THE GYM

My gym ritual starts every morning at 6 a.m., rain or shine...through good and bad, I pack my bag with analgesics, protein drinks, bars, sweats, wrist bands, athletic shoes, socks, and all types of other paraphenelia used by "plateheads" like me. I drink my 2 cups of coffee, read the Chicago Tribune (until nature calls), then scream upstairs to my wife, Debbie: "I'll be ready to go in five, honey!"

She is a gym kinda' girl, and promptly comes downstairs with those cute Nike tops and shapely workout pants. She is a babe at the age of 62. I smile at her, and we hop into my old, beater RAV-4 and off we go.

I warm up with dips, pull ups, and wide grip pull-ups...Then it's off to an incline bench for dumb-bell curls, standing curls, and shrugs with 100 lb. dumb-bells in each hand. I head next for 3 sets of 12 for my bench press...ahhhh!...I feel my muscles growing already!...I am breaking a sweat at this stage of the game. Next are seated rows and pull downs...i super set them...which means i alternate sets for each exercise...then I head to the pec-rack for chest and back...then to the hammer machines for 3 different exercises for my back muscles...

It ain't over yet, 'cause I have to superset tricep pulldowns and standing cable curls, and maybe a few push downs for more tricep work...My legs are shaking at this point, and my arms are pumped. I feel happy to hit the decline board and do about 200 cruches for my gut,, then to the abdominal chair where i pull down 70 lbs. and crunch what parts of my stomach that still needs crunching.

I head to the men's locker room to stow my gloves and wrist supports, get my IPod and MetRx 32 gram protein bar...I happily munch on it, while talking to my gym buddies...I guzzle 16 ounces of water then proceed to do a half and hour on the incline treadmill, listening to golden oldies. This workout takes me at least 90 minutes, and I do it every other day.

On days I don't lift, I do an hour of hard work on an elliptical, and 40 minutes medium work on an incline treadmill...The joy of it all is that I get to consume 4 to 5,000 calories a day of clean food...I eat at least 150 grams of protein a day...limited fat and complex carbohydrates...I gave up sugar a year ago, don't drink or smoke.

I'm glad I live this lifestyle, and I'm glad that my wife has jumped on the circuit with me...We sure don't feel or look like we're 63 years old. I hope that when she's 90 that she can still keep up with me...I warn her about this when she decides to eat Christmas cookies...She makes me pay for my asceticism, by saying: "Your not going to ruin my Christmas with your craziness!" I guess she is right. Now I have to figure how to eat cottage cheese and protein drinks at the various Christmas functions we are going to have to attend. Maybe I can hide them in the trunk of the car, and sneak them in the bathrooms...I can feign illness when they offer me ham and cheesy potatoes.