Rest of the week...

Friday:
Breakfast: don't recall
Lunch: Something Thai, with chicken and basil
Supper: a hot dog and a beer
Exercise: no

Saturday:
Breakfast: none
Lunch: celery and carrots, some pb and crackers
Supper: honey chicken and rice, red wine
exercise: some walking around.

Sunday:
Breakfast: none
Lunch: Veggie burger, "dry" salad
Supper: butter chicken and rice, kale, a diet soda.
exercise: Nope.

Weight on Sunday 185 lbs.

So, I didn't do perfectly on the diet and exercise plan, but I did some exercise, and exercised some moderation on food, and managed to lose a couple of pounds.

I'll be on vacation for the next couple of weeks, riding my motorcycle around the mid-west desert and west coast. I'll probably be eating lots of fried diner food, and I won't get much exercise, other than the calories I burn keeping the rubber down and the handlebars up.

Thursday

I haven't completely fallen off the bandwagon, but...

Breakfast: toast + pb
Lunch: 12" veggie sub, no cheese
Supper: veggie burger, salad (no dressing). 2 beer
Exercise: None.

Wednesday's posting

They call Wednesday "hump day". Which is sadly irrelevant, since I'm currently living alone.

Exercise: 30 minutes sprint/rest cycle, 10 minutes ankle strength exercises.
Breakfast: toast + pb
Lunch: chicken fried rice. Mostly rice, very little chicken. Lots of hot pepper sauce, since it didn't have much flavour.
Supper: rice and honey chicken (leftovers). 1 beer. Salad

Tuesday started well enough...

Breakfast: oatmeal
Lunch: 12" veggie sandwich
pre-supper food: 2 beer and 1/3 order nachos. It's all about being social...
supper: chicken and rice

exercise: 1.1 hours fat-burn.

A new week begins

Last week I made the sad discovery that if I don't exercise more, and I don't eat less, I won't lose any weight.

Breakfast: Toast and bp.
Lunch: 12" veggie sandwich (no cheese) and baked lays
supper: the last of that pasta and tomato from last week, peachs for desert.
Extra: nope.
Exercise: 35 min of interval sprinting.

Yesterday several people commented that I was looking slimmer, which is nice to hear.

Sunday Summary : Thud!

Thud is the sound of me falling off the bandwagon.

Breakfast: a fruit and veggie bar
Lunch: poached eggs, english muffin without butter, ham, tomato.
Supper: hot dog and french fries
Exercice: none
Extra: a gin martini (stirred, not shaken)

Weight: 187.5 lbs

Yes, I gained 1/2 pound this week. Not good. As I said yesterday, I know exactly why, but still ... not good. Time to get back on the bandwagon.

Saturday, and all is well.

Breakfast: applesauce and granonla, I think.
Lunch: Goat cheese brie, multigrain buns, sparkling fruit juice, a pear
Supper: Some vegitarian indian curry on rice, naan.
Extra: I don't recall eating anything else.

Exercise: A bicycle trip to a picnic. It wasn't very intense cycling, but I did ride along the seawall for more than an hour.

Friday : the work week is over!

Breakfast: toast + pb, applesauce
Lunch: ramin noodles and crackers
Supper: beef+broccoli on rice
Extra: A beer and some red nibs
Exercise: 1.5 hours of my physio appointment.

I'm eager to find out what the scale says this weekend. I know that I've been eating a little more than I should, and exercising a little less than I should, but I think that, in total, I should still be ahead of the game.

Thursday, and all is not quite well

Breakfast: breakfast bar, coffee on the run. Way too much sugar in the bar. Nobody makes healthy processed food.
Lunch: chicken stir-fry
Dinner: Pasta & tomato, salad, bread. The same as the last 2 days, because I made enough food for 4 suppers.

Exercise: none.

Today I was explaining a valuable life philosophy to a co-worker (he claims to appreciate it, but I'm not sure if he's sucking up or not). I explained the benefit of regular exercise and generally "taking care of yourself", and stressed that the more tired/busy/stressed you are, the more important it is. So you shouldn't ever feel too tired/stressed/etc. to exercise, because that's when you need it most.

So I came home after 12 hours working, and I was faced with a choice: exercise right away and therefore wait an hour for supper, or eat immediately and not exercise all evening (since I can't exercise on a full stomach). I feel like such a hypocrite, but I did enjoy my supper.

Tomorrow is another physio appointment.

Wednesday's posting

As I promised, this is a rather boring blog. But at least it gets more updates than my other blog.

Breakfast: toast and peanut butter, organic strawberries, juice, coffee
Lunch: steamed rice with tofu, fish balls, and pork.
Supper: Pasta with tomato sauce, lots of salad. No wine.

Exercise: 10 min warmup, 4 * (1 min sprint, 4 min recover) on the bike. 10 minutes balance and strength work on the ankles.

I had forgotten how long 60 seconds can be when you're sprinting. Much sweat, shortness of breath, dizzyness.

today...

