The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: side_show on July 04, 2008, 04:39:08 am
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So anyone out there still on the whole "not dying" plan?
I've been taking extremely good care of myself since about November, just really into physical activity and healthy living and such. Recently, I've come to a point where I can fit into stuff I wore when I was sixteen. I was all trotting around in my green army ##### and Pearl Jam t-shirt for the fun of knowing I wore that very outfit in high school. All calling myself "Melanie circa-1994." What I came to see is basically that I really disliked my body back then. Or maybe just hated having to be a "girl." The few outfits I saved are now bizarre to me. The fit, but they hide the best parts of me.
We recently had new chairs delivered - I'm talking upholstered living room chairs, and I realized the box listed the weight as being less weight than I have lost I realized this as I struggled to carry one across the living room. It was interesting to imagine lugging around an upholstered chair all day, attached to my body.
I still have a bit of a ways to go, but I turn 30 this fall, and promised myself I'd be at my absolute best physically to start the next chapter of my life off right. I feel pretty confident that I'm almost there. I really like variety though. Any suggestions for physical challenges I might like? I have a not-so-good knee and bad hips, so running a marathon is the only thing that's definitely out. I'm not a fan of swimming (I prefer this a leisure activity), but I love hiking, sweating, and have walked for as long as 6 hours with out stopping for the pleasure of it. Making a fool of myself is not a concern - I am happy to be the biggest dork at something. Also, I have a tight budget, but am willing to try out anything.
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I'm still at it, more or less.
I bought a bike and cycle to work every day, it's only about 3 or 4 k, takes about 20 minutes each way but it wakes me up and it's surprising how good my muscles feel each morning after that. My fitness has noticeably improved, hills that ruined me when I started are easy now. I think I've lost a little weight but not much (need to buy some new scales) but just getting regular exercise feels pretty good. I need to start watching the food more if I want to see an improvement there.
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My weight loss regimen has resulted in a net gain of three pounds. We were doing really good with eating salads for dinner and I was going into work early in the morning and walking with my boss and coworkers, but it's gotten too warm out for the walking to be comfortable and I didn't like sweating all morning long afterwards, and I got sick of the salads. I need to start going back to the gym, but we're trying to reduce our gas usage.
edit: "reduce are gas usage?" What the hell was I smoking?
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I am trying to get my act back together after letting it all go to hell during my last job at the zoo. I used it as an excuse to eat all the cookies I wanted like the last times round, but this time, there wasn't really that much work to do so I wasn't really burning the calories.
Now I'm working at a computer all the time which is such an unhealthy lifestyle. I am hoping that since I am working at home, I can eat healthy food more easily. You'd also think I'd be able to get to the gym more often but somehow I didn't get there once this week.
The plan is the gym three times a week, only one big dessert a week, and more vegetables and less starch.
Also, since the subject came up: Salads. I don't think salads are a healthy eating plan. There is a reason we invented cooking. Is there any other culture that thinks a big pile of raw things is a meal? I think this whole salad business is misguided. You can't keep it up because it's not satisfying food, and I am not even convinced that they're that good for you.
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I don't think the point is that they are 'good' for you as such, more that they are mainly undigestable so you get a full feeling without as much stuff your body can actually break down and use.
After all the only way to loose fat is to make your body use it by denying it other nutrition.
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See, 'undigestible' just doesn't sound like a criteria for a healthy food to me. Think of other things that are undigestible: rocks, dirt, paper clips... I don't care if they make me feel full, I'm not gonna eat 'em!
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I'm certainly not condoning it, I prefer to eat food that can sustain my body too.
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I have a bunch of magazines from 1955 right now (don't ask) and one of the ads is a full page coloured ad for lard, mentioning that "doctors tell us foods fried in Crisco are highly digestable, so much so that you can enjoy foods fried in Crisco 7 days a week!" Also there are ads for Miracle Whip where there is a giant glob of mayonnaise in the centre of a pinapple ring or canned pear, perched a top a single lettuce leaf, and this is basically the recipe for a salad. Highly disgusting.
