Pack or Power?

The English Ministry is going to have a Sushi night on Sunday 6th September after church. It should be fun as we have not had Sushi Night for a couple of years now. I look forward to it. Had originally hoped to visit Yo! Sushi at Silverburn Shopping Centre with someone on Monday to take advantage of the Blue Monday £2.20 plate special offer. Or to take a brother for birthday dinner on Tuesday with 40% off total food bill offer. Neither came to light for various reasons. Today is Wednesday. It is currently 4:30pm and I have half an hour before I head home for dinner, rest and then head out to Church Centre for the first EM prayer meeting which starts at 7:30pm. It is billed as 7:30pm-8pm, but I don't think a prayer meeting can start and finish on time, at least not within 30mins. People will inevitably arrive late. And after time spent settling down and "warming up" by asking each other how things are, what we want to pray for etc, it'll be half an hour. Nonetheless, I am going expecting to spend the night there, expecting to deliver our praise and requests to God as part of the English Ministry and Chinese Church as a whole. Not to forget some other personal prayer items: relationships, exams etc.

For the past three weeks in August, I have been working out to a different regime. I really wanted to focus on losing body fat and building a six pack. Instead of running long periods of up to 45 minutes on teh treadmill at 10km/h, I do High Intensity Interval Training running short bursts between walking 6km/h and sprinting 17-18km/h. The H.I.I.T. can only be maintained for 20 minutes out of my 30 minutes run and afterwards I am totally drenched with sweat and with heart pumping like crazy. This style of running not only burns more body fat overall, but trains the heart to handle intensity. Marathon or long distance runners' heart rate will stabilise after a while running. However with H.I.I.T. the heart beat range increases and the heart muscle is strenghtened as it goes through such intensity which is a good thing. After stretching my leg muscles I would then proceed to work on my abdominals - lower abs, middle abs and upper abs (yes there are different areas within the stomach you can work on!) and work till it burns. After that I move on to my free weights training. All the hard work has indeed paid off. And now when I look myself in the mirror I can see the packs have indeed come through. They are much more evident than ever and I am proud of my achievements. However, this has come at a price.

Whilst this regime, along with my changed eating habits, has helped me achieve my current goals (less fat and more packs) it has also rid me of some muscle mass. And I find myself looking skinner than before. Before I started this program, I was a bit bulkier. I was broader at the shoulders and my arms were bigger too. T-shirts were tight too. However, I don't feel or look that right now. In fact, I feel I've sacrificed my main goal for working out, for something of the short term, shall I say. I mean, really. I don't really need a six-pack, or do I need bigger arms or look bulkier. But if I were to choose either or, I would choose to be bulkier. Why? Because, to me, being bigger gives me the feel of being a man. I don't want to be a scrawny person who cannot put up a fight. I don't want to appear to be a weakling. I mean, I am a man after all. And men, from the very beginning, were hunters! How can we hunt if we feel weak? There are advantages to exercising core muscles, and that is having a stronger core which helps with standing and sitting posture and actions like lifting things etc. However, having a six pack does not have any other uses besides it looking nice, esp on magazine covers. But honestly speaking, I am not wanting to be on the cover of Men's Health magazine, so there isn't really a need for me to have a six pack. I've wanted to get one, I've got one and you know what, it's not all it's hyped up to be. Maybe because I am a Christian man, I do not venture out topless at beach, showing off my bod. I don't pose online to show people what I have. I am not promiscuous show off my body whilst I bed women etc. So what other "use" does a sick pack have? None, really. None that I can think of. A sense of achievement if anything. Because it isn't easy to get it really. Lots of hard work has to be put in. Determination to work out. Willpower to avoid junk and "bad foods" that would set up back two paces for every step you take going forward. I've been there. I've done that. And I've got it. Now what?

Now... I want to go back to being what I am good at. What I am known for. Being Big G. This name originally developed at the time Gordon Cheung started working with us at Chinese church. Before he came, there was only one Gordon at young adults. Then there were two. So how can you decipher between the two Gordon's during conversation? How can you call out to one Gordon without the other one turning around too? Call one Big G and the other... well, nobody calls a paster Little G, but there you have it, I was Big G from then on. I was big not because of working out or intentional body shaping. I was big due to my height and my waistline which was developed through careless eating and little exercising. I was fat. I didn't know it. I didn't admit it. I even comforted myself by saying I was "big-boned". But honestly, I was fat. Anyway, 2003 I turned that around and started exercising LOTS and eating much less. The result: I started looking better. I felt better in clothes. I achieved what I thought was unachievable - weight loss!

Since then I've been really into nutrition, into exercising and studying what food can do for and against the body and the same with exercising. I started looking into body-building and learnt lots more and developed a passion for developing my body into another level. For a while I bulked up and got quite muscular. But today, I seem to have lost it. Not lost it all, but lost what I orginally had. I want to pick up from where I left off now. Forget the six-pack and go for strength and power!!

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