Coming Clean

For some reason, people (meaning the five people who read my blog – bless you) have the impression that I’m some workout warrior who bolts out of bed at the crack of dawn, all iron-willed and disciplined. That’s not an accurate picture. I am really a lazy arse who’d much rather slug around the house all day surfing porn on my laptop. No la, I’m kidding. (About the porn, of course, what kind of perv do you think I am?)

Porn aside, I confess that dragging my butt out of bed in the morning to go run is a struggle every time. They say doing something consistently for 30 days will make it a habit for life. They freaking lied. It sucks every single time. Just like it sucked a few weeks ago.

I crawl out of bed at 6am one morning after several fruitless minutes of tug-of-warring with my Evil Nemesis. She’s the one who says things like, “The bed is so nice and warm and soft … do you really want to get up and get all sweaty … wouldn’t you rather go back to sleep …” I persevere and win the battle, but just barely.

My Evil Nemesis taunts me as I mindlessly chomp on two bars of milk-soaked Weet-Bix. “Come on … you can still sms your friend to cancel … skip one day won’t die lah … besides, you think she don’t wanna go back to sleep meh? … you’ll be doing her a favour!”

And that’s when it happens: it starts to drizzle. It’s 6.20am. I feel a guilty little jolt of – dare I say it – joy. Yippy, I silently think. Yippy yippy yippy, sshhhh. Now I can slink back to bed and not be harangued by another nemesis of mine: the Guilt Gorilla.

Maybe it’ll stop raining soon, I tell myself in an attempt to smooth over the burgeoning waves of guilt. “You say this but you’re not fooling anyone, you crafty coyote. You secretly want it to rain harder!!” thunders Guilt Gorilla.  I ignore him. I wait until 6.45am. It’s still pouring.

I text my friend. Below is our actual sms exchange, verbatim:

WY (6.46am) I leave house at 715 la raining
SL (6.47am) ok. Its dark huh

I go back to bed for a few minutes. Sleep doesn’t come. I text her again.

WY (7.13am) raining la. Shit. Is it raining at your side?
SL (7.15am) its wet la but stopped drizzling already
SL (7.16am) eh now raining la
WY (7.17am) Yalor, I’m in garden. Raining! Ok back to bed!!
SL (7.20am) Ok haiyor just now it din rain b4 we got up rite
WY (7.22am) raining since I got up leh … cancel la. Dowan run in drizzle!
SL (7.24am) oh ya gah. It was dark la, can’t really see u can’t do evening?
WY (7.25am) actually its stopping. Ok ok. Lets go now. Meet you thr!
SL (7.27am) still raining here la. I undress d haha
WY (7.29am) I’m gonna leave house. Ok la if u go, I’ll c u thr lor
SL (7.32am) I dowan to walk when its drizzling leh, my arthritis pain wor!

I put on my cap and head out anyway. The moment I drive out, the rain gets heavier. That joyful little jaunt that’s been dancing around in my belly turns into a frenzied chicken dance. I text my friend with all the “regret” I can muster.

WY (7.33am) I drove out n rain heavier, so turn back. I give up!
WY (7.34am) evening prob I can’t but see how. I’ll msg u abt 5pm
SL (7.35am) ok we try evening if u can

We don’t. Instead, we spend the whole morning and the rest of the day … slugging around the house surfing porn.

Screw Discipline. I’m Going Back To Bed

I feel like crap. I have run no more than three times since I got back from the Singapore Marathon in December and I will say it again: I feel like crap. I’m battling a combination of wretched guilt, some extra poundage (I don’t know how much cos I don’t own a scale) and a crippling feeling of malaise. Before I bumble any further, I should explain my use of the word ‘run’. By ‘run’, I mean a pathetic attempt at walking and jogging and whining all at once – a Herculean feat especially since I have literally crawled back to square one as far as my stamina is concerned. It’s awful. I don’t know where that 2009-ME has gone. The one with all the discipline, drive, enthusiasm, energy … it’s like she died last December and left this miserable 2010-ME in her place. I do not like this 2010-ME. It’s a defective model.

So I’m going to get my act together … right … after … Chinese New Year. No no no no-o-o-o-o. Right now, right now. To get started, I shall now inspire myself with some quotes about the one thing I need the most right now: discipline.

“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.” (Zig Ziglar)… My commitment and discipline have gone bust but I think I still have a smidgen of that character left. Now if only I can find it …

“Discipline is remembering what you want.” (David Campbell) … I seem to have forgotten in the face of other seemingly important, more ‘pressing’ things …

“Lack of discipline leads to frustration and self-loathing.” (Marie Chapian) … Self-loathing – yeah, plenty of that going around right now …

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” (Jim Rohn) … I have a horrible feeling that regret will indeed one day weigh tons – literally …

“No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.” (Seneca) … Well, I guess the desire to lie around in bed and have bacon bits for breakfast can be considered by some to be ‘evil’, can’t it? …

“If we do not discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.” (William Feather) … Well, either the world or nature itself …

Hmm, so am I sufficiently inspired? I don’t know. Ask me tomorrow when I’m trying to get out of bed early in the morning. Ask me then.

