Another Fine Day

Some People Are Clueless

I like to wear headphones when I work out.  I've a selection of music on my MP3 player that helps me keep up a pace and gives me energy.  Plus, it just makes a session more enjoyable.  When I am playing music through my little earbuds....I'm focused.  I don't care about anything or anybody around me.  I'm centered on the task at hand which is either shooting for that extra mile on the elliptical or another two reps of weight over what I did the last time.  The one thing I do not want to do is have a conversation with some other person in the gym!

It invariably happens that, right when I get into a real good groove with my workout, right when my selected song hits a good spot where I can really push hard....some dumbass comes up to me and starts yammering.  I look up and see their lips moving but can't hear a word, so I yank out the earbuds.  I mean, it could be an emergency; like the gym is on fire or a rich dude is throwing hundred dollar bills around in the lobby.

It's never important.  It's always some type of mundane chit-chat.  "How long ya been working out?  Do you want a spot?  Some weather we're having, eh?"  Crap like that.  Why some people feel an obligation to have conversations with people that have no interest in talking is something I will probably never understand.

Perhaps the tiny earbuds are too subtle...and I need to upgrade to something larger and more obvious.

It Sucks

Discipline

It is the hardest thing about going to a gym.....getting there.  Life just doesn't make it easy for most of us.  There's job, school, weather, gym open/close hours, and even friggin holidays which throw a monkey wrench into a plan of developing a daily exercise routine at the gym.  Then, once at the gym, you have to contend with getting a machine you need or weights that you want to use.  You either stand by waiting while some dillweed does reps for half an hour of almost no weight or asks to cut into your routine to pound out two reps at super high weights...leaving the seat or bench dripping with sweat before wandering off.  There are the ones who stand around visiting with others or yammering on their cell phones.  There are even those who sit at a machine.  Not doing anything....just sitting and staring off into space.  You ask to cut in and they give you a funny look and say "I'm just resting, be through in a minute".

All which conspire to give yourself a reason to, maybe, skip exercise today.  Then the next.  And the next.  And since you missed exercising for a few days, may as well fudge on your diet plan a bit.  In no time at all you discover that you've taken a big dose of fuckitall along with a shot of regret. 

Sticking to an exercise regiment is not easy but I always try to remember something a friend of mine told me about the need of self-discipline for getting and staying in shape.  "If it is important to you, you will find a way.  It it is not, you will find an excuse"

Excuses are easy to find.  Results require effort.

Morning Zen

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Early Bird

I've found out through experience....that if I don't do my exercises first thing in the morning, I will find an excuse to blow it off later in the day.  I'm really good at finding excuses.  It will be too hot, too cold, too dark, too light, too many people at the gym, gym is closed, I'm hungry, I'm full...I can come up with a million excuses, all the while forgetting the reason I wanted to do the exercise in the first place.

I think that's the problem.  A bit of perversion from the biblical verse...the flesh is willing but the mind is weak.  I've discovered that it really helps if I can do exercise before my mind has a chance to think much about it and come up with any objections.  After exercise, with all the good physically induced endorphins flooding my brain, my mind is like "oh hell yeah, wanted to do this all along, do it some more".

I do have stumbles though.  Wednesdays, for example; I have to go to work so early I cannot get a workout in.  It is always a struggle to do it at the end of the day when I am tired and hungry.  

Maybe I could bring a set of dumbbells to my meetings? 

Start of 12 Weeks

Okay....so what's the point in posting an ugly photo of me for the whole world to poke fun at?  It's not masochism or some deep seated desire for public humiliation.  It's really for my own motivation.

You see.....losing weight and getting physically fit is a slow process.  Agonizingly slow.  One good way to gauge progress is to set up time specific challenges such as the one I am starting today.  Another good tactic is to have a before photo to begin the challenge.  So often so many get discouraged when they fail to see dramatic progress...like in the advertisements for diet and exercise crap.  We expect miraculous results and when they don't appear, we say fuckit and give up or move on to the next bright promise.  Having photographic evidence of a transformation proves that it is occurring and can motivate you to continue, no matter how long.  It's also to show that I'm a real person. 

So here is my before photo.  I'm weighing in at 175.4 lbs...the lightest I've been in over twenty years.  We'll see what I look like in October.  Maybe I'll have a tan by then.

Wednesday Cat Blogging

Take Your Medicine

When I started this goal of getting physically fit, my intent was mostly toward vanity.  I was very overweight and had become ashamed of how I looked.  There were the ancillary things too....such as being tired all the time, no energy, feeling generally lousy....but the main reason was that I simply wanted to look good without any clothes.  

Health?  meh.....maybe in the back of my mind.  The thing is, I didn't connect my health to exercise.  To me exercise was a way of losing fat.  I felt that if I got the weight off  THEN I would get healthy.  Health was about diet.  Exercise was to lose weight while on a diet.

Then I get the double whammy of a heart attack and diagnosis of Type II diabetes.  The heart was repaired, that was just a matter of fixing the plumbing.  Diet is important for this to prevent future damage.  Diet is important as well in managing the diabetes...but I've discovered that exercise is an absolutely critical aspect in controlling my blood glucose levels.  Daily exercise is every bit as important as the meds that I take every day.  I've also got the benefit with daily exercise of treating my blood pressure, cholesterol, and strengthening my entire cardio/pulmonary system.  

