RAWBangkok

The last five years or so that I lived in Australia I was fairly fit.  I went to the gym three days a week and worked out with a personal trainer.  I played competitive volleyball weekly.  I was never slender or athletic, but for a guy in my 40s I was in reasonable nick.

Here in Thailand I suffered a descent into flabbiness.  I gained about a dozen kilos and added 4 inches to my waistline as the muscles in my upper body melted and settled as fat deposits just above my belt.

It was due to a total change in lifestyle where I started drinking a lot more beer, and my physical activity disappeared to almost nothing.

Twice in the past couple of years I tried to jump start my physical recovery by getting into the gym, but both attempts sputtered and died.

The low point in my life for physical fitness was reached in the middle of 2008 when my weight reached 125 kilos (275 pounds) and it became a struggle to climb a flight stairs and unpleasant to bend over and tie my shoes.

Around the beginning of August I decided I needed to get serious about losing the weight and getting fit again.  I decided to get some weight off before working on the fitness, and beagan a diet program, intending to achieve one of two ultimate goals: either reduce my weight to 104 kilos or reduce my pants size from 44 inches to size 38.

Preferably both.

I set up a weight loss chart with targets.  I aimed to reach 115 kilos by Christmas, 110 kilos (242 lbs) by 1 February and 104  kilos (229 lbs) by 1 June.

I stopped drinking beer (well, I cut down to about 10% of previous quantities), reduced my food intake and increased my activity level — mainly by walking more.

Ninety days after I started, I had managed to drop 8 kilos, weighing in at 117 on 1 Nov.

By Christmas I was at 114, about a kilo ahead of my goal.

With two weeks to go until my 1 February milestone, I am at 109 kilos… already one full kilo ahead of my goal, and likely to get to 108 by that date.

I’m now starting to think I can do better than originally planned.  I’m starting to think that 100 kilos (220 pounds) is a realistic target.

About ten days ago I decided that walking was getting a bit boring, and so I bought a basketball.  There’s a nice court in the park near my room, and I went out and shot baskets a few times.  I was terrible, but shooting alone there was no need to be embarrassed.

On Sunday I went to the park and found ten guys playing a full court game.  I sat down to watch — the only spectator.  I hadn’t been sitting for 20 seconds when a player announced that he had to go. The other 9 guys on the court turned and pointed at me.

Huh?

I was in.  I hadn’t played a game of basketball in a decade or more, probably.  In my little shoot-arounds by myself I had more often than not missed the rim entirely.

The first time I touched the ball I threw a lazy pass to one of the players on my team. It was easily intercepted by an opposing player whe loped down the court for an easy layup.

It was a long time before anyone on my team gave me the ball again.

Eventually I pulled a couple of rebounds, tossed in two baskets and had one brilliant assist to a teammate under the basket.  The players on my team started behaving as though I wasn’t completely retarded, but only mildly so.

We’d been playing for about thirty minutes when I went up for a rebound.  I actually used one hand to toss it cross court to a teammate, and when I returned to earth I landed off balance, and fell backwards.  I landed hard on my butt, then my skull crashed to the cement court with a thud.

I bounced up immediately waving off all concerns.  I’m okay, keep on playing.

The guy who had been positioned in front of me apologized for knocking me down.  He’d never touched me… I fell all by myself and told him so.

I trotted slowly to the other end of the court, but by the time I got there I realized I couldn’t move.  It wasn’t the blow to the head, but the shock to my backside. The inside of my asshole hurt, and the pain was increasing.

One thing I’ve always hated about getting hit in the nuts is that the worst pain isn’t when you get hit… the pain increases steadily for a while before it begins to subside.  That’s what was happening inside my bum… the pain was getting worse, and I could barely move.

I waved to my teammates that I was quitting and went to sit on the bench.  Another player on my team announced that he had to go home and the game was over.

When I left the court a few minutes later I made a point of limping even though there was nothing wrong with my leg, just so it would look like I was really hurt.  By that time I felt okay… I was just worried about going back out on the court and playing like shit again.

And now Penfold is on his way back to Bangkok.  This is a guy who simply loves going to the gym.  He spends time every day working on his twisted steel physique.

He has promised to whip me into better physical shape, and help me improve my fitness by working out at the gym.

To do that, of course, I need to be a member of a fitness center.

Penfold is a member at California Wow.   I used to be, but my membership recently expired.

