How to go from Double Chin to Dad Bod

If you aren’t familiar with the dad bod, you may want to take a look before you sink a few minutes into reading this. Please note that in the image, Don Draper also has a gorgeous woman next to him so, ya know, you could too.  Technically another pre-college discovery (but barely), I had about 22 extra pounds that had overstayed their welcome once the senior football season concluded. This lead me to start experimenting with a few different things, which, after realizing I had no self-control over my eating habits, were predominantly in the weight room. Then when I remembered that lifting weights at a fast fast pace usually made me puke, the choices were whittled down to the cardio section. The treadmill was always a fan favorite, but it never seemed to get results. I don’t know what I had against stationary bikes either, but those weren’t doing it for me. Then I realized there was one machine that I had never been on before, the stair stepper. I gave it a shot, and after getting past the point of thinking I might have a heart attack at the age of 18, felt as though it had provided me with a quality workout in about 15 minutes. Continuing to use this machine at the LA Fitness I was a part of over the summer, the results began to show. Spanning from about early May until the end of August, I was able to shave off 12 pounds before my freshman year of college.

Once I finally had access to the gym there, I sadly realized there were no more stair stepping machines. In lieu of the previous stair-based cardio, there was something even better. Tall, glorious stair master machines neatly lined up overlooking two rows of treadmills. Wearing my high school football sweat suit, I walked up on to one and set it to 12 floors per minute. Before I felt like the stepper was difficult, but this grisly monster kicked my butt six ways to Sunday. Lucky for me, as you will see if you click the underlined “stair master,” there were convenient railings that I used to hold on for dear life while my legs kept up. Sure, you could argue it is cheating to hold on to the railings that stair master’s have. I discovered something with that though. At 3 visits to the machine a week, for 15 minutes at 12 floors per minute, after about a month my legs were able to keep up without assistance from the railings. I kept this goin for the rest of the semester, and easily fell 10 more pounds to 190 by December. I would highly, HIGHLY recommend hitting the stair master if you want to get in decent shape but at the same time want to eat like a garbage disposal.

At the end of the day, unless you have body builder levels of muscle definition, no one will know the difference between you and the person who runs 5 miles every morning and does all the other time-consuming stuff. If you want good looks, skip the books. If you’re the size of a car, pass on the protein bar. If you wanna get there faster, try the stair master.