March Already!?

I've been out tonight, and I'm pleasantly drunk now. But both of these incidents are exclusive of each other! I bumped into an old friend this afternoon, adn we arranged a meeting this evening at the hotel she was staying in. Leaving late for the meeting, I decide to drive in. Driving in means driving home, of course, which means two cokes, two coffees and a sparkling water (in a hotel in the centre, that's a total of about two thousand złoty). I got home at about ten, and had a bottle of sparkling wine with the wife, while we watched Twin Peaks -it's getting to the good bit, too, with Agent Cooper finding the one-armed man and David Lynch doing what David Lynch does so well. I was in teh office at around half-eight this morning, which meant I had a fourteen hour day. This meant teh wine went straight to my head, and I've decided to make the best of it, and have a couple of beers that have been in the fridge for the last week. Tomorrow I'll write a few lines and let you know how I feel then! G'night!

I'll Never Fall in Love Again

For some reason, my daughter and I have started to play this silly game where I sing I'll Never Fall in Love Again, the Burt Bacharach song, and she pretends to be bored by me singing this song non-stop -at least I think she's pretending.

I'm sure you all know the song* -it's about someone who is complaining that they fall in love, and always end up being hurt, but that they'll never fall in love again "at least, until tomorrow". The thing about love, it seems, is that although it could be said that we have negative experiences of every love affair which ends, we still look forward to the next time, hoping that this will be the definitive one -the perfect couple. There is no activity which matches falling in love for its infective sense of optimism. except, it seems, for the reorganisation of the Polish National Health System!

I have been in this country for around fifteen years, and in this time, the National Health System (NFZ) has undergone at least two complete overhauls (one of them involved a computer system costing a nine-figure sum which didn't work), and the most recent change has just the fact that instability can be worse than inefficiency. Following elections in October last year, the newly re-elected government decided to put a new minister in charge of health, and then completely rewrite the list of medicines and treatments covered by the national health system, with a deadline of January 1st.

A new formula was mentioned, but not clarified, which meant that a certain percentage of the cost of the medicine would be refunded by the NFZ, but this varied from patient to patient, and even from medicine to medicine used by the same patient. As usual, to make sure that the pressure is evenly spread, the fact was emphasised that pharmacists who honoured prescriptions which were no longer covered at that rate would be held liable, and fined. The pharmacists have taken two of the traditional favourite approaches to showing disagreement, with some refusing to take any NFZ-sponsored prescriptions, and a large number of them going to Warsaw to make noise and block traffic in front of Parliament.

As for me, I'll probably continue to go to the doctor privately. I say continue, but I've been four times in the last ten years, and nothing seems to be wrong with me generally, so at the moment I don't predict a large cost in medicines and pills. This may be down to my new healthy lifestyle (another benefit!)

Anyway, now, whenever I hear about the NFZ crisis, I'll hear Dionne Warwick in the background, which isn't a bad thing!

*If you don't know the song, you really should get to know it! Here's Dionne Warwick with the definitive version. Burt Bacharach is a genius.

As the Optimist said when Falling from the Skyscraper...

...so far, so good!

For a change, I'm not talking about going to the gym, or eating healthily (although I could be!), but just 2012 in general.

I'm sure it's a combination of everything, and I sound stupid saying this, but it seems that you feel better if you eat healthier food, and sleep enough, and get some exercise!

Right, I'd better go and do some work now -the only thing about going to the gym is that I spend the first hour in the office playing catch-up. To be fair, I'd probably take longer to get up to speed if I wasn't after the gym!

The Slippery Slope Continues...

I can now officially say that, as far as 2012 is concerned, I regularly go to the gym. Today, I was there for the second time this week, and I even worked out!

15 minutes cycling (just made 6km), and then on to the stomach-killers.

I only did the old aerobics at the end for five minutes (I hope I'm not getting bored with the whole fitness thing!)

Off to work then, and had a quick look around for the green M (didn't find it, but I did find a pen, a paper clip and a usb cable)

For lunch, I decided against vegetable risotto -I was sure we were having risotto for dinner- and chose the stuffed chicken leg. With chips. The next time at the gym I'll have to add five minutes to the cycling. At the beginning obviously.

As this blog seems to be just about gym and food, I'll also say that for Christmas I got a copy of "Reeling in the Decades", a series that shows news clips from Irish TV, accompanied by music.

