Popping pills for dropping pounds

I hate exercising.

I hate running. I hate jogging. I hate really fast walking because it looks like I’m on the verge of peeing my pants. Climbing to the third floor of Ballantine every day was the most horrific part of my freshman year.

I don’t like it when my muscles burn. I hate sweating; it smells disgusting. And I hate it when I feel like a pyromaniac Smurf is playing with fireworks in my chest.

But I know I need it, so I do it.

Right now I’m working on the 30-Day Squat Challenge. I’m on day 17, which is 150 squats, and my thighs hurt, though not nearly as bad as the first day when I only did 50. I spent the next three days waddling rather than walking. But I’m developing thighs of steel. I can’t sit down without grimacing, but I could kick a door down.

It’s hard work to be healthy.

So when I heard about this new exercise pill study, I got angry.

The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., is working on a pill that is exercise. It doesn’t boost your metabolism to increase the effects of exercising or give you more energy to go exercise. The most exercise this pill requires is actually swallowing it.

Then, boom, wipe your brow because your daily workout is done.

I’m not a science person, but this is the best way I can explain it: Scripps is developing a compound that increases the activation of REV-ERB, a protein that partially controls animals’ circadian rhythms.

They tested this compound on obese mice. Even though the mice were on a high-fat diet, they lost weight and had better cholesterol. And though they became lazier than they had been before the injections, they were using more oxygen and more energy.

More testing was done concerning different strains of mice, and it was found that REV-ERB affects the levels of mitochondria, cellular structures that assist in generating energy, in the muscles.

There’s a lot more science that goes into the development of this drug, but basically, the drug gives off the benefits of generating a lot of energy without actually doing anything to generate energy.

It’s a fake workout. And it’s years away from hitting the pharmacy.

But should it ever?

The point of working out is to work. Really work. Do something real that makes you feel better not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. When I see the numbers drop on the scale I feel accomplished, like I did something good for myself.

Doctors involved in the study say the research is designed to benefit people who can’t work out such as those with disabilities or a handicap. They recognized that there are benefits to physical workouts that a drug can never mimic.

But we live in a world where people want the easy way out of everything. And they will lie and cheat to get it. We manipulate and take advantage of anything and anyone we need to.

A quick Google search will find you multiple sites on how to get a cannabis card for fake symptoms of serious diseases. If there are people dumb enough to give themselves joint damage just to get some weed, then it wouldn’t at all surprise me if some McDonald’s regular set out to develop diabetes to get this exercise pill.

­— lnbanks@indiana.edu