Lessons from 2018

In 2018 I went on doing what had worked in 2016, and was okay in 2017, but stopped working for me in 2018. Why? Because I’m not a youngster anymore, and at my age, apparently, changes can be step-like, not gradual. Or I passed a tipping-point. Or switched regimes on a catastrophic surface, or whatever metaphor you want.

It was so bad I even watched this Sunday Motivational video from Alux. Don’t be put off by the crassness of their Instagram, the video has a lot of sensible advice.

It occurred to me I should consider changing anything I’ve been doing consistently for the last couple of years.

Except the waking-up-and-going-to-work bit. I would love to stay in bed until 07:00, but the commute would be horrible. And leaving work at 17:00 would throw me into the gym at nearly peak time. Retiring is not negotiable until at least summer 2020. When I will be 66.

Weight-training leaves me feeling tired, not just on the day, but on the day after as well. I’m taking longer to recover during sets, and doing fewer sets. Not the way it’s supposed to work.

I switched to body-weight exercises. I’ve already got a Spin class in my schedule, and as I write this, I’m on my way to the second Extreme class of the year. Saturday morning 09:30 to 10:15. They must think I’m some weird old man, humping it through those routines. The next youngest kid in the class is half my age. You did when you were nineteen and it damn near wasted you. (*)

The only way I can lose weight is by eating almost or actually nothing in the evening. I’m already on week two of intermittent fasting: I’m eating between 06:00 and 14:00, and not afterwards. As part of that, I have to get a decent, preferably hot, lunch. With meat. The trick is to drink water or Jasmine tea in the evening. Don’t even think of eating.

Between these two changes, I’m already waking up feeling more active.

I’m getting a sports massage every week until the knots are out of my legs: the first one was a world of ouch. It made me realise that for the last year I’ve been fighting the muscular mess in my legs just to walk upstairs.

A while back I made a decision to take on a commitment at an AA meeting, and I’m keeping that up. My attendance at meetings had been erratic for a long time. I don’t know if it’s doing me any good, but I’m still sober.

I have to cut right down on most the websites and You Tube channels I’ve been reading and watching. Most are not suited for me. Been working on that.

I have to look at blogging as well. I’ve been at that for nearly nine years, with over 1,100 posts. It’s always been a diary for me, and just how little sense many of the posts make outside my inner monologue was brought home to me when I thought about putting together a compilation (ah that alcoholic grandiosity!). I’ve found it harder to produce pieces, or even photographs, at the rate of two a week recently. Many pieces have started off, and then I’ve rightly abandoned them.

I wanted to get to the end of January before posting this, so that I was on the way to forming the new habits.

(Added two weeks later: and then at the end of January, I got a cold and it all skidded off the road. I’m just about back on form now.)

(*) Spot the movie quote.