Day 84 - My day out.

Homework this week: visit a gym.

Not with a view to joining, necessarily, more to experience other peoples notions of what constitutes a workout.

I visited Pure Gym in Ocean Terminal.  We have been considering joining a gym (my current "gym" is very sensitive to changes in the weather, being completely outside.  Over the last three months I have worked out in sun, howling wind and pissing rain.) and the Pure Gym ethos - £18 a month for a tonne of machines - kind of appeals to me.

I think it must have been something to do with the fact I was there on a Saturday afternoon but 80% of the people there were quite serious.  Of the ten people I saw, eight of them were working hard on free weights and floor work, one was quite overweight but working hard with a personal trainer and one was just cuddling a sit-up machine - needless to say, he was the lardiest of them all.

I think the general idea about going on a gym tour was to see that the vast majority of people working out in them are essentially doing nothing.  Five minutes on a treadmill then a wander around with a towel draped round the neck.  I think I need to go back again when it's busier to get a true picture of how little people do when they "go to the gym."

I'm also pretty sure now that I'm not going to join a gym any time soon.  There's something really wonderfully liberating about working out in the open air.  It's so easy to fill your lungs.  Maybe my view on this will change as we slide inexorably towards winter but I suspect not.  I've always been a firm believer in the maxim "there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing."

I'll try to get a photo of my "GYM" tomorrow.

Day 83 - new jeans.

Just bought new jeans. 34 inch waist. Unreal.

Day 82 - the jokes are coming thick and fast.

The guys at work have been noticing my progress.  This has manifested in all sorts of comparisons with Tom Hanks' character in Philadelphia.  The AIDS jokes are flying but that's okay, they're all still fat and unhealthy and I'm getting better every day.  Like a fine wine.

Day 82 - Pop goes the knee joint.

We all fall down.

Workout more painful than usual, mostly due to my right knee joint pinging internally, for no apparent reason.  I completed the jumprope as usual, no issues there, then went straight into the pistol squats - at which point my knee said "no way Jose, you have a little sit down."  So I did.

Weirdly enough, there's no issue with walking, running, sitting, thinking - anything apart from squats.

There's history there as well - when I was about 15 I was on school camp and, jumping around in a field or something, landed on my knee on a rock.  It swelled to roughly the size of a water melon.  Following this little incident I also had cortisone injections in that knee so this is not without precedent.

Still, I can't see it slowing me down, I'll just work around it.  Dedication see, that's what it takes.

Day 81 - excellent work out and a full nights sleep.

EXCELLENT work out yesterday.  Mr Pain and I were on good terms.  And Vivienne and the boy slept on the floor of the nursery last night as well so I had a full, if slightly guilty, nights sleep.

Happy days!

Day 80 - exhaustion sets in.

Last night was a disaster.

The boy went down at seven, like he always does, and slept quite well all evening - I think he woke up once.  At about eleven, when we went to bed he decided to wake up - fully wake up: sitting up, chatting, laughing, kicking.  It was two o'clock before he went to sleep again.

So, needless to say, I was not too thrilled to hear the alarm go off this morning.  I may have to sneak off for forty winks at some point today if I'm to hit my exercise targets this evening.

1000 calories of fun.

Saturday night was another night off.  This time we were told to really go for it.  1000 calories.  Eat something you used to enjoy.

So we had Indian food from the mighty Lancers.

Lamb bhuna, chicken jalfresi, rice and a garlic naan.

My initial feelings were of foreboding.  What a huge amount of food to eat.  So full of salt and spices.  When it arrived the smell was delicious and my salivary glands went into overdrive.  The first mouthful was lovely - so full of flavour - but before too long I found myself a little overwhelmed by it all.

And the after affects were truly horrendous.  Bloated and gassy, painful stomach, dehydrated to the point of ridiculousness.  And this lasted for the whole of the next day.

I knew that my body had changed thanks to this process but I had no idea how much.  I had no idea that I literally wouldn't be able to stomach this type of food any more but do you know what?  I don't care.  I don't care that I will not be eating this sort of thing again, I don't care that I won't be punishing my body like this again.  I feel so clean thanks to FIYL that I don't want to fill myself up like this again.  I'm happy with the way things are now and I'm happy to make the right choices when it comes to the food that I choose to eat.

The dangers of self-improvement.

If, 75 days ago, you had offered me the body that I now have, I would have bitten your hand off.

I'm in the best shape I've ever been in.  I don't feel self-concious when in public in the slightest.  I feel confident and I feel the joy that that confidence brings.

The trouble is, it's not enough now.  When I look at my aspirational figure (we were asked to choose a few months ago) I see that I'm not far away from this at all.  Well, apart from the pecs.

