There used to be a
good reason to rise well before dawn, but there really isn’t a good explanation
for continuing to get
up that early each week day
anymore. It probably dates back to my days as an IBEW electrician, where
the majority of job sites began at 6am and necessitated an early rise. Now I
work in an office environment where the preponderance of folks don’t arrive
until 9am…and many some time later (they work later too…often into the
evening).
For whatever
reason, I still get up really early. My best emails (and hopefully blog posts)
are composed in the 4am hour, but it’s also the time I use to exercise. Monday,
Wednesday and Fridays I stumble down the stairs, brush my teeth, grab my laptop
and saunter down to the
basement gym to lift some free weights. It’s a pretty boring, non-rigorous
routine really, probably one that violates every fitness rule in the book. It’s sort of the
opposite of muscle confusion, where I lift the same weight, the same way, doing
the same sets that I’ve probably done for close to 30 some years. In between
sets (which are separated by way more time than is recommended), I answer
emails from the day before or hammer
the Friday blog as I’m doing
right now.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and both days on
the weekend…I run. On
the week days I go out in the darkness and run 3 miles through the neighbor for
time. It’s hilly, and if I’m really on my game I can do it around 24 or less
minutes. On Saturday and Sunday I run some longer distances with my wife.
That’s not true really. Actually we start together, and I eat her dust for the
rest of the way…often finishing as much as 8 or 9 minutes behind her over a 6
mile stretch.
On Saturday and
Sundays I also hit the speed bag religiously for about 17 or 18 minutes each
day. Sometimes I jump a little rope too…though I don’t have close to the
stamina that I did 20 years ago. Then I could do as much as 10 minutes
without stopping. Now, I’m lucky to string 60 seconds together without
collapsing in exhaustion with
a highly irregular heartbeat.
When I’m not
working out during the week, I’m usually sitting on my expanding derriere in my
comfy faux leather chair perched in front of my office computer. It’s
mindboggling how long I can sit almost motionless in that chair…staring
mindlessly at the computer answering emails or developing PowerPoints.
Sometimes I’ve been there so long that when I’m forced to stand to head to
meeting to sit down again for an hour, my muscles have actually atrophied.
Usually I leave the hour-long meeting to go to yet another meeting destination only to
sit yet again. Sometime, if I’m lucky, the back-to-back meetings are in the
same room so I don’t even have to move. If I do, it’s often in the afternoon
when I force myself to get up to go get a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.
The meetings with cookies are almost worth going to. Sometimes I even have two.
When I’m not at
work sitting and eating cookies, I like to be at home. Most weeknights I return
from the office at about 6:30
or 7pm. I usually jump in the shower before supper and then come
downstairs and open a bottle of red wine. On particularly rough days, I don’t even mess with a glass. Then, I plop
down on the couch with my
laptop for the remainder of the evening, getting up only to make it over
to the dining room table for dinner after which time I collapse back down on the coach to watch some old
movie on TMC before drifting off in a drunken red wine stupor.
On the weekends, when I’m not
running or hitting the speed bag, I like to be on the couch watching old movies
or NASCAR and working on the laptop while snacking on high-cholesterol snacks. Oh…I like to wash it all down with more red
wine too, but I really do try to keep it down to less than a bottle a sitting
and I never start before 10am. Sometimes, on Sunday afternoons…I try to rest up
and catch a short nap while I’m sitting there working.
We had our annual
health fair about a week ago, and as part of the screening process they checked my BMI. The well-fed technician
was so concerned about my readings, she
pulled me away from those in line behind me to give me a more private
interpretation of my results. She was almost whispering, and pointing to a
point on the blue form where she’d circled my results. One benefit of sitting
all day, eating cookies and drinking too much wine is that I also can’t really
see…so the number 10 font she pointed to on the results form looked
indecipherable to me.
“I can’t see what that says” I said…
“I didn’t bring my reading glasses.”
“Well…you’re right here” she pointed.
“I still can’t see that” I shot
back. “Does that begin with the letter O?” I asked.
“Yes”…she whispered.
“Just tell me what it says” I said… “I
can’t read it.”
“Well…you’re right here…at the very
high-end of the overweight category. You’re not quite in the Obesity Level I category…but
you’re close.”
“I’m close to being obese?” I asked…
“how close?”
“Well…the Obesity Level I threshold
is a BMI reading of 30…you’re at 29.8”
I almost cried. “What’s your BMI?” I asked.
“If I’m almost 30 you must be about 60” I said.
OK…I really didn’t really say that…but I
was kind of thinking it.
I think I’m going to start sleeping in and
eating more cookies. This waking up early and exercising routine is obviously
not working.
It’s Friday, and if you’re lucky you’re on
the cusp of a nice two-day break that will be spent with family and friends
doing the things you enjoy. If you can, try to take some time to do the things
that matter and grab some time just for you. Have a great weekend.
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