Tag: Gym

  • ODDS and ENDS: Getting Started, Oh Tottenham, and Bloody Mary Brunch

    (Forgetting her’s the nature of my flight…)

    Boy, do I suck and starting something new. And I also suck at just getting back to good habits. I say this because I have found a way to completely, and in the most air-tight form of rationalization, not go to the gym for a month. Even this morning, I was ready to not go to the gym, and I made sure that I did not go. Do I feel good about this decision? Absolutely not. Will I go to the gym on Monday? Odds are that I will not. Yes, indeed; I have found a way to squander the entire month of September. To a degree, I have impressed myself. You may think that this is easy to do, but it is not. Okay, okay, okay… Tuesday of next week; I’m going to the gym.

    Wow! Tottenham Hotspur sucks this season. Really sucks. They suck in a way I thought was impossible to suck. There was no way they could get worse than last season. No, no, they found a way. And they spent a shit ton of money, and somehow they suck even more! They are at the bottom. Completely at the bottom of the Premiere League table. Sitting at #20, with two points. Incidentally, their two points is equal to as many goals they have scored this season. Just… wow. Now, as a Cubs fan (and the Cubbies did get eliminated from the playoffs recently) I know what it’s like for your team to be at the bottom. And normally I would say that there is only one direction, and that’s up! But in the Premiere League, there is relegation, so we might not have hit bottom yet.

    Saturday, I have brunch plans, which sounds fancy, and a little pretentious… All of that is true. But it also means morning/day drinking in a very socially acceptable way. Happy weekend to all, and to all a good drunken afternoon nap.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The Knicks Meme, USA v Australia, and I Can’t Believe This

    ODDS and ENDS: The Knicks Meme, USA v Australia, and I Can’t Believe This

    (This joint is jumping!)

    Knicks basketball team on a bus celebrating championship win with fans cheering
    (AI images still suck…)

    There’s been lots of celebrating in the City since the Knicks won, and if you have been walking around here in the past week, New York feels like one giant neighborhood. It’s best summed up by MD Ahnaf Hossain who said, “My mayor’s Muslim / My bagel’s Jewish / My Christian’s Dior / Knicks in four!” Or you could go with, “My mayor’s Muslim / My bagel’s Jewish / The Pope’s on our side / Knicks in five!”

    Gearing up for USA v Australia in about an hour, and I’m excited for this match. A win means that Team USA will move on to the knockout round. I hate to be one of those supporters, but it Team USA can win their first match in the knockout round, then this World Cup has been a success for them. I would love for them to go deep, hell, even win the whole thing. But, I feel like we are still twenty to thirty years from that. Having said that, I would like to see how far we can go in this thing. Might be awhile before the Cup in held in America again.

    I can’t believe I’m going to say this; I’m looking forward to working out each day. Not sure what changed this week, but there you go. I can learn new things.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Walking to Success, Sprung Spring, and Jeans

    ODDS and ENDS: Walking to Success, Sprung Spring, and Jeans

    (Make you come home early…)

    So… I’m back to the gym. I have been off of it since October, and my body is showing it. I have a little belly now, which is really wanting to become a bigger belly. No real surprise, I have let myself go for the past five months. But not any longer. Back to the gym, and my plan is to follow the same pattern as before; a pattern that garnered positive results for me. Thirty minutes a day for five days a week, aiming to get two miles in on the treadmill. And since I am a middle aged man, I know that I have to work my way up to running the whole thirty minutes. So, I do a brisk walk for now, then I will start running for a few minutes, and alternate back to walking. Slowly, I’ll start running more than walking, getting to the point where I walk the first three minutes, jog the next twenty-four, and do a cool down walk of three minutes. I’m on week two of being back to the gym, and I’m still walking for the time being (Next week we start jogging for a few minutes) but is there a way to just walk my way to losing ten pounds? Better yet, is there a way I can just lay on the couch and… well… just lay on the couch because I hate going to the gym, and none of it is fun for me. But… I want to be healthy, so I have to suck it up…

    No one cares about the second Spring day, which is effectively what yesterday was. It was 72 out in the City. It was great out, but it was the second day of Spring and no one cared. See, that first day of Spring, when it gets to the upper 60’s for the first time, everyone and their dog is out. I love how there are the super ambitious people who are dying for Spring and Summer to show up, to the point that they are running around in shorts, t-shirt and sandals as if it was a Summer day. More importantly, that first day of Spring has a feeling of relief and joy that Winter is finally coming to an end; that we have made it through the darkness and better times are ahead. The second Day of Spring is more about people complaining that they out on the wrong coat in the morning.

