The latest Roadblock

Well, it looks like over time, I've developed a case of plantar Fasciitis in my right foot. Here's a little explanation of Plantar Fasciitis:

The classic symptom of plantar fasciitis is heel pain when you take your first steps after getting out of bed or after sitting for a long period of time. You may also have:

• Stiffness and pain in the morning or after resting that gets better after a few steps but gets worse as the day progresses.
• Pain that gets worse when you climb stairs or stand on your toes.
• Pain after you stand for long periods.
• Pain at the beginning of exercise that gets better or goes away as exercise continues but returns when exercise is completed.

It's a condition that I've been aware of for a while, but has not been severe enough to impede my daily life. . . until recently that is. It may have been the backpacking trip in September that pushed things over the edge. It has gotten to the point where the pain doesn't fade away after a few steps in the morning, but stays with me every single step throughout the day.

This condition has really put a damper on my cardio workouts since I really like to run on the treadmill almost every day. Now, I've come to the conclusion that I really need to address this situation and can no longer just grit my teeth and run through the pain. The only thing to do is to let it rest and heal as much as possible. I've gained five pounds now due to this whole thing, and I take full responsibility for that. I'm the one who came to the conclusion that if I can't run, then there's no point in working out. . .and if I can't workout, then why bother eating right either? a dangerous dangerous thought process right?

Well, I've snapped out of that and am drawing a line here and now. I am not going to let Plantar Fasciitis cause me to gain back all the weight I have worked so hard on getting off. It's been two weeks since I've jogged now, and there is a HUGE difference in the pain now. It's still there, but it seems that I'm on the mend. I have to substitute other cardio in the place of running, and this has been a psychological challenge for me. I've just had it so ingrained in my head that running is such an optimum form of cardio, that anything else just isn't worth doing.

This week however I forced myself to stay off the treadmill after my lifting and did all my cardio on the elliptical and spinner bike. I even had a couple of cheat meals, and voila! I lost two pounds! So, I'm pleased. This was a big milestone for me mentally, because I was able to demonstrate to my subconscious that weight loss is indeed just as achievable with other cardio besides running. Now to just keep it up until the heel pain is gone.

The only obstacle now is, the only piece of cardio equipment I have at home is a treadmill. My workouts at work are the good ones where I have the other equipment available to me, including a stairmaster. I have to wrestle with a decision now. I want to get something for home, but can't afford an elliptical and a bike. So, which one for now? Eventually I'd like to have both. Especially because I think it'd be great if the wife and I could workout side by side at nights after the kids were in bed while we watch our TV shows on the DVR. We could go twenty minutes on either machine, and then switch and do twenty more. I see myself getting an elliptical first at this point. Seems like you get just that much more out of an elliptical than a bike, what with the arm movements and all.

Well, until any further developments. . . over and out.

Sometimes Life Just Happens

Well, thanks to that pretty little thing on the right, I haven't been able to do much, and that includes working out. Let me introduce the world to Macy, my fourth child and second daughter. She was born on August 9th, and life has been a whirl wind ever since. Between family and friends helping out by bringing over meals and snacks for our family, and just having little to no sleep at night, the whole work out / eat right routine has been majorly interrupted. I am happy to say that I have only suffered the gain of a few pounds, which isn't bad considering the glutton I've made out myself sometimes. I don't just fall off the wagon, I jump off, doing flips in the air and laughing insanely all the way to the ground.

This is exactly what happened the last time I was on a successful path to fitness, and we had a baby. The difference this time, is I have been monitoring what's happening to me, and basically, I'm just not letting myself off the hook this time! Today was my first real day of working out and eating right, and it feels good. It feels good to know that I'm back on track. Maybe I'm not at the same cruising speed I was at before, but I AM back and slowly increasing the accelerator. It should take a couple weeks to get back to where I left off.

One thing motivating me is my backpacking trip coming up in a few weeks. My buddies and I, are doing a 20 mile four day hike in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. It's high altitude and rugged terrain. I don't want to be the guy at the end of the line that everyone else has to stop and wait for. So, there's some motivation for me to lose as much weight and get in the best shape I can by mid September.

Well, more to come eventually.

Over and Out.

