2 numbers

I just came home from my pool workout, and since I had the time and wanted to break up my workday with a good workout I decided to make today my "long" day. I felt good when I got in the water, but I feel even better now: we're talking some serious endorphins for Dolphin Boy here.

There are two key numbers that sum up my experience in the pool tonight.

The first is the number of laps I did.

The second is the number of rests/recoveries between laps.

The second number was 0.

Yep, zilch, zed, zip, zero.

The first number was 48.

48 25-yard laps without a rest in between. 1200 yards. Two-thirds of a mile.

And I feel mahvelous, dude.

It is kind of amazing to me how great this swimming thing is working for me. My conditioning, breathing, and muscle tone are just kicking in at a higher level just about every time I jump in the water, and rather than kicking my rear end with nagging injuries, it makes me feel more limber every day.

That's all. There's pasta and broccoli boiling.

5/19 - 12 laps
5/20 - 14 laps
5/21 - 16 laps
5/26 - 18 laps
5/27 - 20 laps
5/28 - 20 laps
6/1 - 22 laps
6/2 - 22 laps
6/3 - 22 laps
6/5 - 30 laps
6/8 - 24 laps
6/9 - 30-minute jog
6/10 - 24 laps
6/11 - 36 laps (1/2 mile!)
6/15 - 26 laps
6/16 - 48 laps (2/3 mile, no rests)

Danger - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 October 4, 2007

A little after 5 p.m. yesterday I was headed over to watch the Red Sox’ first playoff game with Danny, and I hadn’t made a plan for dinner.

I don’t know about you, but nothing spells danger for me, in terms of food and eating and weight gain, like a couple of hours of watching a baseball game. If there is food in the house, well … isn’t that why they have those 17 little breaks at the end of each half-inning?

I needed a plan.

I needed dinner, but that was only the beginning.

There’s a Whole Foods Market half-way between my house and my son’s, and I pulled in.

Five minutes later I walked out with vast quantities of fresh fruit (strawberries, blackberries, and bananas) and veggies (celery and carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes and broccoli florets). There was a container of ranch dip, but I took a little of that and mixed it with balsamic vinegar to lighten it up and thin it so it lasted longer.

I had most of the fruit for “dinner” while Danny had mac and cheese. Then half the veggies and my “homemade” dip sustained me quite well during the game. All in all it came to just over 500 calories, and the other half of the veggies are in my fridge.

Was it the greatest game-watching fare I have ever eaten? No, but it wasn’t the worst either.

It cost less, even at Whole Foods, than I would have spent if I had sat at a bar and watched the game with a sandwich and a beer.

And the Sox kicked some backside, which is especially nice.

Off to the gym! Have a good day.

Sticky situations - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 10.1.2009

5.28.2009: Maybe it was the big dinner, the good company, or the Dos Equis, but I slept like the most interesting man in the world last night and didn't open my eyes until after 7, well more than an hour later than usual. So instead of getting to the pool around 7:15 as I usually do I took advantage of the fact that there are 10 more days of mid-day swimming hours for adults, and I did my 20 laps at noon. All is well with my exercise, my calorie counts, and the scale, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then:

Sticky Situations
Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 10.1.2007

Did you ever notice how we get ourselves into these situations? I mean, sticky situations? Did you? Or is it just me?

Quite often they begin with the best of intentions. Mine always do.

Sometimes, in my past, they became very, very sticky. I’m not going to write about that now. It is neither the time nor the place.

But this weekend, while the stakes were not nearly so high in the short run, was one of those sticky situations.

One of my several jobs – they all have to do with writing and/or publishing in way or another – involves copywriting, writing web content that is neatly balanced between helpful information and marketing copy, for a variety of business websites. It isn’t bad work, and I like the 5-second commute. It keeps the wolf from the door.

I get to choose my assignments on my employer’s intranet site. Sometimes they are fun. Sometimes they involve decades of research. Sometimes they are short. Sometimes they are way too long.

This weekend I got caught up in an assignment that was way too long, 50 pages all about a little college in San Diego that provides various types of computer training. 50 pages! By yesterday afternoon I never wanted to hear another word about Bioinformatics or an inverted “career first” curriculum. But I had to finish. I did, a little bit late but still in plenty of time for the assignment to be included in third-quarter revenue.

What does any of this have to do with the enduring themes of Big Man Getting Smaller? Plenty.

