jazzy exercises

[masterding]

From Voa News：
"We did the grapefruit diet. Then the low-fat, low-carbohydrate, high-carbohydrate, South Beach, Detox, Protein Power, Atkins and Zone diets. We count calories or point totals assigned to each and every morsel of food. We grunt through treadmill ordeals, jazzy exercises, and contorted workouts on machines straight out of the Inquisition.
But in the mirror, we're still a long way from Adonis and Aphrodite."
My questions:
1. What does "point totals " refer to?
2.What do "jazzy exercises,contorted wrokout and inquisition" according to the context?
Thanks.

[riquecohen]

From Voa News：
"We did the grapefruit diet. Then the low-fat, low-carbohydrate, high-carbohydrate, South Beach, Detox, Protein Power, Atkins and Zone diets. We count calories or point totals assigned to each and every morsel of food. We grunt through treadmill ordeals, jazzy exercises, and contorted workouts on machines straight out of the Inquisition.
But in the mirror, we're still a long way from Adonis and Aphrodite."
My questions:
1. What does "point totals " refer to?
2.What do "jazzy exercises,contorted wrokout and inquisition" according to the context?
Thanks.

Some weight reduction programs assign point values to the foods that are permitted and the participants can consume up to a fixed total of points daily. One such program is Weight Watchers; you can google it.
Look here for an explanation of the Inquisition. Inquisition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. During that time, various methods of torture were used to extract confessions from people. One of these was the rack, a machine to which a person was strapped and had his body mercilessly stretched.
A jazzy exercise could be one in which the exercise is accompanied by jazz music.
In a contorted workout, the body is twisted into unusual positions. The writer is equating this to torture.

[TheParser]

[QUOTE=masterding;838258]jazzy exercises

NOT A TEACHER


(1) As you know, many (most?) people do not like to exercise because it is

BORING!!!

(2) I checked my dictionaries, and they say that "jazzy" sometimes means

"lively" or "showy,"

(3) In other words, exercises that are FUN.

(4) I am only guessing (I have never been to a health club. My only exercise is

walking around the city -- which can be pretty dangerous!), but I should imagine

that "jazzy" exercises might include music (of course!), video, pretty girls/handsome

guys leading the group, colorful exercise clothing. In other words: anything to

prevent BOREDOM!

(5) I think that there is a saying like: Let's jazz it up. This can be applied to anything.

For example, some history teachers try to jazz up their lessons in order to get their

students' interest. How? Well, if a teacher is talking about French history, s/he

might come to class dressed as Napoleon!

[masterding]

Look here for an explanation of Inquisition. Inquisition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.
I''ve just read the explanation of Inquisition on Wiki, Inquisition means a punishment against heretics who disagree with certain religion beliefs. But in the news ,people are tortured simply because they want to keep fit. I don't see how they are related.

[5jj]

. I''ve just read the explanation of Inquisition on Wiki, Inquisition means a punishment against heretics who disagree with certain religion beliefs. But in the news ,people are tortured simply because they want to keep fit. I don't see how they are related.

The words in the original post were "and contorted workouts on machines straight out of the Inquisition". The idea is that working out on one of the machines people use to keep fit is as unpleasant as being tortured on one of the machines used during the Inquisition.