Face It. Who Has The Time?

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I am a fairly active person. For someone so old, that is.

I may have jowls and need to lose weight, but on any given day I walk between five and nine miles. That’s somewhere between 11,804 and 19,520 steps, according to my Fitbit. 

Walking consumes at least an hour, to two hours and 27 minutes of every day. What can I say, I’m a slave to my naggy little wristband.

Beyond that, every other day I go to the gym where I lift weights, do mat work and the elliptical. That’s another hour. 

I also do yoga a couple times a week.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and think, good God, how much worse would this be if I just sat in a Barcalounger all day swilling margaritas and eating key lime pie?

Frankly, trying to hold decrepitude at bay is time consuming and exhausting. Exercise eats up several hours and I spend the rest of the time guzzling water and snacking to replace lost calories. Oh, and nodding off at my computer. 

Now this.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it’s not enough to try to kickbox off your love handles and use bench presses to keep your upper arms from looking like loaves of swinging bread dough. 

If you really want that toned and youthful appearance, you’ve got to do something about that double chin, those wrinkles and your droopy eyelids.

Yep, it’s time to hit the FaceGym.

Apparently in the pursuit of fitness many of us have been neglecting the most important parts of our bodies: Our mugs. What good is a Giselle Bundchen body if you’ve got Betty White’s head?

Not to worry. FaceGyms are located in many exclusive stores in places like New York City and L.A. - but coming soon to a strip mall near you - and cost $70 for 30 minute worth of cheek and jawline work. Even Meghan Markle is a believer. The duchess is 37, and looks, well, 37. Which is how old I’d like to look.

Of course you can always hire a certified facial toning trainer who will coach you through your daily cheek crunches, your tongue calisthenics and eye muscle reps. That too, will cost you. 

There are face yoga teachers too, but the certified facial toners look down on them.

As do doctors. In fact, they seem to think it’s all a load of high-priced nonsense. 

This, from the WSJ: “After her workout, in which Ms. Samuels’s face was kneaded and molded with jade stones and a long-handled device called a golden roller, the 27-year-old freelance producer, who tries to come monthly to Saks for the treatments, deemed herself satisfied. “I’m an instant gratification person,” she said. “You can feel the results during the workout.”

“Rubbish, says Jeffrey Spiegel, a plastic surgeon and professor at Boston University School of Medicine. He says facial exercises can actually increase wrinkles by overworking muscles.

“It’s like eating junk food and sitting on the couch to lose weight,” Dr. Spiegel says. “It’s the exact opposite of what works.” Botox is an effective wrinkle eraser because it relaxes facial muscles, he says. “Every time you tighten the muscles in your face, you are making your wrinkles worse.”

I’m going with the good doc on this one. As much as I’d like to learn “The blowfish” and other facial isometrics, who has the time?