It’s great not to have a 9 to 5 job, except when I get myself into situations where I have to work 15-hour days. Those were fine when I was in my 20s, but now they stress my body a lot more and create imbalances as far as sleep and exercise are concerned.

I made up my mind that I would not allow this weekend’s work to create an imbalance for me eating-wise, and I stuck to it. My calorie intake was in the 1800-1900 range each day. Having this blog with its built in accountability made a big difference. When I finished last night I was hungry and exhausted and I felt some ill effects from not getting any real exercise the last couple of days. But I knew I would be fine today if I just kept to the basics of my plan. So I had a celebratory dinner of a huge salad and a 400-calorie sub, caught up on a few emails, and went to bed.

I got back to the gym for a nice workout this morning, my weight is right where it should be, and I feel terrific.

There’s plenty more to say, but it can wait until tomorrow.

Romance Leads to Regimen Leads to Results

Among the thoughts I was thinking as I swam 18 laps at the pool this morning after the scale told me ever so sweetly that I was down another pound since Sunday's weekly weigh-in:

From the Fall of 1966 to the late Spring of 1968 (with the aid of a full scholarship which I am too hung up on class issues not to mention here), I attended Mount Hermon, a boys' boarding school set amidst astonishing beauty on the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts. A few year later, happily for its inmates, it was joined with an affiliated girls' boarding school across the river and has been known ever since as Northfield Mount Hermon, or NMH. But while it was just MH, its institutional notion of inter-gender social interaction centered around Saturday night dating events between the school and an extremely active traffic in sometimes perfumed letters between zip codes 01354 and 01360.

While I may not be an expert on normal, I can tell you that this structure of deprivation and brief, intense interaction (and yes, I can assure you that it was intense) was not normal for 16- and 17-year-old boys and girls.

I bring it up now not to launch into any amateur anthropology about teen dating, but because for me it introduces an important discussion about how we motivate ourselves to achieve or maintain higher levels of physical fitness.

Toward the end of my junior year I met an interesting, edgy, pretty girl from Flushing named Meredith. Merry and I dated perhaps a dozen times before school broke for the summer, and while I doubt that either of us would have said we were "in love," I for one had certainly achieved a happy state of limmerance. (It would be ungallant for me to speculate as to what Merry has achieved, but she did write to me and speak to me on the phone, and there were kisses).

That summer I had a great job as a fledgling sports writer covering the Cape Cod Baseball League, and I rented a room in Hyannis just a few hundred yards from an old, not very well kept cinder oval track. Although I was working well over 40 hours a week, nearly every day that summer I went to the track with my stop watch for intense, solo track workouts in which I tried to repeat as many 70-second quarter-mile laps as I could each day without any real sense of how to use rest days or even jogging recovery laps. I had no coach, and I would just run until I couldn't run any more.

I was pursuing a regimen with two purposes:

• I was working to get my time for running a mile as far under 5 minutes as possible, so as to insure I would be a worthy contributor to the varsity cross-country and track teams at Mount Hermon during my senior year; and
• I was doing all of this to please Merry, to impress her, to attract her, and perhaps even to make her want to smile at me and kiss me.
  

Now, as it happened, Merry could not have cared less about cross-country, track, or my time for the mile. She may have found some appeal in the temporary "sixpack" and muscles that were natural concomitants of the athletic accomplishments for which I was training, but I wouldn't put too fine a point on that. Long story short, her parents did not approve of the age difference between us, or perhaps of me, and they succeeded in putting the kibosh on our romance, as parents sometimes do, often with good cause.

But that didn't matter. The point is that romance led to regimen led to results. My attraction to Merry, and my desire to attract her, played a powerful role in my capacity to get to the track on a daily basis and do what I thought I needed to do there.

What I was doing at 17, although I was far from figuring it out then or in several other times since when I have acted on similar motivations, was tapping into forces older than our species itself. I won't try to offer any finer explanation here, but it would be foolish not to realize the power of these forces or to let them assist us when they are available. My life in this my last week as a 58-year-old -- and specifically the fact that I am what is called "single" -- is not all a walk through an open field. But to the extent that it has put me in a position to experience limmerance again -- and to say any more here, about that, would to get ahead of myself -- is nicely beneficial and even motivating to the ongoing efforts of BMGS 2.0.

I didn't plan it this way. But I'm happy to have it working for me.