So, I had it in my mind to go get a new membership ahead of Penfold’s return.

Cali-WOW is known to be struggling at the moment.  Paying them money has to be viewed with some suspicion, as they may go the way of Bear Sterns and disappear from this world without a trace and with little notice.

I’d been thinking I’d try to get a low-rate monthly-payment deal to minimize the financial risk.

In my diary I had set aside time on Thursday night to go to Ekkamai because I had a pass good for 15 days free.  I figured I’d use it, then talk to the sales people at the end of the month about a membership.

But on Thursday afternoon I got a call while I was working.  The girl on the phone was calling from California Wow at Sukhumvit 23.  Unlike the last girl who called me hoping to get me to sign a new membership, this girl had good English skills and a confident attitude.  She was ready to sign me up over the phone, but I told her I’d come to the gym at 9 p.m. to talk to her.

Cali-Wow has always been a place where your negotiating skills were at a premium.  The sales people had a lot of latitude and the price you paid was always a reflection of how tough you were.

Three years ago, when I was a Thailand newbie, I had purchased a three-year membership for 30,000 baht.  I’d spoken to a lot of friends before going in and at the time I felt like I’d gotten a decent deal.

Times have changed for Cali-Wow, and deals are on offer.

The deal that was offered to me was a Lifetime membership with access to all the CW centers in Thailand for a price of 11,000 baht.  (It was actually 10,999 but who’s counting?)

Given the reputed financial health of the company, the membership could have a pretty short life span.

I had no problem with the price, but I didn’t want to pay up front.

I tried to negotiate a payment plan.  No dice.   The only deal she would offer on payments was 12 month membership at 1,300 per month.

So, I took the deal.  Eleven thousand hard-earned baht for a lifetime membership.

A friend had warned me that they had stopped providing towel service — presumably a cost-saving measure.  I asked my sales lady (her name is Visa) if all the facilities and services were the same as my old membership.  She told me that only one thing had changed… the towel service.  She explained that I could bring my own towel, or I could use the CW towel service for a fee of 200 baht per month, or prepaid at 2,000 per year.

Anyway, I gave her the cash and filled out the paperwork.  To keep my ‘lifetime’ membership in force I need to pay a 100-baht renewal fee every year.  If I forget to pay it I guess my lifetime membership will lapse.  I’m guessing that this is the loophole that they will use to get out of the lifetime contracts if they survive the current financial crisis and come out the other side.

So I am again a member of California Wow.

Did I go to the gym today?  No.   And I’m not likely to.

I had to go to immigration near Sathorn Road today to renew my non-immigrant B visa (I’ll probably write a blog about that tomorrow).  When I was done, I had to go to my bank branch at Emporium Shopping Center to replace my lost ATM card.  Rather than take the train, I decided to walk.  I don’t know the exact distance, but it took about an hour and a quarter to make the trip.  I don’t much feel like making the effort to hit the gym this afternoon.

I may go on Saturday and Sunday.  I have two days off with no work, so I can get into the gym in the morning.  But whether I go or not, I am unlikely to do much in the way of real exercise until Penfold gets here in two weeks.  He and I already have a tentative appointment set for the day after he arrives. I’m not the type who enjoys working out alone — I always need a partner or trainer or I just go in, play around with the weights for a few minutes and then wander out again.

(Oddly, when I was in the middle of  typing the paragraph above I got a call on my mobile phone.  It was a personal trainer from CWow offering me two hours of free training.  Okay — I booked an appointment for Saturday morning.)

So there you go.  My weight is dropping… time to start focusing on fitness.  Narrow waist, broad shoulders and all of that.

Even though I have dropped 16 kilos (35 pounds) since August, I am still overweight.  It’s hard to imagine that I was carrying that much weight around all the time.  (Find something that weighs about that much and put it in a backpack.  Put the pack on and walk around for an hour and see how you feel.)

And I still need to lose another ten kilos or so before I won’t still be chubby.

So phase one gives way to phase two.  June 1, 2009 is my target for being able to say I’m fit again.  It was in June last year that I went trekking in the mountains of Chiang Mai only to realize that I wasn’t physically fit enough to do it… the first time in my life I’d been defeated when I wanted to do something.

Penfold and I have discussed going back to the same mountains in the first week of June this year to make the trip that overwhelmed me in 2008.

Seems like a good idea sitting here in my room.

I hope I still think so if we actually make the trip.