Tag: exercise

The Three Greatest Exercises …. Ever!

the54thvoid

There is a thing called an SEO; a search engine optimisation. It works to make your content more visible to the web. Sometimes when you surf, you’ll see a stream of apparent nonsense at the bottom of a page. That’s there for the SEO. It’s what Google and other search engines look for and if done correctly, you can get a lot of hits. I’m really bad at this. I don’t care. I hold a profound disdain for what is deemed to be popular among the masses; for the masses are generally ignorant of what it is to be unique or personally valuable. I’m only interested in you, and if you’ve found this page—well done, have a lollipop. Or a paper cut-out of an angel.

The title of this post is standard of an SEO siren call. “The ‘X’ greatest ‘Y’”. It could be the five best Ice-creams; the three fastest cars; the ten most polished turds; or, the single greatest book yet to be published *cough*, it’s called Hammer & Glass and it’s out this year. In three months, Google it one-thousand times and I might be able to quit my day job. Maybe. Anyway, SEO’s suck and they exist to enslave you to a world that is devoid of nurture and care. But not me, oh no; I’m here to tell you the truth and nothing but the truth.

I hear you. You’re shouting at me: “Get to the point, you word jabbering despoiler of vowels!”.

What are the three greatest exercises ever?

Number one: The Squat

As a bona-fide cripple (of sorts), I’m not very proficient at these. I can squat but I perform a very good charade of a ship listing in a bad storm. But, if you remove my nerve-knobbled left leg from the illustration, the squat is without doubt the single most effective and functional exercise known to any linear-jointed biped anywhere. The primary movers: the gluteals and the quadriceps, are given stability by the hamstrings and calf muscles. If you do it well enough, you’ll even integrate your core muscles too.

To consolidate its position as the greatest of the greatest three exercises, it is worth mentioning that legs are important. That might seem obvious to you but as a fitness professional, I’m appalled at the number of people who disregard the functional value of the limbs that dangle beneath their rounded tums or skinny bums. The days of requiring rapid, bipedal movement may have been relegated by the advent of the motor vehicle but the fundamental purpose of a set of leggy pins is without compare. In short—you need your legs to move. If evolution, mother nature, or God, had intended us to forego our legs, we’d be slumming it with the invertebrates. Yeah: worms, slugs and molluscs. Go you, you fleshy, boneless shoelace.

Number Two (or three) – The Chin-Up    

I had to trek to Tibet and find a lonely monk who sat guarding a rare Lotus flower to seek the answer to the question, “What is more important: the Chin, or the Dip?”. (And you know what, I had to do that journey on a set of weary legs; that’s why squats are number one).

Truth is, the answer I received from the wise monk, whose teeth were strangely white and straight for a shed-dwelling luddite, was ambiguous.

He said, “If what is before you is an obstacle, the push to overcome it is paramount; but, if what lies behind is a weight upon your soul, you must pull yourself free”.

Clearly, the monk was on vacation from California and he was likely an avid user of hallucinogenic drugs. From that, I gathered he was probably called ‘Boof’ and drives a Tesla. But beyond that revelation, I sought to pick apart his riddle.

I chose the Chin Up (or pull up) as the primary candidate for number two. Why? The chin-up is grounded (ironically) in the action of pulling oneself up, or, to place it in a nice pictorial demonstration: to climb upwards. As the apes do. You know, what our ancestors once did. There is a reason our back muscles (Latissimus Dorsi) are so freaking huge—we used them to climb when we were furry, tree-dwelling rock-chuckers. If you don’t believe we are descended from apes, check out your tail bone, your useless and degenerate pinkie toes, and the fact you feel an unusual affinity with chimpanzees.

Regardless, the chin-up, working the lats, the biceps, the forearms, and posterior deltoids, as well as recruiting the abdominal muscles, is as good as it gets for upper body work outs. It even incorporates some pectoral action. In short, the chin-up is the miracle exercise.

Number Three – Yeah, it’s number three – The Dip.

Considering the phenomenal benefits derived from the mechanical movement of the Chin-Up, the Dip can appear a poor second (technically, a third in this discourse). But hold on; there is faith to be had in the workhorse that is the push to escape gravity. Any action that requires you to push an object: a door, another door…. Seriously, all I can think of is doors… maybe a person, or an angry bovine, perhaps even a disgruntled zombie—these actions require the muscles enervated during the dipping movement. Ooh… I thought of another—you need to push a car, a trolley; or any other large mass object in your way. That is the remit of the ‘pushing muscles’: the triceps, the anterior deltoid, and the pectoral muscles.

Point is, the muscles used when Dipping are antagonists of the Chin-Up muscles. One is a push (Dip), the other is a pull (Chin-Up). When combined in an exercise routine, the two exercises effectively cover the entirety of your upper body—yes, they even work the traps, as traps depress, protract, and retract the shoulders; all of which are performed to various degrees when chinning and dipping.

A Summary

When fighting zombies, or seeking monks in remote mountainous terrain, your training schedule should consist of just three things: Squats, Chin-Ups, and Dips. But don’t forget to bring water. And maybe a bag of nuts, unless you’re allergic. Though, the monk ate nuts, so bring your epi-pen. And I guess if you came the zombie route, get a Tetanus jab before you leave the city. And sturdy shoes for both quests. Maybe a camera. Certainly some plasters.

But definitely Squats, Chins, and Dips.

Now go young weirdo. Go find your zombie monk. And tell him his Tesla’s on fire.

How to Get Beach Body Fit in Five Easy Steps

the54thvoid

(This post contains some minor NSFW language. NSFW? Go Google it.)

Summer is coming and it’s about now that people start thinking about those tiny little bikinis, or more accurately, how you want other people to see you in that otherwise useless two-piece immodesty rag. Perhaps that’s taking things too far? It doesn’t need to be a bikini. It might be a one-piece. It might be some budgie-smugglers for the men out there. Though, for me, it’d be knee-length shorts. I’ve never found a comfortable place with wearing (under)pants in public. Not since I had to skinny dip in Loch Lomond wearing my Spiderman pants when I was single-digit years old. True story. But let’s get back on track—you want that beach body, don’t you? Well, read on.

Step One

Beach Body Fit. What the flippity flip-flops does that even mean? I’ll have a sunshine stab at figuring that out. Beaches bring to my mind images of golden sand and crashing waves. Maybe a blue sky with a powder-puff cloudscape. But there’s more. There are gulls and maybe a stray dog. Probably a stranded jellyfish taking on the arduous task of resembling an oversized and circular gummy bear. Is any of this Beach Body Fit? If the sand is hot your feet burn on the super-heated silica of crushed shells and ancient marine life. And if the wind blows, the sand goes everywhere. It makes mud in your eyes and finds its way into and onto every exposed surface and crevice; it’s so much worse if you’ve got sun-cream lathered over your photon-phobic skin. How do I survive this? How do I become Beach Body Fit? Become a freaking camel. Or a crab. Or be that dive-bombing gull coming for your ice-cream. One thing I know for sure—there is no human beach body.

Step Two

Beach Body Fit isn’t what you think it is. Beach Body Fit is another of those pesky marketing tags made to penetrate your self-esteem and scuttle thoughts that you were doing okay in the ‘bod’ department. You need to understand that you can never be ‘Beach Body Fit’ enough. There’s always one more product or activity that you can do to stroll closer to the pinnacle of poser perfection. Whether you drink an ocean of that (absolutely redundant) diet shake, or you lash out another 80-million treadmill miles, you can never be good enough. Not when the industry wants your cash, or in these days, your digital transaction. Do not be fooled. There is no Beach Body Fit.

