- I’m more determined than earlier this month to build a freelancing business. Michelle Goodman’s My So-Called Freelance Life, Marci Alboher’s Shifting Careers blog archives, and other sources have been most inspirational in deciding to give this a go. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to find the work in my areas of expertise that companies have eliminated from their full-time payrolls, but which they may suddenly realize they still need someone to do. Don’t believe me? That’s how I got my first gig:
- I was contacted by my former boss during the first full week of January to gauge my interest in updating and maintaining the magazine’s website, and preparing an email newsletter from the Web content, as I’d done while employed, for an hourly rate. Why, yes, I was. Might be a semi-steady gig: Last time they got rid of a permanent in-house person who did the Web updates, they used a freelancer for 8 months until I was hired. Even if they do hire someone out in Central City to perform my editorial tasks, they probably won't take the Web work back instantly. The top dog in my old group seems to be of the mindset that if it's getting done well without babysitting and all it costs is a check each month, let it roll. I'm happy to conform to this preference.
- To build my writing habit and skill, I have raised the game on my blog-posting 2007 Lenten experiment and have been writing 1,000 words or more per day. No specific focus or purpose, just as much free-writing as it takes to reach a grand each morning. If I’m to write professionally, I need to be able to reach the right words as soon as I can and hit those topic and deadline targets. Might as well establish the discipline when my days have a bit of time in them. But I’m acting to change that.
- As I’d done while full time, I’ve created work-done and work-to-do lists. Along with my blotter calendar — which I bought shortly after New Year’s because during that post-illness chunk of December, I’d lost track of days — it’s helped me maintain structure. I deliberately loaded my first to-do list with as many brainstormed ideas as I could, just to see how well I could perform these tasks on a self-directed schedule. Midweek, I received the first bit of freelance work from my last job, so quite a number of them were juked forward to this week. No matter, the ideas are still good. The main goal, and habit, I’m looking to reach here is to create measurable metrics for the effort I put into finding work. It’s the exact same principle the career counseling I’d gotten after the first layoff: Tally all of your contacts each week by mode and effectiveness to see what’s working. No more gold in a particular stream? Find a new spot to pan. (Heh — I’ve been watching Deadwood as a nightly snack after my labors are done. Great right from the first episode. Floridly profane and obscene. Awesome.)
- Less related to work, but more vital: Despite today’s ugly number (Monday after dinner with the parents and football snacking is always a bit of a retracement), I’ve continued to progress along the 30 x 40 exercise and fat-loss plan. I spent 3 days last week below 220, bottoming out at 218.5 (from 228 last birthday and 231.5 on 1/1/08) and not because of a damn fever this time. I rebuilt the muscle I’d lost while sick, and my nutrition has been strong. I need to lose about a pound a week now to keep pace (vs. .57/week when I began). However, even with no job and a snarl with the NJ unemployment people on the release of funds, I haven’t had the temptation to eat crap due to stress as I did while at the last job. And of course there’s no birthday or holiday food lying three steps away from my cube, waiting for me to succumb in a fit of frustration with the bullshit raining down. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but the rewards are evident when I can run up a flight of stairs, get out of my car without using a manual support at all, or even leap out of bed without staggering around hunched over. As with the freelance jobs and improving my writing, diligence is its own reward. (As is not repeating last March’s expedition to the fucking hospital.)
- I’m weighing the decision to create a new blog or website under my real name from which to market myself and post relevant writing on the topic. I’m competent at Blogger, but I’ve never bought a domain name, fiddled with WordPress plug-ins (I’m leaning toward that platform), and the like. There are surely guides for all of this sort of thing. If I get this rolling, I’ll let you all know where to go. Not sure if I’d continue here, but the sadness of moving from this blog to the next will be tempered into fondness should the new one succeed in helping my business and soul both grow.
- Last, I came to a conclusion last Friday, which I shared with my pal Amy, a longtime freelance editor, that despite only having one client, and not having received any unemployment relief yet, and facing a huge task of building a business from scratch during a recession, I was nonetheless happier sitting there, laboring away on my first billable hours, than I’d been back at the last company in months. There may indeed be a full-time job where I can get this same sense of satisfaction. While I have the chance, while I have a couple of safety nets and reserves in the middle of this shitty economy to get me through, I ought to take one bold shot at building something that preserves that feeling I described to Amy and makes it part of my every working day.
Showing posts with label fitness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fitness. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Freelancing: Setting Structure and My First Job
IT’S BEEN JUST OVER ONE MONTH since my layoff, and lest my silence lead one to think I’d joined the French Foreign Legion, here’s an update on how I’ve fared since the beginning of the year:
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Mid-Thanksgiving Weekend Update (not with Dennis Miller)
SO FAR, I'M HALFWAY THROUGH the four days of 0ur American binge-weekend of commerce and calories — and occasional thankfulness — and I've only indulged in half of that equation. The vast bulk of Thursday was spent over at my parents' house: helping Mom with food prep, burrowing with my Dad through dips and a cheese ball while watching two subpar football games, and tapping out an abortive blog post that ended up in the scraps pile with the other pieces of half-baked TextEdit compost. Also, I did laundry. The most effective multitasking I've done all week. The weather was cool, but not painfully so, and the skies clear and favorable to both travelers and Macy's parade-goers alike. Weather's not usually a hitch for a Thanksgiving journey to my parents'; they live one town away, a distance I could walk if pressed. And ought to have, considering the amount of full-fat dairy products alone that my Dad and I packed away.
I drifted home happy to have shared another Turkey Day with my parents, and crashed early under the sedative influence of a lovingly prepared meal. I didn't even get the chance to read. Just out like a light. I'd like to say that not having to go into work the next day accelerated my drop into the lotus-perfumed arms of Morpheus, but that's a whole other post or series of same.
I made a weak try at rising early to hit the gym on Friday morning. Wasn't gonna happen. I was still paying a sleep debt from a very late Wednesday night at the poker game, and I knew if I didn't pay it off then, I'd drag my sleep–wake cycle far off kilter over the rest of the weekend, and firmly screw myself Monday morning. Why fight nature? I set the clock a couple of hours forward, wound up awakening about 15 minutes before it anyway, and got my ass in gear.
After a couple of hours' cleaning in preparation for the Christmas party I'll host a week from today, I mixed up a protein-berry smoothie and rolled over to the gym shortly before noon. I'd come to the conclusion that hitting the gym first thing in the morning, without any sort of meal beforehand, was the reason why I'd been losing steam short of a session's end. I'd also noticed that the smoothie, when consumed after a workout, tended to make me sleepy. I blame this on the blizzard of simple carbs in the smoothie: nearly a cup of frozen berries, a banana, and a quarter-cup of 100% cranberry juice, to say nothing of what might be in the two scoops of protein powder (actually, I have this number: 6 g carbs).
This was particularly the case after a gym visit in which I'd just been on a treadmill or elliptical trainer for a half-hour, with no major muscle-tissue teardown. I'd be getting dressed for work after downing this and feel like getting back into bed. And I'd read a study recently that declared immediate post-workout nutrition to be counterproductive for all except competitive athletes, powerlifters, and other such folks who routinely burn 2,000 calories per gym trip. Not me by a longshot.
So I decided to compromise and bring the smoothie with me to drink during a workout. This has been working much better, and I don't get to work thinking I need a Costanza drawer in my desk for a nap. This is what I did yesterday, and I teetered into the gym, bag and keys (with membership tag) in one hand, big plastic cup brimming with purple sludge in the other, hoping the path to the squat rack was clear.
Usually I lift weights first thing in the morning, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as close to the opening of the facility as I can get.
Now, this is more or less the type of squat rack we have at the gym:
Rather than use this for movements like squats, overhead shoulder presses, deadlifts, and other compound exercises during which you might want a nice, sturdy piece of steel onto which to drop the weight on a final, exhausting set, some speciments will use the heavy-duty bar (the Olympic bar that you find on these things alone weighs 45 lb.) to do curls. Without any other weight. While folks itching to squat grit their teeth and wait for this jerkass to be done. Simplest solution, as with many sources of stress in life, is avoidance. Getting into the gym at the open accomplishes this.
Not so yesterday. I feared that, at noontime on a weekday with most folks home from work, I'd run upstairs to the weight floor to find the joint jammed with bleary-eyed Thanksgiving binge victims expiating their guilt one curl at a time (of course, in the squat rack). I'd brought my iPod just in case I had to call an audible and burn 30 minutes on a piece of aerobic equipment while the scrum upstairs emptied out, though my schedule had Friday as a weight-training day, and I prefer to hold to the schedule if at all possible.
But I was lucky; the many cars in the parking lot belonged to the folks populating the treadmills and trainers, not the Cybex or Hammer Strength machines upstairs . . . and what few folks were busying themselves with their muscles were nowhere near the squat rack. Perfect.
November was a spotty month for me. I hit a low in job satisfaction, and also caught a cold, both of which screwed up my gym attendance, nutrition, and weight loss. But I found my footing again this last weekend, and thus far I'd been putting up good numbers. Even when your ass is dragging, I've found, if you can just keep going back to the gym for a couple of down days, it'll be a lot easier to get fully back into a program when your health returns or a dark mood passes. (And exercise is itself a fine antidepressant.) The squat is the foundation of the routine I do (the Stronglifts.com 5x5 beginner's routine), and after stalling out at 45 lb. of plates on the bar (for a total of 90 lb.), I'd been feeling strong enough to continue the advancement.
This week was fantastic. I broke through the 45-lb. weight to do five sets of five with 50 lb. on Monday. I ate more carefully and got more and better sleep. Wednesday morning, I entered the century club by adding 55 lb. to the 45-lb. bar, with which I was again able to hit the specified five sets of five reps. The kicker was yesterday, when, despite the Thursday binge, I racked up 60 lb., and still managed to complete final set with good form, albeit quite slowly. Even though I hit a temporary wall on the bench press later that day, I was still happy to have inched forward with the foundation exercise of the Stronglifts routine. Not sure if I can exceed that on Monday, but I'll have had two rest days to heal and prepare. So cross your fingers.
I returned to my parents' house for dinner that night, but I didn't go anywhere near a mall. I used to go out on Black Fridays. Not anymore. I don't need anything like that level of stress. People go feral that day and are best handled at the length of a cattle prod. Nothing I might need isn't already available elsewhere, either within walking distance of my apartment, or via the Web. Aside from the short trips to the gym and my parents' place, I put few miles on the car, or on my mental odometer.
Today, I've got a list of items I can find at local strip malls or grocery stores, rather than the mega-palaces of commerce straining at their rivets in Paramus. These are mostly things I need for the party next weekend: a nice scented soap, a few extra Pottery Barn mugs f0r my caffeine-craving guests, a couple of the giftcards I'll need for the grab bag I always have at the affair, and the envelopes in which I'll place 'em. I can even dodge the parking problem, because one of these places is within walking distance of my workplace, so I can stash the car and tromp down to the stores without jockeying with folks over spots. Insane.
That's how things stand as we cruise toward noon on Saturday, as a clear blue sky filters through the evergreens outside my window, and retailers gnaw the nails from their fingers hoping for sales salvation this weekend. I may venture over to the gym for a bit of treadmill and college football, before ticking off some more to-do's from the party prep list. A haircut would also be a good idea, which would take me no further than crossing the street outside that selfsame window. Other than that, and a bundle of leftovers awaiting me in the fridge, I plan to take the second half of this weekend at a delightfully slow pace.
I drifted home happy to have shared another Turkey Day with my parents, and crashed early under the sedative influence of a lovingly prepared meal. I didn't even get the chance to read. Just out like a light. I'd like to say that not having to go into work the next day accelerated my drop into the lotus-perfumed arms of Morpheus, but that's a whole other post or series of same.
I made a weak try at rising early to hit the gym on Friday morning. Wasn't gonna happen. I was still paying a sleep debt from a very late Wednesday night at the poker game, and I knew if I didn't pay it off then, I'd drag my sleep–wake cycle far off kilter over the rest of the weekend, and firmly screw myself Monday morning. Why fight nature? I set the clock a couple of hours forward, wound up awakening about 15 minutes before it anyway, and got my ass in gear.
After a couple of hours' cleaning in preparation for the Christmas party I'll host a week from today, I mixed up a protein-berry smoothie and rolled over to the gym shortly before noon. I'd come to the conclusion that hitting the gym first thing in the morning, without any sort of meal beforehand, was the reason why I'd been losing steam short of a session's end. I'd also noticed that the smoothie, when consumed after a workout, tended to make me sleepy. I blame this on the blizzard of simple carbs in the smoothie: nearly a cup of frozen berries, a banana, and a quarter-cup of 100% cranberry juice, to say nothing of what might be in the two scoops of protein powder (actually, I have this number: 6 g carbs).
This was particularly the case after a gym visit in which I'd just been on a treadmill or elliptical trainer for a half-hour, with no major muscle-tissue teardown. I'd be getting dressed for work after downing this and feel like getting back into bed. And I'd read a study recently that declared immediate post-workout nutrition to be counterproductive for all except competitive athletes, powerlifters, and other such folks who routinely burn 2,000 calories per gym trip. Not me by a longshot.
So I decided to compromise and bring the smoothie with me to drink during a workout. This has been working much better, and I don't get to work thinking I need a Costanza drawer in my desk for a nap. This is what I did yesterday, and I teetered into the gym, bag and keys (with membership tag) in one hand, big plastic cup brimming with purple sludge in the other, hoping the path to the squat rack was clear.
Usually I lift weights first thing in the morning, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, as close to the opening of the facility as I can get.
Now, this is more or less the type of squat rack we have at the gym:
Rather than use this for movements like squats, overhead shoulder presses, deadlifts, and other compound exercises during which you might want a nice, sturdy piece of steel onto which to drop the weight on a final, exhausting set, some speciments will use the heavy-duty bar (the Olympic bar that you find on these things alone weighs 45 lb.) to do curls. Without any other weight. While folks itching to squat grit their teeth and wait for this jerkass to be done. Simplest solution, as with many sources of stress in life, is avoidance. Getting into the gym at the open accomplishes this.Not so yesterday. I feared that, at noontime on a weekday with most folks home from work, I'd run upstairs to the weight floor to find the joint jammed with bleary-eyed Thanksgiving binge victims expiating their guilt one curl at a time (of course, in the squat rack). I'd brought my iPod just in case I had to call an audible and burn 30 minutes on a piece of aerobic equipment while the scrum upstairs emptied out, though my schedule had Friday as a weight-training day, and I prefer to hold to the schedule if at all possible.
But I was lucky; the many cars in the parking lot belonged to the folks populating the treadmills and trainers, not the Cybex or Hammer Strength machines upstairs . . . and what few folks were busying themselves with their muscles were nowhere near the squat rack. Perfect.
November was a spotty month for me. I hit a low in job satisfaction, and also caught a cold, both of which screwed up my gym attendance, nutrition, and weight loss. But I found my footing again this last weekend, and thus far I'd been putting up good numbers. Even when your ass is dragging, I've found, if you can just keep going back to the gym for a couple of down days, it'll be a lot easier to get fully back into a program when your health returns or a dark mood passes. (And exercise is itself a fine antidepressant.) The squat is the foundation of the routine I do (the Stronglifts.com 5x5 beginner's routine), and after stalling out at 45 lb. of plates on the bar (for a total of 90 lb.), I'd been feeling strong enough to continue the advancement.
This week was fantastic. I broke through the 45-lb. weight to do five sets of five with 50 lb. on Monday. I ate more carefully and got more and better sleep. Wednesday morning, I entered the century club by adding 55 lb. to the 45-lb. bar, with which I was again able to hit the specified five sets of five reps. The kicker was yesterday, when, despite the Thursday binge, I racked up 60 lb., and still managed to complete final set with good form, albeit quite slowly. Even though I hit a temporary wall on the bench press later that day, I was still happy to have inched forward with the foundation exercise of the Stronglifts routine. Not sure if I can exceed that on Monday, but I'll have had two rest days to heal and prepare. So cross your fingers.
I returned to my parents' house for dinner that night, but I didn't go anywhere near a mall. I used to go out on Black Fridays. Not anymore. I don't need anything like that level of stress. People go feral that day and are best handled at the length of a cattle prod. Nothing I might need isn't already available elsewhere, either within walking distance of my apartment, or via the Web. Aside from the short trips to the gym and my parents' place, I put few miles on the car, or on my mental odometer.
