Another Update

In times like these there are no distractions. The current situation makes it easy to focus on your goal without any kind of interference. I try to look at the bright side of things still.

For me, right now, that focus is leaning out. My initial aim is to go down from 265 lbs to 245 lbs – I prefer to measure body weight in pounds because it’s a smaller interval than a kilo – and if I hit that you’ll hear about it. So far I’m down 5 lbs over two weeks but first there’s the noise amongst signal: water weight. Nonetheless, 20 lbs without any distractions is not such a hard achievement. There are no drinks, no dinners, no junk food, nothing to stop you from spending an evening doing a home workout followed by a home cooked meal. Cooking everything at home makes clean eating a whole lot easier.

It makes living a whole lot cheaper for that matter. Nearly everything is bought in bulk in one large, weekly shopping trip; I only top it up with fresh vegetables. I stand to save a fair amount over the course of this.

I’m following these tough band workouts I got online too. Some of it is surprisingly hard such as the banded Bulgarian split squat. It’s been a long time since I felt such soreness in my legs. The routine is a simple one: legs, push, pull, rest, repeat. Using these bands has added to my perspective on the gym and working out. When you pick up a dumbbell or slide the plates onto a barbell that’s it: the decision of how hard it is going to be has been decided. Bands don’t offer nearly as much resistance and so it becomes a mental battle: how long can I withstand the pain and continue to perform reps? There’s an interesting change in the strength curve as well.

With no distractions, it makes making decisions easier. You no longer have 10,000 ways to spend your day. In fact there aren’t enough choices to really fill any day and so you end up doing the same thing: work, work out, watch a film, go for a walk, eat, watch YouTube videos, read your book. That’s the downside of choice: you never know if you made the right one.

Now I can’t tell whether it’s a lack of distractions or whether a world like this stimulates us less, making everything else relatively exciting, but my attention span has skyrocketed. I’m now very willing to listen to long podcasts, read my book for extended periods or watch long films, to name a few. What was a two hour film feels like an hour and a half. What was a three hour film feels like two. It’s magic.

Most of all this time reminds me of hot summers at university. I had a couple of jobs on campus to keep me busy and in the meantime I used the empty gyms and went for long walks. That’s the feeling I get when I walk along a deserted street. The smell brings back the nostalgia in waves.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown