So, its 11am (roughly) on a Sunday morning in October; the 6th to be exact, in the year of 2013. I have just poured my 2nd coffee of the morning of the instant variety as my real McCoy ground coffee beans have became obsolete due to the complete and utter decimation of my beloved coffee machine. But hey, I guess if you scrimp to spend as little cashola as possible on an appliance off Groupon.com then its pretty inevitable that the money will be, you know.....wasted.
This is something that I have been alerted to for the past few months. That I have been way too careless, and carefree with my hard earned cash. Its only really been evident recently thanks to a steady and consistent flow of bank charges and maxed overdraft, as well as credit card and store card bills remaining static despite me paying a small fortune every month to Mr Interest. Coupled with a somewhat lacksidasical attitude towards coffee shops coffees and lunches every day at work, as well as car parking fees - its safe to say that I'm pretty much skint. Always. Apart from maybe 1-2 days at the beginning of the month. Let me journey you through an brief outline of a typical day...
*Cue dream sequence*...
Its Monday again....eugh. I hate Mondays! The over indulgence of wine and beer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is still in my system adding to the tiredness I already feel in my body from the 5 hours sleep I only got last night (if you could call tossing and turning with weird dreams, sleep). The pizza on friday night, the Burger King on Saturday and the large chinese I had last night are lying in my guts like lead. My stomach is bloated, my head is sore and judging by the Club orange colour of my urine its as if I haven't had a drink of water in weeks.
Dervlagh is off today, wee Paul wakens us both at 6.30am. I am still in too much of a comatose state to get up with him, or get ready for work, so Dervlagh gets up and I get an extra couple of hours in bed.
The extra 2 hours aren't spent sleeping, but rather on further tossing and turning, only this time accompanied with me cursing my lack of willpower at the weekend and the food and drink choices I made, along with the ever present promise to myself of 'never again'.
I pitter patter to the loo for another dehydrated and nostril warming piss (what IS that smell???!) and from here meander to the kitchen where I boil the kettle for a coffee to try and help wake my mind and body up a bit. The time is 9am. I still haven't any work clothes ready, nor have I got washed yet. I drink my coffee, slowly, and think about phoning into work for a day off...
With the notion of phoning in for a days leave passed, the time is now 9.30am and I still haven't began to get ready for work. I am now very late for work - and the mandatory 10.30am team meeting that my team have every morning - which cannot be missed.
I ask Dervlagh to try and find me something to wear, and some socks (the sock fairies were out again and there isn't a matching pair to be found for love nor money). She reluctantly agrees, thankfully for me and I rush to the bathroom for a shower. The shower is amazing, a perfect wake up call, but at the same time its too soothing. I stay in the shower much too longer than intended and by now its almost 10am and at this stage I'm now very, very late.
I quickly get dressed and am met with a overwhelming awareness of fat. My freshly washed and ironed jeans are very tight and its hard to button them fully. The t-shirt I have on isn't the dark one I have been seeking of late to help my self confidence (if thats even possible at the moment), but rather a sky blue polo shirt. Its only a medium, not a large. So now as well as wearing tight and restrictive jeans, I'm now wearing a tighter fitting t-shirt and am very aware of my belly and man boobs. Today will be a half zipped hooded top day, regardless of what the weather is or how hot I am. There is no way I can show myself to have let myself go as much as I have.
I rush downstairs to the car and am about to head into work when I realise that the petrol gauge is in the red. I was meant to put some petrol in the car over the weekend but in my reckless drunken and gluttonous abandonment I forgot. There is no time to get to the garage as its now 10.10am - whatever petrol is left in the car will have to do.
I drive into the town, the usual free parking spots are all gone by this stage, obviously, so the only option is Castle Court car park, at £4.50 per day. The traffic is unusually quiet and I make it into Castle Court and parked (breaking numerous speed limits) for around 10.20am - I've still got time.
