I can’t believe how easy it is to have an excuse to not go to the gym when you’re tired.  I was supposed to go workout on Wednesday but I didn’t.  Throughout the day, the idea of hitting the gym after work was a good idea, I was even looking forward to it.

When 5:30pm rolls around and I’m shutting down for the day, the idea of going to the gym suddenly became very unattractive.  The reasons for not going to the gym started to build up in my mind…

1. I’m tired
2. My left eye is irritated and dry
3. My contacts are dry
4. I can’t find my ipod headphones and arm strap, therefore no music
5. My gym bag is sitting out in the car in the freezing temperature
6. I have to walk 10 minutes to get to my car
7. I’m going to be sloppy because I haven’t been in for a month
8. Home is so comfortable
9. I really want to finish that book
10. I just want to eat dinner
11. Did I bring my socks?

As I contemplated all these questions while walking to my car, I was able to fend off each of them and “stay the course” on working out.  That is, until I got to my car and found out my gym bag (which I hadn’t opened for a month) didn’t have my athletic socks in there!  I couldn’t go work out wearing my black dress socks, that would just be plain dorky!  It was so easy to not go, I decided to not go within a few seconds of discovering that I didn’t have my socks.  I drove home, feeling relaxed and guilty at the same time.  When I got home, the first thing I did was put in a pair of fresh socks.

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I went to an after-Thanksgiving house party over the weekend. As I stood there eating some Turducken and drinking a bottle of Corona, a friend asked “Hey Billy, how’s that Beer Belly Blog going?” I looked down at my midsection and replied, “It’s getting bigger.” Yes my beer belly is getting bigger and I’ve been slacking off. Ever since I got back from my business trip in Vegas and my wife’s schedule change, we haven’t used our Lifetime Fitness membership that we pay $100 a month for. So enough excuses, I need to schedule my workouts. If I don’t schedule them, I’ll never hit the gym until my beer belly is bigger than any blogger’s belly.

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I have two different playlists on my ipod; hip-hop/rap and techno/dance. When I am lifting weights, I notice that the hip-hop playlist energizes me and helps my lifting because I feel more like a “badass gangsta”. But when I’m on the exercise bike, the gangster rap music doesn’t help at all, it seems to slow me down. That’s when I pump up my techno and dance playlist. Listening to this playlist makes me feel like a 10 year old with ADD high on caffeine; I can do my cardio exercise forever.

I find a lot of the songs on my playlist by listening to Pandora, a free streaming radio service that pick sout songs which are similar to each other. Pandora has hundreds of attributes for all the songs in their database and basically match up these attributes to a song that you pick. When songs are selected for you, you have the choice to tell them whether you like it or not. And the longer you listen to Pandora and guide them towards your preference, the more accurate it becomes in picking out tunes that you love.

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Since the temperature has finally decided to drop below 90 degrees, I went outside after work and played some basketball with an old high school buddy and his cousin.  Playing basketball in the summer is one of those things that I try to get into and just when I'm able to play full court at not get too winded, the summer's over and the Minnesota winter sets in.  Anyway, today was the first time this year that I played ball outside and it was incredibly, tough.  I felt like I was an old man, especially since the 15 year old cousin was running circles around us the entire day.  We played for a little over an hour and by the end of it I was sweating so much that it looked like I just took a shower.

So that's another reason to get in shape; so I can play full court basketball and feel like my legs are made of jelly.  Another reason I can think of why I want to get in shape is because we're having a marketing summit for our company at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas in early November.  They have an awesome pool there and I don't want to be like one of those guys who have been with the company for 15 years and wears a t-shirt with their swimsuit because they've got an office beer belly.  I want to be that young guy in the marketing group that hasn't developed the fatness, yet.

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It’s good to be back. My family and I, along with about 30 friends went to the Rainbow Resort in Waubun, MN (20 miles from where the Mississippi starts) for the Memorial Day weekend and did nothing but fish. I think I gained 5 pounds from eating a potluck every single night. It also didn’t help that the most strenuous physical activity I went through was fighting a 2 pound largemouth bass. So overall, got sunburned, ate a lot of fish, and did a lot of driving.  My beer belly is fighting back.

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