Last night we had bison burgers on whole wheat buns, which was very nice.
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I am in the best shape I have ever been in, I think. I am running around all day, playing Ultimate Frisbee, hiking up mountains, etc. For the first time ever I am really enjoying the feeling of just RUNNING as fast as I can-- playing capture the flag, ultimate frisbee, whatever. For a few days I had to help teach Tai Chi, which was pretty cool and relaxing. I am probably eating pretty badly, but I have lost basically all of my fat (I was starting to get a belly from unhealthy college lifestyle) and I'm gaining muscle.
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there is a giant glob of mayonnaise in the centre of a pinapple ring or canned pear, perched a top a single lettuce leaf, and this is basically the recipe for a salad.
That image is going to haunt me.
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I was killing time today flipping through the sequel to The Gallery of Regrettable Food and it's just chock full of this kind of horrifying "food." Like aspics.
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There are ads for canned "baby meat" in the same magazine. All I can say is that it was a more innocent time when a company could earnestly market "baby meat" without sinister implications. Apparently it too is "highly digestable" which makes this meat (type of meat not specified) perfect to feed to your baby. Norman Rockwell was hired to do the art for these ads. Creepy.
In not dying news, I got two new pairs of glasses today, and enjoyed the pleasure of seeing everything more clearly today. Also I biked for several hours to run errands (while motorists cursed at me), then spent a couple hours after dinner outside tilling up what will be our new garden bed by the end of the weekend.
Inev - you and I are in the same groove. I am just loving moving, and totally enjoying sweating.
The only problem is, my face always turns beet red during (and for around an hour after) physical exertion, which is so annoying. I am in better shape than most people, but my red face makes me look like a dummy. WTF?
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This will be my last year in collegiate rugby so Ive been training like hell. At least 5 hours of my day is devoted to getting into stone cut rugby shape for this season. Many Rugby player have compared it to Fight Club in the way that you find a reason to get strong and fit. Running for the sake of running is boring in comparison to running for the sake of scoring trys and making/escaping tackle. It is an incomparable feeling to hunt down a dude on a try run and tackle him 10 meters in by the simple virtue that you are faster and stronger than him.
I run 3 miles at sunrise and then do a lifting session for an hour
When Im done with work I run as many miles as I can and then run through a cycle of lifts.
The trick is to A) not eat carbs and B) keep your heart rate up as long as possible
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I've been doing good and getting in pretty decent shape recently. Still got hell of gut to lose, but I lost the weight that I keep losing and putting back on. I think this time I'm doing it more solid, was jumping rope alot for awhile, now just keeping a decent diet and weightlifting.
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When I moved to Chicago I had pretty much dropped my healthy lifestyle. There were a number of factors - new place, new foods and restaurants to try, new (and rigid) schedule, and I was actually not doing that bad the first two months because it wasn't that cold, but then when the month of February 2007 hit, and it was under 10F for about a month, I stopped walking and started taking cabs. Then when I started walking to the train, at least, they closed my train stop for the entire summer, so I had no choice but to take a cab or bus. I also started going out to drink with friends more, and started drinking a LOT.
After a while I was so tired at the end of a work day that I'd cab it home, order delivery food, and at least reclaim an hour or two that I'd spend getting home, cooking, cleaning up, etc. Those were precious hours.
Then about a month ago I had severe pain in my back after drinking waaaaaaay too much the night before, and while there were many things that made me decide that I needed to make a change, the big one was the Dying Feeling again. I realized that this was different than a normal hangover and that if I kept up with what I was doing I'd die. Another bit of trivia - I took one of those "what's your TrueAge" tests that would calculate when you were going to die earlier this year. I was 31 at the time, and the test said that given my habits I'd likely die at 32. That was probably pretty accurate. No nutrition, no exercise, and lots of alcohol. I was out of breath walking down the hall to the elevator.
