Pushups - initial test

I did my initial test this morning for the 0ne Hundred Pushups challenge.

I did nine. Does it matter that I did those after riding my bike to work or not? No?

I didn't think so.

Still, that puts me in the second column for the training, based on my age. Not bad! Maybe this will be easier than I thought. Or maybe not. Time will tell.

I'll do the actual pushup training tonight when I get home from work.

One Hundred Pushups

Running and bicycling burn calories and build muscle. In the legs, mostly. And they build cardio-vascular strength, too.

But not so much with the upper-body strength.

I've known I want to work on my chest, arms and back, and the easiest way to do that without investing in a gym membership or weight set is the pushup.

Thanks to J.D. at Get Fit Slowly, I've been led to the site One Hundred Pushups, which touts a method and schedule for building up to being able to do, well, one hundred pushups in a row.

I'm going to start this on Monday and I will check in on this blog periodically until I complete the program or reach my goal.

I've also invited some friends to join me and hopefully activate their competitive spirits... but I'll let them chime in on whether or not they'll try it, too.

One pound away

Weighed 189.5 this morning.

Whoo-hoo! I'm below 190 again! It's been a while.

And I'm just a pound away from weighing less than my all-year low of 189.0.

I did OK on calories. After my run in the heat yesterday, I went to the Iron Horse and tried something new - pork tacos, with pineapple salsa and rice and refried black beans. Yum. That put me at around 1000 calories - and I only ate 10 tortilla chips! Yes, I counted them out.

I drank lots of water but didn't get a snack when I went to see a movie, and got a slice of pizza and salad after the movie.

I really wanted something sweet later on, so I got a small piece of cheesecake from the local coffee shop, and then at home, in a fit of hunger, scarfed down the left-over Santa Fe chicken sandwich from the night before. Which brought me to around 2300 calories - high, but not too bad considering the exercise.

Confession

Forgive me, myself, for I have sinned. It has been nine days since I last ran.

Today is hot. I woke up around 4:00 AM and it was already 64° F, and when I actually got out of bed around 8:30 AM it was over 70°.

I didn't head out for a run until after 9:30 AM. I planned to do my four mile loop. It took me a while.

I managed the first two miles without stopping to walk at all. I kept a nice steady pace and didn't push it. I had to run up the trail in Sellwood Park, uphill, behind a service truck that was kicking up dust, but I kept going.

Disadvantages: I hadn't eaten any breakfast, I haven't worked out or bicycled for more than about 30 minutes at a time, and did I mention the heat? It's 86° as I write this.

Advantages: I weighed in at 190 even pounds this morning. And... um... that's all I can think of.

I walk/ran the final two miles, including a stop for water near the three mile mark. But I did it!

Weekend update

I managed to stay 192 lbs all weekend long, in spite of much bike-riding and barely going over in calories. I did not, however, run.

My overall trend is approaching 192 lbs (as of this morning, it's 192.15) so if I want the trend to keep going down I really need to weigh under 192 tomorrow morning. Which means running, not just biking.

Up bounce

This morning I'm back up a pound. Not sure why and I'm trying not to be discouraged by it.

I had lunch yesterday at American Dream pizza with my friends. One giant slice of BBQ chicken pizza and a salad drenched in their delicious honey mustard dressing and feta cheese. I tried to be pessimistic about the calories but either I wasn't pessimistic enough, or there was way more salt, or... I don't know. Maybe going to bed early was the culprit? Or sleeping for 12 hours?

I can't tell. My body is sometimes a mystery. Today I should get plenty of exercise, though. Will probably ride my bike downtown and catch a movie and stuff and suchlike and whatnot.

Better and better

What's better than saying no to donuts (my addiction)?

Saying yes to donuts because I earned them!

As I mentioned yesterday, I biked to and from work yesterday. Then when I got home, I was determined to go for a run. It took me a while to motivate, but eventually I headed out on my 3+ mile loop. I was slow, understandably, but I did it!

Since I had been so frugal, calorie-wise, during the day, I had 700 calories available for dinner. After walking up to Mike's Drive In without my wallet (D'oh!) I settled on a chicken sandwich and salad from the Limelight. Yum.

And then I had two small donuts from Foster's Market.

This morning I'm down another half pound! I win!

My actual all-year low weight

Sorry for any confusion on this. My actual, all-year low weight is 189.0, achieved on 5 January 2008.

I also hit 189.5 on 20 February 2008, and 190.0 on several occasions but first on 4 January 2008.

Keep on keepin' on

191.5 this morning, which is my all-year low. I thought 192 was my all-year low but I was wrong. At any rate, it's going in the right direction, finally.

Just before I left work, I had about 1350 calories for the day. Since I was downtown, I planned on going to see a movie after work, and then grabbing a slice of my favorite pizza and a salad from Pizza Schmizza. I had enough calories that I could stay under 1800 calories total if I did that.

