I’m finely seeing some progress. The Schlotzsky’s for lunch and wings for dinner probably didn’t help today but it’s our date night/cheat day. I went to PT this morning because knee and back pain has been an issue the last couple months. Long story short I have atrophy in the VMO of the quadricep, gluteus medius, and an overly tight IT band. It’s causing my kneecap to essentially derail from it’s intended path along the femoral groove. That’s probably exacerbating my back injury. The first day of PT has already helped with some of my pain and flexibility so I’m pretty excited. I just need to get right before we start our summer volleyball leagues.
I mean…I didn’t go anywhere…at all… but I haven’t been posting. I’ve just been too busy with real life to post. So, I have been trying to switch my diet the last couple weeks and today I saw that I’m at 242. Not great but making progress. I was down to 236 for a minute there but apparently that was just water weight, or I sabotaged it by eating a whole pizza to celebrate. By the way, isn’t it kind of retarded to say, “It’s water weight?” I mean, we’re like 60% water so it’s kind of unavoidable that it’s water weight. What are some other options? “Hey guys! I just lost like 10% bone weight and I’m feeling great! Who needs metatarsals?!” Well, in any case I’m trying to use the new diet options as guidelines to rethink how I eat, really re-teach myself. I’m certainly not going to be claiming flawless victory but I think a slow re-education process on a sustainable diet is a lot more effective than plunging into the abyss of trend diets. Tonight’s delicious shrimp po-boys were probably not a shining example but at least they were on whole wheat rolls. As always, I’ll strive to live better tomorrow.
Not much of an update today. I’ve been very busy with some events this week and some new projects at work. I still haven’t remembered to capture my weight to see if the diet is working. I’ve slipped up a couple of meals but overall it’s going well and I’m getting better at following the plan. I’ve worked out every morning this week so that’s been going well. It has been tough getting up at 4:45am, working out for an hour, being at work until 5:15pm and then either watching the kid for the next few hours or going to an after work event. The combination of schedule change, long hours, and not getting to see my wife much this week has made for a long three days. Ha, when I typed three days I realized how sad this whole post is. THREE DAYS? Big frickin’ deal…what a whiny baby. I’m going to stop bitching, take out the garbage, get my ass to bed and do this thing in the morning. See you in two more days.
I didn’t remember to weigh myself this morning at 5am before I went to workout. The weigh in is kind of important because we’ve been following a new diet pretty closely and I need to see if it’s working. I haven’t made any massive changes to my exercise program but this week I’m committed to working out every morning. Tomorrow morning is yoga which will hopefully be a little easier on me than the Tabata class I went to this morning. I’ve also learned that I cannot eat massive amounts of garlic the night before and fiber the morning of a big workout without penalty. Garlic and my stomach don’t get along. I actually thought I was going to throw up and I NEVER throw up. I found that in order to combat the nausea I had to relieve pressure somewhere and…well…fortunately the bathroom handled the situation; twice. I made the best of it and got back to the workout as quick as I could. On the upside, I found that I not only felt better physically after the morning workout, I also felt like I’d already accomplished something. 7 am and I could already check off one of my goals for the day…twice.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be eating lite and packing the rest of my breakfast to go.
This. This is what I’m combating. You know what the worst part is? I don’t even have it as bad as some people. My wife works in a dietary hell. People around her are constantly eating candy, getting greasy burgers or pizza for lunch, or even bringing in frozen custard! This, however is not about her. This is about my attempt to stick to my new plan. I hate to call it a diet because of the connotations. This is going to be the new way that I eat. Soon, it will become a habit and eating healthy will be normal instead of the exception. I’ve decided to focus on eating (since I do it all the time anyway) instead of exercise (which I can hardly seem to get myself to do at all). Pretty clever when I put it like that, huh? I will never be able to burn as many calories exercising as I’m capable of consuming so I’m renewing my focus on the kitchen.
Specifically I’m focused on portion size. See, I already like to eat vegetables and fruit. I don’t mind healthier cuts of meat and I think I’m finally becoming comfortable with cooking and eating fish. Sushi really helped with that (this is fish?!). I’m not saying that I don’t eat donuts, ice cream, cookies, etc. on occasion or even a giant greasy cheeseburger but that’s not a daily occurrence for me. Well…okay, so maybe it was nearly daily, not the burger, but something. I don’t think that was my main pitfall though. I think it’s that when I eat something as innocuous as a salad I eat a massive fucking salad. Even with a reasonable dose of dressing that is a ton of calories…from a salad!!! So I’ve adopted a meal plan with a lot of options but each meal is pretty specific about the portion sizes. So guess what ISN’T part of the meal plan.
Is that…is that a peep on a donut?
That WAS however sitting in the break room. It was sitting in the break room for hours like some kind of untouchable holy grail of donut-dom. Every time I went in there for a coffee or a water it was staring at me, taunting me. I grabbed a yogurt out of the fridge…I stared at the donut, I studied it…I began to visualize myself in front of an altar, carrying a bag of sand and wearing a whip and fedora. I decided to finish my yogurt instead of dodging a volley of poisonous darts and a boulder.
Just as a I walked out of the break room I could swear I saw a single tear roll down that peep’s cheek.
Short but sweet. I’m tired and I’m tired of feeling like crap. I’ve wanted to eat better and exercise to look better, to have my clothes fit better, to be able to play volleyball better. I think what is finally going to motivate me to real change is that I’m now associating my diet with actually just feeling like shit all the time. I think my diet is making me tired. I think my diet is making me feel sick and weak all day. I think my diet is poisoning me and making my stomach hurt. I think I’m done putting up with it.
