Tag: Apple Watch

Another Long Day

Another long day filled with a gaggle of long, frustrating meetings and problems. 18 minutes until the weekend. I think we’re in a position right now where we will be able to call it a day at quittin’ time, but I’m not going to count my chickens until they hatch.

What’s in the queue for the weekend? Not sunrise at the ocean pictures because the weather forecast is crappy. Tonight we’ll have our third Hello Fresh meal. The first two were excellent and I expect good things from the turkey meal we have lined up for tonight.

I have to mix a song. It’s the last day of the month so I need to finish off the second of two songs I worked on this month before midnight so that I can complete my personal write and record a single challenge. The first song was done a couple of nights ago. The second song isn’t as good, and the performance is worse, but it’s still worth finishing. Tomorrow is April 1st so the Record Every Month challenge resets and I can start working on something new. I’m thinking about using the tremolo built into my amplifier this time. I never use it… so maybe I should.

Jen has a project in her office that we’re going to work on. She wants to change a bunch of things on her desk. We haven’t done that in a while so it will be fun to mix it up. I am thinking of changing things up on my desk too, but I think I want to wait a month until the window replacement project is complete. I don’t know why but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

My exercise and calorie (move) goals are done for today. My liquid intake goal is also done. I have a few more hours before my stand goal is done, and almost half of my protein goal is still outstanding. I’m behind on that one, by quite a bit. I’ll hit it though.

Okay, time to sign off. I still have nine minutes left in the work week. The weekend is so close… so very, very close. I’m ready for it.

Vocals are Done

Last night before bed I added quick and dirty lyrics to two of the four outstanding songs. This morning, after exercising, I went out for some car music. I recorded the vocals for those two songs and then improvised a vocal part for a third song.

That’s it. I’m done with the vocals. I mentioned a few days ago that I was thinking of dropping songs before they are finished. That’s what I am doing with that last song. Song #3, if you must know. It’s just too crappy to continue. That’s going to leave me with 14 songs which, years ago, would have given me a complete FAWM. I don’t do FAWM anymore, but it’s still as good a goal as any, right?

The exercise this morning has a funny story to go along with it. Last month, thanks to walking for hours around Disney World, I doubled my 30 minute exercise goal nine times. This month, my Apple Watch activity app challenged me to do the same in February. On Friday I doubled it for the seventh time. That gave me four days to do it two more times. I had every intention of making yesterday the eighth but I failed miserably. This morning I decided to get it done right away and not leave anything up to chance. I ran for a full 60 minutes. I set a bunch of personal work out records on the various Watch apps. I need to do it one more time over the next two days. I mean… I feel pretty lame getting worked up about stuff this stupid but… there you have it.

Episode seven of The Last of Us airs tonight. Three more to go. The serious is stellar. Absolutely fantastic. The Mandalorian season three kicks off on Wednesday. I started watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 from the beginning the other day. As I am typing this I am eating breakfast and watching the first episode of The X-Files. I guess you could call it binge watching season now.

Back to music, but this time guitar gear, I have spent the last couple of years trying to find a suitable replacement for an overdrive pedal that I removed from my board because the designer/owner of the company that makes it is a racist piece of trash and I can’t in good conscience use his products anymore. I have two pedals that are damn close and I think I found another one that I want to try out. It’s a very small pedal builder somewhere in Canada called KO Amps. How much is 140 Canadian dollars in US dollars?

Okay. Let’s finish breakfast, let’s finish this episode of The X-Files, and then get some serious work down on the ol’ RPM Challenge. Three songs complete, between seven and 11 left to go.

179/365
179/365

I Overslept

Today is Sunday and I did what many of us do on random Sundays… I overslept. My alarm was set for 5:30am. I got out of bed a couple of minutes before 7:00am. I also had a minor hangup that kept me from getting the day started for about 20 minutes and both of those things together mean it’s way too late for me to tackle car music today.

My exercise is done for the day. Yesterday I bumped my four mile morning jog (pronounced “yog” with a soft j) to five miles. Mostly because there were many days over the last month or so where I was not reaching my move/calorie goal without doing extra exercise, so for now I am just going to build that into the morning routine. I am eating breakfast right now and when I am done I will take a Covid test. I have been symptom free since my two exposures on Monday and Tuesday so I am confident in another negative test, but I am still going to test for another couple of days. Just to be sure. I have to go into the office on Wednesday and I don’t want to risk passing anything on to anyone.

What does the no-car-music-today change mean for the music project? I still have five songs that need lyrics, so I can take care of some of those. I think I might also try to add another song or two. Yeah, it’s overkill but I am seeing guitar leads on the horizon and my playing is so incredibly rusty that I could really use an excuse to just play/practice a little. That would be a good thing.

