Fitness. Fitness. Just trying it on for size. Fitness.
It's not a word I have made myself familiar with over the past few years. As I've mentioned, there was a time when fitness was never a concern for me. I managed to dash between work, home and the theatre with a coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other and maintain a healthy weight. Of course, back then I would eat little, drink and smoke a LOT and run from work to the theatre and bang out a few showtunes and a tap dance or two for few hours every night. I'm guessing that helped.
I last took to the stage in 1996. That makes it 15 years since I did any real physical exercise. So the week before last, armed with a generous amount of doubt and some seriously waning confidence I descended the stairs that would take me to the gym at work.
The thing about gyms, I found, is that the anticipation of being there far outweighs the actuality of it. Far from being confronted by fit uniformed lads and ladies throwing themselves around the place looking all muscular and gleaming - there were a couple of middle aged chaps sweating profusely...and not much else.
I was heartened by this and happily joined them - taking baby steps by spending 40 minutes cycling up and down virtual hills. At the end of the 40 minutes I had managed to burn off about 200 calories and travel the grand distance of 15 kms.
Since that initial day I have returned to the gym 5 times - as many as my days would allow. Each time I have pushed my distance a little further, trying to hit 15kms faster but continuing for 40 minutes on the bike - so every time the distance gets a bit further.
Strangely enough - after only 5 visits to the aforementioned gym weird things are happening. Somehow my heart rate, which is always high, appears to be lowering the more I exercise. I can also push the pedals on a higher gear without crying like a baby.
And here is the really scary part. When I don't get to the gym, I feel bad. It's not like I am addicted or anything - God knows I don't love it that much. But I have made the decision that I need to go - so I feel bad when I don't.
Odd.
So - this week I have booked out 4 times to go to the gym. I might make 3 if I am lucky. And if I keep at it, by next summer, I should be able to at least wear a t shirt in public without feeling dreadful.
A year after that - it might be a singlet.
I hope.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
F is for Farewell
Today is the day I let go - and that change I require, as mentioned in earlier posts, actually begins.
For close to nine years I have spent my days working for one of New Zealand's largest government departments - the Ministry of Social Development. Today I bid it farewell.
How I began a career there was completely unplanned - as are most major decisions in my life. There are those who make goals, sets tasks, and follow maps to get to where they want to be. Me? I prefer to take a slightly less calculated approach.
That's how it was when I moved from my birthplace, England, to New Zealand. Both times.
The first time I was two and my parents made the decision. We moved back to the UK five years later. At seven I did not understand the pull on your heartstrings your homeland can have - something my father must have felt keenly to give up what was an excellent standard of living in shiny, new, and up-and-coming 1970's North Shore Auckland and move us all back to a two-up, two-down 150 year old semi-detached cottage in a tiny village in Norfolk.
The second time, they gave me the choice. I took the plunge, left my miserable job at quite possibly the dodgiest insurance agents in the country, and began packing bleach at Jeyes Fluids in Thetford to fund my trip. As a 17 year old in 1980s England, packing Dettol, bleach and the deliciously black Jeyes Fluid (I can still smell it's creosote goodness if I think very hard) paid well. I would have made even more money for the trip had I the smarts to realise that I could have moonlighted as a very effective cat burglar. (My fingers had been bleached clean of any kind of fingerprint. Even after I left it took a good year for the bleach burns to recede and allow my fingerprints to return.)
It was this unplanned approach to life that led me to a career at MSD.
I stumbled into the place purely by chance. My partner was working for the then WINZ (part of MSD), and was offered a secondment to Auckland for a year. He took it, and I went with him - living happily without a job until it was suggested I may like to get back into the workforce and what about a job administering benefits to the great unwashed in South Auckland? Ah - no. Really. No. Thank you.
Or not...
To keep the peace I took the job - and instantly loved it. There was something about it that filled me with both humility and a massive sense of job satisfaction. Some of my Invalid's, Sickness and Domestic Purposes Benefit clients taught me incredible life lessons. But those stories are for another time.
