Abs of flab >> Electronic muscle stimulation is the perfect weight-loss scheme for the vain and lazy. Just be sure to read the fine print. by CHRIS BARRY
I don’t care about my heart or circulation or any of that crap, my only physical fitness concern is to look good. Now that summer is here I want to be able to walk up and down St-Laurent with my shirt off and have the chicks swoon when I yell my sweet nothings at them from across the street. I want to feel the humidity rise at the local pool when I sashay past the toddlers and their moms clad in nothing but my well-packed tan Speedo. I demand that my body be the ultimate specimen of manhood, but not if it means I’m going to have to actually exercise or work at it with any degree of enthusiasm. Sure-fire all-chemical alternatives Of course, there are alternatives to working out, not the least being the diet route. I once knew a similarly out-of-shape guy who swore by the weekend heroin diet. All you need to do, he used to say, is buy a couple of bags of dope on Friday night, and provided that you haven’t been building up your resistance by using during the week, you won’t want to eat anything all weekend and whatever you do manage to stuff down your throat will find itself being barfed up into the toilet-effectively functioning sort of like a weekly two-day fast. Which all sounds pleasant enough, but smacks a little too close to bulimia for my liking. Similarly, I know several people who have successfully lost weight through a steady diet of cocaine. But this too has its complications, not the least being the financial expense. My friend Brent trimmed close to 50 pounds off his 170-pound frame in less than a year using this method, but eventually his social and professional life started to suffer, and many claim it was directly attributable to his diet program. Nevertheless, a few years ago when he was arrested for chasing imaginary squirrels up and down Toronto’s Queen Street, armed with a homemade spear and clad in just his dirty white Fruit of the Looms, Brent could proudly state that there was not an ounce of fat to be found on his impressively svelte torso. The miracle of EMS Given my options, I was almost ready to surrender to the inevitable and join a gym, until one afternoon last month, while shopping for spring fashion at Wal-Mart, I happened to stumble upon this allegedly amazing device called the AbEnergizer. The AbEnergizer, as seen on TV, promised that it could turn my unsightly love handles into a thing of splendour with next to no effort on my part. Perfect. Through the miracle of EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation), all I needed to do was slap the fucker ‘round my waist and I could get a top-notch workout while lying stoned in front of the tube eating beef jerky and watching Forest Ranger reruns on APTN. Finally, it appeared like I’d found a fitness program that made sense with my lifestyle. All for only $79.98 plus tax! I grabbed one off the shelf and charged to the cash, eager to get home and start working out. “Oh, the AbEnergizer,” the simple yet pleasant cashier commented as I handed her my MasterCard, “I’ve been meaning to get one too but I can’t afford it just yet. I hear it’s incredible.” “Well, I’m a little skeptical,” I admitted, “but if the thing’s a total piece of shit I can return it within 30 days for a full refund, right?” “Oh yeah, definitely, we get tons of them coming back every day,” she said, seemingly oblivious to any apparent contradiction in her endorsement. This is how the AbEnergizer is supposed to work: essentially, what you do is strap this cheap plastic belt around your selected flabby parts, and through a series of electrical shocks sent your way courtesy of two “electronic muscle toning units” attached to the belt, your muscles will be compelled to continually contract and relax, tricking your brain into thinking that you’re actually exercising. The manufacturer’s claim that 10 minutes of ABEnergizing is the equivalent of doing something like seven zillion sit-ups a minute. Wow! Follow the instructions and a newer, trimmer, fitter you is guaranteed within a few short weeks. The devil’s in the details Of course, nowhere on the packaging is it mentioned that regular physical exercise-combined with the manufacturer’s recommended low-carb diet-is kind of important if you really want to see results from your AbEnergizer. You’ve got to wait to open the box for that information. In the U.S., each AbEnergizer unit comes with a bottle of trucker speed just to make sure you keep motivated in your diet/work-out program. No such luck here in Canada, where the feds keep a tighter control on the distribution of these drugs. It’s also very important to note that you must