Step Three

Understand context is everything. You are constantly barraged by ‘You’re not good enough’ marketing bullshit and it’s force-fed to you with all the focussed precision of a cluster-bomb in a tea-shop. The question should be asked: For what is it that I am deemed to be unfit? Is it going to the beach? And what is it you intend to do at the beach? Perhaps lie down in an almost comatose condition on an ‘authentic’ Versace towel you bought at the market in Marmaris? I think for 90% of beach destinations that is the plan for most adults; to be a human meat stick, occasionally rotating on sandy elbows to even up that blotchy mosaic of skin damage the cosmetic industry prefers to call a tan. How fit does one even need to be to be a flesh rotisserie? I’d argue a more circular shape would make that activity more efficient than being a two-dimensional wall of meat-muscle constructed of triangles and sharp indents. Have you tried rolling a triangle? In terms of achieving an overall burn tan, it seems the perfect Beach Body Mass Index (BMI) would be classified as ‘spherical’.

Step Four

More context. Unless I’m a complete weirdo with the observational skills of a plastic bag, I’m quite sure we go on holiday to enjoy ourselves. For me, that means going to British Columbia on a photo-shooting self-drive safari. Beach Body doesn’t apply to me when I’m hunting brown bears with a Canon lens. Beach Body to me means bear spray and a fresh pair of underpants for when things go wrong. I digress. You go to a beach resort to do one of three things (or all of them). For some, it might simply be to read a book on a lounger and enjoy romantic meals at sunset. That really doesn’t require a six pack, does it? I mean, why endure months of sacrifice to get cubes on your skin-cloth when you’re only going to smother it in pleasure-fed tubbiness?

Other people might do some exploring, go on a guided tour, maybe sample the local culture. Do you need to be able to do six-thousand sit-ups to do that? Do you need the strength to bench-press Pluto to visit the museum of antiquity in some far-flung shore? If you answer yes, you’re a contrary asshole.

Some folks, the younger ones (or enthusiastic oldies), might go on holiday for that fling with a romantic stranger. And by romantic stranger, I mean predatory local sex-pest. Perhaps they are looking for someone with great abs but I doubt it. They want novel encounters and I’m pretty sure body-shape isn’t on their checklist. Cheap kicks aren’t measured in gym hours.

Point is: none of these reasons require a honed body built by months of food-guilt, excessive exercise and anxious weekly measurements of your love-handles or happy-hips.

Step Five

Understand there is no such thing as having a Beach Body. Little baby turtles who hatch under the glorious moonlight aren’t concerned about their beach bodies. They’re supremely pre-occupied with surviving the perilous journey to the lapping caress of the ocean than they are with their under-developed soft (tasty) bellies. And if turtles aren’t thinking of being beach body ready, neither should you. You’re a human thinking thing. We’re supposed to be better than the animals. Though really, we’re not; we’re all part of this cosmic wonder we call life. And I assure you, life never ever thought we’d be subjected to the whims of profiteering marketing companies who force-feed us neurosis inducing mantra about things that matter not.

Now, don’t come away from this post thinking I’m advocating a life of sloth and lethargy—I’m not. But it’s vitally important to keep your brain buds alert and know when you’re being stimulated (or subjugated) by a marketing cattle-prod to coerce you into specific, self-defeating behaviours. Beach Body Fit is not reality. It is the anathema to what a holiday should be about.

Go forth and conquer: eat well, dance in the moonlight, date an exotic stranger, and rub Calamine lotion on your cherished, well-rounded tan.

Beach body ready? Go tan yourself.

New Years Resolutions? Just Say No.

the54thvoid

We’re now well into the Western New Year and perhaps I’m a little late to the party. Well, no problem, I don’t do parties and neither should you. Parties are for children and clowns, or politicians and celebrities. You and me? For my part, I’m way happier sitting with my wife by my side, slurping a beer and munching crisps while watching a re-run of Columbo at 480p on an ultra-HD 55” TV. The stark contrast of technology and 70’s cinematography reminds me I’m alive. Now, that’s a party.  

But what about those resolutions, I hear you cry. Just like parties, resolutions are beholden to certain groups: politicians (again, they have all the fun, especially dictators; they love a resolution), special committees, and, well, I’m not sure who else. Maybe the UN. Or the WHO—you know, huge global entities that need to make resolutions. And this is a good place to ask: are you a huge global entity? Sure, it’s a hell of a moniker to insult an overweight person but no—you’re not a global entity. Nor should you use that term as I just suggested. This is a nice place; it’s not suited to bad thoughts.

The resolutions you’re thinking of might be things such as:

  • I promise not to eat chocolate more than three nights a week, or
  • I’ll abstain from alcohol for one month, or
  • I will join the gym, or
  • I’ll refrain from posting mentally deranged conspiracy theories on social media

Well, apart from the last one, I have helpful advice on the general notion of resolutions. If the last point is on your agenda, I’d suggest you book yourself into a secure padded room and eat the key; everybody is out to get you and you’re very much safer inside—away from the rest of the world.

So, what is a resolution? Ready? Ready? Look up, here comes the penny drop. A resolution is an abstraction of something somebody wants you to become involved with. A resolution, at least the concept of it, is a sales tool to make you briefly alter your life trajectory by buying into somebody else’s lifestyle scam. Instantly, you can derail my cynicism by pointing out that eating or drinking less costs nothing—in fact, it will save you money. Correct. But, and there’s always a bigger but at this time of year, people replace their vices with something else. Raise your hand if own a Nutribullet, or some form of Ninja inspired fruit pulper. Admit it. Don’t be afraid. As for point three—joining a gym—that definitely has a cost, though, at this time of year there are an abundance of offers. Why? Because they’re zeroing in on the monetary benefit of resolutions.

Are all resolutions mired in profit? No, of course not. If your resolution involves helping others without fleecing them, then your New Year change of course is noble. Taking stock of how messed up our planet has become and wishing to change it would also be a worthwhile thing to do. Go clean your local beach by picking up the plastic and associated mess so that you can then can bury it in a greenfield site in the countryside. Ouch, that was nasty of me but my cynicism runs deep. If you really want to help the planet, insist on using cardboard or other non-plastics—and still go clean the beach or river. Maybe dump all of it in the middle of a concrete metropolis. Save the green and lush countryside and forests by destroying our cities instead. This is too dark; I’ll get back to the fitness angle.

Why are fitness resolutions bad? Intrinsically, they’re not. But what so few people realise is that (just like Mothering Sunday), it’s all about making you spend money elsewhere in time. Your desire to change your behaviour shouldn’t cost you money. If it does, you’re a puppet dangling under the influence of somebody else’s hand. That can seem an unfair judgement but it’s all about timing. Why make a resolution now? Why does it take a period of relaxation and excess to make you want to change behaviour? Simple—it’s guilt. And by buying into the resolution fad at this time of year, you’re doing nothing more than following a well-worn path of socially manipulated consumerism.

Don’t do it. Take stock of your life and look beyond the past four weeks. I’ve seen the clear trends over 26 ½ years. Every single January, without fail, I see the faces of people I see for one-quarter of the year. People who return to the gym with religious zeal in January, who become more moderate in February, and then by March they’re really nothing more than whispers of people I know who I’ll see again the following January. And every year, they get larger. And greyer. It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t need an abstracted moment in time to make decisions about where your life should be heading.

Then, what is a real resolution? Bad news—it’s nothing but another Unicorn of whatever industry is taking advantage of your current slump. There are no real resolutions. To resolve is to make an attempt to overcome a problem, or to change an attribute that requires to be ‘solved’. And it doesn’t require a window in time to make that promise to oneself—you can do it in any of twelve months of the year. A resolution is nothing but a decision to alter an outcome, or to change a metaphorical direction in life. People will say a resolution is a promise to oneself, a contract, to secure something better. Those are nothing but glorified words for something so simple as a decision. After all, the notion that a resolution holds any permanence through promise is squashed by the reality that so many fail. And if you believe your resolution is special and it fails to deliver you to happiness, then what of the feelings of failure? It is better to say no to resolutions and instead take stock of your life and how you wish it to be.

