How to not be fat over the holidays

People ask me all the time, “Zack, how do you keep your perfect figure? How do you maintain the body of a Greek god when you’ve never lived in Europe? Can you really do ten pull-ups? Can I paint you?”

Actually, no one asks that. But I imagine they would if they weren’t so intimidated by my rippling pecs and more abs than you can shake a stick at (something you don’t want to do, by the way, unless you want a broken stick). This bashfulness is understandable, as my shirts live in a constant fear of being torn in twain if I so much as think about flexing. Heck, I was once told that I looked like Keanu Reeves ... and then I realized that they were referring to the other guy from “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” But the fact still remains that I look like a movie star—and I want to help you look like one, too.

Unfortunately, I cannot give individual attention to every last one of you and your exercise regimen (maybe a select few female volunteers?). I can, however, give you some tips and tricks that in the past have gotten me more buff than a newly scratched car. These tips mainly apply to the holiday season, since this is the time of year I find most people wind up eating half their body weight before even moving on to desserts and being least conducive to physical fitness with the temperature being negative ten degrees outside. I guess I should have written this before Thanksgiving ... oh well. You can apply it next year, fatty!

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino promotes the holy trinity of lookin’ fresh as G.T.L.—gym, tanning and laundry. This is rubbish and only proves true my theory that he draws lines on his stomach with a magic marker to simulate abs. Gym? Ha. Tanning? Nope. Laundry? Let your mom do it. I submit to you that the true path to Herculeandom is B.O.D.—Black Friday, obnoxious attitude and Disney Princess gummy vitamins. (Also, mine actually spells out a word, so there.) Let me elaborate ...

So, you just spent half of Thanksgiving Day lapping the grease off of a glistening turkey leg and drinking gravy by the glass. That’s okay, but now we’ve got to burn off those calories, Lardo Calrissian! Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, is an excellent time to lose those unwanted pounds and also contribute to a failing economy. All you really need to do is grab a buggy and go. Nothing gets blood pumping and carbs a-burning like shoving old ladies out of the way to grab the last Blu-Ray player or Bratz doll. What’s that, an employee doesn’t appreciate your attitude? Rip your shirt off and show him who’s boss with your [fl]abs!

Now that you’ve worked all the fat out of your system or gotten liposuction or whatever, it’s time to build up that muscle mass. Did you know that all of your body’s muscles connect directly to your ego? This is why having big muscles correlates directly with being a jerk. So, the obvious way to build muscle is to build yourself up by being as obnoxious as possible.

The first thing I do every morning is kiss my muscles. Twice. This gives your body a sense of accomplishment and love before you’ve even hopped into the shower! Undoubtedly, your physique will respond by sculpting itself over the course of the day into a model of perfection.

Lastly, we need to keep that muscle—and keep it for good. This is where the Disney Princess Multivitamins come into play. These little puppies will fill your veins with electrolytes and minerals and other scientific stuff. The bottle says you need only take two a day, but you’re American and you can do what you want: eat ‘em all! I’m pretty sure you can’t overdose on the stuff, so go hog-wild!

Plus, they’re absolutely delicious. All the taste of gummy bears, twice the nutrition and only four times as embarrassing to eat in public. But who cares? If anybody brings your masculinity into question, roll up your sleeves, look them right in the eye and say, “I’d like for you to meet my friends, Belle and Jasmine.” Then politely curtsey and prance away to go have a tea party with the other princesses.

Follow this helpful guide and you’ll have all sorts of biceps in no time. Remember that for Christmas the ladies don’t want fruitcake; they want beefcake.

What the Bible would look like if Jesus was born in 1980: Luke Edition

And there were skateboarders loitering outside of a Food Lion nearby, keeping watch out for the police. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they took out their cameras and took numerous pictures. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people," but one skater interrupted him. "We already heard about Jesus on the news," he said to the angel. "We were going to drive up there tomorrow. Thanks, though." (Luke 2: 8-12)

Every other weekend his parents went to the movies in town. When he was twelve years old, they went to watch 'The Last of the Mohicans', because they had read some great reviews. After they left to watch the film, while his parents were in their Toyota Camry, the boy Jesus stayed behind at home, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a few minutes. Then they looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that he was not in their presence. When they did not find him in their car, they went back to their house to look for him. After some time they found him in the town arcade, playing Mortal Kombat, listening to the cries of his enemies and totally ripping some faces. Everyone who saw him was amazed at his skill and hand-eye coordination. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated - did you just tear his spine out!? Move over." (Luke 2: 41-48)

While a large crowd of reporters was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: "A person sent out all of his tweets from his BlackBerry. As he was sending the tweets, some fell upon the ignorant; it was hated on, because they did not understand his sense of humor. Some fell upon deaf ears and blind eyes, as they were not logged in at the time. Still others will never read the tweets, because the man only had five followers and his popularity was choked out by the more popular users. Still other tweets fell onto his friends. It was read and yielded re-tweets a hundred times more than was sown." (Luke 8: 4-8)

"Or suppose a guido is selected to go to Jersey Shore for a season of filming. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is willing to give up his life back home to live with a group of idiots? If he is not able, he will send a disappointed e-mail informing the producers that he cannot be on the show. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14: 31-33)