THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508230042
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K6 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: FITNESS QUEST
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star asked for volunteers to join a
six-month weight-loss and fitness program.
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
IT'S SIX O'CLOCK and the two Lean Cuisine entrees, one low-fat yogurt and three kiwis that I consumed today are weighing heavy on my mind and thighs.
Into the car I go, onto Interstate 264, miles from my home in Norfolk to the Bally's Fitness Center in Chesapeake.
Only the stairstepper exercise machine can ease my anxiety.
My 140-pound frame has no real fear of fatness. Even if it did, I know in my heart that I've never met a man who didn't appreciate a little cellulite - in the right places.
Still, the stairstepper, or climber, beckons irresistibly.
At the gym, the dozen or so steppers are occupied. Heads and shoulders of happy exercisers bob up and down, up and down, as if the earth were quaking and subsiding beneath their feet. A glazed look locks their eyes.
Their entrancement is ample evidence that the stairstepper, developed in the late 1980s, has become the exercise savior of the decade, come to rescue us from the fat of our fin-de-siecle overindulgences.
Some days I think it's good for me. Some days I think it's not.
I had to have my own. Now, there it stands, steely and black, like a dust-coated Darth Vader in the corner of my pastel bedroom. But stairstepping in public seems easier than stairstepping alone.
So I head for the gym, even if it means waiting for a machine. I've no choice but to circle the track until one is free.
You see, like many of my baby-boomer cohorts who beat me to the machines this night, I don't want to exercise on anything but the stepper: not the treadmill, not the rowing machine, not the bicycle. Only the stepper.
At last, a too cute, too slender woman in a thonged workout suit steps off. A happy jack rabbit, I pounce onto the big black rubber pedals. Like human launching pads, they spring me way up into the air.
From the stepper's computer console, the outline of a heart beams up at me. I feel the same way about you, baby.
Now, to set the program to suit my exercise goals.
Calories: 250
Effort level: 8
Program: Random (hills)
As my knees begin to rise and fall, rise and fall in a vigorous march, that craved feeling comes: empowerment over my caloric intake.
Secretly, I compete with the lady next to me. Tuned into a Walkman, she doesn't seem to notice. I sneak a peek to see if she is stepping as high and as fast, or burning as many calories. Stepping faster and higher like the Eveready bunny in a marching band, I leave her behind in the stationary dust.
That's part of the reason the stepper is so popular, says Danny Brinkley, Bally's manager. ``I think people get into the athletic competition against the machine or against the person stepping next to them,'' he says.
Gordon Bingen, manager of Carolina Fitness equipment, says the stepper is good for runner training, but women seem to be the ones who get addicted to stepping.
``It's an aggressive exercise,'' he says. ``It's not really passive.''
``Dependent'' stepper machines provide a boost to pedals that makes stepping easier, while ``independent'' steppers leave all the work to you.
Don't jump on any stepper cold. See your doctor first, start with a mild-to-moderate routine and work your way up to longer and higher-calorie-burning workouts.
Having done all of that, I'm step-step-stepping away.
Bleep . . . bleep . . . bleep. The computer tells me I'm exceeding my per-minute step goal. But soon, soon the ``Bleep . . . bleep . . . bleep . .
A rush as I step harder: My heart races, my breath pants, my pores spill delicious sweat, sealing me to my exercise suit, calories conquered. My arms and legs ache so good. My eyes glaze over. Be gone, cellulite. Be gone, lumpy thighs. Be gone, layer of fat on my back. Be mine, 25-inch waist. I bob on and on. Faster. Higher.
A surge of songs fills my mind: ``Is This Love?,'' ``I Hate Myself For Loving You'' and ``Stairway to Heaven.'' by CNB