Nutrition update: Weighed in this morning and...(drum roll please), I weighed 195 pounds! That is correct, I gained a pound. Needless to say I felt frustrated and disappointed. I suppose my diet hasn't been all that disciplined as I tried to get away from the online tracker. I just so desperately want to be able to eat healthfully without tracking every bite, but I'm not sure I'm there yet. On the other hand, I just stopped tracking last week, maybe I can get there? It's all so confusing and I hate that a scale number impacts my day that way.
So, I'm going to let go of the tracker for a while and save the $9 a month since I'm not using it effectively anyway. I have so much evidence other than the scale that I'm making progress. My clothes fit better, I sleep better, I have more energy, and I look better naked (not good, just better:). Just because I haven't hit the magic number yet doesn't make this all pointless and right now tracking and measuring isn't making it fun. So, I'm going to concentrate on increasing my fitness, making good dietary choices on a daily basis, and enjoying the process a bit more. I'll still weigh in on Tuesdays, because I need that, but I need a better approach to nutrition.
When I use the food tracker, it seems that I evolve into a game of saving or earning enough calories to eat a lot of food, and often crappy food, at night. That is not a sustainable pattern and a focus on calories takes me there. So, for now, I'll focus on training and putting better fuel in my body. If I don't have better results by the Urbanathlon, then we'll adjust again. I know I need to lose weight, but maybe getting it lower on the goal list will make this more fun.
Exercise update: I took my daughter to her log rolling class tonight and used the opportunity to take a treadmill run. It felt terrible until I warmed up, but after than I did just over 4 miles in just over 40 minutes. The older I get, the longer it takes to get warm running. I suppose that makes sense and maybe I'd be better served if I warmed up more before running. I usually just walk a couple minutes and then start running and each mile move the dial up .1/mph. It takes about 10 minutes for it to feel good, so maybe I should warm up for 10 on something less jarring.
I worry most about my weight when it comes to running. I can bike heavy and fat people even float better, but a heavy guy running seems to have more joint trouble and pulled muscles etc. This alone is reason enough to keep making better food choices. I'd like to get through that Urbanathlon and extra weight does not help.
Today is day three without Diet Pepsi and I'm hoping a few months of that might pay dividends as well. I did feel fatigued this afternoon but I drank water instead and seemed to find better energy than caffeine energy.
All of that may sound noble, but I was jonesing for a soda for much of the day.
Random Musing: I'm offering a Framework for Understanding Poverty training next week out in Tomah for staff at the extended campuses. I'm really looking forward to that. It feels like important work and I think I'm pretty good at it. One of my frustrations at work is that I think you should try to be great at something and I don't always have a picture of what a great dean would even look like. On the other hand, when it's just me leading an activity or doing my own project, the path seems clearer.
I met a guy in Minneapolis a couple years ago and he said something that stuck with me. We were talking about an approach to education called Restitution and I was trying to understand it at a granular level so I could implement it. The gentleman could see I was struggling with it. It's due to a rare form of perfectionism, where if I'm not sure I can totally do something correctly, I just don't start. Weird I know, but it's true.
Anyway, Dan (the guy in Minneapolis in this circular tale), came over and told me about Bruce Lee. He said that Bruce Lee's martial arts didn't follow any particular invented discipline at the time. Instead he just got so remarkable and excellent at what he was doing that they decided he had invented a new discipline of sorts. The lesson was, don't worry about being perfect or replicating something, worry about being so remarkable at something that people can't help but pay attention. I haven't found my something yet (sometimes I think it's talking to groups), but the lesson seems spot on.
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