MAY 10 2010 - 185 - 20 LBS GONE! 20 TO GO!

Despite this weekend's indulgent beyond indulgent Sunday Mother's Day brunch (Bacon, Sausage, Waffles, Omelettes, Hashbrowns and sweet snacks , plus a recital and potluck at my son's school, managed to get down to 185. All sugar cravings are gone, apparently I'm snoring less now, and the workouts are - just barely - starting to find a place in my nightly routines. Still trying to get 30 minutes a day in, not always succeeding.
Wood chopping has been an intense upper-body muscle-building process, at this point I've ax-split (well a maul, really) just under 3 cords of ash, maple and hickory.

Martin, youre doing great! that is alot of weight to kill so i'm proud of you... very determined!

Way to go Martin! The once-in-a-while indulgence does not seem to affect the diet; at least that has been my experience. I have found that the body just is confused by all the stuff and literally flushes it out. I am not trying to sound gross, but that has been my experience. Of course, that does not give us license to go nuts. And that, my friend, is where I always messed up. I have always struggled with moderation. anyway, enough of my confessions about personal shortcomings.

Keep going.

This week I'm moving to an alternate days plan. Yesterday I did 40 minutes on the treadmill (watching Jamie Olver's Food Revolution on the iPad!) and today I'll be doing simple calisthenics and "free weights" (I don't own any, so I have some cinder blocks and pieces of metal pipe rigged up).

That is an excellent move....

Don't forget the basics. Less diet and more lifestyle change. And walking is really good exercise that also helps you stay aware and engaged in the surrounding neighborhood:

http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2010/05/walking_and_obesity_the_city_l.php

A friend of mine took up walking and was surprised to find out he had a small hobo jungle set up on the far side of his property. Easy to overlook such details if you stay in a vehicle.

He is pretty cool with the homeless there but had to run off the ones that were loud, drugged out, destructive, or potentially violent. He is okay with homeless there as long as they are higher class hobos who are well behaved.

I walk at least 2.4 miles a day normally, more when i hit the treadmill

May 17 - 185 - Muscle Mass is in a battle for total weight, making the fat vs. muscle battle a draw this week. Kind of a bummer, but I expected the last 20 lbs to be much harder than the first 20.

However, I'm in size 36 pants now - my wife claims I was up to 40", but I don't want to believe her. Yesterday, I did a tiny bit of ground training for my upcoming flight on the trapeze school down the road from me.

Just starting to burn aerobic on the treadmill without the fighting the prolonged anaerobic "wall" that keeps you from hitting a good stride. Still hard for me to run/jog for long, I hope to get back to 3-5 miles a run and hold it there, it's too bad biking is out of the question in my area, I prefer it.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tx8L0wgcLIGfPqsAqQHZ7Vw&output=html

Well done in deed!

Take care of the knees. Probably the #1 fitness morale killer is having knee troubles. Stretch the tendons and muscles that bend and extend the knee. PAY ATTENTION to your body signals.


Give your body time to rest between hard workouts. If you push yourself really hard you need a couple of days rest. You can still be doing workouts during rest periods, but do different parts of the body or do low intensity stuff.


Right now you're highly motivated due to your progress and all the positive effects of becoming more fit. There is a very real risk of overloading specific vulnerable parts of your body, such as knee joints. Muscles can grow stronger a lot quicker than tendons and joints. Joints and tendons needs time to grow stronger, more agile and more robust. To do that, they need periods of rests between periods of being stressed and abused - the what does not kill you makes you stronger-philosophy only works if you allow your body to recover in between the battles. I have no scientific basis on which to make qualified statements about the balance between rest and activity, but your body will tell you all you need to know. Just listen to it... and take those signals seriously. Give yourself TIME.

[applause] Bravo!

Go ahead and believe your wife about the pants size. Would you rather say:

"I lost two inches off my waist",

or

"I lost four inches off my waist"?