YEAR OF THE FAT BASTARD

Note to self: Write a “Fuck Cyclists” entry soon.

Yesterday, I was informed of an interesting workout program that seems to be pretty much custom made for what I’m trying to do here. There’s only one problem: It requires me to hit the gym.

This is not a small problem.

On the official Fat Bastard Scale of Awesomeness, one being the news that your proctologist called in sick and the replacement is a Kodiak bear with a bad case of tremors, and ten being the news that bacon makes you look like Brad Pitt, going to the gym is a solid -83. This is mainly because of other people and my inability to cope with them while I work out. I could handle a funky smelling room filled with torture devices designed by a Pierrot clown, no problem. What I can’t — or rather, won’t — cope with is very elegantly explained in this wonderful Three Panel Soul comic.

The thing is, gym goers tend to come in three flavors:

1) the self-obsessed macho fucker that constantly berates everyone else, also known as the White Goodman:

2) The self-obsessed macho fucker that is way too in love with his own bench press results to notice anything else, illustrated here by Scott Steiner (justkiddingScottpleasedon’ttrackmedownandpunchmethroughawall):

3) The regular Joe, illustrated here by me:

4) Women, who somehow always manage to look exactly as pretty and un-sweaty as everywhere else. Technically, the presence of women while I pathetically flail at a cable machine should be a terrifying thing, but in practice I’ve found they don’t add much to the overall embarassment factor. They just give me their usual point-and-laugh greeting and resume their workout.

I’m fairly certain that they all bench press more than me, though.

So, yeah. Fuck gym. Fuck the mountains of meat whose sweat smells of steroid piss, fuck the toned yuppie scum that drives five miles to their elite gym in order to pedal a stationary bike. Fuck the locker room, fuck the seven living hells out of the shower room. That shit is not for me.

Too bad for me, then, that I’m gonna have to face it sooner or later. I’ll be needing some anaerobic training eventually, and currently pretty much all my training is aerobic. The only sport I can actually tolerate going anaerobic with is swimming, and the stadium season is still a month away. So according to my calculations, that leaves me with no other choice than lifting weights, because I am an idiot that doesn’t know a lot about how other sports work.

So, grumblegrumblegrumble it looks like screwthis I have no other options but to face my demons don’twanna and start benchpressin’ like the man I keep getting told I technically am.

Unless, of course, anyone can offer me an excuse not to.

Please?

Three weeks with no updates. That, friends, can mean a whole lot of things.

Busyness? Maybe!

Lazyness? I wouldn’t put it past me!

Of course, the most likely scenario is what I like to call “Total Lard Relapse,” best described by this delicious message I received:

In my case, all three were true. I’m fresh off a couple of grueling workweeks, during which I had barely enough time to sleep. These were followed by a week’s much needed (if not deserved) vacation, which I spent here:

That there is Budapest, and it is awesome. Unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, it is also home to the pörkölt:

And the Debreceni sausage:

And the Gulyás:

…and a large number of excellent restaurants whose fare may be less regional, but remains equally meat-centric.

So yeah, I was let loose in a country whose attitude towards food makes the most stereotypical Texan beef fiend look like a card-carrying vegan. This played out about as well as you’d expect.

My weeks of hectic stress and poor eating — capped off by bingeing for a week in a country made entirely out of meat — have left their mark. I now weigh at least the same as I did when I started, and I look… to be honest, quite a lot worse. My appearance is so close to a particularly stocky penguin that I fully expect to sprout feathers any day now. So, that’s a quarter of a year well and truly wasted. Right?

Well, actually…

What I may have lost in being-able-to-look-in-the-mirrorness, I have more than gained in plain old healthiness. I feel better than I have in ages. The vacation completely negated the stressload the previous weeks and months had piled on me. By giving myself permission to not deal with any shit for a week, I have managed to replenish my mental batteries to the point where I genuinely feel like I can take on all the shit. At once. 

Also, throughout this all I have worked out like a motherfucker. I’ve regularly walked to work and back (about four miles per direction). I’ve hit the hated gym every once in a while. I run. I just resumed active cycling after a two-year break, and am somewhat uncharacteristically enjoying it. Hell, even the Budapest trip heavily featured trekking.

I may not be getting any prettier, but I’m damn well getting healthier.

And, since I now have a way easier work schedule than I did earlier, I can actually find the time to whine about each and every one of these strange “sport” things that I now apparently do. Expect a big, fat load of updates in the immediate future.

(It’s going to be big and fat because, well, you know.)

Running is the fucking worst.

Unless you’re into sprinting (which I’m not, thanks to the worst acceleration known to man and some serious inertia-induced stopping problems), it’s the dullest thing there is. You jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and jog and fucking jog until you’re right back where you started from. The most interesting thing you’ve got to look forward to is maybe falling over at some point.

It’s a shit sport and I hate it. So, because I’m an idiot, I have chosen it as one of the main sports of the year.

There’s a logic of sorts behind this. Dorks like me have traditionally hated running ever since gym class, and for good reason. But, as I’ve recently found out, the reality can be — and often is — very different from the mental image. I’m told there’s fun to be had there, and to be frank, I’m pretty curious.  