Think of what can be done to improve what you are, where you are. Put on the old thinking-hat and consider if there are realistic ways to better your situation. Does it need to involve money or can it be done through sheer will and determination? Hint—if it’s not realistic, set it aside for now. You can play with that toy later. As an example, consider my dream. I want to be a successful and published author. My current submission is failing to gain any interest from agents; what can I say, they don’t get me. But my mini-dream is easy to fulfil, I can self-publish, and I know there is an audience out there, so in that small way I will be one step closer to my dream. My super-dream is to become comfortable financially through writing alone—to be able to quit my day job. For now, that is the toy I can’t play with. But this is the reality of change; it is better to take baby-steps to make something happen and to plan for it beyond the fiction of New Year. Just ask yourself: what do I need to do to be where I want to be? And then find the very smallest thing you can do to start that journey. You don’t need a fancy resolution for that—you just need a plan, even a simple one. So go, start planning. But remember, keep it real. Stay away from those pesky Unicorns.

Exercise will not make you happy

the54thvoid

In mortal life there are some universal truths. The sky above, the ground below; though, I suppose even that can be rebuked by an astronaut (or someone flying on ridiculous ‘space’ flights laid on by egomaniacal billionaires—I’m not fussy who you imagine that to be, but there are three of them). Such fleeting rarities aside, there are truths to which the vast majority of human experience has been conditioned to accept. Most make sense, most are there to keep us in line and temper our expectations; for without realistic ambition, humanity would be chaos.

In my industry, we sell a lie every day. In fact, we sell more than one. That’s not to say we do it with malice or malcontent. No, the messages the fitness industry delivers to the masses are there to ‘align’ expectation to the upper margins of what you may one day achieve. The problem with the messages we deliver is that they miss out so much of what will hamper you, what will disappoint you, and ultimately, what may defeat you.

A conservative estimate from my own experience would be that 90%+ of all gym users attend their local torture centre for one primary purpose—to lose weight. We are told this through almost every portion of practically every media source: exercise and weight loss go hand-in-hand. This message is foisted upon the many to elicit a response of exercise compliance, but—shock horror—it’s just not true.  I’m sure you’re trying to grapple with this statement. To make it super easy, I’ll lay it out in practical thermodynamics. And, I’ve covered this before. In fact, I’ve probably hoodwinked you in an earlier article. Well, if I did, clearly, I lied. People assume if they jump on a bike, go for a 5km run, or do some weights a few times a week, they’ll see a tangible metamorphosis. However, three weekly sessions might only make use of 1000 Kcals (if you’re being enthusiastic). Across the scope of one week, I can easily consume that 1000 Kcals. If starting exercise from scratch, you might actually end up eating more food to compensate for the sudden energy demands. Post work-out ‘munchies’, if you prefer. This is the first inconvenient truth: exercise uses energy that can be replaced far too easily. If you replace what you ‘burn off’, you’ll find it very awkward to shift the blubber.

So, given exercise on its own won’t work—surely dieting will? Absolutely. However, that also falls into the realm of thermodynamics and energy conservation. If you were consuming a stable calorific intake and your weight was also stable, then a reduction in calories would facilitate weight loss. Notice, I don’t say fat loss. Dieting alone will result in the body being unscrupulous with where it finds the calories it needs. Fatty tissue, stored carbohydrates (glycogen), and protein (muscle tissue), will all be catabolised in a low-calorie environment. But hey—at least you will lose weight. For a while. Once again, practical physiologically will kick in. As your body sheds weight, the energy cost to mobilise and move around is reduced; whether it be shopping for soulless diet food or having a depressingly fatiguing work-out, you’ll be expending fewer calories. The truth is, as you get lighter, you need less food, therefore your diet becomes less effective. To lose more weight, you need to eat even less, and that’s not really something to be enthusiastic about.

If you’ve got some smarts you’ll be shouting at the screen, telling me that you need to do exercise and diet to lose weight. And yes, that is true. There are some in the scientific field, however, who rally against that approach and suggest obesity is not affected by diet or exercise. They point to hormonal imbalances and other factors that result in becoming heavily overweight. Suffice to say, I disagree and while I accept there are some cases where metabolic disorders affect weight, the vast majority of cases are bound by thermodynamic laws (energy balance is everything). My case is very simple: the prevalence of obesity is a modern condition. It can only be found in cultures with an abundance of calorific food. Obesity exists because we have the capacity to over-consume. Case in point to shock the system: There were no obese prisoners of war. It’s a grim statement to make but it validates the case for thermodynamics. As does famine, drought, and any number of horrendous human inflicted atrocities throughout the ages. There’s no way I can make this a humorous point. But it is damming evidence to argue against obesity as a purely hormonal defect. No food = death.

The above paragraph started with the obvious statement: exercise and diet will help weight loss. Mostly true. But once again, there are calorific realities: How much exercise, at what intensity, and how strict is the diet? These things matter. Cutting down on pies while walking an extra mile won’t do a great deal. Run a marathon instead and there will be fairly rapid changes but that would be a drastic step. Which conveniently leads to the opening title.

Exercise will not make you happy. If it does, I’d suggest you see a psychologist. Exercise is a tool, much as a brace helps to straighten teeth, or a bone lengthening operation will grant someone an extra inch in height. Are they fun? Perhaps for the sadistic doctor involved but for the patient, I’d imagine the answer is a resounding ‘NO’. The end result is the gain. And yes, while some will say ‘but I love exercise’, I would say to you—awesome—you’ve got it made. But to sell that as a thing; to suggest to the wider audience that it is fun becoming hot and sweaty, to experience fatigue and muscle pain, is a great mistruth. Exercise is anathema to species survival and while in nature it is used by certain animals to develop ‘skills’, this can only happen when calories allow. Exercise for its own purpose is an unnatural state of being. Games and socialising are fundamental to a human experience but the exercise part is just a tool. And those in my field, or those who read this blog and tout various solutions to their own readers need to understand that. For thousands of years we have survived, learning how to conserve resources and energy. We’re primed to store the damn stuff (calories) but in evolutionary terms, we’re loathe to use it up (it is why we put on fat so easily—it is what nature intends).   

If we want to improve ourselves, or we want to help someone else to do so, the primary focus needs to be: What will I, or they, enjoy doing? Exercise and diet are only tools—they are not solutions. The solution is more holistic and more personal. On top of all of that, you’ve also got the motivational unicorn to contend with (another story altogether – link might be broken on mobile, post from March 2021).

What is today’s lesson? The fitness industry likes to massage the harder truths. Most ‘life’ or gym coaches think you’re just like them, when the last thing you want is to run a marathon or eat Gwang-Gwang berries (not a real thing – don’t bother with Google). People are unique and exercise isn’t fun. Diets suck and so does preaching.

Go have fun. When we stop fussing over perfection, we’ll all be so much happier.

Time to call it a day?

the54thvoid

Not the blog; at least, not yet. I’m talking about lifting heavy. Those big presses and pulls that draw blood and sweat from every pore. Isolation work that burns with infernal intensity. And even if you don’t train that hard, there is still a point in life when you just have to accept the harsh reality—one day you have to go light.

Now, to be clear, growing old does not mean giving up. It doesn’t mean you can’t be strong. But there are changes in our body as we age that require some reflection. As I approach my fifties, to me, that change is how long it takes to recover from injury. Not serious damage but those little niggles that prey on your tendons and joints. That insignificant twang when you were eighteen years old becomes a cacophony of pulled tendons, a resounding chorus repeating for months on end. It’s as though every injury from the past thirty years developed a photographic memory; each bundle of abused fibres suddenly recalling what it was you did wrong with a bicep curl in 1995. Oh, the folly of youth to think we were indestructible. We might forget that we never warmed up properly, or that we trained too frequently, but one day your accumulated exercise foibles will come back to haunt you. And once Scrooge, the ghost of exercise past, drags his chains around your creaking joints, there can be no happy ending to your tale of glory.

