Repeat Offender: Ted Skup, aka Push-Up King

Ted Skup, the man who brought you the book "Death, Taxes & Push-Ups" – and perhaps more importantly, this book jacket – has gone next-level on us.

His recent news release lead reads as follows: “Move over yoga, your competition has finally arrived,” says Ted Skup, the new Dalai Lama of fitness. “When it comes to harmonizing the body, mind and spirit, push-ups (not yoga) are fast becoming the fitness nirvana of choice.”

Yes, Ted Skup – this guy – was just called “the new Dalai Lama of fitness.”

I find it hard to believe that there was an old Dalai Lama of fitness, and I wonder how one can deliver a quote parenthetically, but I shouldn’t get caught up on these things – especially since I’m dealing with the person who previously referred to push-ups as “horizontal jogging.”

He even follows it up with this:

"We have the making of a new cult following, gravitating towards push-ups," says the new fitness Dalai and author of the book "Death, Taxes & Push- Ups. "As a new Dalai and spiritual leader in the fitness movement, I have a moral obligation to go after the 35-billion-dollar fitness industry."

Wonderful.

I hope The Entire World goes after him.

Read the original Ted Skup post.

Books are dangerous.

My mother used to joke that I could hurt myself doing just about anything.

She’s right. I once put on hand lotion before attempting to do a triceps dip on my coffee table and I slipped right off the edge and hit the back of my head on the way down.

“Do you have a concussion?” my mother asked, clearly more annoyed than concerned.

She had to ask me things like that a lot while I was growing up and I’m sure the trip to the emergency room was not her proudest moment as a parent.

But at least – at least – I'm not like 80% of college students who claim to have physically hurt themselves on a text book.

According to a new study conducted by Zogby International on behalf of CafeScribe.com, “Many of the 600 students surveyed reported potentially serious health issues as the result of buying, reading, carrying, or using a textbook…”

It seems I really lucked out. I bought textbooks all through college and I never managed to injure myself on them.

Not even when I put them on my coffee table.

Melting my resolutions away.

One of my resolutions this past year was to get in shape.

“I’m going to run,” I told my brother. “I want to do a race.”

“You know you actually have to run those,” he told me. “Wait. Do you even know how to run?”

And when he saw how upset I got, he said, “Well seriously. Do you?”

Undeterred, my mother and I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods later that day and tried on the cheapest pair of running sneakers we could find. They were neon orange and for the first time in my life I said, “I don’t care what they look like, I just want them to fit,” to the sales clerk.

On our way out the door, we ran into my father and my brother, who were supposed to be clear across town picking out a new refrigerator, but somehow ended up at Dick’s looking for us.

“Hey! What you got there?” my dad asked and pointed at my bag.

“Running sneakers,” I told him.

“Running sneakers?!” he screeched. “You run?! Oh I gotta see this.”

Motivated by aggravation and pure spite I ran for miles each day over the next two weeks and I stopped only when my knee swelled so much that I couldn’t walk down stairs and part of the sole of my foot rubbed off and I had to limp.

But long story short - I kept the resolution. I even ran a 4 mile race in April and managed to get on the 11 o’clock local news. I was the girl who nearly ran into the camera man as I tried to avoid plowing over the person in front of me who tripped over a curb.

I was distracted because seconds before the race started my brother said to me, “Does your head ever pop?”

And I said, “What the heck are you talking about?”

And he said, “You know - like popping your knuckles, but in your head.”

“No, I don’t know.”

He shrugged. “Happens to me all the time.”

And then he took off sprinting while I shouted, “No seriously, you should get that checked out! That shit aint right!”

And that’s when someone else fell in my path, and I hopped over him - all while the news anchor taunted us with something like, “Oh watch, don’t trip!” on television.

But luckily I won’t have to put myself through that trauma again, thanks to a helpful New Year’s resolution suggestion from The Melting Pot.

“Rather than falling into the annual trap of resolving (and then failing) to lose weight, get out of debt or start to exercise, The Melting Pot agrees with recent polls conducted by General Nutrition Centers, Quicken and others that show that more than 50 percent of Americans vow to appreciate loved ones and spend more time with family and friends this year.”

Precisely. Who needs to pay their student loans when there’s a vat of cheese needing attention?

In keeping with this suggestion, I lugged out a fondue pot from the back of my closet, bought six types of vegetables and a Sterno can.

My girlfriends are coming over on Dec. 31 and this year’s theme is “New Year’s Cheese.”

Running can wait until 2009.