Sorry Again

I apologize yet again for not writing anything for a couple of days. I know this seems like a recurring theme here on the Fatman blog, but I've unfortunately been a little busy lately because I took on a temp editing gig again. So while I haven't been putting my work in here or at the gym the last couple of days it's only because I've been putting in the work elsewhere. That being said, I have been more conscience of what I eat and how much of it due to the slight lull in the workout routine. Also, you can all rest easy in the knowledge that today I will be back in the gym and working out. If it's not too packed when I get in there, I might even try to go for 45 minutes instead of my regular 30 to make up for the lost days. The sad part about being back at work is I won't be able to do my long walks :( (I know emoticons are dated. So what.), but I guess working and money are more important than a nice 5 mile stroll. Anyways, I'm rambling nonsensically and I don't really have much a theme or anything to report. I just wanted to give you all a heads up as to what's been going on lately. Please don't worry. I'm still on my plan. I'm feeling great for the most part and I'm looking forward to continuing my progress.

Okay So I Lied

I just have to spend the first part of the this post apologizing to everyone. I didn't go outside for a 5 mile walk yesterday and for that I am sorry. I know that you my faithful readers have to come to expect a certain level of honesty and integrity from and I have woefully robbed you of that trust. Wow! I should be a P.R. person. I bet Ben Roethlisberger is hiring. But in all honesty I didn't take a walk yesterday. I was planning on switching my run walk days since I usually go to the gym with the wife on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, but then she threw me a curveball and asked to go yesterday so I went back to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday run/walk schedule.

The workout was great. I bandaged up the blister on the back of my left foot that I got while walking on Sunday. At first I was a little concerned about it, but it didn't even hurt while I was walking to the front door of the gym so that gave me hope.

Now I will admit I did go off my plan a bit. I'm supposed to be doing 2 minutes on 2 minutes off I believe. I should double check that. But as I started going on my first run portion I felt really good so I pushed it to 3 minutes. Then I did a few sets of two minute runs and ended on a strong 3 minute run. I even used a little incline as well since I'll have to get used to going up some hills during the marathon. All told everything felt and went great which means Wednesday will probably be horrible if all goes according to form for me. We'll see. Maybe this is the week I finally break the mold.

Please Sir Can I Do A Mile More

So unfortunately I didn't get to work out on Friday because I was feeling under the weather. I don't know if it was my allergies still acting up or what, but it continued until Saturday as well. So I was pretty out of it then as well. But I bounced back on Sunday. I kept trying to get a hold of my friend to take a walk since he's in training for the marathon as well, but I didn't get a response at all. Not surprised. So I decided to head out and brave the LA streets alone for a nice long walk. I really enjoyed how the 5 mile walk I did with my dad felt so I made that my distance goal for this walk as well.

It's amazing to see just how far 2.5 miles actually is when you walk it. I think it's because I drive everywhere and since I get stuck in traffic etc. everything always feels like it's way further away then it actually is. I just kept going and going and kept saying to myself "this has to be the halfway point here." But according to my watch I still had some walking to do. Finally about 40 minutes into my walk I hit the halfway point. I was quite shocked at where I ended up and I felt really good still and the weather was gorgeous so I decided to make the most of my day and walk a little further.

By the time I ended my walk I had done 6.3 miles of walking. Other than my feet being a bit sore and a minor blister on the back of my left foot, I felt really great afterwards. The walk had everything I could have wanted, distance, great weather, great music and great company. So that was really cool. In fact I enjoyed it so much I'm going to bandage up my blister and do another one later today. This time I'm going to keep it to five miles though. I found a great walk that will take me right past a golf course I want to look at. Talk to you all tomorrow.

I'm Baaaack

Hello faithful readers. I'm sorry I haven't written anything new in a long time, but I was visiting my parents to celebrate one of the most important days of the year...my birthday. It was great getting out of LA for a few days and seeing the family and others that I haven't talked to in a long time. And thanks to everyone that sent me a birthday wish, I appreciate it. Don't worry, while I celebrated a fair amount while I was up north, I also stuck to a regimen of working out and I even got up early and went out in the cold to do so.