Those nine years since I first stepped in to the WINZ office in South Auckland (under the inspirational and motivational management of one Danielle Rawhiti - who was, and possibly will be, one of the best people I ever had the good fortune to work for) have been as unplanned as the nepotistic way in which I started my career there. The end of my partner's secondment meant a move back to Wellington, and my working in WINZ Upper Hutt. As seems to be the way, after a little over a year the manager there (Stuart Mumm - a chap of whom I am particularly fond despite not seeing him anywhere near as much as I should) headed out on secondment to National Office, and under a promise took me too.
(When I said nepotistic - I meant it. There is so much truth the the well-worn phrase "Its not what you know, it's who you know".)
My initially agreed six-month secondment stretched to nearly four years, during which time I moved into Policy for a short stint before being asked to join the communications team. It was this team that I eventually joined as a proper employee, rather than extending my secondment for what would be a further 3 years. And it was this team, somewhat changed but still going strong, that I officially left today.
Nine years. Finished. Farewell. And after all the terrific highs with some wonderful people (and the equally terrible lows with some people who will, for now, remain nameless), I feel strangely calm about leaving a place that I know so well, and leaving the people (terrific and terrible) that have played such a huge part in my life these past 9 years.
Typically, the end of my career at MSD was largely unplanned. A comment a manager made to me made me hot-headed enough to decide there and then that the time had come for me to leave. Happily, a chance email from a very dear friend lead me to submit the CV that would secure me an interview for the job I start on Monday.
I am unsure what this new first Monday will bring. I remember vividly my first Monday at National Office. I sat in the cafe on the ground floor with a good friend who pointed out the who's who of MSD. I recall thinking "I will never remember all of these people, or what they do, or where they work, or how this place fits together".
Today, I know most of them; have met many of their families; have shared laughs, gossip and cigarettes with them; have worked alongside them; have argued with them; and now have them to thank for putting me where I am today.
To the terrific - thank you for allowing me the space to grow into my role, to laugh freely and join-up creatively to play as part of your team. Thank you. And farewell.
To the terrible - thank you for helping me to be more self assured, unreasonable, and resilient - and for forcing the change, unexpectedly and unplanned, that has opened a new chapter I am so very excited to start.
Thank you. And farewell.
For close to nine years I have spent my days working for one of New Zealand's largest government departments - the Ministry of Social Development. Today I bid it farewell.
How I began a career there was completely unplanned - as are most major decisions in my life. There are those who make goals, sets tasks, and follow maps to get to where they want to be. Me? I prefer to take a slightly less calculated approach.
That's how it was when I moved from my birthplace, England, to New Zealand. Both times.
The first time I was two and my parents made the decision. We moved back to the UK five years later. At seven I did not understand the pull on your heartstrings your homeland can have - something my father must have felt keenly to give up what was an excellent standard of living in shiny, new, and up-and-coming 1970's North Shore Auckland and move us all back to a two-up, two-down 150 year old semi-detached cottage in a tiny village in Norfolk.
The second time, they gave me the choice. I took the plunge, left my miserable job at quite possibly the dodgiest insurance agents in the country, and began packing bleach at Jeyes Fluids in Thetford to fund my trip. As a 17 year old in 1980s England, packing Dettol, bleach and the deliciously black Jeyes Fluid (I can still smell it's creosote goodness if I think very hard) paid well. I would have made even more money for the trip had I the smarts to realise that I could have moonlighted as a very effective cat burglar. (My fingers had been bleached clean of any kind of fingerprint. Even after I left it took a good year for the bleach burns to recede and allow my fingerprints to return.)
It was this unplanned approach to life that led me to a career at MSD.
I stumbled into the place purely by chance. My partner was working for the then WINZ (part of MSD), and was offered a secondment to Auckland for a year. He took it, and I went with him - living happily without a job until it was suggested I may like to get back into the workforce and what about a job administering benefits to the great unwashed in South Auckland? Ah - no. Really. No. Thank you.
Or not...
To keep the peace I took the job - and instantly loved it. There was something about it that filled me with both humility and a massive sense of job satisfaction. Some of my Invalid's, Sickness and Domestic Purposes Benefit clients taught me incredible life lessons. But those stories are for another time.
