Sleepless in the Second City

I have a little more free time now, so I'm endeavoring to actually start writing things in this damned blog. That being said, I previously was held back by two things: time and inspiration; I say inspiration, what I actually mean is that I was running out of interesting things to say (this is, of course, assuming I had something interesting to say in the first place). I'm not claiming to have suddenly been struck by the muse of blogging, again. Rather, I'm going to brute force ideas from my memory and try my best to make them read, at least somewhat, stimulating.

[Suggested background music for this post: "I wish I was skinny" by The Boo Radleys]

"Wishin’ I was skinny
Wishin’ that the whole world knew my name
Wishin’ I was thrillin’..."

There was a point in time when I weighed two and a half stone heavier than I do now - for a short time, it was three. I was a chubby kid. I grew up as a chubby kid, into a chubby teen. As a chubby teen, I debuted as a pro 'rassler. I remained chubby for sometime after that. Then, apparently overnight, I dropped to a single digit body fat percentage, and lost, somewhere in the region of, six inches, from my waist. How? Very unhealthily.

Now, I never thought this would need stating, but I have never taken steroids, growth hormone, fat burners, or any other substance. Some people will've just read that and said "of course you've not, you skinny pillock". But I've been accused enough times now, to know that there is a percentage of people who don't believe me, too.

The boy on the left is more-to-love-version of Jack Gallagher; the boy on the right is the Jack Gallagher that people're more familiar with, these days.

The picture on the left is where this story begins. That kneepadded, badly beardly, vision, was captured around the time I was dealing with insomnia. When that picture was taken, I'd come off an entire hour of sleep, from the night before; the day before that, I'd probably slept around three hours - maximum. Now, I've been quite fortunate, in that, I don't have to deal with bad things very often, in life. However, when something serious turns up, my body's reaction is to not switch off. There came a time when I could not sleep properly. I tried everything, with the exception of sleeping medication; I could not sleep more than five hours, for many months on end. My reaction? "If it won't turn off, I'll make it crash". And I began to exercise like a madman.

I would be awake around sunrise, and immediately go for a thirty, to forty minute run; I'd eat; I'd go to the gym; I'd do an hour to an hour and a half at the gym; I'd eat again; I'd have a few hours of university or wrestling, depending on the day, and then I'd be back in the gym for another session; I'd go home, and eat; then I'd do bodyweight exercises until I couldn't. This was my daily schedule, for many months (yes, when possible, I worked seven days a week, three to four times a day). Over those months, I would begin to actively seek out new routines, and exercise advice, in an attempt to find better, and faster ways to exhaust myself. This lead me to rediscovering my childhood hero worship of Bruce Lee. I read up on how he developed exercise routines, which lead me to see how he evolved his diet to match the needs of his body. I changed the way I ate, and began thinking about why I was doing certain exercises, rather than mindless following a template, that I can't even remember how I came across, now.

Through all this, I never looked up the importance of resting, because I couldn't rest; or, I didn't think I could. People I was training with remarked how much I was changing, physically, and I felt good. I'd like to say that the spirit was willing, and that the body was weak, but the truth was, the spirit was stubborn. The moment of realisation came when I was training at the Snake Pit and I was being tossed around - easily. If you laid a hand on my head or neck, and applied a little strength, then I would drop, and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. My movement was slow and my reaction time was lagging by about a week. I was shaking, walking off the mat, at the end of the session.

The exercising had become a suicide attempt. I was trying so hard to put myself to sleep, I almost completely burnt myself out. I began training less. I began resting more. I eased up on my dieting. I didn't suddenly gain all the weight again and loose all the muscle. I relaxed.

I'd like to believe I'm still a hard worker, just a much smarter one, now. Despite not killing myself with training, I am, without a doubt, stronger, and faster, and the most energised, that I have ever been in my life. What's more, it's maintainable. I'm still toying with things, and changing routines, and switching food choices, because there's always something new to be done, or old, to be revisited. Only now, there's sleep to be had, too.