Anyway, I immediately cut out some high calorie, zero nutrition foods like Coke (I was tired at work, so I'd drink 6-8 cans of Coke a day too, in addition to about four cups of coffee), desserts, etc. Those were things that I cut out during 2007 when I lost 70 lbs in five months, and I don't at all miss them. I had a sip of a girl's Jack & Coke the other night and it was disgustingly sweet to me. It's easy to stay away from foods that now make you ill (the smell of fried chicken, for instance - ugh).
So the first two weeks I started eating better but not really following a plan. I started reading books on nutrition and fitness, and and used the fitness center in my apartment building for seriously the first time in the 18 months I've lived here. Two weeks later I joined the $90/month fitness center in my office building (which is awesome because I can now take a shower at work if I'm going out after work or something). So for the past two weeks I've been working out before work, showering and getting ready there, and then going to work. It's been fantastic. Exercising in the morning makes me feel fresh and energized for a good 4-6 HOURS after working out. The downside is that I have a pretty sedentary job, so I'm bouncing around the office too much. Maybe I'll get an exercise bike for my cubicle so I can sit the keyboard on the handlebars and code while I pedal or something.
Anyway, I'm doing a combination of cardio/aerobic exercise (walking, biking, crunches, etc.) and weight training now, and I'll be starting with a physical trainer this week so I know I'm doing it right.
I've also been talking to nutritionists and dietitians and was a little shocked to find out a lot of little fitness tidbits. I seriously feel like I've been lied to all my life about health issues.
You all probably know these things already, but the shocking revelations that I've learned in the past month:
- Soft drinks (Coke, Pepsi, etc.) are specifically engineered to be addictive. Even the diet ones (which aren't much better for you than the sugary sodas).
- You can "spot reduce" fat - doing abdominal exercise won't "melt away the fat" in just your abs. All of those videos are lying to you.
- Muscle doesn't turn into fat, and vice-versa, any more than lead can turn into gold (cue the alchemists...). They're completely different tissues.
- Exercise is highly important for living a healthy life, but it's not very effective for weight or fat loss. In other words, you can't work out like a madman and then eat anything you want. To burn off ONE Big Mac on the treadmill you'd have to run at high intensity for five to six HOURS. If you got the value meal, just keep running until you die. You'll never burn it off in a day.
- Yes, exercise increases the rate at which your body can metabolize calories - by about 1-3%. It's so insignificant that if you're counting on working off that key-lime pie through exercise, think again.
- The good news is that it takes a LOT of energy (the calorie is a unit of energy) just to keep you alive for the day, and your muscles will need more calories to keep up if you work out.
- Most of the calories you burn go toward keeping your body temperature at 98.6F.
- So how do you lose weight? The formula is so simple that I may get it tattooed on my arm or something: use more calories than you intake, or: calories in < calories out = weight loss.
- Because of those dang laws of conservation of mass and energy, fat doesn't just disappear. You lose weight through "evacuation" (my favourite euphemism for "peeing" - your poop doesn't count because that mostly contains unprocessed waste that doesn't get converted into energy by your body)
- A pint of water (and urine) weighs a pound.
- As your fat cells get rid of the fat as waste, they'll likely fill up with water at first, which is heavier. So your weight loss will likely increase and then decrease, increase a little and then decrease.
- You can measure your true weight by weighing in at least once a day and taking an average over time.
- Because exercise will increase the mass of your muscles AND bones, you will likely not lose *weight* as quickly as you lose *fat*, so don't put too much pressure on what the scale says. Your overall total weight is just ONE factor in determining your overall health.
- I'd suggest trying to "eat whatever you want" but stay within your calorie range for the day. You'll probably be hungry if you eat a bowl of Captain Crunch for breakfast and have the Big Mac Value Meal for lunch, since you'll be over your caloric intake for the day and won't be able to eat dinner. The upshot is that you CAN eat whatever you want - just be careful about the portions. I loves me some bacon, and I'm going to eat bacon every once in a while - but I won't eat half a pound of it, I'll have like, two strips.
