Stints!

I & Barrel were synonymous when I was in school.  I was short and stout and my walking almost resembled a rolling of the barrel (yeah, a bit of exaggeration but not too much). Somehow, I was not too bad for people to make fun of me.  Or it may have been just that I was not noticeable and they had better things to do than teasing me.  It was then time to grow up – time to join college.  During the free days between school and college, I got chance to hang out with friends more often and few of them had joined gym. They instilled this thinking in me that college will be full of beautiful and sexy girls and one has to look dashing to grab at least a minimal attention. They were already one month ahead of me in physical training. I too joined the herd and joined the gym only to give up within a week due to body pain. That is what will happen if you try to train a rusted body.

Then our family relocated to another town. I was advised by the visionary seniors to join a college that was second best in the town. We knew the admissions for the best one was already closed. The advantage in the second-best college, as the visionaries told, was that it was one of the very few arts and Science College that was co-educational.  So, as it is quite obvious, I started hitting the gym. My cousins in that town were also working out and so it was  motivating enough to exercise. After a month, went to the college only to find, well you can guess easily, it was not worth it. Totally not worth it. Add to it the ration of 64:8. Bummer.  But I used to intermittently join and re-join the gym. I sporadically hit the gym.

Then I moved to the city again for my post-graduation course and hit the gym again. Since this gym was nearby, I was able to continue in a longer stint. My friends were also hitting the gym and so it was not boring. This was the period where I pre-dominantly started watching Hollywood movies and whenever I come out of the movie I will have the desire to get the body like the one sported either by the hero or the villain.  My primary aim was to bulk-up to look like a body builder. Though I was not able to achieve perfection in that (actually, not even close to perfection) I had a decent one. I and my friends started discussing about exercise routines and most of our discussions were about fitness if not about girls.

Then I moved to another city for job and joined the gym yet again. But I was not regular. I got access to the internet and started reading more and more about the fitness and exercise routines.  I read all the theory but didn’t practice. Eventually, I found out that the kind of the body that I wished to have in fact was a lean muscular one.  Thanks to the internet for without which I would still be lifting heavy weights to bulk up. I joined a sophisticated gym to find out that it was a grave mistake not to have done cardio during all these years and it was the necessary with the right mix of weight training for fat loss as well as stamina.  I was not regular but was exercising at least decent amount of days. And I was able to lean down a bit.

And then the best thing happened. My daughter started running by this time. I lost most weight while I was playing with her. This and some frequent stints at the gym helped me reduce greatly. And I feel light. (of course not tube light)

Now when I go out wishing that people appreciate my effort for losing weight, to my dismay, people , be it my folks or buddies, invariantly ask if I have any disease and if everything is okay with me.  Some even suggest me to go test my sugar level or if I have TB. How motivating!