Plus I lose weight and get muscle.  Win - Win

Don't think of exercise as a chore you have to do....like shaving or doing the laundry.  Exercise is something that you do for yourself, to treat yourself....to make you feel better.  Look at exercise as a much needed medication in which you cannot afford to miss a single dose.    

You Want It?

One of the really crappy things about getting older is that the body is slower to respond to exercise.  When you are young, you can whip yourself into great shape just by walking to the fridge for beer and dip.  Fast forward 20, 30, or more years...and it seems that you gain weight just by looking at food, regardless of all the workouts you are doing.  It's probably not that bad, but it seems like it and it is a major reason why so many get discouraged.  I mean; spend weeks and months busting a gut to get rid of your gut and see very little change or, sometimes, even more weight....and it's understandable why so many say fuckit and give up.

The thing is, the body changes as it ages (duh).  A big part of that change is not the gray hair or the wrinkles but the way the body processes fuel....aka food.  When you are young, the body can burn anything you put into it with great efficiency.  Hamburgers, fries, burritos, ice cream, pork rinds...hell, you could probably digest plastic.  Add a few years though and the machinery starts to gum up and slow down.  A fifty year old can't eat like a twenty year old without looking like Jabba the Hutt.  It's sad and sometimes it makes me mad; but there it is.  Getting old is not for sissies.  Getting fit when you are old takes more than working your ass off in the gym.  You have to change the way you have been eating most of your life.   

I guess the big question is....how bad do you want it?

Next Level

Wednesday Cat Blogging

I'm Feeling Great....Really

Okay now....I have huge bruises on my hip, arm, knee, and back.  My ribs ache.  I can barely walk a straight line.  And it hurts to do much moving around, not to mention even stand up.

But I'm happy.

Why?

Because I've done these things to myself to get healthy.  I will heal...eventually....and will be stronger afterwards.  Pain just reminds us that we are alive.  

Too Nice Outside for the Gym

Bike Helmets are Dorky

I was resistant to the idea of getting a bicycle helmet.  It just seemed a bit ridiculous to me.  After all, when I was a kid, I rode my bike everywhere and never had a serious injury.  Oh sure....I'd take a spill every once in a while and maybe scrape my knee or elbow, but that was never any big deal.  Just rub some dirt on it and keep going.  

Besides; bicycle helmets look....well....stupid.  They usually come in bright florescent colors and are shaped as if they would fit some alien's skull.  Nothing says "dork" like wearing one of these things, so I pretty much made up my mind I wasn't going to mess with getting one for myself.

Until I took a spill off my bike.

And another.

And another.

And I was getting really bloodied and bruised.  

I was starting to think to myself "that old saying about once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget is a bunch of shit" but realized that I still knew how to ride a bike, I just wasn't as pliable as I was 40-50 years ago.  The bones and joints are not as flexible.  I have a lot more mass.  I don't heal as fast.  Plus, I really ought to have a bit more sense than when I was an eight year old.  At that age I more or less thought I was immortal and indestructible.  Now I know better and know how fragile body parts can be, especially the head.  I can't afford to lose anything....most specifically what little I have in my skull.

Wednesday Cat Blogging

New Toy

It's not fancy.  In fact, it's just something grabbed off the floor at KMart.  It's not high tech super duper costing a grand or two....but it's grand to me and it does the job.

I've never really understood why people would spend so much money on a bike.  When I was shopping around for one, the prices started at seven or eight hundred dollars.  Shhhheeeeeeeet.  It's a bicycle for crying out loud!  I would no more pay hundreds of dollars for a bike than I would pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes.  It's not only a matter of my well known cheapness; I don't have that kind of cash laying around to spend on whatever I want.  My wife would give me a severe ass whoopin if I spent a paycheck or two on what is basically a toy.

So I get this, and I like it.  Works great.  I'm not going to enter any races.  I'm just wanting to get a bit of exercise and was getting tired of the treadmill.  Plus....I can go down some bike trail paths in the woods.  It's really cool (literally and figuratively) early in the morning.  Maybe I'll take some photos sometime.

Cry Baby

I got myself a brand new bicycle.  I wanted one for outdoor exercising...specifically for the miles of great trails close to my home.  Jogging hurts my creaky old joints so biking is my solution.  Doing cardio in the gym week after week, especially when the weather is great, is a bore.

Anyway, I took the bike out for its maiden spin this afternoon.  It really is true that you never forget how to ride a bike; however, it evidently is possible to forget how stupid some automobile drivers can be and are sometimes so wrapped up in talking on their cell phone they are oblivious to anything or anybody else.

One such idiot was weaving down the road yakking on her cell phone forcing me to jump a curb and scrape the shit out of my leg.  Okay....it's not a big wound, not even worth a bandaid....but it fucking hurts.  I don't think this is what is meant by that no pain no gain saying.

A Double Dog Dare

I've got a page over at Facebook called getF.I.T. It was started up by myself and a friend of mine, Boyd.  Both of us have pretty much drifted off from doing anything with it....life happens.  Anyway, I decided to revive the place and see if I can bring it back to life.