flexistentialism

[flexistentialism]

196.4

You survived a soccer weekend away, then the Super Bowl, so your weight is what it is at this point.

Your birthday is 4 weeks from today, there's nothing stopping you from being happy when you look at the scale on that day.

There's nothing stopping you from having a solid Mon/Tue/Wed to see a good scale reading and a pretty line graph on Thursday when you post your next weekly progress.

There's nothing stopping you from coordinating diet and exercise with your wife so you two can succeed together.

[flexistentialism]

195.4

Weekend "long" run recap:

Slept awful Friday night, leave for a soccer tournament in Bradenton at 6:30a Saturday morning, game at 10:15a, sandwiches at the field for lunch, game at 2p, drive to hotel, check in a 4p, lay on the bed and think about delaying my 6 mi run until Sunday morning because due to the schedule, I can technically fit it in, but that doesn't sound great to me, would rather have a peaceful hotel Sunday morning before packing up our stuff and heading back to the fields, talk myself to hitting the treadmill before dinner and just doing a short run.

Did 3.1 mi on the treadmill, mile 1 at 5.8 mph or 10:20 pace, mile 2 at 5.9 mph or 10:10 pace, mile 3 move to 6 mph or 10:00 pace but push up gradually in 0.1 mph increments until I'm doing 6.7 as I get to 3 mi, decide to do 6 mph for another 0.1 mi and make it a 5k. Happy for getting something in.

[flexistentialism]

194.4

You mostly weigh yourself right before lunch. And considering you fast until then, only drinking coffee and water, that's obviously your lowest weight of the day.

But you go into the office on Thursdays, so you'll have to weigh yourself first thing in the morning on those days.

Except Feb 1 was a Thursday, the start of this whole thing, and you didn't go into the office that particular Thursday, it'll just be every Thursday going forward.

And you want to do weekly recaps of your weight loss. So it was sort of annoying that your pre-lunch weigh-in on Feb 7 was so good, but your morning weigh-in on Feb 8 wasn't.

So you get the idea to track rolling 7-day averages vs. what the target would be on a rolling 7-day basis to smooth out the results. But your Feb 9 pre-lunch weigh-in was even better so you scrap the idea.

But you have to hit the road early for soccer on Saturday and need another morning weigh-in and the rolling 7-day average thing starts to sound good again.

[flexistentialism]

193.1

Though I still weight north of 190 and lb. aren't so easily shed--likely on the account of me being almost 45 as opposed to almost 35 or almost 25--there's this feeling I have been walking around with that, yeah, things are getting better.

I have a vision of the future that is positive. Optimism. I am picturing the weather being warmer and me weighing less. I am starting to plan the race times I will aim for when I am the 45-49 bracket.

I have only had 7 drinks in the last 30 days, only 2 in the last 14. A couple evenings ago, my wife and kids were all off in separate directions at dinner time due to a typically busy Wednesday, I stopped off at Publix, bought an 8 oz piece of tilapia, a bag of fresh brussel sprouts and 1 sweet potato. Only cost $8 or $9. I sliced and roasted the brussel sprouts and sweet potato, While they were in the oven, I cooked the tilapia in a pan on the stove.

The meal was delicious. Salmon is the only fish I ever cook, typically on the grill, so I was excited to branch out. There was more than enough brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes, so I separated the leftovers into 2 tupperware containers and added Tuesday's leftover steak and created 2 lunches for Thursday and Friday.

[flexistentialism]

194.9

A week in, Feb 1 to Feb 8, down 1.1 lb., 0.5 lb. behind target:

[flexistentialism]

193.6

Kierkegaard emphasized appropriation over approximation. That is, taking ownership of your life as opposed to detached observation of your life. In his case he was talking about taking ownership of your authentic self, taking responsibility of your inherent freedom.

In my case, maybe it means taking ownership of what food I put in my body and not allowing myself to fall victim to my circumstances.

I have been able to do that with running. When there is a busy couple days or couple weeks, I strategize, I assess calendars, I play out scenarios in my head, and I make sure to get my miles in.

But with food, I only let myself win if the condition are ideal. But if we're busy or we're traveling or we're celebrating a holiday, I put food in my mouth as if I weren't my choice. I have to get sugary snacks at a gas station on a pit stop home from a soccer tournament. I have to order a burger and beer because my someone in my family opted for that type of restaurant for a birthday dinner. I have to stuff myself with crackers and cheese before Thanksgiving dinner. I have to stuff myself with cookies before Christmas dinner. I have to have too many beers by the pool or during Football Sunday. And it's like I'm watching myself make these food choices as a neutral observer rather than an active decision maker of important things in my life.

I listened to Daft Punk's Human After All in the car this morning and let my mind wander about what taking more ownership of my diet would look like. It's their often overlooked album they famously failed to promote via interviews, a choice they'd later concede as the biggest mistake of their careers.

