Summer is moving a little too quickly for me. The realization hit when we were packing up at the end of all too short camping trip recently. I was thinking about how precious the summer months are and how soon fall arrives when you're so sure you'll have time to do all the great stuff you planned while the weather kept you confined indoors and summer was so far away. Man, I'm such a sap-- and really into run-on sentences.

The thing is that there is no time like right now to get up, get out, and go do the things I want and/or need to do. Just freakin' do it. Turn off whatever soul-robbing contraption that has my buttocks mated with my chair and... -click-

And... I'm... Back!

That was awesome! Completely furious workout at the gym this morning. I did a number of different weight routines that reminded me of muscles that hadn't been out to play for a while. I followed that with a run/walk/climb session at the high school stadium. I only ran the circuit three times but hey, I was feeling it. If I were a masochist I'd have been in a steaming lather by the time it was over. I'm not but I was- er... not a masochist but was still in a lather, I mean. Ew, that's starting to sound a little weird. Geez, I'm constantly putting my foot in my mouth. No, not literally. Focus, Steve!

Why the frenetic burst of activity this morning? It seems I have a lot more weight to lose. Thank you scale! Wait, I mean thank you Poppycock! No, that's not quite right either. What I really mean to say is, "Thanks to you, Steve."

"Salty carbs don't bloat people; people consuming mass quantities of salty carbs bloat people."

So this morning I was all about sweating out the Sodium and working off the carbs- and it felt really good. Thank you scale. Thank you indeed.

The thing is, salty-carb-induced-bloat and the waning summer aren't the only reasons for the change-up in activity this morning. It seems like I've hit some sort of wall in my weight loss efforts. So I'm taking some advice from a reliable source in regard to my weight lifting efforts and switching things up a little. More on that later.

7/7/08
Some people say I'm funny- which makes me feel good until I realize that looks and smell are all I've got. -Raunchy Johnson

A quick inventory of fingers, toes, and eyes revealed that my clan had survived yet another Independence Day weekend unscathed and, try as we might, off the Darwin Awards or Epic Fail websites. Our family motto, "Cheating death since '88" still holds true.

We spent the weekend out amongst the flora and fauna that makes the Pacific Northwest such a great place to live. Camping was never my thing growing up but has become some kind of an obsession with me now and so that's what we did- pack up the camper and head for the hills. Good times, bad eats, nature and whatnot.

Now I'm back and refocused. This week I'm all about intensifying a healthy lifestyle, staying on track with diet and exercise. I worked out at the gym this morning, focusing on free-weights with intensity. It was a tough workout that I followed with my usual smoothie. Once I kick the cookie habit I'll be golden.

Good stuff:

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.

The gym experience bordered on aggravating this morning. The exernazi had her class packed into the tiny weight-room and kitten-herded them through the stations pachinko-style. It was a weird-assed frenzy of getting in one another's way until I relented and walked out. I did get thirty minutes in at my core exercises and no one got hurt- so it's all good. I guess I was becoming a little spoiled by the solitude I've enjoyed at the gym for so long. Here's my "relevant" tip:

#23 - Be My Own Coach/Trainer

A hired professional trainer will stay for as long as I'm willing to pay them; my carcass is around for a mortal eternity. Paying some pro to kick my carcass around forever just isn't appealing.

#24 - Motivation Is An Internal Organ

Inspiration can come from anywhere but lasting motivation comes from within. The cool thing is that the "motivation organ" can be conditioned to function in the absence of inspiration.

#25 - Why Ask Why?

When I first started this journey almost a year ago, I considered myself child-like in knowledge and ability. I really didn't know how I was going to "fix" myself, I only knew that I had to do something. I had plenty of reasons why I had to make a change and that was enough to get me off my can and do something. Now that I'm a toddler (knowledge-wise) and have some positive experience behind me I realize that the reasons why I do what I do are a heck of a lot more powerful than the way I am doing what I'm doing. Also, when I first started out, a lot of what I did to drop weight I really didn't fully understand and had to just do it because my resources said it was the right thing to do.

I now understand a little more about what works for me and what doesn't. You might say that I've matured a little, or you might say I'm full of crap. Either way, I very close to my goal both in time and achievement and am looking forward to maturing into a know-it-all teenager.

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.

Feet on the floor at 4:44 (AM), or 4:32, 4:56, 5:43, 5:55 , etc. Recognize any patterns here? (hint: Why might today have special significance?)

I like to bring order to things- all things. It helps me stay focused. It helps me stay productive. Over the years I've worked it into conversation- usually making a joke out of the whole thing.

“I like to do things in threes,” I'd say.

It was true.

“I have to wash my hands 27 times per day, no more, no less, or something bad will happen,” I'd mention in casual conversation.

Not so true.

“Why 27?” they'd ask.

“Because it's a perfect number,” I'd say, “27 is 3 to the third power, and 2 + 7 = 9 and 9 is 3 to the 2nd power. Three represents all that is holy (as in the Trinity), all that is powerful (as in three branches of federal government), all that lies beneath (as in the “Trilateral Commission”).”

Pure BS.

Still, locked in my subconscious, I was fixating on the number 3. Slowly it began to show up in my habits and speech. I was becoming obsessive.

Or not. Hell, I still maintain that we all have and make choices based on the gajillion-or-so options that befall us through the course of our lives. I declare that I control “3” and it doesn't control me (sounds kind of poetic). No fate. No spoon.

I may be dismissed as a nutcase, but hey, it's working for me. I do three set of every exercise each time I'm at the gym, I go around the track/bleachers in multiples of 3, just about everything I do is done in multiples and intervals of 3... at least when I'm thinking about it. If I don't, something bad will happen.

Or it won't. Kooky, huh?

Today was gym/scale day and I'm down another two pounds (woohoo!). The hours for the gym have changed, so I don't go until 9AM- which shifts my work schedule (starting earlier, ending later), but I'll adapt. It's just 3 days a week, and 3 works for me.

Man! I really missed going to the gym over the last two weeks. The first thing I did was hop up on the scale to end this crappy phase of not knowing whether or not I was making any progress. I'm one of those guys who likes to monitor the effectiveness of all my actions. I don't like being surprised- I like making progress. I like making corrections in the short-term rather than trying to remember how what I did a month (or two weeks) ago may have affected my current circumstances.

Not that I'm knocking a 5 lb loss. I'll take one of those every week or two- no complaints.

And I had a few clues along the way; my watch and clothes where "mysteriously" getting bigger, and I am feeling pretty good. I'm wondering what the next two weeks will produce- now that I'm back at the gym and have access to a scale.

I've come to expect NO MORE THAN a one-pound drop when I weigh in on gym days. Today I was down TWO pounds and that much closer to my goal.

I really do not expect the rate of loss to continue due to my "magic equation" coming closer to equilibrium with each pound lost. I'll take this loss as a positive thing.

Today one of my sons went with us to the gym. He's just starting out with weights so I want to make sure to doesn't over-do it. He seemed to enjoy it and it's always good to spend time together. The only negative is that it effectively cuts my workout in half considering time spent in playing instructor- which is perfectly OK and certainly temporary. Once he gets used to a routine, I'll be back to a more consistent and strenuous workout. I'm just glad he wants to spend time with me.

We also shared a breakfast of protein smoothies- which he liked. We use the Magic Bullet, so each of us gets a smoothie that specially formulated and mixed directly in the mug we're going to drink it from- making it uber-convenient. It's one piece of "As Seen on TV" merchandise that I would recommend to anyone.