I have made a change in my life. Not a huge change, although it seems like it some times.
I have decided to lose some weight and get into better shape.
This is not really a new years resolution. It's more of a job security thing.
But not technically.
The fact is that I want to look better for work.
I really like my job. And I really want to keep my job for a long time. Which is a change from many of the jobs that I have worked in the past. Most of them I have either had for a while even though I didn't really like it, or I really hated the job and didn't keep it for very long. With some gray areas thrown in here and there.
My latest jobs I have been able to relax and wear the kinds of clothes that I am most comfortable in. Jeans and t-shirts and worn out sneakers. More than adequate if you're going to spill some acid on them and have to shed them quickly under a safety shower. Why spend a lot of money on clothes that may very well be disposable?
As a secretary and later an office manager, I had to deal directly with clients. Naturally protraying a respectable exterior while swearing like a sailor when they're out of earshot. I know that a lot of you simply cannot picture me in a tie and pressed pants, politely answering phones and directing clients. Well fuck you guys! I was actually very good at the job and I enjoyed it a great deal.
But it wasn't really a career. It was a good job that I enjoyed but just to pay the bills until I graduated from college.
Now I have a job that requires direct contact with clients and I enjoy it a great deal. I still wear a nice shirt and pressed pants but I don't have to wear a tie and I'm still not allowed to swear in front of them.
For a long time I have been less than happy with my appearance. Some of it I can change and some of it I cannot. The issue has always been motivation. I can lose weight of I am motivated to. This face, however, I am simply stuck with.
When I say that I'm not motivated most people simply think that it is because working out is actually too much work. You know, getting home and changing clothes, then driving to the gym, then driving home and taking a shower. Especially if it's a long drive to the gym or it was an especially trying date at work. That is not, unfortunately, the case with me.
I am simply lazy.
I actually own a home gym. And I have owned it for over a year and a half. And it's already assembled. In my living room. Just how fucking lazy do you have to be to have a gym right their as soon as you walk through the door and you still don't use it. FOR A YEAR AND A HALF!
I bought it for a couple of reasons;
I have wanted one for some time.
It was dirt cheap.
It would make it much harder for me not to work out.
And I really needed to get into better shape.
I have pretty much wanted a home gym for some untold length of time. Pretty much since I first saw a Bowflex commercial. Actually I wanted two things, the bowflex and the blonde. Hoping that getting one would lead to getting the other.
When I say that it was dirt cheap, I am not exaggerating. The original price was $210. Now compared to a Bowflex that is dirt cheap. A bowflex costing about 5 times as much. In this case, it was only $21. Yeah, Twenty One Dollars. That's it! Less than the monthly dues to a gym. It was the last one in the warehouse, they slapped a sticker on it, and I was the first person to see it. So I bought it, took it home, assembled it and started hanging clothes on it.
Certainly having a home gym assembled and sitting in the middle of your living room should make it harder to avoid working out, right? Right? Not when you're as lazy as I am! I've told you before just how great a procrastinator I am. I am only slightly less skillful at being lazy. No mean feat.
As for needing to get in better shape, well, I'm fat and my momma dresses me funny. That's not really true, technically I'm obese. I have not yet graduated to morbidly obese, medically speaking I am merely obese. But my momma does dress me funny.
Not only am I obese, I recognize that I am. I'm not happy with my weight. Unlike Fat Bastard, though, I don't eat because I'm unhappy and I'm not unhappy because I eat. I eat because I like food and I'm unhappy because I don't get laid. I know that I'm fat, I know that I don't eat right, I know that health problems run on both sides of my family and I know that I don't exercise enough. I'm lazy, not stupid. I understand that I am at the top of the list of every heartattack danger indicator there is. Hey, my life insurance is paid up, I don't care. I am actually worth more dead than I am alive.
So here I am, unhappy with my health, now working a job that I really enjoy and plan on having for years to come, and I represent this company directly to clients.
NOW I have something to motivate me.
I like this company and I want to represent it to the best of my ability. That means being able to tuck my shirt in. Buckle my belt. And see whether my shoes have come untied. Without a mirror.
So now I want to be in better shape, maybe not great shape or even really good shape. I'll start with better shape. I'll even start changing my diet. Don't flip the fuck out, we're not talking drastically. Well, it is drastic in some cases.
Because of the travel, crap food and fast food are simply a given. Super sizing it and ordering sodas is not. I am doing my best to quite sodas altogether. Not easy! I've had 2 or 3 in the past 2 or 3 weeks. Not bad considering that I am much more likely to drink 2 or 3 in an hour. When I do resort to fast food I don't upsize my order. And I have been avoiding fast food altogether on the way home from work. I have food in my apartment, it's time that I started eating it.
This is where my mom will really flip out. I have even started buying 2% milk. Yeah, no shit! For those that know me, I drink milk more than I drink sodas. Milk is essential to my life. And that is not an exaggeration. On a hot day I can drink a gallon of milk in a couple of hours. I never really need to worry about expiration dates, it won't be around long enough. Eventually, maybe, hopefully, I'll switch to skim milk, but I'm not holding my breath right now.
I'm not wasting away just yet, but it's a start.
I'm even using my home gym. I really do need to rearrange my living room though, I keep bumping into the table and other objects. None of which I noticed a year and a half ago when I set it up and never used it.
So basically I want to represent my company better by becoming the better person that I want to be.
