Blowing the dust off in here...

*cough*

Well, then...

...it's been a while, folks.

I want to take a minute and just say that I really admire my wife. I don't really tell her enough.

Recently she made a change to her roller derby lifestyle/schedule. She still does her weekly Thursday night recreation with The Beehive Skate Revolution, and recently has moved on from her other once-a-week group to the Wasatch Roller Derby team which requires her to skate three additional days a week.

Last week was her first week with this group, and they really work out those ladies. She came home from her Wednesday session with totally dead legs. Turns out they have a personal trainer that works them out for an hour and a half to start. She's back at it the next night, anyway.

It's hard to keep up from the couch.

Yesterday evening, I walked over to the community center we now live across the street from (by the way, we moved at the end of last November) for the first time to use their gym. It's only been over two months. I haven't been in the gym at work since several months before I changed positions. In August of 2015...

I did a short workout (about 30 minutes) and felt like that was a good start. The hitch to this was that I also scheduled a workout this morning, since my wife wouldn't be home tonight until after the c.c. was closed. Alarm went off at 5:15 AM. I seriously wondered how it was possible to be time to get up already and snoozed it. I did pull myself out of bed after another snooze, and went to let the dog out, and got ready to go.

It's busy over there in the morning so I didn't get on any of the machines, but they have a nice indoor track to use, so I walked for 30 minutes. It's something when you see that you've already hit 5k steps before anybody else in the house has woken up.

So... in short, I'm back.

Expectations

I've not been very good at keeping this updated. Part of the problem has been that I haven't been very good at doing things that are worth updating.

I haven't been in the gym since February.

My eating was out of control.

The only thing I'd been doing well with was not drinking soda and hitting 10,000 steps 4 or 5 days a week.

Another issue that's been plaguing me has been my feet. Mostly my left foot. It's been hurting a lot over the past 8 - 9 months. I went to a doctor and had some medication and a couple of cortisone shots, and the pain has been relieved for the most part. Most days, I don't feel any pain and can walk normally. But it doesn't take much to set off pain, and the last couple of days have been intense since I had a near run-in with a nest of wasps living behind the circuit breaker outside my home. The sudden break into a sprint to get away to a safe distance really torqued my feet and my calves, so it's been pain from just below the knees on down for a few days. They feel much better today.

I'm starting to eat low-carb as of this week. My main goal is to try to stay around/below 50g of carbs a day, but not feel too bad about it if I get close to 100g - from some of the research I've done, 100g-150g is typical "maintain weight" amounts. Below 50g can help with faster weight loss.

Looking back over my diet over the past few months, although I'd cut out sugar sodas, I still piled on the carbs at an alarming rate. Potatoes, bread (sandwiches / fast food / bagels), pasta. A lot of pasta really, and that was negating other efforts I was making in portions.

I'm also going back to the gym this Sunday (my "Monday" at work) morning and getting in some time on either the elliptical or treadmill with some light weight work (and build up as I go). 

I need to revamp how I shop, what foods I prepare for dinner. I don't plan on making the whole family go "low-carb" but rather find alternative ways to prepare my portion of the meal. Some meals will be easy because I can prepare the main dish (the meat) the same way for everybody, but instead of having potatoes or pasta as one of the sides, I can have a salad, or a variety of veggies. Meat and veggies for me. :)

I'm participating in my first 5k ever in three weeks. At this point I'm probably going to be walking it.

So. Here's to better eating, and starting on the road to being great!

Updates and such

Things have been... eventful ... as of late.

I've tackled a couple of goals on my 2015 list, which is good. None of them directly relate to weight loss, but a couple indirectly do.

I'm signed up for The Color Run in Salt Lake City on August 22nd. 4 months and 10 days from now.

I've also been to a couple of doctors. One for a typical physical. Good news there, I'm still alive and doing pretty good.

Last week I also needed to see a foot/ankle specialist because of persistent pain in my left heel that just wasn't going away. I didn't have a shot because the doctor thought the ligaments were healing on their own, but gave me a prescription of an anti-inflammatory (naproxen) to help it along.

The main caveat to this, though, was that I needed to keep my walking to a minimum for the next four weeks until I go back to see him again.

Sigh.

Commit. Drive. Shin splints?

This weekend I took a big step (well, figuratively) toward some of the goals I've posted about recently. One of the top goals was to enter a 5k. On Friday I registered for the 2015 Salt Lake City Color Run.

Might as well be messy... this year's Color Run features GLITTER. My shower drain won't know what hit it.

So, to revisit my goals:

• Hit the gym on work days
• Walk a minimum 10,000 steps (15,000 if I didn't go to the gym - like today)
• Stationary bike on non-work days - 1 mile minimum in March. Increase one mile per month.

The Color Run happens on August 22, 2015. Time to get going. Not only should I be able to finish it, but with six months to get ready, I should able to jog/run the full distance.

Motivation

Motivation is a fickle monster. Getting up at 3:10 AM to go out into the cold (it wasn't that bad this morning), drive to work and get there at least an hour before I'm scheduled to work and go instead to the gym in the small building to go and do physical movements to break a sweat. All of that contributes to that little voice in the back of your head to say, "Eh. Stay in bed, get another hour of sleep. You were up late last night. You're tired."

