| HOW YOUR BODY WORKS 
 
Your body is like a superbly 
                                engineered luxury automobile; if you don't use 
                                it wisely and maintain it properly, it will 
                                eventually break down, most likely in a bad 
                                neighborhood. To understand why this is, 
                                let's take a look inside this fascinating 
                                "machine" called the 'human 
                                body'.The body is made up of billions and 
                                billions of tiny cells, which are so small that 
                                you cannot see them. The only people who can 
                                see them are white-coated geeks called 
                                "biologists". And they tell us that 
                                the human body consists of billions of these 
                                tiny cells, which combine to form organs such as 
                                the heart, the kidney, the eyeball, the funny 
                                bone, the clavichord, the pustule, and the 
                                hernia, which in turn combine to form the body, 
                                which in turn combine with other bodies to form 
                                the squadron. The various fitness-related organs 
                                are:
 
 
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THE SKIN 
 
Your skin 
                                performs several vital functions. For example, it keeps people from 
                                seeing the inside of your body, which is 
                                repulsive, and it 
                                prevents your organs from falling out onto the 
                                ground, where careless pedestrians might 
                                step on them. Also, without skin, your body 
                                would have no place to form large facial zits on 
                                the morning before your wedding. 
But for 
                                fitness-oriented persons like yourself, the 
                                important thing about skin is that it acts as your Body's 
                                Cooling System. Whenever you exercise or get 
                                on an elevator, sweat oozes out of millions of 
                                tiny skin holes so it can evaporate and cool the 
                                area.  
Unfortunately, virtually all of these holes 
                                are located in your armpits, which is stupid. I 
                                mean, you hardly ever hear people complaining 
                                about having hot armpits. So what we seem to 
                                have here is one of those cases where Mother 
                                Nature really screwed up, like when she 
                                developed the concept of nasal hair. 
                                
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THE MUSCLES SYSTEM 
 
Your 
                                muscles are what enable you to perform all of 
                                your basic movements, such as bowling, sniping, 
                                pandering, carping, and contacting your 
                                attorney.  
Basically, 
                                there are two kinds of muscle tissue: the kind 
                                that people in advertisements for fitness 
                                centers have, which forms units that look like 
                                sleek and powerful pythons writhing just beneath 
                                the surface of the skin, and the kind you have, 
                                which looks more like deceased baby rabbits. 
The beauty 
                                of muscle tissue, however, is that it responds 
                                to exercise. 
Using 
                                modern exercise equipment such as the Nautilus 
                                machine, you can stretch those pudgy little 
                                muscle tissues of yours to the point where you 
                                won't even be able to scream for help 
                                without the aid of powerful painkilling drugs. 
                                
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THE SKELETAL SYSTEM 
 
How many 
                                bones do you think your skeletal system has? 
                                Would you say 50? 150? 250? 300? More than 300? 
                                
If you 
                                guessed 50, you're WRONG. There would be 
                                around 250, but its not all that important. The 
                                only important part of your skeleton, for 
                                fitness purposes, is your knees. 
Knees are 
                                God's way of telling mankind that He 
                                doesn't want us to do anaything really 
                                strenuous. When we do, our knees punish us by 
                                becoming injured, as you know if you've 
                                ever watched professional football on 
                                television:COMMENTATOR: 
                                Looks like a knee injury, from the way that bone 
                                there is sticking out of his knee.
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THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM 
 
Your 
                                digestive system is your body's Fun House, 
                                whereby food goes on a long, dark, scary ride, 
                                taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, 
                                being attacked by vicious secretions along the 
                                way, and not knowing until the last minute 
                                whether it will be turned into a useful body 
                                part or ejected into the Dark Hole by Mister 
                                Sphincter. 
You must be 
                                careful about what you eat, unless you want your 
                                body making heart valves out of things like bean 
                                dip 
                                
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THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM 
                                
 
The Central 
                                Nervous system is your body's Messenger, 
                                always letting your brain know what's 
                                going on elsewhere in your body. "Your 
                                nose itches" it tells your brain. Or, 
                                "Your foot is falling asleep!" Or, 
                                "You're hungry!!!"  
All day 
                                long, your brain hears messages like these, 
                                thousands of them, hour after hour, until 
                                finally it deliberately rests your hand on a 
                                red-hot stove just for the pleasure of hearing 
                                your nervous system scream in pain 
                                
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THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM 
 
Your 
                                respiratory system takes in oxygen and gives off 
                                carbon monoxide, a deadly gas, by a process 
                                called "photosynthesis." This takes 
                                place in your lungs, yam-shaped organs in your 
                                chest containing millions of tiny little air 
                                sacs, called "Bernice." 
In a normal 
                                person, these sacs are healthy and pink, whereas 
                                in smokers they have the wretched, 
                                soot-stained, anguished look of the people 
                                fleeing Atlanta in 'Gone with the Wind'.  
This has 
                                led many noted medical researchers to conclude 
                                that smoking is unhealthy, but we must weigh 
                                this against the fact that most of the people in 
                                cigarette advertisements are generally 
                                horse-riding, helicopter-flying hunks of 
                                major-league manhood, whereas your noted medical 
                                researchers tend to be pasty little wimps of the 
                                variety that you routinely held upside down over 
                                the toilet in junior high school. 
                                
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THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM 
 
This is, of 
                                course, your heart, a fist-sized muscle in your 
                                chest with a two-inch-thick layer of greasy fat 
                                clinging to it consisting of every Milky Way you 
                                ever ate. Your heart's job is to pump your 
                                blood, which appears to be nothing more than a 
                                red liquid but which, according to biologists 
                                (this should come as no surprise), is actually 
                                teeming with millions of organisms, some of them 
                                with tentacles so they can teem more 
                                efficiently. 
The only 
                                organisms that actually belong in your blood are 
                                the red cells and the white cells.  The red cells are your 
                                body's Room Service, carrying tiny 
                                particles of food and oxygen to the other 
                                organs, which snork them up without so much as a 
                                "thank you." The only reward the 
                                red cells get is iron in the form of prunes, 
                                which the other cells don't want anyway. 
                                If you don't eat enough prunes, your red 
                                cells get tired-a condition doctors call 
                                "tired blood" -and you have to 
                                lie down and watch "All My Children." 
                                
The white cells are your 
                                body's House Detectives. Most of the 
                                time they lounge around the bloodstream, telling 
                                jokes and forming the occasional cyst. But they 
                                swing into action the instant your body is 
                                invaded by one of the many enemy organisms that 
                                can get into your bloodstream, these being 
                                bacteria, viruses, rotifers, conifers, 
                                parameciums, cholesterol, tiny little lockjaw 
                                germs that dwell on the ends of all sharp 
                                objects, antacids, riboflavin, and the plague. 
                                As soon as the white cells spot one of these, 
                                they drop whatever they're doing and 
                                pursue it on a wild and often hilarious chase 
                                through your various organs, which sometimes 
                                results in damage to innocent tissue. Eventually 
                                they catch the invader and tie its tentacles 
                                behind its back with antibodies which are the 
                                body's Handcuffs, and deport it via the 
                                bowel. 
                                
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