Ass Man: An unlikely superhero who tells you to move your ass daily
“With great power, comes great ass.” — Ass Man, 2022
Hi, my name is Kenny. But to some people, I am known as the “Ass Man”.
I created the whole Ass Man thing as a meme — it all started as a challenge to post daily pictures of myself shirtless on Instagram story while performing my physical transformation. If you don’t understand what physical transformation I’m talking about, please read my article here.
Anyway, the daily selfies were supposed to be a tool for me to kept pushing forward with my fitness goals that ended up being a hilarious poke at motivational speeches, superhero stereotypes and of course, myself.
In the end, the result of taking (almost) daily photos was worth it:
But during that phase, I was so tired of posting daily “nudes” without any context other than the apparent attempt to lose weight. So for fun, sometimes I ended up writing some of those photos with captions like these:
“It’s move your ass Monday!”
“It’s twerk dat ass Tuesday!”
“It’s slap dat ass Saturday!”
Until…the legend was born:
“Ass Man returns! Did you move your ass yet??”
It may be perplexing to some of you and probably as not as hilarious I had hoped to be. Butt (see what I did there), my message was simply to remind people to “move” their body.
Move — the simplest way for a healthier lifestyle, apart from taking care of your nutrition, of course.
Doing physical activities is a problem for me since the dawn of time — just like a typical introverted teenager, I liked to stay at home and play video games all day.
As I was trying to figure out my life in my early 20s, all I wanted to do was to SIT in front of my computer and do something with it, which ultimately led me to become a software developer. This particular career path that I took has also led me to an unhealthy long-term sedentary lifestyle.
Sitting all day comfortably has made my hip flexors became stiff. The joints and the muscles, they have not been challenged as frequent as they should. Obviously, this is bad. Our body is meant to move and stretched from time to time. I mean, even cats know this too:
Moving, however, is not enough. You have to take care of your diet and nutrition as well.
You see, I came from Malaysia and in my country, obesity is a huge health issue. Malaysians in general, we are so proud with our food culture it’s borderline obsessive. Anyone who has ever been to Malaysia will tell you that the food are super delicious and unique, but they were also too greasy. To make matters worst, the drinks and desserts are sinfully way too sweet.
During one of my rare visits to the hospital for a medical check up back in early 2021, my doctor had warned me that if I’m not careful with my unhealthy dietary consumption, he made a guarantee that I will have gout one day.
Yikes.
If you go to the local parks here in Malaysia, it is quite common to see obese people everywhere. Of course it is good that they have made the effort to be more active. Sadly, it’s just not enough. The reality is that chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are the number one cause of death in Malaysia. Why? It is because the amount of greasy food and sweet drinks that we are consuming daily is absolutely terrifying.
It is a stark contrast compared to when I moved to Munich, Germany in 2018 for a job. I had lived there for 2 years and one of the things that I’ve noticed is how religiously the people in Germany commute daily by walking, cycling as well as using the public transportation. Dietary wise, I wouldn’t say that the Germans don’t eat processed foods but I’d say in general they were much more inclined towards healthier food options than most Malaysians.
I remembered when I was working temporarily in Sendai, Japan many years ago, in order for me to travel from point A to point B, I have to walk for quite a distance. Walking from the train station to my workplace, including the walk from my apartment to the train station, was estimated to be a total of 65 minutes. That’s only just one way trip, meaning the return trip back to my apartment is another 65 minutes. That’s like at least 2 hours of daily commute by walking alone!
So, it is very clear why the Japanese people are generally lean, despite their abundance of immensely delicious food. They walk. A LOT. Working out is something that is not as trendy over in Japan. But, boy do they walk a lot.
To be fair, I can totally understand why it is harder for Malaysians to move as much as the Japanese. The public transportation service here is abysmal, so a lot of Malaysians preferred to travel with their own vehicles instead. The weather here is hot and humid all year round, therefore, it’s not easy to go anywhere without having sweat marks all over your clothes.
Even so, this is where quality nutrition and diet should play a much bigger role in a healthier Malaysian lifestyle, which is unfortunately being overlooked and ignored most of the time.
Understand this: If you are aiming to become a much healthier person, as long as you don’t change your eating habits and not physically active all the time, you won’t be making much progress. That is a simple plain fact.
As a side note, I want to emphasize that looking jacked is not a measure of a healthy body. You can have a little beer belly, for example, and be healthier than an average lean looking individual, and also vice versa. The point is again, we should at least try to live an active lifestyle and eat clean.
So, anyway. Move your ass. NOW!
If you ever want to follow me on Instagram, hit me a DM saying, “Ass is moved”.
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