On Saturday I got up around 7 and I was dressed and out the door by 7:30. I started my workout like all of the other ones with a nice 5 minute walk to get warmed up. Then I jogged for about 2 minutes and walked again for two minutes. Since I wasn't on the treadmill this time I didn't have a way to gauge how fast I was running and subsequently tired myself out quicker than I would have liked to, but I did do some more distance this time than I would on the treadmill so that was great. All told the workout was about 3 miles of running and walking. Mostly walking admittedly. It felt really good to get up early and be outside however. There was practically no one around, just me, the cows and my iPod. It made me realize that I need to do more workouts outside of the gym. It was nice having markers to work towards instead of just watching a clock countdown. So I've decided that I'm going to breakout up my workouts with doing my run/walk in the gym so I can monitor my speed better and then move my walk days to the outdoors.

On Sunday I did a great walk with my dad. Other than just working out it was a great chance to spend 90 minutes just shooting the shit with him. We did a 5 mile loop with some good hills towards the end of the walk and it definitely felt like a great workout. Now when I'm doing my walking off days outside, I'm going to try to find a course that closely mimics what we did on Sunday around here. My neck of the woods in LA doesn't quite have the same hills, but I'm sure I can find something similar.

Monday I did another early morning run/walk much like Saturday except this time I added about another 1/4 of a mile to the distance I did. Mostly I was just meandering because I wanted to walk down this one street I'd never seen before, but also I wanted to add some distance to my total work out. I was able to slow my running down a bit this time and I got more running in as a result. I think my lungs are starting to get stronger, but it was hard to tell because my allergies were acting up so every breath regardless of running or not burned. As soon as I get all of the excess nature out of my system I can better gauge my lung capacity. Being back in LA for almost two days now and I feel like all of the fresh air is just about out of my system.

Finally there was Tuesday. My allergies took too much of a toll on me to really workout in the morning, but I found a great alternative workout. Prison. Yep a little time on the yard pumping iron and running away from homicidal maniacs is just what the doctor ordered. Okay so I wasn't actually in jail...sort of. I went to Alcatraz for the day and it was gorgeous out there. For all of you that are friends of my on Facebook, there will be pictures up soon. It was breezy, but it was one of the sunniest, clearest days I've spent in SF in a while. Last time I was there it was so foggy you couldn't even see the Golden Gate bridge from Ghiradelli Square. They say the walk from the boat dock at Alcatraz to the cell block is equivalent to walking up 13 stories worth of stairs. I'd believe it. It was great spending a few hours there walking around and getting a spectacular view of the city at the same time. Aww SF how I miss thee sometimes.

Well now you're all caught up on what I've been up to the last few days. Sorry I didn't make these separate posts, but I was too busy having a great time away from the computer and everything else. Hope you all missed me while I was gone.

To My Surprise

So Tuesday was a regular brisk walk day for me. And there is nothing interesting to report there. Just a regular brisk walk for 30 minutes. I still felt sore so I didn't push things too hard, but I still had a good sweat so that was cool. But I did see something quite interesting while I was doing my treadmill workout. There was this kid that snuck in next to me while I was engrossed in a game of Solitary on my iPod. His deft ninja skills weren't the only thing that surprised me about him. He was a heavier-set kid working out next to whom I'm assuming was his mother. In the two cup holders on the treadmill he had a water bottle and a medium soda from Carl's Jr. Now the soda could have been diet for all I know. But how many middle-school kids do you know that drink diet soda? We had the caffeine free stuff in our house and to me it was only good for one thing, shaking it up and then throwing it against the street until it exploded. That was about as close to drinking it as I got. Until now of course, but my palette is so much more advanced now. I can really appreciate the sweet tastes of saccharin and aspartame. But enough of the tangent. The kid really made me think. How often do I workout only to replace what I've worked off with more of the stuff that made me big in the first place. Again another lesson about thinking about what I eat. Otherwise I'm going to be like a hamster in a wheel, constantly running toward a goal, but never able to get there, then I get tired and fall asleep on a soft bed of wood shavings only to start the madness again the next day.

I don't do diets or fads so please don't recommend Atkins or South Beach etc., but if you have any other eating suggestions leave me some comments with what you got.