5 Ways To Motivate. That. Ass.

I was really motivated to exercise at one point. I mean, REALLY. I was literally on a high. Not only would I dedicate a whole hour to exercising every single day, I daydreamed about it when I wasn’t doing it, was excited about waking up the next day to do it, journalled about it, googled and youtubed it and just soaked it all in. Yes, I know. I was insane. Unfortunately, that was last year and my drive went kaput when I joined my present company (where I became suicidal and instead of exercising, spent most of my time trying to decide which blunt instrument I could use to knock myself unconscious).

My terminal funk went on for six months. Now that I’m out of it, I’m trying to get back on that exercise wagon but the challenge is: how do you motivate that ass (the ass being you) when you’re not feeling particularly motivated/ inspired/ excited/ enthusiastic? It’s easy to get moving when you’re feeling motivated/ inspired/ excited/ enthusiastic but hello, when you’re not, it’s damn hard. So here they are: my tips to help you Motivate. That. Ass. Tried and tested.

1 DON’T THINK

For me, exercise is purely mental. It’s not about building muscle; it’s about winning the battle with the Syaitan of Sloth (otherwise known as SoS). Before I even get off my ass, the SoS comes and starts playing with my mind. I’d think about how I’d feel if I exercised: would I enjoy it? How I’d feel after: would I be happy? What would happen if I chose to stay in bed: would I regret it? How I’d feel doing something else instead: I can use this time to go to work earlier! After all, got so many things to do wor. And etc etc etc. And many times, the evil SoS wins. I wind up thinking so much that I end up crawling back into bed and not doing anything. And it just goes on and on … and that’s why I believe the key here is: DON’T THINK, JUST DO. Thinking is over-rated. You know the saying: 80% of success is showing up. That’s so true of exercise. 80% is getting off your ass; 20% is moving it.

2 SET ONE ALARM ONLY

Okay. Confession time: I have these horrible pre-set alarms – six of them. I have a 6.00 am, 6.30 am, 7.00 am, 7.30 am, 8.00 am and an 8.30 am. So, you already can guess what I do, right? I turn all of them on before I sleep. In the morning, the 6.00 am goes off. Toot toot toot toooooooot. I turn it off, go back to sleep. 6.30 am goes off. I turn it off, go back to sleep. 7.00 am goes off … you get the idea. On and on it goes until 8.30 am. This time, I really wake up because I know there are no more alarms left ma … and that’s why I believe the key here is: get rid of all the alarms and SET ONE ALARM ONLY. Duh.

3 AND MAKE IT WEIRD

Forget the nicely rounded 7.00 am or 7.30 am. For some reason, your brain will process 7.00 am as, “Eesh, so early … baru a minute ago was 6-something … can sleep some more. Snore.” And your brain will process 7.30 am as, “Eesh, still early what … not even 8 yet … can sleep some more. Snore.” And that’s why I believe the key here is: SET A WEIRD ALARM. Confuse your renegade brain by setting it at 7.43 am. It’s almost 8 so it’s like you’re kinda late and it’s too far from 6-something, so you’re not early.

4 HAVE A MANTRA

I saw this saying on www.webmd.com last year, which goes, “You never regret a run. There’s hardly anything in life you can say that about. You will regret a chocolate sundae.” Isn’t that great? I love it!!!

5 DON’T BE A TERRORIST

Terrorists are all-or-nothing people. They either love you (and will therefore, devote their lives to you) or hate you (and will therefore, blow you up). Okay okay, so I don’t actually know any terrorists, but I needed an analogy and couldn’t come up with anything else. Besides, terrorists are hot right now.

Anyways, I’m also all-or-nothing. I’m either all black or all white. All happy or all miserable. I either buy nothing or buy half a dozen of one thing. I have no middle ground. Unfortunately, I’m also like this with exercise. I’m either doing a solid one-hour every day or a solid nothing on none of the days. Middle ground would be say, 20 minutes three times a week. Yeah, I’m not so good with that. This is a problem because it means I either exercise every day like a crazy person or I sit on my ass every day drinking coffee, facebooking, blogging and youtubing (which incidentally, is what I do these days – I love it, btw!!!). But you know how they say that something better than nothing? Yeah, I need that middle ground. I read somewhere about perfectionists being the worst procrastinators. They will put off doing something because they fear they won’t be able to do it perfectly, so in the end, they do nothing. Omg. That’s so me!!! And that’s why I believe the key here is: DON’T BE A TERRORIST.

Give Me Skinny or Give Me Death

I am a lousy conformist, that’s what I am. Despite my self-righteous diatribes about standing up for my principles and being the unwavering Rock of Gibraltar when it comes to staying put in the face of popular opinion, I confess that I’m secretly feeble-minded.

