7/3/2008
"You can buy success, rent it, even borrow it for a time but real, lasting success comes when you create it yourself through purposeful massive effort; own it outright and make success your bitch. Yep- then you be pimpin' success." -Raunchy Johnson

Alrighty then. Moving on...

I didn't sleep much last night. We had a whopper of a thunderstorm move through our area and that was all it took to wake me up around 2AM and keep me up most of the night. I'm one of those weirdos who has a hard time getting back to sleep once something wakes me up. I start focusing one all the little noises that go on throughout the night; creaks of the house adjusting to temperature changes, wind moving through the trees, distant sirens, train horns, traffic, the occasional shuffle of zombie feet, or a werewolf sniffing at my toes, you know, just stuff. I think I dozed off around 5AM (15 minutes after my alarm goes off) and woke again at 7AM. I'm feeling it today, fershure.

What this also means is that I didn't go to the gym this morning, so Mother Nature is kicking my butt 2-0. I'm going to focus on intake today and get some exercise in later. I'm also thinking about a comment on my last post from Denis Kanygin. Denis is a fitness trainer and postural therapist (aka expert) and can be found at workoutiq.com. He suggested I stick with "big" exercises (those that involve many muscles at one time) when I'm working out at the gym.

I've been thinking about it and how I've been going about my exercise routine and you know what? It makes a lot of sense.

I typically go through a routine that oftentimes isolates muscle groups. Take for example biceps curl- I do this one at a machine in which I brace my body against a padded frame and bend at the elbow. That's pretty much it. The muscles attached to my arms that control elbow bending get exercised but everything else is stationary.

When I do curls with dumbbells there is a lot more that the rest of my body has to do to not only bend at the elbow but support the arm that is doing the lifting while shifting the rest of my mass to counter-balance the weight I'm lifting. It's only logical that there is much more benefit to doing this exercise using free weights rather than machines.

Thanks, Denis, for gently whacking me upside the head with that realization. I needed it. Tomorrow I'll start a program of replacing many of my machine-based exercises with free weights.

Coach: What's shaking, Norm?
Norm: All four cheeks and a couple of chins, Coach.

If you're as ancient as I am (or have expanded basic cable) you may recognize the characters above as the bar-tending retired baseball coach and the rotund malcontent accountant whose weekly exchange of greetings in a Boston pub (where everybody knows your name) became the standard of comedy in the era of the feel-good sitcom.

Now, part of what made Norm's character funny was his self-deprecation. He was a "big" guy, a guy who's steady diet of beer and stool-sitting was paying off in chins and moobs aplenty. He didn't hide it, he'd jiggle it in your face for a laugh- and laugh I did. I don't think I'd laugh much at the fat jokes any more. I've been "Norm" and it hasn't been all that funny. I was, and still am, a self-deprecating SOB. It's a "first strike at one's self" method of self-defense in order to head off outside attack. Ah yes, the psychosis of coping.

Anyhoo, here I am at the end of a long trek realizing that I am at the beginning again. I've shed almost enough weight to shake the "obese" label and now I'm ready to attack "overweight". That, in fact, is my ambition for Steve v4.7; to take all that I've learned and use it to lose another 40 pounds before my NEXT birthday.

But what of Steve v4.6? Don't I still have a few pounds to lose and a couple of days left during which to lose it? Why yes. Yes I do and yes I will.

#2 - The Road Has No End

It's said that "Half the fun is getting there." I say that "getting" is really all there is- and is where my focus should be.

#3 - Enjoy Life

Nothing is more tragic than a life wasted on wishing I was doing something else. There is joy in doing- doing it right now and enjoying the process before time runs out.

#4 - I'm Dying

The fact is, ultimately, we all are. That inevitability alone should be enough to motivate me to make the most of every moment I have "topside". And killing myself with gluttony is a wasted effort- better to focus on better and better life experiences than waste time shortening a life that's already (by design and happenstance) very temporary.

Feelin' good, feelin' fine and why not? Started my day with some exercise and my regular smoothie and that nasty evacuation business is behind me (no pun intended). All that and I'm down another pound- wahoo!

I added another set and another 5 pounds to my workout. It's a little more of a grunt but when I max-out-plus-5lbs on the biceps-curl machine I feel really strong. This brings up a change in strategy that I'd like to explore.

