If I’m Any Indication, Sex Can’t be MUCH Exercise…

If I’m Any Indication, Sex Can’t be MUCH Exercise…

Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com

Every couple years or so, my husband and I indulge in a ritualistic January fiction, wherein we vow that This Will Be The Year when we lose all the weight we’ve put on since we first started letting ourselves go, a process that began in our adolescence.

To be honest though, I didn’t exercise much when I was pre-adolescent, either. I just had the magic of a youthful metabolism – meaning that I didn’t gain an inch around my waist every time I looked at a cupcake, along with another inch if I ate said cupcake.

Having given up on 2022, I’m already eyeing 2023 as The Year I finally get serious about getting into shape. Precisely what shape, I haven’t quite decided yet, but I do know I’d like it be less “award-winning massive tomato with legs” than the shape I currently exhibit.

I Don’t Suppose There’s a Hot Exercise Trend that Involves Staying Seated and Motionless?

Naturally, whenever I’m pretending to be gearing up for a serious effort to exercise, the first thing I do is make sure I take stock of all the hot, current trends in exercising, so I can begin crossing them off the list of possible approaches, after finding them too impractical, too embarrassing, or too much the sort of thing that requires getting off the couch.

One current trend, evidently, is “hybrid” gym memberships. This one caught my eye, mostly because I’ve never given much thought to whether my gym is gas-powered. I’ve always kind of assumed the gym has a generator connected to the treadmills and rowing machines and we members are powering the lights through our efforts.

Another trend: “wellness-tracking wearable technology.” This one is a big “no thanks” for me. Frankly, I don’t need a watch to tell me I’m overweight – much less a watch that conspires with my phone, laptop and possibly even my fridge to make sure I’m constantly made aware of just how badly I’m falling short of my exercise goals. After all, I made those goals in January, so if I haven’t reached them by now

It’s much easier just to wait until January 2023 to make the next set of goals that I have no intention of reaching, rather than sit around dwelling on the past. (Always forward, people!)

Thor Looks Pretty Buff; How Come We Never Hear About Norse Exercise Myths? 

The other thing I do annually, mostly to put off the part where I actually start exercising, is take stock of exercise myths. My favorite has always been the one about Hercules and the Lion. Or maybe it’s Perseus and the Lion? It was some big Greek fellow, of that much I’m certain. Either way, one hopes the lion wiped down the gym equipment properly when he was done eating the big Greek fellow.

More recent exercise myths include “lifting heavy weights bulks up women.” This is good to know, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m still going to use this as one of my countless excuses for not lifting heavy weights, if only because even if it’s not true, it still sounds better than whining BUT I DON’T WANNA LIFT HEAVY WEEEIIIIGHTS at the top of my lungs.

Another myth: “Crunches are the best moves for your core.” For some reason, I’m relieved to hear this, even though I have no idea what a “crunch” is, or what my “core” means in this context. Offhand, though, “crunching my core” sounds like something that might happen if I fell into a trash compactor, so I’m inclined to avoid all this core-crunching business, either way.

Can I Fuck Myself Thin?

According to the nearly eight minutes of research I’ve done so far, the most recent hot exercise trend, or hot exercise myth, or perhaps mythically hot exercise trend, is… having sex?

I know what you’re thinking: Wait, no I don’t. Sorry, that was almost very presumptuous of me. I only know what Katherine Chang wrote in the post linked above, which is the central question here: “Does sex count as exercise?”

“It depends on what benefits you’re looking for,” according to Dr. Catherine Dukes, a sex therapist and educator at “The Center for Connection & Desire LLC”, a place with a name that starts out sounding like a hippy commune, but ends with “LLC”, which suggests it’s a for-profit hippy commune.

“If you are looking to build muscle or improve cardiovascular ability, then sex isn’t enough to replace a workout,” Dukes continues. “But if you’re looking to make sure you’re physically active each day and take care of your body in ways that keep you active, connected, reduce overall stress in your life, help you stop and be mindful, then YES, sex can absolutely be the best workout.” 

That sounds great Cathy, but it doesn’t translate into something I can quantify in a useful way. Given my dietary predilections, what I need is useful, easy to understand metrics. 

For example, assuming it’s a rigorous, energetic handjob, does 20 minutes of yanking on my husband’s crank entitle me to eat a jelly donut when I’m done? How much time must I spend riding him in reverse cowgirl position to offset drinking a 16-ounce Pepsi? Is there any amount of fucking that can undo the caloric impact of a Culver’s Double Butterburger with cheese and bacon?

Alas, it seems the answers to my questions are nowhere to be found – or nowhere to be found within 10 minutes, at least. And that’s all the time I have today, now that I’ve added six hours of vigorous masturbation to my schedule, in hopes of counteracting the excessive quantity of half-and-half I put in my coffee this morning.