Disturbing
Posted: Thu 12 January, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 2 Comments »For once I’m going to apologise about the image that this post may conjure up. Trust me, it was worse having to see it first hand.
I’m not a fan of the changing rooms at gyms – too many people (usually), too little space, and, well, blokes in various states of undress. And believe me, Nick Kamen they ain’t. Now, I realise I’m hardly a pin-up of the male physique – far from it – but I do try to keep it at least mainly under cover. It appears that I’m the exception in this, but there we go.
Last night was the worst one so far though. Having been to the gym, I go back to get changed, and opposite me are two men who are preparing for their session. Well, either that or they were getting dressed in lycra bodysuits for a night on the town. I didn’t ask. Both were at least forty, and in the gay world would’ve been referred to as bears. (although not as bad as this “not for those of a sensitive disposition” image.)
The disturbing part, though, was when both of them started rubbing Vaseline into their arse-cracks and round their balls. In fairness they were doing it to themselves, not to each other, but all the same it was hard to miss such an activity…
Health Stuff
Posted: Wed 11 January, 2006 Filed under: Health 3 Comments »So yes, last night at the gym was a bit rough. Not unexpected, really.
Basically, I’m changing some of the stuff I do there. I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last year, and while I still want to lose some more, I also want to make sure there’s some good muscle and so on there too. So I’m going to continue with the cardio-vascular stuff, the exercise bike, the cross-trainer and *shudder* the rowing-machine. But I’m also going to be doing a lot more work with weights etc., and that was what last night was about.
We went through a fair number of the machines for weights, along with some stuff around free-weights, which I’ll probably also be getting into later. For now though I’m going to work to build up the basics using the machines.
The way of working out what levels of weights I should be doing at the moment was kind of interesting. First we went with what I thought I could do, discovered I’m a bit – in some cases, very – optimistic, took them down to a do-able level, with my first estimates becoming the target I should aim for. So not breaking myself initially, but building up to where I should be (or at least where I want to be) – and from then, well I guess it’ll just be a natural progression. In theory.
We also did the dread thing at gyms – my Body Mass Index (BMI). It’s a ratio of fat to weight, and I always knew it wasn’t going to be great. It’s not something I obsess about, or anywhere even close, but on occasion it’s interesting to know, as it gives a decent set of figures to track over time and see how the BMI decreases.
Anyway, last night it pegged at a BMI of 30.1 . Not great – it still puts me in “obese”, but only by .1 ( or .2 , if you’re feeling picky) as the cutoff from “overweight” to “obese” is at 30. I know that this time last year I was closer to the 40 mark, so I’m not unhappy with that progress at all – there’s still a way to go, and I’ll conceivably never be in the “OK” weight range, but that’s fine with me too. All the same, it’s progress, and I’ll keep on with it.
Ouch
Posted: Tue 10 January, 2006 Filed under: Health 2 Comments »Ouch.
In fairness, not as ouch as I could’ve been. But still, ow.
Torture
Posted: Tue 10 January, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 2 Comments »In a lot of ways I’m really not looking forward to this evening. I’ve got an hour’s session with one of the personal-trainer type people, and she’s threatened/promised to make me ache…
Still, it’s all part of returning to the gym, supposedly.
Bleh
Posted: Fri 9 December, 2005 Filed under: Health Leave a comment »Yet again, feeling rougher than a badger’s arse in wintertime.
At some point I’m going to get the time to enable me to be really really ill. In the meantime it’s more just feeling rough. Bleh.
Weighty Issues
Posted: Wed 7 December, 2005 Filed under: 2005 Resolutions, Health, Thoughts 4 Comments »Roughly six months ago, I wrote about the weight I’d managed to lose in the first part of the year – at the time I was down to 19st 10lb. I’ve eased up on the dieting a bit since, and not been cycling to work in a while – although I do generally walk home from the train station most days.
Anyway, I weighed myself yesterday, and while I’ve put on a little bit, I’m now dead on the 20st mark. No, that’s not light – but it does mean that even without making every effort for the weight to come off, or to keep it off, I’ve still managed to maintain pretty much the same weight for six months now.
And to me, that’s still a success. Yes, I’d like to lose some more, and there’s some other stuff I plan to do in order to manage that – but equally I suspect that whatever I lose in fat will just change to muscle (I know it’s not a “just change” procedure, but the fat will go and be replaced by muscle that has developed from the exercise) so I’ll still be in a similar weight range, I guess.
These are the kind of thoughts that follow you on a day when you’re sorting out techie stuff…
Feeling Rough
Posted: Thu 24 November, 2005 Filed under: Domestic, Health 1 Comment »Ah, it looks like it may just be one of those winters.
Over the last few days I’ve been feeling a bit ropy, and last night it developed into a sore throat. So it may just be that I’ve got my first cold of the season. It’s no big thing, colds aren’t something I generally worry about – but it does mean I’ll feel a bit rough for a few days.