Getting Fit At 50(+)

I have always been one to buck tradition, when I got married, I took my wife's surname, my four children have five letters in their first name (except one, sorry)and so on.

Last month I decided that I didnt want to wait until January 1st to kick start the changes I wanted to make in my life. Note: I dont like calling them "New Year Resolutions", in my eye just calling them that dooms them to failure.

I mean, why wait until a certain date to make life changes? I started my changes on December 1st, possibly the worst time of year to do this but hey.

So, what are these changes? 

Bit of a story first, for the past six or so month I have been watching what I eat in an effort to loose weight. I havnt been weighing my self every week in the hope of the scales telling me that I have shed a few ounces, in stead I have been using a belt to tell me that. 

If I have to make another hole in the belt which holds up my trousers then I have lost weight, after cutting three holes in a UK medium size belt, a few weeks ago I made the decision to buy a smaller belt. But here`s the twist to the story.. 

I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which means that there are certain things which I eat or drink that bloat me out to the point I look like I am in my 3rd trimester. 

I also have Ulcerative Colitis, which means that some foods that I eat or drink can cripple me to the point where I cant leave the house for days or even weeks on end (luckily I have that under control at the moment).

Moving on, on December 1st 2019 as I have already said I made a start on changing a few things in my life, I want to loose my belly fat, middle aged spread, muffin top, what ever you want to call it, I want to loose it.

I want to have a more toned body, eat healthy and just feel better about me.

Of course the big question is "why?"

First of all, no, I have not been brain washed or motivated by the media, you and I both know that most of the images we see of the body beautiful have been photo shopped within an inch of their lives, they are not real, I`m too old to fall for that kind of shenanigans any way.

I want to do it for me, I hate it when I look in the mirror or catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window, with my belly say there, it just looks horrible.

Second, I am 52 years old, 53 next month.. at the age I am now I want to show that you dont have to be some young gym bunny to be toned and in shape, on that note, I wont be going to any gym to do this for a couple of reasons.

I dont have the surplus money which I can justify spending on gym memberships, I want to use my own body weight in my exercises and finally, I dont need to go to a gym, I am the Jim (insert canned laughter here).

I have started a new YouTube channel so I can keep a record of my progress and as a diary, where I can give myself random updates of how I am going, if I ate that mars bar which is calling my name.

My inspiration in making this channel came from two people, two YouTubers, one who goes by the name of Crazy R0cky and Gary Vaynerchuck and his video "Document, Don`t Create". I want to document the changes and my thoughts as these changes are made, or not made.

When it comes to making my videos Im not going to stress about perfect lighting or my camera shaking a bit. I just want to document my journey.

I would love it if you joined me.. 

That Sound Hurts

I am in actual, physical pain right now. I havnt had an accident or anything like that, I am in pain because of the noise that is going on at the moment, not the amount of noise but its pitch.

I lost about 80% of the hearing in my left ear in spring of this year, no idea how or why but I have. The thing is, the pitch of some sounds can cause me actual physical pain, kids screaming is a good one, shouting is another.

When there is a lot of noise going on at the same time I get what I can only describe as an audio over load, as my good ear tries to pick out and prioritise what I need to hear over the background hustle and bustle, sometimes my right ear just overloads and throws everything at me which basically deafens me, I am hearing almost nothing except white noise in my left ear and I am hearing every sound available in my other.

Anyway, we have workmen round at the moment removing the cavity wall insulation so we can get new (better) put in, its part of some kind of government scheme which we have qualified for, replacement insulation and a new boiler..

As you can imagine, there is lots of noise, there is a pump going, lots of drilling and banging and then there is Gizmo, our little Jack Russel who is barking, constantly barking, for the last hour.

Thing is, little Gizmo`s bark is one of those sounds which has a pitch that hurts, especially when he rolls out half a dozen barks, one after the other... Ouch..

I`m hoping that the workmen manage to get all the insulation out and the new back in today, better still, this morning, otherwise they say that they will have to come back tomorrow to put the new stuff in, which means, chances are that they will be here with their noise when I finish work.

On top of that, deep down I know that I am stressing out a bit about the damage that they will do to the new lawn I planted earlier this year. I am rather proud of it, but it is still in its infancy so is easily damaged.

Hang on, they have turned their pump down, they might be finished.

That`s it for this one, I`m going to make coffee and get some pain killers into me.

Keep Britain British.

How often have you heard people complaining about refugees and people from other countries settling in England?

How often have you read a comment or heard someone saying "Keep Britain British"!, "Keep the foreigners out of England, England is for the English"!?

You have probably heard a lot more of this of late, more so over the last few years. I know I have.

The problem is that, what most people fail to realise is that the "British" people are of mixed race, each and every one of us.. We are an island of mutts, there is not a single 100% pure British person in this country, hell even the Queen of England is German.