So Close No Matter How Far

Well, I haven't written much lately, because not much lately has happened. Since the 4th of July I have been plagued by the inability to really get back into my program with full force. I've been eating correctly for the most part, and I have been exercising here and there, but I've been indulging too much in bad food over the last couple of weeks. The good news, is that I've been maintaining my weight loss. I haven't gained any weight back and so I'm happy with that.

I've been thinking that maybe I have been hitting it really hard non-stop for a while now and that a little break is called for. Just some time to step back, look at my goals, guage my progress, and recharge the batteries. If I can do this without gaining weight or getting seriously out of shape than I don't see the problem with it. Like I said, I'm probably still doing my program at 90% and I'm pretty much maintaining.

The key is to get back into full swing shortly. I can't allow myself to become complacent now. And that would be easy to do. I'm so close now to achieving my goals. I can't suddenly lose focus and drive on accomplishing the end result that I want and desire. NO! Good enough, will not be good enough this time!

Also my Accumeasure body fat calipers arrived the other day, and I measured my body fat percentage. It was around 24% which falls in the "average" category for a male my age. So, I have a new short term goal, and that is to get that percentage into the teens ( falls into the ideal category ) within the next five weeks, and about ten pounds to go along with it. That is going to be difficult since baby number four is coming to the family in about four weeks. I'm going to have to really focus to not let all that interfere with my program. Sure I probably won't get to workout and eat exactly right for a few days whent the baby comes, but I will do what I can.

Its kind of funny how I'm almost in exactly the same situation as I was the last time we had a baby, three years ago. I was five weeks into Body For Life and had lost about ten pounds and was crusiing along great in the program. Then my son Bridger was born. It threw me off my program. People were bringing by meals for our family and treats, etc. I never got back on program and three years later I woke up and had gained all my weight back and more. So, here I am facing the same scenario again, except this time I'm actually five pounds lighter...And this time I WILL NOT GET THROWN OFF TRACK!

We Are What We Think

It's still a few days away from my weigh in, but I'm feeling pretty good. I had to put on my Sunday go to meetn' clothes this morning, which I haven't worn in about a month and I was pleasantly surprised by the fit of my pants. They were nice and loose. I had to put my belt on the third to the last notch. I could have gone one more really. So that was cool.

I'm pretty proud of my compliance this week to my program. I've stuck to the meal plan pretty good, and have been getting my workouts in too. Good ones.

Which brings me to my other thought. The importance of visualization. It's important to continually visualize what you'd like to see yourself looking like. The other day, I was running on the treadmill while listening to the Beowulf movie score on my ipod. I know it sounds a bit silly, but for some reason I really was getting caught up in the music. As I ran scenes from the movie played in my head, and I just kind of got stoked, pumped, energized. . .whatever you want to call it.

In this newly motivated state, (maybe it stems from my viking heritage) I bumped up the treadmill to a faster speed. It wasn't long before the sweat started to flow. the muscles started to burn, and my lungs were heaving for air. With the thunderous strains of the music score roaring in my ears, I locked my own gaze in the mirror. For a moment in my mind I became Beowulf. I wasn't running on a treadmill anymore, I was locked in mortal combat with the monster Grendel.

It's funny now to think about it, but I can't deny the powerful effect it had on me at the moment. I was pushing myself harder and longer than I normally would have. Since then, I've been thinking about how much of a mental game this all is in the end. How much of our ability and potential are hidden and locked away behind doors of self doubt, fear, laziness, or complacency. It's all a mind game. Our bodies are merely robots that only react to the input we give them. Calories in vs calories out. Over eating is a mental problem. An inactive, sedentary life all stems from our minds.

Just some things to think about I guess.

Over and out.

Damage Report!

Well, I weighed in last night, even though I was thinking about avoiding the scale after this week's debauchery with food and travel. My thinking was that I had probably gained weight, and I didn't want to depress myself by seeing the damage on the scale. Then, I realized that what I was actually doing was avoiding accountability. In Tom Venuto's book he talks about being accountable. And that lack of accountability is one of the biggest reasons people fail on diets.

I mulled it over in my head, as I stared at the scale in the corner of the training room at work. I was already dressed down for my nightly PT session. Then, I just decided, that I was avoiding accountability and responsibility for my actions if I did not weigh in. So, I stepped over to the digital scale, turned it on, and stepped on. To my surprise and relief I can say the damage isn't too bad. Looks like three days of complete abandonment of my eating principles cost me a gain of about 1.6 lbs.

