Total Workout: Get To The Gym!

So. We have a doughnut, a sofa, and a cool pair of pants you’d like to fit into before you hit 90. The doughnut is yummy, the sofa so soft, yet you are nowhere near achieving pantsitude. Indeed, you are indentifying far too closely with the tubster in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Fat” and the sideshow attraction of Joe Tex’s “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman).” And, frankly, it’s got you down. This is precisely when you know it’s time — time to “Lose Yourself,” as Eminem put it, in the Total Workout lifestyle and, as Funkadelic so freakily put it, “Get Off Your A*s and Jam.”

Western Swing, hip-hop, or hard rock — no matter the music, we keep the heart pumping fast in our Next Steps.

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys sing about the biscuit-chewin’ hay-muncher of “Roly Poly,” and Fat Joe’s “Ice Cream” may be in good fun, but if you’re not laughing (or if the sinister sounds of Metallica’s “The Day That Never Comes” describes your standing date with the gym), then listen up. As Trick Daddy so succinctly puts it on the rowdy “Let’s Go,” if you want it you can get it, and when you’re ready to get serious about your workout, there’s nothing like the liberating rock crunch of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” to help you break free from inertia and run for your goals.

Give all you got and keep your groove on the move, in our Deep Cuts.

“You Get What You Give,” sing New Radicals on their pop-rock truth-teller, and that goes double for your Total Workout: Get To the Gym. Maybe you’re starting from behind the fitness eight ball — but, hey, you’re starting, and that’s what’s really important. So, turn a liability, like Ludacris’ “Large Amounts,” into an asset when you “Shake That Fat” to Jo Jo Gunne’s boogie-rock mover, and before you know it, you won’t have so much jiggle to wiggle. “Tuck In U Belly” to Esco & Left Side’s Dancehall pulse, and pat yourself on the back as you reduce your bounce to the ounce. Soon enough, when Skinny Songs’ “Thin!” pops up in your earbuds, you’ll know they’re talking about you.

No one ever said it was gonna be easy, but there’s too much at stake — your outlook, your health, your ever-expanding waistline — to back down now. You’ve given all the excuses in the world for not hitting your routine, to the point where even you are sick of hearing them. So, let’s have “A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action,” in the words of Toby Keith, and let’s Get To the Gym! This is the playlist you turn to for that extra bit of inspiration, from Kyuss’ stoner-rock reminder of what happens (“Jumbo Blimp Jumbo”) when you surrender to the couch-bound munchies, to the retro dance groove of Skeewif’s “Husky,” to Mika’s “Big Girl (You Are Beautiful).” You can do it. We can help.