As I’ve been saying these past few nights, I am really coming to grips with the fact that I am growing older. There has been some positives that have come out of this. One is the fact that I am finally beginning to take care of myself for what is maybe the first time in my life. The results over the past year have been rather impressive.
I’ve been seeing a personal trainer for the past year. Well, actually several trainers as I had two of them quit on me within two months. That is rather discouraging especially given that it happened within my first few months of working out. It’s wonderful when the guy who is motivating you just looks at you and goes, “That’s it. I’m out of here.” But I did finally settle in with a trainer and have been working out with one for two to three days a week on average. This is pretty incredible given that I have barely ever lifted weights in my life. I’ve certainly been cautious about lifting after having spent enough time with an orthopedic surgeon to buy him a boat. I have to say though that I am seeing results.
Now admittedly these results are along the lines of approaching three digits on a bench press and being able to do multiple pushups without dying. But over the course of a year I have seen my strength increase and I swear that I have more muscle tone. What is most impressive to me is that certain exercises that I despised when I started working out have now become favorites. It is as if my muscles finally realized “Oh, this is how we are supposed to work in tandem.” Anytime I do a workout and think back to what my reaction would have been a year ago I am proud of myself. I still have a great distance to go but I have certainly improved.
I have made even bigger strides on the weight front. I maxed out weight wise at roughly 215, which doesn’t sound that bad given my height but it was all sitting in my belly and I looked bad. Between exercise, a focus on what I was actually eating, and admittedly using Weight Watchers I was able to get down to 180 pounds. I’ve slipped a bit over the past few months and gained a few pounds but I can say that I have been under 190 pounds for the first time since I’ve turned 30 at least. It also means that from a BMI standpoint I am no longer overweight. I never thought that I would be happy to have to donate clothes because they were too big. It has been a nice change of pace.
What I like most about this is that for the first time that I can ever remember I can actually start to think of myself in terms of being athletic. I was always one of those kids who was picked last for sports, which sucked given how much I loved sports and really wanted to be good at them but I just wasn’t. I’m still not a top athlete or anything and I never will be but the fact that I can go to the gym in the morning and push myself makes me feel that I have accomplished something. Especially given that my only opponent in this is myself. I’m not worrying about what anyone else in the gym is doing. I just want to make sure that I have pushed myself as hard as I can.
Showing posts with label Weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weight. Show all posts
Monday, May 07, 2012
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Might as well reprint those Free Lindsay shirts
(Yes that was a rather heartrending episode of How I Met Your Mother last night. Sadly I had the ending spoiled for me before I had a chance to watch it (damn you Facebook) but it still hit pretty hard. I don’t want to spoil it here but I will say that the episode was amazingly constructed and makes perfect sense when you realize that over the course of the series the show has never been a typical “ha ha” sitcom. There has always been a running plot on how these characters are becoming adults and dealing with a lot of those issues in a very realistic way.)
In a case of good news and bad news My Beloved Lindsay is out of rehab but may have to go to jail on a parole violation. Which of those is good news and which is bad news is really left for the reader to decide. And the whole going to prison thing is so a non-Hollywood thing. Really, when was the last time you saw one of these starlets actually have to do any real time for their actions. I know that the California prison system is overcrowded but I think we could find a little space in a closet somewhere to place a Lohan or a Hilton. They are rather thin and should be easily stackable.
Keeping with the celebrity news Snooki from the Jersey Shore has written a novel so add her name to the list of people who have been able to get a novel published before me. Yeah, fifteen plus years spent slaving away at a manuscript, six years blogging in an effort to catch the eye of an agent, and an orange midget who can’t even properly spell her own name is somehow able to land a publishing deal. I would really like to know if she has even read her own book. We all know that she didn’t write it; I legitimately want to know if she took the time to sit down and read it.
Oh, and Taylor Swift broke up with a Gyllenhall and is now back on the market, which just happens to correspond with my blog post where I say awfully nice things about her. Not that is anything more than a coincidence or anything… Actually, it is totally a coincidence. I’m more than happy with where my life is right now. I’m more upset by the fact that I am aware of Taylor Swift’s dating life given that it has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever.
