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Duke’s Diary - Sweat it out
Robin Duke
To tuck or not to tuck, that appears to be the question.
Granted it’s not one I’m asking myself but I’m amazed to discover men are swapping the gym for the clinic in increasing numbers – with male tummy tucks the fastest growing cosmetic surgery procedure in Britain.
Granted that only amounts to 4,298 procedures but it is a 15 per cent increase in “abdominoplasty.” Try saying that after a few pints and if you can’t then you might need a nose job (five per cent up) and I’m not even going to ask why the number of male breast reductions increased by seven per cent over the same period.
Back on the tummy tuck front it costs around £5,000 which is probably a saving eventually because a lot of the blokes having them probably consume more than that amount in food and drink on a couple of good nights out.
Me? I prefer to just to breathe in. Granted it means I walk around looking like a demented pigeon – and I hate the way it’s becoming a reflex action whenever I pass an attractive young woman. Great if they like six feet tall pigeons wearing shirts which used to seem so large but not so hot if they want someone toned and tan and young and lovely.
Clearly I should be heading back to the gym rather than the surgeon’s table but since my membership lapsed (“how much has it gone up?”) I’ve ben a bit lacking in that department.
Granted I promised the Only One that I’d try and trim off a few pounds before The Big Day but I think it’s going to be easier to opt for a bigger suit. I dug out various “lose twice your body weight overnight” home fitness machines but fell off one and sent a vase flying trying to assemble another so they’ve been put back where they faded away to the first time.
I thought a jog might help but it set my asthma off again (not actually doing it, just the thought of it). Then I was going to walk briskly but the nights drew in and winter arrived. And anyway I always seem to bump into people who I don’t want to see when I’m gasping and wheezing and dressed like a comedy sketch about ramblers.
But now it seems not only am I never to going to be slim and healthy again, I’m never going to get on in what is left of my profession either. That’s because networking is out and sweatworking is in. Yes, joining the lexicon of business buzzwords such as “greed is good,” “lunch is for wimps,” “thinking outside the box” and the hideous “fit for purpose” (or in my case unfit on purpose) are some lean and mean new contenders.
How about a “spin-spin situation” or even worse – “learn while you burn”? The new corporate lingo has been created by movers and shakers who these days prefer to literally sweat over the details of a contract.
Sadly the days of a gym being a place of refuge from the strains and stresses of work, sweating it out in a spinning class or working it out in the weights room in increasingly becoming the way big business is conducted.
Business people are now taking clients to the gym instead of entertaining hem with drinks and meals out. Personally I’d rather drink whilst I sink.
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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