Do something!

I wrote this, didn’t post it, and then ran into a physical problem, one that meant I couldn’t do it. I was digging a drain. It needed to be much deeper than I expected. The ground was full of big stones, they needed to be broken or dug out. The hole started to fill with water from the bottom. My problem. . .who cares. . .so sad. . .and all that! But it does matter because I’d decided to do something then the drain came along, and I couldn’t do what I planned!

The original post is in quotation marks followed by my commentary.

“In my frustration I wrote down a plan, it was very challenging, and covered all the bases I wasn’t covering.”

“Firstly, my eating during the day can be poor.” Actually it can be awful because there’s no planning, you know blankly staring into the fridge or cupboard, mindlessly walking into the shop, ordering the first thing that comes to mind! So in my frustration I decided to, “create one meal and eat it everyday.”

“Secondly, I’ve spent so long thinking about stretching and getting the perfect plan, I’ve managed to do nothing! I just need to get one and start! So the plan is: Day 1 lower back; Day 2 legs; Day 3 core; then repeat.” I haven’t done this yet, but I have started stretching. The drain forced my hand, standing in a waist deep hole and shovelling into a shoulder height wheelbarrow can be a bit challenging! I’ve used muscles and twisted in ways which I’m not sure I’ve ever done before! Stretching has become a necessity, I value the ability to move before lunch time! Anyhow I’ve got going and the challenge is keeping going!)

“Three, callisthenics for core and abdominal strength: follow thirty day plan.” There is not a chance! Firstly, I’m digging at the same time I would have been training! So I am training, just not that training! Secondly, is recovery, it would not be wise to do two things that both require recovery at the same time. If I made my living digging holes, or if I’d actually been doing core strength training, it would have been okay, but I wasn’t, so it isn’t. Just in case any of the more rural minded or building savvy are asking, why not get a digger man in? There’s pipes and cables about. I’ve already had to dig around some! So there’s no chance, I’m stuck waist deep in a hole.

“Four, do weights Mon, Wed, Fri.” (See above)

“Five, Walking machine at least 20 mins per day or bike.” I can’t do this one because of time.

“This may sound a lot, but it is within my range of ability. The problem, since last November has been consistency. The issue is self organisation not self discipline. This is about regulating my time and actions. I do not need to think I need to do!”

Okay lets go back over what I wrote. Firstly, yes it was within my range of ability, so long as there wasn’t an unexpected and on going hard physical challenge. Like lots of digging, picking, thumping and shovelling glar from low down to up high in a wheelbarrow! And I’d really not expected it to last so long! So do I feel sad about that the weights, the walking, and the callisthenics didn’t happen the way I intended? Not really. Modern human beings train because we no longer do hard physical labour, so I was doing what we were meant to do.

However, I’m not pleased about the mobility one! Yes I’ve started. And yes I knew I needed to get started. But the pain (okay the soreness) was physical. Standing in a waist deep hole, shovelling into a shoulder height wheelbarrow isn’t great. If I’d done this last November I don’t think I would have been stiff at all. But I am, and very stiff, so much so if I hadn’t stretched in the morning, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near right till late in the afternoon. So I’ve taught myself a negative lesson, you need mobility all the time, and when I needed it, it wasn’t there, and that is sore physically and painful mentally! But here’s the point, I knew there was an issue, I did nothing about it, and then came a bit of a cropper! If I kept stretching at my present level, I’ll be okay, more than okay, I’d be able to leap into the next unexpected digging a big hole. But this really is a lesson learnt, the point of mobility is being able to do something when you don’t expect you need to do it, and being reasonably okay after you’ve done it!

Diet, I’ve improved this one greatly but I still have a bit of a way to go. I haven’t come up with that one meal yet, but I do try to eat a banana mid morning and know what I’m having for lunch. It isn’t perfect but it is better! I am planning to get started next week when the school holidays are over. I also accept that there will be a good bit of trial and error involved and it might take a wee while to get it right. In life knowing accurately what we are doing is vital. Keeping track of your work, calories, screen time, and so on works because it makes us consciously aware of what we are doing, and what we are spending our time on. Some people will stop tracking because they don’t want to know, others will change because they do. Having a set meal (and snack, if I need one) will remove the need for thinking and the risk of failure. I just need to make one decision, and then implement the plan daily!

