Mindfulness

At the start of this year, my company tried to inflict a New Year’s resolution on all of us. Some people reacted badly - others embraced it.

I was somewhere in between and I don’t blame them. After all, a healthy and happy work force is a good work force.

The Managing Director tasked HR with encouraging us all to be healthier in 2017 in four ways – diet, physical health, mind and finance (although finance was a little bit weird in my opinion).

For diet, we were encouraged to eat healthily and they even provided fruit every Monday and brought in nutritionists to chat to anybody that was interested about the benefits of eating good stuff. I wasn’t interested in this because I actually eat very healthily, in my opinion (apart from the odd burger, full English and beer or two).

For finance, we were encouraged to look after our cash and assets with a newsletter pointing out the long term benefits of savings, spending wisely and generally not blowing all of your cash on stupid things. Again, I wasn’t interested because I think that myself and Mrs PM are okay at the moment. Besides, if they want to improve my financial well-being they can bloody well give me a massive pay increase for having to endure some of the shit I have to endure.

For health, various people who exercise were asked to give seminars about their chosen discipline, including kayaking, rock climbing, marathon running and even pole-dancing. Groups of people clubbed together and took on a challenge of trying to walk in excess of 10.000 steps a day, competing against each other for fun. I walk two and a quarter miles every lunchtime of every working day and I am proud to say that I think I walk the most during a working day. HR were very interested in this and asked me to take a group of people on my walk at lunchtime.

I politely refused. Why?

Because the whole point of my going for a walk is to escape work. I pound the streets around my office with tiny little jukebox blasting out pop, rock and heavy metal, to allow me to enter the zone of contemplation and drift into my own little world, expunging, temporarily at least, any work related issues that may induce stress. It works for me and the last thing I want is a group of people bitching about work to further ruin my day.

However, the final topic – the mind – intrigued me.

HR arranged a seminar, inviting a woman to tell us all about mindfulness. This was the only seminar I attended. I am fascinated with the power of the mind and the ability and capability of certain people to use their mind to escape and control other physical attributes. Having been a victim of stress many years ago, and having delved recently into things like hypnosis (for fun initially) I was keen to open my mind to new techniques to support my positive outlook this year.

When I started looking at hypnosis, my purpose was to write a mocking blog post about how stupid people were if they thought that listening to somebody appeal to their subconscious mind would in any way help them to escape their vices, or change their behaviour. When I actually tried it, I was amazed that the effect of being hypnotised can actually vaguely work. Not that I do this now, of course, but I no longer mock those who believe in at as an alternative therapy.

The same principle applies to mindfulness, which is a similar concept. Basically, mindfulness is a form of meditation. The woman who presented the seminar gave us an overview of mindfulness and told us that she had actually used it to help her get through a major health scare a few years ago. She had been diagnosed with cancer and thankfully she is now fully fit again. To help support her mind during those trying times, she used meditation techniques and this helped her cope.

Again, I had a healthy scepticism about it but opened my mind to the possibilities. It wasn’t until we actually tried meditating that I was surprised. She asked us to sit up straight, focus on our breathing and allow our minds to wander, quelling any other thoughts and allowing our minds to settle and drift. There were about twelve of us in the room and I suddenly found myself just listening to her as she guided us through thinking about our own bodies. What struck me was the clock in the room. That may sound weird but I have been in that room many times and never sensed the clock. All I could hear was the gentle ticking. After a few minutes, she spoke again and asked us how we felt. It was almost like being hypnotised and I actually felt really good.

Mindfulness had taken me to the same zone that I enter when walking at lunchtime. It was the same as listening to a favourite song and allowing the gentle melody to take you on a journey through your own imagination.

I actually loved it.

And you are reading the words of a man who, in the past, has taken such things with a pinch of salt and only feigned interest when using it as ammunition to mock people on a medium such as this.

Actually, the key thing is that you don’t have to go away and hide to give this a go – and you can achieve a calmer demeanour in as little as two minutes.

There was a little bit of Buddhist nonsense attached to it, which I have dismissed, but the principle is sound and I would recommend giving it a go, particularly when news about Brexit or Donald Trump appears on your telly box.

Plumping Iron

I am considering the best way to get fit, dear reader, and I am in a bit of a quandary.

Mrs PM says that I should join a gym. It’s a good suggestion but one that I have a bit of a problem with. You see, dear reader, I have been a member of the gym in the past and I know that it is not for me.

Allow me to explain.

The first problem is the cash. Gym membership is expensive and the only way to get value for money is to go on a regular basis. A few years ago, I joined the local gym, newly opened and very modern. It had everything I needed from such a place: a swimming pool, sauna, equipment, canteen, personal trainers, TV, classes and five star changing rooms.