Damn, is it really that grim? No, of course it isn’t but this is my blog and I like drama. Though, it is still a pertinent point that as we age, we need to consider the structural integrity of our bodies. No matter how careful we are with our physical endeavours, there are consequences to every lift, pull, skip and jump we do. Our articulated joints have a covering of cartilage which reacts well to moderate exercise. This self-healing surface can absorb and protect us from physical stresses. Consider when we jump from a height to the ground, such as when we were children and those things were just plain fun. Or, as adults, when we drink a little too much and think we’re kids again. Jumping from shed roofs while being filmed by a giggling accomplice, the result being a hit on social media as you writhe in pain afterwards. You get the point. Heavy, infrequent impacts are diminished by our cartilage. But what about heavy, frequent impacts?

We are not jackhammers. I’d say ‘pneumatic drill’ but jackhammer is a far cooler word to use. Say it; jackhammer. Ooh! I’m pretty sure there’s a crappy pulp-fiction detective with that name out there. But anyway, we’re not one of those. Machines are designed and purposed for repetitive action and even then, those machines will also wear out. Unlike machines, our parts are not so easily replaced, and when they are, they’re never as good as the real thing. The cyberpunk future is not yet here—the metal joints they drill into your bones in surgery are not cool. You are not Johnny Silverhand. Or Cable. And if you don’t know who they are, go and Google. Yeah, you’ll never be as awesome as them.

All those repetitive impacts, delivered without proper attention to technique or recovery, pile up a multitude of problems for later life. Ageing itself begins to break down those protective articular surfaces, and what we do in youth, is compounded on top. To sum it up: the harder you train, the greater your pensioner pain.

So, you’re approaching fifty and want to know how to stop the damage. Not just to cartilage but also your tendons and muscle. Can you turn back the clock? No. Go back and read the last paragraph, it should make it clear. If you’re like me, it’s too late. That’s exactly why at a point in time you have to reconsider how you train. You’ve put in all those hours; you made the grade and lifted the weight of a small brown bear. But now the bear’s nibbling your shoulder joints. It’s clawing at your tendons. It’s time to put the bear down. Besides, who the hell lifts bears? Actually, isn’t there a religious cult that does that? I think they’re Scottish – the Press-bear-tarians. I may have lost you on that one. I apologise.

Dropping the weight and lifting something lighter is, for many men and women, the equivalent of that moment in a Hollywood starlet’s life when the phone stops ringing. One wrinkle too many and the jobs dry up, just like your skin. Relegated to playing support roles or alcoholic mothers-in-law—be in no doubt—the glamour days are over. It’s hard to take. Most gym nuts will refuse to accept the truth and keep going heavy. I’ve seen the damage that does. A woman who trained far too hard in her forties, who one day ripped a tendon trying to pick up an ankle strap that had ‘Velcroed’ itself to the gym carpet. All because time had caught up with her arduous days of lifting super-heavy weights. It’s a terrible dawning of realisation: when Velcro is stronger than your connective tissue.  

So, if I lift lighter will I shrink? Yes. To an extent you will. But you’ll not look feeble. I think that’s a fear all lifters have. You have to rationalise what it is you’re trying to achieve, namely, longevity. Sure, you looked beefy as hell in your twenties, all rippling like a skin-coloured tide. Your thirties were spent being well-above average, lording it over your age-peers even as your hair was thinning. Up and into your forties you were still something special. But what do you want to be in your fifties or sixties? How about on crutches, or in a wheelchair? You only have one body with a sub-standard selection of replacement parts. If you want to enjoy the next thirty years, it’s time to have a heart-to-heart with your ego. And to be utterly blunt; steroid abusing pensioners look ridiculous.

You don’t have to give up too much size. Or strength, for that matter. You can lift lighter weights with a slower cadence. Instead of grunting a 1:1 up/down ratio, you can try the oppressively difficult 2:1:4. Pioneered by the guys that brought you Nautilus in the eighties, training that accentuates the eccentric phase of a lift is beneficial to strength but restricts the load you can move. And for those that don’t know about resistance training, basically, it means go slow on each lift. What was once a 100Kg bench press will become a 60Kg load. And it’ll feel harder to boot.

You could also diversify your exercise portfolio. Go mad and try Yoga. By all accounts it’s an excellent system. In truth, I know it to be true but it’s not for me. And I know, if you’re used to lifting anything remotely heavy, something as ‘airy’ as Yoga might be a stretch too far, no pun intended. So just lift light and slow, okay? You can try Yoga in your next reincarnation.

And if you’re young and haven’t yet reached the decrepitude of a 47-year-old former exercise enthusiast, what should you do? Ignore me, of course. You’re young, you’re indestructible—you don’t even make a noise when you bend over to tie your shoe-laces. Just make sure you come back here in twenty-five years so I can say, ‘I told you so.’ Because I will—it’s one of the pleasures of growing old; chastising others for repeating the same mistakes we made. By then perhaps I can be Johnny Silverhand. Who? What do you mean, who? Good grief, I give up.

Calorie Purgatory

the54thvoid

Welcome to the church of excess. It’s not so much that we’re devout. It’s just that we devour. Everything.  This isn’t an old church. It’s new. As much as that, at 46, I remember a time when hunger was common. Not because my family was poor; it’s just that things were different when I was young. If you’ve read any of my blog, you’ll understand that I view the eighties as a powerful decade of change. In the eighties, gyms were haunts frequented by fringe lunatics. Exercise was still experimental; jogging was for perverts. That’s how I saw it. Old men in too-tight shiny shorts. Sweatbands and body odour. The linchpin of a new dawn. When normal people were beginning to care about their figures. Transitioning to the nineties brought acceptance of an otherwise ridiculous pastime. The notion that men and women could grunt together in public spaces. In gyms. In dance studios. It was a brave new world. And it was necessary. By Buddha’s wise, tubby belly, it was vital.

This era brought another change. Calorific excess. Before I tread farther, it’s important to draw a distinction. There is evidence aplenty that we ate more in a domestic sense in the 50’s and 60’s. Manual labour was the dominant form of employment. Calories were vital for hard-working bodies. But these meals were home-cooked. Plenty of fats and carbs, dollops of hell into which any personal trainer would now crush your face to teach you a lesson. But that was then. Calorie expenditure was high in comparison. It didn’t matter that every mealtime you ate lard on a stick and ploughed through fields of starch. Our mums and dads, grandfathers and grandmothers; they worked hard. Damn hard. They needed food. Badly.

But those damn eighties. The cosmic herald of change. Electronics were booming. Automation was beginning to take over. When the Luddites rebelled against the evil cotton machinery, they couldn’t have foreseen how bad things would become. What was once a chore of crank-turning and box-lifting became button-pushing and QC stamping (and even that was supplanted by robotics). Manual work faded to the periphery of construction and low-tech warehouses. At the same time, what had once been regarded as a rare treat—the confectionary delight of sweets—became a marketing monster that, to this day, knows no bounds. A reverse survival metric occurred. Calorie requirements dropped but we began to consume more. And by more, I mean more shit. The staple diet of the 50’s and 60’s: meats, starch and buckets of greens, disappeared from our collective minds. Beige colours, hues of orange and yellow crept into every crevice of culinary expediency. Examine a fast-food menu. Where’s the green? Yeah, the Subway logo is green but the food is orange and brown. What’s the colour of a burger bun? Orange. A fry? Orange. A chicken nugget? Orange. Hell, even our potato-derivative crisps tend to take on an orange hue. Do you know Whatsits? They look like fluffy space-carrots and taste like a savoury sock. And if it doesn’t taste like that, it’s MSG-mageddon. MSG: monosodium glutamate. It’s what makes everything taste like heaven. If heaven is sugary salt.