But...

I was at a different work site than normal, and in one section there's some ladies who have a huge smorgasbord of candy. All kinds; chocolate, gummi, crunchy. Even some nuts and non-sugared snacks like pretzels. It's very hard for me to work there and not stop by. I generally do two things to counter my candy urge, though: I make sure and donate some money to their candy fund, and I try to keep track of all the calories from what I get. That helps me scale back.

Yesterday, I dropped a dollar in the cup, and took out four dark chocolate malt balls. So yummy. Four balls of about 1" in diameter. After I ate them, I then had to figure out their calories. I looked up Whoppers on Calorie-Count, the site I use to track my diet, and what they showed was 120 calories for "1.0 ounce". Hmmm... how many balls to an ounce? And aren't Whoppers smaller than 1" diameter?

Yes, Whoppers are smaller than the malt balls I ate. I didn't calculate it right away, since I had a movie to go see, but I knew I would have to do some math to compare how much larger a 1" diameter sphere is than a 3/4" diameter sphere. All through the movie, I worried that eating that candy, plus a slice of pizza and a salad, would put me over, and jeopardize my awesome day.

After the movie, I walked over to a store and found a box of Whoppers. One serving was 41 grams, or about 18 balls, for 180 calories, and, yes, those are smaller than the candies I ate, by about a quarter inch.

I went ahead and ate the pizza dinner I'd been craving. Afterward, because of the fear of going over my calorie limit, I felt the strong urge to just give in and grab dessert or a donut or a coffee drink. Just give up.

But I told myself several things:

1. I was full from dinner. Eating more would only make me feel over-full.
   
2. Whatever brief pleasure I got from eating something sweet would not feel better than the satisfaction tomorrow of maintaining control and not eating one more bite.
   
3. That the disappointment of seeing my weight go up tomorrow is greater than the pleasure of seeing it remain the same or going down.

And the best part is that I believed all that. I could see the logic and the pleasure in each thought.

On the bus ride home from downtown, I did the math and found that a 1" diameter sphere is about 2.3 times larger in volume than a 3/4" sphere, which is more than I thought it would be. So assuming the candies are proportioned the same, I figured one of those large dark chocolate balls was 2.3 times the calories of one of the Whoppers, which means those four balls I ate were approximately equal to 9.2 of the Whoppers, or about 90 calories. Don't you just love math?

And, as I said above, I weighed in a half-pound lower this morning. So vindicated.

And I rode my bicycle to work today! More exercise, please!

Steady...

I biked to and from work yesterday, about 20-25 minutes each way, and depending on my route, between 4.5 - 4.9 miles. I included that in my Calorie Count log, and by dint of a half-sandwich for dinner, kept my total calorie intake under 1900.

So I was not surprised to see me down a half-pound, to 192.5, this morning.

I hope I have the energy to run tonight after work. Bicycling is fun, but I like running, too. And if my friend Hollie can run 10 miles and bike 30 in a single day, I can alternate days of running and biking at the very least.

Successful weekend

Saturday I was on my bike for four hours, give or take. An hour total to and from Fred Meyers' on Johnson Creek & 82nd. An hour to get to the Pedalpalooza kick-off party, an hour riding around Portland (at midnight, naked), and an hour riding home.

Since I only consumed about 2300 calories that day, and exercised my little ass off, I weighed in at 192 Sunday morning (barely morning, since I slept in 'til almost 11:00 AM). That's the lowest weight I've achieved all year.

I felt great and was tempted to give myself Sunday as a reward day. But I didn't want to undo my downward trend, either. And the major obstacle was a family barbecue at my sister's house. My aunt was bringing her world-class pies.

So I had a small breakfast and saved room for pie. Luckily my brother-in-law was grilling salmon, not steaks. And I skipped the potato salad (sorry, Betsy, I had to sacrifice something to make room for pie).

And this morning I weighed in at 193, which still moves my trend lower. Down, graph of my weight, down!

I rode my bike to work today, too. More exercise.

Gonna break under 190 soon. I can feel it.

Lower

Yesterday should have been an exercise day, but I had some kind of sinus-y cold thing. On the bright side, my lack of appetite made calorie control easier and I ate less than 1800 calories for the day. In fact, I had to force myself to eat dinner (a half-sandwich) even though I wasn't hungry.

This morning I slept in a bit and didn't go to work. My weigh-in was 192.5, which may be the lowest I've been in months. So I'll keep on keepin' on.

Today I pick up my bicycle, a Kona Smoke 2-9, from my friendly neighborhood Bike Gallery in Woodstock. That will help me stay active even on days I don't run, and I'm hoping to be able to ride to work once in a while, too. More ways to be active are better. Right?

Down but up

I was down to 194.0 this morning.

But my trend line still went up a bit. Hate that.

