My Weight Loss Journey Has Ended

At the time of the last blog entry, my runs were averaging around ten minutes per mile. Part of this was because of the training that I was putting myself through. While my shoulder was injured and I was looking to lose weight, I decided to do the maximum that I could do decrease calories as opposed to being able to run faster. So twice a week I would run five miles, and twice a week I would do sprint days while doing lower body weight lifting. My running did improve, but very slowly.

Now that I'm happy with my weight (more on that later), I decided to knock the dust off an old Higdon training plan. I'm only doing the first two weeks of the program, which are the same except for the sprint day and the long run (which I'm keeping at five miles for now). The first run of the week is three miles, and when I did it last Monday, I found out that I can run much faster when I'm not saving fuel for the last two miles. So I averaged about 9:30 per mile. The next time I ran three miles I averaged about 9:15 per mile. On Saturday, I ran five miles with a finishing time of 46:03. That's just a millisecond over 9:12 per mile. I should have no problem going below nine minutes on my next three mile run (tomorrow). Knock on wood.

One of the reasons why my five mile run was so good was that I have made Saturday my designated "cheat day" on my diet. I used it as an excuse to carbo-load. I ate pancakes for breakfast and had a small pizza for lunch. It was more starch than I had eaten in a month. I'm back to eating low carbs for the rest of the week.

My goal is to eventually run five miles in under forty minutes (less than eight minutes per mile).

As far as my strength training goes, I started doing drop sets to increase my upper body strength quickly. Drop sets methods vary, but for me it was taking the most weight I could do with one rep and doing that; then, reducing the weight and doing as many reps as I could. I continued doing that until I was either bench-pressing ten pounds, or I had reached a weight so low that I could lift it more than 20 times. It's worked very well for me.

I found out that I hadn't lost a lot of strength in my back. Apparently carrying a three year old and an infant around is a pretty good back workout. :) So this week I'm going to start training to do my first chin-up. I've never been able to do a chin-up or a pull-up in my life, not even when I was a skinny kid. It's always been something I want to be able to do. I like the way this plan is looking, so I'll give it a chance.

I've also decided that I'm not going to run a full marathon next year. I'll still do the Crim race with my wife, but there's a lot of stuff I want to be doing aside from running a very long race. I might change my mind down the line about that eventually, but for now I want to increase my strength, and if I can find the money for it (not happening right now-my ass is broke), go back into martial arts.

As far as the money issue goes on martial arts, I'm not going to let myself make any excuses on that, either. I used to be a black belt in Tang Soo Do. I still know how to do most of the moves in my head. There's no reason that I can't practice on my own until I can get the money to go to classes. I'm going to have to start making time for training. When I get the money I'll expand into MMA so I can increase my grappling abilities, but for now I'm more than capable of doing what I learned fifteen years ago.

Now for some really good news!

Last week my wife and I left our kids with her mom for the weekend. We used this as an excuse to have some alone time. We even checked into a hotel like we used to do before we got married. The room had a full body mirror, and I kept staring at myself in the mirror, completely naked. I was completely stunned with how good I look! I just kept looking at my front, then turning to my side. I struggled to walk away from the mirror every time I saw myself in it.

There's many things that give you good feelings, but none of them are nearly as effective as looking at yourself in the mirror naked, and loving how you look.

I guess this means my weight loss journey is at an end. I'm not dieting anymore to lose weight. I'm eating healthy to maintain the body I already have. This is a new experience for me. I either binge-ate whatever I felt like eating at any given time and didn't care if I gained weight, or I was on a diet and trying to meet a weight-loss goal. As of now, the number on the scale doesn't mean anything. I will still workout and eat right, and for that I will lose body fat and gain muscle, but as far as the number on the scale goes, I really don't give a shit.

This isn't to say I'll never weigh myself again. I'll still do that from time to time to make sure I'm not slipping up too badly. I just don't have a goal to move the numbers on the scale in any particular direction. If I gain ten pounds and it's all muscle, that's great. If I notice that my stomach is bulging a little, the scale will show that too, and it'll mean I have to be more careful. But my goal isn't to be thin. That's accomplished. My goal is to get stronger, faster, and better than I was before. The scale doesn't show any of that.

Confessions, Good News, and Other Stuff

Jesus, I haven't written since July.

Well, that's no surprise. Between May and September, I didn't work out at all. I also ate a lot of junk food. It's why my last entry talked about my kids but not about fitness. I wasn't even trying to get fit.

I wrote a long time ago that even if you're injured, you can still do something to get in better physical condition. So if you're injured, you should avoid giving up and find something that you can do.

I didn't do that. I gave up. I had a jacked up shoulder, but I didn't run. I did nothing, and I ate a bunch of unhealthy shit. I knew I was gaining weight. I could see it, and so did my family.

So, one day in September, I stepped on the scale. It said 292. I gained 42 fucking pounds, and I was almost back in the 300 club, a place I promised myself I'd never go back to. So I went to a place called the Medical Weight Loss Clinic to lose weight, and I started running again. I worked my legs on weight training days even though I couldn't lift with my arms.

