This is going to be a great week!

A couple of years ago, I shared a house with some friends. It was great. It was like going to your buddies’ place to hang out over the weekend without ever having to go home. We ended up being in each other’s business a lot but incredibly, we never really suffocated each other.

One of the things the three of us did was go to a gym in the morning together. Because work generally starts at 0800 in Zimbabwe, we’d have to get out of bed by about 0545. Staying up till 0200 playing FIFA on Playstation didn’t really help. And yes, Playstation is alive and well in sub-Saharan Africa.

We found that if we repeated, ‘today is going to be a great day’- despite being groggy and with eyes half shut –  more often than not that’s how things worked out. The days we didn’t perform our ritual normally turned out badly on the gym front at least.

I know it sounds very ‘self help’ and unoriginal, but the truth is the truth, even when it isn’t fly. The things we say tend to alter our perception and our feelings are all about perception.

With that in mind, THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT WEEK! You’re welcome to join in.

Overweight? Me?

I finally did it. I signed up at the gym!

It’s funny how weight creeps up on you. I think I’m in so so shape, but my pot belly makes me look a few years older than I really am. Don’t ask me how it got there, I don’t know! My first instinct is to claim that I was abducted by aliens and they put it there. Or we could go with my wife’s explanation. She likes to tell people that I’m carrying our first baby and am expecting soon!

The truth is that I moved to a country where food is dirt cheap and I got carried away. It didn’t help that this move coincided with getting married to a woman who prides herself in her ability to keep her husband well fed. Oh, and let’s not forget the months of unemployment in Cork. Cork is a cold wet city and if you don’t need do be somewhere, you stay put.  I stayed put in a one bedroom apartment eating cheap food. The result is a BMI flirting with the ‘obese’ category. Not bad for a skinny kid!

Finally I’m taking action. I’ve been told that if I don’t I could die before my 72^nd birthday. It took all the self control I have not to point out that the life expectancy where I come from is 39 and anything close to 70 would be considered a miracle. I just shook my head solemnly and behaved well for a change. I had my first workout today and I lived to tell the tale. I almost enjoyed it even!

If you’re in the Galway, feel free to drop by Leisure Land. You might see a round guy desperately trying to stay on his treadmill with buckets of sweat pouring off him. You’re more than welcome to come up and say hi – Lord knows I could do with the excuse to take a break!