I have to say, I was steeling my resolve for this to be a difficult process, and nothing could be further from the truth. I've lost an average of a pound a day the first month (yes, lots of that is fluid - my shoes don't fit anymore because my ankles and feet aren't swollen since I've been exercising, so I have to get smaller shoes - I'm using inserts right now to make the inside of the shoe smaller).
And the "diet" thing is easy - since I'm not following a plan but rather eating more healthily in general. I do log my food with Gyminee.com, but that's mostly so I can know what I'm doing or what my total caloric intake is. The first two weeks I would only log what I ate yesterday so the "counting calories" wasn't affecting my choices, but when doing so I noticed that I was keeping to about 1800-2200 calories a day, which is still likely less than I burn, so hence the weight loss.
Also, I'm HUGE. I mean, I'm 6'4" and now weigh well over 400 pounds, so a pound a day is a drop in the bucket for me. I need to lose 230 pounds or so, which means I weigh more than TWICE what I should weigh. I'm planning some celebrations for when I meet certain milestone goals (not "eat a big plate of ribs" types of goals, but goals that also tie-in to my fitness goals, like taking a trip to somewhere cool to walk around there instead of here, or buy some fitness equipment for home, etc.).
Anyway, my first milestone is my 10% goal, which I should hit sometime this week if I keep going. Then I'll celebrate again when I get under 400, then again probably every 25lbs thereafter.
I expect the weight loss to slow soon, but that's okay. My real target weight loss is 1-2 pounds a week, which I think is doable.
For those who can do the math, yes, it means that it'll take 2-4 years to reach my ideal weight goal. I wish I started ten years ago, but I didn't so I guess I'll just have to be fit four years from now instead. I had a year long relapse, but I have some support now, and paying lots of money to help me reach my goals will certainly keep me on track. There's no way I'm going to let the gym and physical training go to waste.
The last shocking thing I learned was how QUICKLY my overall health changed. Within a single week of eating better and getting some very minor exercise (my capability was so low that I could only stand to lift a tiny bit of weight and walk for a very short time) I already started to feel a lot better. My walking pace is about 50% faster already (from 2-3mph - my goal for the end of the summer is a steady 4mph without being sweaty or winded - yes, that's only a 15 minute mile, but I'll have to work up to faster). I'm seeing big improvements in flexibility (I do stretching exercises as well) and my memory and critical thinking abilities have improved drastically as well. I don't feel tired all the time and am sleeping better to boot.
I'm only a month in, but the only problem I'm having is to hold myself back from overdoing it because I feel so great. Eating crap and not exercising isn't really an issue.
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Jough, it's great to hear you're on the way up, health-wise. I hope it continues.
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Glad to hear you're improving your lifestyle and seeing results Jough.
As for me, the emphasis is not so much on "not dying," but more on "not dying during physical training at officer candidate school." Which actually does help with the overall not dying goal. I've lost 10 pounds, dropped a couple of minutes off of my 3-mile time, and gained a couple of pull-ups. I've still got a way to go, but it'll be nice to be in shape again. You people have better self-discipline than I do, it seems like I have to have other people make me get into shape.
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Right. I for one do not have better discipline than anyone who has a 3-mile time.
Bad news for my Not Dying regime: I just got hired to write for a blog about snacks. Well, I only have to write like once a week, the posts don't all have to be reviews, and I guess I don't have to finish the whole bag, right?
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Are there no healthy snacks where you live?
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Actually I am fond of weird Asian dried giraffe snacks, which must be pretty healthy, and that would be interesting if not actually good from most people's point of view. But basically we are not talking about a blog about carrot sticks, here. The guy who hired me's other site is candyaddict.com, after all.
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I am very happy that you are getting paid to blog about snacks.
However, I am confused how one gets recruited for such an endeavour as well as how a business model exists for one to blog professionally about snacks.
I snack alot, I'm fairly unhealthy, I'm always open to tossing suggestions your way.
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Right. I for one do not have better discipline than anyone who has a 3-mile time.
Yeah, pretty much this.
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Way to go Jough, nice to hear you're getting educated. I have always been ultra educated on nutrition, eating for me has been entirely emotional. Breaking through the food/=love barrier has made all the difference for me.
