today is a good day

I stepped on the scale this morning before doing any of that 'morning' stuff, and it was at 300 even. Yesterday was the first day Id been back at the gym for almost a month (due to a financial nightmare that has since been resolved) For those of you keeping score, it looks something like this:

What does it mean when you dream that you almost died?

This is the question I was presented with this morning as lay in bed at 5 am. Note that sometimes I dream in first person, and I almost always dream in sound/color/smells, etc.

There was some sort of battle or war, and they were beige wearing-Chinese or something similar (probably related to my semi-interested following of what is going on in Korea right now, coupled with economic concerns and China). *We* were holed up in a school that resembled the one I attended for high school, but the land around it resembled more the first college I attended for 3 years. The aggressor shelled the exterior, and then used a type of flat, frisbee shaped artillery through the holes in the facade so they would bounce around inside the building first. We left via the rear of the building as the enemy was beginning to advance personnel towards the school. I sighted in a group of 4-5 and managed to neutralize them, but I called attention to my position behind a tree/mass of roots and was found.

I was shot three times. I woke up. It was around 4 am.  I then went back to sleep, and entered the same dream again, but I woke up back in the school again. I found myself in the company of a person I can only describe as "Gene Hackman"-esque from the Superman I era, coupled with his role in Enemy of the State. He had this cage/workshop/safe area built in the basement of the school that we had to get to, with a few other people that had straggled along back into the building. We, a small group, traveled through some tunnels, presumably to hide out.......


and I woke up again and lay there again for awhile, before deciding that I may as well wake up.

Checking in

My Suunto bumped me up another activity level yesterday. I'm not at an activity class of 5 on their scale of 1 being sedentary/bed ridden, and 10 being Lance Armstrong. Pretty cool

I also weighed at 303 today. I haven't gone this week because of stress and scheduling, and last week (Thanksgiving) I went just 2-3 times, once at the motel/hotel we stayed at. Ive just been watching diet.

The coolest thing has been watching my caloric needs drop. I started with a '3 lb a week' goal, and figured my BMR, and then based on that number subtracted an amount (1500 calories) from it. Livestrong adjusts your number based on your weight, so when I started at 318 lbs I need one amount, and now i'm  at almost 100 calories less daily. How cool is that?

That's right, Im back...

I have challenged the Qdoba, and I won.
Qdoba, for those of  you that don't know, is a mexican food place here in Lincoln. They make all sorts of goodies, on par with Oso Burrito and Chipotle, and some local LOCAL places. Their burritos are HUGE.

Kolette brought a burrito home last night for me. It was good. It was huge. It was 1am.

I just got back from Anytime Fitness and my middle of the day weight on the three beam scale was 311. My middle of the day weight in the same clothes at the VA a month ago was 317.6. My Sunnto watch bumped me up from an activity level of 3 to an activity level of 4.


Recreational


If you participate regularly in recreational sports or do physical work, and your weekly
exercise is:
● less than 1 hour, use 2.
● more than 1 hour, use 3.     Here is where I was


Fitness


If you participate regularly in sports or other physical activity, and you exercise heavily:
● under 30 minutes per week, use 4.   Here is what it bumped me to, today.
● 30-60 minutes per week, use 5.
● 1-3 hours per week, use 6.
● over 3 hours per week, use 7.




Keep in mind that I neither participate in regular sports, nor do physical work, but 3.0 was the happy medium since I was exercising regularly for a few weeks before I got the monitor. 1.0 and 2.0 are setting for no exercise at all.




Peak Heart rate 171
Avg Heart rate 158
"Training Effect" of 5.0-which is the highest it goes. Ive had a 5.0 every day since I got it, so I'm not really surprised that it bumped me up, but it feels good that it did. 

Here is what the last 29 days looks like:

2 days off the horse...

I had a dentist appt and a VA doc appt this week on Tues and Wed, effectively taking away my lunch hour that I use to go to work out. I kind of made a decision that if I was going to work  out several days a week, I didn't want it to cut into my time at home, so I go at lunch.