These new foods, hitherto unknown in the days of our grandparents, brought an abundance of calories. It’s a sobering realisation that we in the west speak of hunger pangs when all we want is another nibble of chocolate. Whatever your foody vice, it’s excess, and the hunger you feel isn’t hunger. It’s conditioned greed. We don’t know hunger. This is an unwelcome statement but I have to say it: in the west, poverty and obesity have high correlations. In 3rd world countries, poverty and starvation bind as one. What can be common to both is malnutrition. Obesity and malnourishment aren’t the odd couple you might believe. Healthy, nutritional food isn’t likely to make you obese. High-sugar, high-fat products will. The beige stuff.

But beige is not the only colour of food to be found in the bowels of calorie purgatory. Shiny and bright, the crunchy fruits of confectionary hell pack a wallop of sugar. It’s a two-pronged attack on more than your waistline. It’s an all-out assault on your health. On the one hand, you have the power of beige; those foodstuffs associated with meals. Burgers, nuggets, all manners of crispy coated deliciousness. These are the insurgents. They’ve replaced what was once green and good. Cheaper, constructed of reclaimed animal parts, these things offer little by way of nutrition. But the shiny rainbows of sugar are the devil (and there’s brown in that spectrum too). Given the choice, looking down the barrel of a health-nut’s gun, I’d always go beige before going rainbow. Sweets, chocolate, cakes—and unfortunately, I’d throw ice-cream into that pot—are a classic western disease. They offer nothing. Nothing. Sugary Soma for the masses.

To be clear, I’m not a food fascist. My plate is more often beige than not. I’m not a hypocrite. I’m a willing accomplice to 21st century apathy. But, in my defence, I still exercise to a degree. I know how physiological systems tick. I sometimes eat healthy food. And if not, I understand the calorie weight of my food. I don’t tabulate spreadsheets of nutrition, that’s excessive. I just know my enemy (me, mostly).

Irrespective of your nutritional downfall, those foods, beige or bright, have a cost. Calories are energy. We all know that. But what is that cost? Pounds of fat? Well, yes. But, and this is a big but (pun intended) there’s another way to look at calories. If exercise or activity is redemption, then this is purgatory. A physical cost to your excess. I’d thought of using tables to illustrate but I prefer to shock through the medium of prose. So, let’s get started.

It’s difficult to give a precise number. But walking one mile will expend approximately 80 calories (plus or minus 20) for a weight range of 120-180lbs. For arguments sake, lets’ call it a round 100 calories for 140 lbs. While this may be high for some, it’s better to aim high and lose, than hit low and gain weight. So, one mile is 100 calories. Now multiply. You eat a 500 calorie 6” subway (easy), that’s a five-mile plod. A two-hour stroll. You have the time for that? But then, a 6” sub is damn tasty (all that MSG). The nibbles cometh. You buy a little cutesy muffin. Strawberry sprinkles to satisfy one of your pretend five-a-day pieces of fruit (it’s okay, I still count the hops in beer as vegetables). That’s another 300 calories. What you class as a small lunch can power an eight-mile amble. That’s almost a quarter of your waking hours spent walking. I mean, you could park your car four miles from the Subway. That’d do it. That would be the calorie purgatory for that cheeky little lunch. But I’m sure as hell you’ll not be doing that.

I’ll take one for the team here. Beer. One can of wonderful craft beer. It doesn’t matter it’s full of pretend vegetables and made from water mixed with cereal. It’s still got calories. Probably 100-150. I’ve had two today. Have I walked them off yet? Don’t be silly. I’m too busy writing this.

You can apply this approach of penitence to all junk calories. They all provide energy but far more than we need. For reference, fitness and training aside, the 26 miles of a marathon will have an immediate calorie cost of about 2600 calories (weight dependent). Other physiological factors will burn through even more for energy recovery and cellular repair but you see the point; you see the numbers. If I order a takeaway pizza, it will likely have enough calories to power a full marathon. When do I burn them off? I won’t. That’s the rub. That is calorie purgatory. You become indebted to the overlords of consumption. All that beige at mealtime. Those sprinkles of candy-coloured sweetness. They come to you with a heavy price. Literally, for many of us.

There is good news though. As long as you have the willpower of the Dalai Lama, you can refuse to bow before the rampant consumerism of the food industry. You can avoid the best-tasting foods the chemical industry has ever created. Drink water, not beer and wine. Chow down on kale and sprouts, not crisps and Maltesers. Unshackle yourself from the devil of delicacy that is 50% fat, 50% sugar. Eat starch. Colour thy plate green with leaves and other tasteless plants…

Don’t bother. Life’s too short. I have a better plan. Eat what you enjoy but understand the cost. Have your own reckoning with calorie purgatory. Mitigate your bad choices with your own redemption. Perhaps eat less beige, tone it down a little. Try some green on your plate. Start easy, lettuce is mostly water and isn’t anywhere as evil as cabbage. Broccoli’s good but takes some time to befriend. I’m proud that I can now eat those Bonzai-esque mini-trees. Might even admit I quite enjoy them. Sprouts though, they can go straight to hell. Just make your choices. Understand them. Pay for them in a way you can tolerate. Calorie purgatory need not be eternal. The devil’s in the choices you make. Remember, no matter what you tell yourself, it is your choice.

One final thing. It’s like the Matrix. You have two choices, Neo. If you take the little green fart-ball, you don’t need to go down that rabbit hole. If you decide to take the beige ball of crispy-coated yumminess, you are going to calorie hell.  

A Pandemic: Who’d have thought it could make you fat?

the54thvoid

A new post. About time. There was a thing going around, you see. It put a halt on normality. Affecting us all with its devious ways and social awkwardness. But thankfully, the US 2020 election is over. It is, it just is. But, as of writing, the pesky pandemic is still here although vaccines are on their way. Next year, there will be more normal. Almost how it ought to be. So how has the pandemic affected you?

I thought I’d explain how I devolved during the experience. The illustration below, drawn on MS Paint with gusto and verve, sequences the four stages of being interred in Camp Lockdown.

Phase One – The Eager Beaver

If you were lucky enough to find yourself furloughed or on some form of ‘phantom vacation’ trapped by four walls, you might have begun a book, or another gloriously unoriginal project. In phase one, I set myself the task of editing and submitting my 180k word masterpiece. My fourth submission to the unfathomable daemons’ known as ‘Agents’.

Phase Two – What do you mean, no thanks?

The fruits of Phase One, be it an awesome epic fantasy novel, a homemade jam project, or a business venture involving your dwindling sanity and crocheted dolls of Victorian gallows, come to a bitter end. Phase Two is the joyless hangover of a party thrown by Hope. Except, you were in lockdown, so there was no party. Just four walls. Again.

Phase Three – I’ll survive this, even if it kills me

The dreams of Phase One are realised to be a mirage. Sure, some folk made it. But, if you’re anything like me, you didn’t. But don’t despair. I’ve throttled hope and thrown it into the bin. Expectation is now a four-letter profanity. Phase Three is here. It’s darker. The nurturing pasture of pragmatic insanity. What I failed to do in Phase One, I will succeed at now. Me? I started (and finished) another book.

Phase Four – The Pandemic’s Panacea

Not medicine. Not vaccines. Alcohol. How much did you drink? Apart from Amazon shares going stratospheric, enabling Jeff Bezos to buy a wardrobe’s worth of Infinity Gauntlets, alcohol sales also spiralled. Not surprising. Phase Four is the time-travellers hipflask. You were probably in phase four during phase one. Some were in phase four prior to the pandemic. (They have a technical name, and self-help groups).