I totally hear you on the way the minor improvements are surprisingly drastic. The extra energy and overall feeling of wellness has be fantastic for me. Feeling strong and able to take on any physical challenge is so incredible. I spent two 8 hrs days in a row (no breaks, lots of hydration) doing extremly physical work over the weekend, and I feel great. That is huge for me. Also, it means super productive times, and lots of money saved. Less money on food, less money on transportation since I walk or bike everywhere now... Pretty good.
I can definitly understand how the Chicago winters can take their toll on your health though. That's definitly a huge problem up here too. I am stressed about winter, because it's basically a natural instinct to stay inside and inactive during the cold, icy times, and eat giant globs of mash potatoes. I think maybe I need to set a goal like learning to skate, making a snow man a month... I don't know. Something.
I have a belt, it started on the biggest possible loop, and now it's on the second hole I had to add after I got to the tightest one. Also I have a pair of shorts I bought in February for my trip to Cuba that are so big on me now that I can fit two fists in them. I still insist on wearing them since they're practically brand new, with the too-big-extra-notches belt, and they're all crumpled and weird looking, which is pretty funny. It's 5 1/2 inches off the waist to far.
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However, I am confused how one gets recruited for such an endeavour
Via an advertisement on the Internet, naturally.
as well as how a business model exists for one to blog professionally about snacks.
Well, advertising, I presume. It's not like I'm getting paid much. I basically broke all my job-application rules to apply for this one, because it sounded like a hoot.
because it's basically a natural instinct to stay inside and inactive during the cold, icy times, and eat giant globs of mash potatoes. I think maybe I need to set a goal like learning to skate,
I took skating lessons for a couple of years, a couple of years ago. It is interesting, you have to use your brain, and it's pretty serious exercise. I highly recommend it. I would really like to get my act together to do it again - I gave it up when I got a zoo job because I couldn't risk a sprained ankle or anything like that or I wouldn't be able to work at all.
And, the best part, you can do it indoors! I much prefer doing it in the summer, in fact. An indoor ice rink is soooo nice in August.
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Jough, congrats on the good work. Much as your health has improved and will continue to improve, you may want to see a doctor with the symptoms you described. There may be something that needs to be addressed immediately. [/unsolicited advice/completely non-proessional opinion]
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Jough I would not be surprised if you kept on losing mass at a level more rapid than average. Your body is using so much energy to move 400 pounds on every step that you should be burning exponentially more calories than the average person. Youre lifting weights and doing cardio every moment of your day. Just stay active until you see improvements closer to 300lbs. Then it would be safer to engage in running.
Im curious where you got this fat-to-piss information, though. I'm pretty sure fat goes through biological chemical conversions into energy, the result of which being heat, ATP, sugars, and carbon dioxide.
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Im curious where you got this fat-to-piss information, though. I'm pretty sure fat goes through biological chemical conversions into energy, the result of which being heat, ATP, sugars, and carbon dioxide.
Ultimately the production of energy in eukaryotes (including us) through cellular respiration comes down to heat, carbon dioxide, and water. Perhaps its the elimination of water that the theory Jough was describing was getting at. The breakdown of nitrogenous compounds (including proteins from muscle tissue damaged by exercise) results in urea - also eliminated through the kidneys. Its a useful model - in that it takes away the unhealthy obsession a lot of our fellow travelers have with pooping; mass of food in minus mass of poop out, for example or colonic irrigation/laxative abuse etc. All that is a sideshow unrelated to mobilizing your fat stores.
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I just ate Fettuccine Alfredo at Olive Garden, and I feel like I want to puke. Yuke. Maybe if I go to work on chugging water I'll be okay, but seriously - yuck. Also, terrible service.
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Olive Garden is kinda hit or miss. It's a good thing Italian food sucks in Chicago, because otherwise it'd be hard to pass up.
I did make my own pasta primavera last week though - light on the pasta, heavy on the primavera.
