D.Alan’s BodyBlog

It seems like everything is conspiring against me to get me fat again.  It’s the summer so my workout routine is all messed up because of the week-at-the-cottage and then week-at-home schedule.  The weather at the cottage has absolutely sucked this summer so that swimming, which is my main exercise there, just isn’t happening.  The water is too bloody cold to spend any length of time in it.  Last weekend was a family reunion affair and of course there was not a thing to eat there, lol.  It was my mom’s 75th b-day so there were lots of baked goodies and cake and etc. and of course the leftovers came home with us, so there’s that temptation around.

I usually spend some time on my bike in the summer, not huge distances by any means, but I do local errands when I can, or at least I try to.  Except that the weather again is conspiring against me that so I have been out on the bike a grand total of twice for a total of about ten miles all summer.

And then there was yesterday.  Through the afternoon my lower back started hurting.  I don’t know what I did to kick that into motion, but that’s now bothering me and yesterday was going to be abs day.  I managed to do most of the routine, but there were some things I had to either not do or do less reps on.  It was also about time for monthly measurements and I started measuring and got royally p*ssed off.  Waist is up, arms are down, and my weight is all over the place.  I am retaining water like crazy lately so I think that has a lot to do with the waist and weight measurements.  I was so mad last night that I didn’t record any measurements and actually threw the tape measure across the room.  I was hoping that I could shed some water today, but I don’t think it’s happening and my weight was up another 3 lbs over yesterday this morning.  WTF.

My diet sucks and I know that, but I have been able to manage the weight OK until now.  My dad does all the cooking and food shopping and since he’s OCPD you can’t get him to change the routine (which isn’t terribly healthy) without WWIII erupting.  Supper last night was hot dogs and mac and cheese.  No wonder the water weight is up.  I seem to be hypersensitive to salt, so any food that has any amount of salt in it, bam! I am retaining water like a sponge.

The water issue thing though is really p*ssing me off.  I was at 166 lbs at the beginning of July and there was one day that I jumped to 168 overnight and it has never really come down since.  I’ve been able to stay around 168-169 this month and then this morning it’s 173.  Again, WTF.  I am sure that with everything else there’s some fat gain in there, too, but not 3-4 lbs overnight.

So, I guess I continue to feel sorry for myself fighting what appears to be a losing battle.  I have had such a good run since Oct 2007 when I started all this and now I am suddenly having the month from hell with the weight.  It’s almost as if the preceding 92 weeks haven’t happened and I am right back where I was.  I have had a great round of comments in the last few days on my latest pic and was invited to a BodyGroup with the comment, "please join us, we need you," and I feel like I have let not just myself down but a lot of others, too.

I’ll keep liftin’, but at the moment there appears to be a significant lack of rewards going on in the mirror and on the scale.

Random Musings.  It’s been a few weeks since I last blogged mostly due to things being very busy around here.  I have been managing to keep up with the workout and diet routine, but there hasn’t been a lot of time for much else.  I am finally getting caught up on a few things, like the bb.com blogging.

My IT job is in a school so we were in the middle of the chaos and bedlam that is close-out of the school year throughout the month of June, with it all coming to a head the last week of that month.  Then it was time to immediately shift gears into summer break mode and getting things ready to pack up and head out and open up the cottage for the summer.  I was looking forward all school year, as I always do, to heading up to the cottage and getting some sun and swimming and generally relaxing, only to be faced with the reality of the weather so far this year in the Northeast… the very UNsummer-like weather, that is!  Lake water was barely warm enough to swim in at first and by the end of the week it was too cold to go in at all, it rained a lot, the wind blew like crazy … sigh.  We’re headed back there tomorrow for another week so hopefully things will have improved a bit in the weather department.  The weather at home this week, of course, has been great.

On the way home from the cabin we were at our usual superhighway junk food emporium for a potty break and supper stop.  It’s an interesting place to people watch, and I sure saw my sig line in full force that evening.  I saw one guy who was a weightlifter — man, did he have some massive guns and pecs – but even he was carrying a fair bit of body fat around the middle, though maybe he was bulking.  I saw more pot bellies and just generally fat people than you could shake a stick at… as I was eating my Wendy’s burger (shhh).  As iKoniConSciencE once said in a comment to me, "If you ever want an ego boost, go to the mall" and people watch.  You can do it at road stops, too!

With the cottage trips the workout routine gets a bit out of sorts since I have no lifting gear there.  That’s why I was so miffed that the swimming wasn’t great, that’s about my only physical outlet there, other than the loading and unloading of the luggage & etc. on the way up and on the way home.  I have been trying to hit it hard in this week that I have been home and have been largely successful.  I even got out on the bike yesterday for a quick errand run as well as a short walk.  I lost a workout time yesterday evening because I had a mild vertigo attack that started during supper and kicked into high gear if I laid flat on my back… and I was planning to do chest and tris.  I think I am working up to Meniere’s Disease, as I have had these mild vertigo attacks from time to time and it is prevalent on my mom’s side of the family, with two of her siblings having it, along with an aunt or two, and I am the prime age for its onset… sigh.  I was able to sleep on my side without the world spinning last night and it passed off through the night and I have been OK today.  But, it threw a small spanner into the workout schedule.  No biggie, and I am not going to stress over it.

I did retain a ton of water earlier in the week and am wondering if that didn’t help with the vertigo.  I don’t know what set off the water retention.  Usually it is when I have something with a lot of salt in it like processed food, I seem to be quite sensitive to that, but I can’t pinpoint anything this time.  It appears to be slowly getting back to normal.  Sometimes it all lets go at one time and I pee like crazy for a morning, which is usually when it happens, after I have had my morning coffee!

Well, I better get back to packing for the cottage run.  I just posted a pic I snapped after the chest workout.  I thought I looked better than it came out, as usual the pic has me looking fatter than I think I look in the mirror.  Oh well, it’s a progress pic.

Keep liftin’.