I’m healthy right now – knock on wood – but it only takes a glimpse of someone 10, 20, and 30 years older than me to know that health is a transient thing. You never know how long you’re going to have it.

            Most of us will take precautions to hang on to their health as long as possible.  We take vitamins, eat right, and exercise.  A few of us have the conviction that you can’t live forever anyway, so why not do just what you please and deal with health issues when they arise.  We are the reason health insurance is so expensive.
            I fall somewhere in-between.  Because those two trains of thought are so extreme, I find myself vacillating between them every few weeks.

            Currently, I am in the stage where I want to live long enough to see my great-great-grandchildren, no matter how many donuts I have to give up.  Well, okay, I will probably never give up donuts, but I do take less mayonnaise on my ham and cheese sandwich.

            Exercise is probably good for me.  If I could do it consistently, I could burn those donuts off my thighs.  Unfortunately, I have the kind of body that, if I should try to take a jog every morning, like some of my fanatic (but skinny) neighbors, everything would shake loose and I’d need a chiropractor to put it all back together again.  Picture a woman made of Legos trying to jog.  Yeah, you’ve got it now.

            In the interest of self-health, I have started turning on the TV every morning.  Yes, I know that doesn’t help, but I put it on the Fitness Channel and watch it standing up.  I should get half of a health-point for doing that.

The Fitness Channel appears to be all about people bending themselves into pretzels and smiling while they are doing it.  It’s very inspirational, until I realize that I might be past the point of no return where pretzel-bending is concerned.

            There is some Indian chick I watch that does belly dancing moves.  I just know that trying to make my belly do that would surely knock all of my knick-knacks off my mantel.  My belly doesn’t work like hers.  Can bellies be retrained?

            Gilad, the “Israeli stud-muffin”, struts his considerable stuff all over the screen and I can barely get excited.  He makes stomach crunches look like a party to which I wasn’t invited.  All the lesser stud-muffins and cupcakes behind him are always smiling and never seem to break a sweat.  It’s depressing.

            Then there are the beautiful people that exercise by doing popular dance moves.  I never learned to dance like that.  When I try, I look like a beluga whale having an epileptic seizure.  My husband tells me to stop scaring the children.

            At some point, if I want to stay healthy, I will have to get serious, take off my bathrobe and actually start doing these exercises.  For now, it’s enough to watch them until they seem normal… or until I’m back in the “I don’t give a darn” stage – whichever comes first.

Is it possible to get healthy merely by watching people sweat?