This is not so much an editorial, as a warning, to all those who have been bushwacked by advancing years, and a spreading waistline.
On Monday, this editor sent himself off to the PCYC bootcamp, or as he thought about it, as he sat bedraggled and despondent in the bottom of the shower, hell.
“Where,” he pondered, “was the man who used to jog 10km before heading off to footy training?” And then thought nothing of a few mid-week beers with the boys?
Where indeed?
Today he’s paying the price for not learning the lessons of his older siblings, and for not heeding the warnings of doctors and all those who had also found themselves slumped and aghast at what they had become.
Heart disease, high-blood pressure and diabetes are the everyman or woman diseases of the over 40s. They can be the silent assassins, killing many of us if we don’t heed the tell-tale signs. Thankfully, for many of us, there is a simple solution: less food and more exercise.
Simple? Well we guess it is, that is if you don’t love having a few beers with your mates at the footy. Or a glass of Margaret River red with a one-inch T-bone, or you have no desire to eat a mango cheesecake, or a meat pie when only a meat pie will do ever again.
You may as well make an appointment with Dr Kervorkian now.
But here’s the upside, you can have your cake and eat it too, as long as you are willing to get off your widening posterior and do something about it. The hard part is getting started.
For 30 souls that journey began on Monday, although admittedly there were more than a number of pain lovers who were seasoned campaigners having survived the first bootcamp two months ago. Many were boys-in-blue and we’ll make no further comment. After the Argus editor managed to drag himself from the shower and stagger off to work, he was greeted by great merriment from fellow workers. But as he eased himself behind his desk, his eyes lifted to read the small message left in bright fairy-floss pink by his 10 year-old daughter on the wall, “Here is the editor. ( I love you daddy)”.
It wasn’t merriment he felt. It wasn’t even the pain of a hard workout. It was the fear that procrastination could one day cause him to miss the joy of reading that simple message.
He might not be a cheery soul when the alarm goes off at 5.30a.m. over the next few weeks, but he’ll be there, huffing, puffing, embarrassed, and loving it, because sadly, far too many of us, don’t heed the warnings.