Get a Grip, I Say

In trying to work on strength first so I can a.) be better at building muscle and b.) more useful in real life situations I am taking to heart the advice to work on my core and my grip.  This started with me doing hanging leg raises.  I also read up on some other ideas.

The one I tried to add first was finger-tip push ups, but I discovered yet again that I am a weakling.  This doesn't really bother me, however, it just gives me more games to play during my breaks after I do any bit of intellectual work for 25 minutes.  

My new game is to do regular planks for a bit then take one hand and plant it by the finger tips and then the other and do the same and try to do a finger tip this finger-tip plank. 

Let's pretend I make no progress on this, it'd still be a wonderful way to prevent me moping around during the times it is just too dang hot to go out.  I will never get tired of writing about my revelation brought on by the pomodoro system -- 25 minutes of intellectual work/play and do something physical for 3-5 minutes.  Right now, when a timer goes off, I choose to do a grip and core training 5 days a week (one day doing the hanging leg raises, the next the plank protocol from this post) and then I clean or tidy something.

But in reality, there is progress.  It is measurable and thus it is a game.  It gives a lot of hits along the way and eventually I (probably) get to enjoy a great result.

Slow Carb is Dead, Long Live the Diet

180.6

I'm off the slow carb diet.  At least the way I was doing it, it made me too spacey and cranky (bad combination).  I suppose I should have ate a lot more beans, and probably should have tried to re-experiment with fasting until 3:30.  Life and learn.

Two other factors: 1.) slow carb caused some friction with my wife about the places we could eat and what I could make for dinner and 2.) I have grown to hate most meats at most restaurants, so there was a gross out factor that kept plaguing me these last two weeks.  Trying to figure out what and where to eat with a brain not working right and getting increasingly frustrated with

I have in the past lost a lot of weight under the slow-carb rules, and so that was why I wanted to to do it again, but I have also lost weight simply going 6 days a week on 1,300 calories, and then a free day.  My numbers show the slow-carb diet was faster at getting weight loss, but quality of life has to play into this decision as well.

I really want to crack 177.  This is the weight at which I would usually start diets in college.  Several times that weight became my "wake up call."  When I weighed 200 pounds, I thought with sadness how long it would take to even get back to that number.  I think it would be great -- very motivating -- to be below that number again.   That's why I was willing to slow carb again, and even deal with a little pain.  But it was getting ridiculous, and I can't afford to be mean as a teacher or husband.

The Moore Hat Trick

The last three weeks my life has been speech and debate tournaments.  The result: three straight sweepstakes wins, something that hasn't happened in over half a decade for Norman North.

We won the contests at the 3 high schools in Moore: Westmoore, Southmoore, and Moore High School.

It's fun to have a profession where I get to collect some trophies from time to time.

20 Pounds Down

And probably 15-20 more to go.

It's wild to think I messed up enough to weigh 200 pounds.  It's also slightly sobering to think I've taken this long to get to a weight a few pounds more than I used to freak out and start diets.  

Oh well, measurable progress often makes us happy.  And I still am smiling that I lost those 20 pounds.  As odd as my current diet may seem -- and I think everyone who I have explained it to in person thinks its crazy -- I think it is a sustainable way to go.  I'm going to keep on this path for a few weeks, and then in November I plan a short detour, which I will explain in due time.

Two Lessons at the End of a Mini-Retirement

So far in my teaching career, I have thought of every summer as a "mini-retirement."

This summer I learned it is possible for me to rest too much and feel adrift.  This all changed when I made my bucket list, and decided to instead treat it as a 9-10 year plan.

I have realized that when I am mini-retired, or even fully retired, I will be happiness if I mind these two lessons:


1.) I should at least one purposeful thing to do every week.

 I have discovered that I much prefer to look at productivity in terms of a week than any day.  From now on, I will be keeping a list first of weekly goals.  During a work week, I will then make a to-do list every day.  It's the only way I can keep track of everything that I have to do.

But next summer, I know some days will be days with a to-do list and some days will be resting and playing games. But somewhere in every week, I will be happiest if I am making real progress on something amazing.

2.) Measurable goals are my best friend.

If you can measure it, you can make progress in it.  If you make progress in it, it will become fun, even addictively fun.

It feels great to be able to say I am 15 pounds lighter than I was at my maximum.  Also, I have doubled the weight I can lift on virtually every major lift.  That's fun.

My spin off goal from getting my royal flush is to get a million play chips on PokerStars under my current account.  Well, I am now 1/10th of the way there:

(It says I have over 100,000 chips)

For the purposes of fun, it doesn't matter how mechanical the goal is.  For example, the way I have crossed the 100,000 chip mark is by playing a bunch of hands of Zoom poker, but as tightly and uncreatively as possible.  As long as you are "improving your score," the process is fun, at least compared to doing nothing all day.

And, when self-employed, I can always take a break whenever it gets dull.