Breakfast: applesauce and granola, coffee
Lunch: 12" whole wheat veggies only Subway sub, bag "baked lays" chips.
Supper: small serving of pasta and tomato sauce, 1 glass red wine, salad, some crackers and peanut butter
Extra: peanut M&Ms.

Exercise: none so far, and it's already 10:30. I guess that means none all day.

Today's summary

Breakfast: applesauce and granola, coffee.
Lunch: pepper beef linguini, 1 beer.
Supper: hey, no wonder I'm hungry. I haven't gotten around to eating yet. Update: some fresh veggies in the fridge.

Other: 2 single scotchs (and counting). This is what happens once I starting thinking about work. It kills the pain Powerpoint causes.

Exercise: 1:10 or so on the inline skates. I think that this was a bit too much for my ankle, as I needed to ice it for about 3 hours after I came back. I will need to strengthen the ankle gently.

I envy those runners

The reason I'm taking up inline skating is that I badly strained my ankle about 6 months ago. I've been doing physio for most of those past 6 months, trying to get it to heal well enough that I can get back to my running. My physiotherapist finally admitted that I'm not going to be doing any more long-distance running. He said I could do 10 or 15 minutes of running with the brace on, but anything longer than that would start to cause more permanent damage to the ankle. Something about the joint being too loose and sloppy because of the damage. Or maybe it was the scar tissue in the way.

Since the only reason I run is to become more healthy, now that running is officially unhealthy for me, I needed to find a new exercise. It has to have a few key attributes:
1) Simple. I live close to the False Creek seawall, so when I want to go for a run, I change into running shorts and shoes, take the elevator down, and start running. It takes me less than 1.5 hours for a 1 hour workout, and that includes travel time, changing time, and shower time. Every 6 months to a year I buy new shoes, that's the entire maintenance effort required.
2) Interesting. There has to be something to look at, to take my mind away from the fact that my body is exercising. Jocks and exercise nuts actually enjoy the feeling of their bodies doing work. I don't.
3) Hard to cheat. With a treadmill, if I plan to run 10 km, and I get tired after 5, I can get off the treadmill and cut my workout early. With a real road, if I stop after 5 km, I'm 5 km from home. And since it takes so long to walk home, I may as well run. When running, if you stop putting out effort, you stop. And it's really clear that you've stopped. With a bicycle (or, I'm learning) skates, if you stop putting out effort, you can coast for a few moments.

You see, I exercise primarily because I need to, not because I want to. After a bit of research, I've discovered that running is the least unpleasant of ways to exercise. So it's been by preferred exercise method.

I managed to get what I call "the full loop" of False creek on the inline skates today. I went down past Science World, up the south shore to the rowing club near Vanier park, up that road to Burrard bridge, across the bridge, down to the seawall on the north shore, and back to where I started. It's about 15 km. When I was in good running shape, I would run it in around 1:10. I skated it in about 1:10. I didn't get nearly as good a workout as I did when running.

I kept passing runners going both directions, and I envied them. They were really working, with sweat pouring off them. They were going slowly enough that they didn't need to stop exercising just because there was someone else on the path. They were maneuverable enough that they could detour off the path to get around strollers. They could stop whenever they wanted. They could go up or down stairs, and weren't terrified of any grade greater than 2%.

The thing that makes running such a good exercise is that it's so inefficient. You put out a lot of energy, and you don't go very far or fast. So if the goal is to get (and keep) your heart rate up and burn calories, it's perfect. As soon as you put wheels under you, you become 5 to 10 times more efficient as a machine. Which, ironically, makes the exercise much less useful.

More about inline skating.

More stuff I"m figuring out...

- Like most balance exercises, it's easier when you have some speed. So going down hill at a crawling pace is actually harder than going at a jogging pace. But as I said earlier, once you are going fast(-ish) it's risky to try to slow down, because stopping is really destabalizing. So it's a balance: too slow and you fall down, too fast and you can't stop without falling down. But if you can keep the speed "just right", everything's good.
- for me, the "just right" seems to be above the "this is a little too quick" and below the "I'm going to die now!" speed.
- Keeping your weight low helps with the T-stop. It's still hard, and if you do it wrong, you still end up doing a very impressive piroette followed by a less impressive crash, but you're slightly more stable if your weight is low.

Oh, and everyone I see using inline skates are younger than I am. Some are in their mid 20's, some around 5 or 10 years old.

Sunday Summary

Breakfast : applesauce and granola.
Lunch : Greek something or other platter: small chicken kabob, rice, greek salad, tzieki (excuse the spelling), pita; iced coffee, with just a touch of sugar.
Supper: the other half of yesterday's KD, more greens, bread, glass of red wine.
Exercise: a little more than an hour on the rollerblades. I did the same loop as yesterday's first trip, and this time much quicker, and (most importantly) I didn't fall coming off the Cambie St. bridge. I didn't look too cool hanging on to the railing for dear life, but I did remain upright.

