212 Days Until Dragon*Con 2012….

This is it, folks. The final countdown. Well, not really. But this is the final day of January. So if you were counting down the days to February, THIS IS IT!!! If you haven’t gotten in all of your JFZ tokes for January, today is your last day to do so.

January is definitely a weird time for any gym member. I have often compared the JFZ to the African Savanna. If that analogy is true, then the JFZ in January is more like the Cretaceous Age right before the meteor hit. The dinos are running amok! And the mammals, including myself and the lions, are hiding out, heads down and mouths shut.

January is a Catch-22, in a way. For me, it’s inspiring to see a bunch of fatties in the gym, knocking out those New Year’s resolutions with the one-two punch of a leisurely stroll on the treadmill, coupled with chilling out on the workout machines. But seriously, new faces in the gym means more people taking fitness seriously, more shoulders to lean on when we need it (i.e. more accountability), and less stereotypical “Fat Americans” and, more specifically, less stereotypical “Fat Southerners”.

At least, theoretically. Because the flip side of that is this: If these tubbies (as one of them, I can say that) are just going to quit a month from now, they should just go ahead and get the hell out of here and quit hogging up all my gym tokes. Sweating up the sit-down push-up simulator and not wiping it down and whatnot.

Let’s face it: we all want to pull up to the gym and find it completely empty, right? It’s ok to admit it. That’s why the rich folk have “home gyms” (I am assuming these actually exist and are not just some crazy middle-class myth about the rich).

We all want to bust up in the gym and feel completely uninhibited in our fitnessing. We want to sing along real loud to our bad workout mixtapes, we want to do goofy dances when we do something good, we want to do victory laps when Eye of the Tiger comes on our ipods. But as long as we are visiting our local JFZ, that’s never gonna happen… especially in January when the dinos are frantically searching for their niche in the prehistoric, dino-eat-dino world that my JFZ savanna has become in the past month. I can’t help but picture all these new dinos scrambling around and yelling and being obnoxious while the meteor (aka a heart attack) looms large in the sky, blotting out the sun.

What will February bring? Everyone wants to be in shape for Valentine’s Day so they can make sweet dinolove all night long.

I hafta be honest, I’m hoping that the JFZ will calm down and the people who are serious about getting fitfordragoncon will settle in, find themselves a routine that works for them, and for God’s sake, learn a little gym etiquette.

Also come February, Mardi Gras will really get swingin! Which brings me to the next point:

How to Survive Mardi Gras and Not Get Fat as Hell

Sure, I could tell you, “Just stay home. Don’t drink, don’t eat rich foods, etc.”

But then you wouldn’t be celebrating Mardi Gras, now would you?

During Mardi Gras, like Christmas and other times of the year when indulgence is a perennial part of the celebrating, it is important just to think about what you are doing. In other words, when out doing your revelries, you must be in Damage Control mode. What does that mean?

1. Instead of drinking 500 beers, drink 400. Naw, but seriously. What should a fella who is trying to get fit drink? No, not water you teetotaling bitch. Men’s Health says that we should drink wine.

For forever, when trying to lose weight, I would switch to hard liquor (gin and tonic being my traditional Mardi Gras drink of choice for some reason). Turns out, hard liquor is not good for you (who knew?).

Wine, for one thing, has more alcohol than beer, which is both good and bad, for obvious reasons. But white wine, in particular, has flavoids, little flavor crystals that burn fat like a blowtorch through something melty.

I made that up.

Sorry.

Anyway, wine is apparently better for you than beer or liquor, especially white wine… for a reason that I can’t remember. And since drinking white wine is a lady thing, I’m sticking to red. Or Miller Lite.

2. Just say no to King Cake, Moonpies, etc. There is no way you will make it through Mardi Gras without indulging yourself somehow. No worries. You have 40 Days after Mardi Gras to make up for it, before a mansize rabbit brings you cream-filled chocolate eggs, damn his stinky matted hide.

King Cake is bad for you. There are no two ways around that. If I had to guess, and I don’t, I would say that King Cake is probably worse for you than anything else you may eat during Mardi Gras.

For one thing, here are the three main ingredients in a good King Cake: butter, sugar, cream cheese. Which of these things does not belong in fitfordragoncon? D: ALL OF THE ABOVE.

I guess the point is, moderation in all things, as usual. You’re (i.e. “I”) going to drink beer, just try not to drink too much of it. You’re going to eat bad stuff, just get a half size po’boy instead of the full. And I’m going to party like it’s 12 zillion B.C. and the meteor is ten feet from striking right outside my window.

(l-r) Bert, Clarence, & Lawrence have about 10 seconds until total annihilation. Oh, the things left undone!