Last thing, corresponding with tonight’s debut of the new season of The Biggest Loser I am embarking on a weight loss program. Actually I’ve already started it but it is always nice to tie it in with the Biggest Loser because at least I know that I weigh less than they do. Anyway, if anyone wants to send me some diet or exercise advice I would be more than happy to receive it. I really do need to knock off these last few pounds so that I will no longer be considered overweight. I will be much happier knowing that I was at a healthy weight on my wedding day.
In a case of good news and bad news My Beloved Lindsay is out of rehab but may have to go to jail on a parole violation. Which of those is good news and which is bad news is really left for the reader to decide. And the whole going to prison thing is so a non-Hollywood thing. Really, when was the last time you saw one of these starlets actually have to do any real time for their actions. I know that the California prison system is overcrowded but I think we could find a little space in a closet somewhere to place a Lohan or a Hilton. They are rather thin and should be easily stackable.
Keeping with the celebrity news Snooki from the Jersey Shore has written a novel so add her name to the list of people who have been able to get a novel published before me. Yeah, fifteen plus years spent slaving away at a manuscript, six years blogging in an effort to catch the eye of an agent, and an orange midget who can’t even properly spell her own name is somehow able to land a publishing deal. I would really like to know if she has even read her own book. We all know that she didn’t write it; I legitimately want to know if she took the time to sit down and read it.
Oh, and Taylor Swift broke up with a Gyllenhall and is now back on the market, which just happens to correspond with my blog post where I say awfully nice things about her. Not that is anything more than a coincidence or anything… Actually, it is totally a coincidence. I’m more than happy with where my life is right now. I’m more upset by the fact that I am aware of Taylor Swift’s dating life given that it has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever.
Last thing, corresponding with tonight’s debut of the new season of The Biggest Loser I am embarking on a weight loss program. Actually I’ve already started it but it is always nice to tie it in with the Biggest Loser because at least I know that I weigh less than they do. Anyway, if anyone wants to send me some diet or exercise advice I would be more than happy to receive it. I really do need to knock off these last few pounds so that I will no longer be considered overweight. I will be much happier knowing that I was at a healthy weight on my wedding day.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The battle of the bulge
Monday Weigh In: Crap. 209.5 pounds, up a pound and a half from last week. Things are not moving in the right direction. However, today I stumbled upon some guidance from an unexpected source.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite websites is deadspin.com due partly to the fact that I went to school with the founder of the site. Well today one of the writers discussed how he has lost 60 pounds over the last five months and gave his point by point directions on how he did it. You can find the article itself at http://deadspin.com/5545674/the-public-humiliation-diet-a-how+to.
(Like everything else on Deadspin you can pretty much assume that you will find something distasteful or objectionable in either the article itself or the comments. I probably should have put this disclaimer before the link but oh well, it’s the internet. The entire web is either objectionable or distasteful.)
Anyway, anyone who can lose 60 pounds in 5 months while being a blogger deserves my attention so here is my breakdown of his steps and my thoughts on what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong.
1) Buy a scale: I did that years ago so I’ve at least done this correctly. It is digital and only measures to the half pound. I know there are new ones that measure to a tenth of a pound but if you are trying to be that accurate then the idea of shaving off all of your hair in order to lose weight becomes a viable idea.
2) Weigh yourself daily: I’ve only been weighing myself weekly. I’ve heard different things about how often you should weigh yourself. Some people are behind the everyday approach since it keeps your weight front of mind and you can find out if you have fallen off the path quickly. On the other hand, there are a lot of day to day variations so it is really only in the long term that you see results. I’m going to switch to daily now because I am clearly not progressing using my method.
3) Post that weight daily on Twitter: Well, I do post my weight weekly on here. That does encourage me to try to work harder and hopefully I’ll pick up some support along the way as I lose weight. Again, I know that my weight just makes me overweight and not obese so it is not as though I am a contestant on The Biggest Loser. However, I am at least 20 pounds over my proper weight and all of that is being stored as belly fat so it is the most unhealthy thing imaginable. I just need to knock these pounds off. I’ll still just post the weekly number to the blog though because there is no way in the world that I am starting a Twitter feed.
