Tag: Treadmill

  • 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)

  • I Went to the Gym Today

    I sure did. I went to the gym. I had this thought in my head that I wanted to add a fourth day of gymming to my life. (I have decided that “gymming” is a word, and that it is spelled with two m’s.) I don’t know what came over me last night, but as I was going to bed, I said to myself, I can go to the gym on Tuesday, and now work out four days a week.

    See, at least since 2022, I have been going to the gym three days a week, Wednesday thru Friday. The thought here was that Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to doing all of the stay at home dad stuff. Not that there weren’t other stay at home dad stuff things to do during the rest of the week, but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were my days to work on my stuff – writing, art, time with the kid, and those were my gym days, too. On the whole, it’s been working fine.

    But of late, I have started to think that I could and should be doing more. I could be writing more, working on more projects, doing more around the house, more work on our family’s finances. And that just led me to think that I could do another day at the gym. I would find an extra hour, somewhere, and wedge in some treadmill time.

    There is a very important fact here, you need to remember – I hate working out. I equate the gym to eating your vegetables as a kid – you don’t like it, but you know you need to do it. That’s the gym for me. My doctor told me that as I get older I need to do at least 30 minutes of cardio workouts, three times a week. So, I have been doing that. Eating my vegetables and staying in the good graces of the doctor and the wife. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be healthy, and have as much time with my wife, kid, friends and family as possible. If I could do that without the gym, I would, you know.

    So, for this thought of adding a gym day, to do extra gymming, seemed surprising to me. And I was surprised that I was open to this idea. That I woke up this morning thinking that it was still a good idea. That I put on the running gear and headed out to the gym, got on the treadmill, and was surprised at how fast the time flew.

    I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but I might be making a positive change here.

  • ODDS and ENDS: I Want to Go to the Gym, The Greatest Upset in Cricket World Cup History, and Mowing the Lawn

    (If there is a remedy, I will run from it)

    Today, honestly, was the first day in my life wherein when I woke up, and I had a desire to go to the gym. Not sure what is happening to me. I hate going to the gym, or at least I did. Yet, running on the treadmill for 30 minutes sounds enjoyable. Crap! I think I might be changing for the better.

    Did you know that the Men’s Cricket World Cup is underway? Did you know that the US is the host country? did you know that the USA has a team? Would you believe that the USA is not ranked very high in the world, and is not considered a serious competitive team? Would you believe that low ranked Team USA beat the 6th ranked powerhouse team from Pakistan yesterday? Yeah, neither did I! This is actually a very big deal in the Cricketing world, and I feel that out of National Pride we should be celebrating this! As such, here is your 2024 USA Men’s National Cricket Team:

    I never really minded the chore of mowing the yard. My Dad would make me do it, and I think at first it was like a punishment. But I had a walkman and lots of tapes, so it became a time for me to zone out and fall into my music. If I remember correctly, I could mow the front and back yard in thirty minutes, but it was Texas, so in the summer I either had to mow in the morning, or at the very edge of dusk. I don’t know if I will ever own a house, but if I do, I am looking forward to taking care of a yard.