An American Lion

My personal health has always been excellent. Thanks to a lifetime of being frisky—and I say that without any of that snarky blog nonsense intended—I have always been rail thin, active, and fairly happy.

When I was in prison, I put on about twenty pounds, but that was before they let me out on the road cleanup crew. Then, in the heat of the Minnesota summer, I dropped the weight and more. I got down to a fighting weight of 170 pounds, and being 6 foot three and a half, that’s lean enough for me. Nothing chases the gut away like picking up trash by the side of the road in an orange vest. There are days when I’m nostalgic—I really was good at finding roadside trash, and I specialized in organizing ways to get things out of what they called culverts and drainage ditches. I’m hovering below the 185 mark, and I don’t think I’ve strayed above that since 1994. This past winter, I did NO cross country skiing, hence, I’m still feeling like a summer bum and a lardass.

I implore you—as your President in metaphorical terms only—walk briskly, eat less meat, don’t put salt on anything, and don’t eat white bread. Get your grains and fibers, get what vegetables you can, and never eat anything served through a window.  Find a hill near your home and conquer it. Conquer it and howl from the top, and tell the world that you will NOT be a fatass and you will NOT join the Michigan Militia without first being healthy and capable of holding a weapon properly. What? Did I go off topic again?

The gist of this article makes sense, but only up to a point:

Slow walking may not only mean getting to your destination later, according to a new study by French scientists: Older people who walk slowly are almost three times more likely to die of heart disease and related causes than older people who walk faster.

“The main message for the general population is that maintaining fitness at older age may have important consequences and help preserve life and (muscle) function,” one of the study’s authors, Dr. Alexis Elbaz, director of research at the Paris-based medical research institute Inserm, told Reuters Health by email.

He said the study, which appeared in the journal BMJ, also suggests that a test of walking speed might be used to test the health of elderly patients.

This is a no-brainer. If you walk slow, it means you are impeded in some way, either by a big gut or weak, spindly legs. If you make a conscious effort to avoid brisk walking or exercise, of course you’re going to enlarge yourself and eventually explode and die like a horrible, melting pile of sloppy meat.

Duh.