4) Never eat after dinner: This is probably my biggest weakness. I’ve been eating a lot after dinner. Not just one light snack either; I mean like half a bag of chips or lots of chocolate chip cookies. Even my healthier snacks like dried fruit I just eat and eat until I’ve downed way more calories than I needed to right before I go to bed. In fact, I’ve been working out, showering, and then eating some more thus negating the entire purpose of the workout. No wonder I’m fat.
5) No snacks except for fruit: Drew mentions the diet idea that you should eat numerous small meals a day and dismisses it because they tend to turn into numerous large meals a day. I have to say I agree with him there even though a lot of people swear by the small meals idea. I still think a small snack every few hours is ok as long as it is sensible. Fruits, nuts, the occasional pickle (a stealth health food, pretty much 0 calories but alleviates your craving for salty snacks.) Basically I have to knock out the crap of chips and cookies and the like.
6) Don’t have seconds: This has never really been a problem for me. Understand that in college I weighed 145 pounds which is theoretically healthy for someone who is six-one but really wasn’t. I spent years of my life trying to gain weight. I still could work on portion size but one of the benefits of my lifestyle is I tend to make my meals for myself.
7) Don’t eat sweets: I am good at some of this and bad at other parts. I cut soda out of my diet years ago, which makes me wonder just what I would weigh today if you added in a couple of cans a day for half a decade. Chocolate and other candies are a serious weakness though. I don’t know why (well, I kind of do) but I had just been craving chocolate chip cookies these past few weeks and that simply hasn’t helped my weight. I’ve at least cut out the snacking on candy at work. If I can stop eating it at work and prevent myself from buying it at the grocery store I can do this.
8) Avoid carbs, but don’t go nuts about it: Yeah, I tend to eat a lot of bread. Philly is a pretzel town so we always have a lot of pretzels in our cafeteria or the office and they are really, really tasty. They are also carbriffic so that probably isn’t the best choice. I’ve also been having rice with most meals, which seemed healthy until I realized that I was having two servings of rice with every meal and that second serving was another 200 calories. When you start thinking of that in terms of time on a treadmill you begin to question a lot of your eating habits.
9) Drink unsweetened green tea: I don’t want to turn this into an ad for HonestTea but every fitness magazine I read swears by that brand. This is amazing because I sat through a presentation by those guys in business school and I didn’t expect them to be in business at the end of the year. I might try green tea since I never have but I’m really just trying to increase my water intake. The only (well, not really, see next point) other beverage I drink is decaf coffee black. Not too many calories there. True, there is no purpose in drinking decaf other than saying I enjoy drinking bitter hot water but that is the state that I am in.
10) Drastically cut down on boozing: Ok, so I do drink some beverages with calories. The interesting thing is I really have cut down on my drinking at least compared to my KC days. Back then I would be out four nights a week, mainly playing trivia or seeing concerts but always at a bar. I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to a bar out here. Still, I do imbibe so I should at least try to either control the amount or drink light beer. For the record though when drinking champagne everything goes out the window because it’s champagne.
11) Make sure everything you eat is awesome: This is where I could be so much better. Kim mentioned this weekend that I never make anything fresh. Everything comes in prepared meal formats or is in a bag where all I have to do is defrost and heat. In fact I don’t really cook as I mainly heat. I really think that if I spend time learning to cook and actually spend time in the grocery store buying ingredients for a meal that I will be much better off. This was one of my New Year’s resolutions. I should probably get working on it.
12) Exercise but understand that it is not the most important thing: I spent 45 minutes this evening working out on EA Active and theoretically burned 377 calories. For those wondering, the workout consists mainly of cardio boxing, step aerobics, resistance band exercises and body weight exercises. I don’t know if I can trust the calorie count but when I am done I am a sweaty mess and am spent so it is a good workout. I mention this because a vending machine size bag of baked Lays potato chips is 130 calories. You know, one of those bags that you scarf down in two minutes. Those two minutes of eating that leave you just as hungry afterwards were equivalent to a third of my workout tonight. You have to exercise and I do enjoy it and can already see myself getting more fit but really I have to focus on my diet. For some reason it wasn’t until I did this math that I realized just how important that is.
