Dietribe
Mar 27 '05
The Bottom Line The bottom line is saggy, wobbly and badly defined.
Fatso
I’m still a little non plussed about how it happened; one minute I’m 19, fit and skinny with a 26 inch waist, next thing I’m pushing 40 with my gut struggling to fit into my jeans, even though over the years another 10 inches has been added to the width of my trousers.
Sick lard arse
Then on a routine visit to the doctors, my blood pressure is taken 155/97 – hey, where did 120/80 go? I didn’t give 120/80 permission to leave. My body mass index comes out at 29 – firmly in the overweight category and bordering on the very overweight. Hmm, how did that happen?
Must have been something I ate.
Sad fatty
The news moves me to deep depression, both my parents are on blood pressure medication but I don’t really have any great desire to emulate them.
It’s time to appraise my lifestyle if I want to carry on living healthily – hmm let me think…
My work can be stressful, but I wind down by walking home for 20 minutes each day. I walk a fair bit, not the fastest hiker in the mountains, but I get there in the end. I eat good food, lots of it, but healthy food. I cook, don’t eat convenience food, never burger, rarely fries, I’m heavy on vegetables. I don’t do caffeine; I’ve given up recreational drugs, bar the odd spliff once every blue moon. I eat snacks – chocolate, crisps (chips). I drink. I can drink for England, beer, wine, port, whiskey; in fact anything bar Gin, which I detest, and Rum, which makes me go loopy.
Thoughtful porker
I come up with an action plan.
No crisps. Never ever. Well not never ever, but not very often. I don’t want to die because of an over indulgence of something as mundane, uninteresting or uninspiring as crisps. Let me go after a coke overdose, get me run over by a Rolls Royce, but please don’t finish me off through over eating crisps!
No chocolate. Gulp, I love my dark chocolate, so weekends I have a treat of one small bar. Believe me, I make the most of it, I’m currently dreaming of Dime Bars on a regular basis…
Alcohol two nights a week only. Yeah, we have got into a silly habit of sinking into the sofa after dinner with a bottle of wine for company almost every evening. It’s just a silly habit, and it doesn’t take much effort to forego the wine. We feel as relaxed and chilled without it, just snuggled up against each other, reading books, watching TV whatever. We don’t need the booze... well not every night.
Failing fat face
So, full of hope after my 4 weeks of diet, I go to the doctors for another blood pressure check. I feel better and my gut is slowly shrinking. I don’t get breathless and uncomfortable tying up my shoelaces. I stole a secret bag of crisps and found them greasy and salty. Yuk.
My pockets are full of dried Apricots. I actually enjoy them apart from the ones that are slightly too dry. The texture of the apricot and the slightly hairy exterior reminds me of biting into someone’s arm. It still freaks me out a little.
135/96.
Hmm, not much better as it’s the lower level that’s important. It should be under 90 and ideally under 85. Getting a low blood pressure reading is going to be harder than I thought.
The doctor gives me even more booklets and pamphlets. Oh joy. I’m going to be a statistic on some survey that tells the world about how unhealthy we all are.
Exercising sweaty gutbucket
It’s enough to turn me to drink, but surprisingly I’m smarter than that. Instead, I turn to a friend who has been murmuring for a while that she wants to get fitter.
We decide to run.
Gulp. At least it’s cheap and has instant access.
I used to run cross-country as a kid at school.
At first, we used to skip the running and go to a mate’s house to raid their parents spirits cupboard. Sadly, one day we got busted big time, so I had to get used to actually running. I enjoyed it.
I kind of enjoyed it.
Not as much as raiding people’s spirit cupboards though. Perhaps it was inevitable that as soon as I went to college, I tended more towards the latter.
Red faced jelly belly runner
So, we decided to run.
At first, we thought we’d run as hard and fast as we could up the steepest hill we could find.
Seriously.
We decided to meet up 3 nights a week, run up a steep hill for five minutes and then red faced and panting collapse in front of the TV a while. A well-balanced exercise plan this did not make.
During the first two weeks, we managed to build up to running about 3 minutes without stopping. Up a big hill.
There must be a better way.
Smart blubber belly running
The internet is a wonderful thing. I’m so grateful to Al Gore for inventing it (yeah, right).
There’s a seriously good site called cool running. The site has a couch to 5K running plan.
