Séamas O'Reilly: I've reached the age of random pains — and no sympathy

Seamas O'Reilly. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

Recently I’ve been on a health kick. 

The phrase is quite apposite because doing the things necessary to become healthier feels like being kicked in the face and I hate it. 

For the past week, I’ve cut bread, butter, booze, sugar, and oils from my diet and returned to my intermittent, and near-universally loathed, pattern of running 5K every day. 

Worse, I’ve signed up for a personal trainer — the cheapest, closest one I could find — so that, on top of everything else, I can pay for someone to shout at me while I lift large things. 

It’s sore and boring and stupid but, unfortunately, this was a long time coming.

I am a creature of habit, and my habits are not always good for me. 

I take joy in cooking and — since my wife is vegetarian and I can’t be arsed subbing in meat for my own meals — my diet is almost entirely vegetarian, and freshly made. 

It’s just that I love eating and cooking so much that I eat and cook a LOT.

Having been raised in a family of 11, I have never unlearned the practice of making gigantic, prison-sized portions of food any time I try. 

Worse, I eat like I’m in direct competition with 10 other people, shoving food into my face with a jealous alacrity that suggests I fear each meal might be my last. 

I am incapable of declining free food, rarely pass a biscuit, and drink wine most evenings. My exercise routine is also not great. 

Outside of running, I do no deliberate exercise at all, and I frequently don’t even do the running because I hate it.

The reason I persist at all is that it’s free, and it works, both in terms of keeping me reasonably fit and, more importantly for me these days, warding away the constant spectre of back pain and muscle stiffness that accompanies life as a sedentary, desk-bound writer. 

It’s also, however, a habit that’s easily abandoned once the faintest whiff of inconvenience intrudes.

A sore knee, too many deadlines, a YouTube documentary about penguins I simply need to watch — there is no limit to the excuses I’ve given myself, after which the habit withers and dies for weeks or months on end. 

Then comes shame and, occasionally, social discomfort. As when my local shopkeeper saw me panting past his premises one time, and soon began asking me “how’s the running getting on?” every time I came in.

Tired of constantly muttering “um, I haven’t in a while”, I simply started walking five minutes further any time I need some milk or a loaf of bread, to avoid this indignity. 

Many can say that laziness has damaged their health, but how many can say it’s affecting small businesses in their area?

I last took a punt on improving my health five years ago this week. That time, it was for a newspaper article in the UK. 

My editors went the whole nine yards; a full medical examination, a cringingly extreme diet, three weekly sessions with a trainer who happened to be a British Olympian, and before and after shoots with a professional photographer to show my transformation “from dad bod to rad bod”.

My employers paid in money, and I paid in pain, sweat, and two broadsheet pages of self-deprecating copy delivered on time and within my word count.

It was, I must admit, a resounding success. I lost two stone, gained the faintest whisper of some abs, and generated an eminently readable lifestyle piece. 

If you’re wondering why I don’t repeat the trick, and get my doting and discerning editors at the Irish Examiner to pick up the bill for my self-improvement, well, my reasons are entirely selfish. 

I may have thought I was unfit and out-of-shape in 2019 but I now realise this is relative. At that time, I was undoubtedly pudgier than I’d ever been, but I was also clearly willing to have a topless photo of myself published in a national newspaper. 

To be plain, I do not feel I could bear that five even pudgier years later, not least since that before shot from 2019 is broadly approximate to my target this time round.

In 2024, I am nearing, if not obsolescence, then at the very least the point at which my body is defaulting to system errors and natural decay. 

I’ve reached that age where random parts of me just start giving off pain for little to no reason, and — worse — garnering me little to no sympathy.

I remember, in the fine flush of youth, reporting symptoms to doctors and receiving impassioned and thoughtful looks, followed by a thorough examination. 

Back then, it was as if medical professionals tossed and turned in their sleep thinking about my lower back. 

Now, when parts of me start hurting, even breaking down completely, anyone I tell just shrugs like I’ve handed them a rusted Gameboy I found in a septic tank, furiously asking why it’s not working any more.

If I’m honest, all such motivations about health are only part of the story. I tell people that I want to look after myself a bit now that my small children are a wee bit older and I have a bit more time to do so. 

I speak of worries caused by a family history of diabetes and bowel complaints.

All of those are good reasons, and true ones. It’s just that none of them motivate me quite as much as the fact that every single time I have seen a photograph of myself in the past year, I’ve uttered a crisp little “oh fuck” under my breath.

So I shall persist, for physical and aesthetical improvement as best I can over these slowly darkening months ahead. 

Wish me Godspeed and good health, but please do not ask me how the running’s getting on. 

There’s no telling whether I’ll still be doing any of this within a week, and I’d hate to have to cut you out of my life forever.