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.

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.

You Getting Up in the Morning, or, in This Case, Me

I'll start with a few basics today:

• Calorie intake yesterday was about 2,000, including a healthy chicken fajita salad with iced team and only moderate chip-picking with my friend and ex-bro-in-law Pete at Jose's for lunch and a two-stop dinner (cottage cheese with apple sauce and Kashi at 6 and a vegan tofu-kielbasa quesadilla when I finished my weekly Kindle Nation newsletter at midnight). (Yes, I occasionally eat at midnight, but I try not to do it without a plan. More on that later).
• The scale is moving in the right direction, down from 257 to 256.2 today. (Yes, I have a scale that measures tenths and I do weigh myself every day. More on that later).
• Probably most important of these three items, in the long run -- I was back in the pool at 7:15 am and moved up from 12 laps to 14 laps, or 300 yards, with a slightly higher and thus more intensive ratio of breaststroke to backstroke.
  

The swimming feels great. It is taxing, and of course since I am already swimming more than I have swam, swimmed, or swum in over 25 years I notice that I am breathing heavily at the end of each two-lap segment. I take a little 60-to-90-second break between each segment and then start flailing my arms again. Each day, for now, I will try to add two laps to what i did the day before. We'll see how that goes.

I wondered if I would just be bored to death by the likelihood that I couldn't do enough to feel like I had done anything, but 12 laps and 14 laps on the first two days isn't a bad start. Those who've read my Boston Sports by the Numbers blog will not be surprised to learn that in my marathoning and coaching days I used to have a lot of fun paying attention to times, workout stats, interval clockings, and the like. Certainly swimming couldn't offer me that kind of juice. Then I noticed two guys in the lanes to my right this morning, consulting a printout after each segment and telling each other things like "dolphin down, butterfly back" and "19 strokes down, 15 back." So I started to realize that there might even be a future for a guy like me in the pool. They were doing 88 laps this morning, 1100 yards. I know 88 laps is a lot more than 14 laps, but somehow it didn't seem impossibly far away, today.

When I got out of the pool, showered, dressed, shot a couple of baskets at the outdoor hoop and walked to my car at 7:50 am, I felt terrific, maybe better than a heavyset 58-year-old guy has any right to feel before 8 o'clock in the morning. I had an impromptu breakfast with a pal and was doing productive work at my desk before 10.

Over breakfast, my pal and I talked about getting up in the morning. You'd think we would have it down by now. I've done it 21,535 times, and my pal has done it hundreds of times more than me. But my impression is that there is a constant need to re-train ourselves.

When my kids had to be at school at a certain hour, or I had to be at work at a certain hour, or both, it was relatively easy even if it was not always fun. But even then, there is a lot of difference between, say, rolling out of bed just in time to shower and get to work by punch-in time, and getting out of bed on my own time, early, with a plan to do one or two simple things aimed at getting my day and me off to a good start.

Meditation, swimming, running, coffee and a book on the deck, a walk around the neighborhood -- it can be any of a number of things, but for me and most others to whom I have spoken about such things, spontaneity is the enemy of success in such endeavors. Our brains are powerful, and most of us, when in bed, like to stay in bed.

When I have been most successful at using my mornings to get my day off to a great start, the key to success has been to make a plan -- "get up at 6:45 am and be in the pool by 7:15," for instance -- and allow myself no negotiation, or even any thinking, until I am inexorably on the path I have planned. In my own case, I actually pretend that I am being operated externally by remote control. (In my 12-step program, we call that "turning one's will over to a higher power.")

Maybe I am dumbing myself down, but the payoff is huge.

In my next post I'll try to come back to those "more on that laters" about midnight meals and daily weigh-ins.

Have a great day. I will.

(Thanks for the beautiful picture of the sleeping polar bear to my brothers and sisters at http://www.firstpeople.us!)