Category: exercise

Restricting my diet has had an interesting effect on me. For the past few days, after consuming the last of my calories for the day, I’ve had the overwhelming feeling that the day is over and that there’s nothing left to do but go to bed. Weird, huh? Like my entire day revolves around consuming calories. It was especially strong tonight, as I was wandering around downtown on a First Thursday, gorgeous spring evening after a great warm day, seeing all the open art galleries and other things to do, people wandering around… but still all I could think of was, “Well, that’s it, time to head home.”

I’ve framed my day totally by the food I eat. Is that a bad thing?

They’ve finally posted the results from the 2004 Shamrock Run, and my official time is as follows:

• Name: MOON, BRIAN
• City: PORTLAND OR
• Age: 39
• Sex: M
• Time: 35:07
• Pace: 11:19
• Div: M3539
• Divpl / Ttl: 92 / 115
• Sexpl / Ttl: 785 / 976

Whoo-hoo! I think a sub-12-minute pace is pretty good for my first event. The rest of the numbers I don’t really care about right now.

I made it:

One hundred seventy-four and a half pounds this morning.

Feels pretty good. Another milestone, another goal reached. I should be happy.

Another beautiful Sunday. Looks like spring is here.

I had a meeting with a client this morning at a coffee shop in my neighborhood (plug: the Ugly Mug, at SE 13th and Nehalem, which is also a free wireless node through Personal Telco Project). After the meeting, I wanted to head downtown, so I walked from there, along the Springwater Corridor trail on the east bank of the Willamette.

The trail is 3.8 miles from the Sellwood Bridge to the beginning of the Eastbank Esplanade, so I figure it’s at least 5 miles total from my house to downtown. I did that distance, walking, in about two hours, and I wasn’t hurrying. To run it I should be able to do it in… I don’t know… an hour and a half? Is that optimistic?

It would be the farthest I’ve ever run at one time. But I’m getting used to overcoming previous milestones…

I’m feeling down on my diet this week. I was going to allow myself an extra 200 calories per day (for a total daily limit of 1800), but I ended up at least 200 calories over that, even. My weight has remained steady all week. My experiment in engineering a “soft landing” to my ideal weight was a bust.

At least my weight didn’t go up. That would have been even more depressing.

So, next week, I’m sticking with the 1800 calories per day, instead of upping it another 200 calories, and hopefully my willpower will return.

Maybe I was simply affected by spring break… Yeah, that’s it.

Exercise, I did pretty good. I did hear from “coach” this week, and she proposed a schedule close to what I was planning for myself, at least time- and distance-wise, although she advised against the 5-mile run I was planning.

Also except she included swimming on one of my non-running days. I planned on doing the swimming, but decided against it at the last minute. No, really, last minute.

Would you believe I decided against it at the last hour? Last day?

You caught me: I decided against it as soon as she proposed it. I haven’t told her yet, but if she reads this page she’ll know.

But I ran three easy runs, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, of two, three, and three miles each. Monday was in my neighborhood, and the others were along the Esplanade. Todays run was good; it was pouring down rain last night, so I was worried I’d end up running in the gym, but this morning dawned without precipitation. There was even some blue sky up there.

I have no idea what my time was. Maybe I should invest in a watch or something. Nah, I’m just happy right now to be able to complete the course I set for myself.

If you’re home sick, but you planned on running today, do not succumb to the urge to go running anyway.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

As of tomorrow morning, I get 200 more calories to eat each and every day.

Since I’m so close to my goal, I’m slowly adding calories back into my diet, so that the pounds don’t slowly add themselves back to my body.

It’s kind of interesting, actually. For the past four weeks I’ve lost an average of 3 lb. per week, which, at 3500 calories per pound, equals 10,500 calories per week. Since I’ve allowed myself 1650 calories per day, in a week I’ve taken in 11550 calories.

If you then add those two numbers together (the ones I burned, and the ones I consumed), then my total calorie needs for my current activity level is… drumroll, please…

3150 calories!

That seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Makes me wonder if I’m making a math error somewhere. But I don’t think so… I’m pretty active lately, with the running and the swimming and the cycling and the stair-climbing and all that.

So, that’s what it would take for me to maintain my weight. Which, after four weeks of calorie-counting, and the previous months of Atkins dieting, seems like an incredible feast. It’s twice as much food as I’ve been getting.

