The Fat Bloke Diaries
Episode Two – Heartbeeps
A quick recap. I’m a fat bloke, a heart attack waiting to happen. I eat and drink what I want, and I don’t want salad or anything isotonic. Correction; didn’t want anything isotonic. At the age of 43 I’ve decided that enough is enough and I’m trying to do something about my weight. To make a start, I’ve got myself a static bike.
It’s a big expensive one. I’m working on the theory that as a proper Yorkshireman (complete with proverbial short arms and deep pockets), I’m going to have to make use of it to justify spending such a huge amount.
Much to my surprise, I’ve discovered that I’m actually enjoying this pedalling business. The rhythmic monotony of it is mentally relaxing, while the relentless leg action is physically demanding. Both of these states are new to me, and I’m finding them pleasurable experiences. I’ve not seen any weight loss yet, but it’s early days.
The monstrous metal beast sits in my dining room beside that icon of home comfort, the dining table. Its glistening tubular steel frame stands in stark contrast to the rough natural pine that holds such great memories of pizzas past.
I placed it there deliberately. It seemed a great idea at the time, but now it just looks on impassively, saying nothing like a disapproving mother every time I stuff something more substantial than a slice of dehydrated cucumber into my mouth. Which, being a guy that likes his food, is often. But a weird thing’s happened. I’m exercising, and it’s like my body’s burning amounts of energy it’s never needed to before. And that means one thing: If I’m burning more calories, then I can consume more calories, right? Four meals a day and a handful of snacks in between, then leap on the bike and watch the calorie counter tell me how many of those meals and snacks I’m burning right back off again. Which means that I can eat more… it’s a crazy, dangerous cycle (pun intended). I’m going to have to work on that one.
But I do love the bike, and I love its heart rate monitor too. Those little sensors
built into the handlebars read my pulse and report the number of beats per minute
out on the screen, complete with a little thumping heart icon so that I don’t confuse
such a high number with my speed. Which is a good thing. There’s also an alarm that
you can set to go off if your heart rate exceeds a preset level. That’s handy; I
wouldn’t want my chest to explode just as I broke through the 10km barrier. The only
problem is that, with my earphones in and the beats a-
And how am I supposed to know the rate I should be aiming for anyway? I’ve read that I should take 220 minus my age as the starting point, then aim at somewhere around seventy or eighty percent of that as my target heart rate. And then I subtract my dog’s previous owner’s house number. Or something. That last bit must be true because I read it on the Internet. The trouble is that I’m a fat bloke. My heart rate is about seventy percent of ‘what it should be’ the minute I get near the machine. Three revolutions of the pedals and it starts to sound like an episode of Casualty, and not the nice one where the lonely nurse has a drunken snog with the tall, dark, handsome doctor at the Christmas party
I’m pretty sure that I’ll have high cholesterol levels too, even though I keep my cheese at the bottom of the fridge (sorry about that one). So I read up on that subject as well – thank you, Wikipedia – and found that there’s ‘good’ cholesterol and ‘bad’ cholesterol. Is there no cholesterol that’s simply misunderstood, or has fallen in with the wrong crowd? Just wondering. Perhaps the sudden burst of exercise has made me light headed. Perhaps diet is just as important as exercise: maybe even more so?
But I guess any exercise is better than none at all, right? So as long as the pedals are turning I must be doing some good.
Mustn’t I?
© 2008 Shaun Finnie