Resurrection

Hi. I'm back.

A few weeks ago, I suspended my blog because it felt a little bit like the hamster on a wheel show. In other words, I was just writing about not getting anywhere. My hope was that I would get a little more focused and could return to this blog with renewed optimism. I had also just about reached the end of my rope with my health, meaning that training for the Urbanathlon was not allowing my foot to heal, if it even could. So, I decided to back off from training, blogging etc. Let me update you on how that has worked out.

The Good News: My foot feels a lot better. Not perfect, but a lot better. I'm glad to say that giving it rest has been successful in getting rid of the point specific pain which was starting to be a major issue. I was afraid that level of pain might have been permanent and while there is still stiffness, the acute pain has gone away. I have hope that if I get my body where it needs to be, I can run again someday. I was really afraid I had done permanent damage, but rest was still the cure.

The bad news: Although I had great intentions of staying with my fitness plan (just no running) when I backed off Urbanathlon training...I just haven't. In fact I'm 6 pounds heavier than I was 6 weeks ago. It's not that I stopped exercising entirely; I just did it sporadically. This once again demonstrates that my approach has always been flawed. Prior to this time off, I had ramped up my exercise to a pretty impressive level, but my weight loss had been minimal. Obviously that means I was allowing my food intake to grow also. And then, when you back off on the exercise, you are able to gain weight pretty damn rapidly. This is actually a pretty profound insight for me. It makes me see why my "exercise your way to fitness" plan has always failed over time.

Also on the bad news front, life has gotten a little complicated this fall. I've been asked to take on some pretty significant new responsibilities at work, some temporary and some permanent. I do appreciate being seen as someone who can do these things, but it's a lot and I'm spread as thin as I ever have been. In addition, my grandmother is terminally ill which has been difficult for all in my extended family. From my selfish stand point, it has simply meant that I'm not meeting anyone's needs recently. I'm not available at work as much as folks want because there are just so many projects and people right now. I'm working very long hours, so I'm not home as much as I want and I have almost no free time (oh yeah my wife works every other weekend, so we have 4 days per month where my whole family is home together) so I'm feeling like I'm not doing everything I could for family in relation to grandma. The logical part of my brain knows you can't meet all those obligations, but logic and guilt aren't friends. Anyway, for me it means stress and stress means food...

My blood pressure is iffy, my sleep sucks and I need to get a handle on all of that.

The Plan: The plan for the next couple months is simply to lose some weight and take better care of myself in general. I still have dreams of events and the title of the blog holds, but reality is I keep getting hurt at my current weight. I will focus on elliptical machines and rowers and bikes for a while. In addition, I'm going to try to get more serious about strength training. It seems very clear that I am missing that from my fitness history and every article I read says it is the key to weight maintenance.

Around the New Year I'll reevaluate to see if I'm ready to start training for anything in specific. My dad is a regular reader of my blog and suggested that maybe I just focus on biking, since I seem to enjoy that so much. It's an idea of merit and we'll see where it goes. I still like the multi-sport stuff, but as I head for 42 we'll see if this body can do that. Honestly, right now I just want to look better naked and get my health back to a better place.

I keep telling myself to act like I have a health crisis and when you look at my BMI and Blood pressure, it's not acting.

This will also be a good period to see what I want to do with work. If I'm honest, there are parts of it I really like, but none worth dying young for. I meet too many people my age, particularly men, who seem to be trading health for money. It seems I've spent 10 years debating a change, perhaps this year can be the one where I either make one or settle in.

Anyway, I can whine about work somewhere else, this is about trying to be the pig in the bacon and egg breakfast of my health. You remember, the chicken is interested, the pig is committed.

Thanks for your interest and wish me luck or just laugh at my futility in trying again...