Today, I've got a list of items I can find at local strip malls or grocery stores, rather than the mega-palaces of commerce straining at their rivets in Paramus. These are mostly things I need for the party next weekend: a nice scented soap, a few extra Pottery Barn mugs f0r my caffeine-craving guests, a couple of the giftcards I'll need for the grab bag I always have at the affair, and the envelopes in which I'll place 'em. I can even dodge the parking problem, because one of these places is within walking distance of my workplace, so I can stash the car and tromp down to the stores without jockeying with folks over spots. Insane.
That's how things stand as we cruise toward noon on Saturday, as a clear blue sky filters through the evergreens outside my window, and retailers gnaw the nails from their fingers hoping for sales salvation this weekend. I may venture over to the gym for a bit of treadmill and college football, before ticking off some more to-do's from the party prep list. A haircut would also be a good idea, which would take me no further than crossing the street outside that selfsame window. Other than that, and a bundle of leftovers awaiting me in the fridge, I plan to take the second half of this weekend at a delightfully slow pace.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Putting Hard Numbers on Soft Tissue
THIS BEING THE SEASON OF POLLS, I submitted myself to a survey yesterday, but the results won't be used to tar any political opponent. I had my annual office health screening, part of a half-day fair in which I also received my yearly flu shot. I might bitch about work here and there, but my company follows the wise course of providing free flu vaccine to all employees. What used to be a last-minute scramble while working in Manhattan and dashing home for a doctor's appointment or a spot on a hospital queue is now as simple as walking down the hall.
In addition, employees can also get their blood pressure, nonfasting blood glucose and cholesterol, and bodyfat percentage measured. Not having had a fasting read on these recently, I brought last year's nonfasting results with me to compare. The med-tech this time around didn't provide as much blood info as I got last year — no LDL or triglycerides — but my HDL improved (possibly kinked by the ground flaxseed I'd eaten with my oatmeal an hour earlier), and my glucose, though a little higher than in November 2007 (also probably from earlier meals, either the oatmeal or the frozen berries and yogurt in the smoothie I'd downed after my gym visit), was still in the normal range.
Unlike last year, we got a bodyfat reading. They had some sort of induction-based handle gadget we had to hold out in front of us in both hands. Beats someone advancing on me with a huge set of calipers. Based on the data the nurse programmed in, and the wacky Tesla vibe it picked up from my grip, I was told I have a bodyfat percentage of 25.7. Normal for men was listed in the booklet we'd been given as 15.1%–18%.
Today I finally thought, how many actual pounds was this? Using yesterday's weight of 221 lb., I'm carrying somewhere around 56 or 57 lb. of fat. Now, under the 30x40 plan of hitting 198 lb. by my next birthday, and assuming I lost only fat tissue while muscle mass stayed constant, I still need to drop 23 lb. That done, I'd still be carrying about 33.8 lb. of fat, which would represent a body mass percentage of 17—within that normal range.
Good to know, because if I keep eating and working out as I've been doing, I should definitely gain muscle. Not as much as I drop in fat, but judging from the blunt red number on the scale, the result on the chart might be a leveling off of weight loss as I shift my fat–muscle balance. Without grabbing another bodyfat-measuring machine, if the scale read the same while I exercised and ate correctly, I'd have to assume my fat percentage was dropping. This would keep me from getting despondent and engulfing 2 lb. of Whole Foods jellybeans over an evening.
Let's make no mistakes: I've still got a hefty gut. Nobody's gonna mistake me for skinny. And 23 lb. of fat tissue represents a caloric deficit of 80,500 kcal that I've got to realize — via better nutrition, regular and progressively tougher exercise, and maintaining more lean muscle tissue to rev my resting metabolism — over the coming months, which include Halloween, Thanksgiving, my holiday party, and the Xmas–New Year's Axis of Eating. But I can tell, when I shave, that there's less flesh on my face. I can encircle a wrist with the opposing hand with more slack in the grip. I can cover the walk between the apartment and library, across the town park, without getting winded. I put on a shirt last week that hadn't fit me in about 2 years; there was slack around my abs even when I sat. The tape measure says I've lost 3 in. of circumference there since mid-June.
With all of this evidence, each piece small but collectively quite telling, I've got no choice but to continue. Tomorrow I may only add 5 lb. to my squat weight, but all of this work in the gym and kitchen could add quality years to my life.
In addition, employees can also get their blood pressure, nonfasting blood glucose and cholesterol, and bodyfat percentage measured. Not having had a fasting read on these recently, I brought last year's nonfasting results with me to compare. The med-tech this time around didn't provide as much blood info as I got last year — no LDL or triglycerides — but my HDL improved (possibly kinked by the ground flaxseed I'd eaten with my oatmeal an hour earlier), and my glucose, though a little higher than in November 2007 (also probably from earlier meals, either the oatmeal or the frozen berries and yogurt in the smoothie I'd downed after my gym visit), was still in the normal range.
Unlike last year, we got a bodyfat reading. They had some sort of induction-based handle gadget we had to hold out in front of us in both hands. Beats someone advancing on me with a huge set of calipers. Based on the data the nurse programmed in, and the wacky Tesla vibe it picked up from my grip, I was told I have a bodyfat percentage of 25.7. Normal for men was listed in the booklet we'd been given as 15.1%–18%.
Today I finally thought, how many actual pounds was this? Using yesterday's weight of 221 lb., I'm carrying somewhere around 56 or 57 lb. of fat. Now, under the 30x40 plan of hitting 198 lb. by my next birthday, and assuming I lost only fat tissue while muscle mass stayed constant, I still need to drop 23 lb. That done, I'd still be carrying about 33.8 lb. of fat, which would represent a body mass percentage of 17—within that normal range.
Good to know, because if I keep eating and working out as I've been doing, I should definitely gain muscle. Not as much as I drop in fat, but judging from the blunt red number on the scale, the result on the chart might be a leveling off of weight loss as I shift my fat–muscle balance. Without grabbing another bodyfat-measuring machine, if the scale read the same while I exercised and ate correctly, I'd have to assume my fat percentage was dropping. This would keep me from getting despondent and engulfing 2 lb. of Whole Foods jellybeans over an evening.
Let's make no mistakes: I've still got a hefty gut. Nobody's gonna mistake me for skinny. And 23 lb. of fat tissue represents a caloric deficit of 80,500 kcal that I've got to realize — via better nutrition, regular and progressively tougher exercise, and maintaining more lean muscle tissue to rev my resting metabolism — over the coming months, which include Halloween, Thanksgiving, my holiday party, and the Xmas–New Year's Axis of Eating. But I can tell, when I shave, that there's less flesh on my face. I can encircle a wrist with the opposing hand with more slack in the grip. I can cover the walk between the apartment and library, across the town park, without getting winded. I put on a shirt last week that hadn't fit me in about 2 years; there was slack around my abs even when I sat. The tape measure says I've lost 3 in. of circumference there since mid-June.
With all of this evidence, each piece small but collectively quite telling, I've got no choice but to continue. Tomorrow I may only add 5 lb. to my squat weight, but all of this work in the gym and kitchen could add quality years to my life.
Monday, October 06, 2008
My Goal One Year Ago Today
I AM UTTERLY CONVINCED THAT I made some mention of this a year ago or so, but I can't find the post. Maybe it was a journal entry. How dare I write something that doesn't get sprayed like narcotic frosting all over the Internet?
Anyway, a year ago today, while frustrated with my lack of progress on the then-current exercise routine, I got angry enough to yank my manual typewriter out of its case behind the couch, roll in a 3" x 5", and type the following off the top of my head:
The first month will be hell. Early mornings, uncaring stars, frost on the car and ice in the bones. Temptation will call you back to bed and warm oblivion. Fight past the alarm and out into the morning. Exercise six — SIX — times per week, 30–45 minutes each. Eat right. Purse each day with cheer. Revel in success and be humble, forgiving, and wise when course corrections are needed. You wield the most powerful force on the planet — an unfettered human will. Stack successes like the bricks of an immortal monument and meet triumph head on.
I was trying to dedicate myself to more frequent and programmatic exercise. I wanted a daily reminder of my committment to pin next to my bathroom mirror. And, surprisingly, it came to 100 words if you count the date, which would have made the folks at the 100 Words site happy. Though a touch fascist sounding, about what else in life can one afford to be dictatorial other than one's health? Anyway, I thumbtacked it on said bathroom wall and there it hung, aside from visits from guests (I didn't want to frighten them off).
Today, I fought past that alarm and into a cold autumn morning where I could see my breath as I walked to the car. I rode the elliptical trainer for 10 minutes to pump heat into my stiff limbs, then went upstairs to the weight floor. There, I managed to add just a little weight to the squats and bench presses I've been doing. The work I have to do comes outside the gym too, by making smarter decisions about food and sleep. But it all starts with throwing off those sheets and shutting down that alarm . . . and then putting on sneakers and gym clothes and getting the hell over there.
Moral? Write your goals down. No matter how small. Especially if they're small. Meet that small goal, then write another one down and hit that too. You don't yell at a person climbing a thousand stairs for taking them one at a time. You congratulate him or her for making the remaining number smaller. That's what fixing a goal to paper can help you do. It's seeing last workout's weight figures and saying, "Let's see what another 2.5 lb. can do here." It's noting that you consumed the right amount of protein and kept simple carbs well under control by checking the last week's worth of meals.
You'll have no idea how far you've come if you don't leave some traces of the steps you took to get there. Set yourself a little goal and see where your first step leads.
Anyway, a year ago today, while frustrated with my lack of progress on the then-current exercise routine, I got angry enough to yank my manual typewriter out of its case behind the couch, roll in a 3" x 5", and type the following off the top of my head:
The first month will be hell. Early mornings, uncaring stars, frost on the car and ice in the bones. Temptation will call you back to bed and warm oblivion. Fight past the alarm and out into the morning. Exercise six — SIX — times per week, 30–45 minutes each. Eat right. Purse each day with cheer. Revel in success and be humble, forgiving, and wise when course corrections are needed. You wield the most powerful force on the planet — an unfettered human will. Stack successes like the bricks of an immortal monument and meet triumph head on.
—10/6/07
I was trying to dedicate myself to more frequent and programmatic exercise. I wanted a daily reminder of my committment to pin next to my bathroom mirror. And, surprisingly, it came to 100 words if you count the date, which would have made the folks at the 100 Words site happy. Though a touch fascist sounding, about what else in life can one afford to be dictatorial other than one's health? Anyway, I thumbtacked it on said bathroom wall and there it hung, aside from visits from guests (I didn't want to frighten them off).
Today, I fought past that alarm and into a cold autumn morning where I could see my breath as I walked to the car. I rode the elliptical trainer for 10 minutes to pump heat into my stiff limbs, then went upstairs to the weight floor. There, I managed to add just a little weight to the squats and bench presses I've been doing. The work I have to do comes outside the gym too, by making smarter decisions about food and sleep. But it all starts with throwing off those sheets and shutting down that alarm . . . and then putting on sneakers and gym clothes and getting the hell over there.
Moral? Write your goals down. No matter how small. Especially if they're small. Meet that small goal, then write another one down and hit that too. You don't yell at a person climbing a thousand stairs for taking them one at a time. You congratulate him or her for making the remaining number smaller. That's what fixing a goal to paper can help you do. It's seeing last workout's weight figures and saying, "Let's see what another 2.5 lb. can do here." It's noting that you consumed the right amount of protein and kept simple carbs well under control by checking the last week's worth of meals.
You'll have no idea how far you've come if you don't leave some traces of the steps you took to get there. Set yourself a little goal and see where your first step leads.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Nutritional Bankruptcy
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN HAPPY to report failure? Surprisingly, I am. Last week, I failed to stick to the usual eating plan, and didn't track my eating accurately each day. What makes me happy is that this was only the first time I did so in 2 months and 3 weeks on the 30x40 weight loss quest. Even with my hit-and-miss dinner choices during some weeks, this is one of the most consistent attempts to establish a positive habit I've ever undertaken, and I am very pleased with the effort and the results. Plus my failure highlights the vulnerabilities of this plan, which will help me anticipate and avoid them. So even this misstep can be useful. And I'd be more nervous than anything else if I hadn't had at least one bust of a week.
Travel triggered my failure. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Central City, contending with chain-restaurant food, office-cafeteria grub, and gluey nutrition bars, with no gym access. Due to a late-Tuesday return, I had little time to buy decent food (especially vegetables) before Wednesday's workday began, so that day's nutrition was haphazard. Through Saturday, I did record my consumption on paper while at work, and I resumed gym visits Thursday morning, to my great relief (and soreness Friday morning). But my rhythm was thrown off. Most of my meals were in fact "on program," featuring the usual whole grains, proteins, nuts, and smoothie-makin's I eat or drink each day. Dinner choices, though, were poor, including a trip to a Chinese restaurant one night, which I try to restrict to weekends, and rarely at that. I supplemented during the remaining weekdays with protein bars, which I've come to believe are terrible, last-ditch replacements for real food.
So in sum, I declared nutritional bankruptcy last week and decided to soldier through the weekend as best I could, with this week as a chance to pick up where I left off. I weigh 223 lbs. today, not terrible, but a few pounds over where I had been last Sunday. The week proceeding that Sunday was great; I dropped fat on a clean diet and got stronger, particularly in my squat form and capacity. I knew 2 days of travel would disrupt this, so I tried to charge into it with fitness to spare. Gaining fat back to 223 during that trip and its aftermath is therefore not an immovable barrier to progress.
But I have to travel yet again this week, this time to, oh, let's call it River City. This hotel appears to have a partnership with a local gym, so I may be able to lift more often than I could during my two Central City trips. I would be overjoyed to find a squat rack with an Olympic bar to keep that up over my 4 days in the area. But I will be happy with some dumbbells and a couple of weight machines that were manufactured sometime after the release of Pumping Iron. The real challenge will be to find decent food while out there. Once past this week, I should be looking at a free and clear October — and autumn — in which to make the next big push toward the goal.
Travel triggered my failure. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Central City, contending with chain-restaurant food, office-cafeteria grub, and gluey nutrition bars, with no gym access. Due to a late-Tuesday return, I had little time to buy decent food (especially vegetables) before Wednesday's workday began, so that day's nutrition was haphazard. Through Saturday, I did record my consumption on paper while at work, and I resumed gym visits Thursday morning, to my great relief (and soreness Friday morning). But my rhythm was thrown off. Most of my meals were in fact "on program," featuring the usual whole grains, proteins, nuts, and smoothie-makin's I eat or drink each day. Dinner choices, though, were poor, including a trip to a Chinese restaurant one night, which I try to restrict to weekends, and rarely at that. I supplemented during the remaining weekdays with protein bars, which I've come to believe are terrible, last-ditch replacements for real food.
So in sum, I declared nutritional bankruptcy last week and decided to soldier through the weekend as best I could, with this week as a chance to pick up where I left off. I weigh 223 lbs. today, not terrible, but a few pounds over where I had been last Sunday. The week proceeding that Sunday was great; I dropped fat on a clean diet and got stronger, particularly in my squat form and capacity. I knew 2 days of travel would disrupt this, so I tried to charge into it with fitness to spare. Gaining fat back to 223 during that trip and its aftermath is therefore not an immovable barrier to progress.
But I have to travel yet again this week, this time to, oh, let's call it River City. This hotel appears to have a partnership with a local gym, so I may be able to lift more often than I could during my two Central City trips. I would be overjoyed to find a squat rack with an Olympic bar to keep that up over my 4 days in the area. But I will be happy with some dumbbells and a couple of weight machines that were manufactured sometime after the release of Pumping Iron. The real challenge will be to find decent food while out there. Once past this week, I should be looking at a free and clear October — and autumn — in which to make the next big push toward the goal.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Squats Are Paying Off
DESPITE SOME OFF-PLAN DINNERS this week, I managed to meet today's goal weight of 221. This after a temporary spike, last weekend, to 226, which I attribute to Sunday's carbohydrate-heavy dinner at my parents' place. Three of my dinners this week were considerably subpar as compared to the clean, controlled portions of protein, complex carbs, and healthful fats I had through the other four or five small meals each day. So why, at the end of the week, when I weighed myself and then double-checked the result with a tape measure around my waist, did I still manage to drop 5 lb.?
I believe it's because my addition of squats to the exercise regimen. This week, I did squats on Tuesday and Thursday, owing to taking Monday off from the gym after a solid week of gym visits. I actually woke up before my alarm on Tuesday morning eager to get over to the gym Squatting was the first thought on my mind. How weird is that?
