Homework Excercise

It has been some days since my last blog. I may have alluded to the fact I am very busy with work to the extent where I’m in the office at 7.15am, getting home at six and taking the laptop with me. The old work life balance is in danger of going the wrong way again.

I would have loved to have said my time had been taken up with extensive physical exertion and that I have been sweating buckets training for a marathon or something worthy, but I haven’t. In truth I mostly sit around during the day, then come home and sit around in the evening, with as little dog walking as I can get away with in between. In fact, the most exercise I get these days is sprinting up the stairs at work, but only if anyone attractive is in the near vicinity.

My work has a fantastic gym facility with modern equipment, exercise programmes and sporting events ongoing throughout the year. The gym is so great, I have been there, ooh let me see, that’s right, zero times since I joined.

 I’ve never been bothered by weight issues much and because I looked after myself by going to the gym in my twenties, I am probably getting away with murder these days. My waistline has crept up over the last ten years, but if I breathe in you couldn’t tell. To be honest I’m actually losing weight at the moment due to my healthier lunchtime breaks, where salad is the order of the day. Well to be fair some token lettuce and a few peppers get to accompany the roast ham or chicken I have on my plate. In all seriousness, I have stopped eating crisps, sandwiches and chocolate bars for lunch, which is probably the main difference.

I am wondering whether now is the time to pick up the mantle and start training again. A quick run round the block shouldn’t kill me, should it? or maybe it would. An old colleague of mine firmly believed in a theory that every living thing only had a certain number of heartbeats and then it would die. He justified this by explaining hamsters have tiny little hearts that race very quickly and they only live a very short time and would go through a whole story on a range of increasingly sized mammals to illustrate his point. He always culminated with a dig at joggers and used to jokingly say they were just wasting their heartbeats.

I swear that guy led the most sedentary lifestyle ever, feet up on the desk, wouldn’t even walk from room to room if he could get away with it and he smoked like a chimney in the days where smoking was still allowed. He retired about ten years ago and he’s still knocking around, so perhaps there was some merit in his theory.

So, back to my new exercise regime. I need to get some motivation, but while I’m still taking work home with me it’s unlikely to happen. The temptation of a glass of wine in the evening is far more appealing than pulling on my trainers and old tracksuit bottoms. Yeah, that's it I need some new kit first…...