Why Men Shouldn't Wear 'Shape Up' Shoes

Week 1
Immediately after putting on my Shape-Ups for the first time, I fell over, beginning what would become a familiar and painful routine. It turns out that the crazy shifting platforms these shoes are built on make it difficult for you to do anything without looking like a well seasoned drunk. This had the initial effect of making me avoid spending time on my feet, negating whatever potential benefits the shoes were supposed to provide. It wasn't until I ran out of food within easy reach of my desk chair (approximately two days) that the shoes were put to full use.Once that started, I almost immediately began noticing soreness in my calf muscles. The product literature suggests that this was because I was now using stabilizer muscles that had previously lain dormant, playing whatever video games that calf muscles find interesting.
Week 2
The second week was a lot more challenging than the first. It turns out that one of the poorly advertised side effects of Shape-Up Shoes is their tendency to make you shunned. This started off simply, when my girlfriend stopped answering my calls, explaining that it was because I looked like "I had lost a fight with giving a damn." Being insulted by loved ones is a regular part of my life, and barely worth comment, but more concerning to me was my interactions with the general public. People staring at me. People trying not to stare at me. Children asking their parents what was wrong with me. Older children throwing bottles at me. Later in the week, a bus driver stopped 10 feet away from the bus stop just to inconvenience me. Then when I ran to catch him, he drove off laughing, only to stop and repeat the process several more times. When I eventually got on the bus and asked if he was fucking with me, he said no, but I could tell he was lying because he was kind of laughing when he said it. Peer Review:
Week 3
By the third week my muscles had stopped feeling sore, although other parts of me did start to ache due to the several physical assaults I was subjected to each day. Whether perceived as a weak target or as an aberration best weeded from the gene pool, strangers seemed to really want to, in their own words, "Beat the stupid out of me." It turns out this is a pretty common issue, and after consulting with a Shape-Ups support group online, I found out that a number of coping mechanisms have been developed to assist with this unique cross-training struggle. Many of these had clever names, including Begging for Mercy, Turtling and Grinning and Bearing It. Each had their own pros and cons -- although none, I noticed, actually seemed to do much to prevent the fist-shaped bruises which began springing up on my body. So after ensconcing myself within the community, I proposed a new self-defense technique,
Week 4
By the fourth and final week I began noticing substantial improvement in my balance. I was able to run at full speed, and indeed had to, as I was being chased into the hills by the Sandmen charged with my capture.