Archhawk’s BodyBlog

Been a little while since I posted last….yes, I am still here.

The last few weeks I have been working through some carpal tunnel related pain in my right wrist.  At first I thought it was something I had aggravated by lifting…I do use my right wrist to mouse.  I use a turbo ball and my desk set-up is not ideal.  Anyway, I took a little break from lifting anything involving the use of the wrists but was still having the problem.

Then I realized what was causing the inflammation….Sudoku!

That’s right.  Sudoku on my iPhone.  I installed the game to kill time on the bus ride into Center City and home again at night.  What I realized is that I was playing the game by holding the phone in my right hand and using my right thumb, almost exclusively, to touch the screen to place numbers and marks.  And THAT apparently really tested/teased the bundle through the tunnel.  Since stopping doing that…I now hold the phone with my left hand and use my pointer finger to touch…the inflammation has subsided enough where I can get back to using my wrists to lift.  I am going slow at this point to not over do it until it all heals up.

Meanwhile, I am still stuck at just over 220.  I am buckling down and making some dietary adjustments along with adjustments in the gym to get me beyond this hump.

…punching new holes into old belts.

I think I may be beyond the 220 plateau.

We’ll see.  So far for this week and since the weekend (where I was fairly non-meal-plan conforming), the scale at the gym on Monday recorded 219.  That’s a first for a Monday and I am going to take it as a good sign.  A good sign to keep doing what I have been doing, buckle down and move forward.  Not a sign to go party.

I think I was too taken with the "easy" success of the first 13 weeks (ARRGH! The girl at the salad place put cuccumber in my salad!  I never get cuccumber!  Blech!) even though I knew the second phase would be tougher.  Pretty sure the vacation, even though I mostly held steady through it, did not help my mind set.  A month after we got back from St. Thomas and I am just now getting mentally back to being in the gym and workin’ it.

More later….

I think I hit a wall called 221.  I have been dancing around this weight now for about two weeks, since just before vacation to now.  I think I recovered from vacation pretty well.  I just can not seem to bust the 220 barrier.  I have been eating the same…5 meals, watching the calories and the fat percentage overall.  I have been hitting the gym on the same regular basis.

I am going to give it another week and a half to see what happens with the regular routine before making any changes.

Hmmm….

Bony?  Me?  My partner said that this morning about me.  Seems strange hearing that in reference to me and certainly there are varying degrees of bony and it is certainly a subjective and relative term.  I certainly do not "feel" bony in any way.  Yes, I am down 22lbs, 246 to 224.  Yes, my body fat percentage has dropped 8.5 from 33% to 24.5%.  All this in just over 15 weeks.

But still?  Bony?  Hardly…..

My brain tells me that in order for the program to continue I will have to get used to comments like that…and not just from my partner.  Hearing it and accepting it as a means to underscore the validity of the progress I have made, and will continue to make, is the only alternative.

"The point of departure is not to return."

Sitting here at work.  Lunch hour now so the ‘Net Nanny on the system is off and BodyBuilding.com becomes accessible.  Bored outta my skull.  It’s Friday, people are bailing left and right.  Did get to eat lunch with my hubby.  Working out late afternoon but have to wait until at least 3pm to skiddaddle.

Ugh

Tick, Tock

So, as y’all know I took a week vacation to the shore with my sisters and parents back in June.  I considered that a success, working out 5 of the 7 days and managing to not gain any weight.  Well I can not say the same about the 4 days we spent visiting Columbus, OH.  Again, I ate not alot, but crappy.  But this time there was way more alcohol in the mix and less working out.  We only made it to the gym on Saturday.  Two Wednesdays ago was a scheduled day off from the gym.  Then we travelled on Thursday with the intent of getting up Friday to hit the gym prior to driving down to Cincinnati to visit the university campus that I had not seen in 20 years (OMFG! still can’t quite get my head around the fact that I graduated 20 years ago!).  Well there was much drinking on Thursday night and we had to be on the road by 8-ish so, we did not make it to the gym.

Let me add here that though the Red Roof Inn did not have a gym of it’s own, they did have an arrangement with a full-featured club, Metro Fitness, about three blocks from the hotel.  It was a very nice place….when we finally made it on Saturday!  Unfortunately the place did not open on Sunday until Noon and we were already on our way to a friend’s for a cook-out and were not able to make it.  Monday was travel day again.  We got back into Philly in the late morning and my intent was to go into CC for a workout.  Dan went, but when we got to the house I just collapsed.

