Sunday 22nd August – Reflections before Week 7 begins
I am now, officially, halfway through this thing, whatever it is. What started as a reasonably well intentioned but poorly thought out “I should do something” whim, has turned into some bizarre self-testing blogging experiment. Kind of like “Supersize Me”, only where.
Nonetheless it is twelve weeks long, and we’ve done six. I entirely skipped the fifth week, and in doing so my hatred for the whole thing came back with a vengeance on week six. During my one week off I contemplated going to the gym and was moaning to someone at work (the very person whose idea his blog was, in fact) that I really didn’t want to and wasn’t even trying very hard to find excuses not to. He asked me “what about the treadmill? Why don’t you just go up and go on the treadmill, that’s not so bad is it?” I looked at him incredulously and asked “don’t you read my blog?” Likewise my brother, with whom I shared a bedroom for many years, in the comments of my previous post suggested that doing an ab workout while bound to a piece of metal was not only fun, but the best fun I could have had so far.
This blog is many things, but I wouldn’t have thought “too subtle” is one of them.
Let me be clear. The TV remote control was invented for me. For the kind of person who, when walking the two meters across the room to change channels whined “there’s got to be a better way”. If I have a choice between moving and not moving, I will take the stationary option every time. Now I’ll quite happily walk across town to go to lunch, or to go computer part shopping. I live a very pleasant 15 minute walk to my local supermarket, and I know this, because I have done it on a number of occasions. But I will usually drive to the supermarket, because it’s quicker, simpler and (have I mentioned already?) I really really hate exercise.
In the 19 posts I have made for this blog I have used the word hate or hating 23 times. I’m serious about this. I really don’t like it. And the thing about the gym is, it takes all the unpleasantness of moving about, and combines it with absolutely no immediate benefit whatsoever. There is no burger, no new video card, and no bag of groceries at the end of it. There is just sweatiness, tiredness, distractedness and irritability.
But having done five sessions I am now financially committed. As much as I hate it, I’ve done enough sessions for it to cost me significantly if I don’t go “all the way”. So here I am, going all the way.
Tomorrow we are doing a 15-20 minute ab workout followed by “bar class”. I assume the more common term “lifting weights” is a registered trademark, which is why they can’t use it. And based on advice received during the week I have already packed my bag. I am sure I will still forget something, but it should save me at least some time tomorrow morning.
Bet I still turn up late, though.
Cos I really hate it..
in fairness, I was using the term "fun" in a relative sense. I was expecting that there was at least a tiny elelment of enjoyment in the gymstick compared to the other excercise type things that you have done so far. so let me put it this way, if going on a roller coaster is a 10 out of ten for fun, and walking the dog a 6 and checking the mail box a 1, then maybe gymstick is a minus 25 compared to zumba which is a minus 100.
ReplyDeleteI like gymstick so much I own one, I dont however like it that much that I actualy use it more that annually (thank you spell check).
Fair enough, although I think there's an absolute zero of fun, and gym is pretty much there for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd despite your spell checker I have an image in my head that won't go away... So would you still put both feet in the loops?
Well I'm convinced. Finished this off and earn your sweat money then get the hell out of dodge.
ReplyDeleteExercise is making you miserable and probably always will. What do you need it for anyway? As my brother says, (who is basically the anti-matter universe version of me), what's the point of picking something up if you're only going to put it straight back down again?