The Yardbirds said it all, of course:

Yardbirds - For Your Love
Lyrics

(Graham Gouldman)
For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
I'd give you everything and more, and that's for sure.
For your love.
I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door.
For your love.

To thrill you with delight,
I'll give you diamonds bright.
There'll be things that will excite,
To make you dream of me at night.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.

For your love, for your love,
I would give the stars above.
For your love, for your love,
I would give you all I could.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
I'd give the moon if it were mine to give.
For your love.
I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live.
For your love.

To thrill you with delight,
I'll give you diamonds bright.
There'll be things that will excite,
To make you dream of me at night.

For your love.
For your love.
For your love.
For your love.

Down 2.2 Pounds in Week 1 of BMGS 2.0, and Catching Up

Going forward I'll make Sunday my weekly accountability day here at BMGS 2.0, and try to combine that with tying up any loose ends from the previous week's post.

So, first and foremost: I weigh in today at 254.8, down 2.2 pounds from the starting point of 257 in my Basic Calculations and Plan, May 2009 post of May 19. Good start, and one that I am pleased to build on at the rate of a pound a week.

Other loose ends to discuss below:

• Eating at night
• Daily weigh-ins
• Swimming schedule, other exercise, and days off

Eating at Night. As we all know, eating after 9 p.m. is not the straightest path to weight loss. I try to conform my behavior with this notion as much as possible, but occasionally I know in advance that I am going to have a late dinner (as often occurs on Tuesdays when I am extremely focused on getting my Kindle Nation email newsletter out the door) or want to snack or sip a bit (when I am going out with friends or planning to watch a game). The key to success for me in these kinds of situations is to plan ahead in two important ways:

• Make the basics of a plan about what and when I am going to eat, which will probably help me to eat something healthier for me than if I just leave it to chance and my late-night appetites, which long-story-short have never been for carrot sticks.
• Leave room in my daily calorie allotment for what I am likely to consume, since, after all, a key part of my plan and accountability involves calorie counting.

Daily weigh-ins. I've never totally understood the caveat against daily weigh-ins beyond the basic ideas that (1) we should never get too obsessive about anything; and (2) people who don't understand the basic arithmetic of weight loss, water retention, exercise, sweat, time-of-day fluctuations, etc., may misread their progress or lack of it. But my approach here is focused on daily arithmetic and accountability, and I almost always know what to expect from the scale before I get on it, based on all these things. Seeing the 254.8 this morning confirms my progress and tells me I am where I expect and want to be today.

Swimming schedule, other exercise, and days off. I didn't even notice when I ponied up my $280 for a year's membership at the Arlington Boys and Girls Club the other day that there is no adult swimming time on weekends. No problem. I was going to swim 6 days a week, which might have been excessive anyway. So for now the plan will be to swim Monday through Friday, walk or elliptical on the weekends, and take a day off per week as needed.

I think that catches us up, I've got phone calls and emails to return, and I'll see you here tomorrow. Have a great day, and get outside.

The key to the plan is the plan - Originally posted Sunday, September 23, 2007

All is well in the land of BMGS today, Saturday, May 23, 2009. A busy Saturday with Danny, and we're off to see A Night at the Museum 2 -- I love Bunuel! -- but we leave you with this post from 9.23.2007.

The key to the plan is the plan - Originally posted Sunday, September 23, 2007

Sunday morning, and all is right with the world.

Well, that’s not true by a longshot. But in my personal world there is a lot that is good. Threw some batting practice to Danny yesterday and he was hitting line drives over “the fence” in his yard. Got on the scale this morning and it said I have lost 20 pounds in 23 days. Took in the Red Sox last night eking out a nice, fairly dramatic 9th inning finish to a victory to clinch a playoff spot and cut their division magic number to 6. Got an email from Diane mentioning she has lost 4 pounds on her way to 125 by January. When I saw Danny he was very pleased with some really cool personally autographed Hannah Montana cast photos that an old college friend and classmate, Steve Peterman, had sent. (Steve was an amazing person when he arrived at the little college on the Charles almost 40 years ago and he is every bit as generous, funny and real today). All it takes are little things to make my day.

