Reach for the stars

                I’m putting on weight again. This is directly linked to both a decrease in my regular exercise and a recent holiday. I’m hovering around the thirteen-and-a-half stone mark which mean I’ve maintained my weight well but also that I’ve completely failed to lose any over the past month or so. Is this due to a lack in motivation? A growth in apathy? Or perhaps am I just happy with where I am.

                Addressing the first factor in that short list of possibilities, I have not lost motivation at all – if anything, my life is full of it. I get constant support from a variety of sources for my endeavours thus far and my efforts to continue. I still enjoy it exercise, so that’s certainly not a factor, and I definitely want to lose a bit more weight. Part of this comes from a recent fitness video where I was informed that the average adult man is seventeen pounds overweight; I’m eighteen pounds overweight – making me pretty damn close to average! Now, I appreciate being told that you’re eighteen pounds overweight isn’t something that is traditionally worthy of celebration, but being in that category makes me feel great.

                However, it is no reason to rest upon my laurels; I am, after all, still eighteen pounds over-weight. This gives me a target, and one that is certainly achievable. I will just have to work harder than I am already to reach it. I believe my exercise regime has ‘got comfortable’ and so is no longer really reaching the level I need it to. So I can up that to help which shouldn’t be too difficult because, if I’m honest, my ‘regime’ is fairly minimal.

               

                Secondly, has my apathy towards the idea grown? I can’t say I’m totally innocent of this – I’m just not making the time, or when I have the time I’m not making the effort. I can excuse not exercising very easily, and my success only makes this easier. But if I’m to keep achieving results then I have to keep caring about it. It’s no use knowing the facts and how to deal with them if you don’t care enough to follow your action plan. There’s no use dwelling on the plateaus you reach when there are further heights to climb to.

                Am I happy with where I am? Yes. I’m confident, I’m healthier, fitter, and I no longer look like an emergency doughnut disposal officer (a very serious occupation that is definitely completely real). I enjoy myself doing nearly everything I do, and I enjoy a wide range of activities. In fact, I’m doing so much – and enjoying all of it – that I find that I’m cutting into time I would otherwise use to exercise. And I’m happy with that, because I like where I am. It feels good and I’m comfortable. But so is sitting in a very good armchair all day.

                I clearly know what my problem is; I’m enjoying my success too much. It’s not that I don’t do exercise – I just don’t do it enough. The only dedicated time I have now is three hours on Sundays and that’s far from regular enough to really help me lose weight or shape. I do daily exercises in the form of press ups, crunches, tricep dips, planking and squats but that’s all muscle work; while it definitely makes me sweat it lack any serious cardio or stamina work which really helps burn excess pounds.

                A quick note here about what I qualify as ‘real’ cardio or stamina work; aerobic exercise for at least thirty minutes. I’ve investigated the claim that ‘unless you run/cycle/jog/swim/chosen cardio activity for longer than twenty minutes it doesn’t do any good’ and found the statement is based on fact but actually incorrect. If you run for fifteen minutes every day but increase your speed, thereby running further, you are clearly improving. However, your body burns sugar stores first rather than fat stores so while you’re increasing your fitness you won’t be getting as much out of it weight loss wise. It is how your body is designed to work, and it makes a lot of sense – fat is intended to be stored in case of emergencies, and when we were living day to day, competing with lions/tigers/bears/whatever our local predators were we quite probably had these emergencies on a regular basis. Unfortunately (for weight maintenance rather than survival) we no longer wake up and have to worry about being eaten on a daily basis – or at all, optimally. 

                As such, weight-loss is definitely a first world problem and if you find yourself suffering from this problem please remember two very important things. First, you have a great life; if you’re primary concern is losing weight, then your life must have been pretty good up until now to get in that situation. Remember, it’s a problem caused by eating too much or on a fat filled diet – a problem you wouldn’t have if you couldn’t afford said foods. Secondly, you live in the first world! There are ways around this problem available to you each and every day. All you have to do is bite the bullet and do so.

