<em>Gasp</em>: Jillian Michaels Hates Exercising

The workout queen made famous by her Biggest Loser bi-polar swings and Wonder Woman abs, when asked what her least favorite exercise was, answered, "All of it. I hate all of it. You show me someone who likes to work out and I'll show you a weirdo." She goes on to explain that exercise is like maintaining a house. You want your house to stay dry in the rain? Clean out the gutters every once in awhile.

Now that is honesty I haven't seen come out of Hollywood since Julianne Moore dropped the effortlessly thin crap and confessed to subsisting mainly on yogurt and granola bars, lamenting "I'm hungry all the time."

I'm not sure how I feel about this revelation. On one hand: yay! Even super buff personal trainer extraordinaires hate exercise! Stars... they are just like us! They even make bad analogies just like us! But on the other hand, what kind of example does this set for the rest of us? Certainly exercise has its awful moments, but to hate all of it?

I get that exercise is work and work is hard, blah, blah, blah. But exercise doesn't have to be all work -- in fact, if you hate all of it then you just aren't doing it right. (My apologies to Ms. Michaels, please don't deck-check me!). I think this perception of exercise as an odious thing that one must do if one wants to be a responsible member of society and not infuriate random strangers on the Internet is one of the main factors in our "obesity crisis."

Exercise doesn't have to suck! You don't like to run? Don't run! Be the anti-Forrest! There are plenty of ways to exercise that are enjoyable: dance, play tennis, join an adult dodgeball league, cage fight. And when you get bored of that? Try something else!

In the end, I don't think Jillian really hates exercise. The endorphins pretty much ensure that. I think she was just trying to be accessible -- to be just like us. And that's the problem.