Today, I ate bran cereal. Today, I ate like a god damned adult.
6AM – Wife says she’s going to work. Listen for the baby.
7AM – Huh? What…what’s that noise. Not my alarm. Go back to sleep.
7:30AM – Huh…stupid alarm. Wait…that’s not my alarm…oh baby right dammit.
7:31AM – I should put on some clothes…something anyway and then go get the baby.
7:32AM – Okay, got him…buhhhhhhht, I forgot to go to the bathroom. Out of the crib into the playpen kid.
7:35AM – I gotta get this kid some breakfast before he goes ballistic.
8AM – Man can this kid eat.
8:15AM – Now Dad is gonna go crazy if he doesn’t eat.
8:30AM – Ok. now we should be cool for a while.
8:31AM – Holy crap he’s getting into everything.
8:35AM – Seriously…we want to teach him to walk???!!!
9:30AM – So when the kid is climbing on something precarious and trying to get his hands on breakables, the trick is to just grab the kid.
9:45AM – It’s like spinning plates right now.
10AM – Bottle and a nap…sounds great; too bad it’s for the kid.
10:10AM – I should probably try to get some exercise as long as I’m watching TV.
11AM – I’ve done soooo many pushups…I’m down to sets of ten. I’m going to stop when I fail 10.
11:20AM – Ok, I think I could do 10 at a time forever.
11:30AM – I cheated by doing shorter rest periods. I hate push ups.
11:31AM – Yay for 60 rep curl sets. Maybe I need more than 5lb weights.
11:42AM – Annnnd he’s up.
11:45AM – Oh dear god. I shouldn’t be able to smell him before I get in the room.
11:47AM – I might need to phone a friend. This is a two man diaper.
12:00pm – Food time!
12:05PM – Um…he’s done?
12:10pm – Maybe his teeth hurt and he just needs some medicine.
12:15pm – He didn’t fight me on the medicine but now he still won’t eat his food.
12:20pm – Okay, maybe I’ll grab some lunch and by then he’ll be ready to eat.
12:21pm – Well now he’s going insane. I’ve had it. I’m going to choke down my lunch, he can stay in the high chair.
12:30pm – Out of the chair and now he’s fine.
1:10pm – Ok000000000000-agaeabh- it’s official, I can’t even pick up my laptop and get logged in before he has his hands on the keyboard.
1:11pm – That’s it. Sentenced to life in the pack and play with no possibility of parole.
1:40pm – I think I just zoned out for about 30 minutes.
1:45pm – Diaper change.
1:50pm – Logan goes for a walk around the house (assisted of course).
2:10pm – Mom’s home!!! Dad is off the hook!
It’s funny how you can start to lose track of things when life gets hectic. Between work, family visiting and taking care of boy wonder, it can be tough just to get the basic day to day stuff taken care of. Stuff like, dishes, laundry…bathing. That means that other funner stuff gets pushed way off the grid. Some people like to go out drinking, watch the game, or watch paint dry. My closest friends are big fricking nerds and our favorite activities…well I mean they still include drinking but we usually do it at home.
This weekend was a prime example:
Friday night – Netflix, BS with a buddy, Borderlands 2 on the 360 until an obscene hour of the morning
Exhibit A…er B for borderlands.
Saturday – Sleep in like a useless asshole while your wife takes care of the kid and house, Netflix, Home made pizzas, drinks, about 40 rounds of Cards Against Humanity, Diablo III on the PS3 until an obscene hour of the morning
This would have been the tamest hand we played all night.
Sunday – Sleep in like a useless asshole again while your wife takes care of the kid, more Netflix and then a discussion with the wife about maybe not staying up all night two weekend nights in a row playing video games with my knucklehead friends.
Who wouldn’t want to slay demons all night?
I might have been more resistant to that discussion if it weren’t for the fact that I’d said almost the same thing to my buddies before I kicked them out of the house at 6am Sunday morning. Sometimes it’s important to understand that there is such a thing as TOO much nerding out.
Crap. Didn’t I have something I wanted to post about? I mean, I can’t think of a single thing that I wanted to talk about. I’ll site the usual complaints about sleep deprivation, being caught up with the kid, trying to squeeze in a workout, staring off into space…pretty standard stuff.
I’ve been trying to eat a lot more vegetables lately; making sure they’re on hand as snacks. It’s partially an effort to head off grabbing the most god awful food substance we have on hand. My wife made a quinoa casserole earlier this week and that has been making a lot more of our meals vegetarian. It also doubled as a side-dish in some of our other meals. I think I mentioned that I was working on portion control which has certainly been a focus recently. I’m starting to get better at it but I’m often too hungry at dinner and end up eating portions that are twice the size that I need. Dinner is definitely my weakness. I mean, dinner is my weakness on days when I don’t totally hose up lunch.
St. Pat’s has got me in slow motion. I’m sure all the beer and whiskey I drank and all of the food I ate really put me ahead of the curve on my fitness journey.
Yeah, THAT much food. Seriously I thought it was a good idea to order all of that for myself.
Maybe if you consider all of the time I spent the next day shitting my brains out due to an over exuberant consumption of ghost chili seasoned hot wings and then the follow up mistake of blazing hot leftovers for lunch, you could argue that I probably broke even weight wise. Is there such a thing as “crying like a man” while on the toilet? Well, is there!?
