by Robbie » Oct 2nd, '09, 15:19
When I worked in an office, I used to walk about a mile each morning from home to the railway station, and most afternoons walked back again as well. And often had a stroll around during my lunch break. Now I work from home, so there's one or two miles a day cut out for a start.
The only "exercise" I can count on these days is strolling a few hundred yards to the newsagent and back every morning. Once or twice a week this is tripled because I need to walk to the post office (a few hundred yards the other way) and then to the newsagent. Supermarket trips a couple of times a month, and bigger shopping trips (to the town centre or further afield) every month or two. You can add in a certain amount of house and garden work, but that's about it, really. The rest of my time is spent sitting down looking at paper or a screen.
I can't drive or ride a bike. Wherever I go in the local area I walk, but there's not much call for going anywhere in the local area. Apart from the newsagent, post office, and other shops in our own street, there's only the launderette and the doctor's surgery within walking distance.
If the area was safer and more interesting, I would be doing a lot more walking just for the sake of it, at least when the weather permitted. But it's not very safe and not at all interesting.
Don't think I'm moaning. If my belt is anything to go by, I've managed to lose something over the past few months just by taking a little extra care over food intake. If I can manage to find something calorie-burning to do, the trend should continue.
Over the spring and early summer I really enjoyed an aerobics class, but it was cancelled. There are still hopes it will restart in a different venue, but that's looking less likely. It was really good for me because it was so close by that I couldn't ever have an excuse for missing a session. (Some years ago I joined a gym in the town centre, but getting there by bus was such a drag it was easy to find reasons not to go.)
I've got a council booklet listing all the various physical fitness things going on in Bolton, so I'll have to dig that out and have another look at it. I'm also trying to persuade Col to try chair-based exercise classes.
I'm also taking CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), which is supposed to interfere with fat metabolism in a helpful way. It discourages the body from laying down fat, and encourages the pathways that burn fat. Also taking plant sterol capsules, which seem to be working -- I've lowered my cholesterol level by about a point over the last year, without any particular attention to diet and even while taking the sterols very irregularly. We'll see what happens now that I'm being more assiduous with both.
"Magic teaches us how to lie without guilt." --Eugene Burger
"Hi, Robbie!" "May your mischief be spread." --Derren Brown
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