Tag: exercise

Tough Day So Far

This Saturday morning has not been a memorable one so far. It’s snowing, and not a dusting like we’ve mostly been getting this winter, it’s a full blown snow storm. Winter is a dick. Just saying.

I feel better than I did yesterday. The headache is gone. My eyes are still a little funky, but nowhere near as bad as they were last night. I feel a little like one of those snowplows outside rolled over me. I just feel used up and wrung out. I’m not having a good morning.

We got up around 6:30 and started working on Jen’s computer. It’s 8:32 now and her machine is working okay. I haven’t done my exercise yet today. I am planning on having breakfast and seeing how I feel before I start my jogging (yogging), just to see how I’m feeling. I am hoping to play some guitar today. I started an idea for Record Every Month last night. Let’s see how it goes. I am going to have to shovel too, but not until after dark sometime when the snow stops falling.

For now, I am going to have something to eat and watch a little Deep Space Nine. Wish me luck.

A Hiccup in the Plans

Hello and welcome to March 1st, everyone. The RPM Challenge is over. Well… technically working on March 1st is allowed, but I don’t.

Last time I posted here I said I had two songs to mix and then I’d be done with everything that I wanted to have done. I managed to mix one of them and then, around 7:30 last night, it went bad. I had one of those episodes where my vision went blurry and I started getting a headache. I went to bed, turned off all of the lights, buried my head under the blankets, and called it a day. I had just finished dinner when it started, but I was still seven grams of protein away from my daily goal. I missed it for the day, but not by much. I’m not that worried about it.

I slept from 7:45 to 3:30. I woke up, put my watch on the charger (it was at 33%), filled up the tank on my CPAP machine, stepped on the scale for the Wednesday weigh in (more on that later), and went back to sleep until about 5:20. Then I got up, got dressed, filled up my water bottle, updated my food tracking spreadsheet and my weight tracking spreadsheet, jogged in place for 40 minutes or so (pronounced yogged, with a soft “j”), watched the new episodes of The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch, packed up my laptop, and started my day.

Wednesdays are in the office days now so I have to get a move on so I can get out onto the road about 50 minutes from now. I have to prep a lunch and a breakfast, refill the water bottle, shower, get dressed, clean off the car, bring in the trash barrel (assuming the city picked up the trash during the snow yesterday, not sure if they did or not), and get going.

My headache is still there, a little bit, but it’s better after hydrating myself some. My eye sight is normal again too. I just have to watch out for crap like that. It’s not fun at all.

Okay, let’s get a move on.

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.

Sunday Morning

It’s 7:13am on a Sunday morning in January. What’s going on?

Tons. I’m going to have a busy day, I think.

My exercise is done for the day, as well as over 60% of my calorie goal. Nice. I am going to visit my father today and take him to visit my mother. I’m not going to have a ton of time to spend visiting though. I have to work today. I have a ton of paperwork to do that should have been done over the last week but got pushed aside due to some super hot customer issues. I’ll get as much of it done today as possible and get to the rest of it tomorrow. I’ll have it all done on time, but it’s going to make today suck a little.

What about the new cat? She started under the bed. We took one of the little covered cat bed/house things we got for Patches last year and put it into the bedroom. We also brought the cat tree we got for the cellar remodel and put that in the bedroom too. We sat in the room with her for a while but eventually just left her alone. Jen snuck back in to check on her and found her sitting in the cat bed/house. She called to me to come and see and when I called back the cat got spooked and ran into the bathroom and hid under the vanity. Sorry, kitty. She stayed there for hours, even when we left her alone again.

When we started getting ready for bed she was in the bed/house thing again. She stayed there the whole time. We thought that was an improvement. Around 2:30am Jen got up for something and managed to coax her out. She was purring like a porche and rubbing against our legs and just being super friendly. We got her to jump up onto the bed so we could pet the crap out of her. She seemed to love it. When we tried to lay down though she jumped off and tried to hide behind the cat tree. After a minute or so she ran out of the room and down the hall. I found her in the other bathroom crouching behind the door. When I moved the door a little she ran back to the bedroom and went back into the bed/house.

While she was walking around in the middle of the night, Jen was able to show her where the food and water and litter box are. We had all of it in the bedroom because we wanted them close so she could find them if she needed them. I am a little worried because I don’t see any signs that she’s eaten anything yet. We had dry food and lots of treats and we put them out for her, but I also went to a pet store to buy some toys (Patches didn’t really go for cat toys so we didn’t have any) and some wet food. I am going to put some of the wet food out this morning and see if she goes for it. We were told that she had surgery on Friday (she was spayed) so she might not have an appetite as she recovers. I just want to give her all the options we can though.

What else is going on? Music. Have I played the guitar at all this weekend? No, no I haven’t. Asshole. I am starting to think about recording ideas for RPM, even if I haven’t had a single musical thought. I am considering going with two amps at a time again. I have my Fender Deluxe Reverb here so that amp is going to be used like crazy. I might bring out my Fender Bassbreaker 18/30 and use it and the Deluxe Reverb together through the AB/Y splitter. It’s going to be pretty loud down here if I go this route, so I might try it to start with and then change my mind. The amps will be in a corner of the cellar that is as far away from the living room as I can get, and it’s reasonably far away from Jen’s office so hopefully it will be okay. If I bother her at all though, I’ll turn off the 18/30 and just go with the Deluxe. I have a speaker soak for the Deluxe so I can turn up the volume knob without getting obscenely loud. As for the guitar I want to use, it will be the Les Paul Standard again. I freakin’ adore that guitar. I will wait until either next weekend or the actual start of February before I put new strings on the guitar, but I really need to play at least a little bit every day to try and get my fingers into something that resembles playing shape.