13) Take a fiber supplement: Ah, my Fiber One bars. You haven’t lived until you get a third of your daily requirement of fiber in one granola bar. Fiber is one of those requirements for weight loss but it really doesn’t make you very popular. Trust me on this one.
So the good news is that even on those steps that I’m not following I at least agree with them and understand that I should work towards it. I’m happy with my workout routine and have begun to feel the benefits already. Basically I just need to cut out the snacking, eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce my portion sizes and stay focused on my end goal, which is to look damn awesome in a tux when I get married next year. It’s not going to be easy but I will get it done.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite websites is deadspin.com due partly to the fact that I went to school with the founder of the site. Well today one of the writers discussed how he has lost 60 pounds over the last five months and gave his point by point directions on how he did it. You can find the article itself at http://deadspin.com/5545674/the-public-humiliation-diet-a-how+to.
(Like everything else on Deadspin you can pretty much assume that you will find something distasteful or objectionable in either the article itself or the comments. I probably should have put this disclaimer before the link but oh well, it’s the internet. The entire web is either objectionable or distasteful.)
Anyway, anyone who can lose 60 pounds in 5 months while being a blogger deserves my attention so here is my breakdown of his steps and my thoughts on what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong.
1) Buy a scale: I did that years ago so I’ve at least done this correctly. It is digital and only measures to the half pound. I know there are new ones that measure to a tenth of a pound but if you are trying to be that accurate then the idea of shaving off all of your hair in order to lose weight becomes a viable idea.
2) Weigh yourself daily: I’ve only been weighing myself weekly. I’ve heard different things about how often you should weigh yourself. Some people are behind the everyday approach since it keeps your weight front of mind and you can find out if you have fallen off the path quickly. On the other hand, there are a lot of day to day variations so it is really only in the long term that you see results. I’m going to switch to daily now because I am clearly not progressing using my method.
3) Post that weight daily on Twitter: Well, I do post my weight weekly on here. That does encourage me to try to work harder and hopefully I’ll pick up some support along the way as I lose weight. Again, I know that my weight just makes me overweight and not obese so it is not as though I am a contestant on The Biggest Loser. However, I am at least 20 pounds over my proper weight and all of that is being stored as belly fat so it is the most unhealthy thing imaginable. I just need to knock these pounds off. I’ll still just post the weekly number to the blog though because there is no way in the world that I am starting a Twitter feed.
4) Never eat after dinner: This is probably my biggest weakness. I’ve been eating a lot after dinner. Not just one light snack either; I mean like half a bag of chips or lots of chocolate chip cookies. Even my healthier snacks like dried fruit I just eat and eat until I’ve downed way more calories than I needed to right before I go to bed. In fact, I’ve been working out, showering, and then eating some more thus negating the entire purpose of the workout. No wonder I’m fat.
5) No snacks except for fruit: Drew mentions the diet idea that you should eat numerous small meals a day and dismisses it because they tend to turn into numerous large meals a day. I have to say I agree with him there even though a lot of people swear by the small meals idea. I still think a small snack every few hours is ok as long as it is sensible. Fruits, nuts, the occasional pickle (a stealth health food, pretty much 0 calories but alleviates your craving for salty snacks.) Basically I have to knock out the crap of chips and cookies and the like.
6) Don’t have seconds: This has never really been a problem for me. Understand that in college I weighed 145 pounds which is theoretically healthy for someone who is six-one but really wasn’t. I spent years of my life trying to gain weight. I still could work on portion size but one of the benefits of my lifestyle is I tend to make my meals for myself.
7) Don’t eat sweets: I am good at some of this and bad at other parts. I cut soda out of my diet years ago, which makes me wonder just what I would weigh today if you added in a couple of cans a day for half a decade. Chocolate and other candies are a serious weakness though. I don’t know why (well, I kind of do) but I had just been craving chocolate chip cookies these past few weeks and that simply hasn’t helped my weight. I’ve at least cut out the snacking on candy at work. If I can stop eating it at work and prevent myself from buying it at the grocery store I can do this.
