Week 8: The Halfway Mark, and a Goals Assessment

Last week's number: 309.1 pounds
This week's number: 306.1 pounds
Week-to-week loss: 3.0 pounds
Net loss: 43.5 pounds

Not the number I'd hoped for, and I deserve some blame for that.  I haven't been as stringent on this diet as I should have been this past week.  I did have some...excursions from the approved meals.  I did try to mitigate the damage (we've gon out to eat twice; I opted for vegetarian choices both times) but I can't say I was consistent even here.  Oh, well. Fall down seven times, stand up eight...

My exercise routine got thrown off as well.  Last week I set a record distance of 2.6 miles on the treadmill, which promptly reached its Mean Time To Failure with the following workout.  I'm still trying to realign the belt, but I could have put more effort into this job than I have.  However...

...after this week's number came in, I wanted to get back on track.  Since neither my shoes nor the road were offline, I chose to run outside for the first time in over a decade tonight.  It wasn't exactly Rocky Balboa running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art...even on his first attempt when he can barely make it up.  But it was 1.3 miles, farther than I was able to run even back then (I couldn't even finish my run).  I kept a good steady pace for 20 minutes.  And I was able to recover fairly quickly afterward.  Contrast just a year ago when I had to run 100 yards to make a bus that was pulling away from the bus stop and was almost at the point of collapse when I got there!

This was a major milestone for me, as I hadn't planned on running on pavement for at least another two weeks.  It was also farther than I intended.  I hadn't planned on going more than a mile tonight and would have considered myself lucky for that--the treadmilll is quite a bit different from actual road or cross-country running.  Overall, I consider this an incredible success given that I hadn't worked out for a week.

As for the other goals I set for myself three weeks ago: I have gotten the garage squared away.  It's not perfect yet, but it's about 90% of the way there now and it's where I'm writing this post right now.  I did get the household repairs done, and fix all the broken toys (including Alex's bike). I've actually exceeded my goal of being able to run one mile within six months as of tonight.  My workout schedule was 5 days out of 7 until the treadmill broke down and I got lazy this past week.  I have, however, reassembled my weight bench and am in the process of clearing room to use it.

My reading schedule was perhaps a bit ambitious but I have at least kept up with my homework and one novel.  Gravity's Rainbow was not that novel.  It is a very, very complicated book which I now have a copy of on my Nook to keep from renewing the library copy the 50 times I'll need to truly comprehend it.  I'm now considering a different classic for my reading assignment.  I did Pride and Prejudice last year but Jane Austen's writing style is a little too formal for me (but then again, that's the point of this exercise: to get outside my bubble and see the world differently).  Until finals are over, I might try something a little different. I have a collection of poetry by Canadian poet Robert Service (one of my favorites--who says poetry can't be for Real Men? Just read his stuff! You won't regret it!) that I haven't touched in a while.  My journals are stacking up, however.  I need to carve some time out just to read journals.

Yeah, that schedule I was going to draw up...didn't happen either.  Fall down seven times, stand up eight.  I'll get there.

And three pounds lost is three pounds lost.  I now know that veggie burgers aren't that bad (they're pretty good, actually).  And if I ever feel in doubt about my manhood for eating them, I'll read one of Robert Service's poems about gold miners in the Yukon (or a novel about the Royal Manticoran Navy scragging lots of Peeps), jump on my weight bench for a while, and run a mile or two.  Real men can eat whatever they damned well please. :-)

I draw the line at drinking the glassful of eggs, however.  I like Rocky, but not that much!  They're not on the diet anyway.