Having Your Cake And Chasing It Too

Exercise should be fun, at least some of the time. It’s unlikely to be quite anywhere as fun as a boisterous evening trying out a new restaurant with a crowd of friends. It’s also unlikely to compare to curling up on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate and a glossy new magazine. If it’s an abject misery, then perhaps you just haven’t found the right sort yet*.

And it makes it (even) easier to thoroughly enjoy all sorts of coronary-inducing deliciousness**

Hazelnut-crusted fried brie from The Family Kitchen via Tastespotting

But exercise and food tend to be uneasy tablemates (at least at the same time). If you’re eating while you’re working out, it distracts you from both activities so that neither gets the attention it deserves. And you end up, more often than not, with a jumped-about feeling, which is not good at all.

So, much as I thought it was unquestionably cute, I have a few reservations about this...

Cupcake bell ... for the bike ride home to your gingerbread house! From Adeline Adeline via Simplesong

In case it’s not immediately apparent (because it’s doing a very effective job of pretending to be a cupcake), that’s actually a bicycle bell. It looks so distractingly tasty that it could pose a risk of sending you careening into ditches and into rubbish bins and little old ladies. It would just sit there, making you feel hungry. And reminding you that exercise just isn’t as much fun as food. Until you tried to take a great big chomp and ended up with a mouthful of metal...

I think any cupcakes during exercise need to be dangled consistently out of reach (a bit like the fake rabbit at a greyhound track). The carrot cake is definitely a better motivator than the stick!

Now that really is a carrot cake - from beccadilley on Flickr (the cake is originally from Sweets Bakeshop)

I now have a song stuck playing on continuous repeat in my head... Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls! Can't imagine why...

* A rationale that I was highly suspicious of until finding the right sort. And it definitely wasn’t the treadmill (shudder).
** Without either the assorted less pleasant physical effects of unchecked overindulgence or (if you’re that way inclined) any lurking guilt.