The average resident of the UK is, at best 60.5% European a large percentage of this being Irish, and around 36% Anglo Saxon Source  (the Saxons hail from Northern Germany, The Netherlands and Denmark) with the remaining 3.5% or there about hailing from where ever people can hail from.

As a British person, you have an almost global gene pool, so when I hear people commenting about Keeping Britain British.. ehem.. but we are, we are a global country, so when people from other countries settle in England, they, and I know this is going to hit those of you with Neo Nazi beliefs the hardest, but people from other countries, are not muddying our gene pool, they are not diluting this great nation and making it "Less British", chances are their ancestors came here centuries ago and added to the "Average" UK residents DNA.

Pyjama Mamma`s

What is this skulduggery?! Two posts in less than a week? Someone has hacked into iJim`s blog! Quick someone call who ever deals with this.

Nah, everything is ok, no one has hacked my blog, I had the need, the want to have a short rant.

Pyjama Mamma`s, people, usually female (sorry) who spend their days in their PJ`s.. Dont get me wrong, PJ days are OK, spending the day in front of the TV in Your pyjamas is fine, I have no problems with that.

I do however have problems with people who "just nip out to the shop" in their jammies, but whats worse than that is the people who take a trip into town and do a full shop in their pyjamas. If you are one of these people, someone who does a full shop around town in your night ware I have two words for you.

1: Why?!

2: Dignity (Get some)!!

So, why the mini rant? I can hear you think. Well boys, girls and those of you of mixed or no gender, I have had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about people just nipping to the shop in their pyjamas for a while now, it all came to a head yesterday, in case you didn't know, I work in a shop, a large store in town.

Yesterday, at about 4 in the afternoon two young lady's came into the shop I work in to get a few bits in, no problem, except.. they were both still in their pyjamas.

I'm actually shaking my head as I write this bit. Not because these two "lady's" decided to not bother putting clothes on but because the pyjamas they were wearing were dirty and by dirty I mean huge stains on them that had obviously been there for longer than a day.

Come on, is it so much work to throw on a pair of jeans and some shoes? Show some class..

10 Things You Didn`t know About Me..

The internet loves lists and I thought it would be nice if I told you a little bit more about me by way of getting to know each other better

And what better way to do it than in the age old YouTube 10 things about me format.

Starting at number 1

1: When it comes to horror movies I admit it, I am very anal, somewhat if a lore Nazi.
I hate it when movie writers and producers change a character's lore and history just so that it fits in with their movie idea.
Example, vampires burn, explode and die if they are exposed to sunlight, no they can not have this magical ring passed down through the ages that allows then to walk in day light and no, they do not sparkle a bit.
They explode and die. In gaming circles thus is called God modding and is frowned on, what's more I don't like it at all, it's just lazy.

2: The first horror movie to scare the crap out of me, well OK there were 2 of them.
They were The Thing and Night of the Lepus

3. Almost all my dreams are what most people would call bad dreams or nightmares, the majority of them are set in a post apocalyptic world over run by all kinds of strange beasts.

4. I wanted to make a podcast over 10 years ago, the idea was I would add audio to my blog posts so that people could listen to my posts instead of reading them.
Unfortunately I found YouTube first and started vlogging

5. I have spent nearly all of my life looking for the ultimate horror movie that would scare me to the point of not being able to sleep again just like Night of the Lepus

6. Ok, in the late 1990’s I was diagnosed with depression and what is now known as Generalised anxiety disorder. I am managing to keep both under control now that I am spending less time around technology and spending more time out doors

7. Now this one might come as a bit of a surprise to some of you but my all time favourite movie isn't a horror it's not even slightly apocalyptic.
My favourite movie is The original Wuthering heights

8. I don't own a since Apple product, and the I in iJim was actually inspired by the love of zombie movies and is short for infected, so my full name would be infected Jim or iJim for short.

9. In the world of zombie tv shows the leaders have ro be The Walking Dead and ZNation.
I like ZNation better.
Why? Well for one, whether it is just me and the ZNation fan base is much smaller but the cast and crew of ZNation are a lot more a give on social media, answering questions and interacting with their fans, he'll I even have a few of the ZNation cast and crew following me on Twitter.

10. If you having guessed all ready I like post apocalyptic horror movies and zombie movies, I don't like the gore for the sake if gore movies, There has to be a story line preferably one which doesn't involve 5 or more teenagers on a spring break who go off to their uncles cabins in the woods, you know what I mean.

I think the exception to this would have to be Evil Dead which deservedly has earned the term of a  it classic.

So there you have it, 10 things about me. Now that you know me a little bit better how about you tell me something about you..

Go on, I dare you.