It was New Year and I was determined to rediscover the fitness of my youth. And as an incentive, the cost was relatively cheap – or so Mrs PM told me.

“HOW MUCH?” I screamed when she told me the cost. Unfortunately, I only screamed within my own head and I watched in horror as Mrs PM signed both of us up for six month membership, including a signing on fee.

“WHAT, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS SANE, ARE YOU DOING?” screamed my wallet when it heard the price.

I think burning my own cash might have been more cost effective.

Having signed away my income with blood and sweat, I decided to make a supreme effort. My personal trainer took me around the equipment, showing me how to use the various machines, including cross trainers, running machines, cycling machines, rowing machines and all manner of contraptions for lifting weights using various parts of my body. He even came up with a workout routine for me that involved spending forty minutes of cardiovascular exercise followed by a further half an hour of circuit training culminating with various methods for cooling down.

I recall that first session with horror.

I entered the gym and mentally calculated how many fivers I could have burned at home. I changed into my sporting gear and, as I left the changing room, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

“Cripes,” I thought. “What a scrawny fat git!”

Then I realised that I was looking at myself. And yes, dear reader, I was scrawny at the top of my body, yet fat around my middle. I was a walking paradox.

All the other guys who were getting changed looked athletic and muscular, making me look like a badly stuffed scarecrow in comparison.

And this was the second problem, dear reader.

I looked totally out of place. Here I was, a forty-something, trying to look cool while surrounded by athletes who were already totally fit, toned and honed and using the gym to put the finishing touches to an already fine physique.

I was paying money to embarrass myself. I bit the bullet and went for it.

My first port of call was a cycling machine. Armed with headphones, I perched myself on a machine and started watching the TV as I cycled. From the corner of my eye, I saw a lovely lady on the machine next to me – she was pedalling furiously. Just in front was a guy who was also pedalling as if his life depended on it.

The testosterone floodgates opened. I wouldn’t allow myself to look like a sad old pillock in front of these two young athletes. I ignored my workout programme and pedalled as if the hounds of hell were on my tail.

Ten minutes later, I got off the machine and almost passed out. I was gasping for breath but I just stumbled away, muttering something like “Good workout,” to try to hide the fact that I was about to fall apart.

And that was when I tried the cross trainer.

Next to me was another young woman who made it look easy. I climbed onto the contraption and followed the instructions, programming the thing to give me the workout that the personal trainer had recommended.

Within ten minutes, the thing had me doing all sorts of crap.

“Pedal backwards – now forwards – now with your arms – now with your legs”, read the display as it showed me how badly coordinated and unfit I was. It was like a mechanical bootcamp sergeant.

I was half expecting the thing to suddenly scream at me:

“What do you think you are doing you blubbery lump of dog meat? You look like a bag of mad badgers.”

Thankfully it didn’t have a voice.

Feeling totally humiliated, I decided to go circuit training and encountered problem number three, dear reader.

All of the contraptions were occupied by huge men whose sole purpose was to fill the entire room with muscle. I felt totally inadequate – like a twig standing next to a Giant Redwood.

One of the machines I was supposed to use was free. I was about to sit down when a big booming voice said “I haven’t finished yet.”

Standing behind me was a huge black guy, covered in sweat with bulging veins that were bigger than my arms.

“I’ll be five minutes, mate,” he boomed. “Wait there.”

I watched him set the weight to something just short of “ELEPHANT” and then lift the colossal chunks of metal with absolute ease, blowing and puffing as he went. It was mesmerising – the man was a monster.

I must have been stargazing because I didn’t notice him get up. Either that or was I in a state of shock.

“Do your best,” he boomed, slapping me on the back. I almost went sprawling. He watched as I sat down and adjusted the weights – to “WIMP” (the lowest setting). He chuckled as he walked to the next machine where he would undoubtedly lift three ten ton weights.

My ego was in tatters but I took a deep breath and followed the instructions I had been given.

On the next machine, another guy was about to begin. He stared at me as I approached. He looked as if his ego had been annihilated too. His approach was slightly different from mine. Rather than accepting the fact that he was not a muscle-bound meathead and really should be working within his limits, he decided to repair his ego by showing that he could cope with the “ELEPHANT” setting.

He took a deep breath and, as I watched, lifted the enormous chunks of metal. His head, already red, turned crimson and then purple. His arms shook. His breath was ragged and he struggled to suppress a groan of agony as he pushed his body to the limit. Veins popped out all over his arms and neck.

He tried to look calm and composed, yet his face betrayed him. He only managed a couple of lifts and then dropped the weights with an almighty crash.

“Good workout!” he whispered as he got up. “It’s all yours.”

