Big news for fans of the mouth-feel

Consumers claim they dislike the taste of aspartame and Splenda, but research by two University of Illinois food scientists shows that swillers of diet and regular soda are also influenced by a subtle factor called mouth-feel.

Wow. Mouth-feel. That's why I got divorced. And, what's up with "food scientists"? Is that like a really fat guy who can tell you which pizza place has the best cheese? Or are they real scientists who have certificates like those TV meteorologists?

Where are the sex scientists, and are there any openings?

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - America might not need yet another exercise machine. Treadmills, weights and resistance equipment already jam the health clubs. Yet Gravity machines have found a niche at the YMCA in this resort town.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph - Gravity machines. I thought that's what weights were. Where are the food scientists when I need them?

The machines are essentially a health club version of the company's less expensive Total Gym, a home and rehabilitation machine known to many for the TV infomercials featuring martial arts actor Chuck Norris confidently gliding up and down slantwise.

Chuck Norris is so tough, when he takes a dump, he can wipe with one square.

No infomercials for Gravity, though the system has clearly benefited from the enthusiasm of health club fitness trainers. Jon D'Alessio, group fitness director at The Jungle Club in Vero Beach, Fla., said it's a fast, efficient way to provide both personal training or group sessions. To keep the interest of men, he developed exercises that simulate golf swings and kayak paddling.
"It's much more fun than whatever else I've been doing for the last 15 years," he said.

Sure, like what you've been doing the last 15 years - gaining weight and fighting gravity. Meanwhile, "Fast and efficient" is yet another euphemism for "quick and easy", the mantra of the lazy. Quick and easy has no place in fitness, and gravity machines are just another way to separate people from their money, something that we seem to find no limit.

Here is all you need to lose weight: Eat less calories than you use and get some exercise.

Gravity will inevitably win, but we can put it off, like the way we prop up a chair on the doorknob before the police bust in with that big log-shaped door battering ram, just as we're settling in to watch a new episode of Family Guy with a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.

Life sucks like that sometimes.

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