• Fat City: Earlier reports had indicated that Mike Bloomberg's firm dictate that calorie counts be posted in NYC restaurants was not having any effect on what grease-guzzling citizens were ordering to cram into their gaping maws. But! Now city health officials say "New Yorkers ordered fewer calories at four chains - Au Bon Pain, KFC, McDonald's and Starbucks." Au Bon Pain! Until this law scares Kennedy Fried Chicken customers off of the tantalizingly cheap biscuits, it means nothing.
• Fat Baby: Wealthy NYC parents are doing another wealthy NYC parent thing, by hiring personal trainers for their eight year-old children! "The family's so busy, [mom] said, they can't find time to teach Julian to ride a bicycle." Also: "'Julian's idea of recreation is a food tour in the West Village.'" Hahaha. +10 to the New York Post for this one. What will these outrageous wealthy parents do next?!?
• Fat Jesus: Associate professor of religion at Concordia College Michelle M. Lelwica is taking on this whole "Religion of Thinness." She's against it! "Why must a woman be pencil thin to be recognized as 'beautiful' and 'sexy'?" she asks, rhetorically. Oh, Michelle of little faith. Why question the way god hath made us?
• Fat Justice: If you're an attorney looking to crack audible fat jokes about a prosecutor in open court, at least don't do it during a sexual harassment hearing.

It's not like you just have children and then don't have to worry about your fitness routine and whether the changes induced in it by parenthood would be good fodder for any fake trend stories in the NYT. You do have to worry about such things! You think jogging while pushing a stroller is just as easy as regular jogging, except while pushing a stroller? The paper of record has like a thousand words of filler that say you're wrong:

Ms. Arnold of Santa Fe joked that strollers should come with a placard, warning starry-eyed parents of what an intense workout they provide.

She's absolutely right. Strollers should come with a placard warning starry-eyed parents of what an intense workout they provide. "WARNING," this placard would say, in bold letters. "This stroller provides an intense workout."

But one placard won't be enough to resolve all of the serious fitness issues facing the adult New York Times-reading population. Allow us to present to you Michelle Slatalla's newest column detailing her adventures as a Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy. In this episode: Michelle likes to play tennis at the tennis club but she hurt her wrist and now she has to learn to serve with her other hand and despite her extensive work with Rafael the club tennis pro she's hesitant about returning to playing tennis competitively at the tennis club but her entire tennis team is putting mad peer pressure on her to come back to playing tennis until one day, Michelle reports, "She had put me in the lineup! OMG, OMG, OMG!"

She plays okay. The point is, the reader demographics of the New York Times are fucking terrifying.
[Pic via]

The most basic form of exercise consists of picking up something heavy and carrying it around. The average American does this when walking, so standard gym workouts engender a profound sense of ennui. We are the richest nation on earth! We live in the nicer parts of Manhattan! Our attention span has been shortened to fractions of a second by the eroding influence of the internet! The world must cater to us, and our gym must have "creative" classes! It's a trend!

This Equinox class, which uses modified circus equipment as part of a cardiovascular workout, is called Jukari Fit to Fly..it has offered classes like a Brazilian derrière-lift and Skinny Jeans Workout...hip-hop dance, a samurai-sword class and a spinning class to gospel music...AntiGravity Yoga Wings class...Aerobics With an Attitude (taught by a drag queen), Firefighter Workout and Kama Sutra Yoga..."Dodgeball was big one year,"...Pole Dancing, Strip Bar, Turning Tricks and Pole-Lates...Catwalk Confidence, in which a podiatrist teaches women how to walk properly in high heels, and Pilates Together, where mothers use their babies as weights...Craig Walker, a lawyer from Brooklyn, said he "had no idea" that the class [called "Knockout Brides"] was geared toward brides.

Discussion questions:
1. Why is Equinox so expensive? Is it the trapezes?
2. Why did the writer of this article admit in print that she found "patting my bottom through my legs" impossible?
3. What the fuck?

[NYT. Pic via]

There's a recession on, have you heard? No longer can we afford our steroids and Gold's Gyms. It's all dumpster diving, "30 Day Shred" videos streamed over Netflix, and, to splurge, public workouts in liquor store parking lots:

Rex Weiner, 58, an unemployed screenwriter in Los Angeles, and his friend Victor Perez, 22, a manager at a liquor store, decided a few months ago that they wanted to get fit without spending a lot of money. He and three other friends sought a personal trainer to work them out in the parking lot in front of the Liquor and Food Mart, where Mr. Perez works...
[The trainer] says this is the first time she has trained anyone in a parking lot.

