Get your ass back on that treadmill.

Pants fitting looser. Heads turning. Not getting winded while carrying in groceries.

All sound reasons to work out.

But fitting into college jeans isn’t the motivator it used to be. (Especially now since I’m an adult with money and I can usually just buy new jeans.)

So I’ve been on the prowl for new motivation. The whole rehab-the-knee thing only goes so far since it hurts. The feel-better-sleep-better stuff sounds like a crock. I had nothing that worked long-term.

Then my friend turned me onto the greatest workout motivator of them all –

Zombies.

The living dead.

Survival.

That’s right. Surviving the (highly-unlikely) Zombie Apocalypse is my reason for getting into shape. But not just any shape – insane shape.

So while I’m on the exercise bike, the treadmill, the elliptical, my imagination is running just as hard and as fast as I am. Perhaps more. (Holy crap, they’re right behind you! And they’re HUNGRY!)

If I get a stomach cramp, I can’t stop. Because zombies won’t stop just because my side aches.

If my ankle bends funny, I must keep going. Because the zombies don’t care if I need to pause for two minutes.

If I start breathing heavy and wheezing, I must power through and speed up. Because when zombies hear the whistles of a wounded human, they’ll come in droves.

Zombies don’t sleep. Zombies don’t rest. Zombies will stop at nothing so I must also stop at nothing.

I’m getting into the best shape of my life.

Every time I start slacking during my workout, here comes my friend. “Zombies won’t sit down and get a drink of water,” he says.

“But they’re not here!” I whine between gulps.

“You don’t know that. Do you really think the government will tell us if a zombie escapes his confines?”

I ponder this and then immediately lunge walk to the chin up bar.

I’m aware that the concept of walking, flesh-craving, dead dudes is about as logical as Jell-O (how does it wiggle like that?). But one can never be too careful.

One can never have too flat of abs, either.