Roughly two months ago it occurred to me to take some body measurements so that I would know how much size I had lost in addition to the number of pounds. Acquiring a tailors tape I added a new page to my Hacker’s Diet Spreadsheet and started measuring.
I decided to track the following measurements: Neck, Upper Chest, Bust, Waist, Hips, Thigh, Calf, and Biceps. And in that order here are the amounts I’ve lost in the last eight weeks:
1 inch, 3.75 inches, 2 inches, 4.5 inches, 2 inches, 1 inch, 1 inch, and .25 inches.
More than one person has now told me that I need to buy new clothes (or have some of my current wardrobe taken in), and with these losses I can see why.
Twenty-six pounds and four and a half inches in eleven weeks. Hot-damn-diggity.
The Dash Poem Movie
As a part of my campaign to lose weight (twenty-six pounds lost so far!) I’ve been doing some resistance weight training at a nearby gym. Several of the machines are quite challenging for me, particularly the shoulder press which taxes an old rotator cuff injury. A couple are fairly easy. One of those was the crunch machine. With only thirty-five pounds on the stack I was easily able to complete two thirty repetition sets each workout.
So I upped the total to eighty a week ago Friday. While a bit more strenuous it still felt like it was inside rather than at my limit. So last Monday I upped the total to one hundred reps - in hindsight not my brightest move. By early evening I was noticing some stiffness, soreness when I moved my legs a certain way, or made twisting motions. I figured that I had just made the abs sore and all would be well in a day or two.
Tuesday I could barely walk. The pain was all through my groin and upper thighs, and even simple things like side-stepping came with an incredible zing of pain. I had four Motrin for breakfast and more for lunch. The pain level really didn’t diminish, so if the Motrin was working it was only keeping the pain at bay, it wasn’t reducing it at all. That evening I felt a little better and did some light household chores - the movement seemed to improve things.
Wednesday I was moving more normally, with some awkwardness once in a while. I felt good enough that I attended my kendo workout. Once I was warmed up I felt good through out the workout. The calm before the storm.
Thursday I was once again hobbled but still relatively capable. My left leg was sore, especially when asked to move sideways, but I was generally okay. Friday was spent in the car driving to Illinois for the weekend. Those six hours were increasingly uncomfortable - there are only so many ways to sit in a car - and I was getting stiff and sore.
Friday evening was the most uncomfortable yet; a softer than I like mattress added to my pain, as it was hard to move around with out causing myself a jolt of pain. Saturday I was once again fairly active - spending several hours in a museum, and then another walking around a miniature golf course. Sunday was another six hour day in the car, which again left me tight and sore. Thinking that a walk would loosen things up was misguided. The post dinner walk just aggravated the pull and consequently I had a long, uncomfortable night.
Since the Motrin hadn’t touched the pain before, when it normally works well for me, I hadn’t really tried anything else. Needing to do something to regain at least the appearance of control, I took a couple of Alieve first thing this morning. Imagine my joy at discovering that it was actually working. While I haven’t been pain free all day, I am mobile and not uncomfortable.
I’m going to skip the weights this week, and kendo as well, to give my leg plenty of time to heal. The last thing I want is to create a chronic injury situation for myself. I guess the moral of the story is that even though I’m still twenty-eight or thirty in my head, physically I am forty-five.
This is perfect.
FAA Bans People From Flights
What makes it scary is the fleeting thought that some one inside the Beltway actually had this notion and had to be talked out of it.
I’m on a long weekend in Illinois to see family and friends. After the numerous visits I made last spring and early this summer I have needed some time away, needed some time not spent in the car driving seven hundred plus miles round trip in three days.
Last spring I was in Chicago for a holy union ceremony and was able to spend a couple of days with one of my very best friends. Together we briefly visited a third old and very good friend. Except for weddings and such, the three of us haven’t been together just for being together’s sake in far too long. Active live styles and geographic distance have conspired against us, that is until now. Saturday the three of us are going to spend the day hanging out together.