Last night I ran-in-place for 30 minutes and kept my calories around 1900 or so. Not awesome but still good. Went to bed hungry. Thought I'd have lost more but no go. Gotta keep on keepin' on.

Bump

After my high calorie intake weekend I hoped against, but did not expect, a bump up in weight. And I got one. I weighed 195 yesterday morning.

So I knew I had to be great yesterday to get back on track. And then Ken wanted to eat at a pizza place known for giant slices of thick crust pizza. Then there were free donuts left over at the coffee stand in my office building. So when I left work, I had consumed nearly 1600 calories already.

I had a coffee for dinner, partly because I had a brand-new filling in my tooth. I drank some water and went to bed early.

This morning I'm at 194.5. Again. And that made a bump up in my trend. Argh.

Six miles

After a bit of over-eating yesterday, and no breakfast other than water this morning, I decided to run six miles today. Instead of my old 6+ mile loop, I decided instead to run most of my 3.5 mile loop, then turn around at the 3 mile mark and run back to start. The advantage of this was more available water fountains and more varied terrain.

And it kinda kicked my fat panda ass. I had to stop a lot. And (I almost hesitate to even write this down) I had a tingle in my chest right over my breastbone as I climbed the hill on the last mile.

Weather was perfect - 55° F give or take and sunny. A bit humid and a little bit windy but not detrimentally so.

Ate half a serving of Jelly Belly Sports Beans at the 4 mile mark.

Listened to my Happy playlist - after adding Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" to the top of the list. Which song explains the "panda" remark up above. Sort of.

All told it took me about 72 minutes to complete the out-and-back course, making it a 12:00 pace. Seems slow but it's been a while since last I ran this far.

I should start adding some speed work or hills into the routine. If I can convince myself to not just run in place during the week next week.

Control

I managed to stay under 2200 calories today, even with a stop at Dairy Queen and brinner (breakfast-at-dinner) at the 24 Hour Pancake House.

I only ate half of my strawberry pancakes. So, technically, just one pancake.

I would've been under if I hadn't had four cups of coffee and a beef jerky stick. I think that's pretty good.

Tomorrow I run six miles.

Staying hungry

"Stay hungry" is my new motto. If I eat so much I feel full, I've realized, that might be too much food. If it's a couple of hours later and I still feel full, that's definitely too much food. So it's important to go to bed with an empty stomach. When I do that, I lose weight.

And I lost weight this morning, too. 193.5, a half-pound down from yesterday. Later today I'm hanging out with Kevin and his sons, so there might be a potential to over-eat. But I will keep my eating during the day light, and I can and will resist the urge to eat everything on my plate. And my backup plan is my long run tomorrow - 5 or 6 miles. Here's hoping for dry weather.

Still on track

After avoiding temptation (in the form of cupcakes) last night as I was leaving work, I spent the rest of the evening starving myself, until around 7:30 when I gave in and made a half-sandwich.

This morning I'm down a half-pound to 194. Again. Yay.

Steady

194.5 again today. So yesterday probably wasn't a fluke. Still woulda been nice to lose, but not gaining is almost as good.

Keep moving

I weighed in at 194.5 this morning, but that might be because I slept in later than normal (was late for work). Still, it might be because I was pretty good calorie-wise yesterday.

Tonight after work and after delicious pizza I walked a mile or so from the bus stop to home.

Later I ran-in-place inside for 40 minutes. It was difficult to go fast and keep it fast. But it still felt kinda easy, even though I stopped a couple of brief times.

I'm craving a donut now (even though I am not hungry) but I will not give in.

More exercise

More exercise (running in place for 30 minutes) tonight and I did so much better calorie-wise (kept it under 1900 for the day) and now I'm hungry and I'm going to bed.

G'night.

Reset again

Crap. 196 this morning. Up two and a half pounds.

That's what I get for eating donuts last night.

I'm my own worst obstacle.

How to splurge

I went out to dinner last night with Tracy last night to celebrate her birthday. On my suggestion, we went to Macaroni Grill, because their food is yummy and they post their nutrition info online, so I can try (and I do mean try) to stay within my diet.

I did really well with dinner - ordered chicken cannelloni, and only ate about a third of it. I ordered a nice vodka martini, which isn't so bad. Did have a lot of bread; Tracy and I split the loaf.

But when dessert rolled around... I ordered the apple crisper a la mode.

And ate the whole thing.

Per the website, just the dessert was 1080 calories. Whoa. But damn it was delicious. I cleaned my plate.

I rationalized it by saying I had run 5+ miles earlier that day, but the whole reason I run long on the weekends is to burn more calories. The whole strategy only works if I run hard and still stay under calories.

But when I woke up this morning, I weighed the same as yesterday. 193.5. No change.

Today, as of this post, I've only eaten about 1200 calories. I'm going to stay way under for the day. And I just ran in place for 30 minutes, also. I don't want the calories from yesterday to show up on the scale tomorrow morning.

We'll see how it goes.