There are Two Kinds of People in the World...

My heart lightened a bit when I saw the big white truck in front of the gym. The prophesy according to JROCK was being fulfilled.

I strolled into the gym and there he stood majestically astride an elliptical while The Ecstasy of Gold blared through my earbuds.

Ironman!!!

Is this the beginning of the big Ironman reunion tour? Can't say, but I hope so. I humped out 35mins on the bike, bored and oddly cranky. awesomeGirl gave me a big grinned howdy and ponyTail managed to get a real smile out of me so things improved on the stormy front of my psyche. goodMood was doing his px90000000 routine and all in all it was good but kinda quiet.

I think we were all worried about scaring off Ironman with loud noises and sudden movements.

Bubbles shows up with a new (to me anyway, it's been awhile since I've seen her) flapper haircut that manages to make her even cuter and life goes on while I ponder the wisdom of Sergio Leone...



mmhmm, "There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig." - Clint Eastwood

Initiate? Maybe.

I did 25min on the spinner, burning off a remarkable 264 calories while trying to ease myself back into 4am wake up calls and whatnot. Today's wake up call came at 5:36am bleating out it's electronic cockle-doodle-do while I'm blindly groping various buttons trying to get the dang thing to shut up.

So I sullenly spun singing along with Madagascar, "I hate to move it, move it."

My son turned 16 on Sunday and there's something way cool about that. I hope he had a great birthday.

I have a lot to do before Thanksgiving so I leave you with this moment of zen.

Lying Machines and Lying Lies They Tell You

Well I'm not sure if it was the fourth medicine that I'm on for all this madness but I actually think that I got a full nights sleep. I woke up, walked the evil that is Layla, came here to work and got tired.

Not out of the woods yet.

Though I tempt fate by writing this I have to consider that my wife (who I've driven dangerously insane) may have a point about calling in a sick day and just resting. Nah, that's just crazy talk.

Glancing at my email I note that my blackouts must be getting worse:

As you begin the third month of your online journey to a healthier you, we’d like to tell you about the importance of logging your food and exercise every day. Also, by doing so, you may be eligible to earn points for my company's quarterly raffle drawing!

You don't say. Apparently I've been on a three month journey to a healthier me. Judging by these last two weeks I'm wondering how that's going. I read further trying to ferret out the importance of logging my food and exercise everyday, since I've unsuccessfully tried this four different times with four different apps (I'm currently not using myfitnesspal which has an app and a website for you to record this stuff, this is about as easy as it gets and it's still a pain in the butt).

The food and exercise logs in the Health Connections portal offer an easy way to keep track of the calories you consume and the calories you burn each day. Also, use the food log to determine how to substitute healthier choices into your daily food choices. Logging what you eat and how much you exercise every day will provide you with a complete picture of your daily calorie allotment and keep you on track.

Yes, yes. Eat fewer calories than you burn and you'll drop weight. Here's what happened to me, I found myself in lunch lines and what not trying to figure out how many calories were in whatever I was looking at. After awhile I just became uh dour, face all scrounged up staring at dish this and that trying to find the corresponding food in some calorie database for whatever program I was currently using and getting inventive with that (so they don't have Madam Sows Stir Fried Chicken with Secret Sauce but they have a Wendys Fried Chicken Sandwich - good enough! if you don't want to spend an eternity entering the individual components by hand increasing your autism) before considering a bowl of grapes over a bowl of ice cream and opting for the ice cream (but I did feel guilty about it).

I lack the desire and discipline for this sort of stuff and I get cranky at the idea that I spent an hour on some spinner in the gym and can not have the ice cream and lose weight. Can I spend an hour on the spinner, have the ice cream and maintain weight?

No.

Why?

Here's why my dumplings, everyone and their brother bitches about high calories in Starbucks coffee but not about the fact that those fancy exercise machines we use are seriously lying about the number of calories you burned during your little workout.

Honestly, do you think you burned 300 calories on that thirty minute elliptical, spinner, whatever machine you pick workout?

REALLY?!

Well if you decide to believe the machines and then enter some calorie counting program where you're subtracting the calories you burned in the gym based off what the machine told you and hitting your maximum number of calories for the day you will gain weight Porky. I guarantee it.

My advice, which is worth NOTHING, is this. Do the calorie thing if you want to - it's the only way to lose weight but do NOT subtract the calories you cooked off at the gym. And that is hard to do because you worked out gosh darn it. If you're not experiencing a certain level of discomfort (misery) while dieting, you're doing it wrong.

How bad do you want it? Your call.

Filled with Antibiotic Goodness

I'm so pumped full of antibiotics, Aleve and at least four other medications that I'm hoping the weird brew inside my blood stream will actually allow me to... evolve. But I doubt it - I mostly feel queezy.

I'm hoping to start feeling well enough to get back to the gym soon. These antibiotics will run for ten days and right now my sleep is so erratic that I'm driving my wife nuts. This sinus infection (which started this whole mess) is fighting for life. I'm thinking 'no' on that score but I guess we'll see in another five or six days huh?

Sick

Oh how the mighty have fallen... Last year when I was binging on this exercise thing I didn't get sick once - now I'm battling this sinus infection, getting little rest, constantly fatigued and having fun side effects with various other medications that I really don't feel like discussing with you but left me shivering like a junkie under covers and a blanket with a winter coat on and a sweater, etc teeth clenched until my jaw ached for around an hour. This was, of course, after the initial side effect of feeling like I'm in anaphylactic shock. This 'side effect' happens sporadically and the drug manufactures don't know why.