Okay, I think that’s the gist of today. It’s time to start waking up for real and get something to eat. Happy Sunday, folks!

Back to Reality

Oh boy, is this a bummer.

It’s Monday. Vacation is over. It is time to get back to the week day routine. Crud.

I tried very hard to close all three of my activity rings over the course of the vacation. Unfortunately, on Thursday, our last park day, I hit a level of exhaustion that I don’t think I’ve ever hit before. I lost the ability to focus my eyes. It was scary. My stand and exercise rings were closed, but my activity (calorie) ring had quite a ways to go. It couldn’t be helped. I was thinking I was at the start of another migraine so I got into bed, buried my eyes under the pillow, and went to sleep with my third ring still open.

My success streak had come to an end, and over the next two days we were going to be in the car all day. I made the choice to just not worry about it until we got home. Then when we got home I was so out of sorts that I decided to take the weekend off too. Well, the weekend is over. It’s 6:48am and my exercise ring is closed. I jogged (pronounced “yog”, with a soft “J”) in place for 31.5 minutes which closed the exercise ring and 64% of the move ring. I plan to start lifting the hand weights a little again today too. I fell off that wagon months ago and it’s time to start that up again.

A couple of other points on this random Monday morning. Last night I watched the first episode of The Last of Us and HOLY CRAP was that good. So good. I am absolutely riveted. I never played the game so all I know of the story is from the trailer, but that was enough to know that the first half hour of the show was leading us directly to something gut wrenching and boy did it ever. I am so psyched for episode two next week. I am going to find every podcast covering the show that I can and queue them all up today. I am 100% on board with the hype.

I placed an order with the film lab I’ve been using, Old School Photo Lab in Dover, NH, on Saturday but I haven’t had a chance to drop the film in the mail yet. I was thinking of doing it this morning, but we got a little snow last night and I just don’t want to deal with it. Tomorrow will probably see me starting my work day super early, so maybe at lunch time tomorrow? Maybe at lunch today if the ice from last night melts a little. I haven’t checked the forecast yet. We’ll see. I have six rolls from Disney World and I want to see how they came out. I also have two rolls of black and white from around christmas that are going too. Once all of that is back I am going to slow down on the film for a while. I have a roll in progress in Dad’s camera that I would like to finish, and a roll in my camera that I haven’t taken the first shot with. That roll is going to sit there for a few months, I think. Once Dad’s roll is done I will take a couple of months off again.

Okay, it’s almost 7:00am. Time to go upstairs and start the day for real. My two week vacation is over. Pity me.

Christmas Eve Eve

It’s christmas Eve Eve. The last work day before a three day Santa Clausy weekend. The work days have been quiet this week and I am thankful. Remind me to mention it next Thanksgiving.

My father is home from the rehab hospital. Did I mention that yesterday? I can’t remember.

There’s supposed to be an ass kicker of a rain storm going on outside right now. When I got out of bed around 5:40 (an hour ago) I looked outside and it didn’t seem too bad. I might sneak over to CVS after they open and see if I can get a padded mailing envelop and a sharpie or two. I have something to ship to Minnesota and it is bugging me that I haven’t taken care of it yet. I also finished my test roll of film that combines my Nikon camera with Dad’s Pentax lens. I want to send that roll off for developing to make sure the combo works before I take it to Florida. I might take the lens that came with my camera from ebay too even though it’s in pretty rough shape. Maybe alternate days? Dad’s lens the first time we go to a specific park and mine the second? Who knows.

I just finished a (simulated) four mile run. If I had actually run four miles my legs would have fallen off and my head would have exploded. You know how it is.

Christmas Eve is a big day ’round these parts. We have a little family get together every non-Covid year. This year, in the spirit of hybrid work environments, we’re having a sort of hybrid christmas eve get together. That just means the guest list is smaller and there won’t be as much food consumed. The food thing doesn’t have anything to do with the guest list, it just means I don’t have a stomach anymore. I would also like to visit both of my parents, if I can. I would also like to take Dad’s camera to the ocean, maybe. I would also like to clean the kitchen and the bathrooms and the living room a little, but that won’t take a lot of time. We’ll see if I can get to any of that stuff.

Today, apart from the usual work day stuff, I want to bake cookies and make Tewksbury Tweets. We made the dough for the cookies yesterday, but it needs to sit in the ‘fridge before going in the oven. I wanted to make some Tweets, but there was a cat documentary on Netflix and you know how that is, right?

Okay, time to eat some breakfast and take a shower and do all of that boring morning stuff that doesn’t make for a good blog entry but I often write about anyway because I am a stinking rank amateur at this stuff.

Sunday

Motivation is tough to come by right now. I woke up at 5:40am, did my 30 minutes of exercise, ate some breakfast, watched an episode of Pennyworth and a bunch of film photography youtube videos, and that’s it. It’s almost 8:00am now and motivation is sort of escaping me.

The whole getting up early to get my exercise in before anyone wakes up thing is kicking my ass. Both in the exercising sense and in the not sleeping enough sense. I kinda feel zombiesque this morning. The background music on this particular grainydays episode isn’t helping.

It’s not like I have a lot on the agenda at the moment. The kids aren’t coming until late morning so all I really have to do is take a shower and clean off the exercise sweat. I could maybe put up some more outdoor christmas lights too, but other than that and prepping some lasagna for dinner there isn’t much on the docket this morning. Really all I need to do is stand up, walk upstairs, and take a friggin’ shower. I just don’t wanna.

Oh, and yesterday I said I needed to do car music this morning or NaSoAlMo was going to die a slow, painful death. Re-read the above three paragraphs and take note of how I did not mention car music at all. Rest in Peace 2022 NaSoAlMo… we hardly new ye.

Okay… wake up, asshole. Go get some shit done.

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.