Get some exercise

Try cycling to work, get off at the bus stop before your usual one and walk the rest, travel to the supermarket by space hopper. All very good advice, but not very relevant to my life, except for the last one, which I did regularly, until the painful bursting incident.

I suppose I could cycle to work, generally it would be ok. The down point is that my route involves going up that narrow and steep hill next to the Wolferston Arms in Shuttington. In the unlikely event that I manage to avoid being hurled off my bike by a Frisbee salesman from Newton Regis eager to get to a meeting, my work colleagues wouldn’t appreciate sitting next to a large panting intumescent lump of heat and sweat. For them, it would be like being stood in the queue at McDonalds during a heatwave.

Instead, I’ve decided to find ways of being useful and doing things in my spare time that will also be good exercise. This week my next-door neighbour is decking my back-garden. To make it awkward for him, we decided that we wanted it to be two-tier, this involved him digging out a large part of our garden leaving a big pile of rubble, clay and soil ready to be shovelled into a skip. The night before, I decided I would get out first thing and start shovelling it myself. I kept it to myself in case my enthusiasm had disappeared by the morning.
First thing Saturday morning I was up and out and digging away. He joined me shortly after and for the next couple of hours we worked away together chatting away. We’ve been neighbours for nearly 5 years, we’ve always been friendly, a bit of small talk as we get into the car etc, but it’s the first time we’ve had a good conversation and found we had interests in common, it was a good day for community relations as well as weight-loss.

I’d filled the skip and spent the rest of the day waiting for another one that didn’t arrive. He said I must have shifted about 1.5 – 2 tons of earth. I’m not sure if he was trying to flatter me but when I worked out online that I’d burnt over 1000 calories I was gratified.

I’ve lost 1.6Kg (3.5lbs) this week, I’ve made friends, and have started to see more muscle appear on my arms, this dieting lark’s been well worth the effort so far.