Free Time

Free time is a generally a good thing and don't get me wrong I'm happy to have a little more of it by taking the month of the online grind. It does reach a point though where you can become bored, especially at the start of the change of pace. Presumably my main issue is that instead of filling the extra time with new things, or planning anything out I'm basically just being very lazy. To a certain degree I did need to do precisely just that though. I caught up on a bunch of much needed sleep, TV shows and household chores. I don't intend to carry on like this though, it would be a pretty big waste of time.

I intend to fill the additional free time this month with excercise. One of my new years resolutions was to get back into the same sort of shape I was in, in ~2008. I used to be able to cycle (commute not race) from Winchester to Reading (~50km) on the spur of the moment, get there in less than two hours and still have plenty of energy to go out with the girl I was seeing at the time. These days I get tired out walking to the shops and back, or doing certain household chores. I used to be able to do sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups every morning with ease and now anymore than about 10 of each leaves me exhausted. Lastly one of the things I was always most proud of back in 2008 was my power to weight ratio (yes I know I'm not a car) I used to be able to bench 1.5x my own bodyweight when I was 65kg. Now I've put on about 10kg across the 4 years and I can barely bench 50kg. If it wasn't for the current disappointing scenario, this would be a a brag post.

I don't look like this, but I feel like it lately and I'm certainly heading that way.

These are all things I want to change, as well as improving my cardio. So now instead of slouching about when I would normally be playing online poker, I'll be working out. My aim is to lose a little weight, and by the end of the year be back into a solid workout routine. This should hopefully mean I'm capable of doing everything I used to be able to and more. I'm not sure how often I'm going to track my progress as it's more important how healthy I feel rather than what the numbers say. However it's important to note the tragic current numbers down below for reference.

• Weight: 74kg
• Waist: 0.94.m
• # sit-ups before burn: 14
• # push-ups before burn: 11
• # pull-ups before burn: 5
• Benching: 50kg