Getting in shape : Recuperation and motivation

Well, now that you’re done with your first workout and its exercises, you reserve the right to be completely pooped. Assuming that you’ve now done most, if not all of the exercises I mentioned in the last post, and waited standing or walking around for a couple of minutes to swill around the lactic acid in your muscles, you can now flop into a chair of sorts.

A word of caution : Your shirt is most likely quite sweaty if it’s summer, and your Mom will not like the upholstery getting all messed up with your sweat. Avoid leaning against the back unless you want to be beaten out of the chair.

First of all, you need to rehydrate yourself. Avoid taking water from the fridge unless you always do, and are in no risk of developing a sore throat. I prefer lukewarm water. You can choose to have an energy drink like Gatorade as well, or ask Mom to whip up some lemonade sprinkled with some salt and sugar. You need to get back some of the salts you lost during your workout.

Now, ideally you should head to the bathroom, brush your teeth if you haven’t already, and have a cool refreshing shower. Assuming it’s summertime, you won’t need a geyser. If it’s winter, adjust the cold and hot taps so that it isn’t too hot, because a very drastic temperature change can give you a nasty, nasty cold.

Assuming it’s a school day, you’ll have to be a bit quick about this. If you got up at 5, you’d better be done with your shower by 6. Make sure you have a good breakfast. Never, ever skimp on that, or else you’ll have little energy left for the rest of the day, and will never ever feel like going on a morning workout again. The purpose of a morning workout is not only to help you lose weight/gain muscle, but also to help the rest of your day go as smooth as possible.

Let me share some experiences. Usually, before I took up the workout routine religiously, school used to be a drag, and if I had a VMC class after school, I might even doze off (which is never, ever a good thing at VMC). Once I started with the workout, I realised that I was feeling energised throughout the day. Okay, so maybe I was going to bed a bit earlier than I would’ve liked, but at least I was confident that I was giving my 100% throughout the rest of the day, unlike before, when my mind was only semi-present in classes. So, as you can see, a workout will change you in more ways than one.

As I was saying, you need to eat healthy (I’ll have a post on that later). But for now, just remember, be sure to have a filling (not over-filling) breakfast. Avoid fried stuff in the morning. If you’re having paranthas or something, tell Mom to ease off the butter. As I said, more on this later.

Finally, if you want to get up to workout the next day, it’s important to have a good sleep cycle, with at least 7 hours of sleep. This will ensure that your body has enough time to adjust, and recover from the strains of the day before. Oh, and make sure to set a few extra alarms for the second workout. Trust me, you won’t want to wake up. But as I said, remind yourself of the MF (Motivational Factor).

This marks the end of the post for those who bothered to even follow any of what was said in the last few posts on the series. For the rest of you lazy arses, here’s a couple of friendly words of advice:

You’re fat and lazy. You have an ass the size of Uranus (which is a flat contradiction, but nevertheless), and you’re belly probably looks like a couple of tires stacked together. Chairs groan complainingly when you sit on them, and you leave dents when you get up. You can’t run more than 50 metres without panting for breath, and asking for water. Heck, you even wish there were elevators at school. Face it, you’re not fit. Correction: you’re a tub of lard. You probably won’t have that much luck with the opposite sex, because they don’t like lard. Your friends tease you, poke you, make you goalie during football. When you hang out, they count the number of burgers you wolf down, the colas you drink and then proceed to point and jeer. You flop on the couch, switch on the TV, grab the nearest pack of crisps, and proceed to empty the packet without so much as a second thought. An ice-cream a day is the norm.

So, you see, the point is, you need to do something about it. And the reason is very simple. If you’re one of my friends i.e. about my age, this would be an ideal time to lose weight. Simply because once you’re in college, and in your 20s or something, losing weight becomes progressively harder, because your average calorie burn rate goes down, because you’ve stopped growing by now. So, rather than having to work extra hard to lose weight a few years from now, why not do it now? And you’ll see the compliments flowing in from family and friends, and you’ll get that smug feeling of self-satisfaction. Side effect : you might use the mirror more often. This is not a good thing. So get your ass off the computer chair, grab some running shoes and show the world that inner athlete in you!