Losers writing history

Plus my new fitness programme in detail, animal sentience and cultural revolutions

The historical charge sheet against poor King Charles

It’s no longer just the winners that write history, as this week’s news stories show us, most vividly with the Guardian’s new campaign for establishment figures to atone for the sins of slavery. King Charles was under pressure after the Guardian revealed that King William III received shares in the Royal African Company in 1689, a slave-trading company owned by Edward Colston. 

It used to be that all we demanded of our monarchs was continuity. Now, through forensic historical research, people are demanding accountability. Poor King Charles will feel the weight of history on his shoulders if the trend continues!

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Back at the gym

Thank you to the people who asked for more details about my new fitness regime, and apologies if you don’t find the detail of interest. It’s impossible to find a writing middle ground on this one.

Movement and Sauna

At least 11,000 steps a day on average across a week. If I miss a day's target, I must make it up the next day. So far, so good.

Cycle at least once a week. I’m doing a lot more than this at the moment. Who needs buses and taxis when you have City bikes quite often in the nearest hedge, just waiting to be picked up?

A Lime Bike in every London border

Cross trainer: half an hour at a conversational pace followed by two 20-minute saunas interspaced with a 20-minute swim. I’m doing this once a week for now. If I can find more time, I will do it more often on recovery days after lifting.

I want to take many more saunas for the rest of my life. The research is compelling. Taking a sauna 4-7 times per week is associated with 40% lower all-cause mortality.

Weight loss/body recomposition

I’ve gone to the experts at Ultimate Performance Fitness. Nick Mitchell is probably the world’s expert in body recomposition. He runs the best personal training business in the country, and I have previously described my time at his gym as giving me “a body I didn’t deserve for a price I couldn’t afford!”

This time around, I know what to do. I feel I can’t afford not to go there. After caring for my stepfather last year, every routine was shot to pieces. I piled on weight and felt powerless to do anything about it. Now I’m back in control and doing what has to be done. I’m sacrificing to pay for it, but I’m not unhappy. 

Nick Mitchell’s ethos is a bit like Dave Brailsford’s in cycling. The cumulative impact of multiple changes and small actions is immense. With his programme, a whole series of measurements and interventions don’t let you escape the facts of your situation.

It’s not just my circumference around the belly button but arms, chest, hips, shoulders and neck that are measured. Each day I weigh myself, log my food and note my sleep length, mood and water intake. 

I am on a low-carb (below 50g a day), calorie-controlled diet to get the weight off moderately fast. It’s flipping hard work but worth it.

All of the above must be systematised and diarised before I enter a training session. I lift weights three times a week. I have blocked out 3x3 hour blocks to do this - an hour to walk to the gym, mentally prepare, lift weights, walk back for an hour and mentally recover. I do two sessions in the morning and one in the evening to work around my other commitments. 

My lifting programme has two alternating sequences, each with six exercises. The theory underpinning the programme is progressive overload, where I gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in my routine (NB, this is a very simplified explanation. There’s a more detailed explanation here.) Constantly challenging my body to adapt allows the musculoskeletal system to get stronger. 

I do three reps of each exercise, alternating between two exercises. This is to maximise the use of time.

I love nearly every exercise other than one - split squat. It’s very uncomfortable doing it, and I fight myself on the last reps. The best exercise to finish is the prowler. This mediaeval-like device just empties the tank and leaves you nothing to cling on to at the end of a session.

The worst feeling is finishing a session having forgotten to log it on my Apple watch. At the end of a session, I take a chocolate protein drink. By about twenty minutes before I complete the exercises my head is fuzzy and I start to crave the chocolate drink. It’s sometimes challenging to walk up the stairs to leave the gym but I LOVE it. I want to lift weights for the rest of my life.

Session One

A1 Cable Row

A2 Hack Squat

B1 Incline Press (Push)

B2 Glute Bridge (Hip Thrust)

C1 Lateral Raise

C2 Prowler

Session Two

A1 Split Squat

A2 Flat Bench Press (Push)

B1 Incline Press (Push) Smith machine incline 60%

B2 Lat Pulldown

C1 Sled

C2 Face Pull

After a month, I feel stronger, my weight is decreasing (though too slowly), and I’m more motivated. I’ll report back in a month to inform you how I progress.

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Listening

Culture revolutionises before politics even thinks about writing the manifesto. As the losers begin to understand their history, it is the Arts that often inform and stimulate. What Kind of Scotland? on BBC Sounds is a fascinating exploration of a play that catalysed deeper thinking in the Highland communities.

Fifty years ago, a radical theatrical event captured the nation’s political and social flux and stimulated a debate about devolution and independence. What part did the 7:84 theatre company’s play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil play in shaping attitudes in the decades since?

Watching

The End Game on BBC iPlayer is the inside account of the peace process in Northern Ireland. My son is the age I was when the IRA bombed the Brighton Conference. To see my kids’ faces watching this programme as they realise that terrorism was part of our daily lives has been fascinating. Peace is a fragile thing.

Reading

After reading Bees are Sentient in the Guardian, I bought An Immense World by Ed Young and What a Bee Knows by Stephen Buchmann. What if we discover creatures are sentient or more sentient than we previously understood? They are or will be the sentient losers of the Homo Sapien conquest of the planet.

World Happiness Summit

While thinking about all the spiders you should have been more generous to, there’s been a world happiness summit. They’ve set out a manifesto that UK political parties should consider including in their manifestos.