    There is one sure fire way to acknowledge that I am getting older, and that has to do with decreased amount of time that I wear jeans. There was a time, say from the age of ten to twenty-five, when I would have worn a pair of jeans everyday. Even in Summer, and I used to live in Texas. I lived in jeans. And over this time frame, I did own other pants, like khakis and such, and for shits and giggles I might wear them out, but on the whole, jeans as far as the eye can see. Then I graduated college, and had to go get a job, and the dominance of jeans began to wane in my life, well, at least between the hours of 8am to 6pm, Monday through Friday. Nothing but jeans, in different colors (Blue, dark blue, light blue, and black) and styles (Baggy and Straight) and brands (Levi’s and Old Navy). Now that I am older, sensible slacks seem sensible, and wearing pants that seem appropriate for the season I’m in also is a very logical proposition.

    (P.S. – The AI Image Creator is an RFK Jr. Fan, as It Thinks I Work Out in Jeans)

  • ODDS and ENDS: Gym Time, CUBS Anxiety, and Corduroy Pants

    ODDS and ENDS: Gym Time, CUBS Anxiety, and Corduroy Pants

    (Dear I fear we’re facing a problem…)

    I wanted to go to the gym today. I know, I’m a little scared, too! (In a weird way, this feels like the call is coming from the inside of the house, if you know what I mean.) I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this development. For the past month, I started going to the gym at the start of the day. In the past, I had fit the gym in later during the day, and I found ways and excuses to not go. This shift came from two places. The first was that I had to admit to myself that my old way of doing things wasn’t working. If I was serious about getting healthier and back in shape, I had to try something different. The second place my change came from was my best friend and old college roommate. He, in his very subtle way over the past year, had hinted that starting you day with a workout can help you in multiple ways, the most important being if you schedule it as the first thing you do, then you are less likely to miss it. Provided you stay committed. I guess I’m committed, because I wanted to go this morning. I’m up to four days a week, and I think I will add the fifth. Things are changing… What’s going on?

    It has been a weird time for me when it comes to the Cubs. I’m very excited that they are in NLDS and at the same time I can’t watch them. I say this because every time I have watched them, they have lost. I’m not saying that I am the reason they lost, but it does seem odd. The other odd thing is that there was one game I didn’t watch and they lost, so there must be another Cub fan out there that is cursed with this ability. Oh, I know it’s not like it was in ’16, and the Brewers are pretty damn good, but I would like to see Cubs play the Dodgers for the NL Pennant. But if the Cubs make it to play the Dodgers, odds are I won’t be able to watch them. My anxiety would be too high, and it would doom the team.

    I want some corduroy pants! I used to have some, but maybe ten years ago, I tossed them as the knees were wearing thin. I have regretted that decision every day since. The pair that I tossed I had purchased at the GAP back in 2003. I remember this because I went with my then girlfriend to the mall near our campus, and working at the GAP was a mutual friend of ours who was willing to give her employee to my girlfriend. While at the store, the two of them talked me into trying on a pair of brown corduroy pants, which I had no intention of buying. But hot damn, I sure did look good in them! Not that I had the money to buy pants that day, but I did it anyway. The girlfriend didn’t last, but the pants did. Well, lasted until 2015 that is.

  • At the Gym, Again, Sort’a

    If you don’t know; I don’t like going to the gym. I think I am on year four of trying to establish a regular habit of going to the gym. Past behavior predicts that I will stick to it for three months and then fall off the wagon.

    But I have noticed something different of late…

    No one is at the gym when I go. Not sure if this is due to me showing up way earlier than I normally would, or maybe the gym is about to go out of business. As of this moment, I can’t tell.

    What I do know is that there is no one around, and the gym is quiet, except for the music they pump in, but at that hour it’s rather low. There’s no one in the locker room, no one hanging around the water fountain, no one hanging around the front desk, and no one standing outside talking on their phone. What there is happens to be a handful of, dare I say it, normal looking people.

    So, the atmosphere has changed, but not so much my attitude. I still don’t want to be there. I would like to be healthier, and I would like to lose ten pounds, but, ahhh, still don’t want to be there.

     I am trying to find a way to enjoy being at the gym. I don’t think I will ever get that workout “high” where you feel better about yourself. What I am looking for is a good use of my time. I run for thirty minutes, at least to get in two miles, and sometimes my mind does wander. Today, I was thinking about some of the awful office jobs I have had. (That didn’t make me feel better.) I would try to read, but I’m running, so that doesn’t work. Truth of the matter, for me anyway, I can’t multitask when I’m running. I would like to be more efficient, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

    Anyway, I think going to the gym early in the morning is going to work for me. Not that in want it to, but glad that it is.