D.Alan’s BodyBlog

I guess all this lifting does more than make you look good, it gives you some oomph to get things done about the house…  Three years ago almost to the day we had a bad early snow storm that pulled down a lot of tree limbs and in my yard there was one huge limb that did a number on a section of a low (4′) chain-link fence along one side of the property.  We of course cleaned up all the downed tree limbs and all that at the time, but I just never got to doing anything about the fence.  It’s just a small section that’s affected and it’s in some brush between my yard and the next-door neighbor’s so it’s just never been a priority to repair.  I look at it most every time that I am out near it and think that I probably should call fence outfit to come deal with it but they’ll probably want to replace the entire fence, which is around 60-ft long, so it won’t be cheap, etc. and I don’t do anything about it.

This week I was out in the yard doing a few things and I got eyeballing the fence again.  The damaged section consists of one post that was knocked off angle, maybe to about 30 degrees or so off vertical.  The top bar is badly bent in this area as well.  I got to thinking, maybe I should try to just push that post back in line.  Why not.  I grabbed it, leaned into it and shoved with everything I’ve got and by damn, the post moved.  I rested a moment and repeated.  Did it a third time and the post, while not perfectly vertical, is sure a lot closer to vertical than it has been the last three years.  I really don’t think I bent the post as it’s about an inch and a quarter steel tubing, but something moved.  I was rather pleased with myself to have accomplished a task that looked like some serious equipment (and money) was needed.  I still need to replace the top bar as it is really bent out of shape and there’s no way I can bend that, but heck, I think I can get this fence finally repaired for very little money.

What is it about computer people and huge bellies?  I was at a departmental meeting this week of other school IT folks and there were some new faces in the bunch.  I ended up at lunch sitting next to one of the new guys and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  This guy is probably around 30, maybe 5-8 or so in height, and has this enormous belly and probably outweighs me by 60 or 70 lbs.  Seated his belly was more than half way to his knees.  Geez.  There’s a couple of others in the dept. that are not small, either.  You just want to grab them by the shoulders and say "look at yourself, do something!"  I have a couple of friends who have been heavy a goodly portion of their lives who are now in their late 50s or early 60s and their knees are completely shot from carrying that extra weight all that time.  All the more reason you want to get the younger ones to wake up.

Saw another friend this week that I see only periodically and she was complimenting me on my appearance yet again and seemed so surprised that "you have been able to maintain this all this time."  People just don’t get it that a lifestyle change is required for all this to work.  She really raised her eyebrows when I said that I lift five nights a week.  Nothing fancy is required, just that old fashioned dirty four-letter word: W-O-R-K.

I am quickly approaching the two-year mark on my joining bb.com and making the commitment to lifting and a better diet and I want to look great for the progress pix that I will take, so I will keep liftin’.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Training, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.