Tag: exercise

I Am Toast

Methuen, MA to Burlington, VT to Methuen, MA to Burlington, VT to Methuen, MA in a period of about a day and a half. Sweet Christmas, am I exhausted.

Everything went fine on the second trip to school yesterday. No issues at all. I helped bring a few things up to Harry’s room and helped bring a few things back to the car. I stopped at a few random places in order to stretch my legs and all was well. I left the house at about 3:45 and got back at about 10:45. Pretty much exactly on schedule.

About 10 minutes after I got home I zombified completely. I had a few things I needed to do before bed and I did them all, but once that was through I was mentally and physically done. I put out the Poland Springs empties so that they could be picked up today. I brought the trash out to the street so it could be picked up today. I finished my exercise and move rings so that I could keep my perfect month intact.

Note, I said I closed the rings. I did not say I did a full 30 minutes of walkies. Nope, I was too tired. I broke my streak of days with a single 30 minute work out. I did 18 minutes last night and that was enough for me to have all three of my Activity App rings closed and that was all I had in me. The streak ran from June 1, 2022 to August 28, 2022. I started a new streak this morning. Bring it on.

Okay. I have to go to work. I have a busy morning. My goal is to get through the work day, cook some dinner for the love of my life, and then fall asleep in front of the TV until bed time. Bring it on.

My Foot Hurts

Both feet are hurting today. It must be from the running in place. My right ankle started bothering me last night when I did the star pictures. It has been bugging me pretty steadily all day. My left foot is much less of an issue. I think I have a callus or a corn or something coming in on the side of my big toe. It hurts and it’s annoying but it’s nothing bad.

All of my activity rings are closed. I did the make pretend 5k walk thing. It took 45 minutes. The ankle and the toe were both feeling okay and my calorie goal was over 90% so I just kept going.

My headache is still there, but not too bad. I might take another round of Tylenol before dinner. I’m going to air fry some chicken, broccoli, and potatoes tonight. Should be good. My protein and liquid intake goals for the day are both are really low, but I’ll get it all in. I missed breakfast today. I might need a protein shake later tonight. We’ll see.

We’re scheduled to pay a visit to the Apple store tonight. That’s going to be fun. Maybe I’ll post 50-60 pictures.

Until then…

Positive Progress

Happy Weigh In Wednesday, boys and girls! I woke up, earned myself a stand hour on the activity app, and stepped on the scale. I lost 5.2 pounds in the last week. Excellent. As my meals have been getting steadily bigger I have been expecting a big drop off in the weight loss pace, but nope. Five pounds is awesome.

There aren’t any milestones this week. Usually there’s at least one area where the 10’s column changes, but not this time. The 10’s column in my weight, my weight lost since the surgery, my weight lost since the first appointment, and my BMI are all the same as last week. If this coming week is good they might all change at next Wednesday’s weigh in. That would be pretty epic.

There is actually one thing to note this week. There are two weigh ins from the long distant past that have been sort of sticking in my head. First, my weight on my wedding day in 2009. Second, my weight at the physical I had in order to go back to UMass Lowell in 2000. I can’t remember the wedding weight. It was either X, or X-25. I’m pretty sure it was X-25, but I am positive that the weight at that physical was X-25 so maybe I am just getting confused.

Here’s the thing, my current weight is X-27. That means all speculation can now end. I am without question at a lower weight than I was at our wedding. That is amazing. I am also at a lower weight than when I started back at UMass Lowell. That is unbelievable. I never thought I’d get to this point again. That physical happened in August of 2000. Almost exactly 22 years ago. How is that even possible? I am lighter today than I was 22 years ago today. It also means that I don’t have any past weigh in sign posts left. The wedding and UMass were the only things that had lodged themselves in my tiny little brain. Now it’s all new-ish territory. That’s crazy.

On a slightly related topic, after I weighed in I did my morning walkies. I mentioned yesterday that for the 30th minute I ran in place instead of walking in place. This morning I stretched that one minute to two minutes. I am wondering… should I just do a separate workout where I just run for five minutes and see how that goes? Walk for 30, run for five. Maybe. I am also doing a little bit of weight lifting and stretching every day. I wonder… am I going to turn into a gym rat lunk? I kinda hope not, but at the same time the idea of actually feeling almost healthy is sort of appealing. I mean, I wouldn’t have done the surgery otherwise, right?

Happy weigh in day. Until next week…

Fails Galore

Yesterday I said I was going to do car music today before work. Did I? Of course not. Fail. Tomorrow seems unlikely because I’ll be all jazzed up to weigh in and won’t want to go out. Thursday? Maybe. We’ll see.