You were doomed from the start

Back to reality. I think, similar to many people, the initial stages of the pandemic were viewed as novel. Hell, they even called it a novel coronavirus. Named so, exactly because the whole experience was, well, new. My wife and I began lockdown with a daily, early morning walk. Up to an hour, often out at 7am, experiencing the delights of a river walk in Spring. She was, and still is, working from home, I was furloughed by my employer. A full-pay holiday. Though, of course, holidays shouldn’t quite feel like house arrest.

I knew as an exercise professional that being stuck at home for months would play havoc with weight control. So, that walk was supposed to be a saviour. I’m going to repeat this right now—I’m an exercise professional—three decades of experience. You would think I should have coped better. But I didn’t. And now I have a lockdown belly. What’s worse is that I have a gym in the house, a Powertec lever gym, an awesome piece of kit. No cardio; that was the walk. I’ll say it again: three decades of fitness, a daily walk and a home gym. What went wrong?

Routine. It’s a human thing. It’s an animal thing. We need routines. Any change to an established pattern of behaviour can have unforeseen consequences. For most people, a routine is the baseline of existence. In addition, most routines place restrictions on your activity. In work, you don’t have access to a fridge, or at least if you do, it’s not full of your own food. And if it is, hell, what’s wrong with you?

Likewise, in work, even an office job, you probably have a predictable pattern of movement. Perhaps a walk to the deli (or for the UK audience, Greggs). There will be a mind-numbing repertoire of tasks and tea-breaks; things you just always do. Even in your commute, however brief the walk, you use your legs (if you’re a fortunate biped) to go from A to B in order for B to get you to C. It’s your routine. But guess what? The pandemic doesn’t care.

A ruptured routine is much like a brain injury—you develop new behaviours. Or, at least, you exaggerate existing ones. Strangely, for me, I worked out less. Being home, with more time than I ever had to train, I found it tedious to consider. As most lab-rats, I discovered a new behaviour. Fridge-raiding. Random nibbling on any convenient foodstuff replaced those jaunts to the gym-floor. Six o’clock beer became three o’clock refreshments. In fairness, I continued to support my not-so-local craft beer shop; The Grunting Growler. The owner won’t read this but I blame him. He’s my alcohol enabler. But I can’t be angry. I’m going there again tomorrow.

When we came out of lockdown and I eventually returned to work, my bodyfat level visibly reduced. In a matter of two weeks, my stomach fat was diminishing. That all-important routine was back. A strange thing to consider—you don’t choose that routine, it chooses you. It’s a symbiotic condition; worker and parasite. Although I’m unsure which role I play.

There is no magic pill for this. Not for the fat bits. I like to give advice and suggest something positive. For this situation, we just have to get back into the ruts we all thought we hated. Imagine, all that guff we were moaning about back in February. Those five carbon-copy days of the week. Time to embrace it. But if that rut is no longer for you, the best way to get going is to amble off into the woods of chance and find out which routine will wrap its arms around you. There are a few people that suggest routine is awful. Let them have their randomness. But for most of us, routine is necessary; it is tied to purpose.

One warning. For those who celebrate it: Christmas is coming. Don’t even try to get fit before then. My advice? Eat, drink, and be merry. Possibly with a small social bubble and with appropriate safeguards. But, by the fitness gods, don’t worry yourself about a few pounds here or there. January is coming. The time when people come out of their apathy cocoons and drag themselves back to the gym. For now, go spin your Christmas chrysalis of confectionary and cake. There’s still time. Next year you can work on that routine. Unfold your wings and pandemic willing, you’ll become that beautiful butterfly.

Failure is always an option

the54thvoid

If you’re a little nerdy, you’ll attribute this phrase to Mythbuster’s Adam Savage. I’m unable to verify his exercise credentials, nor would I assume to do so. And though his words had a different arena from that of which I intend to delve, the sentiment remains. Failure, in physical exercise, is always an option.

Having worked in gyms for 25 years, I’ve seen the standard model of exercise intensity, namely, moderate. There’s nothing wrong with that, at least, that’s how we encourage people to do something less enjoyable that washing dishes. The truth is, moderate sucks. In fact, in practically every arena, from politics to astrophysics, a moderate approach implies lack of effort and often mediocrity. Why should your body be any different?

To fail is to be a loser. That’s the mantra obsessive life-coaches end up selling. They’ll use quotes similar to ‘failure is an option – but you can choose to succeed’, which I personally find as meaningless as telling someone, ‘nothing’s impossible.’ Nothing’s impossible? Really. Hmm, last time I tried, I couldn’t make a calorie free pizza. Or change the body-shape of a 5’ humanoid sphere into a 6’ beanpole. I’m afraid to say, some things are impossible and success isn’t always a choice. But I digress; Failure is ALWAYS an option.

Failure has a bad rap. It’s a word synonymous with, well, ‘failure’. You know what I mean, it’s such a foundation word—everyone knows it, it’s taught from such an early age:

‘Young Billy, if you fail math, you’ll never be an astronaut!’

‘Little Samantha, if you fail physics, you’ll never be an engineer!’

‘Donald, if you fail to grasp emotional intelligence, you’ll never be…’ – scrub that one…

Anyway – you get the point. Aversion to failure actually implies a lack of effort. In any given task, reaching failure means you’ve likely tried all available avenues. In which case, you’ll adapt, or you’ll learn. Often a slap on the head from a loving teacher can knock a new idea into the brain box. Of course, that approach stopped a long time ago when it became unfashionable to hit children. Good thing to. I didn’t like getting hit in school… 

In exercise, failure is a moment of adaptation. In truth, it’s very difficult to achieve. Our bodies are machines that require fuel to perform any task. Reaching failure is tough. Our brain chomps through sugar at a crazy rate and our bodies will metabolise carbs (for sugars), fats and protein for any manual effort. There’s a hierarchy of sensation aligned to whatever physical work you’re doing. Different intensities use different fuels in different ways.

Low level effort (such as a stroll, or even typing) uses a large proportion of fat as the energy source. As our bodies are reasonably efficient at low level work, we don’t use many calories doing easy things. Therefore, we can do them for long time periods, without discomfort. Realistically, failure is not something you experience at this level. I can’t recall falling from my chair, clutching fingers and moaning about how extreme typing has caused cramp and stress fractures. Never needed an electrolyte intake and a protein bar after typing for seven hours. Just beer. Writer’s reward.

Medium level effort (a jog, or an aerobic workout) begins to use more stored sugars at a higher burn rate. This is the de facto level of exercise for 99% of people. Whether you wear lose joggers and baggy tees, or painted on Lycra and a brand-new wax, you’re probably in this category. Yeah, on that Lycra statement—don’t be fooled by apparel. Fashion is not an indicator of effort, experience, or ability. Lycra alone isn’t a crime but Lycra plus immaculate make-up usually implies low effort. This may sound sexist but it’s an observation. Similarly, guys who wear tight cycling shorts to the gym, often don’t own bikes. I wish they did, so they’d take away those obscene banana hammocks.

High level effort is all about sugars, and in extreme cases, body resources such as creatine. A rapid burst of power (100m sprint, 5 reps at maximum effort) will tank your creatine phosphate (CP) reserves. Rest for a few minutes you can go again. Slightly lower duration, or effort will be a carb fest. A whole bunch of calories will be expended but the work load isn’t sustainable. Failure is often an option here.

With a brief fashion and physiology lesson fresh in the mind, it’s simple to discuss failure. At moderate intensity, failure is hard to achieve. It hurts like hell. This is the domain of the well-known term, the ‘burn’. It’s real and it sucks. A mixture of fuel shortage, a build-up of exercise by-products (lactic acid) and lowering work efficiency make the ‘burn’ a hellish experience. Taken to extremes, you’ll suffer wobbly legs, nausea, and in some cases, you will be physically sick.  Yummy! That sounds super-awesome. It’s not. It’s awful. Yet, if you want to be the best at some sort of moderate time frame event this is how you’ll train. Now bear in mind this is also where most exercisers tend to gravitate and you’ll understand why people avoid failure. Frankly, if you puke all over the treadmill, I’ll personally send my minions to throw you out the gym. I jest. They’ll just clean your carrots and oatmeal with a congealing gel and call me an asshole boss. Hey, I’ve cleaned poop from a guide dog’s mess—I’ve done my tour of duty.