I make my way down the stairs from the 6th floor (all the other floors parking spaces were taken) and hop, skip and jump myself to work asap.
Its now 10.25am. I'm at the end of Queen street. On my right is my work, but straight ahead is Centra. I opt for the latter option and purchase a can of Red Bull, a Coffee and a sausage baguette. The queue is longer than expected, now I'm late...officially.
I get into work at 10.35am, the meeting has started. Whilst I'm only 5 minutes late, this has became a regular occurrence and while some of my colleagues laugh and welcome me with a sarcastic "Good 'Afternoooooon', Paul" comment, my manager simply gives me that look. The look that all managers seem to develop over time that says, welcome and good morning, but at the same time lets you know they are angry and disappointed in you. Its not going to be a good day.
The meeting ends, as usual its a fairly non-eventful affair. I make some small talk with my colleagues while drinking my coffee and red bull and eating my baguette while at the same time trying to get working on my caseload for the day as a way of getting 'back into the good books' with my manager. The day is going to be filled with very complex cases which will reduce my productivity and I will also have to stay late until 6.30pm this evening just to break even in my flexi and not add further to my every increasing deficit of -25.00 hours flexi time.
*Dream sequence ends...*
Whist I have labelled the above as a 'dream sequence' which indicates that it is not actual reality but instead a theoretical list of possible events - let me assure you this happens almost every monday morning. And has done so for the past 6-9 months. In spite of the obvious negativity it has on my job and career, this was not the message I was trying to get across. At the beginning of this post I proclaimed my finances as being pretty much non-existent. Lets retrace my steps from the Friday previous and you will see why I have been so 'skint'.
Friday night. Ah, sweet release. My favourite day of the week. Carryout: £15, Takeaway £15.
Saturday. Sports day. And also a day for hangover cures. Carryout: £10, Takeaway £15.
Sunday. Relaxing and a few beers with the footy and chinese with movie day. Carryout: £10, Takeaway £15.
Weekend total spent on drink and food: £80!! But it doesn't end there. Obviously we all live for the weekend and most of our hard earned money is spent during this time. £80 is probably, about average, but whereas my situation differs is that I never left the house. Not one penny was spent on enjoying time outside with my family.
Perhaps the events on Monday morning are even more concerning for me. Due to my groggy state of mind and hungover lie-in, the bad choices continued. I was too late to get parked in town for free which cost me £5 say, and with the coffee, red bull and sausage baguette added to this, it meant that before 11am in the morning I was already £10 out of pocket. Counting the money I also would also spend on lunch, this would mean that for 1 day at work I spent £15! That is £75 a week! You could therefore say that easily on average I was blowing about £100-150ish per week on needless expenditure with nothing to show for it!
Well, of course that is not entirely true. I do have something to show for it. An increasing waistline, higher body fat percentage, a decrease in energy, motivation and drive, and a passive eventual expenditure in a new 'x-large' sized wardrobe!!
This is pretty shocking I'm sure you'll agree. But in this same mindset of mine, I actually thought (after my knee surgery in April) that quitting the Gym would be a good idea as I was only going to be WASTING (HA! WHAT A JOKE!) the £18.99 Gym Fee every MONTH!!!! Not even £5 a week!!!!!
Madness, just total Madness...
It is with this, that this morning (having not touched a drink all weekend hardly) and with a clear head and mind that I have re-joined the gym. I moan about going there, about the time it takes, make excuses about my sore knee etc etc etc. But its very evident to me now that even the smallest, inadequate and pointless gym session is still that - a gym session. Never has anyone said they regretted a gym session. I had thought that I could keep my fitness levels up at home using dumb-bells and an exercise bike, but there is not enough motivation at home to maintain a positive progression, and also there is too many distractions to divert your focus. Whereas at the gym, you train. You cannot do anything else.