Exhibit A: I can rant for hours about how skinniness does not equate beauty but at the same time, I fret whenever I feel the waistband of my jeans cut into a lump of flesh that seemed to have developed overnight. A slight bulge is enough to send me into a wild tailspin. My mind is instantly deluged with desperate schemes to lose the excess flab – from eating a raisin a day to working the treadmill for two hours a day until I lose the weight or drop dead (whichever decides to come first).

I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed because I feel happy when people come up to me and say, “Oh my god. You’ve lost weight!” I nonchalantly reply, “No lah, it’s just that I look thinner in the dark with these strobe lights.”

I’m ashamed to admit that it thrills me to hear, “Aiya, where got fat? You’re so blardey skinny!” Of course, no one can accuse me of being a stick insect but this thrills me none the less.

Or the common, “Fine. You show me exactly where your flab is. Show me!”, after which I proceed to pinch about a bucket of lard from the folds of my stomach. They then go, “Aiya, that’s what you call flab? I’ll show you what real flab is!”

I don’t think you want to know how the rest of the story goes (not unless you’re bulimic and wretching is something you enjoy). Besides, this is irrevelant to my point.

My point is, I’m weak. I cave into the opinion of the masses. I may proclaim that beauty lies within, that physical beauty fades but true beauty lasts forever and all that jazz, but I have left out the fine print: beauty lies within… for other people; physical beauty fades but true beauty lasts forever… for other people. Not for me.

Give me long, slim legs and silky long hair and flawless skin and a knockout figure. Give me a brilliant white smile, sparkling eyes and a 24-inch waist. Give me a swanlike neck, delicate ankles and a behind that can stop traffic.

Of course, charisma, intelligence and confidence are important. I’m not denying that. I want those things too. I work hard at those things. But losing a few points of my IQ will never be as enormous a catastrophe as, say, newly discovered orange peel on my butt.

So because I’m weak, I shall continue going to the gym in hopes that I will one day be the proud owner of a body that resembles Halle Berry’s. Because I’m not strong enough to tell the world to “Put a sock in it! A little pudge never hurt anyone!!”, I’ll continue to stand sideways in front of the mirror and spin into a panic at every little bit of protruding flesh. Because I’m weak, I will resist the mad urge to devour that last piece of chocolate mud pie. Because I don’t have the guts to go through life with excess weight and not give a rat’s arse what people think.

My Love Affair With Monsieur Gym

In my oblong leather purse sits my gym membership card. It’s a symbol of my commitment. It represents determination, discipline, motivation, rebirth, a reincarnation of the mind, body, soul, spirit…

…Oh, stop waxing lyrical and let’s be Frank here (we can be Lucy tomorrow – hahaha!).

My gym card is just a piece of plastic that simply means that money is taken out of my bank account every month so that I can crawl through the jam at 6.30 every morning, pay two bucks for parking, sweat my butt off on a machine, stretch my body until my flesh split, shower in a locker room with a gaggle of middle-aged housewives exchanging siew pau recipes and fight with other wet-haired girls for the hairdryer.

Vanity, vanity… all is vanity.

This love affair of mine is not unique. It’s triggered by the shocking revelation that:

a) my metabolism has, for some bizarre reason unknown to man, plummeted to new depths. Depths that I never even knew existed. Depths lower than a snake’s belly.

b) which means that I can no longer stuff three bags of Chickadees down my throat and still fit into my skinny jeans

c) which means that if I ignore this situation, there’s a high chance I’d wind up looking like Gutsy Girl (before she sat on the thief and became the ambassador of a slimming centre)

d) which means that I have to peel myself off my swivel chair and participate in this activity most people call exercise

e) which means I have to join the gym because I find it impossible to warm up to the concept of running around in circles at the playground

So I joined the gym. I went in every single day. My gym card began to smoke because I swiped it so much. I worked my ass off on every one of them big machines. Then I fell sick, took a break and never went back. I lasted a grand total of three months.

After my glorious failure, I was eaten up by shame. I was such a disgrace. I couldn’t bring myself to go back. Going back would be tantamount to admitting that I was wrong and that I needed the gym. I was too proud. So I did what anybody would do after coming out of an intense love affair – I went on the rebound.

I bought a treadmill. I called one of those Smart Shop numbers on TV and ordered an Ab Trainer (it guaranteed rock-hard abs in just 30 seconds a day!). I bought several sets of dumb bells. I bought a whole lot of stuff, all of which I never used.

It was when I caught myself mulling over a slimming advert and wondering how many inches I could shave off my thighs that I realised how much I wanted him back.

I wanted my gym back. The track pants sticky with perspiration. The squishy water bottle. The locker key with the number tag. The fluffy face towel. I wanted them all back.

And most of all, I wanted the card back.

Now, when I look at my card, I’m reminded of my renewed commitment. This time, things will be different. This time, I won’t bail out. This time, it will last.

Forever.