However, due to thinking about this, an underlying problem has come to mind, one that might explain a lot of my problems with food, something that I’m going to have to give time and thought to, (this will probably get a post of it’s own in about a month)!

So there you go, and to use the old Jui Jitsu saying, “you either win or learn”, and in this case I’ve learn’t, so now I need to apply the lessons!

Training as a Sentence.

Why is it so hard to do those things that you know you need to do? So hard in fact, that you don’t do them, whilst wanting to get them done! It’s a total quandary! For me those things are stretching / mobility and abdominal calisthenic exercises (sit ups, flutter kicks, leg raises etc). Stretching is really easy, I just open the “leap fitness: stretching exercise” app, the one I downloaded for free ages ago, and follow one of the workouts! Or tune into “Yoga with Adrienne” for one of her videos on YouTube, the ones I have book marked. For the abs, or gut, exercises I have a list of exercises to do.

Again, rather annoyingly, I know the answer, I know the answer because James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, gave me the answer.

He relates the story of a group of people who needed to do physical exercise. The group was then split into three.

Group one was just told what they needed to do.

Group two was told what they needed to do and given motivational material.

Group three was told what they needed to do but “[T]hey were also asked to formulate a plan for when and where they would exercise over the following week. Specifically, each member of the third group completed the following sentence: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].” (Atomic Habits p69)

Here’s where it gets really interesting, the success rate of group one was 35%, group two was 38%, and group three was 91%. This emphasises that the greatest form of self-discipline is being self-organised!

But the motivational group also stood out, I couldn’t help wondering is motivational material only helpful to those who are already motivated. For example I’ll sometimes watch David Goggins videos on the treadmill, not to get on the treadmill. The motivation is to keep going, not to get going. It’s like this blog, I started writing because I’d started training, not because I wanted to start!

I simply need to get back to writing down a sentence naming the day, time, and place of what I need to do!

I don’t need to learn anything new.

I don’t need to learn anything new. This isn’t a boast or pride, its actually an admission of failure!

I don’t need to learn what the four key areas of personal fitness are: sustenance / diet, strength, stamina, and suppleness / mobility, because I already know!

I don’t need to learn that a bad diet produces body fat, and that caloric deficit (that is consuming less calories than you burn) reduces it. I also know that junk food and over eating pile calories on so quickly you’ll never be able to train them off.

I don’t need to learn that strength is built and maintained by resistance training. I know that you need to lift weights and / or do calisthenic exercises. I even know that weight training improves bone strength as you get older.

I don’t need to learn that stretching, yoga and pilates are key to suppleness and mobility. Along with this I know which apps to follow and YouTube channels to watch.

I don’t need to learn that stamina comes from cardiovascular exercise. I know this is: walking, hiking, swimming, jogging, biking, BJJ, rowing or even disco dancing (the last one isn’t for me – just ain’t got the moves.)

I’m not saying that I know everything, because I don’t! Nor do I know all the fine details, again because I don’t. But it does mean that I have absolutely no excuse not to be doing!

The buzz of doing something new is amazing. But the grind of daily self-discipline isn’t. You’ll not win a prize for eating less at the BBQ, no one cares if you get your reps done, no one will notice if you walk for half an hour. It’s easier to do whatever you want to do than be accountable.

My take away is: “Do what you know with what you have.“

Introducing Based Fitness

I’m a pretty average and ordinary bloke.

My fitness levels (for a 48 year old) are reasonably good.

My gut is a bit bigger than I’d like (100.5 cm) but a couple of inches would make the world of difference.

My weight since (last November 2021) has wandered into the very bottom of over weight. Losing a stone, 14 pounds or 6ish Kg, would have me well inside healthy weight.

I’m not on a ‘journey’ nor do I have some mad objective. I just want to be a bit leaner and to improve my stamina, strength and suppleness. Something lots of people want to do.

At the start of the lock down I started tweeting my training each day. It was done for nothing more than personal accountability, and it actually worked!

This blog is about: accountability, self-motivation, and consistency. And personally, for some strange reason, I take much more seriously whatever I happen to write about!

So there we are, I have started, commenced and begun!

PS the name! That wasn’t the name I was going to use. The WordPress algorithm suggested it and it sounded much better than mine, so I thought, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!