8) Avoid carbs, but don’t go nuts about it: Yeah, I tend to eat a lot of bread. Philly is a pretzel town so we always have a lot of pretzels in our cafeteria or the office and they are really, really tasty. They are also carbriffic so that probably isn’t the best choice. I’ve also been having rice with most meals, which seemed healthy until I realized that I was having two servings of rice with every meal and that second serving was another 200 calories. When you start thinking of that in terms of time on a treadmill you begin to question a lot of your eating habits.
9) Drink unsweetened green tea: I don’t want to turn this into an ad for HonestTea but every fitness magazine I read swears by that brand. This is amazing because I sat through a presentation by those guys in business school and I didn’t expect them to be in business at the end of the year. I might try green tea since I never have but I’m really just trying to increase my water intake. The only (well, not really, see next point) other beverage I drink is decaf coffee black. Not too many calories there. True, there is no purpose in drinking decaf other than saying I enjoy drinking bitter hot water but that is the state that I am in.
10) Drastically cut down on boozing: Ok, so I do drink some beverages with calories. The interesting thing is I really have cut down on my drinking at least compared to my KC days. Back then I would be out four nights a week, mainly playing trivia or seeing concerts but always at a bar. I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to a bar out here. Still, I do imbibe so I should at least try to either control the amount or drink light beer. For the record though when drinking champagne everything goes out the window because it’s champagne.
11) Make sure everything you eat is awesome: This is where I could be so much better. Kim mentioned this weekend that I never make anything fresh. Everything comes in prepared meal formats or is in a bag where all I have to do is defrost and heat. In fact I don’t really cook as I mainly heat. I really think that if I spend time learning to cook and actually spend time in the grocery store buying ingredients for a meal that I will be much better off. This was one of my New Year’s resolutions. I should probably get working on it.
12) Exercise but understand that it is not the most important thing: I spent 45 minutes this evening working out on EA Active and theoretically burned 377 calories. For those wondering, the workout consists mainly of cardio boxing, step aerobics, resistance band exercises and body weight exercises. I don’t know if I can trust the calorie count but when I am done I am a sweaty mess and am spent so it is a good workout. I mention this because a vending machine size bag of baked Lays potato chips is 130 calories. You know, one of those bags that you scarf down in two minutes. Those two minutes of eating that leave you just as hungry afterwards were equivalent to a third of my workout tonight. You have to exercise and I do enjoy it and can already see myself getting more fit but really I have to focus on my diet. For some reason it wasn’t until I did this math that I realized just how important that is.
13) Take a fiber supplement: Ah, my Fiber One bars. You haven’t lived until you get a third of your daily requirement of fiber in one granola bar. Fiber is one of those requirements for weight loss but it really doesn’t make you very popular. Trust me on this one.
So the good news is that even on those steps that I’m not following I at least agree with them and understand that I should work towards it. I’m happy with my workout routine and have begun to feel the benefits already. Basically I just need to cut out the snacking, eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce my portion sizes and stay focused on my end goal, which is to look damn awesome in a tux when I get married next year. It’s not going to be easy but I will get it done.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Well, you do eat a lot of cake...
On ABC News tonight they mentioned a study that stated that, and I quote here, “Getting married makes you more likely to become obese.” They talked about some of the proposed reasoning behind it. You spend more time at home, you don’t feel as great of a need to take care of yourself, those sorts of things. They never bothered to mention the one fact that probably shoots down the entire study: Getting married means you are getting older. You’re married years fall after your single years when your body has a metabolism that does not stop. Marriage doesn’t cause obesity; life does. I just love how poorly developed studies like that can make the national news while I still cannot receive funding for my robot army. (The so-called “experts” are too concerned that the robots will become self aware and kill us all. If that is the cost of progress so be it.)