I bumped up this week to eight reps (from seven) of five squats with nothing on the bar. I'll visit the gym for weight training tomorrow, after a cardio session today, because I don't know what sort of gym facilities the hotel where I'm staying Monday and Tuesday in Central City will have. Doubtful they'll have a power rack. I'll be lucky if they have one of those vibrating weight belts from the Coolidge era. So my idea is to put in a vigorous workout tomorrow that will hold me through spotty exercise opportunities and food options until Wednesday.
But back to the weight loss conundrum. I noticed my face looked a touch thinner; I could see my cheekbones more clearly. The waist measurement this morning indicated I'd lost ½" since last Monday, when the scale read 226. When I walked during the week, I was conscious of my quadriceps, the large thigh muscles that squats target. The feedback I got from them was an odd combo of postworkout soreness (though far less than the first couple of times I squatted) and the sense of being larger. The shape of the muscles are a touch different than two weeks ago. They're not Incredible Hulk huge by any means; I won't have to lay in a massive supply of purple pants to replace the ones my gamma surges shred. Indeed, my quads compete for space with no small amount of adipose tissue, to put it clincally. But it seems to be a slightly smaller amount of said fat, and a touch larger amount of said muscle.
I am permitting myself the least perceptibly hubristic shred of joy I can muster.
When you have an enemy on the run, you pursue and reduce them while they are thus vulnerable. My war against fat is still young. But any war comprises many battles, many duels between armies across the vast theater of strife. If I was able to add muscle and drop fat even when I had nacho chips and cheese two nights this week, along with pizza on a third, how much more success might I achieve with an entirely clean diet? Rather than ruing my slips, I will take them as proof that my exercise plan is working, that the overall 30x40 goal may be achievable, and that if I die young anyway, it will be in the midst of a fight I finally have dedicated myself to winning.
I believe it's because my addition of squats to the exercise regimen. This week, I did squats on Tuesday and Thursday, owing to taking Monday off from the gym after a solid week of gym visits. I actually woke up before my alarm on Tuesday morning eager to get over to the gym Squatting was the first thought on my mind. How weird is that?
I bumped up this week to eight reps (from seven) of five squats with nothing on the bar. I'll visit the gym for weight training tomorrow, after a cardio session today, because I don't know what sort of gym facilities the hotel where I'm staying Monday and Tuesday in Central City will have. Doubtful they'll have a power rack. I'll be lucky if they have one of those vibrating weight belts from the Coolidge era. So my idea is to put in a vigorous workout tomorrow that will hold me through spotty exercise opportunities and food options until Wednesday.
But back to the weight loss conundrum. I noticed my face looked a touch thinner; I could see my cheekbones more clearly. The waist measurement this morning indicated I'd lost ½" since last Monday, when the scale read 226. When I walked during the week, I was conscious of my quadriceps, the large thigh muscles that squats target. The feedback I got from them was an odd combo of postworkout soreness (though far less than the first couple of times I squatted) and the sense of being larger. The shape of the muscles are a touch different than two weeks ago. They're not Incredible Hulk huge by any means; I won't have to lay in a massive supply of purple pants to replace the ones my gamma surges shred. Indeed, my quads compete for space with no small amount of adipose tissue, to put it clincally. But it seems to be a slightly smaller amount of said fat, and a touch larger amount of said muscle.
I am permitting myself the least perceptibly hubristic shred of joy I can muster.
When you have an enemy on the run, you pursue and reduce them while they are thus vulnerable. My war against fat is still young. But any war comprises many battles, many duels between armies across the vast theater of strife. If I was able to add muscle and drop fat even when I had nacho chips and cheese two nights this week, along with pizza on a third, how much more success might I achieve with an entirely clean diet? Rather than ruing my slips, I will take them as proof that my exercise plan is working, that the overall 30x40 goal may be achievable, and that if I die young anyway, it will be in the midst of a fight I finally have dedicated myself to winning.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Two Minor Steps Toward Better Fitness
LABOR DAY WEEKEND WAS, as I suspected, a foodfest. Though it lacked the sweets and chips I had over July Fourth weekend, just before I started my 30x40 program, it nonetheless included much "off-program" food I don't usually eat on a Monday. After a scary spike to 226 last Tuesday, I worked down to something closer to more recent averages. I missed my target weight for this Saturday of 221.5 by one pound, but it's drifted down a bit today. Even at 222, that leaves 24 more pounds to lose, about 2.4/month by next June 27. Insofar as I've been as low as 219.5 in mid-August, the new goal for next Saturday (221 lb.) ought not be unimaginable should my eating and exercise be sound.
I did make two changes to my life along both these lines in the past couple of weeks. I reduced the amount of Diet Coke (and with it aspartame) I drink, and I added the dreaded squat to my exercise program.
I am a hardcore Diet Coke addict. Caffeine addict, to be precise. Three cans per day keep the headaches away. Nine, twelve, and three is the dosage schedule. I kicked caffeine completely once, for several weeks, by weaning myself off using caffeine-free Diet Coke. This ended when my stress level at work surged. You can imagine how such abstinence didn't occur to me earlier this year.
I've been drinking green tea as the main liquid ingredient of my post-workout protein smoothies for months now. I brew up a big jug of the stuff every week or so and keep it in the fridge, ready to go when I come back from the gym. Two weeks ago, I brewed a travel mug of the tea separately, to drink at work later that morning while eating my cereal or oatmeal. No sweetener; I get enough early-morning simple carbs from the fruit and protein powder in my smoothie. I've been doing this since, except for last Thursday, when I forgot to bring my travel mug home.
This wasn't as much a caffeine-control move as a way to cut my aspartame intake. The amount of tea I'm drinking to replace that first Diet Coke contains nearly twice the caffeine of the omitted soda, according to Wikipedia's caffeine entry. (Though a couple of days last week, I got afternoon caffeine-withdrawal headaches. Another razor-accurate Wikipedia page for you.) For several weekends, I'd been drinking either hot green tea or coffee for my first day's caffeine, so this seemed a a good way to cut my dosage of a potentially dangerous chemical. The last thing I want to find out 40 years ago is that the tumors I'm having irradiated are due to this nasty shit that Donald Rumsfeld pimped to the food industry while working for chemical company G.D. Searle. By then he'll be too dead to receive my vengeance.
As for the exercise change, I attempted to add squats to my exercise routine in 2005. Recovering from the first couple of sessions in which I did them was tough, and I let that difficulty convince me to drop them in favor of an isolation-exercise machine for quadricep development. But I began studying the articles on squats at Stronglifts.com, and realized that I hadn't been doing them right.
I've given them another try, and thus far, I think I'm not only doing them right, but building a little more muscle with them. I have no weight on the bar, which itself weighs about 45 lb. I've been able to increase from five sets to seven (the goal is to have three light warmup sets, then five "working" sets with heavier weights). My quadriceps were burning burger last Sunday, and I could barely manage to sit while standing or get up once seated. The recovery time for each subsequent squat session has been shorter, even while adding new sets. And only my quads have hurt; last time I tried these, my back and knees hurt during recovery. Properly done, squats call upon back muscles and knees as stabilizers; only your quads should be hit. I think I'm doing a better "flight check" of the steps one takes before and during the motion. Bottom line: I haven't blown out a knee or snapped a hamstring. With any luck, greater proficiency and more weight will make those fates even more distant.
I did make two changes to my life along both these lines in the past couple of weeks. I reduced the amount of Diet Coke (and with it aspartame) I drink, and I added the dreaded squat to my exercise program.
I am a hardcore Diet Coke addict. Caffeine addict, to be precise. Three cans per day keep the headaches away. Nine, twelve, and three is the dosage schedule. I kicked caffeine completely once, for several weeks, by weaning myself off using caffeine-free Diet Coke. This ended when my stress level at work surged. You can imagine how such abstinence didn't occur to me earlier this year.
I've been drinking green tea as the main liquid ingredient of my post-workout protein smoothies for months now. I brew up a big jug of the stuff every week or so and keep it in the fridge, ready to go when I come back from the gym. Two weeks ago, I brewed a travel mug of the tea separately, to drink at work later that morning while eating my cereal or oatmeal. No sweetener; I get enough early-morning simple carbs from the fruit and protein powder in my smoothie. I've been doing this since, except for last Thursday, when I forgot to bring my travel mug home.
This wasn't as much a caffeine-control move as a way to cut my aspartame intake. The amount of tea I'm drinking to replace that first Diet Coke contains nearly twice the caffeine of the omitted soda, according to Wikipedia's caffeine entry. (Though a couple of days last week, I got afternoon caffeine-withdrawal headaches. Another razor-accurate Wikipedia page for you.) For several weekends, I'd been drinking either hot green tea or coffee for my first day's caffeine, so this seemed a a good way to cut my dosage of a potentially dangerous chemical. The last thing I want to find out 40 years ago is that the tumors I'm having irradiated are due to this nasty shit that Donald Rumsfeld pimped to the food industry while working for chemical company G.D. Searle. By then he'll be too dead to receive my vengeance.
As for the exercise change, I attempted to add squats to my exercise routine in 2005. Recovering from the first couple of sessions in which I did them was tough, and I let that difficulty convince me to drop them in favor of an isolation-exercise machine for quadricep development. But I began studying the articles on squats at Stronglifts.com, and realized that I hadn't been doing them right.
I've given them another try, and thus far, I think I'm not only doing them right, but building a little more muscle with them. I have no weight on the bar, which itself weighs about 45 lb. I've been able to increase from five sets to seven (the goal is to have three light warmup sets, then five "working" sets with heavier weights). My quadriceps were burning burger last Sunday, and I could barely manage to sit while standing or get up once seated. The recovery time for each subsequent squat session has been shorter, even while adding new sets. And only my quads have hurt; last time I tried these, my back and knees hurt during recovery. Properly done, squats call upon back muscles and knees as stabilizers; only your quads should be hit. I think I'm doing a better "flight check" of the steps one takes before and during the motion. Bottom line: I haven't blown out a knee or snapped a hamstring. With any luck, greater proficiency and more weight will make those fates even more distant.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
30x40: Weeks of 8/18–8/25/08 Progress
A WEEK AFTER MY TRIP to Central City, I still find myself recovering from the divergence from my home weekday eating plan and the time away from the gym. Some of the problem was self-inflicted; getting dessert with dinner out there was a mistake. Some of it was inadvertent, notably the poor gym facilities at the hotel and the pizza lunch we were given on the big-meeting day (with no alternatives like salad; in fact, I think dessert pizza was the salad) in the CC office. And some of the problem arose from having a weekend right after this comparative fitness/nutrition desert. Although I allow myself some divergences from the usual diet on the weekend, Mom was kind enough to offer her macaroni and cheese Sunday night, which made for leftovers Monday and Tuesday nights. . . . So the weekend represented a bit of retracement.
My weight didn't visibly shift too much, and my Monday gut measurement didn't show any gain, but I did feel fatter for a couple of days after my return. The bags felt heavier when I carried them upstairs here, and not because I stuffed them with souvenirs. (More likely were binges at the comic book and boardgame stores across from my hotel.) Not exactly the streak I wanted to rack up just before my second-month anniversary on the 30x40 plan. I'd much rather have continued the run I had between 8/14 — when I touched 220 for the first time in years — and 8/16 — the second of two days at 219.5. I'll have to analyze what exercise and eating combination resulted in this dip. But from the standpoint of the broader goal (losing .57 lb./week or 2.5 lb./month), I met my milestone: 222.5 lb. on August 27, down from 225.0 on July 27, for a loss of exactly 2.5 lb.
I didn't sweat the fat gain too badly upon my return. No mistake is totally irrevocable on this plan, and some — like a cold, or a business trip — are unavoidable and best rolled with and corrected ASAP. The iron was waiting for me when I returned to the gym Saturday afternoon, and I racked up a shockingly energetic weight routine. Doing so well got me through the last few days; nightmares have been kicking me out of bed at hours early even for me. This has left me a walking corpse by the end of the workday, which in turn fucks up my attempts to eat a healthful dinner. But I kept going back to the gym each day, to keep my muscles going on a regular schedule. When one aspect of my life gets out of balance, the smartest thing I can do is stay consistent with as many other aspects of it as I can, until I can fix the problem. Sleep last night was far more consistent and horror free than has been the recent case, so my plan may be working.
With Labor Day Weekend coming, I have a chance to address the dinner difficulty. And lunch; after I got sick of my usual turkey sandwiches, I had an important void to fill. I can grill a shitload of animal protein on Monday to get me through a few days of next week. Veggies I can handle day to day. (It would help if the current crop of broccoli were better; the heads I'm finding are being harvested far too late, with loose, overdeveloped florets. I am a broccoli snob.)
I wrote everything preceding this paragraph before I left for work this morning. As I closed the door after me upon my return home, I noticed the running list of daily weigh-ins, and the top- and bottom-left entries in that block of early-morning scribbles jumped out at me:
7/22: 225.5
. . .
8/22: 222.5
Three pounds in a month. As much as I still need to lose, as attentive as I need to be in my eating, as hard as I'll have to lift to keep what fitness I have and maybe develop just a little more, I can't help but be proud of that three-pound drop.
My weight didn't visibly shift too much, and my Monday gut measurement didn't show any gain, but I did feel fatter for a couple of days after my return. The bags felt heavier when I carried them upstairs here, and not because I stuffed them with souvenirs. (More likely were binges at the comic book and boardgame stores across from my hotel.) Not exactly the streak I wanted to rack up just before my second-month anniversary on the 30x40 plan. I'd much rather have continued the run I had between 8/14 — when I touched 220 for the first time in years — and 8/16 — the second of two days at 219.5. I'll have to analyze what exercise and eating combination resulted in this dip. But from the standpoint of the broader goal (losing .57 lb./week or 2.5 lb./month), I met my milestone: 222.5 lb. on August 27, down from 225.0 on July 27, for a loss of exactly 2.5 lb.
I didn't sweat the fat gain too badly upon my return. No mistake is totally irrevocable on this plan, and some — like a cold, or a business trip — are unavoidable and best rolled with and corrected ASAP. The iron was waiting for me when I returned to the gym Saturday afternoon, and I racked up a shockingly energetic weight routine. Doing so well got me through the last few days; nightmares have been kicking me out of bed at hours early even for me. This has left me a walking corpse by the end of the workday, which in turn fucks up my attempts to eat a healthful dinner. But I kept going back to the gym each day, to keep my muscles going on a regular schedule. When one aspect of my life gets out of balance, the smartest thing I can do is stay consistent with as many other aspects of it as I can, until I can fix the problem. Sleep last night was far more consistent and horror free than has been the recent case, so my plan may be working.
With Labor Day Weekend coming, I have a chance to address the dinner difficulty. And lunch; after I got sick of my usual turkey sandwiches, I had an important void to fill. I can grill a shitload of animal protein on Monday to get me through a few days of next week. Veggies I can handle day to day. (It would help if the current crop of broccoli were better; the heads I'm finding are being harvested far too late, with loose, overdeveloped florets. I am a broccoli snob.)
I wrote everything preceding this paragraph before I left for work this morning. As I closed the door after me upon my return home, I noticed the running list of daily weigh-ins, and the top- and bottom-left entries in that block of early-morning scribbles jumped out at me:
7/22: 225.5
. . .
8/22: 222.5
Three pounds in a month. As much as I still need to lose, as attentive as I need to be in my eating, as hard as I'll have to lift to keep what fitness I have and maybe develop just a little more, I can't help but be proud of that three-pound drop.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
30x40: Week of 8/4/08 Progress
ANOTHER SUNDAY, ANOTHER SUMMATION OF my progress toward not having my heart explode like the Death Star before I hit 50 by losing 30 pounds by the time I hit 40. I've been on this plan for a full month. From a 7/7/08 peak of 232.5 lb., I lost 9.5 lbs. by the 30-day mark. Despite a little backtracking in the last and previous weeks, I continued to visit the gym 6 or 7 days out of 7, and fought off a cold before it got any worse. Saturday's weigh-in showed 221, 3.5 lb. less than my goal of 224.5, for a total loss of 11.5 lb.
I've learned a fair amount about what food, weight training, aerobic exercise, and sleep will do for me in the right combination. I'm still figuring that exact mix out, but I'm very proud of sustaining more good habits than bad through this period. It was important to launch this program positively and successfully, and to develop the way of living that will keep me alive and viable into my old age.
Not to sound too serious about this, but I've lived in a state of ill physical fitness and health (for obesity is a disease) for all of my adult life. I don't want to rely on pills, joint replacement, and home health aides to be able to survive into my retirement years, to say nothing of enjoying them. I've already wound the odometer forward on my joints and cardiovascular system by retaining so much weight for so long. The plan is not merely to arrest that degeneration, but to reverse it as much as possible.
