Big, fat debt

I’m not much of a TV man myself, but when free time presents itself in abundance during my sacred weekly Sunday afternoon appointment with the sofa, I have indeed been known to slip into a stupor of temporary tea-drinking, croissant-nibbling, small screen dependency.

I find after a long week of exercise and fitness, TV-induced physical lethargy tends to pave the way for the flexion of some mental muscle instead. I therefore could not help but reflect on the messages floating out of what is sometimes rightly referred to as the ‘idiot box’.

Of course, one of the most significant features of modern broadcasting culture is the institution of marketing. The more sickening and annoying adverts are, sadly, the more we remember them.

Between slurps of milky tea, I observed the interesting and sometimes contradictory combination of commercial messages filtering into our minds. We can rest assured there will never be a shortage of stuff out there for us to go out and blow our hard-earned cash on.

Endless adverts for holidays, leisure pursuits and insurance companies flood our screens. Never fear however, because when our cash inevitably runs dry, alternative lenders can issue us loans over the internet, adding to the plentiful supply of bank loans and credit cards already on offer.

If that’s not enough, how about even more lenders promising to consolidate our debts with ‘one easy monthly payment’, posing as the good guys but in reality actually getting us even further into debt.

Just as I start to pray for the resumption of Two and a Half Men, I am treated to yet more commercials detailing the latest fattening offerings from the international fast food giants and finally, the infamous slimming products, promising the body of our dreams in exchange for little to no effort.

So what on earth do leisure products, banks, fast food and slimming products have to do with exercise and fitness? Well, as my revolving mental cogs reflectively revealed, quite a lot actually.

While banks and alternative lenders punch in nice fat figures into our bank accounts to fuel our insatiable appetite for spending in return for monthly instalments of our hard cash, plus interest, I can’t help but see how high-calorie foods and physical inactivity are enslaving us in a very similar way.

Being in financial debt is much like obesity. Energy is the great physical currency of this world and for us, energy comes from food. What happens when we have an insatiable appetite for food? Well, we eat a lot more of it than we actually need, just like borrowing more money than we actually have.

Getting a loan from the bank is just like eating. In the bank’s case, your credit is money; in the case of food, it is energy. When we consistently eat more than we need, we are essentially getting deeper into an energy debt, which our bodies store away as the fat we see around our bellies, hips, butts, and thighs.

Let’s call it, ‘fat debt’. According to the laws of the state and the laws of nature, once any sort of credit comes into existence, you simply must pay it back. If you default on your loan from the bank, the collectors will eventually come round and foreclose your home.

If you default on paying back your fat debt, the grim reaper will eventually come round and foreclose your life. By getting bigger and heavier, and failing to make your energy repayments, cardiovascular diseases and other obesity-related conditions wait in the wings of time.

When faced with the mammoth task of repaying a bank loan, we typically indulge in some financial planning, and work out how much of our monthly income we can set aside to pay the bank.

We henceforth carry on with our daily routine of working eight hours a day, five days a week, and doing our best not to lose our job and face the prospect of being out of work and unable to repay our financial debt.

But what about our fat debt? How are we going to repay that? It’s time to indulge in some lifestyle planning. Since fat is stored energy, your energy repayments can be made in terms of physical activity; anything that raises your heart rate to the point where you can just about still hold a conversation with someone.

This intensity level will require your body to delve into its reserves or stored energy (fat), using it up and essentially paying it back. To devise an effective repayment plan, you must decide how much time you can set aside towards regular physical activity, just like your monthly financial payments, or risk falling deeper into debt.

Just as you exercise diligence at work so as not to lose your job, due diligence must also be paid to your physical activity regimen, so as to safeguard your health and fitness, warding off disease or injury and avoiding the prospect of becoming physically unable to repay your fat debt. With persistence, you can eventually repay all your fat debt, and return to a healthy, lean and debt-free body of beautiful proportions.

The most sensible strategy of all is to avoid getting into fat debt in the first place, by avoiding eating more than you actually need, just as you must resist using that nice and shiny, brand new credit card unless you really need to.

Eating small frequent meals consisting of healthy foods and maintaining a physically active lifestyle ensures you maintain an energy balance, thus paying back all your energy debts back immediately.

May the only credit you receive be that for building and maintaining the greatest figure of all and the one thing you will ever truly own: your own body.

info@noble-gym.com