Frustrated

I’m back to tracking my food intake/calories over at SparkPeople again (my handle is “geckotlc” if you choose to join – I think it’s a decent site). I don’t enjoy doing it – it’s tedious and time consuming – but I realize that I just have to if I’m going to make any headway with the Battle of Midsection.

I started tracking again on Tuesday, during which I consumed 2,003 calories. I thought to myself, okay, that’s the baseline of how I “normally” eat (badly), so I need to remove around 500 calories from that number in order to start losing weight at the rate I want to. I entered Wednesday with the goal of better nutrition in mind. I thought I did decently – not GREAT, but not horrible. Until I tallied things up this morning. And discovered that I ate 2,125 calories.

CHRIST ON A CRACKER (with cheese, and bacon… mmmmm… baaaacon…).

Things add up so frikkin easily and quickly (and yes, I am completely and totally honest with what I enter in the nutrition tracker – no low-balling for me, if anything I high-ball). I was derailed by bread (a spinach tortilla is 158 calories, a french roll is 180 calories), dressings (Ranch dressing, 3 tbsp, 180 calories; mayo, 2 tbsp, 180 calories), and, well, the M&M’s that I just had to have at about 2:30 p.m. (1 packet, peanut, 250 calories). Oh, plus, you know, the BACON that I added to the chicken breast sandwiches that we had for dinner last night.

Frickity frick frick frick. I suck at this. I’m frustrated, and it’s totally with myself. I don’t know what the hell it is with the gap between my intentions and my actions. Clearly, I have mental issues.

SO! Back at it today. If I follow what I INTEND to consume, it should be around 1,425 calories. I have other goals, too – the breakdown between fats/carbs/protein, getting enough fiber/calcium/potassium, etc. But for blogging’s sake, I’m just mentioning the overall caloric goal. No need to get too blessedly specific here, right? Unless you guys care about that kind of thing.

Hell, even I don’t really care, and they’re MY goals. Feh.

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As an aside, SparkPeople also provides an exercise tracker, but I’m not going to use it at the moment. Mentally “tracking” my intent of at least 30-45 minutes of exercise daily is specific enough. A person could make themselves crazy trying to calculate every little calorie burned. I’m making myself crazy enough with the calories I EAT, thankyouverymuch.

SW Air Just Lost (Another) Customer

A couple things.

Firstly – I’m at somewhat of a standstill after having the out-of-town company last weekend and birthday this past weekend. Both excuses to be a little naughty and I’m not one to pass up opportunities like those. However, I’ve managed to still get up on the stepper most days and that’s where the danger comes in, when I stop exercising. It’s been nice to realize (again) I can still make time for it even when the routine gets disrupted like it has been. For me it’s about how badly I want it and I do.

Secondly – The Kevin Smith/Southwest Airline debacle. If you haven’t heard of it, you must not have the internet, but the basic story is this (in his words):

Had three seats/whole row for me & Jen. She skipped SF, so I went solo checked in and was given the 2 tix there & return 2 (for that p.m.). Going out, even with 2 tix, I only sat in one seat, sleeping against window, w/empty seat between me and follow passenger. Coming back would have been the same, at 7pm. But I got to the airport early enough to try to bump-up my flight to 5:20 – a practice @SouthwestAir does often.

I was told 5:20 flight was packed, but I could go Standby. They sent me to gate. Told lady whole story, and she said there wouldn’t be two seats on that earlier flight. I said I only needed one seat & that I didn’t buy an extra seat because I’m fat (which I am), but because I’m anti-social and didn’t want to sit next to someone & possibly have to make convo (in person, I’m very shy). She said she understood. I was issued the solo ticket. I get on the plane: open seat in the front row. Put my bag away, the sit between two ladies. As I’m about to buckle my extender-less seatbelt, the woman who issued the ticket to me appeared in the doorway of the plane, came over to me and said the Captain said I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit there because I was a safety risk. I asked for clarification and was given none (also asked “Please don’t do this” but that, too, fell on deaf ears.

Ladies on either side said I wasn’t a problem. SWA-lady said arm-rests the decider. Arm-rests come down, and voila! I’m legit! I’ve passed the stinkin’ arm-rest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off the plane. I get up without a fuss at all, quietly grab my bag, make eye contact with a fellow Fatty who was praying he’d pass, and leave. You think I wanna f— around on an airplane? I was right: I fit in that seat. But I can’t risk not complying: I’m more afraid of AirFeds. (via Twitter)

Okay. After a few hours of stewing over this, I think I might have finally calmed down enough to comment. No. No I haven’t. This is bullshit, plain and simple. And the fact people are accusing him of pulling the celebrity card? I’m one in a million of his fans, just another helpless clod who can’t do anything really, about any injustice in the world, not really. All I can do is never fly Southwest again and pass this story along to as many people as I can. A shame really; they’ve been the airline I’ve used most in the last ten years, not only because I have a good friend who works for them and therefore have gotten to take advantage of some free and reduced-rate flying, but also because they seemed like a company with good ethics and even I daresay some morals. But, no. I should’ve known better.

Sometimes I just hate the world.

