Gym thoughts
Posted: Wed 2 February, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions Leave a comment »Last night was the first visit proper to the gym, following on from the induction session last week. And my general conclusion is : “Holy shit, I’m out of shape”. 45 minutes of work-out (including a bit of warm-up and cool-down) including 10 minutes on the rowing machine, 10 minutes exercise bike, and 10 minutes on the cross-trainer.
I’m OK on the exercise bike – six miles in ten minutes is OK. The cross-trainer, well, it’ll increase those “steps per day” for sure, and it’s agreed that I’m comfortable for a walking speed of about 120 paces per minute. The rowing machine I currently feel was probably designed by someone with a degree in medieval torture implements. I still feel utterly unco-ordinated on the bloody thing, and really don’t get how it’s supposed to work. Still, practice makes perfect, I figure.
Assembling the Proof
Posted: Sun 30 January, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions 1 Comment »I’ve spent a large part of today sorting through some of my photo collection (a rather worrying 3,750 images, or 4.5GB) to build up a selection that I can build up a bit of a portfolio from. Thankfully, today’s work has involved just one section, the flowers and macro shots I’ve taken. Mind you, even that worked out initially at just over 100 photos, although I’ve since whittled it down to a mere 69.
I’m getting them printed by my normal place, so I’ll have them here for Tuesday, or at latest Wednesday. Once that’s done, I’m going to look at how best I can crop some of them, get them reprinted, and then start work on assembling them into some kind of comprehensive grouping.
There’s a reason for all this. Not only was it part of my resolutions to myself this year, but I want to test the water and see what the reactions are. I’ve got a couple of companies lined up that I’d like to see printing up these photos, but well, we’ll have to see how it all goes, and what they say.
Catching Up
Posted: Fri 28 January, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks – really since before Christmas – one thing I haven’t done much of has been photography. What with one thing and another, it’s just taken a bit of a back seat. Partly because there’s been a slight lack of inspiration, partly I’ve just been hugely busy with other stuff.
Still, on that score it’s not been an inspiring start to the year. I’m hoping to get back on track with it over the next couple of weeks though – and I also intend to go and see what Bracknell Camera Club is like next week (particularly as they’re doing something about flower photos, which are a subject I’m quite into)
I’m also going to go through the process of putting together some of my photos, then braving the vagaries of Amateur Photographer’s critics. Oh, and also submitting a few others to a couple of greetings card manufacturers who specialise in the type of shots that I enjoy, and seem to be pretty good with. So we’ll see how it all works out…
Gymtastic 2
Posted: Fri 28 January, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions Leave a comment »Actually, the gym was nowhere near as bad as I thought. A blood pressure of 128/88, lung something of 530. Just need to lose weight (No? Really?) and keep going regularly.
Cross-trainers are still some form of medieval torture device, but I think I can get used to them. Exercise bikes are no worries, and the rest? Well, I’m just going to take it all as it comes. But it should all be OK.
Gymtastic
Posted: Thu 27 January, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions Leave a comment »Expect a post saying “Ouch” at some point later (or in the morning, if I can’t be arsed tonight) for tonight is the night of the induction session at the gym.
I haven’t been to a gym in about a year now. I should’ve done, I know, but I haven’t. So this session is going to be interesting. I know the kind of things I’m interested in doing, but we’ll see what they have to say – should be fun, if nowt else.
10,000
Posted: Tue 25 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, General, Health, Resolutions 1 Comment »Today, Gordon’s talking about pedometers, and how many steps people walk in a day. As it’s something that’s good to do as part of the healthy thing, I thought I’d have a quick count-up of the main part of my walking each day.
Thanks to the B&Q delivery (still cocked up, but less cocked-up than it was) I was able to count my walk to and from work. just for this post (He lies, in a fit of “look what I do for you people” pique) It works out as roughly 2,100 steps, although I’ll be verifying that tonight. So assuming I walk both to and from work (I do most of the time, but occasionally get a lift from Herself) just the walk nets me approximately 4,000ish paces. Not bad considering that the average is only 3,000 per day, and that doesn’t take into account the walking I do around the house and office, at lunchtime, or when we take Hundus for a walk. So I reckon that on a normal day I probably average about 5,500-6,000steps – possibly more, but I doubt I break the 7,000 on average.
What interested me more was my walking speed – those 2,100 paces took me approximately 20 minutes. That’s 105 steps per minute, or 1.75 per second. Fairly fast, I’d say.
Upgrading Health
Posted: Mon 24 January, 2005 Filed under: General, Health, Resolutions 2 Comments »Since the start of this year, I’ve been working a bit on general health and fitness. The first part of that was to start losing some weight. As of yesterday, I’ve lost nearly a stone in weight in three weeks, which I reckon is pretty good. I’m working on losing it sensibly, rather than any crash-dieting or whatever.
The next part of it starts this week. Over the weekend we joined up with a local gym, and the initiation initial consultation is going to be on Thursday. We may go in the meantime just for a tryout, but having visited it before Christmas I pretty much know what to expect.
There’s still a long way to go – including a visit to the GP, and a thyroid test. (It runs in the family, so it’s best to see how I’m doing on that score) There’s also a plan to buy a bike, which should be interesting as I haven’t ridden one regularly in about eight years.
Still, it’s all working so far, and it’ll be interesting to see how things go.