rooster. Only the grand old bird in the chicken coop way back when featured so many colors at once.
"Google it," Dr. Rooster bawked.
At the coffee shop, I did. The sites said that all a person needed to get fit in 2015 were three basic items.
First, a smart scale, which costs around $150 -- more if I want it to talk to my other electronic devices.
What kind of nonsense is that? Everyone knows scales are liars. Why would I want those things to gossip its numeric falsehoods to my phone, laptop, Facebook, YouTube and anything else that'll snoop?
Item two for the fit person of 2015 on the "simple" list is a smart phone app that tracks the calories of all the food I ate.
Again, why? I put a lot of effort into smuggling Pop-Tarts into the house and sneaking pizza every time I'm sent on an errand. I don't need my phone calling my wife and reporting where I stashed the Snickers bars.
Finally, I need a fitness tracker, like a wrist band monitoring my movements or a chip in my shoe recording my steps or a chest band measuring my heart rate. And, of course, all this house arrest equipment tattles to my parole officer, the smart phone, which is free to call anyone it wants.
Back in the days before smart phones and tattle-tale scales, my waistline registered about the same water displacement factor as a No. 2 pencil.
I baled hay all summer, marched with the band all fall, tunneled snow caves all winter and chased cousins along creeks and woods all spring. We didn't even have a wristwatch. But we were fit.
So I doubt it's technology, like Dr. Rooster said. And he doesn't think it's the cows like I said.
It must be running around all day in shredded Keds.
Allow me to introduce my basic plan to get fit in 2015: Immediately institute recess in all work days. During those couple of hours, we're all going outside to climb trees, play baseball in rutted fields and dive into barns and sheds for hide-and-seek / sneak attack.
And if there's some manure to sling, that won't hurt either. Watch out for cows.
— Follow the fitness guru on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook or write him at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com.