I got to admit that my freelance life was a lot of fun. I didn’t work normal hours. Stayed up late at night and whenever I had spare cash, I spent it on food and drink. You could say that I lived very well. For man whom people wondered how I survived, I lived pretty well. I was, for example, regular enough in the Bar & Billiard Room for two successive managers to invite me and an eating buddy to their Sunday brunch on more than one occasion. On the output side, well, my exercise was rather limited.
The natural result of a life of eating and drinking
the stuff I shouldn’t have been drinking and limiting my physical activity was
the fact that I ended up becoming an obese little thing. First it was the rolls
around the neck, which I tried to hide by not wearing ties and then the trouser
size grew. I actually had to buy cloths instead of inheriting them from Dad.
When people, or specifically my own mother told me I was actually “gross-looking,”
I continued to eat more because, I took the attitude that if people wanted to
be around me for my looks, they could jolly well sod off because I was having a
decent enough life doing things that I liked – basically eating, getting enough
booze in the system and flirting with Pinoy Bar Girls.
I guess must have looked OK in my 20s, reasonably
normal in my early thirties but by the time I reached my late thirties and headed
into my forties, I was actually getting a little round. Didn’t bother me as I figured
I could get away with wardrobe tricks.
The Covid happened. The wife insisted I walk more and
I realized that walking was a wonderful way of getting away from the house. The
kilos dropped and I started to like not needing to doze off in the day. Then,
there was the stick. I got such a bad gout attack on my 46th
birthday that I spent in hospital. I also ended up back there in hospital several
months later. Yes, weight had gone down but my uric acid levels were abnormally
high. I was literally camping out in the polyclinic on a weekly basis because I
was getting gout attacks on a regular enough basis.
Then, to get the right pills, I needed to take a blood
test and there they found that my blood sugars and triglycerides (bad cholesterol)
were heading the wrong way. I ended up being given a series of pills.
I don’t really like pills and so I’m trying to not need
them. I’ve started taking exercise seriously. As anyone who follows my key
social media pages can testify, I try to move constantly.
I’ve indulged in two gym sessions recently. However, whatever
work outs I do, usually tend to be the home-based variety. Much as I see the
value of gyms, I don’t think you should only be able to work out in a single
place, just I don’t believe you need to be confined to a single place to do
work.
If I stay with my aunt in Marine Parade, I use East
Coast Park. I’ve I’m with the family in the Whampoa area, I use Blastier as my
walking route and in both places, I make the most of the HDB facilities. So, what
have I gained out of all of this.
Talking to the One Person that Will Never Lie or
Butter You Up
I like to work out topless. Usually work out at night
or in the afternoon on weekends. Given that I am an obese man, I don’t exactly
have the type of body I can show off. However, when you’re topless, the sweat
cools faster and if you lack enough water, you might find salt crystals in
places you never imagined them to be.
More importantly, being aware of your body makes you
live on planet earth. As I’ve gained a title in professional life, I’m aware
that people might be inclined to stroke my ego. The Padawan actually called me “handsome
in rugged way.” It didn’t stop there. I’ve had the phrase “muscular frame” used
to describe me and someone whom I’ve grown to care for and whose opinions on my
looks matters to me, went as far as to use the phrase “really good looking.”
As nice as these phrases are to hear, the truth remains,
I’m still a middle-aged obese man. The one thing that never lies is your own
body and I notice that I still have too much belly fat and the neck rolls are
well…… So, no matter how many people might tell me the things I want to hear, looking
at my own body tells me what I really am and while it encourages me, its also
made clear that I am far from what those praising me tell me.
At Our Age
A few people have used this phrase when talk to them
about what exercises I do. It’s especially true when I tell people I started
sprinting on a weekly basis. Apparently, bodies over 40 are not supposed to
take the punishment and I should restrict my activities to the gentler ones.
Well, I happen to like the sensation of bringing my
heart rate up. Have brought it up to as high as 160 plus beats per minute. The
bottom line is I probably have a deficiency in human growth hormone and testosterone
and so, rather than injecting the stuff or accept that I’m supposed to let things
fall apart, I’m going to try and shock the body on a regular enough basis to
get things moving. The reality is that I need to be of a certain strength level
because I’m probably going to need to work for a very long time and the work available
to people like me will inevitably be physical.
Getting Used to Collapsing.
If you look at enough YouTube videos on fitness, you’ll
notice that they all make a single point. You are supposed to train a muscle to
failure. Rest it for about two days and train it again. The mechanics are
simple. Exercise tears the muscle and during the rest day, the body builds it
back bigger and stronger.
Had a go at pushing myself to that extent on Monday
night, doing several sets of bench dips and Tyson pushups as well as inverted
rows. Found it challenge to raise a cup of water with my arms but it will be
interesting to see how things go from there.
Can’t say if I’ll be less obese and ugly but as I
approach the half century mark, I like to think I’m going to age as a fit old
dude or at least someone who won’t be a burden on the kids, who will undoubtedly
have enough of their own problems to worry about.
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