I've used weight lifting throughout the entire 291 days to help burn calories and promote weight loss and it's worked pretty well. The thing is, what I've managed to do is mainly shrink in most of the places I've been measuring. That is, I'm just a more compact version of what I looked like when I started. People have always told me that I carried my weight well- which I took as a polite way of saying that I looked like a giant Shrek-like freak. I've been kind of like the Michelin Man- going through a period of deflation. Now that I'm getting closer to goal I'd like more definition than merely form.

Logic tells me that less body fat shows more muscle definition. I've been lifting as much weight per rep as I was physically able (plus a little) since I started this journey. What I'm told and what I've read leads me to believe that this type of training helps increase muscle mass and strength- which is cool but may not reduce fat as quickly as a lighter-weights-more-reps strategy would. My thinking is that's the strategy I want to adopt for the next 90 days. Onward and upward.

Today's smoothie was my typical recipe: banana, berry, protein, flax. You can look at prior entries for the recipe and nutrition info. This reminds me of something else I read just the other day. I read that you should limit your menu to just a few simple items and never stray. Variety, it seems, may be the spice of life but can sabotage your diet.

If achieving goals is all about focus, determination, and tenacity, limiting your intake to a focused, repeatable menu sounds productive. Looking back over what I've been eating I think I may have been doing this to a degree already and I haven't felt deprived. I guess there were times when I felt "tired of eating the same old thing" but perhaps that's just because I temporarily moved my focus to the food rather than my goals. I think I may of done that a little too much throughout much of my life; focusing on the food rather than what was truly important. I mean, every family gathering I can remember was centered around a meal. The focus should have been on enjoying each other's company. Most of the business meetings I've attended have either been stocked with pastries, catered or at a restaurant. Food has always been either at the focus or part of the environment of every gathering I can remember. How the hell did I get so fat?

OK, back to business. I'll ramp things up a little- these last 90 days are going to go by quickly.

Geeze! I was limping like Festus Haggen yesterday. It seems I overdid it doing calf raises Monday and tweaked the crud out of my foot. I thought I was going to need a wahmbulance!

OK, a bit of exaggeration on my part. It did hurt and still does to a lesser degree today- but man-oh-man I had to baby it yesterday. No doubt I decided work around the calf raises this morning at the gym. It was still a pretty good workout and I was able to incorporate some other exercises I read about in Men's Health with the extra time.

So here's the thing; a what point do I stop? When do I quit? What is it going to take to make me abandon the path of self-improvement?

I once had a summer job that didn't require a lot of energy or attention. It was part of a scholarship program for engineering students at a new facility out in the middle of nowhere- or about 40 miles outside of a nowhere town in the vast expanse of the Wyoming high desert. Because it was a new facility just beyond the break-in period of production we had very little to nothing to do. Our days consisted primarily of driving around the site and taking pictures and generally just farting around (aka “busy work”).

I want everyone to know that I was and remain forever grateful to the large and powerful multinational corporation that provided me with such a lucrative summer job and generous scholarship money. The company was very helpful at a time when I needed it. All HAIL!

It was a cake job- and fairly dull most of the time-- a dullness that was countered by extracurricular partying with my coworkers. Partying all night. Every night.

It really took some conditioning and I'll admit that having fun all night long is strenuous and unforgiving. Just a month into the summer, the bags developing under my eyes had their own set of luggage and I found myself having a hard time making it through the day. I went from farting around during the day to power-napping; which is totally uncool no matter how “cake” your job is.

Well, one night I asked my coworker how she managed to maintain her seemingly endless amount of energy. “Don't you need to sleep sometime?” I asked in between shots of Jägermeister. She then introduced me to an oft-used misnomer I, myself, have used many a time since. “Sleep when you're dead!” she said and dragged me to the dance floor.

I'll never forget what I saw the next day when I walked into her office at the end of our shift. My party-all-night coworker sleeping in a puddle of drool at her desk. Not dead, just dead-tired.

The rest of the summer included generous razzing and a little less party.

Now back my questions.

1. When do I stop? Answer: Never stop, only adjust.
2. When do I quit? Answer: I'll quit when I'm dead.
3. What is it going to take to make me abandon this path of self-improvement? Answer: See #2 above.