Athlete

I've never been great shakes in the exercise department, but having hit 105kg over 2010, I need to shed a lot of weight.  But my physical gifts (modest as they are) lend themselves to strength exercise.  I am a bit knock-kneed.  I have high arches and short feet - not great for running.  I also have a sweet tooth and have traditionally exercised very little self-control*.

So my options are:

  • humble home gym ("power tower", dumbells, barbell and bendy-barbell with modest weight available)
  • pilates class (+pilates homework)
  • humble work gym (no long bars, but some machines, some benches, crappy old exercise bikes and some space to do floor work)
  • ride to work (about 15km, about 40 minutes).

I'd really like to get a pair of runners and do a little running, but I guess we'll see.  I need to master my recovery this year.  Exercise seems to interfere with my sleep in a few different ways, and I also want to remember flexibility, balance and coordination.

So far, I'm doing OK.  It's easy enough to work out at home and there are enough opportunities to ride to work, and satisfying the Id with exercise seems to provide the will power to go easy on the sweet items.  After working out almost every day from 30 Jan to 10 Feb, I'm at the end of my fourth day without exercise and I realise that it is making me feel surly .


*taking a philosophical position of assuming that there's no way of knowing how long one lives, and whether tomorrow will bring good things or bad, so you better enjoy everything that life offers regardless of how much you'll pay later, because you have to discount it by all possible risks of death before you pay, of which there are many. This is actually not true, but we all do it more or less.  The truth is that tomorrow will almost always be pretty consistent with today, and how you get through today will be how you get through tomorrow.  If ever tomorrow is very different, you'll be able to worry about that when you see what it is actually like.