So I was on the elliptical this morning, slogging my way
through “thirty minutes of hell,” an accurate – if not quite affectionate –
name for my workout. At some point, I catch a glance of an old lunchbox on the
shelf nearby. It’s a childhood relic recaptured through the magic of ebay,
an old metal lunchbox with Marvel superheroes adorning every side. The side
that’s facing out shows Spiderman, Thor and Captain America . They are showing off,
their athletic muscularity on bountiful display in powerful, iconic poses. I
cannot see myself, but I know what I must look like in comparison as I sweat
and strain and groan: a pale reflection filtered through a funhouse mirror.
Suddenly, I hate these guys.
As I struggle to cultivate (or even hang on to) the
comparatively small amount of muscle mass I possess, as I grapple with this
stupid machine in an increasingly tenuous battle to fend off the excess weight
that seems determined to envelop me, as I endure these thirty minutes of hell
each day just so I can continue to keep some degree of fitness part of my
identity, it dawns on me that those guys over there on the shelf have it easy.
They always have, and they always will. None of them had to earn their muscle,
or fight off the insidious advance of middle age obesity. Spiderman
spontaneously sprouted muscles after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Thor
was born a god. Gods never have to throw themselves in the path of an oncoming
exercise machine. Sure, Steve Rogers started life as a scrawny runt – he and
I had at least that much in common – but then he went and got injected by a
super-secret super-soldier serum (which conveniently went missing long before I
got my turn) and then, WHAM!, next
thing you know he’s Captain America. He’s set for life. He might retain some
vague recollection of what it was like to be a scrawny runt, but he’s never
going to have to deal with the twin scourges of visceral and subcutaneous belly
fat.