He watched as I took his place and adjusted the weight setting back to “WIMP” and followed my instructions. I smiled at him and I think my face said it all:

“You didn’t impress me, mate!”

I did manage to persevere for about three months before I began to get bored. I adjusted my workout in an attempt to relieve the tedium but to no avail. The physical effects were noticeable though. My upper body shape changed slightly and when I finally gave up, I had progressed and was comfortable on the “WEAKLING” setting. I could also run further and faster; I even managed to tame the cross trainer.

I would like to get fit again but the gym is not for me. I could try Mrs PM’s Tae-Bo challenge at home, which I have managed to do for a month or two before that bores me to death (after almost killing me). If you have never heard of  Tae-Bo, click here to see what I mean. Billy Blanks, the inventor of Tae-bo, is a master of martial arts and all round fitness guru.

Mrs PM bought a video about ten years ago and, after laughing, I decided to try it myself. Let me tell you, dear reader – it is bloody tough! If you can disregard the cries of “ALRIGHT!!!” and the typical American whooping and screaming, it really does work – until boredom sets in (as it inevitably does).

So my choices are:

(1) Humiliate myself at the gym whole burning loads of cash.
(2) Allow Billy Blanks, the Tae-Bo king, to bully me into shape for a month or two, until the weather gets warmer.
(3) Bite the bullet and revisit my cross country running youth by taking up jogging.
(4) Get on my bike and cycle to work.
(5) Do nothing and grow into a fat old git.

I have started in the right way by allowing myself to be terrorised by Billy Blanks this evening. I am currently half-dead as a result - it must be working.

Wish me luck.

How Can I Get Fit?

Last night I made an arse of myself in front of strangers (yet again)!

I arrived home from work, as usual, ranting to myself about work and discovered that Mrs PM wasn’t home. With monumental self control I forced myself to calm down, forgetting the rigours of the day, breathing in slowly and meditating. And then I realised it was my turn to cook.

“OK,” I said to myself. “I can do this. I can keep calm. What I need is a little Heavy Metal and I can cope with anything.”

I switched on my computer and went straight for my new Rammstein album, carefully selecting “Bückstabü”, the track that was most likely to blast any stress away in a tsunami of noise.

With Till Lindemann growling in the background, I opened the fridge.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! NO BLOODY MILK!

I looked at my watch and saw that the time was five to six. Five minutes before the local newsagent closed. Five minutes! It was a ten minute walk away.

“I could run,” I told myself.

With Rammstein blasting away, I grabbed my coat and before I could say “Bückstabü” I was out the door running down the street like an Olympic athlete.

As I approached the corner, two young women watched me with interest.

I ran past them and could have sworn that I heard “I didn’t know baboons ran like girls” amidst a fit of giggles. I didn’t care. My focus was my mission – to buy a carton of milk.

I arrived at the shop. It was then that I realised that I am a totally unfit forty seven year old man. I staggered over to the fridge and held on for support as the woman behind the counter watched me impatiently. She wanted to close the shop and a middle-aged pillock passing out would have made her life slightly irritating.

I gasped like a chain smoker as I approached the woman.

I meant to say, “Just the milk please,” but I think it came out as “JUSSERMELK” as I gasped for air.

“What?” said the woman. If I had been able to read her mind I’m sure I would have heard “Are you one of those people who make obscene phone calls?” I must have sounded like a complete pervert.

Somehow I managed to pay. I left the shop still gasping for breath with sweat running down my forehead and my back. I noticed the two young women were still watching me from a distance and I had to pass them on my way home.

Like a pillock, I decided to run again. Why? Call it some primeval urge but deep inside my addled brain, the male within said “You have to run past these girls. DON’T BE WEAK! YOU ARE A MAN!”

So like a moron, I ran. And I sprinted. As I passed them, I smiled.

“Hey look! I’m a middle-aged man who can sprint like Usain Bolt.” I wanted to say.

If I had been able to speak, it would have come out like “URRRRRGHHH! GIEARRRLLLLS”

They laughed at me. Not the way that girls laugh when they are flirting; they actually laughed as if they really had seen a crazy muppet, leering at them as he stumbled past. Instead of looking like Usain Bolt, I resembled a giant waddling baboon who had painted his face bright red and then had a shower in rancid sweat. My hair made my appearance even more bizarre.

I have a feeling that one of the women took a photo with their camera phone, so expect to see a bloated, smiling, half-dead baboon on You Tube or Facebook in the near future.

I arrived home and collapsed in the chair, sweating like a man who had just run a marathon. My heart was doing a fine impersonation of a drum solo. I had run for around ten minutes and it felt like I had just sprinted across Europe.

Jasper, our fat cat, wandered over and stared at me. I saw the words in his eyes: “You bloody idiot. By the way – can I have some food?”

