Physical activity
Jun. 17th, 2012 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidnIt hasn't escaped my notice that over the last while, my school friends on Facebook have all become worryingly active. While I continue to live the sedentary lifestyle of a dual career/hobbyist coder, they're getting into tracksuits and cycling a hundred miles around the Scottish highlands.
And at work, I don't feel any less lazy by comparison to anyone around me. One of the other coders regularly does 50-kilometre runs, presumably thought up by people who thought that marathons were for wimps. And two of the other people I work with participated in a triathlon today - a five-kilometre run, long distance bike ride and a swim across a lake infested with ravenous goldfish. One of them said he didn't even know how to swim, but was confident that he could just pick it up as he went along.
I've never really felt motivated to take part in much exercise - I've been very fortunate to just have a constitution that seemed to allow me to just stay in acceptable shape no matter how little I moved about or how many biscuits I ate (getting a terrible illness every couple of years has tended to help as well). But during my last physical checkup at the doctor, she told me that my BMI had crept into the "overweight" range for the first time, and seeing the list of medical problems on your card as "Hypothyroidism; a bit fat"... it tends to make you think that you should do something about it.
Not that I really did, until Whitney restarted her own exercise routine. Given the chance to support each other, we went to the local gym together for the first time this morning - and I have to say that I think forty minutes of exercise came closer to killing me than a diet of chips ever has. I was listening to my own music while on the elliptical treadmill, so that I can tell you that I lasted almost exactly sixteen minutes and twenty seconds before collapsing into a nondescript blubbery heap.
I think that I started off too confidently, though - I naively expected that I would be able to move my legs about for a practically infinite amount of time as long as I kept my pace to an acceptable level. Instead, I'm going to try the couch-to-5K plan, which I remember being highly recommended a while ago - with the promise of being able to proceed only when comfortable, I think that the idea of incremental 'rewards' and a level-based structure will do wonders for my motivation.
And at work, I don't feel any less lazy by comparison to anyone around me. One of the other coders regularly does 50-kilometre runs, presumably thought up by people who thought that marathons were for wimps. And two of the other people I work with participated in a triathlon today - a five-kilometre run, long distance bike ride and a swim across a lake infested with ravenous goldfish. One of them said he didn't even know how to swim, but was confident that he could just pick it up as he went along.
I've never really felt motivated to take part in much exercise - I've been very fortunate to just have a constitution that seemed to allow me to just stay in acceptable shape no matter how little I moved about or how many biscuits I ate (getting a terrible illness every couple of years has tended to help as well). But during my last physical checkup at the doctor, she told me that my BMI had crept into the "overweight" range for the first time, and seeing the list of medical problems on your card as "Hypothyroidism; a bit fat"... it tends to make you think that you should do something about it.
Not that I really did, until Whitney restarted her own exercise routine. Given the chance to support each other, we went to the local gym together for the first time this morning - and I have to say that I think forty minutes of exercise came closer to killing me than a diet of chips ever has. I was listening to my own music while on the elliptical treadmill, so that I can tell you that I lasted almost exactly sixteen minutes and twenty seconds before collapsing into a nondescript blubbery heap.
I think that I started off too confidently, though - I naively expected that I would be able to move my legs about for a practically infinite amount of time as long as I kept my pace to an acceptable level. Instead, I'm going to try the couch-to-5K plan, which I remember being highly recommended a while ago - with the promise of being able to proceed only when comfortable, I think that the idea of incremental 'rewards' and a level-based structure will do wonders for my motivation.
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-18 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-19 10:56 pm (UTC)If you remember my fame on the DDR machine in university - I actually have a pad for it in the basement office, though I haven't used it a whole lot since the operation. And it's good to have somewhere that Whitney and I can go together to support each other in our efforts!