I am making some pretty good progress on the weight loss front myself. My treadmill workouts are going well and are about as interesting as treadmill workouts can be. As in they are painfully dull and excruciatingly boring. No matter what I do to liven up my time on the treadmill (and I am one of those people who never keeps the same speed or incline for more than a few minutes) it is always a slog. Not that I don’t enjoy the challenge and all but I would love to find a way to make it more interesting. True, I could run outside but that would mean I would have to go outside and who wants to do that?
The interesting thing is that I am about a month into my getting back into the workout routine and I am starting to really feel the effects. Last night I did the same workout that I did two weeks ago and instead of feeling like I was about to collapse halfway through like I did last time I enjoyed my run and went farther than I did before. My body seems to be finally understanding that I am getting into workout mode and is acting accordingly. I am hoping to get to the point that I did last year where I really looked forward to going to the gym in the evening and working out. It does mean that I can’t spend all of my waking hours in front of a computer screen but I guess that is not a bad thing overall.
Oh, and your sign of the apocalypse for the week: The number one movie in the country this weekend was G-Force. Yes, more people saw a film featuring talking guinea pigs than any other piece of art (or in case of that Katherine Heigel film, an hour and a half of romantic comedy clichés.) As I mentioned before, that film is a disgrace to the G-Force name and legacy. How did we move from super powered children dressed as birds to talking rodents? This country is going downhill faster than you could ever believe.
Best of 120 Minutes: Let’s start with the week with some Hothouse Flowers. They are one of those bands that never got the break they deserved.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Brunettes “Mars Loves Venus”
2) Whiskeytown “Strangers Almanac”
3) Billy Bragg and Wilco “Mermaid Avenue Volume 2”
4) Richard Buckner “Dents and Shells”
5) Rilo Kiley “Under the Blacklight”
I am making some pretty good progress on the weight loss front myself. My treadmill workouts are going well and are about as interesting as treadmill workouts can be. As in they are painfully dull and excruciatingly boring. No matter what I do to liven up my time on the treadmill (and I am one of those people who never keeps the same speed or incline for more than a few minutes) it is always a slog. Not that I don’t enjoy the challenge and all but I would love to find a way to make it more interesting. True, I could run outside but that would mean I would have to go outside and who wants to do that?
The interesting thing is that I am about a month into my getting back into the workout routine and I am starting to really feel the effects. Last night I did the same workout that I did two weeks ago and instead of feeling like I was about to collapse halfway through like I did last time I enjoyed my run and went farther than I did before. My body seems to be finally understanding that I am getting into workout mode and is acting accordingly. I am hoping to get to the point that I did last year where I really looked forward to going to the gym in the evening and working out. It does mean that I can’t spend all of my waking hours in front of a computer screen but I guess that is not a bad thing overall.
Oh, and your sign of the apocalypse for the week: The number one movie in the country this weekend was G-Force. Yes, more people saw a film featuring talking guinea pigs than any other piece of art (or in case of that Katherine Heigel film, an hour and a half of romantic comedy clichés.) As I mentioned before, that film is a disgrace to the G-Force name and legacy. How did we move from super powered children dressed as birds to talking rodents? This country is going downhill faster than you could ever believe.
Best of 120 Minutes: Let’s start with the week with some Hothouse Flowers. They are one of those bands that never got the break they deserved.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Brunettes “Mars Loves Venus”
2) Whiskeytown “Strangers Almanac”
3) Billy Bragg and Wilco “Mermaid Avenue Volume 2”
4) Richard Buckner “Dents and Shells”
5) Rilo Kiley “Under the Blacklight”
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Making friends with time
For those wondering how my weight loss program is going I have to say that it is well underway. Worked out again tonight which makes for three straight nights on the treadmill. I have finally found a treadmill workout that is quick, challenging and keeps me interested as I am on the road to nowhere. Basically it is five minutes at no incline followed by two minute intervals of 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 degree inclines followed by five more minutes at 5 degrees and then a five minute cooldown. 35 minutes in all and even though I am only going at 3.6 miles an hour (which is damn slow) it is still a good beginning workout. As the speed increases I will feel better.