Those nine years since I first stepped in to the WINZ office in South Auckland (under the inspirational and motivational management of one Danielle Rawhiti - who was, and possibly will be, one of the best people I ever had the good fortune to work for) have been as unplanned as the nepotistic way in which I started my career there. The end of my partner's secondment meant a move back to Wellington, and my working in WINZ Upper Hutt. As seems to be the way, after a little over a year the manager there (Stuart Mumm - a chap of whom I am particularly fond despite not seeing him anywhere near as much as I should) headed out on secondment to National Office, and under a promise took me too.
(When I said nepotistic - I meant it. There is so much truth the the well-worn phrase "Its not what you know, it's who you know".)
My initially agreed six-month secondment stretched to nearly four years, during which time I moved into Policy for a short stint before being asked to join the communications team. It was this team that I eventually joined as a proper employee, rather than extending my secondment for what would be a further 3 years. And it was this team, somewhat changed but still going strong, that I officially left today.
Nine years. Finished. Farewell. And after all the terrific highs with some wonderful people (and the equally terrible lows with some people who will, for now, remain nameless), I feel strangely calm about leaving a place that I know so well, and leaving the people (terrific and terrible) that have played such a huge part in my life these past 9 years.
Typically, the end of my career at MSD was largely unplanned. A comment a manager made to me made me hot-headed enough to decide there and then that the time had come for me to leave. Happily, a chance email from a very dear friend lead me to submit the CV that would secure me an interview for the job I start on Monday.
I am unsure what this new first Monday will bring. I remember vividly my first Monday at National Office. I sat in the cafe on the ground floor with a good friend who pointed out the who's who of MSD. I recall thinking "I will never remember all of these people, or what they do, or where they work, or how this place fits together".
Today, I know most of them; have met many of their families; have shared laughs, gossip and cigarettes with them; have worked alongside them; have argued with them; and now have them to thank for putting me where I am today.
To the terrific - thank you for allowing me the space to grow into my role, to laugh freely and join-up creatively to play as part of your team. Thank you. And farewell.
To the terrible - thank you for helping me to be more self assured, unreasonable, and resilient - and for forcing the change, unexpectedly and unplanned, that has opened a new chapter I am so very excited to start.
Thank you. And farewell.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
F is for flab
97 kg. Seriously? Is that what the scale said?
In truth, it might have said something a little higher, or something a little lower. The joy of buying Weight Watchers branded scales is that they don't bloody work. Three separate stands will give three separate weights. So I took the middle one as being roughly accurate. Not that I'm proud of that.
Once upon a time, when I was young, did musicals and lived on coffee and cigarettes (Who dear? Me dear? Gay dear? Yup - 'fraid so) I weighed in at a paltry 68 kg. I know this because it didn't matter how may tubs of Macaroni Cheese I ate for lunch from the cafe down from work, it rarely fluctuated. I was steadily 68 kg - 38" chest, 28" waist, 30" inside leg. Strange the things you can recall. I guess it's because I was that for so long. From about 17 to about 28 that's what I was. Slim.
Running around between work and rehearsals with a Dunhill Red in one hand and a black coffee in the other obviously paid dividends!
As I've already said, I was never willowy. I just don't have the build. I have this random chest and random shoulders that have always been...well...there. Solid. Stuck to me. I have envied those chaps who are tube-like in their slightness, but have never myself been one.
There is a lesson I have only very recently learned: wishing for something does not make it happen. I may very well have wished away the better part of my youth and adolescence on being one of the tube-like willowy chaps, or being funnier, or having straight hair, or eyes that worked properly - but it never made one jot of difference. I may still have been wishing wildly had I not literally only JUST realised that no matter how hard you wish, it doesn't work. Seriously. I found this out yesterday or something. THAT recently.
Anyway, I ain't 68 kgs and slim any more. I am 97 kgs, and rotund. My chest and waist measurements have increased considerably, and not just because centimetres have replaced inches as way in which a man is measured.