So. I've been very bad on my goals this last week. Today was actually the first day I got into the gym since the beginning of the year. Guess I was waiting on the other resolutionaries to give up. You know, the zero other people that go in at 4 AM.

I don't know what it was that kept holding me back. I didn't stay up exceptionally late during the last week or so. I might have talked myself out of it because of my physical coming up on Friday. Which seems kind of dumb, but in any case I got out of bed this morning, and was on my way by 3:35 to hit the gym.

It's only 8:15 (as I'm typing this portion) and I've already rolled past the half-way point of my step goal for the day. Hit the elliptical machine for 33 minutes, so I've hit my 30 active min goal as well (all of this is programmed into my fitbit).

The week is off to a good start. I'm probably going to work on updating this once a week (sort of a summary instead of play-by-play) because it's getting tougher to come up with clever titles. :)

See ya next week.

No Time To Wait...

I decided that 2015 needed to come early. After hitting a major lull and packing on some pounds, it all had to start now. Not January 1. Now.

My wonderful wife gave me a Fitbit One for Christmas, and it's probably tied for my top Christmas present received along with a shirt my kids gave me with hand drawn art on it (they're 7 and 4; I'll take it out this week and put a pic up), and I did get some great gifts this year from my family. The silent alarm is great. It's just the thing I need to get up and going without disturbing my wife too much since it's set for 3:10 AM.

Rundown for today:

Bent Over Two-Dumbbell Rows 12 - 12 - 24 @ 10 lbs

Underhand Lat-Pulls (modified pull-ups) 12 - 12 - 12 @ 70 lbs

Standing Barbell Curls 12 - 8 - 7 @ 33 lbs (bar apparently weighs ~ 13 pounds)

Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curls 10 - 10 - 10 @ 12.5 lbs

Elliptical 21 minutes

For reference (you know, if anyone else besides me cares), here are links to my goals page to view and workout tracker.

2015 Goals

Workout Tracker

I'll probably add some additional goals later on. Miscellaneous stuff.

I did have a bit of a slow time getting out the door this morning. I got out of bed fine, just not so quick to leave. My plan is to BE at the gym by 3:40 - 45, changed and out on the floor by 3:50 and done by 4:40 so I have time to get to my desk. My shift starts at 5 AM, but I try to be there by 4:55 and get stuff like this done. :) I just need to make my lunch the night before more consistently. Nothing like trying to hunt for stuff in the fridge a little after 3 AM when you're not eating it for a while, and you're not particularly hungry at that moment. Nothing seems appealing.

The Fitbit app and site are great because they layout a bunch of goals (that you can modify) such as 10,000 steps in a day, 10 flights of stairs climbed, 30 active minutes, etc. And you can modify these, plus some of them have multiple tiers, like the stairs, after you hit 10, the site offers a badge (did someone say "achievements?"), and then shows your next badge can be earned by climbing 25 floors.

Challenges can be set up and sent to Fitbit friends. One of my friends in California, who also got a new Fitbit for Christmas sent out a "Weekend Warrior" challenge to see who can get the most steps on the weekend. There's 10 people in it (all invited by my friend from Cali), and I'm currently 5th. I do get a lot of steps in on Sundays though since the parking lot here at work is far, far away. The leader already has almost 30k steps, and it's only 6 AM on Sunday...

See you tomorrow.

Ghosts of the Past...

So... even before 2015 begins, I have some goals I want to share, some may not be possible to complete by December 31, 2015, but there should be some significant progress made:

• Ultimate Goal 1: 200 lbs or lower
• Enter the 2015 Color Run for Salt Lake City (8/22/15) - Registration deadline: TBD
• Enter the 2015 Dirty Dash (6/6/15) - Registration deadline: TBD
• Hike to Timpanogos Cave
• While I'm there, tour the cave. It's been 25+ years since I've been there.
• Hike Dry Canyon again (somehow, I didn't hike anywhere in 2014 after going on a few in 2013)
• Hit the gym on work days (seriously, how hard is this... I work 4 days a week. There's a gym where I work. No brainer, anyone?)
• Stationary bike at home on weekdays off (Tuesdays / Fridays and this ties in to another goal below)
• Take Saturdays off, unless working on any hiking or 5k goal above. (because there should always be one goal that's pretty much a 100% slam dunk).
• Walk 10,000 steps per day (usually hit 7k + on work days. Walking the dog could get the job done, and would make my wife happy)
• Get a Physical (because it's been a while)

• Ultimate Goal 2: Embrace a new hobby
• Read 30 books (we don't have a TV where the stationary bike is... books/kindle app will work)
• Placeholder for list of books read in 2015
• Study coaching for soccer and football (hey, I wonder if there's a book....also because...)
• Begin process toward alternative teaching certificate (this is a long range goal, I still want to have my third sabbatical at eBay in 2018)
• Volunteer (in conjunction with my wife's plans, together we'd like to teach our kids the value of helping those who are less fortunate than we are)

So, there we go. Bring it, 2015!