Keep young and beautiful

i have to state that i'm not tending towards anorexia or bulemia. i will also admit that i recognise the pressure that is on women to be thin and beautiful. i am also aware, and applaud, the ability for people to feel good in the body they have no matter what its shape or size.

However, I remember when I was young and slim, looked and felt good and got invited here there and everywhere and had a lot of fun as a result. I want those days again. There were energized, they were bouncy, they were fun.

i was hung inverted, suspended by my ankles without boot supports; i used to look good in almost anything. Now, the only reason i look good in a corset is because of what a corset does to the waist!

It was perhaps thanks to cancer that a wonderful man was catupulted to worldwide fame. It is also because of cancer that he was eventually taken from us. Professor Randy Pausch taught, in his time management lectures, that walls are put in our way not necessarily to stop us from doing something, but to prove to us how much we want something. Well, i want my past back ... i want to be fit ... i want to look good in photos again ... i want that energy back ... i want my life back. So i'm going to tackle that wall head on ... and; damn it; i'm going to win. Selfish? You bet.

Health, however, is a fine line to tread between the two and in order to be able to work towards a healthy body, the first thing that is needed is a healthy mind. There is no substitute for good, solid research and a chat with a GP, fitness and dietary experts who have recognised qualifications and many years of experience and reputation under their belts ... this is, after all, your health you're dealing with.

The first thing is to learn about your own body and what is an ideal. This comes down to body function, how efficiently your heart is working, how much fat is in your body and what your ideal weight should be going by your body type, your height and various other things about your own body.

I don't believe in treating my body like a temple, but I do ascribe to the body being a complex chemical factory and needing to be looked after. I won't, however, let my mind and my soul suffer ... it has to be a balance of the three.

For my own body, i'm targetting 70 killos. i started this at 95 and i'm dropping little by little.

Getting off what goes in is only half the story. The first half is controlling what actually goes in to the body in the first place, and this is where the dietician comes in. Most of us are programmed to wanting fast food which is high in sugar and various fats. It's cheap to produce, cheap to buy, easy to sling in the microwave and stuff down our throats. Getting the guts to take on these behaviours and go through the withdrawl symptoms is no joke, but it has to be done. After a while, the cravings do go and, if you can control when you have the sweets as a treat; they taste all the more special when you DO have them!

Some techniques are not to do it all at once, but bit by bit. There is nothing that says as part of a healthy diet, that bad foods have to be cut out completely. There are some easy choices that can be made which kick start the process. One is switching to brown bread. Personally, brown bread just tastes like cardboard so I go for wholemeal which has nuts in it.

I examined my diet ... toast in the morning, bread in my sandwiches and potatoes, pasta or rice for an evening meal. Well, that had to change; that is a lot of carbohydrates. Changing to healthy cerial for most of my mornings breakfasts, and I cut down the quantity in general of what I'm eating. Substituting sweet potato for standard potato and bits like this can also help.

Working it off doesn't mean becoming a fitness junkie and it also doesn't mean having to bulk up and build muscle either. It does take some determination, though.

Regular exercise, three times a week, can take a couple of months before your body begins to actually get itself in to gear for getting fit; it can take this time before you even start to see improvement. Joining a gym can seem expensive, especially in a recession. Personally, i offset some of the cost with the fact that i'm enjoying a nice warm shower three mornings a week at their expense, and i also have access to a steam room, sauna, jacqusi and more, as part of my membership.

i'm currently running 9kmh for 10 minutes; that's equivalent to 0.93 miles ... i'm actually getting close to running a ten minute mile!!! How's that for motivation! It's taken me three months of treadmill work to get to that speed and i estimate being up to the necessary 10kmh in another month. It is an achievable target.

Motivation, however, is the crux of the whole deal. You've got to want to do it. It is by pushing yourself that you go further and develop.

The people who use the weights to bulk up, lift heavy weights but short repetitions (reps) so they'll lift a heavy weight, say 5 times, take a short breather and then do it again. If you want to build strength but not bulk, then you lift smaller weights but higher reps. That also helps motivation as when i come on to a weight machine that someone has been running at 70 kilos and i take it down to 25, then it doesn't dent my motivation because i know i'm doing a different training routine to them.

When a weight becomes comfortable so that you don't feel like you are working, then it is time to up the repetitions, or time to up the weight.

One technique that i was taught is that once you've done your reps, lower the weight one notch and then try and do as many reps as you can manage. When you're doing that comfortably as well, then it is time to up the weight a notch.

But what is the benefit of spending the money on a gym and going to the hassle of changing the diet? Well, like i said ... in my case i want to be beautiful ... but not in the standard, slim supermodel way of being beautiful. i very rarely wear make up, for example. It is one of the things that running the real bondage web site has taught me...

There is a massive gap between what is healthy and what society is telling people is healthy. There is a massive gap between what society tells us is beautiful and what is natures beauty.

i'll never be a supermodel, i'll never actually achieve what i used to be like twenty years ago; but i want my heart to be healthy, i want to be able to enjoy the odd steak out, the odd gorgealicious desert without feeling guilty and having a handle on my overall health.

It is also helping mentally as well. Coming out of the gym i am certainly feeling the emotional benefits of this work. It is like an aura of a job well done. Yes, it is hard work and it is a degree of self discipline to keep doing it ... but that wall which seems to stretch up to the heavens is getting smaller by a few bricks every day and i know that, eventually, i'll beat it.