Resolutions – The Healthening Begins
Happy New Year, miscellaneous folks.
Resolutions have not featured largely in my life, aside from the occasional monitor joke (1920×1080 at 60htz, in case you wondered).
That is due to change. This year, I have two resolutions. One is to get Sleepwalkers finished, preferably published (joy of joys). The book has been stretching for the last 3 years, between other projects, so it’s high time that I finished it so I can work on more marketable ideas.
I will be writing less episodic fiction in order to give me more Sleepwalkers time. This is not to say that it will cease altogether- I just want to devote more time to SW and to generic, nattery, silly blog posts to mix things up a bit.
That bridges neatly to my second resolution: Get Fitterer.
Yes, it’s a tired old trope. “Oh blimey, I gorn an’ put a load of The Weight orn after Christ-mars, an’ now I gotta lose it again, for I am but a humble blacksmith, etc, yesterday”.
I know, but I’ve never done it before- for more than a month, anyway. This year will be different. I’m going to make it a part of my blog, so I can’t give up without looking daft and twunty. More so. Plus, It gives me a chance to moan, which I love.
The Healthening – 01/01/12
The modern world is agog with pecs, abs, models and celebrities. Our perception of what is healthy is warped by the media and pressure cooked by peer fear. How can a gentleman of repose such as myself survive this bombardment of social demands? Unfortunately, no amount of contempt for the stick-creatures we have raised as our icons can wipe away the fact that there is a minimum standard of healthiness and slimness that passes for a decent quality of life. I am below that standard because I chose laziness and gluttony. Don’t get me wrong- those have both served me well and provided copious amounts of pleasure, but I don’t want to pleasure myself to death. Ahem.
I don’t intend to become a stick thin fitness nut- exercise is almost anathema to me. I just need to get a little healthier and avoid a premature evacuation. There must be a way to balance oneself between the soulless strife of the terminally vigorous and the creeping inevitability of the heart bypass.
My aim is to take control of my health and with it my self-esteem and weight. I’m taking a look at dieting, training, and anything that can have a positive impact on my overall health and well-being while still preserving a modicum of idleness (after all- I’m a writer, not a footballsman). The real question is how to make a change without breaking anything biological and without breaking the bank. I consider it a learning experience, and classes begin today.
Facto: My weight is a diabetes risk and is not helping my arthritis. I’m about as fit as a crouton. Should the world end in 2012, perhaps through the actions of a certain North Korean, I’m going to need to be much healthier to fight off the orcs and death eaters and so on.
So, the first step is honesty. My stats are as follows:
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 16 stone (224 pounds)
Waist: 48 inches
Ergo my BMI is 35.07, for those who truck with such things. Personally, I have little faith in it, but the truth is that it falls well into the obese category. Nit-picking the BMI system doesn’t change that one iota.
So what’s the plan? Well, I need to refine it and I will go over it more in future posts, but frankly I intend to stick to the tired and tested ‘eat less, move more’ system. My diet is poor; I will be addressing that first, bit by bit, starting today, but I won’t go into any detail just yet. Some kind of gymming will likely be needed too; at first, I just need to get a little basic healthiness back before I can really focus on fitness.
What I can do is set a target: to get my BMI to 25 or less, which roughly translates to being 10 stone… losing 6 stone.
Maybe I can leave them on a bus?
-telling myself that fruit is the meat of plants
[sociable]