Staying flexible in the very short term, but on programs that carry one from week to week, seems to be working. Some of the short-term choices I've made have illustrated how much I've moved away from my older ways of eating and living: Chik-Fil-A and Johnny Rockets can safely be considered emergency dining choices in the future, especially on weekdays. But if I am invited out to a cookout over the weekend, or to my parents' for dinner one weeknight, I can exercise control over the preceding day and eat wisely when I do arrive there. Given, of course, that I've met my daily committment to the gym schedule. Flexibility and accountability.
Regarding what I eat, I have hit a wall or two. I'm sick of one of my lunch choices, and I'm trying to get more veggies into my evening mix for fiber, nutrition, and fullness. I'll need to find ways to change things up, both there and at the gym, to keep things from becoming stale. Because no matter how close to my year's goal of a 30-lb. deficit, I'm going to have to live like this for the rest of my days. I've noticed that if I do slip back into some of the older ways, like the fast food I've mentioned, I regain the weight quickly. These aren't merely aspects of my life that are being put on hold. They must be gone forever. What indulgences I accept, at least for the short term, will be on weekends, amid otherwise healthful eating patterns and exercise, must be the rare exception. So I need to find variety among the good meals I eat during the mass of the week.
As I said, this is week to week, and here's what I did with last week's goals:
Waist measurement: Dropped ¾" since the previous Monday. Unlike my weight, I'm not setting goals here; it's a complementary datum that will help me understand whether the number on the scale represents actual fat loss.
Veggies and portion control: Made some errors last week: frozen pizza and nachos for two dinners, mall food for a third. Easy to eliminate if I cue up good food earlier; I didn't have any plans by the end of those two particular days, so older habits crept in and I reached for something easier. There are easy choices that are a lot more healthful if I take some time, either over the weekends or over a little extra time each night, to prepare something that will do me some good. I'm out of chili now, so I need to make a new batch of that, which will also help make some of my lunches far better.
Solid gym attendance: Six out of seven days over the past week, including all four weight-training days. Monday was the loser again. This time, if a late dinner at the parents' leads to an even later bedtime, I'll wake up an hour later, make a cardio visit to the gym, maybe reward myself with a steam, and then do the two-day lifting split on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday and Tuesday. Had I done this last and the previous Monday, I think I'd be juuuuust a little thinner. We'll see.
I'm going to retain this same set of goals, and make my weight-loss target an even 224, down one half-pound. For the past few weeks, I've overshot the goal, but I believe this has been due to poor protein and sleep follow-up reversing some of my weightlifting progress. I've got big expectations for this week, as it'll be the last complete week in New Jersey before I spend two-plus days in Central City for work. Between the indigenous cuisine, and the fun of spending a few hours in airports, I need to charge into that trip in top form.
I've learned a fair amount about what food, weight training, aerobic exercise, and sleep will do for me in the right combination. I'm still figuring that exact mix out, but I'm very proud of sustaining more good habits than bad through this period. It was important to launch this program positively and successfully, and to develop the way of living that will keep me alive and viable into my old age.
Not to sound too serious about this, but I've lived in a state of ill physical fitness and health (for obesity is a disease) for all of my adult life. I don't want to rely on pills, joint replacement, and home health aides to be able to survive into my retirement years, to say nothing of enjoying them. I've already wound the odometer forward on my joints and cardiovascular system by retaining so much weight for so long. The plan is not merely to arrest that degeneration, but to reverse it as much as possible.
Staying flexible in the very short term, but on programs that carry one from week to week, seems to be working. Some of the short-term choices I've made have illustrated how much I've moved away from my older ways of eating and living: Chik-Fil-A and Johnny Rockets can safely be considered emergency dining choices in the future, especially on weekdays. But if I am invited out to a cookout over the weekend, or to my parents' for dinner one weeknight, I can exercise control over the preceding day and eat wisely when I do arrive there. Given, of course, that I've met my daily committment to the gym schedule. Flexibility and accountability.
Regarding what I eat, I have hit a wall or two. I'm sick of one of my lunch choices, and I'm trying to get more veggies into my evening mix for fiber, nutrition, and fullness. I'll need to find ways to change things up, both there and at the gym, to keep things from becoming stale. Because no matter how close to my year's goal of a 30-lb. deficit, I'm going to have to live like this for the rest of my days. I've noticed that if I do slip back into some of the older ways, like the fast food I've mentioned, I regain the weight quickly. These aren't merely aspects of my life that are being put on hold. They must be gone forever. What indulgences I accept, at least for the short term, will be on weekends, amid otherwise healthful eating patterns and exercise, must be the rare exception. So I need to find variety among the good meals I eat during the mass of the week.
As I said, this is week to week, and here's what I did with last week's goals:
- 8 hours sleep/night
- 8/5: Waist measure
- More veggies in afternoon and with dinner
- Portion control: 1900 calories, 40/40/30 nutrients [protein/carbs/fat]
- Solid gym attendance
Waist measurement: Dropped ¾" since the previous Monday. Unlike my weight, I'm not setting goals here; it's a complementary datum that will help me understand whether the number on the scale represents actual fat loss.
Veggies and portion control: Made some errors last week: frozen pizza and nachos for two dinners, mall food for a third. Easy to eliminate if I cue up good food earlier; I didn't have any plans by the end of those two particular days, so older habits crept in and I reached for something easier. There are easy choices that are a lot more healthful if I take some time, either over the weekends or over a little extra time each night, to prepare something that will do me some good. I'm out of chili now, so I need to make a new batch of that, which will also help make some of my lunches far better.
Solid gym attendance: Six out of seven days over the past week, including all four weight-training days. Monday was the loser again. This time, if a late dinner at the parents' leads to an even later bedtime, I'll wake up an hour later, make a cardio visit to the gym, maybe reward myself with a steam, and then do the two-day lifting split on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday and Tuesday. Had I done this last and the previous Monday, I think I'd be juuuuust a little thinner. We'll see.
I'm going to retain this same set of goals, and make my weight-loss target an even 224, down one half-pound. For the past few weeks, I've overshot the goal, but I believe this has been due to poor protein and sleep follow-up reversing some of my weightlifting progress. I've got big expectations for this week, as it'll be the last complete week in New Jersey before I spend two-plus days in Central City for work. Between the indigenous cuisine, and the fun of spending a few hours in airports, I need to charge into that trip in top form.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Sick Day Reflections
TAKING A SICK DAY TODAY. I woke up this morning feeling a cold coming on. I've been trying to get more sleep, but Sunday was munged by nightmares and my awakening at 4 a.m. with no chance of returning to sleep, and Tuesday night was a justifiable late night due to a mass expedition to The Dark Knight. Though the movie ended at 10 p.m. and I was able to get home at a somewhat reasonable 10:30, I returned a call to my parents, during which I discussed the wonders of the film and various work issues. I was then drawn to the Internet and its many spoiler-laden discussions, and suddenly . . . it was midnight.
I'd awakened the past couple of days with a sore throat, and when this morning made it a third, I decided to pull the plug on an early gym trip as well as work. Because I have to blast the AC here to get it from its wall mount in the living room to my bedroom (around a bend), by 2 or 3 in the morning, it gets distinctly chilly. (O, for a modern unit with a built-in timer!) Despite recent disillusionment at work, I do have a couple of pressing tasks I don't want to leave too long. But with the possibility of this either developing fully into a cold, or of sucking down worse pathogens from the shit-for-brains who insist on coming into work sick, I figured why risk catching something that would kill the rest of the week and possibly fuck up the weekend?
I did begin to work off some of the fat I picked up over the weekend, but still felt somewhat weak and flabby compared to a couple of weeks ago. I would love to go over to the gym this afternoon and at least get 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer or treadmill, maybe an abbreviated version of the leg/shoulder workout I'd planned to do this morning. I feel well now, somewhat tired from lack of doing anything besides balance my checkbook, pay some bills, vacuum the floors, and clean the bathroom . . . which makes this a sick day of epic productivity if you ask me. If I feel well at 2:30, I may scoot over to the gym for a token stretch and some putt-putt on the cardio floor.
I had another piece of evidence that I've lost some adaptation to the junk I'd been eating. I figured it was more convenient to grab dinner at the mall that houses the movie theater, and — given the choice of having an off-program dinner, or getting hungry halfway through the film and eating the junk from the concession stand — I was better off eating on the time schedule, if not the exact food one. So I grabbed a burger and fries from Johnny Rockets.
This proved touch-and-go. The burger took some time to get comfortable, if you get my meaning, and for a short stretch, I wondered if I would keep it. My eating choices had been spotless earlier that day, so this was the first pure crap I'd eaten all day. Perhaps I have lost my appetite for greasy food. I had two charcoal-grilled burgers at Bill's over the weekend, but with thinner buns, less fat, no toppings save cheese and some ketchup, and no fries. I don't think it was the influx of simple carbs that made me queasy. I'd had spaghetti on Sunday and Monday nights at my parents' house, in addition to the bread-based filling in the bracciole, with no similar feelings.
With a business trip coming later in the month, I've got some planning to do during the two days I'll be away from my usual feedbag. I can tote some things out there (nuts, jerky, protein bars), but the hotel food and whatever sludge they get for lunch may not be all that helpful. So I'll just have to run up to this travel with exceptional work on both the exercise and food counts, and trust myself to stay on track when I return. Though I do have to smile at seeing that my body really wants me to eat better food. Nice to have a built-in fan.
I'd awakened the past couple of days with a sore throat, and when this morning made it a third, I decided to pull the plug on an early gym trip as well as work. Because I have to blast the AC here to get it from its wall mount in the living room to my bedroom (around a bend), by 2 or 3 in the morning, it gets distinctly chilly. (O, for a modern unit with a built-in timer!) Despite recent disillusionment at work, I do have a couple of pressing tasks I don't want to leave too long. But with the possibility of this either developing fully into a cold, or of sucking down worse pathogens from the shit-for-brains who insist on coming into work sick, I figured why risk catching something that would kill the rest of the week and possibly fuck up the weekend?
I did begin to work off some of the fat I picked up over the weekend, but still felt somewhat weak and flabby compared to a couple of weeks ago. I would love to go over to the gym this afternoon and at least get 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer or treadmill, maybe an abbreviated version of the leg/shoulder workout I'd planned to do this morning. I feel well now, somewhat tired from lack of doing anything besides balance my checkbook, pay some bills, vacuum the floors, and clean the bathroom . . . which makes this a sick day of epic productivity if you ask me. If I feel well at 2:30, I may scoot over to the gym for a token stretch and some putt-putt on the cardio floor.
I had another piece of evidence that I've lost some adaptation to the junk I'd been eating. I figured it was more convenient to grab dinner at the mall that houses the movie theater, and — given the choice of having an off-program dinner, or getting hungry halfway through the film and eating the junk from the concession stand — I was better off eating on the time schedule, if not the exact food one. So I grabbed a burger and fries from Johnny Rockets.
This proved touch-and-go. The burger took some time to get comfortable, if you get my meaning, and for a short stretch, I wondered if I would keep it. My eating choices had been spotless earlier that day, so this was the first pure crap I'd eaten all day. Perhaps I have lost my appetite for greasy food. I had two charcoal-grilled burgers at Bill's over the weekend, but with thinner buns, less fat, no toppings save cheese and some ketchup, and no fries. I don't think it was the influx of simple carbs that made me queasy. I'd had spaghetti on Sunday and Monday nights at my parents' house, in addition to the bread-based filling in the bracciole, with no similar feelings.
With a business trip coming later in the month, I've got some planning to do during the two days I'll be away from my usual feedbag. I can tote some things out there (nuts, jerky, protein bars), but the hotel food and whatever sludge they get for lunch may not be all that helpful. So I'll just have to run up to this travel with exceptional work on both the exercise and food counts, and trust myself to stay on track when I return. Though I do have to smile at seeing that my body really wants me to eat better food. Nice to have a built-in fan.
Monday, August 04, 2008
30x40: Week of 7/28/08 Progress
IT'S BEEN A MONTH SINCE I began tracking my food intake and exercise, and I can see some course corrections are necessary. I can't emphasize more strongly how useful it's been to examine, for four solid weeks, just what I've been eating. I have a better sense of what works now. This will help me overcome what some stock traders refer to euphimistically as retracement.
Last week's average caloric intake was a bit closer to the 2200 calories I'd originally pegged as my daily weekday intake. I'd had trouble eating enough to meet this goal while still splitting protein, carbs, and far into the percentages I'd chosen. Carbs usually were the macronutrient in which I ran over my limit. In most cases they were from complex carbs like whole-grain bread, brown rice, or cereal. Still, I wanted to keep my protein up (at 40% of total calories) to keep feeding my muscles.
I'd been recording what I ate on weekends, but not in fine caloric detail. Many of my earlier meals would be much like the ones I ate during the week, but I assumed that at least one meal on Saturday would be eaten at a restaurant. Sunday dinner would have no restriction whatsoever.
This weekend was a hefty one. I was lucky enough to be invited to my friend Bill's for a cookout, in celebration of our mutual friend Rich, and his family, being present in New Jersey. Rich did a stretch in Iraq two years ago, and still returns for missions that require his expertise. While there, his first and second children were born. I'd never actually met them, as they live in Virginia. So the chance to see all of them, plus Rich's siblings and mother, was something I couldn't miss. And with them came a tide of picnic-style food. In addition to this, on Sunday my mother busted out an old classic: bracciole. Though I started each day with whole-grain cereal and visited the gym, I still gained back a little more fat than I would've liked.
With data like I've generated the past four weeks, comes the ability to calibrate. It looks like I was losing more weight eating 1800–1900 calories per day than I was when I reached 2000–2200, and it's clear that I need to restrict myself more on weekends. Amid yesterday's foodfest, I also bought a bag of Whole Foods jellybeans, which I found, not unlike fast food, I can no longer eat in bulk without regretting it.
So I've cut back on all servings. The five to six meals across the day are working well, but I need to reduce the caloric count and add vegetables to increase satisfaction on the late-day meals. I bought frozen fruit for my smoothies, but distributed the contents of the two bags across six servings, instead of five. I cut bananas in half and froze them to chop the morning sugar intake I'd ordinarily get from a whole one. I bought Ezekiel sprouted bread, which is still high in fiber but has fewer simple carbs, and which gets high marks for energy efficiency from a far more fit friend of mine. And when I make my next dinner of broccoli, tuna fish, and whole wheat penne, out go the penne. As for the brown rice with the chili, even at a single serving, it's turning out to be way more than I want to eat just before going to sleep.
I left my goals the same over the past week, with the exception of the weight goal, which I took down a half-pound to 225.5. This I exceeded on Saturday by measuring up at 223.5, but I think a bit of that was from muscle loss. This I blame on poor sleep. Last week was spotty. Work was a factor. For as long as I've been a desk jockey, if I don't like what I'm doing at work, if I don't want to go in, I stay up late. I read, fuck around on the Net, play a computer game, nothing all that productive. It's a terrible habit, and last week it cost me. If it keeps up, I'll just get rid of the goddamn nightstand where, historically, books and a desk light have provided a temptation.
This week's current weight goal is 224.5, which will probably take a couple of days to reach given the fat I put on over this weekend. I've got clear evidence that 1900 calories works a little better. If I need to measure as much of Saturday's intake as I can, so be it, I can start doing that too. Might be good to eat a bit more just to trick the body into getting off of what it perceives to be starvation (though the bigger Sunday dinners can have that effect too).
I've got a revised set of goals up for this week:
What makes me paranoid is that it's usually after a month that something intervenes and derails my forward motion. I'm relying on the documented success at the gym, and my records of what foods will give me the right results — 4.5 pounds last month, or 15% of my goal of 30 by age 40 — to push past this speedbump. I really have no choice but to succeed. The alternatives end poorly.
Last week's average caloric intake was a bit closer to the 2200 calories I'd originally pegged as my daily weekday intake. I'd had trouble eating enough to meet this goal while still splitting protein, carbs, and far into the percentages I'd chosen. Carbs usually were the macronutrient in which I ran over my limit. In most cases they were from complex carbs like whole-grain bread, brown rice, or cereal. Still, I wanted to keep my protein up (at 40% of total calories) to keep feeding my muscles.
I'd been recording what I ate on weekends, but not in fine caloric detail. Many of my earlier meals would be much like the ones I ate during the week, but I assumed that at least one meal on Saturday would be eaten at a restaurant. Sunday dinner would have no restriction whatsoever.
