The Brain's G Spot

It amazes me what floats through my brain on a daily basis. I was at the gym earlier, second day of physical abuse involving sweat, jagged breaths, pushing, pulling and most importantly, pain. At the risk of sounding completely off my rocker, I am going to say that I am a fan of pain. I can just imagine all the eyebrows being raised at that statement but let me state for the record that I am not into weird things that involve whips, chains and clamps. Uh...no thank you really. I have enough trouble dealing with a fellow human as it is. Forget the additional accessories, please.

So whilst I sat at the overhead press machine wondering why on earth I was subjecting my body to this amount of torture (there is no other word for it really), I decided to make a list of reasons as to why I keep on insisting on doing it over and over again. It's like a bad habit. Oh, but I like!

1. Vanity
Well, that was a no-brainer. Of course I bloody go to the gym so that I can err... look good without my clothes on. (Not that anyone's looking.) But ultimately that's one of the biggest reasons why people work out. You want to look good in your clothes and out of them. A nice, trim, toned body is THAT much more appealing than a flabby, floppy one that quivers like jelly. (Okay, I know some people are into the jelly but let's assume that they are a minority for the time being.) So there's reason number one. I want to look in the mirror and go "Hmmm...", and not look in the mirror and go, "Oh ewww...".

2. Boredom
When you're trying to kill time, there's only so many movies you can watch, that many snacks you can pig out on, that much coffee you can drink and that many fags you can smoke. What else do people do when they're bored? Stare at their pet goldfish? Play games on their smartphones? Have sex? Well, all of those are possible options but I don't have any pet goldfish and I don't really like to play games on my iPhone and there's no one to have sex with so I opt to travel all the way to the gym and spend a couple of hours acting like Conan the Barbarian's sister. Voila.

3. The After Effects
I'm not referring to nice, tight little butt or a ripped upper body. Sorry, those things take weeks, if not months of disciplined effort. What I'm talking about is the soreness or pain that usually comes several hours or the day after a solid workout. Yeah, welcome to my world of weirdness. I like that 'I just got beaten up' feeling (though I never have been beaten up). I look forward to it. I enjoy struggling to walk up a flight of stairs knowing full well that I can only blame all the hamstring curls I've done. I like having trouble pulling a t-shirt over my head because I've been going crazy with the pull-ups and push-ups. If I may borrow a line from Enrique No-More-Mole Iglesias, it would be, "BABY I LIKE IT!"

Am I crazy? Oh yes, for sure. In sustained quantities though. :P

In the 1960s, there was a mad psychiatrist, Robert Heath who suddenly went on a bender and decided to try and cure depression, intractable pain, schizophrenia, suicidal feelings, addictions and even homosexuality by drowning them out with pleasure induced by implanting an electrode into his patients' brains.

Heath's experiments were based on findings from a decade earlier that administering a mild electric shock to the equivalent brain area in rats - the "reward centre" - would send the animals into a state that looked like ecstasy. The rats would work at complex tasks over and over for the promise of another shock. Heath wondered whether his human subjects would react in the same way - and they did. When they were given a shock they said they felt good. And when handed the electrode's controls, they just kept on pressing, again and again, sometimes a thousand times in succession.

- Helen Phillips, New Scientist, 2003.

Well, that explains some things but not everything I suppose. Over the year researchers have painstakingly diagrammed the inside of the human brain and found that there is a chemical transmitter that passes messages around. This chemical transmitter is the very familiar dopamine. It has been found that dopamine release can be linked to every natural and unnatural pleasure experienced by humans. Whether you're feeling the high of heroin, the wham-bam of orgasm, the satisfaction of a rich meal or the thrill of winning money, you can pretty much blame dopamine for every good feeling you have. The 'reward centre' from which dopamine is released the human brain's G-spot. It's the ooooh yes, please yes, keep going, uh huh, yes, yes, yes, oh yes, oh god, oh this feels soooo good spot. Only, it's lodged several centimeters below your skull.

Brain people also suggest that pleasure dictates the type of decisions we make - solving math problems, forming grammatical phrases, making ethical choices or even gambling. Apparently, all decisions are made to maximise pleasure. This does not mean that we are all slaves to instant gratification. (I would hope so, or else people would be jumping on any human they met on the street and found remotely attractive.) However, this ability to override instant gratification is a calculated one that is deemed to maximise pleasure as only by deferring instant gratification do we gain the chance of long-term rewards.