never forget to apply a generous amount of specially formulated AbEnergizer toning/conductivity gel on your pot before starting your work-out. And remember, you can’t simply use the KY Jelly you keep by the side of your bed for when the paperboy comes collecting, it has to be the official AbEnergizer gel, which can be purchased through the mail for only $19.95 (U.S.) a bottle. If you choose to skimp on the gel-like I did in an effort to conserve the tiny little bottle of it that comes with the unit-then get ready to experience a lot of pain. I didn’t read the instructions all that carefully the first time I used my AbEnergizer, and let me tell you, I was practically crying by the end of my work-out. I had made the mistake of wearing the thing to a screening of Storytelling at the Cinéma du Parc, not realizing that the gel starts to dissolve after awhile, and that when it does, an AbEnergizer workout becomes the equivalent of sticking your finger in to a light socket every couple of seconds. Too stupid to figure out how to turn the unit off in the darkened theatre, and too ashamed to actually remove the belt from my waist and risk letting the people sitting beside me know I was a flabby fool naïve enough to buy “as seen on TV” miracle ab fitness products, I did my best to suffer in silence, only occasionally yelping out in pain before the unit finally decided to turn itself off. Belly burning bunk Undeterred by my initial bad work-out experience, and determined to have a body like a young Iggy Pop without expending any effort, I dutifully continued with my AbEnergizer program for several more weeks. Twice a day I lubed myself up, wrapped the thing around my pot, and grimaced while the unit zapped and burned away at my stomach. Feeling stupider every time I put the thing on, I nevertheless continued in the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, technology had finally advanced to the point where it could rescue me from the drudgery of physical exercise.
Before
and After: pot belly (dramatization: not Chris Barry’s real abs) |
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But did
I ultimately see any reduction in my love handles? Does the thing work-even
a little bit? Duh, of course not. Although admittedly, sometimes, if
you position the belt just right and try not to move around too much,
you do actually feel your muscles contracting and get the feeling that
something positive truly might be going on down there. But trust me,
nothing much is. And while a few other fools who bought the thing have
reported in various Internet forums that they’ve seen splendid
results from their AbEnergizers, chances are it’s due to the trucker
speed and/or diets/additional exercise they were engaged in rather than
the purported miracle of EMS.
Most “experts” on the subject agree that while certain forms of electronic muscle stimulation can indeed stimulate and enhance the strength and power of muscle tissue, consumer products like the AbEnergizer simply don’t have enough poop in them to do the job. And even I, as adverse to exercise as I may be, would rather do a thousand sit-ups than risk getting repeatedly zapped by a unit capable of delivering even nastier shocks than the AbEnergizer. The people who do end up using the professional EMS units usually do so because they have been prescribed to them by doctors as a last resort for back pain, circulation problems, muscle spasms and the like. And yeah, while some Olympic athletes allegedly use the professional technology as well, remember, a lot these dudes are comfortable chewing on steroids all day long too, blissfully unconcerned with the fact that they will eventually shrink a man’s most important parts down to nothing. So really, what can these clowns possibly teach a person about making the chicks on St-Laurent swoon? As for my AbEnergizer unit, it’s on its way back to Wal-Mart, where I assume it will sit on a shelf waiting for the next lazy, naïve narcissist to come along and be tortured by it. I’ve been forced to accept that my AbEnergizer money would be better spent on a summer membership to the YMCA, or barring that, perhaps a quarter gram of heroin. |
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I’ve
never been a big fan of exercise. Not only because I’m inherently
lazy and unmotivated, but because working out is just so goddamn boring.
Lifting weights, swimming, jumping up and down on a treadmill-none of
these things hold any particular attraction for me. Which is a bad thing,
given that in my old age I’ve noticed my once youthful washboard
stomach has not only begun to give way to love handles, but that these
handles are threatening to mutate in to a bona-fide tire-a situation
my vanity finds hard to accept.