I did something silly yesterday. I started watching the directors cut of Star Trek the Motion Picture. Shatner’s Star Trek V is often considered the worst of all of the Star Trek movies, and while that may be generally valid, that first movie is pretty awful. I’m only halfway through the director’s cut but I haven’t seen anything obviously different. The endless exterior establishing shots are still endless. Endlessly endless. The acting is often less than stellar in Star Trek movies with the original series cast, but this one… this one is bad. Overall though, the movie isn’t quite as awful as I remembered. Maybe #5 really is the worst of the bunch.

Okay, let’s get the ball moving. I need to get myself something for breakfast that is more substantial than the protein bar I just finished. I’ll probably post a film pic too before I really get the day rolling. For now, talk to you all later. Good Day.

The Last Work Day Before Vacation

It’s Friday. Tomorrow is New Years Eve. Monday is New Years Day (celebrated). Tuesday is the first day of my two week vacation. That means that I am officially on vacation at 5:30pm today. Nine hours and 13 minutes from now.

I haven’t started packing yet, but I have done some pre-pack preparations. We have a dining room table full of toiletries that are ready to pack. Last night I went to a department store and bought three pairs of jeans. I’ve been buying new clothes every 5-6 weeks or so, and it was about time anyway. The new jeans are, shockingly, TWO sizes smaller than last month’s jeans. I’m not sure, but I think my waist size is 16 inches smaller than it was a year ago? something like that. I really cannot believe it.

This morning I wrote up a packing list that (hopefully) is ridiculously thorough so that I don’t forget anything. It was so over the top that Jen actually suggested I drop a few items because they were overkill. That’s okay with me.

Plans for the weekend are mostly up in the air. The kids are with Dad for New Years Eve, but they said they would come over for a visit in the afternoon. I am so happy about that. I was thinking maybe we could sneak out to the city after they leave and pretend we are not afraid of Covid and stuff like that. The temperature is supposed to be super warm, but it’s also supposed to rain all day and night. So much for that plan. I want to visit both of my parents before we leave. I need to do a little more travel supply shopping, but mostly just for protein supplement stuff. The kids are coming to our house on Monday before we leave. Actually, when we leave sort of depends on when they get here. We want to spend a little time with them at home before the chaos commences. There’s also a little NHL Winter Classic game happening at 2:00pm that includes the Boston Bruins and Fenway Park. If we’re home, I’m watching. If we’re on the road, I’m listening on the radio.

Jen and I just added our Disney passes to our Apple Wallets so that we can use our phones and watches in place of the Magic Bands we used on the last couple of Disney trips. That’s pretty cool. We’re both hoping we can leave all of our various cards behind and do anything we need to do through Apple Wallet via Apple Pay and what not. It’s time to embrace the future!

I punched into work a smidge early today, just to get a jump on stuff on my last day. At this point I am eight hours and 35 minutes away from my two week, epic vacation. May today be a quiet day at work while still managing to not drag. Fingers crossed on that. Happy Last Work Day Before Vacation, everyone!

Week 29 Weigh In

Hello my friends and loyal readers! Welcome to the official Week 29 Weigh In post!

It’s amazing how gun shy one less than impressive week has made me. It’s also amazing how stupidly unpredictable weight loss can be. Yesterday I stepped on the scale as soon as I got out of bed. I was down about two pounds since last Wednesday. I did not record my weight, I was just paranoid about having a bad weigh in this week so I snuck a peek early to get a glimpse into the future. The number was good, but not spectacular.

I did it again today, but this time it’s official. I got out of bed and stepped on the scale and I am down 4.2 pounds for the week. Wow! That means I lost about two pounds yesterday. How ridiculous is that? Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining at all. It’s just that losing two pounds yesterday implies that I could gain two pounds today. I need to stop stressing about this and just go back to one scale moment each week.

We’re in a state these days where three pounds a week feels epic. Now we hit four pounds and it’s like, Wow! I now weigh 263.6 pounds which seven months ago was absolutely unimaginable. I have lost 167.8 pounds since the surgery on May 4, 2022. I have lost 188.4 pounds since the first visit to the clinic on January 19, 2022. My BMI is down 0.5 points this week to 32.1. Like I said, ridiculous.

I was thinking of a sort of mini goal of seeing if I could hit 200 pounds overall by the time we go to Disney World on January 4, 2023. That’s only 11.6 more pounds. That’s an average of less than two pounds per week for six more weeks. That’s doable, but the real goal should be hitting 200 pounds by the anniversary of the first weigh in. That date is eight weeks from tomorrow. If I somehow manage to average 4.025 pounds per week for those eight weeks then I could hit 200 pounds since the surgery by that date. I’m not holding my breath on that though. Four pounds per week is not happening, despite hitting four pounds this week. We’ll see how close I can get.

