the changing of the winds

If you're reading this, chances are this isn't the first thing you've read on here. (But if it is, welcome! Please check the archives!)

So you may have noticed that I've been a little angsty (is that a word? spellchecker is telling me no) the last two months or so. It's like, every day the earth is spinning on it's axis and you know this despite the fact that you don't see it. I felt the same way about what I was doing with my exercise plan. I knew that it was working, but I couldn't really see it.

So sometime in the middle of last week I felt like a man who finally saw the earth spin. The changes are starting to be noticeable. Other people in both sober and drunk (which I actually trust more) states told me that last week was the first week they were like, "whoa, holy shit" (paraphrasing) and I actually felt the same way.

I've lost enough weight now that my back muscles have started to show, my triceps and biceps bulge when I move my arms and my gut is down to it's mini-gut stage. Oh, I'm definitely not done yet. I still have some problem areas to fix and my goal is not to look "ok" or "good", but "great" or maybe even "holy shit did you see that guy?"

But now the angst is gone, because I have nothing to be upset about. The tree of my labor is starting to bare fruit and that makes me very excited. Excited enough that there is nothing else to worry about or feel conflicted about.

I guess maybe I should be conflicted about the fact that it took me so many years to get my act together, but that's not a worry for now.

Last week, I ran 34.11 miles, topped off by a 7.55 mile run last night. I ran all 7 days, and I feel like I've successfully integrated the 4.2 mile morning run into my routine. It doesn't even feel like, "oh crap I have to run tomorrow" anymore... it's just something I do when I wake up. Now that I have it as a habit, it's going to last until it's too cold to run in the morning anymore... so hopefully deep into October. If I lived in a warm weather climate, like I wanted to, I could run all year round, but here I am in Syracuse and you do the best with what you've got.

I also started back lifting - I only made it 3/4 times to the gym that I wanted to. I didn't make it for biceps and abs, my least favorite workout, because I went to a barbecue instead. I don't regret my decision - I had a lot of fun and played the kind of drinking games I haven't played since college, pretty much. It was worth a miss. So I only made it for 10/11 of my workouts. I want to consider this a failure, almost, but I still worked out 10 times last week so I'll let it slide.

Starting back lifting after a long absence is pretty much the worst thing in the world. You go in to it knowing that that you're going to do a terrible job in comparison to what you did when you were active. So you tell yourself, ok, I'll start with a light weight (like 75% of what you used to do) and go for 12. So you pick it up and you start lifting and right away, you think to yourself, "uh oh, this isn't going well." So you say, ok, I'll get 8. After you do 5 reps, you're already talking yourself into 6 reps being acceptable and you settle for 6. So in effect you're like 100% weaker then you were the last time you lifted.

If you want to lift weights, you really have to mean it. Because at first you are weak and pathetic and your muscles hurt so bad that it's not very fun. But luckily, it gets much easier, much faster. So I didn't care about weights. I just made sure that I got in all the reps that I wanted to get in to get my muscles out of hibernation and decrease muscle fatigue. It's only a matter of time before I'm back to where I was.

Weight Loss: -2.4 pounds
Weight: 204.4

I was down to 203.0 on Saturday before said barbecue, but I'll take the extra hit for how much fun I had.

I'd have to say that I'm within 10 days of the magic sub-200 and the excitement might kill me.

Things are starting to look up. Way, way up.