This weekend was a hefty one. I was lucky enough to be invited to my friend Bill's for a cookout, in celebration of our mutual friend Rich, and his family, being present in New Jersey. Rich did a stretch in Iraq two years ago, and still returns for missions that require his expertise. While there, his first and second children were born. I'd never actually met them, as they live in Virginia. So the chance to see all of them, plus Rich's siblings and mother, was something I couldn't miss. And with them came a tide of picnic-style food. In addition to this, on Sunday my mother busted out an old classic: bracciole. Though I started each day with whole-grain cereal and visited the gym, I still gained back a little more fat than I would've liked.
With data like I've generated the past four weeks, comes the ability to calibrate. It looks like I was losing more weight eating 1800–1900 calories per day than I was when I reached 2000–2200, and it's clear that I need to restrict myself more on weekends. Amid yesterday's foodfest, I also bought a bag of Whole Foods jellybeans, which I found, not unlike fast food, I can no longer eat in bulk without regretting it.
So I've cut back on all servings. The five to six meals across the day are working well, but I need to reduce the caloric count and add vegetables to increase satisfaction on the late-day meals. I bought frozen fruit for my smoothies, but distributed the contents of the two bags across six servings, instead of five. I cut bananas in half and froze them to chop the morning sugar intake I'd ordinarily get from a whole one. I bought Ezekiel sprouted bread, which is still high in fiber but has fewer simple carbs, and which gets high marks for energy efficiency from a far more fit friend of mine. And when I make my next dinner of broccoli, tuna fish, and whole wheat penne, out go the penne. As for the brown rice with the chili, even at a single serving, it's turning out to be way more than I want to eat just before going to sleep.
I left my goals the same over the past week, with the exception of the weight goal, which I took down a half-pound to 225.5. This I exceeded on Saturday by measuring up at 223.5, but I think a bit of that was from muscle loss. This I blame on poor sleep. Last week was spotty. Work was a factor. For as long as I've been a desk jockey, if I don't like what I'm doing at work, if I don't want to go in, I stay up late. I read, fuck around on the Net, play a computer game, nothing all that productive. It's a terrible habit, and last week it cost me. If it keeps up, I'll just get rid of the goddamn nightstand where, historically, books and a desk light have provided a temptation.
This week's current weight goal is 224.5, which will probably take a couple of days to reach given the fat I put on over this weekend. I've got clear evidence that 1900 calories works a little better. If I need to measure as much of Saturday's intake as I can, so be it, I can start doing that too. Might be good to eat a bit more just to trick the body into getting off of what it perceives to be starvation (though the bigger Sunday dinners can have that effect too).
I've got a revised set of goals up for this week:
- 8 hours sleep/night
- 8/5: Waist measure [forgot to do it this a.m.]
- More veggies in afternoon and with dinner
- Portion control: 1900 calories, 40/40/30 nutrients [protein/carbs/fat]
- Solid gym attendance
What makes me paranoid is that it's usually after a month that something intervenes and derails my forward motion. I'm relying on the documented success at the gym, and my records of what foods will give me the right results — 4.5 pounds last month, or 15% of my goal of 30 by age 40 — to push past this speedbump. I really have no choice but to succeed. The alternatives end poorly.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Fitness—Saved!
DESPITE THE MYSTERIOUS FIRE-DEPARTMENT situation of yesterday that shunted all morning-workout freaks to later or next-day exercise sessions, I did managed to slide in after work, giving a lift to another blah day with some king-hell progress.
Good thing, too. The last time I'd worked my shoulders and legs (I do both on the same day) was last Friday, and I was beginning to feel aches in both. This let me know that muscle was being broken down, or so I believed. In practice, I fulfilled one of my goals for the week by lifting more than I'd anticipated in a couple of exercises.
I felt tired and fatigued by the time I got home from work, and I figured, at minimum, I would get 30 minutes on whichever aerobic machine was available. I assumed the upstairs weight areas were going to be swamped. I typically get home between 5:15 and 5:20, and take about 10 minutes to get dressed and over to the gym in the morning, when there's less traffic through the heart of town. So I took a couple of coins for the town parking meters in case the gym lot was full. But a spot near the entrance welcomed me, which I took as a good sign.
The weight floor was busy, but mostly filled with silent men who weren't using any of the leg or shoulder machines I planned to attack. Just in case, I switched my usual order of battle and hit the shoulder press machine first. Because it's a plate-loaded unit, not a Nautilus- or Cybex-style stack-raiser, it's tough for folks to "work in," or alternate use on the gadget—while one party exercises, the other rests, then they switch, the seat and weight are adjusted, lather, rinse, etc. With plate-loading machines, you'd have to drag off many of the barbell plates to reset the thing for the next person. If you're doing several sets, like I was, and combining it with a second, related exercise (in my case, shrugs with dumbbells), it's best to have the machine to yourself for the full bunch of sets.
Which I did. In fact, I felt strong enough to add a little more weight to later sets, which surprised me. I'd honestly thought that missing Monday, plus the dodgy protein intake over the weekend, were responsible for lost muscle tissue. But the top set on both the shoulder press machine (45 lb. each side, 5 reps) and the shrugs (60 lb., 5 reps) were both confident and controlled.
With the shoulders out of the way, the three sets of leg exercises, as well as some crunches and dumbbell bicep curls I finished with, were a dream. I stretched, rode home through grim humidity, and enjoyed a chocolate–mixed berry protein smoothie. So if nothing else, I am at least feeding myself enough protein to keep muscle during those accidental outtages that inevitably will crop up.
I'd first heard this record at the long-gone Tower Records in Paramus. The first cut, Sasha's "Xpander," came on the store stereo system while I was digging through the magazines. I'd heard this track before, during an ad campaign for some videogame, and I found the whole track riveting. I read idly through several magazines and books at the store while listening to the rest of the record, then bought it. In the intervening years, it was always part of my driving music on the way to Foxwoods or Atlantic City. I couldn't make the final approach along Route 2A or the AC Expressway without the gaudy pulse of System F's "Out of the Blue" conjuring images of the Japanese techno-future we all thought was coming back in the mid-Eighties, with candy-sheened megatowers clawing their way into the violet Tokyo skies.
I gave copies of this disc to two women I knew, one a close friend and former lover, the other a friend I hoped would become a future lover (sadly not to be), both of whom dug dance music. My own copy disappeared when I stupidly left a case full of CDs untended at a gym in Las Vegas in summer of 2003. When I bought my first iPod later that year, it took some time to locate a new copy of the record, but find it I did, and I added it to the playlist and stashed the disc someplace safe.
I hadn't listened to it for a while until today. The new iPod does a much better job of running the tracks together without that split-second gap the '03 model dropped between the cuts. Although I didn't have time to let the whole album play, as my ride neared its end, I did blip forward to "Out of the Blue," and imagined myself, with the TV in front of the elliptical trainer showing only my sweaty reflection, gliding among those pastel-and-steel Tokyo towers again, a Blade Runner metropolis done up by Ecstasy-addled confectioner/architects.
Some love may never catch fire, and friends may drift away, but at least I shared that music with them, bidding them the chance to fly through their own dream-cities wherever they might lie.
Good thing, too. The last time I'd worked my shoulders and legs (I do both on the same day) was last Friday, and I was beginning to feel aches in both. This let me know that muscle was being broken down, or so I believed. In practice, I fulfilled one of my goals for the week by lifting more than I'd anticipated in a couple of exercises.
I felt tired and fatigued by the time I got home from work, and I figured, at minimum, I would get 30 minutes on whichever aerobic machine was available. I assumed the upstairs weight areas were going to be swamped. I typically get home between 5:15 and 5:20, and take about 10 minutes to get dressed and over to the gym in the morning, when there's less traffic through the heart of town. So I took a couple of coins for the town parking meters in case the gym lot was full. But a spot near the entrance welcomed me, which I took as a good sign.
The weight floor was busy, but mostly filled with silent men who weren't using any of the leg or shoulder machines I planned to attack. Just in case, I switched my usual order of battle and hit the shoulder press machine first. Because it's a plate-loaded unit, not a Nautilus- or Cybex-style stack-raiser, it's tough for folks to "work in," or alternate use on the gadget—while one party exercises, the other rests, then they switch, the seat and weight are adjusted, lather, rinse, etc. With plate-loading machines, you'd have to drag off many of the barbell plates to reset the thing for the next person. If you're doing several sets, like I was, and combining it with a second, related exercise (in my case, shrugs with dumbbells), it's best to have the machine to yourself for the full bunch of sets.
Which I did. In fact, I felt strong enough to add a little more weight to later sets, which surprised me. I'd honestly thought that missing Monday, plus the dodgy protein intake over the weekend, were responsible for lost muscle tissue. But the top set on both the shoulder press machine (45 lb. each side, 5 reps) and the shrugs (60 lb., 5 reps) were both confident and controlled.
With the shoulders out of the way, the three sets of leg exercises, as well as some crunches and dumbbell bicep curls I finished with, were a dream. I stretched, rode home through grim humidity, and enjoyed a chocolate–mixed berry protein smoothie. So if nothing else, I am at least feeding myself enough protein to keep muscle during those accidental outtages that inevitably will crop up.
And Now, a Musical Digression
I did manage to follow this up today with a half hour on the elliptical trainer. Instead of absorbing CNBC's panicked pre-market jabberings, I went with my iPod. I listened to a techno/dance compilation Trance: A State of Altered Consciousness, which in disc form rarely left my car during long solo casino rides. Certain dance music from the late Nineties found a nice place in my ear, despite my fairly diverse, untethered allegiance to any one favorite musical style.I'd first heard this record at the long-gone Tower Records in Paramus. The first cut, Sasha's "Xpander," came on the store stereo system while I was digging through the magazines. I'd heard this track before, during an ad campaign for some videogame, and I found the whole track riveting. I read idly through several magazines and books at the store while listening to the rest of the record, then bought it. In the intervening years, it was always part of my driving music on the way to Foxwoods or Atlantic City. I couldn't make the final approach along Route 2A or the AC Expressway without the gaudy pulse of System F's "Out of the Blue" conjuring images of the Japanese techno-future we all thought was coming back in the mid-Eighties, with candy-sheened megatowers clawing their way into the violet Tokyo skies.
I gave copies of this disc to two women I knew, one a close friend and former lover, the other a friend I hoped would become a future lover (sadly not to be), both of whom dug dance music. My own copy disappeared when I stupidly left a case full of CDs untended at a gym in Las Vegas in summer of 2003. When I bought my first iPod later that year, it took some time to locate a new copy of the record, but find it I did, and I added it to the playlist and stashed the disc someplace safe.
I hadn't listened to it for a while until today. The new iPod does a much better job of running the tracks together without that split-second gap the '03 model dropped between the cuts. Although I didn't have time to let the whole album play, as my ride neared its end, I did blip forward to "Out of the Blue," and imagined myself, with the TV in front of the elliptical trainer showing only my sweaty reflection, gliding among those pastel-and-steel Tokyo towers again, a Blade Runner metropolis done up by Ecstasy-addled confectioner/architects.
Some love may never catch fire, and friends may drift away, but at least I shared that music with them, bidding them the chance to fly through their own dream-cities wherever they might lie.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Fitness—Denied!
I WOKE UP AT 5:00, pulled on my gym clothes, and ran out the door to keep up with my usual program. I had been looking forward to this yesterday, because today's scheduled routine was to work my legs and shoulders — both of which felt a little weak over the course of Tuesday. The slightly erratic protein intake of the weekend, and the one-day delay in getting to the gym, cost me just enough muscle to make a noticeable difference. Nothing I couldn't remedy. Besides, the back/chest routine yesterday was great; I actually added weight successfully to two movements.
So you can imagine my disappointment when I — a Fat Man on the Move, ready to push back against the Great American Disease — reached the gym and was told, by a fellow patron heading out of the facility, that they were closed.
She couldn't give me a reason, so I headed in to find out. The desk clerk told me there had been "fire department activity" last night, but that my pass would be cross-honored at the other two clubs in this chain across the county. She also gave me a sheet on which I could record my name and phone number so I could receive a call when they were open (they anticipated 11:00 today). They would also credit me for the lost day.
I wrote down my number and left, too thrown off to ask what precisely constituted "fire department activity" (a fire? failed inspection? a fundraising dunk tank ruptured and flooded the spin-bike room?). No sense in getting angry at them — hell, I could've lost a club, and they or their coworkers could've lost their jobs or lives. Not much else I could do, as pissed as I was, aside from slamming my front door upon returning home. I spent a fruitless hour trying to fall back asleep before arising at 6:00 to fuck around on the Net for a stretch, still stewing a bit over the lost opportunity.
But I have to trust myself that I will be able to overcome one day of interruption. Eventually, I will get a cold, or some other illness, that will force me to stay home for a day or two. All I need to do is see how much muscle I have left to work with, adjust the weights accordingly, and forge ahead. My weight didn't change between today and yesterday, and my eating plan was within tolerances on Monday and Tuesday, so I've done all I can. I did let a weekend indulgence — homebrewed coffee — creep into this morning's intake as a way to soak my frustrations. If I eat properly, hit the gym tomorrow (or maybe even sneak a cardio session in tonight if they're open), and work with what muscles I've got, I should do well this week. I'm looking at a loss of 4.5 lb. since the first day of the 30x40 challenge, and 9 lb. since my 232.5 peak after the birthday–July 4 weekend week of Cookie Monsterish consumption. With a projected goal of losing about a half-pound of fat per week, I'm on target.
It's the stress-relief aspect of the exercise that I will miss today. This work week so far, and all of last work week, have seen me in a state of simmering anger. My daily workouts have been the antidote so far, the high points of these days. And as Howard Dean and George McGovern will tell you, peaking early is no blessing. I have to sit through a staff meeting today, during which I will sorely miss the endorphins. So wish me strength until I can get to the gym and give myself the next good push in my ongoing physical rebirth, and set in pixels here the reasons why I feel more done than ever with this stop in my career.
So you can imagine my disappointment when I — a Fat Man on the Move, ready to push back against the Great American Disease — reached the gym and was told, by a fellow patron heading out of the facility, that they were closed.
She couldn't give me a reason, so I headed in to find out. The desk clerk told me there had been "fire department activity" last night, but that my pass would be cross-honored at the other two clubs in this chain across the county. She also gave me a sheet on which I could record my name and phone number so I could receive a call when they were open (they anticipated 11:00 today). They would also credit me for the lost day.
I wrote down my number and left, too thrown off to ask what precisely constituted "fire department activity" (a fire? failed inspection? a fundraising dunk tank ruptured and flooded the spin-bike room?). No sense in getting angry at them — hell, I could've lost a club, and they or their coworkers could've lost their jobs or lives. Not much else I could do, as pissed as I was, aside from slamming my front door upon returning home. I spent a fruitless hour trying to fall back asleep before arising at 6:00 to fuck around on the Net for a stretch, still stewing a bit over the lost opportunity.
But I have to trust myself that I will be able to overcome one day of interruption. Eventually, I will get a cold, or some other illness, that will force me to stay home for a day or two. All I need to do is see how much muscle I have left to work with, adjust the weights accordingly, and forge ahead. My weight didn't change between today and yesterday, and my eating plan was within tolerances on Monday and Tuesday, so I've done all I can. I did let a weekend indulgence — homebrewed coffee — creep into this morning's intake as a way to soak my frustrations. If I eat properly, hit the gym tomorrow (or maybe even sneak a cardio session in tonight if they're open), and work with what muscles I've got, I should do well this week. I'm looking at a loss of 4.5 lb. since the first day of the 30x40 challenge, and 9 lb. since my 232.5 peak after the birthday–July 4 weekend week of Cookie Monsterish consumption. With a projected goal of losing about a half-pound of fat per week, I'm on target.
It's the stress-relief aspect of the exercise that I will miss today. This work week so far, and all of last work week, have seen me in a state of simmering anger. My daily workouts have been the antidote so far, the high points of these days. And as Howard Dean and George McGovern will tell you, peaking early is no blessing. I have to sit through a staff meeting today, during which I will sorely miss the endorphins. So wish me strength until I can get to the gym and give myself the next good push in my ongoing physical rebirth, and set in pixels here the reasons why I feel more done than ever with this stop in my career.