Incidentally, I got a confirmation from the VA guy yesterday that an issue i've been dealing with for years is definitely connected to my lower back injury and not in my head. It was hard to hear it, but i'm glad that I can point to a reason and we can move forward with dealing with it, and that my suspicions were correct. It wasn't a failing on their part, i've been mentioning it to them since 2002, I just never considered it at the top of my list to deal with.

Back to the gym today.

I felt agitated this morning, knowing that I would not be working out today. How cool is that? I have a dentist appt. this AM that I will carry my lunch hour for (since you can't take sick time except in 4 hour increments, but you can take vacation time in 2?) so I won't  be able to sneak off during the day. My nights are kind of limited since I get off between 5 and 6, so if I went and worked out it would be another hour not home.

Incidentally, Savage Garden came on the radio tonight and I actually didn't want to kill them. Stress relief from exercise, perhaps?

Here is my progression for the last 30 days. You can see when I started actively going to exercise, since just monitoring calories for the first month didn't do a whole lot. I try to keep myself at around 1950 a day, which, according to various BMR calc is about 1500 less than I should need to maintain myself in the low 300s. Doing just that I was gradually dropping a pound or so every week and a half. I also switched scales in there (The little red star around the 6-7th, and found that the one I had been using was 'off' compared to a three beam scale at the gym)

Heart Rate monitor-

I love this thing. I have a Sunnto T4d with a heart strap, that I got used from a watch forum in trade for something I wasn't wearing. This thing ROCKS! It talks to the machine im on so I don't have to fiddle with the cal/counter or the heart rate handles, and since it is strapped to me I feel its probably more accurate than the machine.

I worked out with it on Saturday and I blew off 764 calories in 36 minutes. I skipped Sunday, and then today I did 766 cal/34 minutes. WoOt!

Its nice to not have to worry about holding onto the handles, and I like that it monitors my heart rate and stores it. It also has a 'coaching' function that bases your next workouts from your previous ones. It hasn't learned enough about me, yet, though. I keep working outside of its parameters for my 'activity' level that I programmed into it at the start (slightly above three toe'd sloth).

Here's what my day looked like today. I eat pretty much the same every day, so its simple to keep track of it. See, honey-im eating! (my wife thinks I don't, or something)

ch ch ch changes 2...

 A month ago I went to the VA and got really disappointed. (some of you are thinking, "Its the VA, what's new?")

I had gone in to have an adjustment to my medicine, and to talk about some other things. What ticked me off was that their scale weighed me in at 317.6 lbs. I went home that night and checked my scale against their and it was only ".something" different. This was up 12 lbs from August when I started going in regularly again, with the only substantive change being different medication. Three weeks ago I started going to Anytime fitness more regularly, and keeping track of everything I put in my mouth, daily, just to get a baseline.

This week marks a month since then. Scale weight this morning 309.5.

I do believe that me and the Precor have started the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Kicking Precor's a**

So, today was day five out of five at the gym, boys and girls, and I did what is called "active recovery". That is when you still workout, but less intense. It gives you the benefits of working out, but doesn't cause as much stress, especially if you have been working out a lot. Ive been using either an Adaptive Motion Trainer (elliptical with resistance on all four points of articulation) or an Elliptical without the arms, but ramping up the incline.

I ended up at 502 calories (according to it) in 32 minutes. Thats a hair over 15 cal/min for you calculus majors Yesterday I did 40 minutes and hit 567. So, my 'active recovery' ended up netting an extra cal/min.

Active recovery, ha! Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelt of elderberries.

Here is what my week looked like (facebook people will have to go to oldguynation.blogspot.com to see the graphics, sorry)

The red line is what I ate, the blue line is the amount I set for myself (1945), and the green line is "net" taking exercise into account. 

Here is my calories from exercise for the week, total.

Friday weight

Because I don't want to mess with it tomorrow, and I have to have a day or two to cheat in there, somewhere....

So....*drum roll please....*

Last Sunday I was... I was 315 in the morning.(the bold numbers are the running average)

This morning I am....310. 5 lbs. WoOt! Yes, I know its partially water, but still.....ive maintained it thorough the week while increasing my water intake to some 50-60 ounces a day.