She will not last, with her mental weakness. America is turning inward, pursuing its destiny as a lean and hungry warrior nation. Why? Because the war is coming:

Purchases of guns and ammunition are surging across the country. Nearly four million background checks — a key measure of sales because they are required at the purchase of a gun from a federally licensed seller — were performed in the first three months of 2009. That is a 27% increase over the same period a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

No one knows exactly what is behind the gun-buying craze. Some buyers say they are stocking up for themselves in anticipation of new gun-control laws, while others say they're worried about deteriorating public safety as the economy worsens.

Race war? States rights war? Tea party war? Nobody knows yet. Prepare for everything. Do yer pushups.

It happened in Seattle last October, allegedly. The happy couple was there in the yoga class BUT THEN:

The woman told police that while she was in the yoga position, the instructor came over to her and held her legs up. The report says the instructor was clicking something and saying "listen to your master, you must do whatever your master wants you to do." The man told police the instructor then knelt down and put his hands on the woman's stomach.

The report says students saw the instructor reach inside the woman's pants and grope her, before she passed out and urinated on herself. The man told police he believed the instructor was trying to hypnotize his fiancee.

That is not what all those people who signed up for "orgasmic meditation" were looking for. Needless to say everyone should stay away from yoga from now on and pursue more wholesome physiological activities. [Slog]

"He is one hefty man in person! Pretty much looks exactly as he does on TV."

People, for the benefit of the rest of the class, give up your bike for Alec Baldwin! Just once!

Although, given the actor's occasional  anger management issues, perhaps it's best if he avoids the violent world of spin. But it sounds like the temper is under control. Probably due to exercise!

See, statistics say the "Fitness" field will grow by a quarter by 2016. How much of that growth will be from laid-off corporate types? The New York Times has no idea, but they found several anecdotes to create the appearance of a full-on exodus!

One equities lady became a yoga instructor, at a salary of $20K. Hardly a sound financial decision! A stock trader opened a personal training place in Jersey. A former healthcare executive is organizing "ultradistance" races out of his basement. A lady went to Harvard, then quit a lawyer job to teach yoga.

Ironclad!

Not only is this trend fabricated, but even if it were real, it stands to reason that it would collapse immediately. If people can't make money working for Wall Street, do we expect them to flourish as personal trainers, one of the things that any smart person would immediately cut from their budget during a recession? No. The future of recession fitness is obviously this:

Some are sucking it up and pressing on, regardless of the hardships:

Ms. Sturtevant, [an Oppenheimer & Co. investment director and] a mother of four, is training for her fourth marathon. With brokerage clients needing more hand-holding, she said, she stints on sleep rather than skip her 5 a.m. daily boot camp and 20-mile weekend runs.

Other wealthies are not so fortunate; their body fat percentages may be suffering in this downturn.

Her trainer, Chris Hall, chides Ms. David to make time and, when she does, to tune out her BlackBerry, she reported. “But I say, ‘You don’t understand — there’s 27,000 reasons I have to pay attention,’ ” referring to her accounts.

To help the selfless brokers, rich-person gyms are cutting fees and reaching out to those wealthy individuals in need. Still, some condo-dwellers are forced to suffer the ultimate indignity:

Since leaving a Midtown law firm in June to work at a nonprofit in Harlem, she’s been using her apartment building’s spartan fitness room. “When there are only three treadmills, it can get crowded pretty quickly,” she said.

“I’m lucky if I get in 20 minutes instead of the hour I used to do,” Ms. Shemin Feingold said. “My pants are getting tight. I’m going to have to figure out a new routine, because I can’t afford a new wardrobe.”

Cheer up, plutocrats. There's one workout that can be done with an old truck axle and two sandbags:

I take issue with a piece like this because I think it plays with fire. “She has started cooking with olive oil and occasionally butter, and has increased her consumption of nuts and peanut butter,” Pope writes.

Well I’m glad she brings up peanut butter. I ate peanut butter almost every day when I was losing weight, but careful Tara: I was also burning about 8 trillion calories a day up in Bedford with my trainer and on long hikes with my Labrador (whom I jokingly referred to as my ‘outdoor/backup trainer).

Also:

Nuts are a big deal: they pack huge fat content and they’ll keep you CHUNKAAAAY if you’re not workin’ it.