So, if I said ‘failure is always an option’ but paint it in such a poor light, what’s the point? Ah young Padwan, you forgot about the high-level, short-burst duration intensity. This is where failure works best. This is where glory is found in gritted teeth and high-pitched squeaks. This is actually where we should all train if health is your goal.

Before going any further, it would be wise to add an advisory. In all seriousness, pushing to failure in exercise carries risks to those with certain health conditions. Apathy, lethargy, and low motivation are all…. No wait. I was reading from the Fascist Gym Instructor’s Handbook. Let me get my stethoscope. So, here we are: heart conditions, unstable angina, respiratory problems, and certain joint problems, among other things will not play well with exercising to failure. In short, don’t try it unless you know you are medically sound.

Press-ups. Or push-ups. Whatever. This ‘Failure’ post came from humble beginnings. I was on holiday and thought I’d get back into the press-up regime. Every couple of nights, I’d do a whole bunch until failure. First couple nights I didn’t count. Then, I did. I pushed until about 99% effort to get 52. In my younger years, I’d reached 100—proper ones, arms passing 90 degrees, ankles, hips, and shoulders in a straight line. Regardless, 52 isn’t a huge number but it’s a good start. To make sure I was pooped, I tried more after five seconds. Managed two. I’d say I reached failure. Now here’s the golden moment; when you realise how effective certain things are. I stopped doing them for over a week, after doing them for only one week. When I tried again, I did 60, then 65 to actual failure. To be clear: I worked out ‘close to failure’ on press-ups for about four sessions. Stopped doing them for 7-9 days. Tried again, managed over 60.

What happened to get such an improvement? Simple, I trained to failure. This is how systems work. Your body works within tolerances, as though a finely tuned pedal-bin. Use it within those tolerances and it’ll give you years of carefree enjoyment. Don’t use it (be sedentary) and it’ll seize up. But if you use it all the time, things change. In the pedal-bin analogy, you’ll probably want to get a bigger bin (or eat less). But the body is a wonderful and adaptable thing. When the body is pushed to its limits, it releases hormones. These remodelling chemicals promote growth in active tissues. In effect, the system gets a message that its not robust enough, so to adapt to the immediate stresses, it rebuilds. Without those stresses—that push toward failure—it wouldn’t need to change (that mediocre level).

But what about puking? Short term high-intensity work tends to fail on mechanical grounds. Muscle fibre recruitment maxes out and the system can’t give any more. It takes grunt and a whole world of focus but it’s much less painful than the burn. Mental effort to summon your ‘maximum’ strength isn’t easy. I’d argue that compared to the ‘burn’ it is much more pleasant. Not all things suit failure. Pressing a heavy weight above your head until it collapses on you is exercise Darwinism. But you can train close to failure. It takes experience but learning your body’s limits allows you to push it close. The rewards are high. The pukiness, low.

Wait, you say, I can’t even do a single press-up. Excellent. Try one. Push as hard as you can. Create an air gap between your body and the ground, try, try, try. When you realise you still can’t move, it doesn’t matter—that was failure. You tried (really hard, with all your red-faced effort), you failed. That is good. Better if you accidentally vented some ass-gas. That’s a trumpet of noble effort. Try again tomorrow, the next day. Slowly, that push will rise higher. Your body will adapt.

Failure is always an option.

Weight Loss Shortcuts – A Harsh Truth

the54thvoid

Let me spoil the moment. There are none. I figured a rolling intro about what you can and can’t do would be unfair. At the end of the post the message would be the same—there are no short cuts to losing weight. Well, of course, there are; however, those would be dependent on what I mean by weight. An arm weighs a fair few pounds. A leg even more. That old saying, ‘an arm and a leg’—well, that would be a shortcut. Not very practical. Not very good at all.

So, to explain why there is no shortcut, you need to understand the basic facts. One pound of fat (a very small volume of blubber) contains approximately 3700kcal. Your mileage may vary on that amount depending where you read, but that’s closer to what I learned at University. One pound—3700kcal. Got that number logged in the jogger’s noggin’? Good, because, as Hudson says so eloquently in Aliens, ‘stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen.’ Running a marathon—a 26 mile slog—will consume roughly 2700kcal for your average 11-12 stone (154-168lbs, or 70-76Kg) runner. That leaves spare change on that 3700kcal. Now imagine the feeling. You’ve completed the challenge you pestered all your friends about; and, pestered further for sponsorship to raise money for that puppy shelter. What do you do? You celebrate. A great meal, cake, lots of cake, and maybe some fizz, or beer, or wine (or all of them). In your moment of celebratory glory, you shovel 3000kcal of joy down your throat. And, let’s be honest—you deserve it. I mean, it’s madness, running on a road for 26 miles. Sheer madness. You need something to make it feel worth your while.

Given the marathon example for calorie burn, you see that one measly pound of fat supplies all the energy you need to run one event, with change to walk home afterwards. If you understand physiology, you’ll be shouting at me about energy debt (EPOC – excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) but I’ll get to that. In the meantime, consider the lard family. There are 14 pounds in a (UK) stone. Fourteen marathons+ of energy in one stone of bodyfat. Working in gyms for 25 years, I’m used to hearing the plea, ‘I need to lose a stone in four weeks’. One stone of that useless (it’s not actually, but let’s pretend it is) button-popping soft body armour contains about 52,000kcal. Let’s look at that. 52,000kcal in one stone. Four weeks = 28 days. Divide them. Go on. Be afraid. It amounts to a daily kcal count of 1850 (rounded, no pun intended). To lose one stone in four weeks, you need to dump 1850kcal per day. Yikes.

Can it be done? Yes, but it’s extreme. Without considering EPOC (I said I’d explain later), you’d need to run 19 marathons in four weeks to burn 52,000kcal. One stone, four weeks… 19 marathons. Go back and read the title of this post. It’s right there. So, you’re depressed, I get it. I’ve got a lockdown belly. Probably have an extra 7 pounds of blubber around my waist. I’ve got a bad leg so cardio’s out for me. I’ll need to watch my intake to work on that. Do some mind-numbingly boring resistance training. Maybe buy some heavy cans of beer. Lifting a heavy bag, laden with beer, is still resistance work. I’ll get it where I can find it. Leave me be.

Now, in truth, I wouldn’t recommend people try to aim so high as one stone in four weeks. Our industry tends to recommend 1-2 pounds per week. A more manageable 3700-7400kcal/week, or 530-1050kcal/day. How can you drop 530 kcal from your diet, every day? Want a picture to help?

Isn’t it fun learning how bad things are?

The easiest way to do this is to lower your intake AND start doing more activity. Altering your diet will bring faster results but long term you need to make sure you do it right. Dieting is a bad word. It’s very much like exercise in that respect. Neither of them is fun and I assure you, people who go on about either need to find a more pressing concern. If you want free advice—drop 250kcal from your daily intake, or in food friendly language, something as trivial as a few less biscuits a day. Look at the pictures above… they have meaning. You can Google other munchables, and there are plenty of websites that can match calories to foods.

What about activity? Yawn. Well, if you manage to drop 250kcal from not chowing down on that packet of crisps you definitely didn’t need, you can burn off 250kcal in about 30-40 minutes of moderate activity. And that’s over the whole day. You don’t need to rack those hours in at the gym. Four, ten-minute bouts would do. A brisk walk to buy your beer. A brisk walk back. Or, don’t buy that beer (heresy!!!). Housework, a spot of gardening, chores, or if you do have a fetish for Lycra and sweaty pavilions of pain; sure, go to the gym.