Unfortunately for the hedonists and people like me, it seems that pleasure, by definition cannot be long-lasting. It must switch off so that we can carry on with other tasks. This, would essentially explain my need to constantly return to the gym and spend hours torturing myself so that I can enjoy the feeling of exhaustion and soreness that comes later. So you see, there's a reasonable explanation for my madness. I'll just blame it on the G-spot.

Body Issues

The next person who comes to me whining about their weight/body image issues is going to get a nice, resounding smack from yours truly.

Seriously people, there's a whole load of other shit you can worry about instead of obsessing about the number showing on your weighing scale. Mind you, it's not just the women who are whinging. The men are too. Case in point Spooner who is in Hong Kong this week for work complaining over text messages that he is growing as fat as a pig because all he's doing is eating rich food, sitting in his chair the whole day and not exercising. This, coming from a man who usually hits the gym everyday and plays football twice a week on top of that is honestly, a bit much because as far as I can tell, he doesn't have any excess weight anywhere!

If you're wondering who the chick in the picture is, it's Ximena Navarrete, the current Miss Mexico and also the winner of Miss Universe 2010. She's 21 and stands at a pretty normal 1.74 metres. (I say normal because there is a large part of the world that is taller than the average Singaporean making us, the subnormal ones.) If there is one person in the world who has the right to be going mental over her weight or body shape, it's her. The rest of us should learn to be a little more realistic with our megalomaniacal hang-ups.

Before you start moaning about your legs are not long enough, your tummy is causing the buttons on your jeans to pop out like missiles and your hips are wider than the moon, please register a very simple fact in your head - your body type is genetically determined. So just because you're not so small and can't fit into a size 24 pair of skinny jeans, that fact alone does not make you overweight or obese or even (the dreaded F-word), fat. The truth is, the shape of your body is determined by several factors. Genetics is the first one. Lifestyle is the second biggest factor. If you insist on eating good food, not exercising and basically slobbing around all the time, then do not be surprised if you pile on the pounds. But nevermind lifestyle. Let's deal with the horrible G word. Genetics. Though I would very much like to tell you to go scream at your parents for passing on their thunder thighs and narrow shoulders to you, it would end up being moot. So let's deal with this with a few more ounces of intelligence and approach this with a more scientific perspective.

What's your body type? An apple, a pear, a H? Identifying what kind of body you have could help you deal with your body image issues and even help you change your exercise regime or buy clothes that suit you better. So here we go...

The Apple



The apples amongst us generally have larger upper bodies (chest and stomach), with smaller arms and legs. If you have a thick waist, full breasts/chest, a wide torso and upper back, then you have a typical apple-shaped body. Men predominantly have this shape but women seem to be prone to develop this body shape later in life.

People with this body type should focus on aerobic training in order to lose overall body fat. High intensity cardio activities like jogging and stair-climbing help to lose fat all over while helping with definition in the lower half of the body. Cable training helps to strengthen your back and chest. Avoid wearing clothes that highlight your upper body width. Tube dresses and tight wife-beater tops don't flatter you so leave them alone.

The Pear



We all love Beyonce because she's bootylicious. Congratulations to all my pear-shaped friends because you're bootylicious too. :)

Pear-shaped bodies have small upper torso and wider hips and thighs. Your bodies tend to naturally store fat in your lower half so your exercise regime should concentrate on toning these specific areas. Ideally, you should spend about 75 percent of your time exercising your lower half and the remaining 25 percent on your upper body. Cycling, leg lifts and squats are some of your best friends. To balance out your top half, concentrate on shoulder presses and push-ups.

If you're insecure about your wider lower body, avoid tight outfits. If you think you can rock it, then by all means go ahead.

The Hourglass



Ahhhh Scarlett. Go on, drool. Hourglass shapes or people who are known to have the 8-frame are usually the envy of most. However, they tend to put on weight on both upper and lower halves quite easily. Their saving grace comes in the form of having a narrow waist that balances out their shoulders and hips which are usually of equal proportions.

To maintain the balance, hourglass-shaped folks should undertake an exercise regime that concentrates on all areas equally. You should be focusing on both cardio and resistance exercises like stationary biking, jogging, jumping rope, swimming, bicep curls, the shoulder press, and squats.

Oh and wear what you like, because you'll probably get away with it.

