Fitness Death March

Coming out of a slump, I hope. I spent a while not exercising to prepare for a tournament in a hobby I’m involved in, and that was fun and all, but then I took a break after the trip as well. And then I started online gaming. My goal today is to exercise, do laundry, and get the errands and work done that I need to do. In other words, exert some control over my activities, as opposed to taking the path of least resistance and spending another WHOLE DAY with computer games. Yeah, they’re great, but if my life has to go on hold for them, they aren’t in their proper role.

Weeks Complete: 9
Starting weight / waist: 194 / 40″
Current weight / waist: 183.6 / 37.5″
Goal weight: 180 (with strength increases)
21-day change: +3.2
Total change: -10.4 pounds
To goal: 3.6 pounds

So, after basically a month easing okish, not really counting calories, and not exercising at all, I’ve gained back a pound or two (I think that 180 for 3 weeks ago was my low swing). Not a big deal, the main thing is to take some action. I know I’ll feel better after I’ve run a couple miles!

Man, spend a couple weeks away from the blog and come back to find 565 comments waiting.

I was super busy for a couple weeks and got out of the habit of exercising, but plain old not eating has kept my weight down pretty well.. I just know it’s not going to last.  Still, it’s harder than ever to find the time. I’ll see what I can do, and try to get back to regular posts, in order to meet my goal of at least another 5 pounds lost properly.

I guess even if I’m not “done” with working on weight loss and fitness, I’ve become confident enough in my ability to lose weight to take a week off to prepare for a big convention, and to not really care if I gain a few pounds in the process (since it’s in Las Vegas, to boot). So, back to Austin — and the fitness death march — next week. See you then!

Today, in new shirt

Weeks Complete: 6
Starting weight / waist: 194 / 40″
Current weight / waist: 180.4 / 37″
Goal weight: 180 (with strength increases)
7-day change: -5.2 pounds
Total change: -13.6 pounds (-32.4 counting from Nov. ‘07!)
To goal: 0.4 pounds

I’m pretty sure I’m at the low end of a fluctuation, so did not lose 5 pounds this week, but it’s still nice to see a number I haven’t seen in 10 years or more.

Highlights:

• I remember buying a pair of shorts from a stall at the Chatuchak market in Bangkok. I was living in Japan at the time (2004), cycling intermittently, and very stressed in general, so losing and gaining weight constantly. I deliberately picked a pair a size or two too small. I realize it’s not a good practice to buy clothes you “plan to fit into soon”, and the shopkeeper, with classic Asian tact, widened his eyes and shook his head “no way!”, but I bought them anyway. Now, 4 years later and 13 pounds lighter, I actually put them on for the first time.
• I went to Banana Republic (favorite clothing store), whose Mediums began fitting well again this month, and found the perfect shirts! The good part is that when I tried them on, I looked in the mirror and recognized myself. I know my body image / fitness psychology is very poor, in that I feel extremely unattractive and disgusted with myself — which motivates me to eat less and exercise — but if you’re going to play that game, it’s nice to eventually see some progress. I felt good trying on the shirts, so took a photo to commemorate it.

Bad awful crap:

• Exercised only twice.
• The pizza being delivered any minute now. But hey, I’m ahead of schedule.

Other:

While my next “goal reassement” post is a few weeks away, I pulled out my high school yearbook, to compare my current appearance to what I looked like then, probably a few pounds lighter still. I hate having fat on my face most, but felt I needed to do a reality check by comparing a “thin photo” to my mental image of what I should look like.  Looking at it, I saw that my jaw did appear to taper a bit more. I do definitely look thinner in the old photo — but it’s good to know what that looks like, so I’m not waiting for and working towards a face that’s just not in there. Whatever I decide my goal is, I now know I’m closing in on it. It couldn’t be more than another 10 pounds before I’m wearing 32 pants and have a jaw.. could it?

1996, in fake borrowed tuxedo jacket. Also pre-LASIK, and pre-losing-all-my-damned-hair.

I got a surprise call today — my girlfriend was extubated and let out of her coma-like state, since she’d hit the recovery goals they were looking for, days earlier than expected. She’ll stay in ICU longer to get over the pneumonia that developed during her week-long nap, but so far, so good. Medical issues have kept us apart for a long time, so it’s nice to feel like we’re gaining some ground. This isn’t that kind of journal, but I’ve mentioned her and her hospitalization, so am happy to share the news before I go back to just writing about fat and exercise.

The last week had been pretty awful for exercise & diet — I ate out Thursday night, didn’t even count calories Fri-Sun, and had about eight slices of pizza altogether on Fri-Sat.. maybe more. And, I didn’t exercise at all Tues-Sun. Everything was going downhill together.

But, I’ve gone back to around 1300 counted calories a day since, and I did the usual hour of slow cardio and weights on Monday and more HIIT Tuesday night. I didn’t do anything this morning, since I woke up pretty tired from sprinting every other lap for two miles before bed last night. I did, however, get some painting out of the way. It’s a long story, but I have a project of sorts due in about 10 days, and it feels a lot like exercising to make myself spend a couple hours a day on it. It’s coming together, though, and I’m sure that by the time we get to Sunday, I’ll have finished it and lost a pound or something, and I’m just going to have to be ok with that.

I gained a pound this week. I have a bunch of reasons I’m sick of dieting and exercising — why this last week was more difficult than usual. Let’s assume they’re valid, and I’m not just a whiner / quitter. Well, if that’s the case, then, all factors (motivations) being equal, my weight-loss activities should resume when those reasons go away.

