My God, I've Gotten Out of Shape

I spent about half an hour on the rowing machine yesterday, and while it felt good and was a step in the right direction, it was also pretty harmful to my ego.

It's only been a month, and I'm out of shape.

I'm fat again. I know I look thin, but but as per my last post, I want to look good naked. So if you hop onto a rowing machine, a machine upon which you exercise in a sitting position, if you've got any belly at all, it gets in the way and really becomes your body's only feature.

Like I was going to add a photo of me on a rowing machine. 

The other thing is I was doing chinups and pushups pretty religiously. Then I stopped. I guess I got bored of it. A session on a rowing machine has always been purely cardio work, and has never made my arms ache. Until yesterday.

Again, it was a really good time on the machine, but it really pointed out some horrible deficiencies I've allowed into my life.

When I was in Denver, my day went like this:

• Wake up. Eat a yogurt and a piece of fruit.
• Go to work. At lunch, eat a badass sandwich and fruit. Drink only water and coffee.
• Around 4pm, eat another piece of fruit.
• Get off work at 5pm, go to the gym, lift weights, then cardio.
• Go home, eat dinner. A grilled sandwich, a can of soup, you get the idea.
• Drink bourbon.

It's time to get back to this. Today, I ate yogurt and fruit for breakfast. I've never had a problem drinking water at work because I've got my beloved Camelbak Better Bottle sitting on my desk.¹

Lunch today will be a badass sandwich, Denver-style: sliced tomato, Smart Deli vegetarian "turkey", muenster cheese. 

I'll probably have an orange later in the day. 

The main difference between now and Denver is the 90 - 120 minutes in the gym at 5pm. My solution: push-ups and a bike ride then chin-ups until I can afford a gym membership.²

There are a few different "how to do 100 pushups" programs out there. I like this one because the instructions are such that anyone can do it. Painting with broad strokes, girls don't do a lot of pushups, so having all the graphics be of girls is pretty cool, pretty inclusive. And they have a smartphone (iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7) app. And their paper and pen version is well designed.

Would anyone like to join the 100-push-ups-club with me?

How does this apply to a marathon? That should be obvious. Duh.

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1: I got this one at the Goodwill for $3.25. It says "Tackett" on it. 

2: If they didn't charge a startup fee, they could have had my business for the last three months. I'd love to look at the books and see if they're practicing good business.