Trying to be a Little Less Obese and Ugly

 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 46^th 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.

 

 Muscle building is like life. You got to get torn up a bit and then you heal and come back stronger.

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.