As the closing track, "Emotion," played, I recalled a time in my life nearly 13 years ago, listening to this song on repeat while riding the bus home from work and reading Linchpin by Seth Godin. Even though this book is about career not diet, I got home and reread my Kindle notes for any epiphanies and noticed this quote I highlighted:

you no longer have to pretend you’re mediocre

[flexistentialism]

194.7

part of who we are is our manner of the living the 'already' and the 'not yet' of our existence, made concrete by how we handle our immersion in the everyday

I have not been consistent with my eating. I haven't created a program. All I did was start this blog. I am still waking up every day and winging it.

But I know what a healthy work-from-home day looks and feels like. Today, I will do that.

5a wake up, start the coffee, read a few pages in this existentialism book. 5:15a drink coffee, lounge of the family room sectional with my laptop.

5:50a get off the couch to brush my teeth and dress for running, 5 min later than I wanted to because I proscrasticated getting up for no discernable reason.

6:15a run for 3.1 miles, less than I initially planned due to the 5 min delay above + I talked with my wife for a 10 min or so as we needed to touch base on plans, a delay I welcomed because we won't see much of each other on Tuesdays with the kids' updated soccer schedule.

7a drive my younger son to school, drink coffee in a disposable travel cup.

8:15a back home, work, drink water.

12p break for lunch, heat olive oil in a pan, take a daily multivitamin before starting cooking, throw some baby spinach in there, we have too many red peppers, chop one up and throw that in there, slice up one chicken sausage and add that, there's a few pieces of leftover flank steak, add that, fry an egg in another pan, sprinkle on everything bagel season on both pans, toast two slices of organic wheat bread, throw everything into a bowl, add salsa and shredded cheese, spread guac onto the toast, put that on the bowl, have one last cup of coffee and drink some water, eat 2 slices of mozzarella cheese after.

1p back to work, more water.

3:45p thought about not snacking but opted for a protein bar, more water.

6p dinner, steak, (NY strip, probably a tad too much but not an absurd amount maybe 8-10 oz, should be able to hold myself to 6), roasted red potatoes, steamed broccoli, sparkling water, ate at home with my older son and daughter as my wife and younger son were at soccer, I think this will be our routine on Tuesdays with our Feb-May soccer schedule, it's nice to mix up the intra-family groupings from time to time, after we ate, we did a Mount Rushmore snake draft of peninsulas, I had third pick and took Iberian, UP Michigan, Denmark and Cape Cod, walked the dog while the kids cleaned up the kitchen.

7p drove my daughter to soccer, ate 2 squares of 70% cocoa dark chocolate in the car to end the night, more water, last sips around 7:30p, brushed my teeth shortly thereafter to signal I was done eating and drinking for the night

Today, I did it, I visualized a healthy day and I sort of did it.

[flexistentialism]

194.4

This weekend was a soccer tournament.

Saturday, left the house at 6:45a, returned home just before 10p. I will forgive myself for how I ate. Didn't do the best I could under the circumstances but certainly could have done worse.

Sunday, left the house a few min earlier, but due the schedule, was able to come home for lunch and make a healthy lunch of Aidells Italian chicken links, baby spinach, a fried egg, 2 slices of Dave's Killer Bread, guac, Willy's salsa, shredded cheese with black coffee to drink.

Felt like myself again after eating something real at home instead of paying for unhealthy (albeit tasty) restaurant food that I don't even really want.

And then, after returning to the soccer fields for one more game, drove back toward home, went out to dinner for my wife's birthday, she picked a place that makes me want a beer, ordered a beer, drank my first alcohol drink in 2 weeks, ordered fish and chips, finished my beer, ordered another, devoured my fish and chips, drank that second beer, shared a massive dessert with my family, and that was my night.

Today, I took the day off. I am visiting my wife's kindergarten class, bringing pizza and snacks and dessert, reading a book, and celebrating her birthday.

After that, I tell myself, I will buckle down and rattle off some healthy eating days.

[flexistentialism]

195.5

Life does not follow the continuous flow of logical argument and that one has to often risk moving beyond the limits of the rational in order to live life to the fullest

The scale says what the scale says. I go on living.

[flexistentialism]

195.3

I hope it’s nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of business considerations.

- the chief clerk trying to persuade Gregor to come out of his bedroom and go to work in Metamorphosis

Little did he know that Gregor had turned into a giant bug.

Business considerations, the phrase makes me chuckle every time I read it.

Gregor had oriented his entire life around business considerations, and as his reward he became a monster.

My youngest son had a challenging week, had a big thing at school on Thursday morning, performed well, and I took him out for tacos at his favorite restaurant for dinner. Last night I took my wife out for dinner for her birthday and we ate after 7:30p. Today I will likely eat sub-optimally on the account of an entire day spent at a youth soccer tournament.

