Splash

I've been going to the gym  for the last month or so.  It's an attempt to stem the encroaching tide of middle-aged "can't be arsed-ness" and also to reduce my bulk to less vile proportions. 

I have actually got a bit heavier, which is dispiriting, if not unexpected, and I can't see any real difference in my shape yet. However, I am already feeling stronger, and I sweat more when exerting myself.  Niiiiice.  Apparently, according to the nice gym staff, that's a common side effect of exercising.  You get sweatier. 

So.  Heavier.  Slightly more muscular.  Sweaty.  I bet you're all having a little private far-away moment just imagining that, aren't you?

The most difficult part of the entire business is getting into a routine.  I am trying to go early in the day, to be there before 0900, do my routine, get home, get showered, get dressed and be ready to get on with my day by 1030 at the latest.  The downside to that is that I don't eat before I go, which might be a bad thing.  I may have to get up at the crack of dawn to have some porridge first.

I do 10 minutes on the cross trainer* to start with, which is ok, as long as I don't look at the timer counting down.  I try to watch the TV screen above my head, where they show the BBC News with subtitles.  There is a good deal of unintended hilarity caused by those subtitles, with the interpreters having to publish rapid corrections as they go. 

If I can't see the TV screen, I look down into the swimming pool.  Sometimes there are dozens of small children having swimming lessons, which is also hilarious.  They are all so earnest; watching them splashing about like minnows, whacking one another in the face as they attempt backstroke takes me back to my own awful school swimming lessons. 

The school I went to in London, way back in the early 1970s, took us to a concrete outdoor pool for lessons. It was very shallow, and I have distinct memories of regularly scraping my feet and stubbing my toes on the rough concrete bottom of the pool as I was learning to kick.  I never knew what the swimming teacher's name was.  It sounded like "Mr Vinehoff" but everyone in the class had a different opinion what it actually was.  We couldn't hear him introduce himself over the splashing, shrieking masses and nobody had the nerve to ask him what his name was.

I don't think they taught us how to swim, as such. I think it was more along the lines of trial by ordeal, where they threw us into the water and if we didn't drown we had to go back to school and learn about the metric system and decimalisation.

The school I went to in Chichester took us to the municipal baths for lessons, in a bus.  We seemed to spend about twice as long getting to the pool, getting changed into our swimsuits, getting dry afterwards and getting back into our uniforms than we ever did in the water.  I remember the sense of achievement I had when I swam 100 yards.  It was slow and inelegant, like so much of my school sporting career, but I did it, and I got a certificate to prove it.

I also jumped off the diving board.  There was a low board, a springy plank on the edge of the pool which was perfect for doing "pirate walking the plank" impressions when the teacher wasn't looking, and everyone could jump off that.  Well, it was practically the same as the edge of the pool.  You had to be a real chicken to flunk that one. 

Then there were the Other Boards.  I definitely jumped off one of those, but my memory fails me here.  I can't remember if it was the the middle board up a flight of scary rickety metal steps, or the "fuck me that's high" board at the very top, up abut four flights of steps.  I have a nagging feeling that I did go off the top board, because I can recall the terror when I had jumped; that feeling that there was no going back.  When I hit the water I went almost to the bottom of the pool - 12' 6" deep, whatever that is in metric** - and it was scary trying to get back up to the surface before I ran out of air.  I didn't do it again.

It may have been something we had to do for a swimming badge with the Girl Guides. 

We had to do so many odd things with the Girl Guides.  That's a whole blog post in itself.

Anyhoo.  Swimming flashbacks aside, I am enjoying the gym, and any day now will develop one of those bodies that you see on TV, memorably described by (I think) Terry Pratchett as a stocking full of walnuts. 
I can't promise photos. 






*See much earlier, older joke somewhere in the blog archives about this being a piece of gym equipment, not a grumpy muscular man in a singlet 

**I learned NOTHING at school.  Not a bloody thing.

Sheesh, kebabs

You know trains?  You know how they can be a bit, well, not to put too fine a point on it, stinky?

Quite aside from the stale air, massed humanity, dirty upholstery and lord knows what being trodden into the floor, I discovered another offender.

Kebabs.