Good times, good times.

Anyway I had a miserable weekend and hope yours was better unless I hate you for some reason.

So I'm seeing one battery of docs on Tuesday and trying to get a hold of another set today to put an antibiotic bullet into this sinus infections.

In short I wasn't at the gym today and don't plan to be until I get a grip on this.

Across the USA

Note to self need to bring in cable for the Garmin...

When I get into the gym I see goodMood on a spinner, so he wasn't kidding about 'sharing' this experience unlike that pantywaist ponyTail. But I guess ponyTail is a pantywaist by definition since she's a girl and all and so is permitted to wear these types of undies without any derogatory comments from the peanut gallery. Whereas if I was to wear them it would be considered odd. I mean why to chicks get to wear pants but the second some dude slides on a sundress out come the pitchforks, feathers and tar?

SIGH

Why did you bring this up? This has nothing to do with the fact that I had two hours sleep last night from HELL COLD courtesy of my daughter and I decided to man up and do this stupid thing with goodMood this morning.

People are going to be forming pools during meetings on exactly when Bill nods off during one today and this gosh darned pod lifestyle I've embraced doesn't lend itself well to napping when you have SIX podmates staring at you when it starts to happen.

So myPeg, goodMood, awesomeGirl (? maybe if so we didn't speak) and others were there. I nod at goodMood, climb on the stairclimber hammer out 20mins on that with that abomination of a workout Bubbles/Diablo (one of those fiends) developed. Stagger off that, wipe it down and hop onto a Spinner next to J-TOSRV and do some 20min interval routine on that, lurch off that, wipe it down and sway over to the elliptical for 20mins on that before reeling for the showers and blessed Aleve. 1:14 mins with my HR at 83% - yes I am an idiot. As I hammer this out before my first nap meeting I'm uh feeeellllliinnnggggg it.

What was it like? It was like this...

So I put my earbuds in

Start playing my songs,

And the butterflys fly away

Noddin' my head like yeah

Moving my hips like yeah,

And I got my head down,

Hammering along

Knowing I'll ralph today

Yeah, It's cardio in the USA

Yeah, It's cardio in the USA

That's pretty much what it's like.

Slow Time

I'm nervous about Friday having shot my big fat mouth off on Tuesday. I had casually asked goodMood if he was feeling up to doing an Around the World with me on Friday.

"What's that?"

20 minute Bubbles routine on the stairclimber, 20 minute intervals (one hard, two rest) on the spinner, 20 minutes on the elliptical. I'm thinking of throwing in 15 minutes of cool down on the treadmill but that might depend on time.

Always a big help ponyTail tosses out there, "What about the rower and that new arm spinny thing they got?" It's a constant relief to me knowing she has my back.

So OK maybe its more Across the USA than Around the World but I'm excluding the rower and the spinny thing for the moment.

goodMood's gonna do it and starts muttering about adjusting arrival times for Friday. ponyTail mentions with a HUGE smile that sadly she has the kids on Friday and so cannot partake.

mmhmm

I had a rough night last night making the discovery that I'm a mouth breather, waking up at 2am in the arid air with God's gift to cotton mouths and an incredible sore throat. I grab the water bottle, take a swig and can barely swallow it. The sore throat appears to be due to the dry air but um no fun.

We (my son and I) had an interesting introduction to the great outdoors over the weekend. In July we're going to Philmont, a Boy Scout high adventure area where you stomp all over New Mexico for ten days with just a backpack. This isn't the typical 'camp from the car' type of endeavor. So we started purchasing equipment, like boots and sleeping bags and other things but the boots and bags were the big ticket items.

deerHunter has been kind enough to lend us some backpacks (the third of the wallet busters) and I'm grateful for that. I'm not 100% sure I'm gonna take him up on his offer because I would feel awful if they got damaged. We'll see.

One thing I noticed going through all the crap we bought was the marketing angle of how 'green' every product is. Speaking for myself I'm far more interested in how well engineered this stuff is. My boots are made from coconuts (a unique cocona technology which uses the fibers of coconuts inside the boot's fabrics for pore structure to be the best (and most natural) moisture-absorbent shoe out there). I'm all about moisture absorbency coupled with the boot's eVENT lining system allowing my feet to breathe and probably setting up interesting weather patterns in the boot when combined with the cocona technology.

See? It all gets weird when one finds them self suddenly 'in it.' They're boots, bikes, guitars until you begin babbling about this technical stuff. I just don't want feet problems when dragging my stinky butt over New Mexico with two shirts and no prayer of a shower for ten days.

Just Another Moody Monday

I nod at ponyTail on my way into the locker room. Back on the bike, not sure if I can save myself anymore but I'm feeling like going down swinging as opposed to just giving up. Who cares? I'm in free association mode, doing what I do best and letting my mind... wander.

I feel kinda sad. Where's the enthusiasm of a year ago? I've effectively not worked out for over a week and I'm already tired, lethargic, unmotivated, sorta like I figure Obama feels about his presidency. I'm cranky and introspective as I plop down on the spinner jamming the earbuds in and dialing in Emenem. I do thirty-five on the bike and then do some crunches before heading off to face the stupid scales and get a read on how far I have fallen.

Diablo calls out as I walk past his office, "You back?" I stare blearily at him and give an honest answer, "I don't know."

Up another pound.

Super.