My current condition (April 2022)
I was waiting until I got a way to take pictures to write this portion, but I seriously can't be bothered to use my much precious, recently regained free time to go buy a webcam. That's an even greater exercise in futility when you consider the fact that I have no "before" pics, only a vague description of having turned into an atrophied mess with belly fat.
"Pics or it didn't happen" will have to wait. This is a much required update, specially considering it's been over a year since I last published in the self-improvement section.
As mentioned before, I had been keeping up since late 2019/early 2020 until around March 2021.
However, even then, I wasn't completing the established weekly minimum requirements at least 60% of the time.
I had just woken up. I was lying in bed enjoying a moment of laziness. I yawned and instinctively I stretched my whole body. Since I don't have the space to stretch my arms above my body without hitting a wall, I kept them close to the sides of my head. I noticed both palms were flat on the mattress and, as the yawning continued, I was raising myself off the mattress, feet planted on it, hips lifting up my waist, like the typical hip raise I had been doing in my leg-based workouts. I really wanted to stretch my arms, so I kept up with the movement of my hips by pressing my hands against the mattress and projecting my thorax forward. I opened my eyes and was looking at the wall behind my bed upside-down. Some pressure in my upper back that I never knew I had began lifting off me. I was doing the bridge!
A wave of relaxation washed over my body, incorporating itself with newfound relief, happiness and a touch of pride, converging into a weird but welcomed wave of pleasure.
YES! YES!
MY STRENGTH IS RETURNING!
I AM COMING BACK!
聞こえなかったか、スレナガ
「人生」はオマエの名を呼び出した
In March, while riding my bike, I suffered a nasty fall that left my finger with a strange pain. I interrupted piano practice until it got better. It never did until very recently.
But that was far from being the worst issue of 2021.
Disaster. 50 hour work weeks for really good money. Something had to give, and it was my self-improvement.
Those months were absolutely dreadful but they're behind me now.
I stopped exercising for a little more than a month and, once I thought I was used to my schedule, I did a bit of exercise here and there, but the unreasonably intense and widespread DOMS I'd get from it quickly made me retreat to doing little more than ride my bike a couple of times and perform the bridge so my body wouldn't "forget" how to do it again. I was already miserable enough working so many hours, I didn't need my body to be sore all over while I was at it. I managed to keep my BMI, but the firmness I had acquired for my body was gone, replaced by bumps on my sides - love handles. How difficult is it for a regular human being to keep muscle mass? Can it be lost this easily? This is something I have always struggled with and it drives me up the wall. It's like I'm not allowed to build muscle. It infuriates me.
Japanese studying also suffered, but not as much.
