We love the in-depth coverage of health and fitness news at Cranky Fitness, and the irreverent attitude of blogger Crabby McSlacker (J. M. Graham) keeps us coming back for more. We asked the Crab to pince-hit for us (we couldn't resist) and sound off on what makes her so cranky. 

I’m a lucky person: I’m not ill, not poor, not suffering, not lonely, not depressed. Yet I spend most days on my health and fitness blog complaining about one thing or another.

Why am I such a grouch?  Partly, it’s because I was born that way: obnoxiously, uncontrollably opinionated.  But a good part of what puts the crab in Crabby McSlacker is this: almost everything I read says healthy living should be fun and easy. But a lot of times it’s not! Often it’s just a pain in the ass.

It would be much easier if I just didn’t care so much about my health. But we only get one body, and when it craps out, we’re done. My father had his first heart attack in his forties, refused to make any real changes in his lifestyle, and died at 53. Of course, not everyone gets such a powerful reminder. But eventually it’s true for everybody: ignore what your body needs for decades and it’ll come back to kick your ass.

Problem is, to be healthy, and particularly to lose weight, you have to work at it. Every day. You have to exercise—hard and often. You have to reduce the amount of crap in your diet from the typical American 90% down to say, 15%. Sometimes this blows—especially when others around you are eating triple cheeseburgers and Oreo Dessert Pizzas and sleeping in on weekends instead of hitting the gym. Do you naturally prefer broccoli sprouts to cupcakes? Circuit training to snuggling up with a good book on the couch? Some do, but not me.

Real people know it’s often hard. But here’s what makes me totally nuts: so many media outlets tell you the opposite. That good health and a slim figure are easily obtainable. That if you haven’t met your goals, you must be doing something wrong. Of course you can also find plenty of great articles with really smart advice. But so often, what you find instead is a “solution” that is simplistic and overly optimistic.

And you know the kind of thing I’m talking about:

1. The frequent assumption that every person has the same metabolism. And the corollary: that anyone can be thin if they just follow the right diet and get a little bit of exercise. This is fine for people with normal metabolisms who start shedding pounds as soon as they get off the couch and stop eating 5,000 calories a day. But not so encouraging for lots of other people.

Some people have really slow metabolisms. You may be one of these people yourself. My sister is an example: she works out every day for at least an hour, often more. She lifts heavy weights; she does intense cardio. She counts every calorie and eats all the stuff you’re supposed to: whole grains, lean protein, lots of fruits and vegetables. She’s not lying or cheating. She is still overweight. If she lets her daily caloric intake ever get above 1500 or so, she gains even more weight, even with all that exercise. And there are plenty of others like her. How discouraging it must be to read that all they need to do to have “flat abs” is avoid a few common pitfalls! Often these are ‘pitfalls’ they haven’t indulged in for years.

2. The inability to add up hours in a day. Like: It’s Easy to Tone Your Triceps in 10 Minutes—here are three Simple Exercises! Oh, do you have other muscles too? No problem. Next week, we’ll  have three more Simple Exercises to Sculpt your Calves.  And then 34 additional installments with three exercises for each body part. What’s that, yoga? Cardio? Meditation? Journaling? Home-cooked meals using only fresh ingredients? Yes, you definitely need to do all those too. But we’ll help: Here’s how to grind your own fresh almond butter for home-baked flax-almond-sesame cookies—in only 20 minutes!

3. “Healthy” or “Low-Calorie” Cooking Magazines that don’t practice what they preach. I subscribe to a popular one, and every month the first half of the magazine features tons of sensible advice on nutrition. Ditch the trans fats and saturated fats, use olive and canola oil! Cook with whole grains, skip the refined flour and white rice! Here are all the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants you need for good health and the foods they come in—and whoa, that’s a lot of produce and nuts and grains you’re going to be eating. You’ll have to pack pretty much every meal with whole foods in order to get enough. Here, lets get you started with a couple of olive oil and quinoa recipes.

And then you get to the recipes in the rest of the magazine—most of which feature white flour and butter and sugar. Why? Well, because it’s easier to make food taste better that way! Sure, they do cut them down a bit, but where are all those whole grains and healthy oils they were just telling us to use? I need help making brown rice and cauliflower taste better, not so much eggs benedict or chocolate cheesecake. It’s like the features and the recipes are some old grumpy married couple—they may share the same space but don’t ever seem to speak to each other.

4. Crazy diets that defy science and common sense but often earn vast fortunes for the people who promote them. They have you eating only Cookies or Cabbage Soup, or subsisting on weird juices. (The Master Cleanse for example, a “detox” regimen used by many for weight loss, has you quaffing nothing but a brew made of lemons, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup for ten days. Gosh, sign me up!) 

Of course these all start you off with an impressive loss of water weight. But starvation, strangely enough, is not a good long-term strategy for success. People keep lining up for them anyway, losing lots of weight and then gaining it all right back again. They’re just so desperate to believe the claims of easy but dramatic weight loss.

5.  The myth that if you can just find the “right” aerobic exercise, you will enjoy it and look forward to it. And sure—exercise can be fun: I’ve experienced “runners high” and it’s awesome. But here’s an ugly secret: for a lot of people, even regular exercisers, sometimes it’s no fun at all. And yet we do it anyway. Though I liked running just fine, my knees are too trashed to do it anymore so I racewalk instead. It’s not as fun. Plus, I look like a complete dork. But I get through it anyway with lots of great music on my iPod and I always feel better afterwards. So just because you’re not loving the hell out of your workout? It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Try to find the exercise you hate the least, and do it anyway. (It does get better over time, I promise!)

So is all the effort it takes to become fit and healthy even worth it? Especially if, honestly, you may not ever end up being as skinny as you’d like to be?

Maybe not.

But you’ll feel good (mostly), sleep better, have more energy, and raise healthy kids. You’ll be far less likely to end up diseased, depressed, demented or dead before your time. Not worth it to everyone, I guess—but worth it to me. I hope to be grouching about health and fitness long after my 53rd birthday. —Crabby McSlacker