All this has told me what I already knew. I need to get fit.

I used to be extremely fit. At school, I was a cross country runner and used to sprint around local streets delivering newspapers as well as playing football and rugby. I was one of the fastest kids in my school year and was happy running 100m, 200m, 800m, 1500m and even 3000m.

At university, I swam at least three times a week; I played squash and badminton and jogged.

At work, I played 5-a-side football twice a week and swam. I gave this up in my mid-thirties but joined a gym and only stopped going there around five years ago. Since then, my exercise regime has been walking and the occasional bike ride. Pathetic really!

When I look at my body (believe me – I don’t want to but somebody has too), I see a man who is putting on weight, slowly but surely. My gut is increasing in size; I can see flab appearing in places that I thought flab could never exist. I am sliding down the slippery slope to having a middle-aged spread.

Friends are kind – “You’re still quite slim, Dave. What’s the matter with you?” said one of Mrs PM’s friends last week. “If you are worried about your weight, just start exercising again.”

This is the problem – I want to start exercising again but I am lazy and, despite my war against procrastination, I am still procrastinating in areas such as this.

I could cycle to work but I am too sluggish in the mornings. My workplace is less than five miles from home and I drive there. Why? Because I wake up at 7am and in order to cycle, I would really need to get up an hour earlier. So, as you can see, I am a totally lazy git.

I could rejoin the gym. However, I have a couple of problems with this.

First, the gym is boring. Running on a treadmill is tedium personified. Cycling on a cycling machine is so mind-numbing that I almost fall asleep. Cross trainer machines are even more boring.

Second, the gym is embarrassing. When I am running on a running machine, I feel like a pillock. I can see people watching me, thinking “He runs like a demented road runner”. Worse, I find my eyes drifting towards female runners, particularly those in front of me.

I am a male – I can’t help it.

When a woman runs in a gym, she is usually very fit (in more ways than one) and I find myself staring in admiration, only to be glared at when she notices the lecherous goon leering at her. Of course, because I have been running, I am all sweaty, red, and gasping like a colossal pervert as I try to justify myself.

This isn’t the only source of embarrassment though. When you go to the weight machines to “pump some iron” (or in my case “give myself a hernia trying to lift a weight”), there is nothing more soul destroying than taking over from men who make Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Mr Bean. On one occasion, I was waiting to use the shoulder press and as I approached it, I found a huge black shiny man with muscles the size of Manchester leaning against it.

“Is it free?” I asked politely.

“Not just yet,” he boomed with a voice so deep that the floor shook.

I waited patiently as he started using the machine again. I goggled at the amount of weight he was lifting – and he made it look so easy. His rippling muscles mocked me as I watched, so I casually turned around and leaned up against the adjacent wall. Two minutes later, he appeared beside me.

“It’s free now,” he boomed and slapped me so hard on the back that I literally almost fell to the floor.

“Sorry about that,” he said smiling. “You need to bulk up, my friend.”

He then flexed his muscles for effect. Women who happened to be passing started giggling. My new found friend then stood in front of a mirror with other like-minded and equally massive individuals and began posing before lifting unfeasibly large quantities of weights. I felt absolutely useless.

When I started using the machine, I reduced the weights to the minimum, which was all I required. My friend watched me for a few seconds and chuckled to himself as he lifted another enormous pile of metal.

My final problem with gyms is the cost. When I joined the gym, I remember passing out when the trainer told me how much it cost per month. I had to force myself to go three times a week at least to justify the cost. In the end, procrastination took over and I stopped going – otherwise it would have been more cost effective burn a wad of cash once a month.

So I am not going to join a gym.

With winter approaching, my desire to do any form of physical exercise is diminishing. The days are cold and the nights are becoming long and dark as well as the weather becoming much worse. Should I start jogging around my neighbourhood in the rain? I don’t think so. Should I cycle in the dark and risk being smeared over the bonnet of a car? That doesn’t appeal much to me.

I think I’ll wait until New Year. – I know what my resolution will be: to get myself fit for a brand new decade. And I’m going to set myself targets and actually start in January. I know, dear reader that you are thinking to yourself “Why not start now you lazy arse?”

The problem is that I need to psyche myself up – but that will take a month or two. Of course, I realise that things could go downhill so I need to stop the rot – soon!

I have a goal - by the time I’m fifty I want to be slim and fit and not some fat lump of flab wobbling around Manchester before trying to crowbar myself back into my house.

I will cycle to work. I will walk and walk and walk. I may even run.

And finally - a message to those two young women who mocked me so mercilessly last night: come next year, I will still be a baboon – but at least I’ll be healthy (as long as I can learn to run properly).

And please don’t put me on Facebook or You Tube.