I got home at 5:30 yesterday afternoon and knew I had 90 minutes before the Sox game. I could easily have just kicked back for an hour but I knew how much better I would feel if I got to the gym. By 5:45 I was stepping on to the elliptical machine. I only did a little over 35 minutes, but I did a lot of climbing and resistance and had my heart rate over 150 for over half the time and really felt limbered up and good afterward. I had been a little stiff yesterday morning after my Fresh Pond run Friday, so it was really nice to loosen up, and I slept like a baby last night.

A little thing like getting to the gym one time made a big difference.

Two stupid little tips here, geeky ideas on the weight loss front:

In Diane’s email she mentioned the following: “I did this really nerdy thing. I gathered all my "take out" menus and highlighted all the foods I could order. Example, Chinese, 4 shrimp boiled and wrapped in rice & sea weed... Sub Shop, small side salad topped with seafood salad and a half pita pocket... you get the idea. I'm such a GEEK!!”

Well, you can call it nerdy, Diane, but in my book (or my blog) it is exactly the kind of thing that makes the difference between success and failure. Being prepared, so that you don’t get stuck making a hasty bad menu choice, can keep you within your daily target and make you feel confident in how you are doing overall. That kind of day-to-day confidence is as important as anything in being successful, whether it is a weight loss plan or something else.

The key to the plan is the plan.

Now here’s my own stupid little tip. As you may have noticed, my breakfast most days consists of some combination of cereal, fresh fruit, cream, and soy milk. Meanwhile, I have been trying to save calories, avoid artificial sweeteners and reduce my coffee intake by drinking my coffee as close to black as possible.

Ever notice how there’s usually a fair amount of cream or milk left in the bowl after you finish the fruit or cereal? The natural thing to do is to lift up the bowl and guzzle it down. But I do something slightly different. I pour it into my coffee cup. I’ve already counted the calories, and the result is a better cup of coffee, even if the last sips of coffee may be a little crunchier than usual.

Like I said, it is a stupid little tip. But it works for me.

In today’s soundtrack, The Robert Cray Band’s “Twenty” is a beautiful song about a terrible subject. 3,797 American dead. Roughly 10 times that many casualties, and who knows how many Iraqi dead? And for what? Don’t get me started, but did you notice Cheney admitted the other day that it’s all about the oil?

1 comments:

thoughtz said...

Our personal worlds are really the only ones that matter. They are the only ones we MAY have any control over!
Donna

September 23, 2007 4:25 PM

Life is what happens when you are....

All is well with my eyes, for those who followed my travails yesterday after an otherwise successful and satisfying third straight day at the pool: 12 laps Tuesday, 14 laps Wednesday, and 16 laps (400 yards) Thursday.

I bought goggles and allergy-relief eyedrops. The burning still returned gradually to my eyes after I applied the eyedrops twice yesterday, but -- since the allergic reaction was effectively the same as being sick -- I took an hour nap in the afternoon and woke up to find that the burning was gone. Some puffiness remain, I was told by an acquaintance who pays more attention to my face than I do.

So I got to thinking that the various eye symptoms I was experiencing might be compounded, once the pool's chlorine set them off, by the hours I spend staring at a computer screen (hopefully seeing new words appear on the screen fairly regularly). I continue to give my eyes a rest through last night, applied some eyewash in addition to the eyedrops, and changed my plan for today: I would swim in mid-day rather than when the pool is open from 7 to 9, which would give me a chance to assess whether a morning work session at the computer -- yes, that's right now -- would inflict more irrittaion on me.

And here's what I have to report:

• My eyes are good, so I am looking forward to the next swim, with goggles and eyedrops and eyewash at the ready.
• However, that swim is not going to come at noon today as I'd thought, because after it was too late to change my plans back and do a morning swim I learned that Danny is home sick from school today and I offered to split the day of Danny-care with his Mom. So, since I already planned on taking one day a week off from the pool, I'll make the off day today and take Danny and Brownie for a little walk around the neighborhood, instead, if they are up for it.
  

So there may be a plan for BMGS, but the underlying plan is that I am blessed to have a life that can trump my plans.

And just to make it easier on me, I was happy to note from the scale today that my weight is down from 256.2 to 255.0. I ate very moderately yesterday -- some pasta and salad left over from Paparazzi for lunch, as comfort food when I was feeling sick, and the only things I ate after that were two pieces of cinnamon toast and a banana smoothie with half a shot of Frangelico.

Meanwhile, got to hurry to finish as much as I can of a day of work before the Danny drop.