The Obligatory First Hundred Days Post . . .

No, not that trumped up excuse for writing utterly vapid puff pieces about President Obama, the hundred days I'm talking about are the past hundred days of your immodest blog host having a gym membership. I signed up at the Magic Johnson 24 Hour Fitness at Slauson and LaCienega the night before the inaugural, so my new (fitness) regime coincides with the President's new (socialist) regime.

So far, my experience with 24 Hour Fitness has been positive. Sure, at peak times it's hard to get on a machine, sure the larger Santa Monica location can be a bit of a pig sty before the overnight cleaning crew gets to work, and yes, way too many men who have no business being completely comfortable with their nudity, are way too comfortable strolling around the locker with their dangly bits, dangling.

But with all that said, I've managed to lose a reasonable amount of weight (from 205 to 190 lbs, ten pounds were in the first three weeks, only five pounds since, but that's OK), a decent amount of inches (less 1 inch chest, less 3 inches waist, less a half inch from my hips), and joint pains that plagued me when I first started a more regular fitness routine (right knee, right hip) have disappeared. I can even use the kick drum pedal in Rock Band with my right leg for hours at a time without swelling (which wasn't the case before). Whatever was wrong with my knee, was largely due to lack of consistent use, rather than any intrinsic damage in there, judging from these results. My cardio health seems better, though I've never really had that checked out before, so I don't have a baseline for comparison, but it seems like I can push myself quite a bit harder for longer stretches without my heart jumping through my chest.

I'm not going nightly like I did in the beginning, and I've set up my garage so I can use a Bosu Ball and jump rope for some quick workouts without driving to the gym (it seems a bit odd to drive 1.5 miles to then workout on a treadmill for 3.2 miles, but on the treadmill you can keep a steady pace, zone out a bit, listen to an audiobook, while on the street, there's traffic to negotiate, so that's my justification, and I'm sticking to it), but I think I've managed to make daily (or at least semi-daily) physical activity a regular part of my life again, so that's a good thing.

Just like President Obama, this was only a start, this is the first hundred days of many future hundred days, and I will be equally nebulous about how I will accomplish my goals for those days, or what even those goals are . . .