More than a strong beginning (which is easy), this is the important step — not giving up when things have gone wrong. It’s going to be hard to exercise when my girlfriend is in the hospital, when work is more stressful than before, and when I have so much to do before an upcoming trip.. but to be the person I want to be, I have to exercise anyway. A shitty week will only become a shitty two weeks if I start failing in the one thing I can control.. then I become one of the problems.

(She’s being kept there to let something heal that wasn’t getting better at home. The stressful part is not knowing how long it will take, or what her recovery time will be after, due to possible side-effects.)

This is tough; I’ve reach the nadir of my previous weight loss attempt: 185, or 28 pounds down. At 5′9 that’s not thin, just not nearly so fat. I’m still in size 34 pants, just comfortably so. Too comfortable.

I’ve exercised just once this week. It’s Thursday. This is not a good sign. Sure, I’ve continued to lose weight, but through fewer and fewer calories — and that’s not the way to do it. Anyway, I’m charging up my DVD player so that I can do an hour on the treadmill in the morning. There’s no way I’m going to hang onto this if I don’t get back on the wagon.

My reward, yesterday (consumed with — suicidally — about 2 tbsps of regular soy sauce the day before my week-4 weigh-in):

Korea Garden's Sushi Sashimi Combo

Weeks Complete: 4
Starting weight / waist: 194 / 40″
Current weight / waist: 185.6 / 38″
Goal weight: 180 (with strength increases)
7-day change: -4.4 pounds
Total change: -8.4 pounds
To goal: 5.6 pounds

I didn’t lose all this weight in a week — some wasn’t “showing” at my last weigh-in, due to water from high-sodium food. And, I’ve been eating so little that whenever I do eat a proper meal or two one of these days, I’m going to have another pound in me that I haven’t had lately. But, the point of a weekly weigh-in is to get past minor fluctuations and show that, yes, I am fucking losing weight!

Monthly re-examination of goal:

So I’m more than halfway there, and I still feel like a fat bastard, which means there’s a reality disconnect somewhere. I’m not that overweight at this point. I do have belly fat (torso still more U-shaped than V-shaped) and my face doesn’t look as thin as I want (just double-checked — nope, doesn’t narrow much toward the chin), but progress only makes me want to do more, without making me feel better; I’ve set a goal weight of 180, but I don’t think I’ll get those things at that weight, so, I ask why I want so much less fat on me.

Well, I know I’m basing some heavy notions of self-worth on my (false) beliefs about how others perceive me; I’ll feel “suitable” for people, and have greater confidence and less expectation of rejection when my face is thin and I’m buying pants in a 32 waist (I’m a loose 34 now). As bad as that is, let’s just accept it for the moment and ask the next question — will I really?  Actually, no — I’m pretty sure that I’ll only feel better once I feel successful and accepted in a relationship*, which’ll heal a lot of old wounds, have a better social life, and am in better financial shape. So it’s complicated; issues with women in the past, persona (I tend to be the “outsider”), and even money find a temporary home in bad body-image. Becoming thin won’t cure those things, but the confidence will help when I do get to them.

But wait, does that mean I’ll only feel good enough when everything’s perfect? Well, yeah. That’s the problem, and weighing 180, 170, or even 160 (when I’d actually have a “healthy” BMI of 24) won’t do anything for it. Still, I’m starting somewhere, and glad to be making progress.

Challenges of the week:

• I’m just not doing the weights like I should. Chin-ups, some curls after runs, but not my MWF 20-min “morning weights”. Solution: need to get right to it and not sit down at the PC first thing in the morning.

Highlights of the week:

• Thanks to my new high-stress, everything-urgent job, I’ve managed to eat only 1200-1300 calories a day for several days now, contributing a lot to this big week-4 rally.
• No alcohol at all. Again, only noteworthy because I’m dying for one and my scotch decanter is staring me in the face, 8 feet away, like it has been all month.
• Learned that Clif bars come in more flavors than we dared dream. Whole Foods has the whole selection. I’d been eating cheaper 6- and 24-packs, after giving up on Academy for stocking (what I thought were) the good flavors. Never again will I have “crunchy peanut butter” or “chocolate chip peanut crunch” for days on end — now I have Apricot and Maple Nut!
• Yesterday I tried H.I.I.T., based on suggestions from Nitmos and MizFit: .2 miles sprinting alternating with .2 jogging for one mile, then some weights, then another mile the same way. I was completely exhausted. I quit mile 3 after about 10 steps. I’m sure my exercise capacity will shoot up with more of this awful abuse, so I should be up to the 3-5 miles recommended within a month or so.

Goals for upcoming week:

• MWF morning weights
• More H.I.I.T. on the track

————-

* I have to apologize to my girlfriend here. Naturally, she objects to my stating it so obliquely that I appear single, but using the words “acceptance in a relationship” was in order not to drag her into this, since it’s not her fault or anybody’s business. Even a good long-distance relationship takes a toll on those in it, and being alone is particularly hard on me.  It’s due to a medical issue, and we’re well worth the wait, but the purpose of bringing it up here was to deal with strictly the feelings that result from lengthy separation, and, in this case, its effects on body image.

In reading around, it’s clear that lengthy cardio is “out”. Everyone knows that.

So “everyone” is divvying up what’s left, differing on exactly how to approach your interval training & kettlebells, and also on whether they’re performance nuts, health missionaries, or simply not too proud to peddle rockstar asses to suburbia.

I usually resist conventional wisdom (look back on any), but I know I’m not getting steady results with a reduced calorie diet and cardio (ie, not getting any thinner), so I guess I’ll try interval training. My first stab at it was yesterday’s run — two fast miles with a slow one in between. I think half an hour of running is within the range of cardio acceptable to experts, so I’ll do it this way for a while to see whether I really have to break it down further, into fast-lap-slow-lap or something.. or just start lifting weights, but that’s so 1970s.