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I had the rare pleasure of logging into MyFitnessPal today and typing in a number for my current weight that was less than the last time I did so. This is the first time this has happened in well over a year and represents the embarrassing first step towards returning to a state where I will be happy with my body. My lack of happiness is not self-hatred but something much cooler, akin to when a person you don’t like walks into a party and you have to politely smile despite their presence. My body and its capabilities wander around with me. Just like that annoying person, you will never triumph over them, but you’ll be rid of them and the enjoyment you have when they’re not there will come back. Sometimes I notice me out of the corner of my eye, sometimes I don’t, but hopefully sometime a year or so from now I’ll say to myself “it’s been a while since I’ve seen that guy”.

My mental model takes a while to update. Like many of the timers in my life, how I see me drags behind about six months. I feel fatter now than I did when I was 342. This time six months ago I weighted 310 and could still run a few miles. The next five months are going to be somewhat painful in terms of the Terry in my head. After that, it’ll get better. Interesting, my mental model of others also takes six months or so to update, resulted in quizzical stares months after someone hit their target weight and regained weight as I go “wow, you look great”. This faculty has saved me somewhat especially in people’s final months. My memory of the departed is never them at their worst. I suppose this balances not recognizing others progress immediately and mislaying compliments.

This bout of weight loss feels different. My life isn’t as crowded in some ways having a straight forward job that’s close to home, good pay, and reasonably proximate friends, and few involvements in Scouting. The only large time sink I have is studying. I figure I’m ok with maintaining weight vs. losing it if I’m passing exams and ok stagnating with actuarial progress if my waist is shrinking. Now I just need to convince my boss and/or doctor of that exchange. It also feels different in the same way the second trip to a distant destination feels different. There is no excitement in this passage. I’m revisiting places I’ve been before. I’m 112 lbs from virgin territory. Theoretically, I know I can get there again, but what if my previous success was from some unique confluence? In a lab setting, I walked 4000-7000 steps more per day. I had a shorter working day. Sex hadn’t entered my life yet which engendered a certain vanity. Just because I’ve driven the road before doesn’t mean I’m immune to flat tires and getting lost. And the vehicle I’m driving has more miles on it as it were. Regardless, I think I can do it. Right now, there’s no reason not to think so. This isn’t a statement of arrogance, only of ignorance.

The last time I worked to lose weight, I lost, on average, .245 lbs for about 800 days. I am going to shoot for a slightly more ambitious .3 lbs and see what I can accomplish in a year. During my last go, my weight loss regime usually stalled every few months as I need to change up to something new. This time, I hope experience will let me skip those. The flip-side of this is determination. Willpower, like the bicep is a muscle and it must be exercised. I feel that reserve isn’t what it used to be. Last time I weighted 330 and was losing weight, I had a lot of trajectory. Now I have much less.

Weight Goal: 220 during my September trip in 2015.
Fitness Goal: Run Broad Street Run in May 2015.
Stretch Goal: 5 pull-ups, Christmas of 2015.

Let us seem who I am.

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Winter running seems to be a particular type of masochism where the runner alternates between being too cold due to the season and too hot due to running. Skilled runners seem to manage to be slightly uncomfortable for the whole process until they stop running and then turn into fitsicles when hit by a stiff wind.

I have avoided winter running so far and don’t venture out when the temperature’s below 45 degrees. I have a nice treadmill in front of a nice television, and my version of managing layers is being in a climate-controlled room. But, beating myself up has again become a hobby so I looked into winter runnning gear like leggings. I did my homework, went to Amazon, purchased a highly reviewed pair, selected my size and received a set of youth XL leggings. The item clearly listed the size of XL with Youth XL as another option, so I’m pinning this squarely on the sender. Regardless, I don’t know if it’s a testament to my weight loss or the elasticity of polyester, but I fit in them regardless.
2013-01-07 22.14.09-1

If they didn’t crotch about three inches below where they should, I could actually run in them, or so I thought. After the minute it took for me to take this picture my feet had gone numb.

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Valve released a new game mode for Team Fortress 2 called Mann vs. Machine. The backstory is that you’re defending a base under attack by robots and you and a group of up to five other people must prevent a bomb from being moved to an end point by waves of server-controlled bots.

