LOOK GOOD FOR LESS

In the past couple of years, the word metrosexual has become a common word. A word kind of associated with football superstar David Beckham. If you are male and looks up at Beckham as somebody your model, and imitates his look, you can probably consider yourself metrosexual. The word is not really a big deal to me, but the look is. I'm no Beckham fan and I don't look up to him, only figuratively though - I’m 5’1”.

If you surf the net and find its meaning, you well get something like this: Macho man has bitten the dust. He's been replaced by something just as tough inside, but softer at the edges.

The metrosexual look is cool. Actually, it's just more on men's fashion, like the cut, color, design of the shirts and pants, and even accessories as well.

So am I metrosexual? No! Eventhough i like to have the look, my features don't allow it. I'm referring to my body frame and my built which is so light. Howevermuch, I wear shirts or pants similar to those I see on the boobtube or on prints, I still end up exactly not like one LOL. I remember buying pants with bootleg cut. The cut is so cool. Very cool, that almost every male at the mall wears the same cut. Since I am short, I had the pants altered. When it was altered, the bootleg cut part was removed and the pants never looked the same again. The bootleg jeans I bought turned into a straight cut jeans after the alteration. It was disappointing, but left me laughing.

It had sunk in me that fashion wise, I would never look like one. But I just did not stop there. What If working on my body. As I see around, Filipino men nowadays, even the teeners have really broad shoulders, toned muscles on their arms and abs. The muscles are not big like those of bodybuilders who basically put so much muscles on their chest, back, triceps and biceps.

In the second quarter of 2006, I enrolled myself in a gym near our place. I only wanted to broaden my shoulder, put a little muscle on my arms, abs, back, thighs, and calves. During the first few weeks, I was still enjoying my time in the gym. In the succeeding weeks, I realized that it's a sad place to be afterall.

The only gym equipment I used there were the treadmill, abs swing, and dumbbells. I did not aspire to lift those huge barbells, afraid of inflicting injury. My officemate who was also into gym advised me to avoid equipment which I think so heavy for my weight to avoid getting injured-internally and externally. My consolation though was the disappearance of my love handles, and my body got firm.

Another thing which I consider an irritation in the gym is the people there. The gym freaks. Those are the guys who show off what they can do inside the gym. They lift every heavy equipment. They can also be noisy, really try to get an audience. So if you are ‘weak’, you will get insecure of them. Either you will just sit at the side in silence and be their audience or compete with them in lifting all the heavy equipment to prove to them that you can give them a run of their money.

In my case, I was more concentrated on what the gym thing could give me back for the money I cashed out. I was more on the compensation and not on competing with somebody else. After three months, I decided to stop this nonsense. It was not working on me the way I had expected it. Yes, I lost the fats, but still dissatisfied.

After some months of not going to the gym, I went back to jogging every Sunday at the Makati Park. This was in the months of January and February 2007. I would wake up as early as 5:30 in the morning and walked my way to the Park, just a few blocks away from home. I would spend three hours there jogging and sometimes doing aerobics with the oldies.

Waking up so early on a Sunday was not really a good idea. I stopped my Sunday jogging, and waited for the Summer to go swimming. I’d always felt the need to get physical. In April, I discovered ULTRA swimming pool through online inquiry. Swimming is a good exercise and a good medium as well to sculpt your body. If you engage into this sport religiously, you will really get good shoulders and toned abs. Since swimming at ULTRA was so exposed to the sun, and getting burnt is the first thing you'd get before a toned body, I decided to shift to a night jogging after office.

To date, I have been doing my jogging twice a week at the ULTRA. There I meet a lot of athletes. Now, I can already distinguish the difference of an athlete's body to a gym freak's. That of an athlete's is well proportioned and toned all over, while those of a gym freak's is distributed. They have toned muscles only on the parts where they have concentrated their muscle -building or muscle-toning on. Sometimes, I get mean by laughing at those who have concentrated building their muscles on their top, and have totally forgotten their bottom. Have you seen a bullfrog? They look like one.

I have also learned, that going to a gym or simply doing exercise by yourself must have a certain program to follow. Learn your objective why you do it. Is it for body building or losing weight or just toning? You can never have them all incorported in just one act. You will only frustrate yourself. Like if you are fat and want to have a toned bod, you first follow a routine which will get rid of your unwanted fats before doing things that will tone your muscles. It's taking one step at a time.

For now, a 'metrosexual' bod is no longer in my mind. I have completely forgotten about it. In fact, It has never been a motivation why I have gotten hooked to jogging. All I want is a healthy, fit and well proportioned bod. I have totally brushed off the idea of going to the gym again, making me turned down the offers of my officemates to join them at Fitness First. Why spend big when you can have it for less.