Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

I went to the gym at lunchtime for the first time in weeks, and damn if I don’t hurt already. Stupid lack of motivation now coming back to bite me in the ass.

And if I ache now, then I’m really going to fucking hurt in the morning…

I appreciate that exercise and going to the gym is about the body, and by extension somewhat to do with its relationship with the world around it, but a word of advice to Fitness First Holborn Circus: Michael Jackson’s Earth Song is not good workout music.

Well, that hurt…

T-minus 37 minutes until my first (and probably only) session with a personal trainer at the gym. I was in there one lunchtime last week, trying to fight off a godawful hangover, when one of the trainers came over and started chatting about what kind of routines/programmes I do, and so on.

I tend to be relatively aimless when I’m at the gym, and am not working towards anything in particular, other than a vague goal to lose some weight around my middle and be a bit healthier. I like programmes such as 200 sit-ups, because they give me concrete targets and numbers to hit each week, which in turn motivates me to get my ass into the gym in the first place.

Without that motivation, it’s far too easy to not go, and then it becomes a cumulative effect, knowing that each time you don’t go, the first one back is harder. Miss a whole week and you really don’t feel like going any time soon.

The session I’m having today is free, which is a bit of a result, but I can’t see myself paying for any further sessions, to be honest. They’re just too expensive for me to really justify it.

I’m hoping to get some ideas, and to get some motivation back into my system. Maybe even some finite targets to achieve. It’s definitely a mental thing for me, because I thoroughly enjoy the act of working out. But getting to the gym seems to be the difficulty that I need to overcome…

Things that got me through my workout at lunchtime today:

• A Prodigy megamix, which may or may not have been The Dirtchamber Sessions.

• The thought of a pulled pork sandwich immediately afterwards (which actually wasn’t particularly brilliant. We need a Brother Jimmy’s over here, stat!).

• The realisation that Tuesday lunchtime is evidently “Ladies Day” in the gym, judging by the ratio of women to men. Hurrah!

I’m starting the 200 sit-ups programme again, and also doing the 100 push-ups system to boot, in an effort to get myself motivated for gym visits and losing weight this year.

When I did the 200 sit-ups programme last summer, it was probably the most dedicated I’ve ever been to going to the gym, and I really looked forward to each session and pushing myself against defined targets.

I find it all too easy to just drift through gym visits, not massively pushing myself or getting into any kind of routine where I can see improvement. And then the lack of visual improvement means an ebbing of motivation, and so the frequency of my gym visits falls. It’s a vicious circle.

Not this time though! (Hopefully)

2nd gym session of the year, a solid 1hr40 of killing myself. Yay me!

I knew it was worth only having a coke in the pub at lunchtime…

A gym session is fucking hard work when you’ve not been for nearly a month.

But at least I went! I was going to go yesterday, but apathy and laziness took hold of me instead. And then four beers in the pub after work also took hold of me, dammit.

I’m determined to lose the gut which has developed in the last few months, and handily the girlfriend is going on some kind of gradual detox diet so I won’t be able to eat unhealthily at home either. I have no problem in giving up certain foods that I eat too much of (bread, cream, chocolate), but it’s going to be a wrench having to avoid cheese…

Now, all I’ve got to do is replace beer with G&Ts, and I’m sorted. I’m not going to kid myself and say that I won’t drink, but at least I can cut down on the calorie content of my alcohol.

Gym Pro-Tip: 350 crunches in one session is too many. My stomach is so sore right now.

On the plus side, I’m getting ever closer to being able to do 200 consecutively, which was the plan from the outset with this 200 sit-ups programme. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get this finished before I go to the US, which is precisely two weeks away.

The 100 press-ups programme isn’t going quite so well as yet. I’m redoing week two, because it was really difficult for me to complete. That’s going to take until Halloween to complete, at this rate, but I think it’ll be more of an achievement because I’ve never been able to really do press-ups, owing to a complete lack of upper body strength.

Maybe I’ll try the 20 pull-ups challenge next. I like/need these targets and programmes to stop me getting bored at the gym, I find.