I wanted to blog about going back on the diet and working out again, but at 292 pounds I was too ashamed. I was angry at myself for letting my body nearly revert back to where I was pre-surgery.

I'm now down to 256 pounds. Just six pounds away from where I peaked.

Medical Weight Loss Clinic gave some good pointers, but I still had to cheat on my diet because no matter how many times they swear differently (and they did), they have no idea how to deal with athletic people. They didn't know how to deal with a guy that burns anywhere from 1,100 to 1,500 calories in an exercise session. So I ate extra meat, protein shakes, and occasionally had to carbo-load to keep my blood sugar from hitting rock bottom. .So I'll be quitting this diet next week and start working on carb cycling. A lot of athletes swear by it, so I'll give it a shot, because...

My shoulder is finally healed up! Yay!

After waiting for months for my shoulder to heal on its own, I decided to get an MRI and saw a sports medicine specialist. The reason for my injury was a calcium deposit that had formed on the tip of my humurus, right where the bone meets the shoulder. So the doctor used an ultrasound to find the deposit, stabbed it with a large needle until it was no longer attached to my shoulder, and used another needle to suck it out. After a few days of recovery, I had full range of motion and no pain in my arm.

Now that my arm is healed up, I'm going to be working out even more than before.

My fixed arm also changed my priorities. When all I could do was work on my lower body, I decided I wanted to do a full marathon next year. Now I'm questioning that. My wife wants to do the Crim next year and I'll run that with her, but I don't know if I want to run a marathon when there's a lot of other stuff I want to do. I want to try powerlifting, martial arts, and work on being able to do my first chin up. If I can do all that and train for a full marathon, great. But I don't want running 26.2 miles being the end-all-be-all of my physical fitness.

My Kids are Turning Me into a Wimp (And I'm Okay With That)

I won't be talking about exercise and fitness this time.

When my first daughter (Hailey) was born, I had no idea how to deal with babies. I was under the faulty assumption that my kids would do everything I say without question, and that's how it was going to be because I'm the dad, and they're not. As comedian Tom Papa said, "I'm going to have kids; I'm going to be the king of the castle. I'm going to make people and rule them." It never occurred to me that even babies have minds of their own, and they aren't going to do things your way just because you want them to.

I also was a little too determined to make her strong. For the first few weeks Hailey was born, I showed little compassion towards her because I had made up my mind that life is tough, and I was going to have to make her tougher. This meant that even menial tasks like changing a diaper were done with all the care and compassion that one would have changing a spare tire.

$200 down the drain. Thanks, Obama!

I changed my tone after a few weeks when I realized I'm dealing with an infant and not a soldier in Basic Combat Training.

Our second daughter (Laurel) was born a little more than two years later. By that time I had figured out at least the basics of being a parent, so I've been much more patient with her. It helps that unlike my first-born (who did nothing but cry if mommy wasn't holding her for the first six months), Laurel is an incredibly calm baby. When you hold her, she smiles and laughs. She doesn't cry unless she's in distress. Her default setting is sleep. She has to be the most low-maintenance baby in the history of babies.

They're also turning me into wimps. You ever see a grown man who looks like he could rip a phone book in half make funny noises at their baby to get a smile out of them? I'm that guy. When I hold my kids, I shower them with kisses. When I don't have to work, I get out of bed at night to feed Laurel so my wife can sleep. I make bottles and change diapers. Right now I'm reading a book on how to properly raise kids without spanking them, because spanking your kids makes them stupid and turns them into assholes.

Some might say, "Why do you think that's turned you into a wimp?" To them I say: Shut the fuck up. Do you have any idea how I dealt with anyone, let alone kids, before I had them? Affection was never my thing. I didn't like most people. To be honest, I still don't, but at least I don't totally zone out when they tell me stories about their lives. Being a war veteran caused me to shut off that part of myself because war doesn't have much room for those kinds of emotions. So yes, I feel like my kids are turning me into a wimp. But I'm okay with that.

I'm still determined to make my kids tough. Like I told my wife when she was pregnant with Hailey, "One out of four women are sexually assaulted at some point in their life. I'm going to make damn well sure that our kid isn't that one." But you can do that while still showing love, too. If anything, it's helping because I've turned exercise into a game with Hailey (as opposed to a chore), and I'll be doing that soon enough with Laurel. Hailey and I spend our time hitting the heavy bag as a way to bond. I don't force her to do it; she begs me to do it. I bought a monkey bar set on Ebay so she'll have fun while she's working her upper body. A kid's center down the street from us offers to teach karate to kids as young as three years old. When Hailey turns three next month, I'm signing her up.

Gotta Do Something New

Hello, everyone. I've been wanting to write about my training for Steelhead for a few weeks now, but I've been so busy with school and my new daughter that I haven't had much time for writing.