Oh baby. Well Emily, if you really want to be able to down all the peanut butter you want, I suggest you give this a shot:

The gym offers classes including "Yogod," its take on yoga, and "Chariots of Fire," a spinning class. Spaghetti-strap tank tops and short shorts are not allowed, and women's tops must cover their bottoms...

"I don't need anything to lead me into temptation," Mr. Heistad said. "I can get there on my own."

"It's a Christian business, a Christian environment," he added. "It's a better feel. You stand a little taller, don't grunt, don't get pumped and yell, 'Daddy's got a new set of pipes.' "

Hey: it keeps the Christians out of our gyms. Daddy's got a new set of pipes, baby, yea!

[NYT]

[Pictured: True roid freak Gregg Valentino]

For Stuart Sugarman, 48, any amount of noise goes. From the witness stand in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday, Mr. Sugarman told a jury about grunting during a good workout and releasing exclamations of "you go girl," and "great song."

"Are you psyched?" an assistant district attorney, Brigid Harrington, asked Mr. Sugarman, in an effort to explore his mind-set during spinning class.

"I am," Mr. Sugarman said.

And what did his psycheness get him? Humiliation.

Mr. Sugarman said he hit the wall behind him hard when Mr. Carter lifted up his bike. Although he continued to pedal throughout the remaining half-hour of the class, Mr. Sugarman said his body grew numb.

"I was in shock," Mr. Sugarman said. "I was in searing pain but I didn't know what to do."

He continued a little later: "The class is mostly women and it's pretty embarrassing for a guy who is athletic to have this happen to him."

[NYS; pic via Peter Krogh]

[Confidential to both guys: stop all the spinning and take a look at this.]

—Any gain in body fat of more than 5% will result in this contract being void.

—Trips to fast food outlets in excess of one per week will result in this contract being void.

—Publicized drug use will result in this contract being void.

—Photos showing spokesperson driving with kids not restrained by child safety seats will result in this contract being void.

—The release of a new album that sucks will result in this contract being void.

—On stage performances featuring a zombified spokesperson who is clearly too drugged out of her mind to perform the necessary dance moves will result in this contract being void.

—The spokesperson's inevitable regression towards her natural body composition will result in this contract being void.

—Discovery that our spokesperson is in fact Britney Spears, a danger to herself and others, will result in this contract being void.

—How about we just give you two free personal trainers and reap the free publicity instead?

(Confidential to Britney: These people don't care about your health. Drop them immediately in favor of this:)

Let's examine three fitness programs profiled in the last two days:

1. Crossfit, via the NYT—CrossFit is an internet-based cult of fitness for psychos, itinerant preachers, ex-killers, and crazy people of all stripes. I have met some people who do CrossFit, and they are scarily in shape and also not at all fun to be around. All you have to do is complete the psycho workout routine posted online every day. Sample, from Friday:

For time:
15 Handstand push-ups
1 L Pull-up
13 Handstand push-ups
3 L Pull-ups
11 Handstand push-ups
5 L Pull-ups
9 Handstand push-ups
7 L Pull-ups
7 Handstand push-ups
9 L Pull-ups
5 Handstand push-ups
11 L Pull-ups
3 Handstand push-ups
13 L Pull-ups
1 Handstand push-up
15 L Pull-ups

Post time to comments.

Seriously, just forget CrossFit. It will make you insane.

2. Gyrotonics, via the NY Sun—Gyrotonics is based on a huge, complicated machine that is specially designed to extract money from the wallets of idly rich women. It looks like this:

The hustle is that you have to go to some particular specialist on this particular machine to help you unlock its magical potential, while you pay them handsomely for their secret knowledge. Here's another idea: grab a towel, pull it till your shoulders feel stretched out, then go run stairs until you're in shape. Fuck gyrotonics.

3. "Hollywood's Dirty Diet Secrets," via the NYDN—finally, something real. Also, sick. Did you know Hollywood starlets go on crazy crash diets which consist mostly of smoking, drinking coffee, and doing coke, supplemented only by lettuce or boiled eggs or lemonade or something equally ridiculous? Yes, you probably did know that. Combining laxative tea with fasting and five-hour daily workouts reportedly produces some real results. The downside is that you will be totally dead pretty quick. But yes, you will leave a pretty corpse.

What does it really take to get fit? Nothing more than an iron will, the Eye of the Tiger, buckets of sweat, hours of pain, days of hope, years of conquest, and THIS: