I’m a fat bastard. There’s just no denying it. Why would I even bother to try?
I lost a fair bit of weight after leaving the USA, but I’ve put it all back on again. No longer can I blame Google’s double-dipped chocolate malt balls (that’s whopping great Maltesers, if you didn’t know), whose close proximity to my office and completely free nature (apart from the obvious cost to my waistline) turned me into a helpless slave to the kitchen sugar snack bins.
Digression: why did (does?) Google stock sugary snacks on the first floor, where the engineers worked, but healthy snacks downstairs, where the non-technical people worked? Was it a cynical ploy to increase the productivity of the already fevered geek brains?
All I know is that I must have eaten my weight in M&Ms and malt balls while I worked for Google.
Anyway, as I said, my current lifestyle is just as sedentary as it was in the US. In fact, it’s worse, because I don’t even have to bike to work any more. And I’m getting older, so the weight is becoming harder to shift.
Google also had a gym, where I used to work out, but I’m too lazy to sign up for a local gym here. Well, the signing up isn’t the problem; it’s dragging yourself out of the house when you really don’t feel like it. Consequently, I find myself in a nasty catch 22 situation: too lazy to go to the gym, which means I don’t exercise enough, which makes me indolent and with too little energy.
Since I’m not yet so lazy that I won’t go upstairs, the solution is to bring the mountain to Mohammed or, in this case, the gym to the house. In other words, I’m going to put a piece of gym equipment in the room next to our bedroom.
Specifically, I’ve ordered a Tunturi C85 crosstrainer. It should be delivered and assembled on Friday, at which point — assuming no other deliveries on Friday! — I’ll be able to start working out on it.
I’m actually looking forward to it, as it has enough gadgetry to keep me amused whilst using it. Most gym equipment is terribly boring to use if you have no distractions. It will be interesting to see, for example, if the T-Road feature (basically a video of a road or path along which you progress by exercising) is a novelty that soon becomes tiresome, or whether it can hold one’s interest over a prolonged period.
Don’t forget taking up running! (OK, when it is not snowing) You live right next door to one of the world’s greatest running tracks after all.
Just use http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ to see how long it is.
I like going running right outside (I have a park right next door as well, though not nearly as pretty) because it doesn’t involve dragging one’s self to a gym; walk out the door and start running, come back and take a shower in your own bathroom.
Haha, nice purchase Ian (although it doesn’t play .ogg) 😉
Will you be posting graphs in a little blog-widget showing your distance and speed?
I’ve never liked running. I always got too out of breath, even as a child. I should go biking more, but there’s not as much opportunity for recreational biking these days.
And Jules, you’re right, this crosstrainer doesn’t have the ability to play Ogg Vorbis files. A pretty bad shortcoming, I know, but I wasn’t able to find a single crosstrainer that could do this.
You can’t read your performance data out of this thing, either: no wireless, nothing. Even worse, the 7″ inch screen can’t be hooked up to the cable TV coax and you can’t add your own walking videos for the T-Road feature. What were they thinking?
All in all, it’s a very expensive, cumbersome MP3 player that isn’t even portable. It reminds me of the even more expensive CD player and TV with wheels that’s sitting outside.
To top it all off, supplies are apparently limited, so mine won’t be delivered tomorrow after all.