I write about fitness regularly – not because I am fit myself – but because all the people around me are incredibly fit.
When your 16 year old ‘ultra fit, swimming, footballing, PE at A Level’ son prods you in your paunch every time he’s within poking distance – you tend to get the message that perhaps, just perhaps it is time to exercise more.
I have always hated gyms, jogging and swimming because of the brain dumbing boredom of the whole process. Team games offer more excitement and interest but are harder to organise because you are dependent on others and their time schedules etc.
BUT (you knew there was going to be a ‘BUT’ because of the title)
I have found the answer.
My kids decided to take more direct action this Christmas and my gift from them was one of those steps machines. Now it doesn’t only go up and down – there is a subtle twisting action involved.
Furthermore you can alter the compression so that you can either (on low compression) go fast for a heart/circulation pounding or (on high compression) to build rock hard muscles – well maybe.
I was trapped of course – I had to use my kids present.
So I dutifully put on a T-shirt and shorts and started to workout on Christmas Day. There just happened to be a film on the TV as I started the boring old up/down up/down. Now in the past with any piece of exercise like this I would have been counting and doing a ‘half way there’, ‘two hundred more’ mental dialogue progress going on in my mind continuously. The film I was watching though was so riveting that there was none of this usual computation going on in my head.
I finally looked down to see what progress I was making and to my enormous surprise I had over 2000 steps done. My clothes were drenched – and probably stank – and my legs were aching. I had probably over done it for the first time of using and I hadn’t felt a thing.
The great thing that I had suddenly realised was that I could finally watch some films. This has always been a problem in the past I gave up trying to watch films years ago because sitting on a comfortable settee in the evening for the duration of a film was a recipe for falling asleep.
However exercising at the same time as watching a movie – hey – no such problem.
It means I have to watch a movie – usually in three episodes but that’s
fine. I now do 2500 machine compressions daily and enjoy every minute
and I’ve never seen so many films.
So I have a little routine going that is absolutely a solution to two problems.
Get your mind off the exercise and onto something really absorbing is my recommendation to anyone that will listen.
It is also paying off as today I had to tighten my belt one hole. Those surfing dudes better watch out for me on the beach this summer.
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