Rising heart rate

[mtbc]

My resting pulse used to be so fast that my doctor once ordered a broad blood panel to try to figure out what my problem was. Since I began frequent exercise my pulse dropped markedly: for well over a year my checks had it always below sixty beats per minute when at rest. In recent weeks multiple factors have conspired to cause me to often skip workouts. My current issue is basically an enthusiasm or willpower gap that I do not plan to discuss in this entry. The interesting point for me so far is that observations continue to fit the theory: after slacking off on exercise, my past two readings of my pulse already have it up in the sixties.

Being able to observe such a tangible effect of frequent exercise could be motivating. One problem for me with exercise is that the benefit seems so distant and uncertain. Apart from my having to do the actual workouts, being fitter makes little difference to my life from day to day and my real interests lie elsewhere. In this it is rather like my weight loss: people ask me, Don't you feel so much better after losing all that weight?, and I think, No, it just meant I had to buy a bunch more clothes. Fortunately, my diet is not so restricting that it takes anywhere near as much willpower as the exercise, which is just as well because slacking off soon brings the same measurable reversal.