Weight: 187 lbs.

The bad news is that I didn't win 22 million dollars yesterday. The good news is nobody else did, and the prize has rolled over. This time it's going to be 32 million. Yay!

Today's summary

Wow, I almost forgot, and it's only day 1. This is a bad sign.

Breakfast: applesauce and strawberries, toast with just a hint of peanut butter. Coffee.
Lunch: skipped.
Supper: 1/2 box Kraft Dinner (tm), with salsa sauce to give it flavour; organic greens, celery and carrot for a salad (no dressing); some great olive and rosemary bread.

Exercise: 2 hours on rollerblades, trying not to kill myself. Mostly succeeding

Other notes: 2 beer. It was a nice hot day, and after the rollerblading, I deserve it. And some dry popcorn and celery sticks while watching TV.

Yes, I know KD's not Mediterranean. But it's pasta, which is OK on the diet. And it's mostly vegetarian (has some milk). And it was in the cupboard, and convenient. So there. Back when I was in school, I used to eat 1/2 box of KD fairly often. I'd carefully open the box, put 1/2 of the mac in boiling water (with a chopped onion), and cook it. After cooking, I'd mostly drain it, add 1/2 of the cheese mix, and mix it with the remaining water. The opened cheese mix and mac would go back into the cupboard, and I'd eat my meal. That was when I had no fridge.

Now I cook the entire thing, and usually eat the entire thing. I'm bad that way, I tend to eat food as long as it's in front of me. So today, after cooking it, I put 1/2 of the cooked KD in a plastic food storing thingy ("Glad server-saver", I think), before putting the rest on my plate. So that when I was done what was on my plate, there was nothing left in the pot for 2nds.

3rd time lucky

About 5 years ago, I rented inline skates to give them a try. 5 minutes later, I returned them, completely unable to get any sense of control. Two years ago, I tried again, with the same results.

Today, I tried a 3rd time, and had much more success. I went out for about an hour, and my first fall was a full 47 minutes into it. And that was while I was coming off the Cambie Street bridge, which is quite a steep hill to go down. (My second fall was about 30 seconds and 10 feet later.) The armour (knee, elbow, wrist, head) did their job, and I was unhurt, although dusty.

I figured out a few things about inline skating:
1) Stopping (even slowing down) is hard. The smart person plans ahead and manages his speed so that you don't need to stop immediately.

2) There are several ways to stop, but they are all ineffective, and they are all destabalizing. So when you're going fast, the last thing you want to do is something that's going to make you less stable. But that's what you've got to do, because that's the only way to stop. It take some courage. A couple of times I cought myself thinking "I know that I'm getting fast here, but I've had enough practice now that I'm confident at that speed." When in reality, I forced myself to admit that I was afraid to try to stop at that speed, which is the complete opposite of confidence.

3) The pads and all that do work. So even though you're going to fall on concrete or something equally hard, and you're only wearing shorts and a t-shirt, you're probably going to be unhurt, since the pads are in the right places.

My first loop of the False Creek seawall actually took longer on inline skates than it would have taken walking, so it's not (yet) a good way to get places quickly. And because my skill level required me to keep the speed down, I wasn't working all that hard. So it wasn't a good workout. But it was a good training exercise.

Now I'm confident enough to say I'll eventually master these things, and I'll be able to actually work up a sweat and get a good work out, without killing myself or others who are in the way.

Why, part two: the start and the goal.

So the second reason for this 'pointless' blog is as a fitness and diet journal (hence the title). I have learned that the very act of keeping a diet journal is amazingly helpful in losing weight.

The basic idea, I guess, is that if I know I'm going to have to write down somewhere that I ate a bag of chips or a chocolate bar, I'm less likely to actually do that. In other words, it's a willpower booster.

By an astounding coincidence, I'm looking to lose weight. A month and a half ago I was at 200 lbs. Now I'm at 190 lbs (which isn't quite as good as it sounds, since last week I was 188). My goal is a fit and healthy 170 lbs. Once I reach that goal, I'll take a good look at my BFI percentage, and maybe decide to go down to 160. But I suspect that 170 will be healthy enough that I won't go lower.

So, I'm going to try to make daily entries of really mundane stuff, like how much I ate and how much I exercised. And maybe even how I felt about both the eating and the exercise. And there will be occasional statements about how much success I'm having toward my goal of 170 lbs.

Why are we here?

When I created my first blog, I promised it would have interesting and useful content. It'd wouldn't be just another pointless rambling diary that nobody but the blogger could possibly care about (and I'd be surprised if even the blogger cares).

Instead, I created yet another quickly abondandoned blog, as I did a couple of vaguely interesting blog entries, and then stopped thinking of anything worth saying.

This blog is going to be different. It's going to contain pointless, vain, and highly unnecessary information about me. I'm not going to try to make it interesting or even relevant, I'm just going to post it.

You have been warned.