Monday, July 28, 2008
30x40: Week of 7/21/08 Progress
THIS IS THE THIRD WEEK of my fitness program, and so far, the most important measure, weight, has been under control. Particularly important, because emotionally it was a shitty week (of which more later), and I didn't run out and bury my frustrations in some of the low-carb crap I've been wont to do. The only weekday meal that missed the mark was a Friday adventure with nacho chips and cheese, but I counted every chip, calorie, and macronutrient, so I have no food unaccounted for. (Plus I tossed the remaining chips Saturday morning in the manner of a repentant, backsliding smoker.)
So, for those who crave more obsession with my weekly rigors, the new list of goals on the board last Monday was as follows:
7/21: Waist measure: I'd added a weekly bout with the tape measure to complement the scale readings. The number is nice and all, but the gut circumference helps reveal gross fat differences more clearly. And at the rate I plan to go, my clothing should not feel perceptibly looser from one day to the next, or even across a couple of weeks.
My ides of June measure, fresh from Las Vegas, was 51 inches across the navel and hip bones (which took a little doing to find). On 7/21, I'd reduced to 49.5; today, I'd shaved off another half-inch. Not bad, considering this weekend held some extra-naughty cake, courtesy of Steve and his co-conspirators at Jen's graduation party.
Because I expect a very gentle, gradual drop in this figure, with possibly imperceptible progress over a month — and because I'm so inept at finding the proper place to stretch the tape over my topography — I'm not setting a goal for this figure. I'll just let this one inform the more frequent weight surveys.
Perfect gym attendance: A second perfect week. Of course, I fouled up any chance to add a third week of this by sabotaging my sleep schedule. Upon returning home relatively early Saturday night, I made the mistake of pulling Watchmen off the shelf. I didn't set it aside until 2:30, and I still hadn't finished it. I even complained at the party earlier that day of the hazard of even peeking in the comic to confirm one quick detail, for fear of just plopping down and plowing through the whole book. Goddamn you, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
So tomorrow begins this week's cycle, with Monday's workout. No big thing, although past experience has shown the Monday lifting-fests to be a bitch if the preceding weekend featured scattershot protein intake. The past two days weren't so bad, but today was a lean-food day. Not the worst thing to admit for someone who backed himself into this situation with his fuckin' appetite, but still, I don't want my body snacking out on my own muscles and unraveling my work.
Post weights #s on net: I only added this because I kept blipping on saving the Blogger template, leaving yesterday's weight and date for all to see. Problem fixed.
More protein (sans bad fats): Having the small tins of tuna has worked well during the day, but I still see myself falling short of the 40% of total daily calories that I want to get from protein sources. I bought eggs and Egg Beaters, which I can have in a 50/50 blend to make scrambled eggs for breakfast on weekends or weekday dinners. I can snag small cups of yogurt to eat as dessert, though I do have to watch the simple carbs they contain. One other solution is jerky, but the bagged jerky around these parts tends to have some nasty chemical flavoring agent added (We put the "yak" in "teriyaki!"), and the good stuff you get online costs about as much as heroin. Will have to tinker with it this week.
More veggies/better dinner choices: Dinner in Week 2 wasn't so bad, but it was a little deficient in good veggies. Week 3 was just about the same, so I am going to keep these two goals to help guide the ship of progress inch by inch . . . into the nearest Chinese buffet. No, seriously, I can nail these if I plan ahead.
Push exercise limits: I did well here, thanks to the microloading tactic I adopted. I took some time (at work, of course) to plan out tomorrow's progressions, and I think being able to notch things up in 2.5-lb. steps ought to help me climb that wall I seem to be nearing. I do feel stronger while accomplishing various household chores, climbing stairs, and the like, so I'm in far better shape than some summers while working in the city, when I would sit panting at my desk after lugging my 240-lb. frame across Midtown or Chelsea and wonder if I'd have the endurance to roll back to Jersey in the murderous heat of the evening.
Target weight: 226: When I weighed myself Saturday morning, I came out at 223.5, well within my goal. I've already retraced some of this (225.5 this morning) due to the less controlled grazing at Jen's party on Saturday, but note: I didn't gain it all back. Good sign. I'm going to use today's weight as the goal for this week. If I remain at 225.5 by next Saturday, but I improve my lifting numbers, then I know I dropped a little more fat. If I do better at the weights and beat the goal . . . well, I won't complain.
So we'll see how I do during this week. If I can stay awake, I'll post some or all of the handwritten analysis of my work situation, which I scrawled out over a couple of hours in the office last Friday. It was by far the most productive thing I did there all week.
So, for those who crave more obsession with my weekly rigors, the new list of goals on the board last Monday was as follows:
- Improve clean protein intake
- 7/21: Waist measure
- Perfect gym attendance
- Post weight #s on net
- More protein (sans bad fats)
- More veggies
- Push limits of at least two exercises
- Good dinner choices
- TARGET WEIGHT: 226
7/21: Waist measure: I'd added a weekly bout with the tape measure to complement the scale readings. The number is nice and all, but the gut circumference helps reveal gross fat differences more clearly. And at the rate I plan to go, my clothing should not feel perceptibly looser from one day to the next, or even across a couple of weeks.
My ides of June measure, fresh from Las Vegas, was 51 inches across the navel and hip bones (which took a little doing to find). On 7/21, I'd reduced to 49.5; today, I'd shaved off another half-inch. Not bad, considering this weekend held some extra-naughty cake, courtesy of Steve and his co-conspirators at Jen's graduation party.
Because I expect a very gentle, gradual drop in this figure, with possibly imperceptible progress over a month — and because I'm so inept at finding the proper place to stretch the tape over my topography — I'm not setting a goal for this figure. I'll just let this one inform the more frequent weight surveys.
Perfect gym attendance: A second perfect week. Of course, I fouled up any chance to add a third week of this by sabotaging my sleep schedule. Upon returning home relatively early Saturday night, I made the mistake of pulling Watchmen off the shelf. I didn't set it aside until 2:30, and I still hadn't finished it. I even complained at the party earlier that day of the hazard of even peeking in the comic to confirm one quick detail, for fear of just plopping down and plowing through the whole book. Goddamn you, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
So tomorrow begins this week's cycle, with Monday's workout. No big thing, although past experience has shown the Monday lifting-fests to be a bitch if the preceding weekend featured scattershot protein intake. The past two days weren't so bad, but today was a lean-food day. Not the worst thing to admit for someone who backed himself into this situation with his fuckin' appetite, but still, I don't want my body snacking out on my own muscles and unraveling my work.
Post weights #s on net: I only added this because I kept blipping on saving the Blogger template, leaving yesterday's weight and date for all to see. Problem fixed.
More protein (sans bad fats): Having the small tins of tuna has worked well during the day, but I still see myself falling short of the 40% of total daily calories that I want to get from protein sources. I bought eggs and Egg Beaters, which I can have in a 50/50 blend to make scrambled eggs for breakfast on weekends or weekday dinners. I can snag small cups of yogurt to eat as dessert, though I do have to watch the simple carbs they contain. One other solution is jerky, but the bagged jerky around these parts tends to have some nasty chemical flavoring agent added (We put the "yak" in "teriyaki!"), and the good stuff you get online costs about as much as heroin. Will have to tinker with it this week.
More veggies/better dinner choices: Dinner in Week 2 wasn't so bad, but it was a little deficient in good veggies. Week 3 was just about the same, so I am going to keep these two goals to help guide the ship of progress inch by inch . . . into the nearest Chinese buffet. No, seriously, I can nail these if I plan ahead.
Push exercise limits: I did well here, thanks to the microloading tactic I adopted. I took some time (at work, of course) to plan out tomorrow's progressions, and I think being able to notch things up in 2.5-lb. steps ought to help me climb that wall I seem to be nearing. I do feel stronger while accomplishing various household chores, climbing stairs, and the like, so I'm in far better shape than some summers while working in the city, when I would sit panting at my desk after lugging my 240-lb. frame across Midtown or Chelsea and wonder if I'd have the endurance to roll back to Jersey in the murderous heat of the evening.
Target weight: 226: When I weighed myself Saturday morning, I came out at 223.5, well within my goal. I've already retraced some of this (225.5 this morning) due to the less controlled grazing at Jen's party on Saturday, but note: I didn't gain it all back. Good sign. I'm going to use today's weight as the goal for this week. If I remain at 225.5 by next Saturday, but I improve my lifting numbers, then I know I dropped a little more fat. If I do better at the weights and beat the goal . . . well, I won't complain.
So we'll see how I do during this week. If I can stay awake, I'll post some or all of the handwritten analysis of my work situation, which I scrawled out over a couple of hours in the office last Friday. It was by far the most productive thing I did there all week.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Microloading for Busting Stalled Weightlifting Progress
WHILE ENGAGING IN THE CURRENT (and, one hopes, ongoing) round of exercise, I checked my past recorded efforts, most of them failures. I noticed I tended to stall out at one maximum weight, then stop, get discouraged, and lose all of my progress.
The barrier seems to be that jump to the next higher weight unit. I use machines as well as free weights. The weakness of some of the machines is that the smallest unit is 10 lb. When you're barely strong enough to pull down 100 lb., 110 seems very distant. So I would end up leveling off, then flounder.
Enter microloading. Bodybuilders have long added smaller-than-usual weight plates to their barbells to push past the sticking points that lie between the standard 2.5- and 5-lb. plates. Some use magnetic mini-plates, others rig custom additions from huge washers or lengths of chain. For a sampling of what some bodybuilders have done, check this article the Dave Draper IronOnline message board. It's where I got my solution to the problem:
I don't need the single-pound nudge as much as the ability to make gradual progress between those big 10-lb. steps. To accomplish this, I hit the neighborhood hardware store (not yet driven out of business by Home Despot), and bought a length of moderately thick 2-ft. length of chain and a 150-lb.-test carabiner. I can dangle a 2.5-lb. plate from this, not unlike one of Flavor Flav's clocks, then attach it around the weight stack, so the next step from 100 becomes a slightly more manageable 102.5. When the time comes, I can up that to 105.
The only thing I need now is a gym bag, both to make sure this thing comes with me to the gym, and to hide it from casual view. Just sitting on my passenger seat, it makes me look like I'm heading to a rumble. An extra in West Side Story I'm not.
The barrier seems to be that jump to the next higher weight unit. I use machines as well as free weights. The weakness of some of the machines is that the smallest unit is 10 lb. When you're barely strong enough to pull down 100 lb., 110 seems very distant. So I would end up leveling off, then flounder.
Enter microloading. Bodybuilders have long added smaller-than-usual weight plates to their barbells to push past the sticking points that lie between the standard 2.5- and 5-lb. plates. Some use magnetic mini-plates, others rig custom additions from huge washers or lengths of chain. For a sampling of what some bodybuilders have done, check this article the Dave Draper IronOnline message board. It's where I got my solution to the problem:
I don't need the single-pound nudge as much as the ability to make gradual progress between those big 10-lb. steps. To accomplish this, I hit the neighborhood hardware store (not yet driven out of business by Home Despot), and bought a length of moderately thick 2-ft. length of chain and a 150-lb.-test carabiner. I can dangle a 2.5-lb. plate from this, not unlike one of Flavor Flav's clocks, then attach it around the weight stack, so the next step from 100 becomes a slightly more manageable 102.5. When the time comes, I can up that to 105.
The only thing I need now is a gym bag, both to make sure this thing comes with me to the gym, and to hide it from casual view. Just sitting on my passenger seat, it makes me look like I'm heading to a rumble. An extra in West Side Story I'm not.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
30x40: Week of 7/14 Progress
WEEK TWO OF MEASURING MY fitness and fat loss has concluded with wins in both areas. I surpassed my goal of reaching 227 lb., and according to my gym-visit records, I got just a little bit stronger. That's precisely the combination I sought during this program, as losing lean muscle is always a risk when reducing total food intake.
I revised my list of weekly goals as follows:
Protein, protein, and more protein: My current caloric split is 40% protein/30% carbohydrates (complex for as many as possible)/30% beneficial fats. I've found it hard to meet the protein number. Nutrition/protein bars usually also contain simple carbs (sugar of various types), and red meat has unavoidable bad fats no matter how trimmed the cut might be. I upped the amount of MetRx protein powder I add to my post-workout smoothies to two, and I've used the larger cans of Bumble Bee tuna as my dinner protein rather than the smaller cat-food tins. I eat walnuts or almonds at least once per day, and some days I've replaced one of these servings with half a natural peanut butter sandwich ("natural" = no added sugar). Don't want to overdo the fat intake with the nuts, though. One solution that also helps my perpetual quest for healthful weekday dinners: I made a ton of chili last week that I've begun mixing into the daily menu, which gives me fiber along with clean protein.
Even while not hitting the number I set, I've made some small strength gains during the week. I think it was a factor of keeping the kinds of carbs and fat I ate as healthful as possible, lower overall caloric content, and . . .
Perfect gym attendance through 7/20: Nailed this one today with a cardio trip to the gym this afternoon. I managed to get into the gym early each day except Friday, which I took as a personal day; at any rate, I was perfectly on schedule. I moved the weights up on a few of the exercises, as mentioned, and will seek reasonable opportunities to do so this coming week. Slow, steady progress is most likely to result in sustainable gains without training injuries or burnout. If I do feel the cold/flu-like symptoms of overtraining, I can drop one of the cardio days (Wed., Sat., Sun.) and sleep in. I won't be afraid to do so if it avoids erasing a week's worth of gains when overtraining and a dinged immune system lets some damn virus in. I don't think I said it any better than last week: "Flexibility and consistency trump guilt when these sorts of diversions occur."
Tracking meals/Weigh self daily: Kept on course here, despite some of the aforementioned diversions. On Monday night, I shared in the leftovers of Sunday's dinner at my parents' house; unlike Sunday night, I skipped the simple-carb side dish. Friday night my mom and I went out to dinner while my father spent a second night having a suspected recurrence of an old GI problem checked out at the hospital. (Problem solved; Dad came home Saturday.) I went with chicken parmigiana, but declined the linguine. In all cases, I made note of what I ate, but for these two meals I didn't get anal about the exact calorie count.
In any event, they didn't seem to ding my progress much. I surpassed the planned 227-lb. goal weight by half a pound. My chart indicates I got as low as 223.5, but this was an outlier. I'm setting my next goal at 226, a natural progression from the second week of 227 if I'm losing .57 lb./week. Keeping up with decent amounts of protein will keep the lean muscle coming as much as it will.
To the current weight tracking, I am going to add a measure of waist circumference. Abdominal fat is a precursor to cardiovascular disease. if I can measure a downward trend in the gut, I know that visceral and intramuscular fat are both being depleted, and the long-term luggage is finally, slowly, getting hit. This I will measure on Saturday mornings; I'll get a baseline read tomorrow morning.
Superior dinner nutrition: Other than the two dinners mentioned above, two of three were good-quality meals, including the chili I'd made for just such an occasion. The first night I had it, I paired it with a serving of brown rice, which significantly boosted that day's carbs. Though they were complex carbs, I'm still trying to keep a limit on them in the evening. The final one was an impromptu affair in the hospital emergency department waiting room. I'd had the smarts to bring a small tin of tuna, a fork, and a serving of almonds with me. Because my father was not an emergency case per se, it took him a long time to be admitted; and even when he was in, the necessary test took 2 hours from start to finish. I also had a double-serving of prunes with me in case I felt myself going faint. Oddly, I didn't; I avoided major hunger until I drove my mom home around 11 p.m. that night.
Fish oil: Doing my part to deplete the oceans, I managed to hit this goal each night before bed. I'm leaving it off of next week's list because I did in fact place a Post-It next to the alarm clock. Simple solutions sometimes do work.
Blog progress: I believe I forgot to hit save one day when entering the weight progress, but other than that, I recorded enough detail during the week to offer this minor update.
I've got a revised set of goals up for the week of July 21. I'm looking forward more to fulfilling them than I am to going to work.
I revised my list of weekly goals as follows:
- Improve clean protein intake
- Perfect gym attendance through 7/20
- Track all meals & weekday calories
- Weigh self daily
- Superior dinner nutrition
- Daily fish oil caps
- Blog progress
- TARGET WEIGHT: 227
Protein, protein, and more protein: My current caloric split is 40% protein/30% carbohydrates (complex for as many as possible)/30% beneficial fats. I've found it hard to meet the protein number. Nutrition/protein bars usually also contain simple carbs (sugar of various types), and red meat has unavoidable bad fats no matter how trimmed the cut might be. I upped the amount of MetRx protein powder I add to my post-workout smoothies to two, and I've used the larger cans of Bumble Bee tuna as my dinner protein rather than the smaller cat-food tins. I eat walnuts or almonds at least once per day, and some days I've replaced one of these servings with half a natural peanut butter sandwich ("natural" = no added sugar). Don't want to overdo the fat intake with the nuts, though. One solution that also helps my perpetual quest for healthful weekday dinners: I made a ton of chili last week that I've begun mixing into the daily menu, which gives me fiber along with clean protein.
