Just Do It

In a bluey mauve mood today apparently.  Just go with it; I always do. 

I don't know about you kids, but I have had a  comprehensively exhaustive week.  I'm well aware that those two adjectives mean the same thing.  Geez, which part of comprehensively exhaustive week do you people not understand? *don't know how to insert winky smiley face on Blogger so this will do*

My 9-to-5 has fatigued the hell out of me this week through its sheer bloody-minded uninterestingness.  I'm just so gosh darn it bored with it all.  But there are more than likely changes in the wind, so I think I'll jump aboard the opportunity train while there are still positions available that don't involve cleaning the toilets.  Or jumping off moving trains. 

The Defence Department has been calling my name for years, so maybe I'll jump off the train onto a tank.  Just like Jack Bauer.  I would do it exactly like Jack Bauer.  And Defence have a real-life helicopter in their lobby, so there's that.

The only area of my current department that attracts my attention is mental health, but I'm not sure I want to work there.  Maybe a change of departments will be as good as a Hawaiian holiday with an ocean view with breakfast thrown in and a stones throw from a Starbucks. Although, with that attitude, I suspect I may need to lower my expectations somewhat.

Like most of us, my goal in life is to do something I really want to do in order to pay the bills.  It's a simple little friggin' goal, but it's pretty hard to achieve.  I don't know about you, but I'm not even in the same ballpark in terms of doing something-I-want-to-do-with-my-life.  In reality, I am in another ballpark playing a sport I don't really like.  Like croquet.  I hate croquet.  It's stupid.

I spend my days hitting wooden balls with a mallet through little arches until my eyes explode through their sockets.  And then I go back the next day, when all I really want to do is play archery.  Or something.  I very much doubt the public sector is my answer to the age old 'dream job' predicament, but I will persist until my dream job sweeps me off my feet.

What's that you say?  I have to go find my dream job?  Surely that's just your crazy talking!?  I'm sure a travel writing gig that involves endless loops around the sun-drenched Greek islands, bikinis and ouzo will fall into my lap. 

I imagine my new fave saying, 'Just Do It', is apt in this situation.  It's also Nike's primary motto.  Who knew?  But there are always disclaimers that come into play with Just Doing It, like fear of failure, anxiety, mortgage and bills, and that cosy, warm security blanket of a public sector position.

I am, however, Just Doing It in the fitness arena of my life.  I have been to the gym five consecutive days this week.  Weights, cardio, weights, cardio; it went a bit like that.  I am a feeling a little comprehensively exhausted (maybe Nike will like this slogan too, seeing as they stole my first one*).

I am usually very much in favour of al fresco cardio training.  The air is clear and cleansing, there are less people and there's more space to do your thing, but training at the gym ain't so bad; it's just something I have to get used to for the next five months, as Canberra sinks into its Antarctic winter.

* Just kidding, Nike. I wear a grey, purple and blue pair of your trainers. I heart them.  But they are falling apart. Maybe you need to hire better machinists? You know what they say - Just Do It.

Holy Hulk Triceps, Batman

Before I hit my late twenties and became a knowledge nerd - I was the mature age student at uni who used to tell the young folk to shush with their trivial small talk - I didn't really care for education, and I certainly got up to some interesting and unorthodox chemistry experimentation in high school.

I wasn't trying to be rebellious, I just found the syllabus extremely boring and I couldn't really get my head around the stuff that didn't put me into a sleep-induced haze.  I still don't really do science, or math for that matter.  Now words I understand.  Me and words are like peas and carrots.

It really is a wonder that I didn't annihilate my arms in high school like some deranged terrorist who botched Bomb-Making 101.  Some of those science experiments can cause quite the chemical chain reaction. I wanna get your love all ready for the sweet sensation, instant radiation. Oh dear, I think I've been sprung quoting Diana Ross. No matter, because it's a first-rate song; one in which I will totes be downloading onto my iPod, now that it's trapped inside my head a little bit.

Everyone knows that the Hulk appears shortly after his alter ego was "accidently" exposed to the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb he invented. I hate it when things like that happen to me.

And I'm starting to think this type of situation did accidently happen to me recently.  I'm retracing my footsteps over the past few weeks to try and piece together the exact time and location that I was exposed to the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb.

The cause of my concern is an array of bulging triceps located precisely where my previously uninspired triceps used to reside. Something is up.  Alternatively, they might be due to the fact that I'm working my buttocks off at the gymnasium about 23 times a week.  I must say, my new muscles are comparatively splendid.