The game mode began as unfun for me as I was playing on 4 person teams. Once I had a proper game with 6 people I found it fun. An additional game mode was added on top of this called “Mann Up” where players could pay 99 cents to play a round of a modified version of Mann vs. Machine that is harder but has rewards at its end. Today, I played my first match of this type with a group of people I vaguely knew. When a wave defeats your team, you get to try again an arbitrary number of times and it took us five or six tries.

For two hours/9.4 miles I disappeared into my computer. I had to stop to get a fake Red Bull and when we were done I felt closer to those I had played with. The deck of my treadmill was slick with sweat, and my shoes made an audible squishing noise. The last time I had gotten that involved in a game, my ass was sore at the end, now the sore parts are my legs and pads of my feet.

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Single refill in diner and a bus person that was all over that shit. World’s dullest ice skates and an uninterested rink attendant.

I drove to Albany to visit Pat and Clara who are always kind hosts to me. For instance, the restaurant we hit for lunch had a single refill policy and both ceded theirs to me. After lunch, Clara and I went ice skating and she cringed at my skate application method. Apparently, cocking your ankle at a 45° angle and then slamming down with the weight of your body to get a skate on isn’t proper form. Clara and I were 50% of the rinks occupants and the counter person appeared to be on Valium but we had a grand time sliding sideways on skates last sharpened during the Reagan administration.

That evening after an episode of Top Gear Clara and I retracted the recliner portions of our respective section of the sofa at the same time and for a moment we each saw that we had our legs sticking straight out. We locked eyes, I narrowed mine, she narrowed hers, and a game of “who can hold their legs out the longest” began. Clara is a leggy gal and I don’t know if that helped or hindered her. I do distance running and my quadraceps are the size of tree trunks and I don’t know if that helped or hindered me. Pat got bored and started doing things like putting cat treats at the end of Clara’s feet and having his cat walk out to get them. Pat then upped the stakes:

Pat: Who wants ice cream?
Clara: I do.
Me: I guess you’ll just have to put your legs down and go get some.
Clara: Never, honey would you pick me up some ice cream when you go out?
Pat: Not this time.
Clara: Damn. Shall we call it a draw? How long has it been?
Me: About 30 minutes.
Clara: Ok, on 3. 1 – 2 -3 *we both drop our legs* Good job, Terry, but realize that tomorrow I’ll be able to walk.

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I can do about 150 sit-ups in good form, I can do about 40 modified push-ups or 10 proper push-ups in good form.  I can do no pull-ups, yet.  I felt between my weight loss and my gains in upper body strength I should be getting close.  So, I went up to the attic, and attempted to do a pull-up.  Nope.  But I could hang, which I could do before but for not nearly as long.  Brachiation was now possible, meaning I could move forward by swinging with my hands.  This wasn’t the smooth motion of a kid on a set of monkey bars but more looked like someone recovering from a spinal injury.  I’ll get there.  I went to go back down to my bed room but before I did, I hung from the rafters a little bit more and smiled.  Those are the moments where I hope there are aliens spying on humanity just so I can confuse the shit out of them.

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During individual visits to Chicago I invariably have lunch with Peter at a fast food joint where we stay too long while on large group visits I invariably have lunch at a sit down place where we stay too short.  This time, we went to Mellow Yellow’s where I placed an overly complicated salad order and then left early to pick up mounting foam from Foamcore Heaven.

Foamcore Heaven is really just an overlay on a generic art supply store in Chicago that happens to have really cheap foamcore.  I illegally parked outside and stepped into a quiet store (all the batting and canvas absorbs sounds in the way only libraries do otherwise) where tattooed people were asking for overly specific items from the on-duty clerk.  At the head of the queue, I asked for my foamcore order, she almost winced when I rattled off the order but then sighed audibly when we she found that someone had already packaged the order and I had already paid for it.  She helped me put the order in my car, as a respite from the hipsters art-folk, I think.

