Watching Bodies at the Beach

Today it’s 100 degrees at the beach and there are thousands of bodies parading around in front of me wearing next to nothing.  It’s a good day to watch bodies.

I read a stat recently that said that 60% of Americans are overweight.  From my beach chair vantage, I’d say that’s about right.

The people who stand out, the ones who are “remarkable” (see Seth Godin on this), are the ones who are NOT overweight.  And among this subset of the population, I’ve been making a further distinction between “thin” and “fit.”  (That’s because I’ve been working out with Tim, so I’m newly attuned to the concept of “fit.”)

Fit bodies are ones that are clearly being “used.”  They do work. They lift things and work their musculoskeletal systems and this makes their muscles clearly visible, clearly defined.

Here is a “thin” body:

Here are some “fit” ones:

See what I mean?

So from my vantage point on the beach I am now just looking for the fit ones because there are very few of those!  When they do walk by I have this irresistible urge to follow them and watch what they do, and how they live, and learn their habits, and what they eat, and how they manage to fit exercise into their day, because clearly they do fit it in.

There are very few fit bodies here today (including mine).

So, if you want to be remarkable, become fit.