Combine that with the fact that running is effective as hell and many runners keep telling me it’s rewarding as hell. I don’t believe a single goddamn word of it, but something in me wishes to be surprised.

I’m working out a training schedule, but since I know jack squat about running/jogging/sadly flailing about while wearing trainers, it’ll probably take me some time and research to find a comfortable one. Meanwhile, I’ll have to score some gear.

Fucking running. If I had a power animal, this is where it would look at me squarely in the eye and say: “This is where things have come, fatso.”

Finally, the fucking snow is starting to melt and I can get down to business.

No more “I’ll just kind of watch what I eat and jerk about while gearing up for the real deal.” The real deal is here, and it’s going to start kicking. It’s on, baby, on like a thong!

…what? No, I’m not actually going to wear a thong. It’s an analogy. Why would you even… Jesus.

Um. So, anyway. SPORTS! I was talking about sports.

I like winter. Always have. Cold doesn’t bother me much and I don’t own a car, so none of the crappy aspects of the season really touch me. However, my one issue with winter is that I fucking. Hate. Winter. Sports. From the bottom of my heart. This has played merry hell with my little project, as most of the outdoor activities I enjoy during other seasons are stripped away from me the second it gets below 0°C, and replaced by a big bag of nothing.

Combine this to some bad luck I’ve recently had with the few indoor sports I enjoy enough to indulge in (more on that later), let things cook up for a couple of winters, and the result is the semi-mobile, sentient jelly doughnut that is typing these words right now.

Here’s what’s going to happen now:

Within the next few days, I’m going to post an in-depth entry on each of the sports I’m planning to do this year, be it once, twice or on a regular basis. But don’t worry, it’s not going to be all Wikipedia meets training regimen charts — I’m also going to delve into my history and personal relationship with each of the sports, and rest assured it’s no Olympic level stuff. 

So, yesterday I got called out by someone who’s in a position to call me out. Apparently, my reports of what I’ve eaten recently haven’t been adequate.

You know, when I come to think about it… she might be right. See, I know I’ve been making a world of noise about all that muesli crap I’ve been forcing down my throat. That’s all completely legit.However — last week’s nutritional malfunction notwithstanding — I’ve made a point of allowing myself a pigout day every once in a while, because come on. This is a long term fitness quest, not a fat camp.

So what sort of muck have I been cramming in my face-hole during these off days, you ask?

Let’s find out!

Carrot cupcakes!

Beef stir-fry!

Beer!

Quarter Pounders with bacon and cheese!

Shrove Tuesday Buns! (Fuck you, they are too a thing where I come from.)

Meat pie! It was actually a particularly large and greasy one stuffed with three sausages, but YOU go make that Google image search because I’m not going to.

Scotch!

Family-sized pizza!

Sausage gravy!

Veal stew!

A risotto made completely out of fat somehow!

Runeberg tarts! (Again, screw you, it is a thing here. I live in a strange place, all right?)

Um, didn’t we have this picture already?

Hey!

Come on, cut it out! There are limits to honesty, you know.

All right, I give up.

…shit. OK, OK, I get it. Maybe that chair breaking incident from the other day wasn’t all that surprising, after all.

Mayday! Sports and salads! Sports and salads!

I know I’ve previously mentioned how I dislike exercise and made all kinds of excuses to avoid any. I’m “too busy,” or “too tired,” or just plain old “fuck it.” And while the busyness part is certainly true, the world has given me a pretty clear signal to man the fuck up and start getting shit done.

See, all that excusin’  was before the chair of my makeshift office literally broke in half under me today.

My goddamn writing chair said “fuck that guy and his fat ass” and committed suicide.

Screw it — sports it is.

You know how I said I wouldn’t overdo the “healthy eating” part of this? No, you don’t, because I never said it. Or thought it, for that matter. 

You may have noticed that the last week or so has been rather devoid of updates. That’s because my every waking hour has been booked thrice over with all sorts of projects and the sweet, sweet stress sauce that has come with them. And while stress can be a pretty great ally for someone who’s trying to lose weight, it’s definitely not one for someone who’s trying to get fit.

A few days ago, I noticed I’d forgotten a thing I should have done. It was a relatively minor routine in the grand scheme of things, but still something that I should — and in normal circumstances, would — remember to carry out without a hitch. At first, I put it down to stress, which has a history of affecting my levels of concentration and performance (…ladies). 

That’s when someone pointed out that during my X weeks (the stress has been going on for some time) of sleeping four-five hours a night and toiling away the rest, I’ve been eating maybe half the calories that I’d normally consume. While working like a work horse that works a lot and doesn’t really get to horse around too much. And maintaining as rigorous a workout program as I can, under the circumstances.

Aaaand that’s when the penny dropped.

So I’ve spent this week arranging my daily schedule into reasonable chunks of tasks, while allowing myself to eat a little more and excercise a little less. And holy shit, you guys! It turns out that a car that’s maintained correctly and given enough fuel actually runs better. It’s almost like basic knowledge or something.

In conclusion: I am an idiot.

(A fat one.)