Group Shadow

Summer Comes to an End

I met up with Peter, Suzie, Ty, Audrey, and Mike at the Chicago Botanical Gardens where my New York City Botanical Gardens membership got us free parking.  Peter was tired, Audrey was tired, Mike, Suzie and I were wasted, but Ty was excited.  The gardens proper are circumscribed by water and we spent much time watching the carp as we drifted into later afternoon.  There were myriad signs telling no one to feed the carp but based on their open-mouth greeting I think enough people ignored the sign to justify the carp’s efforts.  The sun hung in the sky and the afternoon stood still.

Ty was very excited to show me that there were squirrels and I took a picture of them.

Squirrel Alert

Here the group split and Suzie and I took pictures of the sun drifting beyond the water lily pond.  Normally I take photos with other people that have a technical eye and we swap settings and tricks.  Running around chasing the sun, angles, and perspective seemed puerile but was a welcome change.  The sun ran from from the commotion.

Placidity

Placidity

There is a relief in almost-boredom.  A simple enjoyment in watching a parade of nows march by at a tempo that is neither hurried nor dull and I felt swept in this current on the way out, while refilling a failing tire in the parking lot and then on the way back to Peter’s.  Ty wanted to see what the car was like in “Road trip mode” and we acquiesced.  I listened to a podcast, Mike took a nap, and Suzie watched a video on her laptop.  Four bubbles, four people that happened to be in the same car with the moment-to-moment unity of beach sand.

Back at Peter’s we diddled on our laptops, Mike went to bed early, and everyone else watched My Little Pony.  I tried the Jerde’s elliptical which was an exercise in muscular comedy.  The muscles at the top of my legs hurt but only sometimes and I felt my calves were underused.  My forearms got sore but I was able to use my laptop with some work.  The device lacked the forced tempo of a treadmill and when I got off I felt exhausted but couldn’t point to a muscle that had given out.  I showered and fell to the couch where slumping forward proved most comfortable.  The night petered out and I was ok with that.  I had successfully got my heart to 150 BPM for 50 minutes in another time zone.

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The transition from “Internet acquaintance” to “Internet friend” occurs when I meet someone in meatspace.  After figuring out in what ways their profile image is a misrepresentation and catching how much the quality of their microphone mangles their voice, a connection is made and the person may emerge on the other side as “friend”.

Dan Bergman is a reasonably large fellow who loves dogs and is ok with one of those facts.  He was tired of being considered “the fat kid” despite being in his 20s and he seemed to appreciate the difficulty I’ve been going through to get my weight under control.  We left TI: Philly as both friends and rivals as we’d reciprocally challenged each other to be the first to 250 lbs.  He had 35 lbs to lose, I had 70 but the benefit of inertia.  Today he contacted me

“I was riding my bike today and as I sweat I reached into my backpack and pulled out one of the bottles of water you gave me.  I almost drank it but stopped myself.  It was enemy water.”

Apparently he got home in a bit of a daze.  Dan, I’m glad you’re taking the challenge serious, but drink the damn water.

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Me: You look bummed, what’s up?
Coworker: I threw out my back a few weeks ago, and I can’t exercise.  Now I’m fat and unhappy.
Me: I’ve never found exercise to really change my mood.  I just listen to books on tape or play video games most of the time.
Coworker: That’s now how it’s supposed to be done.  The point of exercise is to go into a zone of personal pain for 30 to 60 minutes.  The whole time will suck and your body will hate you.  When you’re done, the pain is gone and your body thanks you for not doing that to it all the time.  From that comes the feeling of joy.

I guess I’m doing it wrong.

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I’ve ramped up my treadmill speed considerably over the last week, coupled with my headphones I now sweat quite a bit to the point that my eyes are quite irritated at the end of my exercise time.   I realized I could use a sweatband but I don’t know if that’s a leap I’m willing to make.  I already jog in tall white socks while wearing a shark watch.  If I had a Panasonic boom box pushing out “TOO LEGIT, TOO LEGIT TO QUIT” it’d look like I were powering a time machine from the 80s.

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It was dark, my stomach hurt, and my computer speakers were on the floor.  This was the aftermath of the power going out while I was on my treadmill.  I wasn’t done walking, and needed to come up with some defense mechanisms should this happen again.  I settled on putting a towel over the front of my rig and trying to put some distance between myself and the keyboard.  Standing back didn’t quite work well when interfacing with the keyboard so I had to settle for doubling up the towel a couple times to act as a buffer and extra vigilance.