                There was recently a report in the paper about a woman who is demanding more benefits from the UK government so she can eat healthily – “a bag of apples is as expensive as a multipack of crisps, and I can’t afford both.” She has no job, so has plenty of time in her day to walk places but doesn’t as it’s “too much effort.” I also hasten to point out that eating a bag of apples as well as the multipack of crisps is actually only going to increase her weight – remember all that stuff I said about replacing foods, not removing them entirely? – so she doesn’t need both. What she needs is to take responsibility for her own life and get on with dealing with it. As do I, although I like to think I’m less of a sponge and general waste of space than she is (not because she’s over weight but because she has no job, seven kids and refuses to lift a finger to help herself or the children. Just to clarify). What I need to do is take my destiny in my own two hands, and this is the case for 98% of all weight loss stories. So I’m going to start working harder at it today, and that is my advice to anyone else who has reached a plateau – don’t stay there, climb higher!

So here it is, Merry Christmas

           And another delayed post! Although a lot of people won't be surprised - some may even be impressed I managed two in ten days. This time my excuse is Christmas and my brother coming home for it as a surprise. Lots of business, no time to blog. Time for diet? Time for gym? Time to Drogo? Yes, yes and yes.

            I managed to hit the gym today after being generously offered a half day at work. As the tail end of a challenge I've taken part in I (with more blasé and confidence than I truly felt) recently boasted to a fellow gym goer that I could run further than her in an hour, or something to that affect. I can't remember exactly what I said, but my intention was to imply I could run further than she could in the same space of time. This morning was full of trepidation and doubt, culminating in my confidence nearly breaking upon mounting the treadmill.

            Fortunately it didn't. The challenge was five miles (8km) in an hour. A fifty-five minute run and a five minute cool-down later I had achieved my goal.

            Just. BUT I truly, honestly felt I could have kept running. I hit my second wind around 20 minutes and after that I think my body gave up complaining. I really felt I could have run and run and run. And I almost did; thankfully I called it there. I was a little off balance as I walked to the weight machines but that passed after my legs had a rest.

           

            I won't lie, I was tired but not exhausted. I was pretty damn impressed with myself for managing it - my normal runs are at a slightly faster pace but only for 20-25 minutes - and from now on I am approaching the gym with a new challenge: Never plateau. This wasn't a direct challenge (although nor was the last one, I just took it as one) since I've never met the man who put forward that exercise philosophy. He's also dead, so sadly I won't. However, Bruce Lee was an incredible person and the perfect inspiration for any work out.

            Now, I know some of you are going to be laughing at the idea that I want to reach his level of fitness. If you are one of them you have failed to read my intention correctly. Of course I don't plan to be the next Bruce Lee; by the age of 25 he had already made a name for himself. While I would like to be that incredible, he did die in his forties because he went beyond the level of fitness his body could sustain - not the goal. He is my inspiration and his attitude and technique can be applied to anyone's situation:

• As you think, so shall you become.

• A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

• Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

• Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
  
  
• If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

           

            Nothing in the above says you can not achieve great things. Everything there tells me that I can reach new levels and gain new strengths. When someone says something is beyond their reach I can now say, "Not out of mine." If I truly want something I can pursue it; even if a goal is not reached I will have gained knowledge and experience from the pursuit.

            Except flight. Having made the boast to my youngest brother that I taught Clark Kent everything he knew about being Superman I will have to admit that unaided flight is perhaps outside my current or future capabilities.

            Having said that, staying standing proved too much while stretching and having the reaper horn (first couple of seconds) blare into my headphones while my eyes were closed. Anyone who has played Mass Effect will understand why the flight-or-fight mechanism panicked and I say giant red lasers in my minds eyes. I fell over onto someone else and I'm not sure I hid my expression of confusion that well. Fortunately she just assumed I'd collapsed from (hopefully manly) exhaustion and made sure I was all right while laughing it off. I can't say I was at my most eloquent but it was as embarrassing as it could have been. I think it was more a conditioned response to the sound effect rather than actual exhaustion but explaining it could have been difficult....

            And lastly, Merry Christmas! Or Happy Channukah! Or an enjoyable whatever you celebrate - and if you don't, enjoy the time off. If you don't get any of that I hope the festive season treats you well. Regardless of what you do, have fun! Otherwise it's really not worth it, is it?