My exercise routine got weird yesterday and it continued to today. I stopped at 30 minutes because my pace was all screwed up. The first mile was faster than eight minutes. I kept the pace consistent and the second mile pace was almost 20 minutes. It wasn’t that extreme today but it was just as dumb. I stopped at 30 minutes again, then watched the second half of Andor while eating breakfast and then ran for another 30 minutes. Same thing happened, but the two trots-in-place were enough to close my Move ring (calorie count) so I’ll take it.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Back in the pre-surgery diet days that would make tomorrow a massive cheat day. Not this time. Those days are over. I am going to have about four ounces of food and that’s it. Last night I had more than that for dinner because I was WAY behind on my protein goal and it made me sick. It wasn’t due to a mistake like eating too fast or not chewing enough (which are my two common mistakes), it was just because I was completely full and my new little stomach didn’t like that. So I am cutting myself off despite the holiday. Four ounces is all you get, Robert.

That doesn’t change the fact that Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year though. I just love it. Food or no food. It’s almost time to punch into work, and the day before Thanksgiving is traditionally the slowest, most agonizing day of the year… so duck and cover, kids. Good luck to you all, and may you all have a happy Wednesday is Weigh In Day today.

Sweaty

You know something? Running in place for 45 minutes is a whole shit load more difficult than walking in place for 45 minutes.

I upped my workout settings from 40 minute indoor run to 45 minutes yesterday. The reason being that I wanted to guarantee I close my move ring, which counts calories, at the same time I close the exercise ring. The exercise goal is 30 minutes. I think we’re getting to the point where that needs to be increased to 60 minutes. I actually hit 60 minutes the last two days. Maybe December 1st. Maybe January 1st. We’ll see. My move/calorie goal is set to 1000 calories. I haven’t missed that goal in over 150 days. I think the time is coming to raise that goal too. Maybe raise it to 1500. I had it set to 1250 for a while last year. 2000 seems too high. 1500 might be a better challenge. January 1st. Maybe. Anyway, jogging in place for 40 minutes wasn’t getting me up to 1000 but it was getting me close. 45 minutes today gave me 1020. Perfect. We’ll stick with this setup for a while.

What else is going on? I still haven’t played the guitar since the end of September. I do have a couple of song ideas going for national solo album month though. I haven’t given up yet. I just need to find the time to play. The calluses on my left hand are gone, and there is something wrong with my left arm that is causing me a lot of pain. I don’t know what it is. I don’t remember doing anything to cause it. Is it tendonitis again? Last time that was in my left thumb. I don’t know. I haven’t been lifting the dumbbells since it started. Maybe I should? I don’t know. I don’t think it will stop me from playing, but we’ll find out at some point.

I started a time lapse video of a candle next to my desk today. I figured you all missed that stuff. You do, right? Wait… don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Let me remain deluded.

Okay. Time to go make breakfast. Assuming my post-running legs can still move.

Week 23 Weigh In

Happy Wednesday Weigh In, once again. 23 weeks post surgery and nothing but a lifetime left to go. My 10’s column changed again so let’s celebrate.

I am down 3.6 pounds. That brings me down to 287.2. 300 pounds seems very far away now. Happiness. Granted, 300 would feel more comfortably far away if I was down to 187.2, but we’ll jump off that bridge should we ever come to it, m’kay?

I just earned myself an Apple Watch activity app award. Most calories burned in a single workout. I was doing my walkies while watching the new episode of Andor and I hit that 3.2 mile (simulated) goal without realizing it. I didn’t notice that I could allow myself to stop until I was almost at four miles (simulated), so I just kept going. 4.02 miles in 45:21 for 758 calories. My exercise goal for today has been obliterated, and my calorie goal is over 75% done. I think I am in good shape for closing that ring today. Hurrah, babie.

Speaking of goals, I didn’t hit my protein goal of 60 grams yesterday. I was super close, 58.38, but I didn’t get there. I had some trouble with my lunch and I didn’t want to push things at dinner so I kept it a lot smaller than usual. I will do better today, guaranteed.

My next check in at the clinic is on Tuesday. Everything is going well so I expect that appointment to feel like a formality. Here’s hoping it all stays on track.

Happy Update Day

My iPhone has been updated to iOS 16.0. My watch is currently updating to watchOS 9.0. macOS Ventura doesn’t come out until next month (I think). I haven’t checked my iPad to see if there’s an update available there yet, but I will after the watch is done. The watch update is downloading slowwwwwly.

My stomach issues from yesterday appear to have resolved, thank goodness. I’m still waiting to see when our couch is going to arrive. The window at the moment is something like 2:00pm-5:00. I have to double check that with Jen. I have meetings at 2:00 and 3:00 soooo… yeah. Hopefully it all works out.

Update: The delivery window is 3:20-3:50. That’ll do.

Okay, back to work with me. 24 minutes remaining on the watchOS 9.0 download. Just the download, not the actual update itself. Someday.