Therefore, I don’t want to jump back up to that level. I’ll add 200 calories per day and increase by another 200 calories next week, until I’m closer to the 3150 calories per day level that seems like my balance point.

When I started the diet, it took time for my body to start shedding pounds; likewise, there will be a resistance to my body achieving a stable weight. But if I suddenly were to double the calories I took in, that would cause a spike in my weight, and tip the balance back the other direction (that direction being “gaining weight”).

I’ll probably still count calories for a while, though, at least until I get used to estimating how much I need to eat to maintain my weight. I’m learning a new skill!

But, tomorrow, what to do with those 200 calories? The possibilities are endless!

My “coach” is in Nevada visiting family this week, so I’m kind of on my own setting a schedule. When I talked to her last week, though, she said that I’d be getting back to running, so I’m going to include some running.

Last week, which I didn’t post here, was all cross-training; no running. Which, as difficult as it seems, was actually difficult to me. My friends noticed a certain edginess in me, which I mainly attributed to the lack of running. Weird. The cross-training was mostly upper-body stuff, swimming, and cycling. It was supposed to help me heal my sore hamstring, which I think it has succeeded in doing.

The main problem (have I mentioned this before?) is that my legs are of unequal length; my right is about a half-inch longer than the left, which is going to cause me problems unless I get some kind of orthotic correction. Bleh.

Anyway, next week I’m going to run three days, and do some other workout (probably upper-body) twice, and take two rest days. I figure two “short” runs of 2-3 miles, and one long run of 4-5 miles. Should be fun…

It’s getting harder to fit in my exercise, since I’m getting busier and busier. For one thing my side business is picking up Might just be a spring break seasonal thing, but I’m hoping it’s more of a trend caused by word-of-mouth: the more customers I get, the more they tell others about me, which generates more customers.

Better and better. It’s easier to take the shit at work when I know there are people who will gladly pay me more than twice my hourly rate to do the same stuff. And I’m good at the basic stuff, and also friendlier than the average tech.

Something I’ve recently become aware of, due to my better physical condition and all the running I’ve been doing: my right leg is longer than my left one. By a significant amount. I’m having a devil of a time measuring my own legs, but as near as I can tell, there’s at least a half-inch to an inch difference.

I first noticed it on the elliptical trainer; the right pedal would travel farther in its arc than the left one. Then, after the last time I ran Terwilliger I started having pain in my right hamstring, which “coach” warned me not to ignore.

So… trouble. Dammit.

One hundred and seventy-eight and a half pounds!

Roly-poly macaroni!

To be honest, I had my doubts that I would ever get this far; this all seemed like such a distant goal. I was so used to being over two hundred pounds that I simply couldn’t imagine myself ever being in this great of shape. And, in retrospect, I haven’t really had to deprive myself of very much. The Atkins diet made the first month or two easy (and, over Christmas vacation (in sunny Puerta Vallarta) I even cheated quite a bit! The hotel had gooooooooooooood desserts…), and after I reached a plateau on Atkins, I was worried because of the horror stories I had heard about “going back” on carbs — tales of people gaining all their weight back in a short time after reintroducing bread into their diet.

But I switched to counting calories, and, lo and behold, I’m still losing weight. There’s no magic to the Atkins diet, I’m convinced; it’s just another way to limit calories. Think about it; when someone sits down and binges on food, it’s always carbs; chips, bread, candy. There’s simply no way to “binge” on pounds and pounds of steak, for example. You get the “I’m full, stop eating” signal long before you’ve taken in too many calories. Carbs don’t seem to have that effect, or have it so slow that it’s a simple matter to go overboard in a short time.

Exercise-wise, I’ve been taking the past couple of days off from formal exercise. I strained a hamstring last week, and it was still sore during the race, so “coach” says to take a few days off from running. I’m still walking a lot (had a side job last night and walked the couple of miles from there to home, for example) and taking the stairs at work (up and down the stairs in two buildings of seven and eight stories), but I’m itching to get back into the gym or onto the streets.

I’m going to take the money I made last night at my side job ($80) and use it to buy some new running shoes. I’m planning on doing one run per month through the end of summer, aiming for an 8K or 10K by the end of summer. There’s the Bridge-to-Bridge in April, the Cinco de Mayo 5K, and the Mt. Tabor Challenge in June. Which is where one of my friends did his initial training, explaining a lot of his speed! Well, that and his long legs. Nothing like training on the slopes of a volcano to help your legs get strong…