Yes ladies, it's Eric Bana.  Who else.

The trouble is that now I want more.  I see how far I've come from the day one photo, compared with now, and it's a massive change. But it doesn't feel like a massive change.  It doesn't feel like it's enough yet.

Of course it is possible to take things too far - after 8MA the other night I stumbled across the documentary about the body builder who's "arms exploded."  Clearly this guys was suffering from pretty serious body dis-morphia as he looked like a complete tool right up to the point where said biceps detonation occurred.

There's a nice balance there somewhere, waiting to be achieved, and I'll let you know when I get there.

Some musings on mucus.

I managed to do my jumprope last night for the first time in four days.  Didn't manage any more than that though.

It's the weirdest thing - appendicitis a decade ago?  Painful but not that bad really.  Broken fingers?  Again painful but not that bad - inconvenient more than anything.  Dislocated shoulder?  Damn sore but really nothing too difficult to deal with.  Ripped open finger?  Depressing, obviously, but I can play the guitar again.  Common cold?  OH MY GOD WHY AM I DYING.  I really don't understand how something so seemingly innocuous can cause such bloody misery.

I read an article in The Week a few years ago (digression - The Week is a (weekly, obvs) distillation of all of the weeks printed press.  If you don't know it, get it - it's best thing ever.) which stated that men are more severely affected by colds than women.  It was something to do with our physiological differences - men being short burst high energy types suited to brief spates of hunting and killing and women being more for the long game - gathering berries, that sort of thing.  This is getting a bit dangerous... Hang on,  I'm going to cite a reference...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/09/19/scientists-say-man-flu-is-not-a-myth_n_969749.html 

This is not making quite the same point as I read about in the week, but it's not far off.

So yeah, all in all, pretty gash few days.  Colds just lay me on my ass.  I've rather lost my train of thought with all that reference searching.  That's the hallmark of a good blog.  A nice strong ending.  Excellent.

Wounded by my workout.

You'll need a little background on this one.  Our workouts are extremely lo-fi.  There are no complicated machines, no wires, no pulleys, no weights even.  All you have is your own body, a resistance band and a door anchor.

But I don't have a door anchor.  I have a broomstick and, essentially, a rubber band - the type you wrap a floor mat with.

So, in a world of lo fidelity, I take things to a new low.

My method is as follows: put rubber band on broomstick and hold broomstick up behind garage doors.  Close garage doors.  Run resistance band through rubber band, exercise.

Easy eh?  Not really.  We've recently started a new workout - pulldowns.  Now for pulldowns one really does need a bit of height at the anchor position so I have stepped the levels of sophistication up a bit.  I have drilled a large hook into one of the roof beams in the garage.  Looks good, looks strong: excellent, let's do it.

The hook is strong.  The elastic band, not so much.  On the first pull it snapped resulting in the resistance band smacking me in the gut at full pelt.

It was an interesting sort of pain, not one that I have felt before.  I experienced a moment of Zen clarity and suddenly felt no pain.  I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe, I could only exist at one with the universe.

Eventually the moment passed and feeling returned bringing pain with it.  I stole a glance, genuinely expecting to see my guts all over the ground.  Not so, just a big red welt where my belly button used to be.

My favourite thing about working out.

My favourite thing about working out is the pain the next day.  The ache in a particular muscle group when you've hammered them hard is fantastic.  Worth all the hard work for sure.

Bad night...

No workout yesterday - had a 6 o'clock viewing at the flat (I actually think this is the one...) so couldn't do it on the way home.  Also found baby boy in a state of extreme pain due to more teeth coming in (will it never end?) so there was no scope to escape after the viewing either.

Upshot?  Legs feel like they need to run - like coiled springs.

Treats for eats

Last week we were given another sanctioned treat night.  We thought long and hard about what to do for this but eventually plumped for a really nice, high quality meat, home-made burger - topped with a small amount of stilton.  There was also a splash of wine with that.

My excitement levels before eating were through the roof - the smell of the cooking meat, even the sight of it sizzling on the grill sent my salivary glands into meltdown mode.  The first mouthful was sublime, but that's where the enjoyment ended.  The salt levels (although we added none) were too much to take and that, combined with the wine, were enough to send my body into freakout mode (lots of "modes" occurring here...)

And the after effects?  None too happy I can tell you...  I was thirsty all night, my stomach was aching (presumably too full?) and I genuinely wished I had just eaten my egg whites and left it at that.

So last night, following my egg whites/apple dinner, I did not lament my empty stomach, instead embracing the fantastic light feeling.  I can categorically state that my days of needing a big dinner are over.  What a wonderful side effect to this program.