I don't for a minute think that blogposts about exercise are the most thrilling blogposts , coming slightly below dreams although significantly above cat pictures.
However, because I started writing about my embracing of exercise, if I don't carry on, there will be readers thinking, yeah, we knew it,it would be a passing phase, she'd soon give up. So it acts as a motivation. There is also a part of me that hopes that maybe someone thinks 'bloody hell if that fat lazy cow can do it, there's no excuse for me' and that would be a positive thing in itself. (If they then act on their thought!).
I am pleased to report that my weight is holding absolutely steady since the last time I reported it, which is two kilogrammes heavier than four months ago, and makes me more than twenty kilogrammes overweight. Yet several people have said stuff like "You're looking really well" or "You've lost so much weight". I patiently explain I have lost fat and built muscle.
Jimmy going back to work full time plus not long after the clocks going back has rather stymied the excellent routine and mutual encouragement we had developed. It had been at least a couple of weeks since I got the bike out, lame excuses like it's cold, it's wet, it goes dark early,and the lamest of the lot...the best way to get the bikes out is to wheel them outside the front door of the shed, lock the shed from within, leave by the back door of the shed, lock the kitchen door, go to front door, put on outdoor shoes, go outside front door...at which point there is a risk, however slight, of the bike being nicked. So I decided to carry it through the house, which is a lot less hassle than unbolting and bolting the shed door.
On Saturday I went out to Tooting Common for an hour, and this glorious sunny and clear morning I cycled to the top of Brockwell Park and gazed for many miles across the skyline of London, soaking in the UV Rays of the sun. Really, being out in the cold is no big deal presuming one is well wrapped up and gloved. The cold hits the face initially but that soon goes. Until you stop, then the chill breeze once again hits the face moistened by light sweat a ladylike glow.
I went swimming yesterday evening. I did six lengths to warm up and realised that in that five or so minutes I had effortlessly completed what represented a full session not very long ago. Oh heck, what do I do now? More lengths. One thing that I wonder about. As I get fitter and more muscular I find I am doing more lengths in a shorter time than it took to do fewer. So eg I can do a lot more in 20 minutes than I used to do in 30 minutes. Is it more important to up the number of lengths, in order to continue to do half an hour, or to have a target number of lengths in shrinking time period, or to increase the time and the intensity in the pool?
I picked up a leaflet from my Pharmacist which says being active on five or more days of the week - 30 minutes for general health benefits and 60 minutes to 'help you lose weight and stop the weight going back on'. Then it categorises various activities - eg strolling (light), cycling, 10-12 mph (moderate) or swimming, crawl (vigorous) but doesn't really say whether 60 minutes of 'light' is equivalent to 30 minutes of 'vigorous' or whatever.
And I also don't like that constant use of the word 'weight'. I don't give a damn what I weigh; if I did I would have collapsed disheartened in tears and given up disillusioned by now. I am far more interested in waist measurement, and hip-to-waist ratio (and would be even more interested if I could actually locate my waist). This is known in everyday parlance as dress size. Above my navel I have the beginnings of a muscular and well-defined six-pack; below my navel I have a bloated gut that is not a pretty sight and can only be disguised by my droopy breasts hanging down (that last bit is a joke, my boobs are very pert thank you).
It's not just a theoretical moan with me.
I am absolutely and totally not losing any weight whatsoever, yet I am measurably fitter and clearly less fat than I was four months ago. If I was on some supervised programme, be it Fat Fighters or the NHS, I would be weighed in the balance and found lacking, or rather, found not lacking, but would be judged a failure.
I'm strong, energetic, high self-esteem, high level of knowledge and therefore don't give a shit, but if I were different, I would probably by now have embarked on some lunatic diet contradictory to basic science, would be feeling totally miserable, and would soon fall off the diet, and with the damage done to my metabolism and Christmas looming, I would balloon up by another five kilogrammes or more, or at least a dress size, which would make me more depressed, so launch me onto another faddy diet, doomed to fail, which would notch my fat levels up higher whilst stripping away my muscle.
Surely a major contributory factor to the 'obesity epidemic' is the cynical marketing of and profiteering from stupid damaging diets that screw-up people's bodies. One of the (many) evils of unfettered capitalism.
But what excuse the NHS has, I don't know. Although, significantly, their Change4Life website, about tackling childhood obesity, does not use the word 'weight' once but does say
There is a clear link between having too much fat in your body and preventable illnesses like diabetes, coronary heart disease, cancer and depression.
Which is gratifying. But the Department of Health has a strategy called Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives which does not seem at all helpful. And their PSA target is defined by weight. Sigh. It should be fat. Fat. Fat not weight.
