Box Like Ali To Lose Weight

The weight loss industry works to turn big people into smaller versions of their former selves.

Small people don’t take to it the same way. They don’t want to get much smaller than they already are.

From surgery to cross-fit to P90-X, people are changing.

It’s all good until new research on fitness/exercise comes out, until dietary limits for weight loss changes.

Instead of a thinner, more toned body, you end up in sweatpants and pizza stained t-shirts.

At some point you have to give up. Whatever size you want to be isn’t the right size for you. Admit you got your butt kicked by an excessive appetite and a lazy streak and move on.

This is the new you, the one you’ll be the rest of your life, but you don’t have to be happy about it.

Visions of being chain sawed out of your bedroom and hystered onto a flatbed conversion ambulance dance behind your eyes at night, while quarts of ice cream and ginger snaps float in front during the day.

You’ve given up, but you’re not a quitter. You’ve let yourself go and it makes you angry.

You want to fight, but who? You want revenge, but how?

Start with the most human of all impulses; you want to punish the body you’re surrounded by. You want to beat yourself up, and why not, everyone else has.

If you want to fight, and fight for fitness, here’s how you start: Buy two pairs of boxing gloves and a heavy bag.

Hang the bag on a chain from a garage beam, strap on the gloves, and stand back.

You’re not there to swing your arms as hard as you can. You’re there to get even. Stand an arm’s length from the bag and touch it with one glove, then the other.

Take a side step left and do the touches, left hand, then right. Lean forward at the waist then come up before side stepping right, touching your right hand to the bag, then left.

Get comfortable with the side step and lead touches. Step left, touch left-right. Step right, touch right-left.

While you step and punch, imagine an opponent swinging fists of iron at your head, driving uppercuts into your belly. You need defense. Hold your elbows out in front with your hands up to simulate an impenetrable wall.

Once you find your rhythm sliding and tapping the bag, change your elevation. Step left and touch left, but go low with the right hand. Do the reverse coming back with a right slide, right touch, and a low left tap.

Soon you’ll connect your touches and your footwork. One touch is easier, faster, off one foot than the other. Feel this connection and your touches turn into punches.

Feel this and you begin to harness your body’s natural coordination, ancestral strength, and evolutionary power.

We’re not at the top of the food chain for being fat and lazy. It’s because we kick butt on all creatures, even ourselves.

Now it’s time to get your bounce, your boxer’s feet. Do this by finding a Muhammad Ali clip on YouTube. Watch his legs. He looks like he’s riding a bike in reverse, moving side to side like you.

Add a back-step to our lateral movement and swing your upper body like Ali did while he dodged punches.

There you are, sliding and punching, backing up in a circle around the bag for three minutes at a time. Start with three, three minute sessions. Three rounds like the Olympics.

Increase the intensity of your arms and legs until it gets a little easier, then add a fourth round. Once you get to five you’ll understand the joy of an early knockout.

Do this workout on a regular basis, circling the heavy bag clockwise and counter-clockwise, and you’ll regain your form.

Once you fight like The Greatest, you’ll feel like The Greatest. Keep at it and you’ll look great.

That’s a victory everyone will cheer.