I was telling someone at work the other day about my exercise program, and they graciously and diplomatically didn't fall asleep on the spot, so that was kind of them. This person suggested that I keep an exercise diary so I can trace the changes in my energy levels etc and, thus, won't get all concerned when I next grow muscles overnight.

This idea is all very well, but I think I would bore myself stupid writing about my progress, and I would likely have no time to actually exercise. If you hadn't noticed, I'm not really a few-lines-outta-do-it kind of diary keeper. Although I wish I had kept a record when I started at the gym last October, because I was fairly unfit and fairly untoned and fairly unhulk-like, and reading about that now would make me feel heaps toned and Hulky.

I started a new program a few weeks ago - the program I like to call the Hulk technique - and I've really noticed the difference in the appearance and strength of my muscles in that time. Which is ace. While doing weights is kind of becoming a bit tedious, it certainly doesn't hurt that the chap who does my program is fairly hot and, well, *sigh*.

Hot Chips Sink Ships

I know I bang on occasionally about my alleged exercising ways, and it can become quite tedious for those drones who are bored enough to read my blog (um, no offence), but it has come to my attention that I haven't written about exorcism (we have previously established this amounts to the same thing) for at least a week, and this must be addressed forthwith.  

Sometimes at the gym I can simultaneously watch The Biggest Loser and Masterchef while doing my thang, and this must be fairly annoying for those who are addicted to food or those who are running from food (me in my twenties) or those who can't cook (sadly my present day status).  Technology can be a cruel mistress. 

Although, to be fair, toast is bread after it has been cooked.  Nigella knows all about this technique.  Do I get any brownie points for knowing who Nigella is?  And for being able to cook bread?  I like Nigella because she raids her fridge in the middle of the night for her show credits.  Kudos. 

With the strange, mysterious and hopefully permanent disappearance of the Psycho Cough last week, my body has reluctantly engaged in a bit of cardio this week, and my gym thing is going fairly well, with a new program with new equipment that has left some of my less used - and evidently most lazy - muscles thoroughly pissed off.  Not my problem.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.



As some form of cruel punishment, my brain has done what brains have consistently done since time immemorial when they don't want to do something they feel is quite taxing and beneath them; it has planted a seed that involves me thinking and salivating about greasy hot chips for 90% of my day.  My brain is a vexacious little bitch, but she won't win.

Stairmaster to Hell

It's been at least a week since I waxed lyrical about my exercise program on here, and I really don't know how anyone who reads my blog has coped with the gap in fascinating and informative updates from a renown fitness expert like myself.  To be honest, I really don't know how anyone can read my blog in the first place.

The topic for today was either going to be exercise or Valentine's Day, and it sure as shit ain't going to be Valentine's Day.  If you care for Valentine's Day please take your starry-eyed dirty eyes away from my innocent blog immediately.  Although, what's not to love about a day where you are deemed a total scumbag if you do not declare your affection in some socially approved, materialistic way? 

Okay, where was I? Yes, exercise.  All I really have to say about this is that the gym is now practically my friend.  We had a very rocky beginning to our relationship, if you want to call it that, and I won't be asking it to be my valentine, but we are totally tolerating each other, which I suppose is like the average marriage really, and I even missed it when I went away last weekend.

But, alas, the stupid Stair Mistress is most assuredly not my friend; one could possibly call me her bitch.  She makes me work hard and would crack a whip if she had hands and autonomic function.  But I will climb and climb the neverending stairway to hell at least once a week, because my leg muscles aren't going to look awesome all by themselves.

Exorcism is good for you

So my new thing is the gym.  I really, really wish my new thing was an icecream addiction or a sailing-around-the-Carribean addiction, but, no, my new thing is the gym doing exorcism.  Exorcism, exercise, same same.  Oh look, I'm talking about exercise again, blah, blah, blah. 

Well, look, you need to learn how to deal, because if I have to go through the process of busting my coconuts with this exorcism thing, anyone reading my blog has to go through the pain of reading about it.  Go read someone else's blog if it's not up to your standards of fascinating subject matter, but let me tell you, you'll never find a blog as entertaining, stimulating, interesting, informative, trivial and useless as mine.  And that's a fact.

So, now that we've dealt with your blog content critic crankypants attack, let's circle back to topic.  Since I learnt that apparently my abs won't "become rock hard in only minutes a day in this exclusive television offer", I thought I should find another way to achieve this lofty goal. 