Simple choices make the most difference and you don’t need to brag to (or bore) your friends about your new gym routine. Just one piece of advice—don’t do things you would never normally do; you’ll probably fail. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. Imagine Nike’s evil twin’s plan for marketing: Just Don’t Do It! Make it simple, make it achievable. Don’t commit to failure.

Now, I said I’d mention EPOC. Very basically, when you burst into a high energy mode, your body lags behind with the energy delivery system. Ever wonder why when you stop running, you pant for ages afterwards? Energy debt. So, when you perform a long duration, moderate to high intensity activity, your body keeps ticking at a higher rate long after you stop. EPOC: excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. The harder you push, the higher the debt. It’s the theory behind HIIT training. But HIIT classes only work if you actually train at a very high intensity. If you book two classes back to back—you’re doing it very wrong indeed. Go home instead and climb the stairs for 30 minutes, you’ll get a work-out and keep the Chihuahua company.

It’s good to remember that the above number: 500kcal/day deficit (less food, more activity) will drop ONE pound of fat per week. Double the effort to make it two pounds. That’s still seven weeks to lose a stone. You want to lose two stone? You need a long-term game plan. Or, at least, you need to commit to that change. Shortcuts are for losers. I mean it. You can’t treat your body as though it’s a trash bin and then hope to fix it because you need to slide into that dress, or wear that tuxedo. Does anyone actually wear a tuxedo?

The best way to avoid taking shortcuts, is to avoid getting into that position in the first place. There are no quick fixes if your goal is to lose some weight. The silver lining is that when you get there, you know you can do it, so you can do it again. Though, that’s not encouragement to go on a yo-yo binge & diet plan. And running twenty marathons a month is also a bad suggestion. Common sense, long term thinking and you’ll be good in no time, I mean, months from now.

I didn’t get fatter; the world got easier

the54thvoid

I was born in 1974. I remember having to walk to the television to change channels. Thankfully, someone invented the remote control. It served to protect the carpet from unnecessary wear. People shouldn’t scuff flooring with trivial jaunts to the TV screen. Come to think of it, I remember three channels, before Channel 4 was launched. Those were dark days. Grim days, some might say. Long before Channel 5 brought us the awfulness of low IQ TV planning. This is the UK, by the way. If you’re not from here, you’re lucky, you may have missed our entertainment drought. It was brutal. Now we have channels for everything. We went from not enough to ‘please, no more.’

And that’s just TV automation—the remote control. I knew cars before power-steering was a commonplace thing. Nowadays, you can waste rubber by turning the wheel in a stationary car. Glides like a pony on ice; namely, without friction but at great cost to the tyre. Picture the pony, poor sod. A bad thing. But in the old days, before servo-assisted wizardry was implemented, good luck trying to turn the wheel in a stationary car. That was a work out. Even in motion, a manually yanked steering wheel was a wrestle. No gentle fingers on the rim, one hand on a thermos, the other steering with an effete pinkie. No, it was as though taming a malevolent python on speed. A thick, PVC-encased wheel (leather, if you were rich) that was determined to end your life. A car without power-steering was hell, at least, that ‘s how I recall it to be.

Before the internet, there was a period known as the dark ages. This was when truth was found in books. A time in life when to learn something new, you had to walk to a place they called a library, and speak with a strange creature known as the librarian. Usually half-woman, half-ghost, these ethereal beasts would stamp the sign of the book-demon into the jacket and send you on your way. Often, they would say, ‘Bring it back in two weeks, or your soul is mine.’ At least, I think they said that. Point being, if I needed to know how to plumb a cistern, my phone couldn’t help. Because back then… there were no phones. Well, they had phones, just not proper ones as we have today. Old phones were designed by the ancestors of exercise manufacturers. Digit Gyms, they were. Bleak memories: trying not to break a finger as you toiled and spun a wheel around a dial. It took about a thousand turns to contact anyone. Plus, the phone weighed as much as an encyclopaedia. Tough, manual work just to phone a friend. Just to say, you could fix their loo.

Right now, I’m using a mechanical keyboard, crumbs and dust littered under the caps. I remember using an actual mechanical typewriter. Only briefly mind, before I bought a word-processor for Uni work. Those old devices required TLC and patience. The keys themselves were more akin to lever-gyms. One mighty push was required to launch a letter embossed on a small iron block into a wall of paper. It was a satisfying sound, a pleasant sensation. But again, just as everything else back then, it took more effort than what is required from us today.

And that is the point of this random carnival of 80’s memorabilia. Let’s take the television remote as an example. To change channels required you to stand up from your chair, or sofa, or perhaps even roll out of bed. To stand from sitting is basically a squat. That right there is what annoying gym folks call exercise. Yup, exercise, a bad word to some. One half-rep of one bodyweight squat. Whoop! Now you pace one step or two, maybe five if you’re wealthy and have a large house. But then, if you’re rich, you might ask the butler to change channels. Imagine, a biomechanical human remote control. A sort of cybernetic stone age. I digress. So, you’ve dragged your ass to the TV, pressed the buttons. Now what? You reverse that motion. That means a controlled descent onto the cushion where your bum-print is still visible. That’s what we gym commandants call the ‘eccentric’ phase of the squat. Pre-remote (or sans butler), channel surfing required one squat. Change channels 10 times a day, 365 days a year—count it—that’s 3650 squats. Think about it. That’s over 70 sets of 50 squats. Make that a 3-set portion per day and that’s 23 squat sessions per year. You see where this is going?

But that’s nothing. Walking is the big game-changer. In the nineties, I walked to work. 30 mins there, 30 back. One hour. Five days per week. In calorie terms, that’s 250 kcal/day. Add a 48-week year, and we’ve got 60,000 kcals/year. Or 16 pounds of fat. Now, imagine driving to work. No more walkies for Mr Fit. Time is precious, so we decide to sit on our bums for twenty more minutes and drive instead. In one year, you’ll pile on one stone of weight, all things considered. And that’s just the walk to and from work. Cars are ubiquitous these days, it’s normal to own one. And when you do, you drive it—everywhere. Why else own one tonne of shiny steel? Personally, I view the car as a mini-karaoke bar on wheels, without the booze, of course… officer.

What am I saying? Clearly, the correlation is between driving and getting fat. It’s called a spare tyre for a reason. The diminished reliance on walking is fundamentally linked to our downfall in the battle against weight gain. Those gym fiends (yes fiends, as in monsters, not friends) will tell you to train your way to a better shape. But it’s not true. Why? Because what you’ll do is drive to the gym, return home, and sit on your backside, making the erroneous assumption 45 mins of gym twice a week will work. Nope. It doesn’t. I’ve seen it so many times.

We used to be slaves to a domain of manual effort. But technology came along and saved us. Emancipated from the hellish shackles of ‘a smidgeon of effort’, we embraced the late 20th century ideal of ‘everything at your fingertips’. If I think back, I recall accompanying my mother to do the grocery/food shop. She had one of those weird, ’granny’ bags—a tartan-esque suitcase on wheels. But that was replaced, eventually, by the mini-karaoke bar on wheels, and now, in the days of automated Armageddon, you can arrange for unseen hands in a warehouse to pack your weekly shop and even get someone to deliver it to your doorstep in a diesel belching van. Wait—you have the gall to complain your plums are bruised? Really?

The reduction of manual labour, the reliance on automation, the lure of convenience: all of these things have conspired to make life too easy. We’re told by slick marketing to over-consume (I know I do). But in reality, food doesn’t make you fat; energy imbalance does. And in a world of zero effort, where I don’t even have to touch my phone to get it to answer me, our odds aren’t great in the war against apathy. There is, of course, an easy answer. Get up, go for a walk. Lots of walks. Forrest Gump your life away. Give it a shot, just as soon as you’ve ordered your pizza through Alexa.