I am very much looking forward to catching up on their lives, and on sharing what is new and good in mine. These two men are my oldest friends - they’ve known me for over a quarter century and we’ve all watched each other go through the twists and turns life’s path presents.
It’ll be good.
I’ve been lifting weights three times a week for several weeks now. The routine is becoming a habit, and I actually look forward to the time spent in the gym early in the morning.
Some of the exercises are becoming easier, others are still challenging. My old (ancient?) rotator cuff injury weakened my right shoulder more than I would have imagined. I think that I compensated with the other arm and never really knew how much strength I had lost. There is a seated shoulder press machine that really taxes my shoulders. Thirty pounds, twelve times leaves me weak and trembling. The first week or so I wasn’t able to complete two sets of twelve repetitions - this week I’ve finally started completed both sets.
The abdominal crunch machine is another matter altogether. The trained wanted us to aim for twenty or more repetitions on this machine, for two sets per workout. I’m only using thirty-five pounds of resistance and was easily able to complete two thirty repetition sets. Last week (two workouts ago) I decided to up the reps to forty per set. Eighty felt good, and I thought maybe I should try for one hundred total.
Bad idea.
Monday morning I did two fifty repetition sets at thirty-five pounds. At the time nothing seemed amiss, but by the end of the day - and a long wait at the eye doctor’s office - I was beginning to notice some stiffness when I first got up to walk. After dinner I took a short walk outside and discovered that my lower abdominals were quite pissed off at me. Four Motrin barely put a dent into the discomfort stemming from walking.
Overnight the pain lessened some, but I am still hard pressed to move about. It seems incredible to me that to few extra repetitions, only twenty more that Friday, could have such a huge impact. Unless I feel much better by the end of the day I won’t be lifting tomorrow morning - don’t want to make this a chronic injury. And I am not sure about kendo either. The weather forecast is for thunderstorms so maybe that decision will be made for me.
And when I do return to the gym I think I’ll return to fifty or sixty total repetitions for a while.
At my follow-up exam yesterday the eye doctor measured my vision at twenty-twenty. That’s with both eyes working together. The near eye is at twenty-thirty by itself, and is working perfectly for up close reading of the computer or books.
Other than some slight dryness in the right eye, he was pleased with my progress. He wants to see my one final time in about ten weeks, otherwise I am done.
I would recommend this to others with the caveat that you are certain you want to alter your vision forever. This is not a cosmetic procedure. For me, getting rid of bifocals has been more than worth it, and since my astigmatism prevented contacts, this was my only option. Even with that driving me this has not been easy.
As with any large metropolitan area in the summer, there are numerous highway construction projects tying up traffic here. There is one huge project that starts just where I get on the ring road and continues for the first few miles of my commute. All of the work being done is off to the side or overhead, so the traffic flow isn’t too bad. The lanes are narrower there, and snake back and forth from one shoulder to the other throughout the construction zone.
One my way home there is a long stretch of the far left lane that is on the shoulder, where the rumble strips are - all thirty of them. Yes, I counted them. In and of itself, counting the strips isn’t a bad thing, but I count them every time I go over them. The first eight are evenly spaced, and then number nine comes almost immediately before the original rhythm returns. I suppose this is a little bit of OCD surfacing - nothing to be concerned about - but I am aware of it.
The second stretch of shoulder on the way home only has exposure to eleven rumble strips, and the lane is just wide enough to miss hitting them if traffic isn’t too heavy. That I can avoid hitting, and therefore needing to count, these strips most days pleases me.
Go figure.
Pete reminded me that Black Rain had a scene involving kendo in it, so I got it from Netflix and watched it again. The kendo scene is good, but all to brief. The rest of the movie was good, if a bit formulaic.
Rating: Predictable action fare
I never saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl when it originally came out. A friend loaned me the DVD last week and I watched it over the weekend. People kept telling me that I’d like it, and it was good, but a bit childish. I guess I’ll have to see part two now.
Rating: Good clean fun even if it does romanticize pirates