Lessons Not Learned

Okay so I hate to bring religion into this again now that Passover is finished, but it seems really relevant to my experience on Monday. So my rabbi was talking about the laws of keeping kosher, which I don't do, mostly because pork tastes waaaay too good. One of his points about the section on keeping kosher was that in today's modern world we should look at it more as a lesson in being mindful of what we eat and that we shouldn't just blindly shovel food into our mouths. Well naturally I went off and instantly assumed that that didn't apply to me. I then proceeded to have pizza for dinner.

Lesson number two that I haven't fully learned is stretching well before my run/walk days. I can get away with not stretching much on the "off" days because I'm not exerting myself quite as much. But when it's a run/walk it is more important.

So with both of those ignored I started my workout. From the beginning I could tell something was off. I just felt sluggish from the very first step and my whole body felt tight the whole time I was going. And to make matters worse I was trying to build off the great workout I had on Saturday and pushed myself too hard right from the start instead of easing into it as I should have. Long story short it was a bad workout. I still ran a bit, but not as much as I should have and I did complete my 30 minutes, but I felt like I took a step backwards.

It's amazing how when your hubris levels get way too high, life has a way of bitch slapping you back to reality. Needless to say I will will heed those lessons now more than ever.

On a positive note my weigh in on Monday has me down to 270 which is a drop of about 2 pounds. Not quite the loss I wanted, but I think my food choices had something to do with that. Either way it's still going in the right direction.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

So I know I've been a bit bad about the daily writing. I'm sorry about that yet again. I have a feeling this will be a regular theme in this experiment. Sometimes I just get busy, tired or both. And sometimes I don't feel like I have much to say at all.

Friday was a brisk walk day on the treadmill. Nothing super special to report there.

Saturday was a run/walk day. I continue to feel like my running is getting stronger. I feel like I am able to run longer and at slightly faster speeds as well. I'm not The Flash by any means, but I do feel I am actually making in improvements. Now that the running and working out is starting to work, I need to focus more on my eating. I definitely had a couple of slip ups this week, which I'm sure will affect my weigh in. My wife and I went out to dinner on Saturday night with a friend of hers from out of town and we ended up splitting a pizza. But in my defense it was really good pizza and that makes it hard to say no. I don't look at my food choices and go "well since I worked out I can splurge a bit." I know that that is not a good mentality to have and it will only lead me to failure. So on Sunday I started to work on rectifying the situation by getting myself back on track with a nice dinner of Ahi Tuna, brown rice and boiled asparagus. Since I'm going to home a lot for a little while it will give me more time to focus on what meals I prepare during the day, dinner especially. I'm going to start making that my goal.

If you have any recipes or websites with good recipes etc. leave it in the comments area. I'm always looking to try new ones.

Alternative Workout

...and a real one as well.

So Wednesday I didn't end up making it into the gym. I was passed out in a leavened bread induced coma thanks to the end of Passover on Tuesday night. You know you've gone too far with gorging when you wake up next to a half eaten baguette that you don't even recall purchasing. But no the real reason was I decided to do a different workout other than the gym. Since it was such a gorgeous day and my buddy had the day off from his job, we decided to play our favorite 9 hole par 3 course instead. I know what you're thinking. "How could you play golf when you're unemployed!" Well before you all get worked up, I was called in the day two days before to do a temp gig for someone that was putting together a show pitch. So I had already worked a full day before I went to the course. So there. That is also a testament to how great the weather was that day. Just perfect. I even played a decent round.

Since I didn't go to the gym on Wednesday that meant I had to do a run/walk day on Thursday. For some reason I was really dreading the run/walk workout. I don't know why. I think it was partly because I had banged my toes the day before and it hurt a little bit to walk let alone run. But I still managed to get myself into the gym and onto the treadmill. And to my surprise I think I had one of my best run/walk workouts yet. Now I still felt a bit winded after the 90 second run portions at first, but then I found myself trying a couple of two minute runs and I even kept increasing the run speeds faster each time I had to run. Even on my last run I went my fastest yet and still felt like I could have done more. I could hear Joe Esposito singing in my ear and that inspiring guitar solo (Note to new readers please see earlier post to understand that reference). I don't know if it's just because I have shoes that don't make me hurt all over when I run or if this working out and training stuff is actually working. Or maybe I was fueled by the intensity of Tiger Woods's return to golf at The Masters. Who knows. Either way I actually left the gym wanting to go back in and do it again. I know I'm not supposed to go aggro just yet, but this last workout actually made me feel like I could and that was really cool.

