League of Melbotis

My health

My heatlh has been an issue of late as work stress increases and less and less time has been spent doing much in the way of physical activity.

At one point, in the not so distant past, I was an avid practitioner of TaeKwonDo. In these days I could spar (essentially fist fighting) for an hour at a time, getting moderately ehausted somewhere near the end. I was doing hundreds of push-ups every week (on my fingertips no less) and tons of crunches. About three years ago, that all went to hell and I just quit.

The reasons for quitting are varied, and not terribly interesting, but I basically was not ready to give up the rest of my life in order to meet the expectations of black belts within the TKD organization to which I belonged (essentially giivng up most weekends and evenings to teach, run tournaments, etc...).

As of two weeks ago, i joined a gym, and it's been revelation as to what three years of watching cartoons and B-movies will do to your physique and general health. I had a fitness assessment (of which I take some stock, but do not acept as Bible's truth for a few reasons) which suggested I had the relative phyciality of the average 38 year old. "With a few years work," the physical trainer guy told me, "You could be your own relative age." Essentially, if I totally bust ass, I stand a good chance of being 32 when I'm 32. Whoo-hoo.

Now I can only take the charts so seriously, mostly because I still recall the incident in high school health class in which I was actually off the height weight scale so far it suggested I was morbidly obese. And at this time, I was actually pretty damn skinny. I don't know if my bones are made out of concrete or what, but I've always weighed a ton for my actual physique. Getting pudgy has only made the issue amplified.

Nonetheless, I am taking the issue very seriously as I don't want to be dead. Not yet, anyway. Maybe at some point in the future, but not this year. The simple fact is that my family has a small history of heart disease, but a large one with diabetes. I need to start working on myself ASAP in order to avoid these two traps. So I am now working out as often as possible for as long as possible, and I've got a hell of alot of work to do. So bear with me as I occasionally post progress, etc...