The A – Z of stretching, sweating, jigging and jogging

Health and fitness: Something you achieve by worrying yourself sick over all the things you are not allowed to eat and drink.
Selections from humorous guide that was given to me 20 years ago from my mother. Some things just never change.
A – Athlete. One who owns three pairs of jogging shoes.
B - Black Forest cake. There are a number of items listed in the weight watchers hall of fame. Mom’s apple pie with cream or ice-cream, croissants, peanut butter larded on bread and smeared with honey, drooling chunks of camembert cheese – but if you really want to sink into mega-calorific bliss, perhaps the ultimate indulgence is Black Forest cake.
C - Cellulite. Expensive way of spelling fat.
D - Deep Breathing. Something one usually hears on the telephone.
E - Exercise. Pushing, panting, perspiring, pounding, palpitating, suffering in the hope that you will get more time on this earth so that you can do more suffering.
F - Fun Run. Strange modern phenomenon usually seen only in affluent Western societies. Crowds of anything up to 25,000 don strange clothing and relentlessly run across a course of 15 to 30 kilometres. The activity is very curiously named.
G - Golf. Some say it is a good walk spoiled, but more likely it is a good game spoiled by walking. However, now there are electric golf buggies with comfy seats, and even refreshment bars. Who would want to walk, indeed?
H - Health. Something you achieve by worrying yourself sick over all the things you are not allowed to eat and drink.
I - Instant Coffee. Always beware of instant anything: Instant friends, instant marriages, instant love affairs, instant s*x, instant contracts, instant porridge, but above all beware of two horrid inventions of our time, instant tea and instant coffee. If you are to have your heart slowed, your arteries hardened, your sleep destroyed, for heaven’s sake have the real thing.
J - Junk Food. Food that is good to eat. One of the great anomalies yet to explained by medical scientists (and theologians): why does food that allegedly makes you unhealthy always taste so much better than food that allegedly makes you healthy?
K - Kilograms. Perhaps the only satisfying aspect of the metric system is this: if you convert pounds to kilograms you come out at less than half the weight.
L - Living. A health hazard.
M - Metabolism. Something always possessed by other creatures. You see them at McDonalds feasting on Big Macs, washed down by milk shakes; you see them at Chez Pierre’s feasting on Duck a-l’Orange and Mousse Chocolat, their figures incredible, undamaged. Whereas you, noble creature that you are, the epitome of self denial, have only to walk past a Mars Bar to put on a kilogram. Ah, If only you had their good metabolism.
N - Nautilus. System of tension weights. Probably first invented by the Spanish Inquisition during the 15th century. Ideal for extracting confessions.
O - Obese. It is unfair the word they use...pot bellied, corpulent, portly, roly-poly, stout, tubby, abdominous, paunchy, buxom, bosomy, Junoesque, pneumatic, well-stacked, Wagnerian, well-upholstered, endomorphic, Brobdingnagian, amplitudinous, elephantine, steatopygous, and...ah yes...FAT!
P - Push Ups. A refined method of human cruelty. In boarding school days, apart from a thrashing, there were two methods for inflicting punishment on schoolboys...write 1000 lines or do 100 push ups. The body sags, the arms begin to shriek. Now push-ups are an essential part of one’s joyous life at the health studio.
Q - Queasy. That uneasy feeling you get in the stomach when confronted by yoghurt or a soy bean salad.
R – Rowing machine. A device where no one follows you in a speed boat, no Cox barks rating instructions, no one hollers from the river bank on a bicycle, the tide never flows against you and you never get your feet wet.
S – Sweat. Distasteful human condition now costing mega-millions in TV-advertised deodorants.
T – Tofu. It is made out of soy beans. It is a high protein bean curd and tastes like compressed office paste. Japanese triumph like the Sony, Suzuki, and the Seiko. Anyone who can bear to eat it merits glory and deserves to be as thin as a chopstick.
U – Unfit. When you to pant while working the computer.
V – Vegemite. You must appreciate that Vegemite is not just a spread; it goes deep into the Australian ethos. Australians far from home start to get nervous and frantic when they can’t get this mysterious substance which looks as if it should be used for making roads. They are like Saxon’s without their woad or Scot’s without their haggis. It is rich in vitamin B and other mysterious substances. Actually it is made from spent yeast, usually from the brewery. How wonderful that thirsty people drink their beer to Vegemite possible.
W – Wheat Germ. Oh Hell! You’ve got to get into wheat germ. This is the embryo of the wheat kernel; it’s the life force, rich in vitamins E and B. The health freaks tell us that you don’t get it at all in refined flour. The large wheat processes toss it out as undesirable. It is so delicate you have to keep in a screw top bottle and refrigerate it. Ideal on fruit in the morning. It tastes just like sawdust.
X – Xenophobia. Dislike, even detestation of all foreigners. This is why the Olympic Games are so popular. They are another substitute for war.
Y – Yoghurt. Semi-solid, sourish, junket-like, curd-like, food prepared from milk fermented by added bacteria. Invented by the Arabs on camel back to combat impossible heat conditions. Health nuts eat it as a sort of penance.
Z – Zen. Mystic Asian philosophy which, you hope, might explain why you do all these things.
From the Book The Health and Fitness Dictionary by Dunstan and Hook.
Author and journalists Keith Dunstan and Jeff Hook together pound and pant through this side splitting guide to fighting fitness and muscular might.