Dom Pannell's Blog

Dom gets fit (about time!)

Another day, another complaint that I’m not keeping this blog up to date.

OK, I have a solution that should kill two birds with one stone (if you know me, you’ll recognise this as a concept very close to my heart).

SOLUTION: I’ll post my progress on my new fitness regime!

Yes, I can see you’re excited already (ahem!), but hey! If I commit to writing up how I’m getting on, it should give me an added incentive to keep my commitment to the twelve week programme that I’ve just begun. Inspired by my buddy Paul Makepeace (run a Google Image search on “Dominic Pannell” and you’ll find Paul - actually I've done it for you: - he’s the less good-looking one with the open mouth standing next to me!) I’ve decided to take up the BodyForLife™ challenge and see if I can’t knock myself into some sort of shape for once. Before you ask, I have no ambition to develop the body of a superhero (although we’ll see as things progress!).

I won’t bore you with details of the weights I’m pushing… not yet anyway! Suffice it to say that I’m pretty unfit and there are blokes in the local gym who are half the size of me who need to triple the load on any machine they use after me in order for it to have any effect on them at all.

The course splits workouts into three: upper body and lower body weight-training interspersed with cardio-vascular (CV) exercise, i.e. Day 1 is upper body, Day 2 CV, Day 3 lower body, Day 4 CV and so on for twelve weeks. Coupled with the workouts, there is a fairly rigid eating regime that involves eating six times a day – that’s right, 6 times a day. That’s the upside. The slight downside is that a few things such as solid fats are barred, so my cheese consumption is going to drop right down. Booze is laden with carbohydrates, so I have to watch that too (as my closest friends know, I try to lay off drinking for 2-3 straight months a year, so that shouldn’t be such a problem).

I’m allowed one day off to do what I want and not exercise at all… this is a clever strategy as I’m bound to binge on carbohydrates and booze, so I’ll feel crap and hence be eager to get back into the exercise routine again for another six sessions.

So far I’ve only done three days: starting with lower body weights on Sunday (I know that I’m likely to need a day off on Friday, otherwise I’d have started on Monday) so I can’t feel much of a difference… I’m better than four weeks ago when I actually joined the gym, though; I did some light exercise and overstrained my arms so much I could hardly move them for the next week.

Oh well, wish me luck and all that.

/Dom

Swedish quickie...

I couldn't resist this. I spent a splendid evening at a Cass Entrepreneurs Network event (http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/alumni/sigs/entrepreneurs/index.html) watching Mike Southon giving a seminar on sales (buy his new book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844138194/thebeermatent-21/026-1742794-5580459).

Anyway, after the event, which was excellent - I've always said that Mike gives far more than he's paid for and once again he proved this to be true - Bsen Madden and I popped down to St Paul's Tavern. One of the barmaids in PT happens to be a Swede, so I ordered the second round in Swedish; we chatted for quite a while and she was convinced that I am Swedish! When I said I wasn't she announced that I had a slight accent and must be Norwegian! We had a couple of chats over the rest of the evening and she concluded that I speak "bloody good Swedish" ;-)

As I said, I couldn't resist...

I love speaking languages.