Yay Treadmill Buddies!

So Tuesday was really just a normal old walk on the treadmill day for the most part. Not much to say in regards to the workout. Nothing really all that different today just a 30 minute brisk walk on the treadmill with a 2 incline (degrees? percent? not sure). However, I've started to notice something lately as sort of a trend at the branches of my gym that I've been going. There could be a bunch of empty treadmills around, as there usual are in the middle of the day, and people will just come to one of the ones next to me. Now granted I admit that I'm a handsome devil, but even guys do it to. I have a feeling it's because I'm a lard ass and people feel way better about their physique etc. when they're next to me. Or maybe it's because I seem like the least threatening of the gym bunch. I'm not the guy yelling "F**k Yeah!" in the middle of my workout like some of the weightlifters do. Although some days I feel that way. Of course I do this too. I usually try to find a heavier dude that's working out and hope the treadmill next to him isn't out of order. That way we have similar workouts and I don't look so out of place brisk walking for 30 minutes. There's this one guy at the gym that I see when I go in the evenings, a heavier set fellow just trying to get his sweat on. Every time I'm next to him on the treadmill I just want to high five him and say way to go be a motivating force. But as everyone knows it's only appropriate to to high five strangers at sporting events or in a bar. Alcohol is usually involved in both. That's why I miss working out with my nephew. We used to high five each other throughout our treadmill time. No particular reason. Just every once in a while it's nice to get a high five. So if you're reading this next to someone you know or care about I say turn to them and let them know it with a really awesome high five and a "F**k Yeah!"

Feel free to hit me up with a high five comment or any comment. I accept and appreciate them all the same.

What A Difference A Shoe Makes

So as the title implies I finally went out and found a pair of shoes that I like. While not perfect just yet, they are far better than the worn out sneakers I have been working out in. Of course I just had to go out and do a full workout in them without really breaking them in at all. So other than the need to loosen them up a little bit, the shoes worked really well. Having the extra padding in the heel area of the shoe really made a difference in my workout. For the first time since I started this journey, I had a workout where my knees and shins weren't killing me after a run/walk day.

Today, I also started phase two of the Couch to 5K plan. The new goal is to warm-up for five minutes and then run and walk intermittently for 90 seconds at a time for each. With the exception of the last 90 second run (which I ended up cutting to a minute) I felt good doing the workout. That doesn't mean it didn't kick my butt too, because it did, but that's the point right? I was definitely sucking wind during the whole thing, but it really felt like I was making progress. In fact I am making progress, the result of today's weigh in is 271.6, which means a drop of 3.4 pounds for the week. This brings the two week total to 6.4 pounds. I guess all this time at the gym is actually doing something. I might have to bust out my skinny jeans after all.

Betty Crock of Sh*t

I know I didn't do a post for Friday so this is going to be a combined Friday/Saturday post.

Friday was my first full day home without anything planned to get me out of the house. So I did what any new domestic would do with their time, I baked a cake. I know the last things a fat man needs in the house are excuses not to work out and a whole cake fresh out of the oven. To make matters worse it was a chocolate cake. The back story is, I was making a practice flourless chocolate cake before I made the real deal to take to my Aunt and Uncle's house for Passover. I needed to make sure I could make it right and that it wouldn't cause involuntary projectile vomiting, so naturally I took it to my wife's work and had her co-workers try it out. I even had a small piece myself. Everyone seemed to enjoy it so that was cool. Version two while slightly lopsided was also a hit at Passover, so take that Betty Crocker. Your boxed recipes can shove it.

