I have been gaining weight recently. Ever since my ex-girlfriend and I broke up a couple of years ago, I have been gaining weight. And ever since I gave up swimming about six months after that, I have been gaining fat instead of muscle. I am now close to the weight I was in university which is, in my mind, not a good thing. I want to do something about it. I want to get back to the weight I was when I lived in Hamilton and climbed 15 flights of stairs multiple times a day. I want to get back to the weight I was when I was living with a vegan and eating vegan meals at least once a day. (I want to be healthier than I was when I was eating vegan meals, though.)
I am only 35. But there’s no point in putting this off until it’s an actual problem. I want to act now. And so, in order to do that, I am going to start logging what I do in this space. [Note: The logs have moved to social media. Follow me on twitter or Facebook if you care.]
To subscribers: I’m sorry. There will still be the deluge of reviews of movies and music, but there’s going to be a delay update about what I am doing to improve my physical (and mental) health. Maybe you can create a gmail filter that automatically deletes these posts if they bore you?
So, starting today, I will be posting a daily log about the following:
- What I ate
- What I did for exercise
- What I did with my life
- What I’m grateful for.
This is inspired by Younger Next Year (review to come). Don’t ask me why I’m reading a book written for retired men at age 35. All that maters is that I have and, at least for a moment, it is the kick in the ass that I need to start doing something about my lack of exercise. Until this spring, I only ever walked. (Save for a 6 month period where I took up swimming, of course.) I walk everywhere, but that’s all the exercise I get. Sometimes, that exercise is vigorous. (Walking up 15 flights of stairs is definitely more vigorous than walking on the pavement.) But most of the time, it is not.
This spring, alarmed by my growing paunch, but not wanting to quit beer – one of my great pleasures in life – I tried to rectify that by buying an exercise bike. I have been using it most weekdays since. But not every weekday. And not at any consistent effort level. I want to be better at this. I want to be healthier. I want to avoid all of the problems in old age that come from a lack of exercise and from eating poorly.
The only way I know of making myself do something I don’t want to do is by telling other people I am doing it. So that’s why I will be making this log public in this space. I’m sorry if it’s extremely uninteresting, but it is necessary for me to become healthier before I get heavy enough that it’s actually hard to exercise.
So here goes. Wish me luck.