Thank You, ESPN

In my mind, documentaries have always been synonymous with the really boring shows my dad always watched on the History Channel when I was growing up. As a teenager, ancient black and white film footage about weaponry of the past 600 years was not exactly how I wanted to spend my TV time. Although looking back I’m hesitant to argue that hours of MTV’s The Real World was a better decision.

While I rarely choose to watch a documentary, if there is something I’ve gotten interested in then I’ll watch the documentary. Okay fine, I’ve willingly watched one about the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest. I’d read about it and then decided to watch National Geographic’s documentary. I even used a Netflix movie (not streaming) for that one. For me, documentaries are like non-fiction. There are the few you have to read (i.e. The Big Short, Freakonomics, etc.), but for the most part I avoided them. After being inspired by a guy I used to know to branch out of my fiction glut, I discovered that I enjoyed biographies. The trick with non-fiction, and apparently documentaries, is to find something you’re interested in.

Thus, I am happy to say that I have recently discovered the amazingness that is the documentary. Thank you, ESPN. Why am I not surprised that it was ESPN who tricked me into documentaries? That channel is the reason I’m constantly tempted to pay for cable.

A few rainy Saturday’s ago, I was puttering around the house with the TV on for company. At first, I didn’t even know what I was watching, but I unexpectedly found myself stopping whatever it was I was doing and sitting down to watch this show. I didn’t even read a book while watching, which is a feat for me. It was a show about SMU (Southern Methodist University) getting the “Death Penalty” in college football back in the 80’s. I’d never even heard of SMU or the death penalty (other than in the usual sense) and found myself barely moving for the next two hours, desperate to know how this all turned out.

Eventually I figured out that this show was a product of ESPN, something they called “30 for 30.” I had no idea what this was but wanted to know if there were more. As it turns out, there are loads of them done over the past couple years. And lucky for me, Netflix has the whole gamut of 30 for 30 documentaries. Last weekend I watched, “The U.” Finally I understood what my guy friends were talking about when discussing “The Miami Rule.” Just like the SMU film, I was fascinated and enthralled for the entire running time. There are at least 10 more of these in my Netflix queue. All at the top.

Apparently I’m not only a sucker for sports, I’m a sucker for documentaries about sports. My next 30 for 30 leaves my documentary comfort zone of college football, so hopefully I’ll find it just as interesting. Who would have that that there were interesting documentaries out there? While I’m still not tempted to sit down and watch the History Channel, at least now I appreciate a good sports documentary. Thank you, ESPN.

Shock Therapy

I am a sucker for anything that promises results in a short period of time. Better abs in 10 workouts or less? Sold. Which is how I fell into the trap of Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred. She promises up to 20 lost pounds in 30 days. I’ve been a big fan of the Biggest Loser and hers for ages. So much so, that I occasionally daydream about eating enough to gain 200 pounds so I could go on the show. Then reality set in when I did the math on how much it would cost me in food and new fat kid clothes to be fat enough to go on the show, not to mention health care costs. I decided maybe it was better to be only slightly overweight and just buy one of her videos. Being hesitant to buy anything without actually trying it after purchasing a horrible yoga video, I borrowed the 30-Day Shred from the library.

As previously mentioned, the cover of this video states that you can lose “Up to 20 pounds in 30 days.” There isn’t even an asterisk at the end of the statement that takes you to the back of the disk to point out that these results are not normal. After my first Lesson 1 workout, I knew why. No one could possibly survive doing this for an entire 30 days and the one person that had lost the 20 pounds.

None the less, I have stuck with it for 6 days thus far. I’m going to Italy in about two months and have some serious motivation to make room in my pants for pasta and bread. Hence the reason I’m still torturing myself with this insanity. After a couple of sessions I did notice myself getting stronger however. Where I originally couldn’t use weights for the entire arm segments, all the sudden I could. My form improved and the frequency in which I called Jillian a bitch to my television decreased.

The thing I hated about Level 1 was the jumping jacks. I’ve hated jumping jacks since I was in elementary school and we had to do them for PE. I would rather do almost anything than jumping jacks. And day four sent me over the jumping jack edge. On the fifth day, I decided to give Level 2 a shot to see if it had less of those damn jumping jacks.

As I lay in a sweaty heap on my floor after completing Level 2 for the first time, I was quite pleased that this level only had one 30-second burst of jumping jacks in the warm up. The bad news was that I was seriously considering throwing up after doing this workout. On Sunday I decided that I’d prefer throwing up to jumping jacks and hit the button for Level 2 again.

I have no idea if I’ll actually be able to do this for a full 30 days, but that is the goal. Like I said, I’m a sucker for big promises of an improved body in trade for a little pain. So much in fact that not only have I placed an order to acquire my very own copy of the 30-Day Shred, I’ve also pre-ordered her next video based on the same system.

I primarily run for my workouts so my goal was to shock my body a bit into doing something that it isn’t used to. At the time, I was thinking a gentle shock, like from static electricity. This is more like putting your finger in a light socket shocking. Only 24 more days of shock therapy to go.