The fitness report is a little slimmer this week - two columns instead of three. This is either a clever typographical joke - as I get smaller, so does the space - or a reflection of the fact that I have less and less to say. I leave you to decide which.
If this was the London Marathon, I would be passing the Isle of Dogs. Now it becomes a slog and the reps become truly repetitious. I have just come from a one-hour "boxercise" class - a bit of boxing and lots of circuit training - where I was probably the least fit person in a group of 20. There is a lesson here: as you get fitter and look for new ways to exercise, you continually come across people who are even fitter than you. This could be inspiring or depressing; at present, I plump for the latter.
It is odd to be an interloper in this world of the fit: lithe people in lycra who inhabit mechanised subterranean caves and watch MTV (is there any gym in Britain tuned in to the BBC or ITV?) Training, the effort to keep up, takes over your life: each week I try to work out with Sam, my trainer, three times, run three times and do two boxercise classes. I am left with mountains of laundry and virtually no time to do anything else, yet it doesn't seem enough. I'm still bottom of the class.
I am also worried about the dehumanising effect of working out. I saw an overweight, disconsolate-looking man on the train the other evening drinking a little bottle of gin and tonic, and had an urge to remonstrate with him for this public display of weakness. In my quest for physical and mental perfection, for manifest purpose, I am becoming intolerant of the messiness and inconsequentiality of life. This may be how fascism begins.
Back in the gym, I am transformed (OK, showing moderate improvement). I can now run on the treadmill for 20 minutes without collapsing in a wheezing heap; do pull-ups on that infernal machine (a hang-over from the Spanish Inquisition?) that makes you lift half your weight; do press-ups for the first time in my life. Believe you can do it and you can. "Mind over matter", as Sam says ad nauseam (nausea sometimes being the operative word).
My back has been objecting, so I had a massage from Jo, head therapist at the health club. Most of the regulars have a weekly massage, which eases aches, strengthens muscles and leaves you feeling relaxed. Jo said my shoulders were knotted from sitting in front of a screen, but that regular massage could rectify the problem. Hence forth I may try to sneak in without Sam seeing me and head straight for the massage room.
Another benefit of my posh gym is that you get to see the in-house doctor, who, if you can bear to know the results, will subject you to a "biological terrain assessment". Dr Bannock puts samples of urine, blood and saliva into test tube-type containers which are connected to a laptop. The computer whirs and bleeps (I panic but Dr B says it always does this) and prints out a diagram of how your cells are performing - a kind of ordinance survey map for your biological terrain.
My results were mixed. Dr Bannock said I had a biological age of 33, which is encouraging since I am 42 (in Gymworld, clocks and calendars can be conquered, time can be tamed). But there were valleys as well as peaks: body too acidic; digestive system stressed (he says I eat too fast and don't eat enough fruit and veg); kidneys stressed (drink more water!); adrenal glands stressed (so I lack energy); circulatory system stressed. My body is having to work too hard to keep the show on the road: the terrain needs a little landscaping.
Dr Bannock has several key principles, which I offer here with no consultation fee:
• Eat like the French: take your time, digest it well, relax. Don't eat and drink at the same time.
• Graze rather than gorge.
• Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunchtime and a pauper in the evening.
• Don't just drink lots of water, drink good water: he suggests Volvic.
• Eat lots of fruit (especially first thing), veg, fibre, soluble oats, and other grains and seeds. Get protein from fish or white meat. Eat organic foods. Eat brown bread, rice and pasta, rather than white.
• With alcohol, worry more about frequency than quantity: the occasional blowout is OK; drinking every night is not. Red wine is better than white, and avoid rubbish.
• Drink herbal tea rather than tea and coffee where possible.
• Exercise frequently to keep the heart, muscles and bones in good order - use it or lose it!
• Stephen Moss is spending three months working out at Matt Roberts at One, 1 Aldwych, London WC2 (020-7300 0600).