I’ll start adding in some weight training this weekend and bring that into the routine. I just feel better when I get started to just focus on the treadmill because I know how that should feel and I know that I will end my workout a sweaty mess and I still believe that as long as I am sweating that I am doing something right. I know that I will never be an athlete but I would at least like to be in better shape than I am now.
I am happier that I seem to have found a way to fit working out into my schedule. I know that working out at night isn’t optimal (everything I read tells me that I should do it in the morning except a) I am not a morning person and b) I do have a job to go to) but it works for me. I’ve figured out how to fit working out, writing, having dinner, reading and the rest of my real life into my evening routine. Mainly this is by banning Facebook chat sessions. I am sorry but from now on to talk to me you are most likely going to, you know, actually talk to me. I really have been shying away from Facebook these past few months because it is such a time vacuum and I really don’t have the time to deal with it anymore.
It is interesting though that as we near the weekend I am trying to figure out just what to do these next few days. One of the things about being in a long distance relationship is that when you are together that is what you are and you spend basically every moment together. When you are apart for the weekend you are really on your own and I typically struggle to figure out what to do with myself. Errands make up part of it as I can always do laundry or clean the apartment for part of the time. It is the evenings that become a little more challenging.
See, I can’t remember the last time I went out by myself to a bar in Delaware. It has to be months now. My typical reasoning to go to bars is to a) drink and b) meet people, hopefully of the female persuasion. However, now that I am with the best girlfriend ever I look at these reasons and determine a) I would typically have to drive to a bar here and that takes much of the fun out of drinking and b) while meeting new people is cool I would rather talk on the phone than waste my night in a bar. (I know some people would say, “Why don’t you go out with friends?” to which I reply that in my year out here I still don’t really know anyone. Take that for what you will.) So I will still have to struggle to figure out what to do this weekend. I might just go out for the sake of going out. Or I’ll watch a few movies. I’ll figure something out.
I’ll start adding in some weight training this weekend and bring that into the routine. I just feel better when I get started to just focus on the treadmill because I know how that should feel and I know that I will end my workout a sweaty mess and I still believe that as long as I am sweating that I am doing something right. I know that I will never be an athlete but I would at least like to be in better shape than I am now.
I am happier that I seem to have found a way to fit working out into my schedule. I know that working out at night isn’t optimal (everything I read tells me that I should do it in the morning except a) I am not a morning person and b) I do have a job to go to) but it works for me. I’ve figured out how to fit working out, writing, having dinner, reading and the rest of my real life into my evening routine. Mainly this is by banning Facebook chat sessions. I am sorry but from now on to talk to me you are most likely going to, you know, actually talk to me. I really have been shying away from Facebook these past few months because it is such a time vacuum and I really don’t have the time to deal with it anymore.
It is interesting though that as we near the weekend I am trying to figure out just what to do these next few days. One of the things about being in a long distance relationship is that when you are together that is what you are and you spend basically every moment together. When you are apart for the weekend you are really on your own and I typically struggle to figure out what to do with myself. Errands make up part of it as I can always do laundry or clean the apartment for part of the time. It is the evenings that become a little more challenging.
See, I can’t remember the last time I went out by myself to a bar in Delaware. It has to be months now. My typical reasoning to go to bars is to a) drink and b) meet people, hopefully of the female persuasion. However, now that I am with the best girlfriend ever I look at these reasons and determine a) I would typically have to drive to a bar here and that takes much of the fun out of drinking and b) while meeting new people is cool I would rather talk on the phone than waste my night in a bar. (I know some people would say, “Why don’t you go out with friends?” to which I reply that in my year out here I still don’t really know anyone. Take that for what you will.) So I will still have to struggle to figure out what to do this weekend. I might just go out for the sake of going out. Or I’ll watch a few movies. I’ll figure something out.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
When I sit around the house I really sit around the house
As I mentioned on Sunday I was on a clothes buying frenzy this weekend. There were several reasons behind it. One was, as Kim duly noted, the fact that I have the fashion sense of a color blind lemur. Another reason was tougher to come to grips with. A lot of my clothes, including the few pieces that could be considered tasteful, no longer fit. I have, for lack of a better term, become fat.