Yeah, I'm not sure I meant to say that fat turns into water, although that's probably how it read. Just that whatever isn't converted into energy or stored still has to go somewhere, and I'm finding that I'm peeing a lot more (I'm also drinking a lot more water - go figure) but I almost never get up in the middle of the night to pee unless I do a strenuous weight lifting workout, and then I'm up at least one time if not two peeing like crazy, along with having a mild fever.
I still do not know if this is normal, but I've done the experiment a few times now and I always have the same "symptoms" whenever I do the weight lifting rather than just cardio.
There are many mysteries still awaiting me, it seems.
Meanwhile, I've had a sore throat for a week now with no other cold symptoms. Maybe the air conditioner is drying me out. It's always worst in the morning.
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I almost never get up in the middle of the night to pee unless I do a strenuous weight lifting workout, and then I'm up at least one time if not two peeing like crazy, along with having a mild fever.
How clean is the equipment you're using? I only half-kid here because this makes me think urinary infection.
Depressing day today. Spent the day with a dear friend who struggles with anorexia. She is pregnant and entirely obsessed with how "fat" she's gotten. She's not gotten fat at all of course, and weighs considerably less at almost full pregnancy than I do right now (unpregnant) or ever have in adulthood, and we're the same height. Her ongoing self criticism, though I know to be totally irrational, dragged me down into a total self esteem crash. I weigh considerably more than a pregnant lady who thinks she's gotten fat. I came home feeling ugly and fat. Thanks friend. Thanks for dragging me down to your level, wrapping me in a heavy blanket of irrational thoughts, and otherwise shredding my self esteem. I felt so good about myself before. Fuck that shit.
No wonder I was such a tom boy growing up. So many women are super fucked up about that shit.
Thankfully the SO's grandma called and cheered me up, all talking about how healthy I am these days, how great it feels to be fit and able. SO's grandma is fuckin' awesome. After that SO called, I got teary about my friend, and how I went out with her looking for wedding support and got slammed instead. He had many nice things to say about my attractiveness, which was also awesome. SO is also fuckin' awesome.
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The hell with that sMells, feeling bad because of the values your mentally ill friend holds makes as much sense as if a hobo on the street talked you into spraying bug spray into your eyes because of the spiders only he can see. A can for your SO for speaking sense.
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I just ate Fettuccine Alfredo at Olive Garden, and I feel like I want to puke. Yuke. Maybe if I go to work on chugging water I'll be okay, but seriously - yuck. Also, terrible service.
Oh god, if you're going to eat something that bad for you, don't eat it at the Olive Garden. There's nothing wrong with indulging once in a while, but it should be for something GOOD.
But I was going to say, speaking of indulging: Portion control. I am working on eating bad things in smaller quantities. You know how on a container of ice cream it says that a serving is one half cup, and if you measure out one half cup of ice cream it makes you want to laugh? I have been training myself to eat only that much, and it seems to be working. I took home a large dish of really good ice cream from a local place lately, and it turned out to last three days.
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Ugh.
I'm pretty unhappy with my body these days. I'm not unhealthily fat, and my BMI is teetering just this side of "overweight," so I'm not even overly large for my height. But I worked really, really hard to lose weight and get healthy before P was born, and went from 165 to 135 over the course of a year 4 years ago. Then I got pregnant. When P was six months old, I started dieting again, which was probably a mistake because I think it interfered with breastfeeding. I lost almost all the baby weight and got down to 137 when...presto. More baby. So now I'm back at 165, which seems to be my body's default weight. It's not terrible, especially considering I'm average-to-tall (5'7"), but I carry all my extra weight in the middle, so I look lumpy and more momlike than I prefer. And my size at 165 lbs is the same as my friend's at 200 -- she is four inches shorter than me and thirty-five pounds heavier, and yet somehow we both wear a 14? So I think a few extra pounds really show a lot on my frame.
I just want to be able to get back into my pre-Hero clothes, which were mostly sizes 8 and 10. But I can't restrict my calories yet because of the whole lactation thing, so mostly I'm trying to eat stuff that's at least somewhat nutritionally redeeming. And after Friday, I hope to resume my yoga classes, because while I know you can't spot-reduce, I still have a lot of stretched-out belly flab that could use a-tonin'.
