Time of year to be thinking about getting over Christmas. Wonder why we buy so much chocolate at Christmas. My own worry is more about clogging up the veins as weight isn’t much of a problem. I know I can put on weight like in my twenties, mainly drinking weight and when I stopped going to the pub 3 to 4 times a week I lost weight.
Ten years ago I joined a gym and did it on a monthly payment scheme because I thought I wouldn’t stay. Yet I’m still there and in general go about 6 times a month. In the 10 years so many people have joined and lasted a couple of months and never to be seen again. They’re all convinced they’ll stay and some have told me their plans but soon fallen away.
My own experience in many activities is to keep it up you need a regular schedule that says, like, on Tuesday at 6pm I’ll be there. I found that doesn’t work for me at the gym. Other things come along, like you can’t eat first then go, don’t want to do some heavy work and then go, don’t want to go to dig the garden get dirty and have a shower then go. All I can recommend is to say that you will go at least once a week and try to fit in another so you do at least 6 in the month.
The other aspect is making a start after years of doing nothing. Going to work and bragging you ran for 8 minutes at 8kph on the flat on a treadmill. They must have thought me mad. Now I can run for ages but it took time and came in steps. Suddenly found I could up the speed and it felt great. Wish I were younger, need to keep the heart at a faily low level at my age, there’s a formula, and that limits my speed a lot. I don’t do the other cardio-machines, like the step, bike, rotex or rowing they give me pains where I don’t want them. Running at a slowish speed and a bit of stretching keeps me good and I can feel it every day.
Running for up to 30 minutes on the treadmill is more than most people want to do, and I did once have some girls loudly making comments about how boring that must be. You can watch TV and listen to music but I tend to think about things I want to do and if I want to give up, tell myself just do another 5 minutes. How often can you fool yourself with this 5 minutes. I’ve done it loads of times. Near the end of the 5 minutes you’re thinking good nearly done but with seconds to go you say I’m fine I can manage another 5. Seems to work for me, must be mad.
Then there are the weights. Doing the heavy stuff doesn’t appeal, 10 years on the weight-machines, using chrome dumb-bells (seem to be for ladies) and the mats (who’d have thought I do that after bad school mats and a cruel teacher). Never graduated to the barbell. With the number of reps building up the total the Technogym computer system at our gym tells me 10,000kg spread over different muscle groups is a good session for me along with 5km on the treadmill.
So I’d recommend finding a fitness centre and not being over ambitious or too enthusiastic, play it cool and keep going for the long term.