Friday was another run/walk day on the good old treadmill. Same routine as usual, I warmed up with a 5 minute fairly brisk walk and then ran for a minute and walked for 90 seconds intermittently. I don't know what it was but Friday felt good. Despite my long worn out shoes, the running didn't hit me as hard as it usually does, so maybe I'm making progress after all. I also did a few runs that were over 60 seconds to see if I could do them without being too gassed. My last run for the session was a 90 second run, which is phase two of the Couch to 5K plan, and I was able to get through that pretty easily, despite being at the end of my workout. So that was inspiring. We'll see how it goes on Monday.

Saturday being an "off" day from the run/walk plan I decided to take a long brisk walk with a friend of mine along the beach. I mean come on! I live in LA, but I almost never go to the beach. No reason why. I just don't. So we started at Venice Beach and walked all the way to just south of the Santa Monica pier. I know that's a distance that only my local readers will fully understand. All told from the car back to the car we walked for about 90 minutes. Next Saturday we're planning on going at least to the pier and back so if any of my locals want to join us send me a comment, or call if you know me. One thing I did notice is my feet were killing me at the end of the walk. My shoes rubbed my feet pretty raw. Fortunately there were no blisters which worried me because I didn't want to be sidelined from really working out because of huge blisters on my feet. I think today is going to be a movie/shoe shopping day. Now if I could only trick the wife into going to Sport Chalet.

Matzah As An Excuse To Eat Healthy?!

That's right. I actually used Passover as an excuse to stick to healthy eating. My former co-worker and I would every once in a while go down the street from work and grab a pizza and a few beers after work, if I was working an early shift. Yesterday was our final hurrah together as a group. We all met where most dejected soon-to-be-unemployed people go to kill the pain: Cheesecake Factory. Say what you will but the Hibachi Steak is great! (And I got it without the tempura asparagus because of the holiday.) Anyway, my co-worker had to finish some stuff up at his new job and wanted to grab some pizza and beer for old time's sake. I partially froze for a second because I didn't want to say no (not to him, to the pizza) but I also wanted to maintain the good streak I was on in terms of healthy eating. And then, like a message from G-d, it popped in my head- it was Passover. So I told him sorry I can't because of the holiday. So I was able to dodge that bullet, but when I went downstairs to say final goodbyes, there were donuts from the morning that someone had brought in, and good ones too. I'm usually pretty good about avoiding them but damn they looked good. Again though, that voice popped in my head, Passover! So I easily just walked away. If only every day could be Passover. Well maybe not.

Workout was great too. I was in a really good mood actually and not just because of the Hibachi Steak. I introduced myself to someone who may be hiring soon and he seemed pretty excited when I told him about my qualifications and popped up and grabbed a business card for me. So that was really cool. So all told it was a pretty alright day. One job now officially over and a door that's been cracked a little bit. So we'll see. I'll keep you all posted.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

So despite what the title might imply, this is not my last post on this blog. If my math is correct, I still have 355 more posts to go. Wednesday was my last shift at my job. So with that, I say a fond farewell to the place I called my employer for the last three years.

I've had people ask me why I'm so bothered by it closing down. The fact of the matter is I didn't like the job that much. This is true. And my boss was sort of like Michael Scott, but with severe bouts of male PMS. So how could I say I was sad about the whole place going under? Well first off there's the money thing. Yes, I know that life is more than a paycheck. If I've learned anything from this experience, it's that. Secondly, I spent more time working there than I did with my wife, so my co-workers were essentially a second family. Some of whom I actually liked as people. We weren't as tight as my CVTV Brotherhood, but pretty darn close. Plus we had a channel softball team. I'm really going to miss that. So it's really the people that I'll miss more than anything else, not so much the job. I think my buddy put it best when he said the whole situation sort of felt like an odd break-up with your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Today was the first day where I went to work prior to going to the gym. As I was getting in my car, I started thinking, "Maybe today I'll just take a day off from the gym. Maybe today it'll be okay to just not go. I don't think anyone would blame you for not going." But I knew that kind of thinking would just lead me to more excuses not to go. So even though I had no desire to be there, and even though it was a run/walk day which meant pain, I still pushed myself into the gym. I lumbered to the treadmill and did my 30 minute workout without any excuses and without giving up. That made me proud of myself.