*bites tongue*
*firmly*
Problem is, I haven't grown taller at the same rate. (In fact, at all.) I am still a bit of a shorty - which wasn't so much of a problem when I weighed flap-all. But it has become one. My weight has made me grow outwards, with nary as much as the smallest spurt in a general upwardly direction. I have become a ball of a bloke. A ball who needs to re-group, and de-flab.
Now, someone has told me a secret. Turns out the key to weight-loss (prepare yourself for this) is good diet and exercise. Good diet and exercise? Who knew? Apparently the healthy, slim people did. I am generally allergic to anything that looks like it could be construed as exercise, (Fun run? Oxymoron), but much as I wish I could wish my weight away - I can't. I've tried that for the last 12 years. So, there is only one thing realistically I can do.
Change.
And it has begun. I have left the snug familiarity of my job of 9 years at one of NZ's largest Government departments (See? My life is one roller-coaster of excitement!), and will begin a whole new job in precisely 11 sleeps. In truth it's not entirely new. It's the same as my current job, just at the Army.
And if they can't whip me into shape, who can?
In truth, it might have said something a little higher, or something a little lower. The joy of buying Weight Watchers branded scales is that they don't bloody work. Three separate stands will give three separate weights. So I took the middle one as being roughly accurate. Not that I'm proud of that.
Once upon a time, when I was young, did musicals and lived on coffee and cigarettes (Who dear? Me dear? Gay dear? Yup - 'fraid so) I weighed in at a paltry 68 kg. I know this because it didn't matter how may tubs of Macaroni Cheese I ate for lunch from the cafe down from work, it rarely fluctuated. I was steadily 68 kg - 38" chest, 28" waist, 30" inside leg. Strange the things you can recall. I guess it's because I was that for so long. From about 17 to about 28 that's what I was. Slim.
Running around between work and rehearsals with a Dunhill Red in one hand and a black coffee in the other obviously paid dividends!
As I've already said, I was never willowy. I just don't have the build. I have this random chest and random shoulders that have always been...well...there. Solid. Stuck to me. I have envied those chaps who are tube-like in their slightness, but have never myself been one.
There is a lesson I have only very recently learned: wishing for something does not make it happen. I may very well have wished away the better part of my youth and adolescence on being one of the tube-like willowy chaps, or being funnier, or having straight hair, or eyes that worked properly - but it never made one jot of difference. I may still have been wishing wildly had I not literally only JUST realised that no matter how hard you wish, it doesn't work. Seriously. I found this out yesterday or something. THAT recently.
Anyway, I ain't 68 kgs and slim any more. I am 97 kgs, and rotund. My chest and waist measurements have increased considerably, and not just because centimetres have replaced inches as way in which a man is measured.
*bites tongue*
*firmly*
Problem is, I haven't grown taller at the same rate. (In fact, at all.) I am still a bit of a shorty - which wasn't so much of a problem when I weighed flap-all. But it has become one. My weight has made me grow outwards, with nary as much as the smallest spurt in a general upwardly direction. I have become a ball of a bloke. A ball who needs to re-group, and de-flab.
Now, someone has told me a secret. Turns out the key to weight-loss (prepare yourself for this) is good diet and exercise. Good diet and exercise? Who knew? Apparently the healthy, slim people did. I am generally allergic to anything that looks like it could be construed as exercise, (Fun run? Oxymoron), but much as I wish I could wish my weight away - I can't. I've tried that for the last 12 years. So, there is only one thing realistically I can do.
Change.
And it has begun. I have left the snug familiarity of my job of 9 years at one of NZ's largest Government departments (See? My life is one roller-coaster of excitement!), and will begin a whole new job in precisely 11 sleeps. In truth it's not entirely new. It's the same as my current job, just at the Army.
And if they can't whip me into shape, who can?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
F is for first
Beginning a blog, a random ramble that someone, or no-one, will read is tough. Working out your first words is like beginning a painting - you need to have an idea in your head of what the finished article will be. Bad news: I don’t. I have a rough sketch - but no vision in my mind's eye. It’s hard to see the end when you can’t get past the beginning. Instead, I have done what I always do when faced with a new project - I have started.
Rip, shit and bust.