Unfortunately, there's not much to say on that front, as I quit training a few days ago and will not be resuming it anytime soon.

I've always had bad knees, even when I was a teenager. They're so bad that I had to lie to the Army about them in order to join them back when I was 21 years old. The combination of long bike rides and long runs needed to do a half triathlon is too much for my knees to handle.

I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do the race. But there are some upsides to quitting.

For starters, I had to exercise for up to three hours a day. I have two daughters now, and I don't like spending that much time away from my family. I felt selfish leaving my wife behind with the two kids because my workout required me to go bike riding for 30 miles.

I also have a constant fear of injury. Last year I kept making the mistake of trying to train though the pain. Because of that, I went through two major injuries. The last of which, my shoulder, has yet to heal up completely and might never be fully healed. I've had steroid shots, physical therapy, and with all of that I have been able to regain a full range of motion in my right arm. There's still a little bit of pain though, and if I over exert myself I could end up back at square one. I will probably have to look at surgical options somewhere down the line. This fear has kept me from working as hard as I need to do a half triathlon.

I also want to do more weight training. I lost a lot of strength while I was healing from my injuries. It's been nine months since I've had a good weight lifting session.

So I've been looking at new options for exercise. I decided that I needed a workout that would meet the following requirements:

1. It has to involve weight training. I need to increase my strength.

2. I have to be able to do most of it at home. I want my oldest daughter to watch me lift weights so she can learn how to do them herself. I know there are some things I might need a gym for, but I want to be able to use my workouts as a way to bond with my family.

3. The workouts need to burn a maximum amount of calories while minimizing risk of injury.

So after doing some research, I decided that High-Intensity Interval Training would be right up my alley. I found a workout plan that uses weightlifting for the HIIT routine, with a low amount of weight (so I won't mess up my shoulder) and an insane number of reps to ensure that I can increase both my endurance and strength. I found another website that has alternative exercises I can do when I need to do an exercise that requires a special machine.

The plan is only six weeks long, which is good because that's normally the time I start getting bored and look for a new workout plan.

I'm also going to combine that with some standard cardio. I learned to love running, and I don't want to stop. When my knees heal up (I should be good in a few days), I'll start hitting the road again. I'll still do some swimming too. I just signed a year-long family contract with my high school to use their gym and pool, so I'll be able to justify my spending on that.

I also want to get back into MMA. Since I'm not going to be doing any races this year, it seems like something I should do to help keep me motivated to exercise. I love doing martial arts and I'm anxious to get back in it. I'll have to let whomever I'm grappling with know about my shoulder so they don't destroy it in an arm lock. I'll wait on that though, as I want to see if I'll need surgery to recover. Most dojos lock you into a year-long contract, and I don't want to be paying for something I can't use.

Been a Good Couple of Days

It's been two months since I last wrote? Jesus Christ...

I've had a couple of really good days recently. For starters, my wife gave birth to our second child:

Don't stare too long, or you'll die from over exposure to cuteness!

We named her Laurel, after Dinah Laurel Lance, a.k.a., the Black Canary. Why not Dinah? Because I don't want to hear I've Been Working on the Railroad in my head every time I say her name!

I wanted to name her after a superhero so she always has a reminder to be strong. I was going to go with Jean after Jean Grey, but my wife said that was a no-go.

I've been euphorically happy ever since she's been born. That's strange for me, as I'm not a happy person in general. The lack of depression, anxiety, and other PTSD-induced moods is unusual for me. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

But this is a blog about my fitness and weight-loss journey, so let me give you an update on that as well.

In my last entry, I mentioned my shoulder injury, and how that was preventing me from exercising. I got tired of waiting for it to heal on its own, so I went to the doctor and they prescribed physical therapy. The therapist looked at my x-rays and determined that my injury was due to a chunk of muscle getting caught between my collar bone and a bone in my shoulder (ouch!) Any time I exerted myself, the bones would grind against the muscle, causing pain.

After five weeks of physical therapy, my shoulder is about 99% healed up. There's no pain, but just enough of a feeling to remind me that the injury is still there. I'm not doing any exercise outside of physical therapy until it's at 100%, lest I aggravate it.

But I hope that it'll be healed up fully by next week (knock on wood). After that, I start training for my half-triathlon.

Unlike when I was prepping for the half-marathon, I won't be doing too much training outside of the sixteen-week plan so I don't over-exert myself like I did last time. I'm going to do weight-training just twice a week to gain more strength to help my speed for the race. I'm struggling to make the time limit for the swim (you get 70 minutes to swim 1.2 miles; right now it takes me 80), but I'm hoping that changes as I train. You get eight hours to finish the race overall. My goal for the race is to do the swim under one hour, and the bicycling in three. That will leave me with four hours to do the run, which means I could practically walk it if I wanted to (and I'll probably be able to do little more than a slow jog at that point, anyway).

So it's been a good couple of days. I have a new daughter, and I'll hopefully be back in the gym soon enough (once again, knocking on wood). Life is good.