Cool running explains that runners should be able to easily hold a conversation while running and that running up a steep hill until you can’t breathe isn’t a particularly productive or enjoyable training schedule.
The plan gets you from a standing start to being able to run 3 miles or so, over 8 weeks. Of course, you can repeat weeks if you wish, and in fact, our running plan is turning into a 16-week affair, taking a fortnight before moving up another stage. My training partner (ha training partner – I know all the right words now) and I agreed that we weren’t going to be competitive over this and that we could go at our own pace. It’s the getting there that’s important, not the when.
The plan allows you a mixture of running and walking. Week one is more walking than running, and you build up from there.
Jogging baggy arse
I’m not too sure that we are getting the being able to talk while running bit quite right. We both have moments where we are red in the face and panting. But, it’s getting easier.
I seem to find overhanging branches irresistible, and have found myself slapped in the face more than a few times. I enjoy formulating routes, which are the right distance. Of course, as we fit more running into our sessions, these routes are getting longer. As the light evenings extend, we can run in more out of the way places. The world is our fitness centre.
Stretching warm up exercises are a must and I really feel it if I’ve neglected to do them. Likewise winding down exercises are good. I’m getting a real buzz from achieving more in my running and the warm glow in my body after I’ve finished a session. I have to laugh when we pass another jogger coming in the opposite direction. We both instinctively pick our feet and our speed up. Until we get past them of course. Don’t ya just love the male ego?
I’m still waiting for the day I manage to overtake someone!
On the downside, my knees have been suffering a little. Those first steps in the morning are a hobble. I had a week where I had to forego the jogging because of a stabbing pain in the back of my calf. It gets easier as my body gets used to the extra exercise.
Well equipped lardy joggers
Looking at the equipment at my local sports shop and you would never believe how humanity managed to run and hunt for millennia past without a plethora of technical gadgetry.
I started jogging with my trusty baseball boots, but I have moved onto using “proper” running shoes. In a remainders store, I got hold of a pair of Ralph Loren Polo running shoes at less than half price.
I’m not sure they were the best in terms of helping me run, but they look cool and certainly have very grippy soles. This was very useful for our bout of snow running last month.
Apart from looking and feeling the part, I’m unconvinced about running shoes for beginners, just as long as you wear something comfortable. But yeah, I look cool. Maybe I need some of those fancy shock absorber jobbies, which might help my knees.
Well, I would look cool if I had some nicer jogging bottoms. The ones I have are cheap and made from cheap jersey which has matted together to form a mass of bobbles all down my legs. Lovely.
A drawstring waist does not enhance the look. I’m sure drawstring waists are great if your hips are larger than your waist. For me, my waist is still several inches larger than my butt, so I end up mooning at the world after I’ve been jogging a few minutes.
Hmm, I can’t wait until the weather is warm enough for shorts. I’m sure spectators would agree.
I’ve also bought a watch for the first time in 20 years. This sports watch is very complicated and I’ve never been able to work out how the simultaneous stop watches work. It’s by paying too much attention to my watch that I’ve ended up being slapped by trees. I now just use the time to measure our bouts of running and walking.
Finally, you need a running mate – it’s a lot easier with a running mate, and although we aren’t competitive with each other we do spur each other on to get the run done, and not give up.
Healthy six pack hunky sex god joggers
Well not quite. I’m just hoping that the search engine might pick up on the phrase.
I still have enough fat to keep an average household in candles for a generation, but my belly is smaller. However, on my last check up, my blood pressure is 130/85! It could be a little better, but I’m outside the danger zone and outside the need for any nasty medication.
If anyone needed proof that exercise can make a considerable difference to blood pressure, here it is.
So, what’s for the future?
We certainly intend keeping up to our 30 minute 3 times a week routine and I will be so proud when I can run 30 minutes without stopping.
At this stage, that’s the extent of my ambitions, I can’t imagine ever being inspired enough to want to complete a marathon or even half marathon.
Besides, all that bouncing around must make your face baggy after a while.
Links
In case my tale of heart lifting (and blood pressure lowering) success has inspired you to find out more, then jog on over to the following pages:
The couch to 5K running plan
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml
Stretches for Runners
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/126.shtml
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cr01 asserts his right to be associated as the author of this review -2005-
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Member: Chris
Location: Yorkshire, England
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Away in Whitby for the weekend - the SAP catch up continues on Sunday...
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