Someone once told me that the worst thing you can do when you’re starting to write is to stare at a blank page. Make your mark. The rest will come. Truth be told, that's bollocks. But I'll give it a go to start the flow. Planning can begin tomorrow.
This blog is not about changing the world. It's also not an indulgent voyage of self discovery. Well - I hope it won't be. Instead it's a place for me to pen some stuff the way I see it.
So let's start with 3 F-words that mean something to me: Fat. Fairy. Forty.
In truth, I am not entirely sure when all three aligned and produced the apocalypse that I have become, but align they did. Firmly. This was nothing that I planned, that kickarse F word - fate - ensured each would appear. Of course, as is the way with such things, there had to be a catalyst, a defining moment where the realisation struck that something ought to - no MUST - change.
My lightbulb moment? Trying on a t-shirt.
Understand, I have been granted the wisdom to know the things I cannot change, and two of the three things on my list are beyond my control. Forty was inevitable. Fairy was written into my genes before I was born. But fat? Fat was something I wasn’t for a very long time. While I was never willowy, nor could I ever be, I was, for the vast majority of my younger years, slim. I was broad chested and slim hipped enough to wear clothing well. Then something happened. Not overnight, but slowly. Until one day, not so long ago, I had two a-ha! moments - directly after each other. No - not a-ha as in Morton-Haarket-or-whatever-your-name-was-I-totally-loved-you-through-the-doe-eyed-innocence-of-youth-as-you-trilled-'Take on me'-at-an-impossibly-high-warble-but-now-I-take-a-second-glance-you-were-actually-a-bit-squinty-and-your-hair-needed-a-good-wash. No - these were two different a-ha! moments.
The first: I do not look good in a t-shirt. The second: I want to.
Is it vanity that, at 40 years old, it suddenly mattered to me? Is it my mid-life crisis? Guess we'll find out if I start to wear inappropriately youthful clothes and drive a small, convertible car...
So, friends, this post is brought to you by the f-word fat. Something I hope to do something about when I start my new job. For that, gentle reader, is when I run away to join the Army.
Rip, shit and bust.
Someone once told me that the worst thing you can do when you’re starting to write is to stare at a blank page. Make your mark. The rest will come. Truth be told, that's bollocks. But I'll give it a go to start the flow. Planning can begin tomorrow.
This blog is not about changing the world. It's also not an indulgent voyage of self discovery. Well - I hope it won't be. Instead it's a place for me to pen some stuff the way I see it.
So let's start with 3 F-words that mean something to me: Fat. Fairy. Forty.
In truth, I am not entirely sure when all three aligned and produced the apocalypse that I have become, but align they did. Firmly. This was nothing that I planned, that kickarse F word - fate - ensured each would appear. Of course, as is the way with such things, there had to be a catalyst, a defining moment where the realisation struck that something ought to - no MUST - change.
My lightbulb moment? Trying on a t-shirt.
Understand, I have been granted the wisdom to know the things I cannot change, and two of the three things on my list are beyond my control. Forty was inevitable. Fairy was written into my genes before I was born. But fat? Fat was something I wasn’t for a very long time. While I was never willowy, nor could I ever be, I was, for the vast majority of my younger years, slim. I was broad chested and slim hipped enough to wear clothing well. Then something happened. Not overnight, but slowly. Until one day, not so long ago, I had two a-ha! moments - directly after each other. No - not a-ha as in Morton-Haarket-or-whatever-your-name-was-I-totally-loved-you-through-the-doe-eyed-innocence-of-youth-as-you-trilled-'Take on me'-at-an-impossibly-high-warble-but-now-I-take-a-second-glance-you-were-actually-a-bit-squinty-and-your-hair-needed-a-good-wash. No - these were two different a-ha! moments.
The first: I do not look good in a t-shirt. The second: I want to.
Is it vanity that, at 40 years old, it suddenly mattered to me? Is it my mid-life crisis? Guess we'll find out if I start to wear inappropriately youthful clothes and drive a small, convertible car...
So, friends, this post is brought to you by the f-word fat. Something I hope to do something about when I start my new job. For that, gentle reader, is when I run away to join the Army.
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