I've done up to 1984 so far. I'll describe it more when I watch it again, but I'll just say that every time you see Phil Lynott (after he left Thin Lizzy), you'd just want to give him a hug.

Recommended song: Phil Lynott: Old Town

The disappearing M

This morning, I had to leave the house earlier, and I had a real struggle getting up before 7. So far, I've been good going to bed early, so my body might just be fatigued from adjusting to normal sleep rhythm. Another result of my healthier lifestyle is that because I eat regularly, I feel hungry when I don't eat on time. I missed breakfast this morning, but another interesting effect of more sleep was that, although I had no coffee, I wasn't yawning and blinking through the meeting (this eating regularly and sleeping more lark has its benefits!). After the meeting, I dropped into a shop to get something to eat, and ended up making my first mistake of 2012. I got a bag of M&M's (chocolate, in the brown wrapper), and when I got back to the office, I made a cup of coffee and locked the door.

I was in the middle of this sinful indulgence when someone knocked on the door. In my hurry to hide the evidence, I quickly pushed the M&Ms under my computer keyboard, and a green one (a green M? A green M&M? What's the singular form?) fell out and dropped onto the floor. After I was left alone again, I spent ten minutes looking for it (I'd figured it had been too long on the floor to eat, but I had to dispose of the evidence, didn't I?), before giving up. Tomorrow I'll have another look before giving up. If I can't find it when I'm lookign for it, others will hardly find it when they're not even aware of the existence of a green M(&M) in the same room. I hope. Murphy's law states otherwise.

Ah well, 20 past eleven already. Off to bed so!

Hangover Hell

Yesterday being Monday, and the start of my new healthier living, I went to bed at 11 -I'm guessing I was asleep at 11:03. That's no surprise, considering yesterday was my first time in a gym for about four years. So today, my muscles were going through a hangover to beat the band.

I should have planned the trip to the gym better, so I would still be able to move my arms in ways that would allow me to make coffee. Of course, I could still make coffee, but the groans and moans that accompanied almost every movement have led my colleagues in the office to think I get really excited making coffee.

Continuing my better life, I'm looking for something good to read. Not that I've had time to read anything, but just in case.

Off to bed at eleven for the second night in a row now, and I still don't miss any of the rubbish I used to watch until midnight or one am. Tomorrow I have an early meeting, so I've an excuse for not going to the gym again until Thursday morning. We'll see if I can do it.

Let's Get Physical!

I am far from the first person in the world to decide that the new year would mark the arrival of a new, better person. This blog is to be an example of this. Another example is my new healthier living policy.

I have decided to increase the number of visits to the gym from zero to once or twice a week. I think the trick here is to stay away from stupid, do or die ultimatums. If I say that I will go to the gym three times a week, I'm setting myself up for failure. But if I say that I'm going to go to the gym every week, there's a strong(er) chance I will do it.

So today, after I dropped the eldest off to school, I went to the local Aqua-park, which also has a gym with over 45 different machines designed to make specific parts of your body hurt.

As I got changed, I noticed that I was the youngest man in the changing room by about 25 years. A brief moment of fear that I was intruding on a private group was quickly replaced by a relaxed feeling of confidence that at least I would not be the worst in the gym. This feeling was short-lived, however, when I suddenly imagined that I might be the worst in a group of sixty-year olds

Remembering the basics from the scouts, or secondary school PE, or something, I did my 15 minutes of aerobic exercise, to get the blood flowing, and made the cycling machine my weapon of choice. After three minutes of level two at 76rpm, it really is hard to believe that three is not half of fifteen, but I trusted my eyes, and forced them to focus, to see the clock turn to fifteen.

Looking around to find the (other) old men, I wandered over casually, trying to act casual, to see what kind of exercises I could do next (while trying really hard not to look like the kind of man who follows other men around at the gym). I settled on a series of machines designed to get rid of stomach muscles by tearing them out of you.

Anyway, I also decided that my upper body needs to be more toned (ha! as opposed to the rest of my soft, pale, flabby body), so I forced myself to use a machine that firms and tones your pecs, bicept and triceps, or in my case, makes some teenagers smirk at you as you take the pin out of the 25kg mark and place it into the 10kg mark.

I finished the workout with 10 minutes of a 15 minute session on the rowing machine. I could do no more.

All in all, I was pleased with the first time. We'll see how I feel later in the week.

The betterment of Keith Byrne continues.