That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.
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Something is wrong with the way bodies work, because I wake up at 4 AM in the woods, incredibly thirsty and having to piss. And I am so scared of running into a bear, it is a horrible mess.
I am getting better and better at hiking, but I am still pretty slow. The past 4 days I was always at the back of the line. Behind all my 14 year olds, who are all really fit.
I am pretty sure the other day we hiked 3 miles in 30 minutes, which... that is a 10 minute mile with so much crap on my back. I am proud.
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I was brushing my teeth, and realized I could make out my ribs.
Hello there, Ribs! I see you in there peeking out! How you been?
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The only big body change I've noticed so far (other than being generally stronger and able to move better) is that after two weeks of eating well and exercising my feet and ankles are no longer swollen, so my shoes don't fit anymore. I just bought a new pair, but it's weird having thin feet. It makes them look all the more Sideshow Bob-esque.
Of course, it's only been six weeks and I'm already seeing improvements in my capabilities (up to 3.5mph walking with intervals of 4-4.5mph, up 50 lbs from where I started on the bench, 70 on lat pulldowns, etc.). It seems like longer - I was thinking it was 8 weeks or so, but no. So I remain optimistic. Today I started a fitness blog to add another tool to help keep myself honest and working towards my goals.
A friend noted that I tend to be all gung-ho about "projects" like this in the summer and then falter in the winter (I also get hell of seasonal depression) so hopefully I'm forming habits I can keep up with now.
I think I will. I have to.
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Well, my little "get in shape" project is in full swing. My weight's down 14 pounds from its peak - and to tell you the truth, I'd rather it didn't drop much further. Yesterday I had the pleasure of playing with one of San Francisco's pro lacrosse players, Zach Heffner. I managed to pass to him without throwing the ball out of bounds, and caught a few passes without dropping them. With 20 guys on a team, its hard to attribute the play of any one person to the overall success of the team, but we did win both games. Heffner pounded an oilcan of Fosters before each game as a dietary supplement. I don't think I'll be using that training tip though.
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ALSO: Still not dipping Copenhagen, except for my annual birthday tin. Paul mentioned elsewhere that the missing never goes away. He's right, but you stick around long enough there's much worse regrets.
I am not a man who dips. I am a man who has dipped on occasion. And I agree it is one of those things a dude just wants to do every once in awhile. There are just some situations where you are like "man, this circumstance was designed for me to have a dip in right now"
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Ran 5 miles today, walked 2.5
Ran 5 miles yesterday, biked 4 3/4 miles
Ran 5 miles Tuesday, walked 2.5
Ran 2.5 miles Monday, worked arms, back and abs, walked and biked, but untracked in distance.
Also managed to order a swap of veggies for French fries at a restaurant last night. Will power! I mean come on, French fries are awesome, but what does my body need more, some nice broccolie, carrots and such, or oil?
Also was out shopping, found myself in one of those stores that only caters to tweens, and was astonished to try on a pair of shorts that fit comfortably that were sized the smallest size I've ever worn in my adult life. I became convinced I had misread the size label, checked it repeatedly, then decided it must be a stretchy fabric, checke the washing label only to find it was cotton. The one down side is that almost all my clothes are way too big on me and I can't afford more right now.
The one thing I can't get enough of - water.
The one thing I don't want to forget - how awesome it feels to be so fit and mother-fuckin' healthy. My physical results came back this week, and I still need to slightly work on my cholesterol, but the severe joint inflamation they found two years ago is gone! It's gone! I healed myself! Yes!
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Congrats Mel! That is really outstanding.
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It is good times. Good times for Melanie.
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Just catching up with this - congrats, Smells. That is fantastic news.
Glad to hear everyone else is doing well, too. There are four of us in the office now who are eating healthily so it's a lot easier to go with them to get food from healthy places or bring food and have people to eat with.