But I choose this over allowing business considerations to turn me into a monster.

[flexistentialism]

195.5

The plan is to lose 21 lb. from Feb 1 to May 1, that's 90 days, so 0.23/day, 1.63/week. Obviously straight lining losing over a pound-and-a-half per week for nearly 8 weeks is asking a lot, but a few 2+ lb. loss weeks toward the beginning could make this a reality.

Diet

Going to focus on the 2 principles that work best for me, No ABC and 16/8.

16/8 = intermittent fasting, eat daily in 8 hour window, don't eat for 16. Typically, I've done noon to 8p. But since I wake up at 5a these days, I'm going to shoot for 11:30a-7:30p.

I'll still consider this successful if I have about one exception per week to this 8 hours. Mostly likely eating my first meal closer to "brunch time" at 10:30 or 11a, mainly due to youth soccer schedule on the occasional weekend. Or dinner pushing past 7:30p, again mostly likely due to soccer on the occasional hectic weeknight.

No ABC = no alcohol, bread or carbs.

I'd love to say I won't have another drink until I get below 175, but I don't know if I want to commit to that. But I've been drinking a lot less on account of 1) my wife stopping drinking for about a year-and-a-half now plus 2) my recently paused half marathon training. I haven't had a drink for 10 days now, only 2 in the last 2 weeks, only 10 in the last 30 days.

Maybe I'll allow an exception for my birthday or a handful of other occasions I can't think of at the moment. But really, if I'm trying to lose weight, I'd like to avoid drinking for these next 90 days.

Admittedly, the A and B are redundant to the C, but I heard “No ABC” years ago and it had a nice ring to it, so I keep saying it. As far as other acceptable exceptions to bread and carbs, I'd say 1) family dinners every so often where I want to be a supportive husband and father and not the guy who's eating salad greens and missing the community feeling of taco night, 2) busy youth soccer weekends where sandwiches at the fields are the best bet, or 3) dessert with my wife because that's what she loves and her birthday is during the 90 days.

So if I can keep the total exception count to 13 or once per week, that'd be great, 15-20 I could live with. Anything much more than 20, we’ll then that’d just be the norm not an exception, right? And that wouldn’t bode well for losing 21 lb.

Exercise

For now, running.

Let's keep my 100 mile per month streak going, admittedly tougher in Feb, the shortest month, the leap day not even helping this year since Thursday is my off day, and the 1st and 29th being Thursdays, so I will only get my 20 runs, 5 per week, to get to 100.

Run Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri/Sat, "long" run on Sat, but keep that to 6 mi as I don't want to get into strategizing about long run fueling during this weight loss plan. Though on Mar 2 I'll run a 10k race (6.2 mi) because that was the day of my half marathon I already paid for, I could skip it, but I was able to convert to the 10k.

Thursday is my true off day, don't freak out about activity.

For Sunday, let's make the Feb focus to just get to 10k steps, for March let's add a true 60 min cross train workout, a simple hike counts, and commit to trying something more for Apr.

If I'm 175 on May 1, feeling primed to train for another half marathon and/or expand my exercise beyond running, great, these 90 days will have been a massive success.

[flexistentialism]

196.0

Losing weight is the objective. Losing weight is probably 80/20 diet/exercise.

Unless you count the knock-on effects of consistent exercise, i.e raising your mood, motivating you to eat better. Then maybe it's closer to 50/50.

Strength training is probably better than cardio for weight loss, but you like running and can stick to running, so running is your best exercise plan at the moment, a la Naval Ravikant's, "the best exercise is the one you enjoy doing every day."

A half marathon training program is 12 weeks of consistent exercise. The mileage doesn't get too crazy, basically the half marathon itself and a couple of the longer training runs are the only absurds workouts, everything else feels pretty manageable.

So you train for and run half marathons. And you feel great most of the time. But then all that running means more eating and you struggle to lose weight. And you tell yourself the half marathon is only 4-5-6 weeks away, just hold on, focus on weight loss afterward.

So you keep training. But your performance can be better. And you realize you're not fueling properly for running. So you research eating for distance running.

But you weigh much more than you want to weigh at the moment and don't want to optimize eating for running, but rather you want to optimize eating for losing weight. And you go back to the holding on thing. You don't want to delay happiness for a month until the half marathon is over then somehow magically switch to losing weight.

Today is Feb 1 and you picture focusing on losing weight for the next 3 months. What if you could weight 175.0 on May 1? That makes you happier than running a half marathon on Mar 2, weighing in the mid 190s, then thinking about what do next, probably drinking beer and eating pizza for a few days after the race while you think about it.

So you decide to pause your half marathon training for the moment and focus on losing weight.