Even while not hitting the number I set, I've made some small strength gains during the week. I think it was a factor of keeping the kinds of carbs and fat I ate as healthful as possible, lower overall caloric content, and . . .
Perfect gym attendance through 7/20: Nailed this one today with a cardio trip to the gym this afternoon. I managed to get into the gym early each day except Friday, which I took as a personal day; at any rate, I was perfectly on schedule. I moved the weights up on a few of the exercises, as mentioned, and will seek reasonable opportunities to do so this coming week. Slow, steady progress is most likely to result in sustainable gains without training injuries or burnout. If I do feel the cold/flu-like symptoms of overtraining, I can drop one of the cardio days (Wed., Sat., Sun.) and sleep in. I won't be afraid to do so if it avoids erasing a week's worth of gains when overtraining and a dinged immune system lets some damn virus in. I don't think I said it any better than last week: "Flexibility and consistency trump guilt when these sorts of diversions occur."
Tracking meals/Weigh self daily: Kept on course here, despite some of the aforementioned diversions. On Monday night, I shared in the leftovers of Sunday's dinner at my parents' house; unlike Sunday night, I skipped the simple-carb side dish. Friday night my mom and I went out to dinner while my father spent a second night having a suspected recurrence of an old GI problem checked out at the hospital. (Problem solved; Dad came home Saturday.) I went with chicken parmigiana, but declined the linguine. In all cases, I made note of what I ate, but for these two meals I didn't get anal about the exact calorie count.
In any event, they didn't seem to ding my progress much. I surpassed the planned 227-lb. goal weight by half a pound. My chart indicates I got as low as 223.5, but this was an outlier. I'm setting my next goal at 226, a natural progression from the second week of 227 if I'm losing .57 lb./week. Keeping up with decent amounts of protein will keep the lean muscle coming as much as it will.
To the current weight tracking, I am going to add a measure of waist circumference. Abdominal fat is a precursor to cardiovascular disease. if I can measure a downward trend in the gut, I know that visceral and intramuscular fat are both being depleted, and the long-term luggage is finally, slowly, getting hit. This I will measure on Saturday mornings; I'll get a baseline read tomorrow morning.
Superior dinner nutrition: Other than the two dinners mentioned above, two of three were good-quality meals, including the chili I'd made for just such an occasion. The first night I had it, I paired it with a serving of brown rice, which significantly boosted that day's carbs. Though they were complex carbs, I'm still trying to keep a limit on them in the evening. The final one was an impromptu affair in the hospital emergency department waiting room. I'd had the smarts to bring a small tin of tuna, a fork, and a serving of almonds with me. Because my father was not an emergency case per se, it took him a long time to be admitted; and even when he was in, the necessary test took 2 hours from start to finish. I also had a double-serving of prunes with me in case I felt myself going faint. Oddly, I didn't; I avoided major hunger until I drove my mom home around 11 p.m. that night.
Fish oil: Doing my part to deplete the oceans, I managed to hit this goal each night before bed. I'm leaving it off of next week's list because I did in fact place a Post-It next to the alarm clock. Simple solutions sometimes do work.
Blog progress: I believe I forgot to hit save one day when entering the weight progress, but other than that, I recorded enough detail during the week to offer this minor update.
I've got a revised set of goals up for the week of July 21. I'm looking forward more to fulfilling them than I am to going to work.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
30x40: Week of 7/7 Progress
THE FIRST WEEK OF MEASURING my progress in the 30x40 challenge has concluded. Though I didn't lose the pound I'd hoped to drop, I did overcome the birthday–July 4th week of celebratory consumption, and I met most of the goals I set for myself this past week. If you're willing to sit through a shitload of solipsistic fitness minutiae, read on.
Last weekend, I wrote these goals on the whiteboard on my front door:
Gym attendance: The only day on which I didn't go was Monday, 7/7. I had that day off, and I was slated to volunteer down at WFMU with a shipment of Marathon prizes. My plan had been to wake up very early, then either hit the gym and cruise down to Jersey City at leisure, or head straight down to Hoboken, walk around Manhattan for a few early-morning hours, then PATH to Exchange Place and nearby WFMU.
As it turned out, Sunday night ran past my usual bedtime, and the combination of the late, large meal at my parents', and the next day being a day off, led me to stay up longer than I'd planned. I slept fitfully due to the heat, and when I arose, dawn was a grim smear of sun wanly struggling through thick haze. I ditched both plans to catch up on sleep and set my sights on the last train to Hoboken. Walking to that train through the soupy air was a challenge. I'd gained a couple of fat pounds between my birthday and July 4th, and I felt them in my breathing and pace, which — when I'd been a regular NYC commuter and did this walk twice a day — was more peppy. FMU's volunteer room was very stuffy, so hitting the gym upon my return to a nightmarishly hot apartment was out of the question.
For the rest of the week, I was on target. The Monday skip pushed my workout schedule forward, so I got muscle workouts in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a night visit for 40 minutes of cardio on Thursday. The heat during the week peaked on Wednesday, and once again it took some time for my apartment that night to cool down to a sleep-friendly level. So I bumped the Thursday morning cardio to the evening. Today will be the second half of the total two-day muscle routine that is usually scheduled for Friday. I'll go in the late afternoon when the foot traffic is thinner and I have a couple of healthful meals in me. Flexibility and consistency trump guilt when these sorts of diversions occur, and my failure in the past was to let such diversions discourage me long enough for progress to unravel.
Tracking meals and calories: Easier than last time. When I ate at home, I entered the information right into Excel, relying on several pre-typed lines of caloric and nutritional info to speed the job. Because I bring my meals to work, on two mornings, I was able to cue up the info for those meals even before leaving the apartment. The rest of the days, I kept notes at work.
Wednesday and Friday nights, and Friday afternoon, involved meals not so easy to parse into their component elements. My mom invited me over for stir-fry Wednesday night, from which I knew I'd be taking home leftovers, which became Friday's lunch. In both cases, I made note in my Excel chart of the food I'd eaten, but — as will be the case for Sunday night dinners — didn't knock myself out trying to match calories and nutrients to the food. Ditto with the wonderfully generous spread Dave and Julia offered their guests last night. No way I'm missing that. It was enough to know what I'd eaten, and to keep myself accountable to what I'd need to do the next day at the gym to counteract the off-program eating. This way there's no looking back and saying, "Why did I feel so slow and fat Thursday morning?" The answer is right there on the weekly menu and the exercise log.
I learned that I was going to have to eat more, if you can believe it. I mentioned earlier this week only hitting 1477 out of the planned 2200 calories. I think the first two days of planned eating cost me some muscle, because my weight bottomed out at 225.5 on 7/11/08, to rebound to 228 after a weightlifting day and considerably more protein. Those seeking to control body fat by mixing cardiovascular exercise and weight training are best served by not starving themselves. Muscles need clean protein, though the challenge is to get enough of it while controlling bad fats. That will be one of next week's goals.
Weigh self daily: No problem there. Also thinking about adding a weekly waist:hip ratio measure to assess body fat. Perhaps another good goal for next week.
Improve dinner choices: Much better this time around. Sunday night dinner had the benefit of putting two roast chicken breast halves in my fridge, so I had clean protein for dinner two nights of the week, which I paired with broccoli and salad. I also made chili Thursday night for next week and beyond, for which I wrote down the nutritional values so I can make a quick entry on the chart for each measured serving I pull out of the freezer. Might pair them with brown rice, but I have to find one that reheats well; I'd make four servings' worth and store it in the fridge to apportion over the week.
I'm also thinking of grilling meat at my parents' house Sunday afternoons and using them over the week for dinner. I do have a Foreman grill, but even with the specially designed sponges, cleaning it is a bitch, and nothing matches real charcoal grilling. (Though I admit I'm a wood man.) If I can get over there earlier, grill three or four nights' worth of lean meat (maybe even throw this in marinade on Saturday), I'd preplan a big chunk of the week's dinner choices and only have to worry about the veggies.
Fish oil every day: Missed two days. It's tougher to remember this one, because I take the capsule right before bed (unlike my vitamins, which go down with the morning smoothie), and I store them in the freezer (a tip: by the time they melt, they're past the point of repeating on you and giving you "fish burps"). Will put up a reminder next to my alarm clock.
Target weight: 227: At 228 this morning, down from 232.5 last Monday, I give myself partial credit for at least dropping the extra fat I'd gained the week prior. I just need to monitor the good protein, especially on weight-training days, to keep my body from cannibalizing itself. The goal is to lose .57 lb./week. My scale is only sensitive to the half-pound, so if I'm really somewhere between 228 and 227.5 right now, and I watch the food numbers and keep hitting the gym on schedule, perhaps I will meet that goal come next Saturday. Anything extra will be a bonus unless, as with early this week, it's traceable to low calories or protein in particular.
Log progress and keep writing: Res ipsa loquitur.
Last weekend, I wrote these goals on the whiteboard on my front door:
- Perfect gym attendance from 7/7 through 7/12
- 7/8: Begin tracking meals and calories
- Weigh self daily
- Improve dinner choices
- Fish oil every day
- TARGET WEIGHT 7/12: 227
- Blog progress + KEEP WRITING!
Gym attendance: The only day on which I didn't go was Monday, 7/7. I had that day off, and I was slated to volunteer down at WFMU with a shipment of Marathon prizes. My plan had been to wake up very early, then either hit the gym and cruise down to Jersey City at leisure, or head straight down to Hoboken, walk around Manhattan for a few early-morning hours, then PATH to Exchange Place and nearby WFMU.
As it turned out, Sunday night ran past my usual bedtime, and the combination of the late, large meal at my parents', and the next day being a day off, led me to stay up longer than I'd planned. I slept fitfully due to the heat, and when I arose, dawn was a grim smear of sun wanly struggling through thick haze. I ditched both plans to catch up on sleep and set my sights on the last train to Hoboken. Walking to that train through the soupy air was a challenge. I'd gained a couple of fat pounds between my birthday and July 4th, and I felt them in my breathing and pace, which — when I'd been a regular NYC commuter and did this walk twice a day — was more peppy. FMU's volunteer room was very stuffy, so hitting the gym upon my return to a nightmarishly hot apartment was out of the question.
For the rest of the week, I was on target. The Monday skip pushed my workout schedule forward, so I got muscle workouts in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, with a night visit for 40 minutes of cardio on Thursday. The heat during the week peaked on Wednesday, and once again it took some time for my apartment that night to cool down to a sleep-friendly level. So I bumped the Thursday morning cardio to the evening. Today will be the second half of the total two-day muscle routine that is usually scheduled for Friday. I'll go in the late afternoon when the foot traffic is thinner and I have a couple of healthful meals in me. Flexibility and consistency trump guilt when these sorts of diversions occur, and my failure in the past was to let such diversions discourage me long enough for progress to unravel.
Tracking meals and calories: Easier than last time. When I ate at home, I entered the information right into Excel, relying on several pre-typed lines of caloric and nutritional info to speed the job. Because I bring my meals to work, on two mornings, I was able to cue up the info for those meals even before leaving the apartment. The rest of the days, I kept notes at work.
Wednesday and Friday nights, and Friday afternoon, involved meals not so easy to parse into their component elements. My mom invited me over for stir-fry Wednesday night, from which I knew I'd be taking home leftovers, which became Friday's lunch. In both cases, I made note in my Excel chart of the food I'd eaten, but — as will be the case for Sunday night dinners — didn't knock myself out trying to match calories and nutrients to the food. Ditto with the wonderfully generous spread Dave and Julia offered their guests last night. No way I'm missing that. It was enough to know what I'd eaten, and to keep myself accountable to what I'd need to do the next day at the gym to counteract the off-program eating. This way there's no looking back and saying, "Why did I feel so slow and fat Thursday morning?" The answer is right there on the weekly menu and the exercise log.
I learned that I was going to have to eat more, if you can believe it. I mentioned earlier this week only hitting 1477 out of the planned 2200 calories. I think the first two days of planned eating cost me some muscle, because my weight bottomed out at 225.5 on 7/11/08, to rebound to 228 after a weightlifting day and considerably more protein. Those seeking to control body fat by mixing cardiovascular exercise and weight training are best served by not starving themselves. Muscles need clean protein, though the challenge is to get enough of it while controlling bad fats. That will be one of next week's goals.
Weigh self daily: No problem there. Also thinking about adding a weekly waist:hip ratio measure to assess body fat. Perhaps another good goal for next week.
Improve dinner choices: Much better this time around. Sunday night dinner had the benefit of putting two roast chicken breast halves in my fridge, so I had clean protein for dinner two nights of the week, which I paired with broccoli and salad. I also made chili Thursday night for next week and beyond, for which I wrote down the nutritional values so I can make a quick entry on the chart for each measured serving I pull out of the freezer. Might pair them with brown rice, but I have to find one that reheats well; I'd make four servings' worth and store it in the fridge to apportion over the week.
I'm also thinking of grilling meat at my parents' house Sunday afternoons and using them over the week for dinner. I do have a Foreman grill, but even with the specially designed sponges, cleaning it is a bitch, and nothing matches real charcoal grilling. (Though I admit I'm a wood man.) If I can get over there earlier, grill three or four nights' worth of lean meat (maybe even throw this in marinade on Saturday), I'd preplan a big chunk of the week's dinner choices and only have to worry about the veggies.
Fish oil every day: Missed two days. It's tougher to remember this one, because I take the capsule right before bed (unlike my vitamins, which go down with the morning smoothie), and I store them in the freezer (a tip: by the time they melt, they're past the point of repeating on you and giving you "fish burps"). Will put up a reminder next to my alarm clock.
Target weight: 227: At 228 this morning, down from 232.5 last Monday, I give myself partial credit for at least dropping the extra fat I'd gained the week prior. I just need to monitor the good protein, especially on weight-training days, to keep my body from cannibalizing itself. The goal is to lose .57 lb./week. My scale is only sensitive to the half-pound, so if I'm really somewhere between 228 and 227.5 right now, and I watch the food numbers and keep hitting the gym on schedule, perhaps I will meet that goal come next Saturday. Anything extra will be a bonus unless, as with early this week, it's traceable to low calories or protein in particular.
Log progress and keep writing: Res ipsa loquitur.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
You Write What You Eat
BY COINCIDENCE, WHILE RECORDING the ingredients of the post-workout shake I had just mixed in a new Excel chart, designed to record my weekday food intake, a report came over the radio about a study of just such a behavior. Researchers at the Oregon Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research report that people who diligently recorded their daily food consumption (amid a program of daily exercise, reduced caloric intake, and a healthful overall diet) lost twice as much weight over a 20-week period as did those who recorded few or no details about their food choices. (Here's the Washington Post's writeup, along with a U.S. News & World Report article on maintaining a food diary.) My goals for this week included initiating just such a diary. Crazy synchronicity on that.
As part of my goal to lose 30 pounds by age 40, my plan was to control what I eat very closely on weekdays. With three or four meals eaten while at work, it's easier to pack, tote, and eat a specific set of rations. For Saturdays, I plan to adhere to the weekday food choices as closely as I can (particularly breakfast, lunch, and my post-workout smoothie), but I assume I'll eat out for dinner or lunch.
As for Sunday, I nearly always eat dinner at my parents' house, and the logistics of parsing out the caloric breakdown on home cooking leads me to declare Sunday a no-records day and just enjoy myself without worrying too much about the details. Of all the meals I eat each week, my mother's cooking is the one I won't have access to forever. I can let the program slide if it means I get to enjoy such a timebound opportunity.
But as for weekdays, I've set up an Excel spreadsheet to capture what I eat in granular detail. I made a determination of how many calories I'd need to eat to remain at my current weight, and, in another spooky parallel to the study's methods, I knocked 500 calories off of that. I also did some research on what division I ought to make among the major macronutrients — protein, carbohydrates (complex for as many as possible), and fat — and made a note of how many calories of each would give me the right spread of percentages. I also made a separate sheet listing my most commonly eaten foods with serving sizes, calories, and the protein/carb/fat grams. All I needed to do was to write down what I ate.