Yes, you heard me.  Keeee-babs.

This epicure was tucking into one on the train home last night.  He was having a high old time, picking out every scrap of salad, or anything that might contain a vitamin and casting it aside, alternating with dangling long floppity dripping shreds of meat (origin unknown) into his gaping maw.

Pasties, I can tolerate, although the smell makes me hungry.  Chips, the same.  Pizza, burgers and now added to the list, kebabs, no.  Just, no.

If you want to eat that stuff, at least have the decency to sit in the "restaurant" where they shovel it into the customers.  Failing that, sit on a bench at the bus stop outside and lap it out of the styrofoam bucket.  Don't get into a train where all the doors and windows are closed for fucking hours on end and pollute the entire carriage with your greasy stench.  You bastards.

I think I'd almost prefer people to be smoking.

Talking of food, well, sort of, I had a slight setback at my slimming group this week.  Despite having been mostly good, I put ON 4.5lbs.  I mean, wtf?  Heavier clothes? Lead earrings? Diving boots?  Gah.   Still, I am half a stone lighter than I was at the start, so I am not giving way to despair.

Our group leader was giving out some salad recipes for us to try, and told us we ought to try "mango towt".  I had to read the list of ingredients before I worked out she meant mange tout.  Bless.

Other news:  Met up with my mate Spence last night for a meal after work, which was very pleasant.  We were discussing money-making schemes using our combined talents of blogging and cartooning. 

Blogtooning.

Hey, it might catch on.

Losses

Remember I said I was starting a weight loss regime?  Yeah you do.

I am happy to report that to date I have lost nine and a half pounds.  Doesn't sound much, but it's 19 packets of butter.  Or nine and a half bags of sugar.  Or a shedload* of satsumas.

It doesn't really show yet, as proportionally it is a mere drop in the ocean, but it's an achievement and I am pleased.

Other news:  Visa application saga continues, and is stressful, depressing and expensive.  I ended up having to take the afternoon off work as I was weeping uncontrollably after having to rummage through all the paperwork relating the the SSFH** to find the bits that the Embassy need.  So that was nice.

Tonight, by way of light relief, Mr WithaY and I are off out to see some mates for dinner and to participate in a mass Folding.  The parish magazine doesn't just staple itself, you know.



*The research team are still working on the details of this one.
**Shit Storm From Hades

Involuntary detox

Why thank you, yes, I have lost weight. 

How?

By following my very own weight loss plan.  It goes thus:

Days 1 - 31    Acquire (and hang onto - this is important) a severe chest infection.  This will start you off properly by helping you to lose your appetite and begin toning up all the muscles in your upper body as you cough for hours on end.  Make sure you have at least two courses of antibiotics during this premiminary period.

Days 32 -35   Pick up a bout of post-antibiotic gastroenteritis.  Spend 72 hours in bed, shivering, vomiting with terrifying suddenness and running (carefully) to the toilet.  Eat nothing but one banana and a bowl of plain rice (on Day 35) during this period.  Make sure you drink lots of water to make all those trips to the toilet worthwhile, though.

Day 36   Weigh yourself and go "Hmmmm.....lost a stone."

I might write a book.  It's clearly a very successful method.

I can almost see my cheekbones again.  Almost.

Hack

I have a chest infection.

Marvellous.

I went to the doctor today as I have been coughing more and more since Saturday. He listened to my chest, and said I was rattling. Ugh. I have a week's worth of antibiotics and some really horrible cough medicine.

One amusing thing. It wasn;t my usual doctor, and as he looked at my records on the computer, he seemed puzzled.

Doctor: Have you ever been much (pause) heavier than you are now?

Me: Um, no, I think this is about as fat as I've ever been*. Why do you ask?

Doctor: Well, according to your records, you weigh 245 Kg. How tall are you?

Me: Five foot ten.

Doctor: That gives you a body mass index of about 75. (Looks at me again) Hmm, that can't be right.

He then insisted on weighing me, just to make sure I didn't in fact weigh as much as a small bus.

So. Even a trained medical professional had to check that I am not quite so huge that walls would need to be demolished to get me out of his office. Gah.


*Thanks for asking you git