Had a brief spell of chest pain over the weekend. Okay, nothing to be concerned about. Or is it? Is that normal for a twenty-nine year old?
Admittedly my diet is cholesterol on toast, washed down with coffee and beer… Oh and did I mention cake? My wife is a patissiere. Compound that with the fact that although I’ve been lifting a bit, some body-weight stuff too (sit ups, push-ups, squats), and walking the dog, my heart rate probably never gets to more than about 40% of theoretical max…
So I’ve been jumping on the exercise bike every day *waits for applause*.
Yes, for four minutes and twenty seconds each day *applause stumbles to a halt*.
I’ve come across this android app called Caynax HIIT, and I’m using the routine called Tabata, where it beeps at me for twenty seconds (to tell me to pedal so fast that my withered little heart explodes into a paste all over the inside of my chest cavity) and then beeps differently for ten seconds (to tell me to pedal slow and let my heart re-assemble wolverine style).
What good exercising apps do you guys and gals use?
As for my writing, I’ve been writing some almost montage kind of stuff. We must all know that the heroes and heroines in our stories work out. They probably don’t aim for six packs, but they’re definitely trying to develop power, endurance, and strengthen around all the joints they’ve probably injured… I want to use this as a time to develop the characters, both personality and back-story (because if I can’t somehow get Eye of the Tiger onto the page, there’d better be some other kind of pay-off for the reader).
I think that’s a good take-home message: if you’re putting something in the story it had better either build character, or advance the plot.
What are your thoughts on exercise in fiction? Ever seen it done well?
Best regards,
D.R.Sylvester
D.R.SYLVESTER FICTION 
Glad to see you’re back on the bike 😉 I have no real hints for exercise in fiction, although I do know that I hate it when a writer stuffs up the technical terms or has no real idea what they’re talking about for sports/hobbies/occupations/locations etc.
Ahhhh! “Back on the bike” would have been a much better title for this post… nevermind.
Yeah, that makes sense about the inaccuracies, I will have to hope that my test readers can pick up on the worst offences for me 😉
I would definitely talk to a doctor about the chest pain if it continues or becomes severe. It might just be heartburn, which often feels like chest pain. They have medicine for that over the counter. Proton pump inhibitors (Prevacid) if it is pretty frequent and Histamine 2 blockers (Zantac) if it’s only occasional. Tums are a good short term antidote.
Thank you 🙂
I will go ask a Dr. if it becomes a regular thing, for sure. Felt very different to heartburn, but could have just been due to the amount of coffee I’d been imbibing at the time…
We have Quickeze for heartburn here in Oz, which is pretty much just starburst chewie lollies filled with calcium carbonate (sounds gross, but they’re awesome)
Ah okay
I hope it doesn’t happen again. We don’t have anything like Quickeze here in America. Shame, sounds better tasting than Tums, which taste like chalk. Awesome that your wife makes pastries 🙂 I’m a huge sweet tooth. I would bake more often but my husband gains weight when I do XD He’s Japanese so he wasn’t raised around the ultra sweet baked goods we have in America. So he’s not so good at portion control, lol. American pastries and sweets tend to be very dense and really sweet. Not sure if you guys have apple fritters over there? It’s my favorite kind of donut but my husband and I split it because it’s huge and at least 1000 calories. But it’s so good * -*
Hahaha sounds amazing. My wife did her training at Le Cordon Bleu, so it’s all Opera Gateau and Coffee Eclairs and Macarons. I have a jar of Florentines sitting next to me on my desk!
I am lucky to still have a fairly quick metabolism, so I’m still technically in the healthy weight range, and lifting weights does seem to keep fat down pretty well.
My wife is Korean, so she’s used to healthy eating. She just gives all the cake to me…
Oh, that’s pretty cool that your wife is Korean 🙂 My husband is a Japanese citizen, but we met in America so that’s where we are living, for now. We’ve talked about living in Japan in the future, especially after we have kids because he wants them to be billingual. He goes back to Japan once a year to visit his family, and I come along sometimes. My husband cooks Japanese food on occasion, and it’s really good. I tried but I’m much better at making American food, lol. One of the problems is that I don’t know how a Japanese dish is supposed to taste, so I don’t know what it’s missing or what changes need to be made. My husband is average weight, but Japanese people are pretty thin overall, so I guess he holds himself to that standard. He started working out earlier this year so he could be more muscular. I’m very careful not to criticize anyone about their weight because I am a former anorexic, and I know how damaging it can be :$ My husband is all about healthy eating. I’m pretty thin, and I love junk food, so he gets on my case for it sometimes XD Very cool that your wife makes gourmet pastries. You are a lucky man 😉
Ah okay. Yeah we met in Scandinavia, both on holidays, so that was quite unusual I guess. We’d love to go work and live overseas too, but we will have to see how much of a pay cut that would be before we decide how long we’d go for.
My wife will talk to our little girl in Korean, and me mostly in English, so hopefully bilingualism will result 😉
Love Japanese food, and the beer’s not bad either 🙂