Ever since I found out that Abra­ham was incom­ing, I’ve not worked out. First, I broke my elbow and big toe, then my mem­ber­ship at the gym ran out, then the weather turned nice right when Abra­ham showed up. I’ve put on about 15 pounds that I need to take off. Car­dio and less gorg­ing are the only ways I’m going to get the weight off. This is going to be hard, since I like to cook and the women I work with bring in deli­cious chow on a reg­u­lar basis.

When I was doing my weightlift­ing, I didn’t notice too much improve­ment in my upper body mus­cle tone, so I’m aim­ing to improve that by putting myself through the 100 push-​ups meme. I’m shop­ping around for a good ab and lower-​back cales­then­ics rou­tine, but haven’t found one that doesn’t seem like it is more mar­ket­ing than effec­tive­ness. Basic train­ing. I’m not expect­ing to get a six-​pack, since that involves get­ting my body fat down to 5 – 6%.

I’m a bit odd-​shaped. My legs are carved from wood due to 15 years of near con­stant run­ning, fenc­ing or cycling, but from the waist up I look like some dude who sits in an office chair all day eat­ing donuts. It’s a shame I can’t run out­doors in the Cleve­land win­ter, but my marathon train­ing from a few years back has taught me that run­ning in Cleve­land win­ters ruins my arthritic knee. I don’t really want to drop cash money at a gym just for tread­mill use.