Beach Season Tips
Do you feel it, friends? That tingling in your bones, that feeling that something big and exciting is on its way? My all-time favorite part of the year is very close. No, not Earth Day! Don’t be boring. I am talking about a magical time, a time when best friends get together for long, sunny days of leisure, when attractive women wear large straw hats that would make any other person look like he or she were imitating Huckleberry Finn, when children and the elderly alike decide to eat picnic food covered in sand and rub sunblock in their eyes. I am speaking, of course, about beach season.
What does the approaching beach season mean to you, average Colby student? Time to get working on that beach body.
Whether you plan on spending a day or a month at the beach, looking good is important. Look good, feel good; that’s my motto. “No hard liquor before breakfast”; that’s another motto of mine. Back to my point: what can you do to get a great beach body by summertime?
First: nutrition. Eating right is extremely important. I start every day with a little meal I like to call the “Breakfast of Champions.” I cook up a small omelet using only egg-whites, toast two pieces of whole-grain bread, and pour myself a small glass of cranberry juice (for the antioxidants!). And then I throw all of those things in the garbage and drink a 40-oz bottle of Steel Reserve, eat a buffalo chicken quesadilla and smoke six cherry-flavored Black & Milds. Breakfast is something of a misnomer, as this meal generally takes place around one in the afternoon.
But eating right is only half the fitness battle. You must also maintain a strict exercise regimen. Many people would like to exercise more, but they don’t know how to get started. These people often come up to me in the gym to ask for advice. “Sir,” they begin. “Is it absolutely necessary that you wear women’s running shorts on the cardio deck? You are making some of the other gym patrons uncomfortable.” I nod sympathetically at such questions, often putting my hand on the asker’s shoulders while thrusting my pelvis back and forth in a sympathetic, understanding fashion.
I get it, you see. The gym can be a scary place. There are people who sprint on the treadmills, stamping wildly at the belt and snorting menacingly. There are large, burly individuals who cluster around the free weights, lifting heavy bars high above their heads, grunting, and dropping the weights to the floor (dropping the weights may seem like an unnecessary, annoying act, but rest assured, it serves a vital fitness purpose). And there are people who walk about, not necessarily doing one exercise or another, just moseying about, lost souls in a clangorous, sweaty room. But don’t get overwhelmed by the regulars.
You can start slowly. Go at off-peak times. Four in the morning is one great off-peak time. July is another one. At most other times, it is unlikely that you will be able to use any of the equipment. But that’s OK. Let’s be honest: you weren’t going to work out more anyway. Or eat better, for that matter. Because we can count on one time-tested truth of the beach to make us all seem more attractive: everyone’s going to be pretty drunk.