Channeling

No, not the One Power, WoT peoples.  (Or is it?)

The best workouts are, in my experience, heavily fueled by death metal and self-hatred.

Those who know me well (and by now that includes a few of you) realize that the happier I am, the more chatty I am.  Some of you may have noticed the comparative silence from men on Friday.  So, yeah.  It was one of those days in which I woke up in an absolutely savage mood that I call “Puppy-Punting Mode” (for obvious reasons) and it only went downhill from there.

I’d thought about working out on Friday anyway, as my 4th workout of the week, but waking up I knew it was the thing to do.  By the end of the day, I was literally saying to myself in my mind:  “The thing to do is to just go in there and try to stop JUST before I injure myself.  I’m thinking 90% of the way to significant injury.”

In the long run, even though I didn’t end up getting quite that close to injury, it worked.  I bled off a bunch of my aggression after using it for quite a good workout.  I went home not quite myself again, but I crashed out and went to sleep at about 8:15 and slept until 6:45 the next day and that took care of the rest of it.

But I’m a workout behind.

Thursday:

Deadlifts:  1 warmup, 2×10 light weight, 3×10 light-medium weight  (The light weight felt really easy so I went ahead and bumped it up.  A little crazy for my first time back in a while, but it worked out well.)

Dumbbell military press:  1 warmup, 4×10 medium weight (palms in at the bottom, rotating so that the palms are out at the top)
Lateral raises:  2×10 light weight (I SUCK at these, and I HATE them, but I need to do them from time to time.)

Straight-leg raises:  2×25

Cardio:  the usual

Friday:

Since it was a “bonus” workout I could choose what I wanted to do.  I chose an all-bench day.  (Legs were out anyway since I was still a little sore from deadlifting the day before.)

Dumbbell bench press:  1 warmup, 1×10 light-medium weight, 1×10 medium weight, 3×10 medium-heavy weight, 1×10 medium weight, 1×10 light weight

Cable crossovers:  1×15 medium weight, 1×10 medium-heavy weight, 1×15 medium weight

Cardio:  the usual

This was the first time in quite some time that I’d attempted that weight on the dumbbell bench.  Better yet, I think I’d never done a set of 10 at that weight (when using heavier weights I normally only did 6 reps at that weight then went up a couple of sizes and tried 6 at that weight).  I was really feeling good about my ability there.  Channeling the anger was working for me, I think.

I learned that I have room to be more aggressive in my chest workout, at least, and not be too sore afterward.  I’ll be putting that to use later today.

I also learned that my instincts can be very good – both in terms of my workouts and in using such to manage my mood.  I still could have used some happy pills or something, but hey, it was a drastic improvement.

Onward and upward.

Keeping the Momentum

As I keep going with this, I wonder how much good it really does to keep reporting these workouts – hell, it’s already getting hard to come up with a title! – but I’ll keep at it for a little longer, at least.  If I’m boring you or, alternately, you think I should STFU and do it and quit talking about it so much, let me know.

Weight-assisted pull-ups:  1 warm-up, 3 sets x 10 medium weight, 2 x 10 light-medium weight
Bent-over rows:  4 sets medium weight

Preacher curls:  1 warm up, 5 x 10 light weight (alternating inside/outside grip)
Cable opposed curls:  4 x 10 light-medium weight  (Stand in the middle of a cable crossover machine with cables set to shoulder height – arms straight out to your sides, then curl each arm toward your head like you’re doing a double-bicep pose.  I like this exercise because it’s harder to cheat than a lot of other standing curls.)

Straight-leg lifts:  2 x 25

Cardio:  Elliptical, hillclimb, level 3, 30 min

Result:  Not really sore at all.  However, I DID essentially fall asleep about 8:30 last night.  I partially blame Dys for turning on Murphy’s Romance – cheesy 80s flick, true, and even though I like it, it’s hardly keep-you-awake stuff on its best day.  When Boy went to bed at 9, I flopped off the couch and just went on to bed.

Plugging Away

Nothing much to report, except a weirdly annoying pain in my left index finger right at the knuckle.  Mostly felt when I make a bar chord on my guitar.  WTF is up with that?

Yesterday’s workout:

Flat bench dumbbell press:  1 warm-up set, 5 sets x 10 reps, medium weight
Incline bench dumbbell press:  3 sets x 10 reps, light-medium weight

Seated two-hand dumbbell overhead press:   5 sets x 10 reps, medium weight
Rope pulldowns:  2 x 10, heavy weight (was using a different machine than I was used to – a lat pulldown machine, actually, and a “2” setting on that was heavier than a “5” setting on the usual!) – 1 x 10, medium weight (once I finally could get back on my usual machine)

Straight-leg lifts:  2 x 20

Cardio:  30 mins on elliptical, hillclimb program – started on level 4, had to back down to level 3 halfway through because the heart rate monitor was persistently saying “Are you sure you’re not having a heart attack, old man?”

Morning after:  I can kinda feel it in my chest and triceps, but barely.  I could have worked it harder, it seems.   Although I DON’T think I’ll apply that lesson to my back/biceps workout tomorrow.  Not quite yet.