After the weekend my weight was up to 230 from a low of 226.  Ugh.  No one to blame but myself!

Finally got back in on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  Was off again on Thursday spending the entire day walking around Knoebel’s Amusement Park in central PA.  Cute family park with the best Bumper Cars I have EVER been on!  My legs could tell that I had basically been vertical for the entire day.

My original goal was to down to 220 for the trip to St. Thomas coming up Labor Day Weekend.  We leave on the 28th.  The shore trip pushed me back a week but I thought I could still do it.  With the slack-off last weekend in Columbus I really did some damage to that time frame.

I’ve got three weeks.  I am going to give it a go.  10 pounds…you are history!

Went to see the doctor the other day to catch him up on how I am doing with the program and because I had not been in for a while.  As a Type 2 diabetic he likes to see me every 3 to 4 months and it had was February the last time I was to the office to see him.  So, we chatted about getting back to the gym and how things have been going etc.  He drew blood for a full work up and I am happy to report excellent results across the board:

Blood pressure during the appointment:  124 over 80.

CBC (red & white blood cell counts):  normal
Fasting Blood Sugar:  should be less than 99.  I am at 92.
Hemoglobin A1c:  should be below 7.  I am at 6.1
Kidney function:  perfect
Liver enzymes:  normal
Total cholesterol:  should be less than 199.  I am at 100
"Good" cholesterol:  should be above 40.  I am at 44
"Bad" cholesterol:  should be below 99.  I am at 30(!)

The bad cholesterol number is amazing.  Since the last time I saw the doc I have been taking Omega-3 supplements from Cardio-Tabs (cardio-tabs.com).  The pills are enteric coated so they do not taste like fish or make one burp.  I guess they have been helping.

Wound up not working out on Friday at lunch as I had anticipated.  Was in the middle of producing a proposal for a new client and got hung up at the office trying to get it all wrapped up…which we did right at 5pm to meet the FedEx guy at the door.  Though like I said I did not get to the gym at lunch and then was already slated to meet friends at the bar after work..so, again, didn’t get the workout in after work either.

Wound up instead going on Saturday and Sunday.  With the upcoming trip to Columbus I am thinking that it’ll be ther three days on last week, T-W-Th, off on Friday and then five days on, S-S-M-T-W, rather than the usual 4.  We leave Thursday in the morning and I doubt that I will get in a workout on Thursday getting back to it Friday morning at the gym next to the hotel (mentioned in a previous post).

Working on another proposal presentation this week.  Hopefully I will  be able to get outta the office at my usual time to head to the gym.  We shall see.

Weighed myself early again this week, after the work out on Saturday.  Was down to 226 on the scale at the gym.  That’s down 20lbs since the start.  Will do my normal Monday afternoon weigh-in at the gym again today to see how that compares to Saturday and then will also do it again when I get home on the Tanita to see if the two scales match…or are reasonably close.  They were the last time I did that kind of check.

History has shown so far for me that the Monday afternoon weigh-in is heavier than the Saturday late morning weigh-in.  The spikes on the weight tracking chart are all from the Monday weigh-ins.  We’ll see what happens today.

On a bright note, I am pretty much down one belt hole on each of the belts I typically wear.  Interestingly this morning when I put on the belt I actually pulled it past the hole I had been shooting for….and this particular belt has no more holes! 

Weight and body dimensions to be added this evening….

Took a little extra time getting outta bed this AM.  Feeling a little bit wiped from the last three days of working out.  Had a really good upper body work out on Tuesday, then extended elliptic session (1 hour) on Wednesday.  Last night was lower body with a short elliptic session (40 minutes).  This afternoon at lunch will be a 1 hour session again on the elliptic with no weight training.

I have been doing 4 days on, of the mix indicated above, and then one day off.  That provides a workout to either the upper body or the lower body every 5 days.  At this point I am still very much concentrating on aerobic and cardio health with the machine weight training as a backup to that and a pre-cursor to more vigorous lifting once I get to my initial weight goal hopefully sometime in mid-August, 13 weeks from when I started.

Keep on keeping on….