Day Four - exercise

I'd put it off for three days but on Day Four, I finally bit the bullet. One of the advantages of commuting and having a list of very important things to do at work, was that I could postpone exercise to a future date which, for some good reason or another, required a further postponement when that future day finally arrived.

I had made efforts in the past to 'get fit'. I attended a couple of taster sessions at the gym opposite my office but everyone looked very fit and beautiful and it cost over £200 a month to join. I needed the place where people went to get fit first before they joined this gym. I bought a peloton which sat in the corner whilst the app reminded me I'd managed 15 rides in the last 12 months. I also bought a weights bench and some very nice bowflex adjustable dumb bells that I used once every couple of weeks. My lack of exercise was certainly not down to an unwillingness to buy expensive equipment.

I justified my lethargy by noting that I did quite a lot of steps walking to the train, walking to the tube, walking to the office. I even walked up the stairs to the office. Admittedly it was only a few floors up so I also walked down the stairs. But repeated health checks which have become more frequent since I hit my 40s have consistently noted I am 'under-muscled'. I prefer to describe it as having a slim build. Scrawny might be a more accurate description.

Therefore on Day Four, I joined the gym. There are a number of gyms in the area. I based my selection on joining the one my eldest son attends. I told him the good news that we could now be gym buddies. He didn't seem overly excited at the prospect. His response was that today was gym with John day.

I plucked up the courage to crack on regardless. Actually it was less driven out of courage and more out of not wanting to be in the house. The one luxury we have retained, well there is more than one, is that we still have a cleaner. She arrived to clean so I wanted to get out the house to avoid the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of paying someone to clean whilst you sit on the sofa on watch England vs Pakistan.

Gyms are a bit like the megafishvan, in that everyone who attends seems to know exactly what they are doing. I had skipped the induction by explaining to the lady, who had tried but failed to upsell me their premium membership, that my son was a member and he'd be able to explain to me how all the machines worked. Whilst that didn't seem like such a great idea now, I'd have still skipped the induction for fear of being marked out as the gym nube and the hint of surprise at how little weight I could lift.

My solution was to surreptitiously observe others on the various contraptions. I survived with only a couple of small embarrassing moments and no serious injuries so I count it as a win. Moments to forget include being surprised at how easily I lifted weight on the incline bench press. I busily loaded on more only to find that I was putting the weight on the storage arms rather than the machine itself.

I also tried to lower a bench that was set in an inclined position in front of the free weights but found I couldn't pull out the pin to lower it. I figured it was probably an initiation test that if you couldn't pull the pin out then you definitely shouldn't be trying to lift the dumb bells. I sidled off to a different area trying to look as if that was what I had always intended. Later I saw someone who'd just completed a lot of chin ups, also fail to pull out the pin, which made me feel better.

I completed Day Four by cooking the monkfish. My wife eats fish but not other meat so whilst I wrapped one fillet in bacon, the other I wrapped in 'This isn't Bacon' plant based rashers. I doubt you can tell the difference from the photo below. Somewhat surprisingly, it turned out they both tasted great! £45 almost well spent!