What also comes with working out (something that I have also forgotten about) is the mood enhancing and feel-good endorphines that come after a workout. Too long have I been feeling sorry for myself of late, so it will be good to get those flowing again and get back to my usual state of mind of being happy. For the last few months I have sought out the drink and fast food as a comfort almost - as a way to fill a void that I somehow had found in my life.
Now, looking back its clear to see that that void was working out. The more you workout, the more constant supply of these endorphines that flow through your brain and body. As a result you make better choices in life in regards to your usual food and lifestyle. Your body also changes. You get stronger and fitter. The stronger you become, the stronger you want to be, the fitter you become, the fitter you want to get. It really is a never ending cycle of the body doing what the human body was designed to do. Constantly challenging itself, constantly adapting, learning and progressing. Evolution is a fact. Simply looking back over my old workout log book and seeing the strength gains and 'those numbers rising' is a great motivator and at the same time very humbling; to see the journey of where you have came from. I was once one of those guys who could only lift the empty bar with no weights. I was the guy who had to perform 20 sets of 1 rep because I was too weak to perform 1 set of 20 reps. Now, there is no doubt my strength and fitness levels have regressed massively, but there is such a thing as 'muscle memory'.
Muscle Memory is a term used to describe the way your body 'gets back to' the previous levels of strength and fitness it was previously at, faster than someone starting off for example. I.E. If you previously lifted 100kg but got injured and were out of action for a number of months, then with your own inert muscle memory you could get back to lifting that weight again faster than Joe Bloggs simply coming off the street as a gym newbie, for example.
Its actually very warming to know any hard work you have previously put into the gym and the stress you have subjected your body to, isn't necessarily 'totally' wasted but simply stored away (to a lesser degree, of course) waiting for the stimulus to evolve it again.
As well as this muscle memory, there is of course the added benefit of having the knowledge of 'how' to train and workout, which you have acquired over the years doing so. I don't know how much time I've spent researching articles and reading and evaluating different training programs, different workout splits, nutrition and recovery articles. Certainly more time than I've spent working out. This again is warming to know that again this time hasn't been 'wasted' simply because 9 months ago I stopped working out.
Adding to the the above knowledge of muscle memory, expertise and also the vast collections of gym music I have acquired over the years, i think its safe to assume I'm in good hands as far as my 'comeback' goes. The only difference this time around is that my body has since had fairly major surgery and as a result has (and always will) harbour a weakness in my left knee. But as they say (well, Newton to be exact), 'For every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action'. So instead of squatting to build my quadriceps back up again, I can substitute these for leg curls or any number of other leg exercises which simply put much less stress on the knee joint.
Whilst I am very eager and excited to get back, its important to not go too 'Gung-ho' - something that I tend to do. Sometimes a measured approach is better than 'all or nothing'. In this scenario, the phrase 'No pain, no gain', is certainly NOT to be applied.
That's pretty much the end of my blog this time around. Its almost 1pm now, at such time that the shops open. With the need to restock the fridge on some essential items, I'm going to be spending the remainder of today with my son at the shops and purchasing smart, value for money, whole foods. Sometimes its easy to forget my Nutritionist qualification - its now time to put that hat back on. Whole foods such as chicken breasts, lean red meat, fish, wholemeal rice and pasta and fibrous fruit and veg keep you satiated for longer and as an added benefit provide a steady supply of healthy fats, minerals and vitamins as well as passively maintaining steady blood sugar levels which on a more complex issue affect the body's insulin levels which can lead to added fat storage etc.
So, thats all from me this time around. Sorry to perhaps give this one a serious undertone but its great to 'get it off my chest'. If any of you are still thinking about creating your own blog, I would highly recommend it and I would also certainly read it. Its like therapy for the mind, body and soul! :-)
If any of you have any questions about health or fitness or food choices etc, just drop me a line. Here's to the next 12wks (roughly until Christmas) and my new effervescent attitude to life.
Take Care folks. Have good day and I'll catch you next time...
Pablo...
:-) xxx
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