I Don’t Think So Dude

On one fine evening while I was resting by the pool wall after repeating laps after laps of swim, a guy I haven’t seen before came near me. He’s in his 20’s, spending more time in the water doing nothing much other than, erm, not swimming. With no offence to anyone reading this, this guy is a bit big sized laterally, having a slight beer belly on his waist.

Him: “Bro, are you an athlete?”

Me: “Ehm, no. Not really.”

Him: “But you have the stamina to keep on swimming for long time. Are you not tired?”

Me: “Of course I’m tired, but this is part of the game lah, bro.”

We continued a little bit more of chat while I wait for my heart rate to stabilize. He then asked me how to get a lean body, and how to remove the excess of fat, especially on the tummy.

Me: “Go and run lah”.

I told him that with good cardiac exercise that one can get from doing stuffs like running, eventually the metabolism rate will slowly increase until one point where the excess fat will be easily burned for the fuel bla, bla, bla.. I was giving him some tips from the top of my head.

He was not so convinced, and asked me whether he can get the same result from swimming. He really wanted to know if there’s any short cut to reduce his belly size.

Me: “Yeah sure, you can also swim. But you need to spend plenty of time doing it to start trigger the ‘endurance’ which will then start burning the fat.”

Him: “Oh, I see. I have also started doing some weight lifting in the gym. Will that work?”

Me: “Yup, it will. But it takes longer time because that is an anaerobic exercise. It’s different from aerobic exercises. The discipline in body building sports is different from running or cycling or even swimming.”

I’m not sure how much he understood me or what I was trying to convey to him. Neither that he agreed, nor nodded his head to my statements.

Me: “Basically speaking, there’s no short cut into getting a flat abs.”

Him: “But my friends said ah, I need to lose the fats in my legs and thighs first, then the fat on my tummy will automatically goes down there to replace the ‘empty’ space. Gravity kan ada".

Upon hearing this, my eyes almost popped out in disbelief. I knew it would be rude to laugh at this point.

Me: “Really ah? I don’t think so lah dude.”

I didn’t want to say anything much, so I just continued on with my swims.

For me, this is scary.