The H



Hello H. I don't know whether this body type is a bane or boon. I fall into this category. Large shoulders, large waist and long limbs make us look a little grass-hopper like.

H-type bodies should focus on keeping the upper body trim or else risk looking seriously stocky. Running on an incline helps keep the bulk down and to even out the lower half, concentrate on leg extensions and squats so that you don't end up with stick legs.

As far as clothes go, we tend to look better in shirts and clothing that requires 'hanging'. Jackets and longer tops help to even out the heaviness of the shoulders and the length of the torso. I have also come to realize that women with H-shaped bodies tend to look damn good in boy-cut jeans for some reason. :)

The Ruler



Every girl wants to be a ruler. We all want to eat as much as want, drink as much as want, not lift a finger and still look like a rake. Needless to say, it just doesn't work that way. Alas, there are a few out there who are born with ruler-shaped bodies and blessed with insane metabolic rates that don't allow them to put on much weight. The flipside to this is the fact that people with this body type generally struggle to put on muscle mass. So if you're looking to get a toned, nicely ripped look, it's going to be a bit of a battle.

Ruler-shaped folks should concentrate less on cardio and more on resistance training. This includes bench presses, squats, lat pull downs and hamstring curls. Resistance exercise helps create definition and believe me, a little bit of definition is always nice to see unless it's your life's ambition to resemble a piece of pasta.

What to wear? Avoid body-hugging, skin-tight outfits because they just make you look skinny. You're lucky enough to be able to wear all the frills and ribbons and layers you want so please, milk that opportunity.

The Inverted Triangle or V



The inverted triangle or V frame is quite a rare body type. It's considerably bigger on top when compared to the lower half. People with this body shape usually have shoulders measuring two to three inches more than their hips. The classic example of this is a swimmer's body. This is the ideal body shape for men and those with this frame should concentrate on bringing the lower body up to speed with the top half. Resistance training concentrating on the glutes, thighs and calves are your priority. Otherwise you'll end up risking looking like a giant box balanced on two stilts.

Please don't run out and get a boob job and PLEASE avoid wearing skinny jeans under pain of death.

Well I've educated you on the different body types that genetics has played a part in determining and what you can do to emphasize the good bits and how to deal with the not-so-good bits too. The onus is now on you to either get into a proper exercise regime or change your entire wardrobe. And if after all of this, you still insist on moaning about your body, then please call/text/email/skype me and I will be most happy to oblige and smack you across your head.

Til next time, bye! :)

Bum Off The Floor

And so I went to visit the relationship manager at the gym last week. I've been feeling terribly guilty over the last month or so because of the lack of exercise and the grotesque over-consumption of good food and excessive amounts of alcohol. Alas, I love my beer and the only problem with it is that every blasted calorie lodges itself in my middle and around my hips.

So I went to the gym to sort out the membership details and also to spur my arse into getting some exercise. As it turned out, I had been watching YouTube videos on TRX training and was in a state of endless fascination that can only be induced by a giant nylon rubber-band.

For those of you who have no clue what I'm on about, this is what TRX is.



The TRX was invented by a former navy seal who basically developed a piece of exercise equipment that allowed him and his fellow seals to work out in the middle of a desert whilst battling with the enemy using the facilities they had around them i.e., the nearest tree or boulder. Apparently you can grow really fat if you just sit around and wait for the enemy to come and kill your ass so the best way to be prepared is to always be fighting fit. And you can do just that with a rubber-band.

And so I got really excited when the relationship manager at the gym told me that they now have personalized TRX training and even group sessions! (Yes, I quite enjoy the idea of a roomful of sweaty people suspended from a ceiling, battling their beer guts as they crunch themselves to oblivion.)I managed to wrangle a freebie and I am scheduled to have a free one-on-one session with a trainer tomorrow morning at 7am. The few people I have spoken to have all vouched for the fact that the TRX is a very effective exercise tool. In other words, I'm going to be one very sore monkey after tomorrow, but hey, whoever said a tight butt and a flat stomach comes easy? (Yes, I do understand the irony of having a pseudonym like Jellybutt. I came up with that moniker to remind myself never to go down that path. I do not advocate jiggling.)

Hopefully the session tomorrow will serve as sufficient inspiration to get butt back into shape. I checked this morning and it looked kinda lopsided.

*munches on a chocolate chip cookie*

To fitness and tight butts. Amen.