We join in the battle of the bulge
By Staff
Leada Gore, Editor
Like so many other Americans, the Gore household pledged to battle the bulge this year. And this year, we’re serious.
No really. We’re serious this year. Much more so than last year. And the year before that.
Our plan was simple. Instead of purchasing a bunch of Christmas presents for each other this year, we would buy a piece of exercise equipment we could both use.
Our first thought was to purchase a treadmill, as walking was something we both thought we could manage. After some on-line comparison shopping, we went to a large sporting goods retailer and examined the stock.
They had treadmills with drink holders, others with televisions. Most had fans so you didn’t work up too much of a sweat while you were walking, something I thought defeated the point of exercising in the first place.
They were all nice but there was one problem. All of the treadmills were large, so large in fact that unless we wanted to give up a room to the treadmill alone, we were going to have to look at other options. (We briefly considered putting the treadmill in the garage, at least until I pointed out that’s where the ab machine, weights and bicycles are we don’t use to lose weight now.)
The helpful salesperson did offer an alternative. A reclining stationary bike can offer the same benefits as a treadmill but takes up a lot less room. We looked at those and they were intriguing, too.
None of them had televisions, but they did have a place to hold your MP3 player (if I had one) and a book (I do have one of those.) They had drink holders and nice wide comfy seats guaranteed not to cause permanent damage like a regular exercise bike.
I was sold. Greg was not.
He insisted on sitting on the thing and moving the seat back and forth. He checked out the bolts and inquired on how difficult the thing was to assemble. He tested it out, trying out the computer’s different “terrains” it offered the cyclists.
He huffed, puffed and sweated enough to make me inquire if there was some sort of heart machine somewhere in the vicinity of the stationary bike.
Finally, after what seemed like years and several shared smiles between me and the salesperson, he declared it OK.
The salesperson walked away, presumably to get our ready-to-assemble and ready-to-ride stationary bike. He came back empty handed.
Greg and I both left the store with an empty feeling. We were all ready to exercise on our new machine, only to be disappointed. Still, we did work up an appetite. Shopping for exercise equipment is hard work.
