When people ask me how I’m doing, I give an honest reply: “I’m gaining weight and losing my mind. It should be the other way around!”
I am a 63 year old retired man. Twelve years ago I was diagnosed with diabetes. This was the good swift kick I needed. I got really serious about heath and diet. In normal times, I go to the gym every single day and spend more than two hours there. As a result, I have none of the complications or side effects of diabetes, and when they retest me I am “borderline,” which means I am as cured as you can ever be.
Now my gym is closed. There is no substitute for a real gym. I can’t “do it on my own,” which is why I pay for a gym membership in the first place. Walking and bike riding help some, but nothing comes close to the great variety of machines that are professionally maintained in a climate-controlled environment that never rains or snows on you.
We need NORMAL and we need it NOW
When I read what the “Reopen NH Task Force” is going to do, it makes me barf. They are going to impose rules on gyms that will make the customers’ experience creepy, freaky, cumbersome, and unpleasant. It will be so costly for gyms that they will have to raise their prices. Every trip to the gym (and every public experience in general) will be “All Virus All The Time.”
Everything in life is a risk vs reward tradeoff. In a nation of 330 million people with 36,000 traffic deaths per year, some people will die driving to the gym. Others will die of heart attacks on tread mills. The only way to eliminate these risks is to eliminate gyms altogether. Why not, it will “save lives.” Definitely more than one life.
Personally I’ll take the risk of the virus if it means a normal gym experience. If you don’t want to take the risk, nobody is forcing you. That is what freedom and choice is all about.
Steve Jerome
Newmarket , NH