Of course I'd rather have seen no gain at all, but I'm not going to complain. That's not a bad price to pay. And I can see how my new lifestyle is starting to embed itself in my brain and becoming habit. I know in times past a three day departure from my routine would have usually ended as a complete abandonment down the road of everything. This time, it wasn't even a struggle to get back in step with my new way of living. In fact, this time it was a relief to get back in the swing of things. I couldn't wait to get home, back to my healthy food. I couldn't wait to feel the pump of swollen muscles in the gym, and a sweat soaked t-shirt clinging to my skin as I pushed for one more minute on the treadmill, bike, or elliptical.

Am I obsessing about my health, nutrition, and weight loss? I hope so! That's what needs to happen to fully reach my goals. . . an obsession! Priority number ONE!

Goal for this week: I am going for two more pounds on the scale. By the time I workout on Tuesday morning at work, I am 218.2 lbs or under. I am two pounds lighter of fat because, I have eaten correctly and stayed with my program of working out. I have pushed myself this week to make sure I get those workouts in and that I am giving it 110% in the gym. I have also dutifully kept track of my calorie intake in my food journal. This has given me the baseline I need to keep track of my progress and to know where I stand at the end of each day.

Over and Out.

Staying Positive

Well, tonight when I get into work is when I have my weekly weigh in to see how I'm doing. Last week, I weighed in around 223.5 lbs and I set a goal to lose two more pounds by today. I'm a little bit nervous about it because I cheated yesterday a little bit an weighed myself on the bathroom scale at home and it didn't seem to show that I'd lost. If anything the bathroom scale shows I may have gained! I will just have to wait and see what the digital scale out at work says and go from there.

On top of all that though, I've been thinking about this past week. I set that goal and I have to admit that it did wonders for motivating and driving me to eat right and get my training in every day. Tonight, perhaps the scale will not reflect the past week's efforts as I fear, and that's the danger of using the scale only to measure my success. So, I'm going to do my best to not allow the scale to determine how I feel about this past week.

In Tom Venuto's, The Body Fat Solution, he talks about how from day to day our body weight can fluctuate as much as five pounds, factoring in just water retention and things like that. To feel successful, all I really need to do is look back on this past week. I feel really good about how I ate, and trained all week. I stayed motivated, and had a strong will power. The other thing going for me, is I can feel for a fact that I've lost some fat as my clothes are fitting looser than before. I got to work last night and strapped on my firearm and duty belt, and it all felt a little looser than a week ago. And that's the true measure of success In this whole get into shape business. It's quite possible that I've been adding muscle and losing fat simultaneously and they've been canceling each other out.

The scale is good tool for measuring some success, but it shouldn't be my primary motivation from week to week. Of course, it eventually has to reflect my efforts. If I can get down to less than 10% body fat, I sure as heck will weigh less. Man look at my rambling rant today! You'd think I'd already weighed and found that I'd gained ten pounds by the way I've gone off today.

Regardless of what the scale says tonight, I'm going to just continue to charge forward with the same plan. I'll have to reset my goal and try again for next week. It's probably time to take some measurements as well. I'll update when I get the scale results as soon as I can.

Over and out.

MUSH!

Just a quick note about a recent undertaking. Currently we own a four and a half year old Alaskan Malamute. Her name is Tundra. She's very strong and in fact her litter mate, Badger, from Cascade Malamutes Kennels, I believe, is the current IWPA champ. Tundra is pretty strong and I think she'd be a good puller. I'd like to get her into pulling in some of the pulls held by the International Weight Pulling Association (IWPA).

Well, today her training began. It wasn't much, but it was a good start for a dog who had never been harnessed up to something. We took the bicycle trailer and after a fashion were able to rig it to her harness. With my four year old and sixteen month old boys riding along we went on about a mile walk. At first Tundra was nervous and kept looking back, wondering what in the world was following her. But, it didn't take long for her to fall into step and figure out what was going on. She actually seemed to enjoy the excercise.


This phot of Tundra was taken during her first hike, the day after we brought her home...about a year ago.


I went to Home Depot tonight and bought some hardware and a couple wooden dowles to improve the rigging so she can pull more comfortably. For now just pulling the bike trailer around will suffice for training until she's used to the harness and pulling. Eventually and gradually we'll start adding weight to increase her strength and get her used to pulling against resistance. I will try to report our progress on the blog.