The Power Of Exercise
On not dying young...
I woke up bathed in sweat.
Looking to my side I checked to see if I'd woken my companion.
She remained sound asleep. I got up for the third time that week and stared at my sleep-deprived face in the bathroom mirror.
Weeks later I went to my doctors for a blood test.
Shortly after I got a call to come in and discuss the results with a nurse.
This couldn't be good.
I met an older nurse who wasted no time in laying out the problem.
I had become so fat that I was pre-diabetic. My genes (South East Asian) meant I was 5 times more likely to get Diabetes.
That nurse saved my life by delivering a message I knew, but hadn't act on for some years.
Eat better, move more, or you're going to die sooner.
I was 110 kg (17 stone) with a 46-inch waist at 5 ft 9 inches tall.
Now, damn the BMI calculations. (Everyone's obese, according to that.) However, I believed I was "muscly"; in reality, I was fat.
I had to start getting in shape.
Because I feared diabetes, more than I feared exercise.
I'd seen the effect it had on an ex-girlfriend's Dad.
He could be a total rageaholic when his blood sugar dropped. He'd use his diabetes as an excuse to be a dickhead at times.
He injected himself multiple times a day. He used Lucozade to raise his blood sugar. His obesity was debilitating. It affected them daily.
I felt like he was waiting to die.
And I didn't want that.
That was almost 8 years ago now and I've never really looked back.
I lost 30 kg.
Put on muscle.
Gave up smoking.
Went from barely being able to run a few hundred meters, to easily running 5K's and 10K's.
But more than that I understand how closely linked my mental health is to exercise.
When I don't exercise I start to feel depressed, slow and like life seems to have little meaning.
When my friends are struggling to find motivation, I will often ask them how their food and exercise is.
A quick way to feel shit is to not exercise and eat crap.
And it's so easy to do with Netflix, and Disney+ and so many things online to melt your mind.
But for me exercising every day has always been the tonic I need to feel better in myself.