Down and Out in Denver

We have returned from the Thanksgiving festivities and must immediately commence a regimen of starvation and exercise if the entirety of the period of late November through early January (usually known as “the holidays”) does not leave us resembling beached whales due to all the celebratory noshing and imbibing.  Regaining a pre-Thanksgiving weight should put us in good stead to gain it all back again over Christmas and New Years.  But at least we’ll only have half as much to lose in early January as we’d have had if we just keep eating from here on out…

Speaking of exercising: the DaOiD boys do not participate in winter sports (though we do exercise regularly) but we are constantly asked if we do.  This tends to happen in two distinct contexts: 

1. When meeting other Coloradans who take it as a given that we either ski or snowboard or hike or take flimsy boats down frothy rivers.  We do none of these things.

2.  When outside Colorado and meeting new people who are trying to put a positive spin on our response to their inquiry about where it is that we reside: “Denver,” said with either a sneer or a sigh.

Because the DaOiD boys do none of the Colorado activities that everyone assumes we do, we have made a number of strange observations about Denver’s culture of athleticism.  In very little logical order, they are: 

1. This one has been oft-observed by others: Coloradans are always excited by snow, in that it means they can ski and do the other aforementioned activities, but they seem to be completely unable to cope with it on roads and sidewalks.  Because the DaOiD boys are originally from very snowy climes – before we relocated to our previous urban homes of more recent vintage – we find this disjuncture particularly surprising.  Suck it up, Coloradans!  I’m not saying that we like it any better than you do (we don’t) but at least we know how to deal with it.

2. Coloradans seem to be a particularly athletic bunch, but they don’t walk anywhere.  They will get in cars and enormous gas-guzzling SUVs to go to the park for a run, when they could actually run to the very same park.  For a state that prides itself on its athleticism, Coloradans are remarkably lazy. 

3. This means that when they go out at night many of them drive drunk.  We have been sort of stunned to observe the degree to which, because everyone is so dependent on automobile travel, Coloradans – gays and straights alike –seem perfectly comfortable drinking copious amounts of alcohol at bars and parties (and we are certainly not opposed to this) and then getting behind the wheels of their cars (we are not in favor of this).   We are well aware that there is no subway or metro here – don’t get us started! – but what about the bus, people?  Or a taxi cab? Or – gasp – one’s very own two feet?  

4. Since 1990 Colorado has captured the title of skinniest state in the nation.  (Mississippi is currently the most overweight with 32% of its adults obese).  But even Colorado has an obesity rate of about 19.1% and, if anything, its rate has been on the increase (as it has for all other states in the nation).  So given that even Colorado could stand to do better, it’s clearly still more petite than every other state.  How?  Clearly not everyone is skiing – which, when you think about it, is still just sitting on an electric chair to go uphill and sliding on sticks going down – and most people are certainly not walking in their everyday lives, at least not in Denver.  So how do we do it, Colorado?  Is it just that a lot of athletic people moved here and they go (read: drive) to the gym all the time? Or – as I suspected when I first moved here and lost some of my regular appetite –does it have something to do with the altitude?  What makes Colorado so skinny (by which I mean 80.9% non-obese)?