Christmastime workout cancels calories of holiday gorging
By Burton W. Cole
The ghost of Christmas gorging past is barging upon us today with all the subtlety of a hippopotamus in an egg farm. So what? Trust me, you’ve already worked off all those holiday fudge and cookie calories.
Think of all the waist bends you completed Christmas morning alone picking up shreds of discarded wrapping paper.
Over the last couple weeks, you hefted tons of heavy bags from stores to car trunks, then out of cars into secret closets, then changed secret closets 13 times as each hiding place was discovered, then dead-lifted all the packages again, which you wrapped, boxed and lugged to various get-togethers at relatives’ homes scattered across the countryside.
Your muscles still ache from that workout, don’t they? That whole pumpkin roll you ate barely had a chance to settle comfortably into a paunch before you burned it up with all those Christmastime crunches.
Then there’s the resistance stretches of shoveling snow, ladder lunges to hang lights, sparring with other shoppers before and after Christmas sales, and the curls of carrying rolls of wrapping paper, frozen hams and kids refusing to get into bathtubs.
You’d be surprised how many calories one can burn hurling screwdrivers across while trying to decipher “some assembly required” toys.
Don’t give those peanut butter balls and eggnog another thought. In fact, you probably need to bake more just to keep up your strength — especially if you practice my sure-fire Christmas morning high-impact aerobic workout.
I developed the routine years ago one holiday morning as I waded barefooted through a sea of shredded wrapping paper. I chanced upon the business end of an action figure accessory.
“Yeow!” I howled, dancing one foot… right onto the same sharp toy. “Yeow!” I screamed again. Or some words that roughly translate to the same meaning.
I hopped from foot to foot, flapping arms and bellowing — a great exercise for the circulation.
The dog joined in, ringing figure eights around me, zipping beneath whichever foot happened to be in the air at the moment.
As the pain eased a fraction in one foot, I hopped on it twice — and landed on the dog, who was swirling at roughly 500 mph. This slung me into a perfect impersonation of the Tasmanian devil spin. Yes, my heart was pumping.
I snatched for the Christmas tree on one of my fly-bys, caught it, held steady for nearly a full second… Then tree and I toppled to the ground in an explosion of lights and smoke, puffs of ornament balls and barking. The dog yapped some too.
I tried to dislodge myself from the tangle of cords and ornament hooks, but the needles held me with the soft embrace of a pine-scented porcupine.
The dog, a great proponent of aerobics, danced on my back. Each wag of his tail whap, whap, whapped my head, pounding it like a nail into the angel wings of the tree topper. I tried to yell at him, but all that came out of my mouth was tinsel and the feathery owl ornament.
My little girl came rushing into the room.
“Daddy! Daddy! You found Princess Barbie's tiara! Ooh, it looks like someone stepped on it. Thanks, Daddy! Bye!”
Off she ran as I groaned, “Tell your mother I took the tree down for her.”
Which brings me to my point: Don’t let a single tinge of guilt bother you when happy holidays bring so much exercise cheer. Eat the whole tray of frosted gingerbread men, and their little gingerbread house, too. You’ve earned it.
Cole is a diet consultant certified in the state of confusion. Write him at burton.w.cole @gmail .com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.