Thus, I began this crazy arse exorcism thing in October last year, when I was too stupid and naive to realise that getting fitter and stronger would hurt for the majority of the time.  My muscles, legs in particular, have been sore for about six weeks, and I couldn't work out what I was doing wrong.  It didn't help that a few people told me that they don't even stretch after weight training.  The horror.

But lately I seemed to have had a breakthrough, and nothing seems to be hurting after anything I do at the gym.  Except for yesterday, when all of my legs hurt at the same time.  So my new thing is to stretch and stretch and stretch all throughout my workout, which, I do believe, was what I was told to do in the first place.  Me and instructions. Meh.  Stretching lots is not really my cup of tea and is a bit of a pain in the arse really, but it is worth it for the end result, which is being able to walk the next day without resembling Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

So now that my focus is off my muscle pain, I do believe that this gym thing is probably sort of maybe good for me.  I love how you can angrily pound the mean streets of the gym on a cross trainer and then get called 'fit' by lazy people in your workplace who tell you they spent their evening on the sofa, somehow making it sound like you're the one making the mistake.

Whole world of Gym Hurt

Look it blog, I can't stay away from you!  I just wanted to check in to say that everything fucking hurts right now because I have been to the gym for the past 3 days and I have a new program that I love/hate/love/hate and I've just realised how much work I have to do to get fit and how lazy I have been at the gym over the past few months.  If the guy who manipulated my previously easy program to within an inch of its life wasn't really cute and fit looking I probably would have told him to stick it somewhere.    

Because I am full of excuses as to why I can't exercise outside at the moment, yesterday I went to the gym to do some cardio, and all the equipment was packed, because evidently no-one in Canberra wants to be obese or unhealthy anymore. 

Then I caught sight of the women's gym, which I have never entered because it looks small and dark like a witches coven and it's the women's gym.  I have been avoiding the women's gym since I started because it's THE WOMEN'S GYM.  I don't want to go in there because I don't, that's why. 

Well, of course I went in, because I noted they have treadmills in there.  I'm just glad they weren't pink.  And let me say, the women's gym is awesome.  I spent an hour walking quickly up a steep incline that possibly could have been to the Mount Everest base camp; I don't know.

That in itself probably would have sucked if I didn't have the room practically exclusively to myself AND a huge beautiful fan blowing at me AND 2 TV's with 2 different Australian Open matches right in front of me.  AND all of the weights were in their right spots!, rather than dumped willy-nilly all over the place by silly little thoughtless Gen Yers with their freaky, scary hyper-abs.  Best gym experience ever.

Gym junkie-esque

I've simply run out of excuses of why I cannot go to the gym and get fit.  Well I'm assuming it's still the place to get fit.  I hope it is, because if it's not I will simply have to go home and sit on the couch, safe in the knowledge that I gave it my best shot.  See how good I am with excuses?   

An array of "fit people" (they love - LOVE! - to be called that) have recently informed me that walking from one's front door to one's car does not really constitute exercise.  What?  It doesn't ??!!  Just quietly, I think it depends on your perspective really.  Exercise; I'm doing it wrong, apparently.

It's been some time since I walked through the doors of an exercise facility.  But it has recently come to my attention that I have no more tricks up my sleeve to convince myself that it is out of the question to be doing any exercise of the get-fit variety.

So this week (not Monday because it is Halloween, and not Tuesday because it is Cup Day), I am starting a 10-day free introduction at the gym near my workplace.  I'm not terribly happy about it, but I know I will probably sort of feel better when I get into the swing of things again.  The gym people better sell this fit thing to me; like providing me with a bevy of hot, young, fit personal trainers.  And cake.  I will do just about anything for a slice of chocolate cake.  I probably shouldn't get my hopes up about the cake.

It feels like yesterday when I last went to the gym; and I would be correct if yesterday was 2004.  Yep, 2004.  Long time between rowing machines, eh?  Well, don't blame me, I have an endless list full of serious and important excuses reasons of why I simply have been unable to get to the gym in, um, seven years.

This time in two months I 'm going to be a gym junkie again with great gym junkie legs.  My favourite miniskirt isn't going to look awesome all by itself (if you tell me I'm too old for miniskirts I will break you).  Alternatively, in two months I will be sitting on the couch eating chocolate.  A bit of both these worlds would be perfect.