As you've read, the morning was easy; I was at home, so I could type it right in. For the workday's meals, I took notes. I forgot to do this half the time during my last food-diary attempt, so I would have to make half-assed guesses by the end of the day. I've tried to grease the rails by limiting the initial range of foods I'd eat. Hell, they're more or less the same stuff I eat most workdays. It's the dinners that have been problematic. I'm hoping recording those, along with every other meal, will make it plain when I've made the correct choices and reinforce the practice with results in the form of looser clothes.
They're a touch more snug than this time two weeks ago, I have to say. The birthday–July 4 axis involved a night of drinks, birthday cake, and a cookout/BBQ/homemade cookie whirlwind this past weekend courtesy of Ratatosk and Amy. I call it a last-hurrah mulligan and have forged ahead with a solid plan. (To force accountability, I am also recording my daily bodyweight and posting it, for good or ill, on this blog.)
Despite a bad few nights of sleep these past days (I sleep poorly in the heat), I managed to lever myself out of bed in and crank out an effective workout at the gym. I adhered closely to my list of chosen healthful foods for the entire day, including a far better dinner than I've eaten on a weeknight in some time: roasted skinless chicken breast, broccoli, and a huge-looking baby spinach/red leaf lettuce salad. If I'm going to make any aspect of the last meal of the day big, it's best that it be produce based.
The final number on the day fell surprisingly short of my caloric goal. I was going to aim for 2200 calories Monday through Friday, and see where that got me with 4 or 5 weekday workouts, but I only got up to 1477 today. On a day when I lifted weights, that's a bit low. But it gave me the same information it doubtless gave the folks in the study mentioned above: explicit details of what their food looks like in calories. As long as you're honest, there's no denying that a muffin, ice cream cone, or fructose-laden coffee drink is making an impact on your ass.
If the whole process sounds mechanical, it ought to be. Automatic and programmable. Too much of my eating has been mindless. Paying attention to what each food choice can do for me is the best way to calibrate the right amount for the slow process of fat loss while preserving muscle. That's the Holy Grail of body reshaping, and the only way to gauge success is to look back a day, a week, a month at your food diary, bodyweight records, and workout logs and say, "This combo worked here, this one didn't," and so on. It's fundamentally about taking control and accepting that responsibility for success is mine alone.
As part of my goal to lose 30 pounds by age 40, my plan was to control what I eat very closely on weekdays. With three or four meals eaten while at work, it's easier to pack, tote, and eat a specific set of rations. For Saturdays, I plan to adhere to the weekday food choices as closely as I can (particularly breakfast, lunch, and my post-workout smoothie), but I assume I'll eat out for dinner or lunch.
As for Sunday, I nearly always eat dinner at my parents' house, and the logistics of parsing out the caloric breakdown on home cooking leads me to declare Sunday a no-records day and just enjoy myself without worrying too much about the details. Of all the meals I eat each week, my mother's cooking is the one I won't have access to forever. I can let the program slide if it means I get to enjoy such a timebound opportunity.
But as for weekdays, I've set up an Excel spreadsheet to capture what I eat in granular detail. I made a determination of how many calories I'd need to eat to remain at my current weight, and, in another spooky parallel to the study's methods, I knocked 500 calories off of that. I also did some research on what division I ought to make among the major macronutrients — protein, carbohydrates (complex for as many as possible), and fat — and made a note of how many calories of each would give me the right spread of percentages. I also made a separate sheet listing my most commonly eaten foods with serving sizes, calories, and the protein/carb/fat grams. All I needed to do was to write down what I ate.
As you've read, the morning was easy; I was at home, so I could type it right in. For the workday's meals, I took notes. I forgot to do this half the time during my last food-diary attempt, so I would have to make half-assed guesses by the end of the day. I've tried to grease the rails by limiting the initial range of foods I'd eat. Hell, they're more or less the same stuff I eat most workdays. It's the dinners that have been problematic. I'm hoping recording those, along with every other meal, will make it plain when I've made the correct choices and reinforce the practice with results in the form of looser clothes.
They're a touch more snug than this time two weeks ago, I have to say. The birthday–July 4 axis involved a night of drinks, birthday cake, and a cookout/BBQ/homemade cookie whirlwind this past weekend courtesy of Ratatosk and Amy. I call it a last-hurrah mulligan and have forged ahead with a solid plan. (To force accountability, I am also recording my daily bodyweight and posting it, for good or ill, on this blog.)
Despite a bad few nights of sleep these past days (I sleep poorly in the heat), I managed to lever myself out of bed in and crank out an effective workout at the gym. I adhered closely to my list of chosen healthful foods for the entire day, including a far better dinner than I've eaten on a weeknight in some time: roasted skinless chicken breast, broccoli, and a huge-looking baby spinach/red leaf lettuce salad. If I'm going to make any aspect of the last meal of the day big, it's best that it be produce based.
The final number on the day fell surprisingly short of my caloric goal. I was going to aim for 2200 calories Monday through Friday, and see where that got me with 4 or 5 weekday workouts, but I only got up to 1477 today. On a day when I lifted weights, that's a bit low. But it gave me the same information it doubtless gave the folks in the study mentioned above: explicit details of what their food looks like in calories. As long as you're honest, there's no denying that a muffin, ice cream cone, or fructose-laden coffee drink is making an impact on your ass.
If the whole process sounds mechanical, it ought to be. Automatic and programmable. Too much of my eating has been mindless. Paying attention to what each food choice can do for me is the best way to calibrate the right amount for the slow process of fat loss while preserving muscle. That's the Holy Grail of body reshaping, and the only way to gauge success is to look back a day, a week, a month at your food diary, bodyweight records, and workout logs and say, "This combo worked here, this one didn't," and so on. It's fundamentally about taking control and accepting that responsibility for success is mine alone.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
30x40: Losing Thirty Pounds by Age Forty
I WILL TURN 40 in just under a year. For this birthday just past, to devote myself to one change that will have the most productive influence on the rest of my life, I have chosen fitness. The goal: to lose 30 pounds by my next birthday.
On my birthday last Friday, I weighed 228 pounds. This January 1, I weighed 231.5. Doesn't appear to be much difference, and I do admit some backsliding during the stressful late winter I endured, but my body composition has changed somewhat since then; a little more muscle and a smidge less fat. Don't get me wrong, I am quite obviously obese. I ought to weigh somewhere between 155 and 175 at my height. But I've been especially diligent since the beginning of May, and I've crossed a definite threshold as compared with past attempts to drop fat.
For one, lifting weights only three days out of eight in early–mid June while in Las Vegas didn't ding my progress at all. I got right back into my routine and took off the few pounds of fat I gained while there. Second, shortly before I departed for Vegas, I did three real pushups. In 39 years I have never been able to do even one. This revelation left me stunned for about three days and provided a tremendous endorsement of what I've been doing.
What have I been doing? Keeping most of my meals during the week healthful and of appropriate size and nutrition, and eating five or six of them through the day. Visiting the gym six times per week at minimum, seven ideally. Keeping careful records of my progress and pushing myself in some new way each time I visit. Avoiding the temptations of crappy calories at work (it's like Elaine's office in Seinfeld with the sugarfests). Restricting meals that dip into the standard American diet to the weekends or special occasions like my birthday.
I am not perfect, and I expect to fail, but I refuse to stop. I know that the forward progress is most important, no matter the temporary deceleration required to avoid obstacles. What I am introducing is a signpost, a checkpoint, to set a definite goal at which to aim. The short-term goals of eating better and visiting the gym are now solid habits to be tended carefully. I want to push them further toward a fixed, medium-term objective of major, permanent fat loss.
Losing 30 pounds by my 40th birthday, to weigh 198 pounds by June 27, 2009, will require a rate of loss of .57 pounds per week, or 2.5 pounds per month. This goal is well within the guidelines of 1–2 pounds per week mentioned as ideal (to maximize the impression of healthy habits and metabolic changes to keep the weight off) on Consumer.gov, the Mayo Clinic site, and WebMD. I've been tripped up in the past by eating crappy food between or after meals due to boredom, aimlessness, depressed mood, or laziness. If I can figure a proper caloric intake per day for weight loss, and direct the energies that lead me into situations where I eat crap more positively, I should be able to hit that rate of loss.
The end of the year will be the real kicker. Halloween through New Year's is a nightmare of free-floating sugar and holiday bingeing. But one thing I learned while in Las Vegas was that I've lost the ability to eat huge, single-sitting meals. I just can't do four plate-loads of food at the buffets anymore. Not that I didn't try; I just went into a lethargic funk after doing so. I've backed myself into a corner of better consumption, it seems. About goddamn time. So I should be able to manage the autumn sugar siege without destroying my progress or getting written out of the will because I brought a Tupperware full of broccoli and lettuce to Thanksgiving dinner. (Besides, a day full of football goes naturally with onion dip and cheddar cheese.)
So that's the goal. The best thing to do is to continue to post here about it, to hold myself accountable in "public," and to track my progress. If I can take one year, set strong yet flexible habits to keep me from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes for the rest of my life, and emerge feeling even better than I already do after just a couple of months at this quest, I'll have prepared myself well to enter middle age. It's time to build on the foundation I've been constructing for the past several weeks and give myself a birthday gift each day.
On my birthday last Friday, I weighed 228 pounds. This January 1, I weighed 231.5. Doesn't appear to be much difference, and I do admit some backsliding during the stressful late winter I endured, but my body composition has changed somewhat since then; a little more muscle and a smidge less fat. Don't get me wrong, I am quite obviously obese. I ought to weigh somewhere between 155 and 175 at my height. But I've been especially diligent since the beginning of May, and I've crossed a definite threshold as compared with past attempts to drop fat.
For one, lifting weights only three days out of eight in early–mid June while in Las Vegas didn't ding my progress at all. I got right back into my routine and took off the few pounds of fat I gained while there. Second, shortly before I departed for Vegas, I did three real pushups. In 39 years I have never been able to do even one. This revelation left me stunned for about three days and provided a tremendous endorsement of what I've been doing.
What have I been doing? Keeping most of my meals during the week healthful and of appropriate size and nutrition, and eating five or six of them through the day. Visiting the gym six times per week at minimum, seven ideally. Keeping careful records of my progress and pushing myself in some new way each time I visit. Avoiding the temptations of crappy calories at work (it's like Elaine's office in Seinfeld with the sugarfests). Restricting meals that dip into the standard American diet to the weekends or special occasions like my birthday.
I am not perfect, and I expect to fail, but I refuse to stop. I know that the forward progress is most important, no matter the temporary deceleration required to avoid obstacles. What I am introducing is a signpost, a checkpoint, to set a definite goal at which to aim. The short-term goals of eating better and visiting the gym are now solid habits to be tended carefully. I want to push them further toward a fixed, medium-term objective of major, permanent fat loss.
Losing 30 pounds by my 40th birthday, to weigh 198 pounds by June 27, 2009, will require a rate of loss of .57 pounds per week, or 2.5 pounds per month. This goal is well within the guidelines of 1–2 pounds per week mentioned as ideal (to maximize the impression of healthy habits and metabolic changes to keep the weight off) on Consumer.gov, the Mayo Clinic site, and WebMD. I've been tripped up in the past by eating crappy food between or after meals due to boredom, aimlessness, depressed mood, or laziness. If I can figure a proper caloric intake per day for weight loss, and direct the energies that lead me into situations where I eat crap more positively, I should be able to hit that rate of loss.
The end of the year will be the real kicker. Halloween through New Year's is a nightmare of free-floating sugar and holiday bingeing. But one thing I learned while in Las Vegas was that I've lost the ability to eat huge, single-sitting meals. I just can't do four plate-loads of food at the buffets anymore. Not that I didn't try; I just went into a lethargic funk after doing so. I've backed myself into a corner of better consumption, it seems. About goddamn time. So I should be able to manage the autumn sugar siege without destroying my progress or getting written out of the will because I brought a Tupperware full of broccoli and lettuce to Thanksgiving dinner. (Besides, a day full of football goes naturally with onion dip and cheddar cheese.)
So that's the goal. The best thing to do is to continue to post here about it, to hold myself accountable in "public," and to track my progress. If I can take one year, set strong yet flexible habits to keep me from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes for the rest of my life, and emerge feeling even better than I already do after just a couple of months at this quest, I'll have prepared myself well to enter middle age. It's time to build on the foundation I've been constructing for the past several weeks and give myself a birthday gift each day.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 5/3/08
SOME SCATTERED SAMPLINGS FROM RECENT days, by way of a catch-up:
• Fitness is progressing well. I have been hitting the gym an average of six days out of seven for a few weeks now. Having gotten this habit in tune, I still need to improve my dinner habits, but further results will pay off such diligence. Besides, I'm nearing a week of free-range grazing; I have about one month before the Vegas trip, where experience tells me I will gorge lustily. I want to go there in good shape, so if I slack off on exercise there, I won't have much catching up to do upon my return. Wynn Las Vegas is rumored to have a grand spa and gym, but . . . well, it is Wynn Las Vegas. Temptation comes with the territory.
• I had weird dreams or nightmares all week. Ordinarily I'd record them upon awakening and share them here. Not this time; they're best forgotten. The nightmares disrupted my sleep patterns. The non-nightmare dreams featured an unusually large number of people I know and one I don't: Vice President Dick Cheney. I don't have enough to deal with that I gotta be haunted by that fuck in my one legit, unassailable refuge?
• I feel like I'm done at work. The artist is not going to follow his job to Central City. When he leaves, I will be alone out of the fine crew I met upon starting there. My few interactions with my new Central City coworkers (can you call them "coworkers" if they're not in the same office?) have been positive, and I'm told my aid will be crucial in managing the transition and division of labor among that bunch. But while writing a guide to how I hunt for and write up stories for two of my columns, even though this was going to help me lighten my workload and plan ahead on the tasks I retain, I felt like I was giving away some of my reasons for being there. And in the back of my head I still imagine they'll keep me as long as it takes for the Central City group to be working, then hire my replacement out there. My best hope is to revise my resume, take what I can by way of connections, skills, and money, and brace for the next eventuality. At minimum, working with an entirely remote workgroup may be good training for freelancing, into which I've been looking lately (with aid and encouragement from the excellent Amy. How an inexperienced freelance editor and writer like myself would find work in what all rational observers are calling a recession, though, is a non-rhetorical question. And that's not even addressing the healthcare question.
• To my surprise, being single has been upsetting me these past several weeks, for the first time in years. The ratio of days when I don't care about living solo, to those when I do, has dropped from 75:1 to about 3:1. These are not odds that this gambler enjoys seeing rise on this Kentucky Derby Day.
• Fitness is progressing well. I have been hitting the gym an average of six days out of seven for a few weeks now. Having gotten this habit in tune, I still need to improve my dinner habits, but further results will pay off such diligence. Besides, I'm nearing a week of free-range grazing; I have about one month before the Vegas trip, where experience tells me I will gorge lustily. I want to go there in good shape, so if I slack off on exercise there, I won't have much catching up to do upon my return. Wynn Las Vegas is rumored to have a grand spa and gym, but . . . well, it is Wynn Las Vegas. Temptation comes with the territory.
• I had weird dreams or nightmares all week. Ordinarily I'd record them upon awakening and share them here. Not this time; they're best forgotten. The nightmares disrupted my sleep patterns. The non-nightmare dreams featured an unusually large number of people I know and one I don't: Vice President Dick Cheney. I don't have enough to deal with that I gotta be haunted by that fuck in my one legit, unassailable refuge?
• I feel like I'm done at work. The artist is not going to follow his job to Central City. When he leaves, I will be alone out of the fine crew I met upon starting there. My few interactions with my new Central City coworkers (can you call them "coworkers" if they're not in the same office?) have been positive, and I'm told my aid will be crucial in managing the transition and division of labor among that bunch. But while writing a guide to how I hunt for and write up stories for two of my columns, even though this was going to help me lighten my workload and plan ahead on the tasks I retain, I felt like I was giving away some of my reasons for being there. And in the back of my head I still imagine they'll keep me as long as it takes for the Central City group to be working, then hire my replacement out there. My best hope is to revise my resume, take what I can by way of connections, skills, and money, and brace for the next eventuality. At minimum, working with an entirely remote workgroup may be good training for freelancing, into which I've been looking lately (with aid and encouragement from the excellent Amy. How an inexperienced freelance editor and writer like myself would find work in what all rational observers are calling a recession, though, is a non-rhetorical question. And that's not even addressing the healthcare question.
• To my surprise, being single has been upsetting me these past several weeks, for the first time in years. The ratio of days when I don't care about living solo, to those when I do, has dropped from 75:1 to about 3:1. These are not odds that this gambler enjoys seeing rise on this Kentucky Derby Day.
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