Embarking on a Crash Exercise Program

Wednesday 30 May 2007 - Filed under blog

No, this isn’t a fat blogger post. That’s because I’m not fat and I’m not a blogger. Well, I’ve been busy coding my app and other things so I’ve let physical fitness fall by the wayside. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through such a phase but I feel that with every additional year it becomes a bit harder to bounce back. I have this unspoken rule that I wont let my weight go beyond a certain point. I’ve skirted close to the limit and was a bit shocked when I saw a recent picture of myself. It was like my body was distorted sideways.

When I get back into an exercise program I usually go on a crash course. They say this isn’t good because you might rebound and give up completely. There’s a grain of truth to it but only if you’ve never spent any time exercising for an extended period of time. I’ve stuck to a fairly rigorous routine in the past. It’s always some kind of an injury or major life change that derails me but once you have that behind you it’s easy to pick up. In fact, unless you’ve let your weight slip to the point where your heart’s at risk, it’s better to go all out and shock your system.

The beauty of exercise is that it’s easy to regain previous levels of fitness. It’s harder to go beyond that and improve. There’s tissue memory at work. A lot of times you really don’t know your physical limitations because the psychological ones set in long before.

I usually alternate between running for 30 minutes and some kind of machine cardiovascular exercise at the local gym. I enjoy the changing scenery afforded by running and hate the treadmill. Usually the stair climber does it for me but since my favorite machine is in repair I’ve recently rediscovered the stationary bike.

Too bad I can’t rig a stationary bike to this mac and force myself to generate my own electricity. We’ll see how long this one lasts. I’m going to try losing 10 pounds. I want to get body fat under 10% for the first time in a while.

2007-05-30  »  baron