Playing Shows Is The Best Exercise

So here I am, just over a week since finishing up our UK tour and I’ve already gotten lazy and i’m going to have a ramble as we don’t have much to talk about right now and I miss being on stage already!

Over the nine days, with eight shows, seven being 45-60 minute long sets, I lost half a stone. I’ve no idea how many kilo’s that is as I’ve grown up in an odd environment where no one knows whether to use the metric or imperial system. That is a huge loss, and although some of it can be put down to unhealthy living on the road, most of it would be down to the fact that I don’t do half measures when I play a show. If I don’t leave the stage completely soaked through, then I’ve not played hard enough. I apologize to anyone who has ever come up to me immediately after we’ve played and hugged me or patted me on the back, I know, it’s gross.

The level of fitness required to sing, play guitar, dance and jump around on stage like we do is something I often forget when not gigging. Last year, we wrapped up our gigging schedule after Halloween as Kieran was leaving and we had to get Luke up to speed for the new year and I ended up letting myself go. By the time we played the Christmas show with Last Edition up in Leicester, I’d gone up to 14.8 stone. That’s alot for a 5 foot 10 dude.

I have a horrible relationship with food. I’ve got a terrible sweet tooth and like alot of people, I turn to sugary goodies when I’m feeling low. At the start of the year, after realizing how much weight i’d gained, I went on a diet and exercised alot more and got myself down to 12.4 stone, which is where I’ve been pretty much all year. After I got down to that, I did start slipping, and didn’t eat overly healthily all the time, but maintained my weight with occasional trips to the gym, a little bit of running and alot of gigs. From February to August we played a show almost every weekend. We rehearse every single week and often leave The Practice Rooms sweating too. We picked things up again early September and its been the same really throughout the last couple of months.

Now that we’re not going to be playing a show for quite a while, I’m going to try my best to stay as fit and healthy as possible. Part of the reason i’m blogging about this is because so far, since the last gig, and in truth, the last couple of months, I have been absolutely awful with what I’ve been eating. I’m hoping writing about it and keeping myself and anyone who’s interested updated, might help to keep me motivated. So if you follow me on Instagram, you might start seeing a few more fitness related posts popping up, and if you don’t see that, assume that i’m slacking and tell me to go for a run or something!

I’ll wrap up this ramble now. Won’t see you at a show of ours any time soon, but I will be at the New Town Kings/Popes/Call Me Malcolm show in London on the 23rd, so might see you there!

Thanks for reading!

Charlie

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