Well maybe more like pudgy or a little wide around the midsection. For those wondering at the moment I am 6 foot 1 (just like the Liz Phair song) and 210 pounds (just like the…ok, don’t have a witty pop culture reference there.) That puts my Body Mass Index in the Overweight range. At 227 pounds I would be considered obese and I need to get down to 189 to be back in my healthy weight range. So yes, I am closer to being obese than healthy at the moment, which is a rather frightening thought.
It is really difficult for me to even get my head around the idea of being overweight because for most of my life I was the exact opposite. When I finished my sophomore year of college I weighed 145 pounds for a BMI of 19.1. This is somehow considered healthy on the BMI chart though trust me it wasn’t. Unless being able to see your ribs and collarbones is the new definition of health. I was happy when my metabolism slowed down enough that I could get into the 160s but things just spiraled out of control from there.
This obviously leads to a slight problem when it comes to clothes. I know what I used to wear and since I cannot bring myself to admit that I am anything other than a skinny, lanky kid I end up buying clothes that are several sizes too small for me. Hence nothing I own fits right or looks good on me so I had to redo my wardrobe to address the current state of my body.
Now my goal is to get rid of a lot of this weight. I really need to get down to 190 as I am really carrying too much weight. I cannot pull off the argument that most of my weight is muscle unless I have somehow created the most powerful midsection in the world. I was on a good exercise kick earlier this year but I lost the momentum and have spent most of the past few months on the couch enjoying the entirety of the Hostess brand lineup (I even bought a box of Ding Dongs for crying out loud.) This will have to change and change in a hurry.
At some point I’ve come to the realization that I am no longer a kid. Now on some levels that just means that buying vintage Star Wars action figures may not be the best use of my income. But mainly it is a result of my coming to grips that my body does not act like it used to. I can’t bounce back from a late night like I used to. Injuries take longer to heal. Weight stays on more than it should. I am at that last portion of my life where I can make wholesale changes to my physical makeup and make them stick. I really need to do so. Ideas / advice from the commenters out there?
Well maybe more like pudgy or a little wide around the midsection. For those wondering at the moment I am 6 foot 1 (just like the Liz Phair song) and 210 pounds (just like the…ok, don’t have a witty pop culture reference there.) That puts my Body Mass Index in the Overweight range. At 227 pounds I would be considered obese and I need to get down to 189 to be back in my healthy weight range. So yes, I am closer to being obese than healthy at the moment, which is a rather frightening thought.
It is really difficult for me to even get my head around the idea of being overweight because for most of my life I was the exact opposite. When I finished my sophomore year of college I weighed 145 pounds for a BMI of 19.1. This is somehow considered healthy on the BMI chart though trust me it wasn’t. Unless being able to see your ribs and collarbones is the new definition of health. I was happy when my metabolism slowed down enough that I could get into the 160s but things just spiraled out of control from there.
This obviously leads to a slight problem when it comes to clothes. I know what I used to wear and since I cannot bring myself to admit that I am anything other than a skinny, lanky kid I end up buying clothes that are several sizes too small for me. Hence nothing I own fits right or looks good on me so I had to redo my wardrobe to address the current state of my body.
Now my goal is to get rid of a lot of this weight. I really need to get down to 190 as I am really carrying too much weight. I cannot pull off the argument that most of my weight is muscle unless I have somehow created the most powerful midsection in the world. I was on a good exercise kick earlier this year but I lost the momentum and have spent most of the past few months on the couch enjoying the entirety of the Hostess brand lineup (I even bought a box of Ding Dongs for crying out loud.) This will have to change and change in a hurry.
At some point I’ve come to the realization that I am no longer a kid. Now on some levels that just means that buying vintage Star Wars action figures may not be the best use of my income. But mainly it is a result of my coming to grips that my body does not act like it used to. I can’t bounce back from a late night like I used to. Injuries take longer to heal. Weight stays on more than it should. I am at that last portion of my life where I can make wholesale changes to my physical makeup and make them stick. I really need to do so. Ideas / advice from the commenters out there?
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