I said yesterday I wanted to try and take some pictures of stars. I couldn’t last night because of the clouds, but I am still thinking I might pass. I won’t be able to keep the shutter open long enough to get a really good star trail and I really don’t have the energy to learn how to stack pictures. I don’t know. Also, I live in light pollution central. It’s not as bad as a big city around here, but it’s really bad. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Last night I watched a video of a group of folks going on a photowalk together in Cambridge, MA. It wasn’t anyplace I recognized, but that’s not the point. I think that would be fun. Just get together with a few nerdy folks, pick a neighborhood and just be camera geeks together. I think the group in the video was actually a photography class, and I don’t want that. Just some friends going for a dorky walk. I wonder if I need to subtly convince Jen and Harry that they want new cameras. Insert maniacal laughter here. Heh heh heh.

I just ate some scrambled eggs for breakfast. I ate it too fast. My stomach is a little disappointed with me at the moment. I expect lots of loud, powerful burping in the near future. I really need to stop doing this to myself.

I did something completely insane this morning. I was doing my 30 minute walk, which I now call my walkies, and instead of just walking in place for half an hour, I made a small change. When the timer hit 29 minutes I… prepare to be shocked… ran in place for one minute. Me. Robert. Ran. I am still alive. I wonder if I should try two minutes tomorrow.

My insanity is reminiscent of hulkamania… It’s running wild.*

*No, I am not a wrestling fan. I dabbled when I was like 12 years old, but that’s it. I also grew up in the 80’s, so even if I had never given wrestling even a minute of my time, I’d still know what hulkamania was. You kinda couldn’t avoid it. The dude even hosted Saturday Night Live once, I mean come on. I think they even had a Saturday morning cartoon. So don’t come at me with wrestling stuff, it was a historical reference not a fake sports reference. End rant.

200%

While I was waiting for people to show up at my parents house in Tewksbury this morning, after taking all the pictures, I had nothing to do so I started doing my morning walkies. I had two minutes left to go in the 30 minute walk when the first person arrived. That put me in a bit of a pickle. My exercise ring was closed (I had a couple of minutes logged from walking up and down stairs) but I did not make the full 30 minutes. I’ve mentioned before that I have a bit of a streak of 30 minute workouts going.

Would today be the day that I break the streak?

Nope.

I started another 30 minutes in the 34 minutes before the start of my work shift. It wasn’t even 9:00am yet and my exercise ring was already over 200%. Now that is dedication for you. It’s also stupidity because now my legs feel like dead weight. Oh good!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Tired

I am in the habit of going to sleep later and later and then waking up later and later. That habit needs to end right now. Right this minute. I was doing so good. I was going to sleep around 11:00pm and waking up at 6:00am. Four of the last five days have seen me push those times up an hour at least. I need to get up early enough to get my morning walkies in and still have time for breakfast. I don’t like eating breakfast while I work. This needs to change.

Also, I am tired and I don’t want to be. The tiniest change to my sleep schedule messes me up for days. Days, I tells ya.

Okay, I have to go make my breakfast and then go back to work. Ugh.

Good Morning

Good morning everyone. How was your weekend. Did you do anything fun?

I didn’t do any of my exercising yesterday until after 10:00pm. I then did this morning’s exercising at a little after 8:00am. I suspect that is going to result in some issues throughout the day today. I also failed to do any weight training over the weekend. Let’s say that today is the day it starts for real.

Jen and I finished Stranger Things last night. The last episode is about 2.5 hours long. For a TV show, that is looooong. We’re up to date now though. Harry still has to run that particular episode marathon, but once that’s done we’ll all be up to date. The show is now clear to start working on season five (I think they’ve already started without my approval).

I have decided that, after season five is over, I want to see a spin off series that is just Nancy and Robin in the X-Files. I think I smell a hit. Steve can show up and be their muscle from time to time, and the rest of the cast can make cameos (except Mike, he’s kind of a douche). Oh! Now that I think of it, Will and Dustin and Lucas can be the guys from The Lone Gunmen! This show is going to rule!

I tried out the new toaster oven/air fryer last night by trying to air fry some potatoes. The results were less than stellar, but I don’t know if it was my fault or the oven’s fault. I think it was a combination of the two. The potatoes were one part bland (my fault) and one part… squishy? I guess? That’s probably the oven’s fault. I want another crack at it tonight (with maybe some broccoli too?) but we ran out of olive oil so we need to hit the store for a resupply. Challenge accepted.

I brought up the idea of maybe Jen and me taking a day off on a day when Harry doesn’t have to work so that we can all have an extra shot at doing something fun together before he goes back to school. There isn’t a whole lot of time left with him this summer and I feel like we need to do something to take advantage of what time we have. We also need to get up to Vermont to visit Bellana and steal some additional time with her as well.

Okay, Robert. Back to work with you.

Weights

Today at lunch I took a few minutes to do a little liftin’. I put 10 pounds on the two little dumbbells and test drove a suggested weight training routine.

Ten curls with my right arm followed by 10 curls with my left arm. Repeat the entire thing four times.

Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming.