Soon I Will Learn to Stretch

I walked with a limp this week.

Last Saturday, I decided to get in a stairs workout between two of my sons' baseball games. I was worried about my right calf, though, as I had a mild pull in it from softball. But I went ahead, deciding to stretch my vulnerable calf every 100 stairs or so. It worked like a charm, or so I thought. My ailing right calf got through the workout just fine - in fact, better than  fine. 

The reason I picked up a limp is that I didn't stretch my other calf. I did the same quick pre-climb stretching I always do, and got the same post-stair calf soreness I usually get. My left calf was sore...but my right calf actually felt fine (hence the limp). 

The moral of this story is that stretching really does work when you do it. Next time I go stair climbing, I'm going to stretch both calves, before, during and after.

Eating update: My "count everything/no steps back" approach is very promising. I was down another .8 pounds, but more importantly my confidence is soaring. I'll do a big write-up about this soon.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend. And don't forget to stretch!

Two Steps Forward...And No Steps Back

The seasons are changing on my trusty old set of stairs. I've been there in the ice and snow, and seen the spring showers. Last year I stopped stair training after the Big Climb, but this year, I've continued. In fact, I'm mixing in a little stair running. And today I was greeted with a rich array of wildflowers (and, truth be told, some colorful weeds).

But the changing of the seasons also serves to mark my slow progress, considering that I started this journey nearly two and a half years ago. My problem came into stark relief two weeks ago, as I got off track with a few days at a conference, and in the course of a week I had given up hard fought gains. Like probably all of you, I've lost hundreds of pounds, but most of that I've gained back as soon as my eye came off the ball.

My latest resolve is simply this: No steps back.

As I noted last week, I've committed to recording every calorie from every food in the My Fitness Pal app on my smartphone. There had been too much "off the record" eating, and these sessions, often consuming food straight out of a container, wrecked my progress. This week, I logged every calorie, as accurately as reasonably possible.

And I made a helpful decision on my target: anything less than maintenance calories. In the past I've had daily calorie consumption targets ranging from 500 to 1000 calories below my maintenance level. In fact, my calorie tracking app is still set to 1000 calories below, which is theoretically a two pound a week loss. But I  never seem to be able to stay with those ambitious levels day after day, and that's usually when I stop counting for a while. By making a stand to not go over my maintenance level calories, whatever weight I do lose will stay off.

It's not about how much I lose. It's about the daily discipline of staying within myself.

It's What You Do Every Day

Hello! It feels like I need to reintroduce myself after two weeks off from blogging and reading blogs. I've been missing your posts.

Here's what I've been up to. First of all, I post on Sundays and last Sunday my mom and MIL were here, so we celebrated early Mother's Day. I don't get to see my mom often, so I skipped the blog. We had a wonderful day with an indulgent brunch followed by two baseball practices (my mom is the all-time good sport!) Actually, between work and baseball, there hasn't been much time for anything else.

The gator was about 8 feet long. I took this pic from the boardwalk, very carefully :-)

Just before I saw my mom, I traveled to Florida for a conference run by an organization that provides a grant to my employer. This year we saw an alligator in the pond behind our hotel!!! And for those of you not familiar with Florida, there are NO FENCES. All that separated the gator from the hotel pool was about 75 feet of grass.

I've written about this trip before - we go twice a year - and food is ubiquitous. Seriously, they provide breakfast and lunch buffets, AND morning and afternoon snacks. Plus we would go out to dinner. Whoa.

I did better than usual this trip. I took an hour-long walk every morning (3 days in a row), got more sleep than in previous years, and skipped some of the most unhealthy snacks (cookies, brownies, and - would you believe - corn dogs???).

The big problem was that I didn't count my calories. And I am convinced that threw me into a two-week tailspin. Once you stop counting, it's easy to justify not counting. And when I'm not counting, I'm eating by "feel", which is how I got into this mess in the first place. I didn't get way out of control, but I've drifted from the low end of my weight range, back to the middle.

This week, I'm recommitting to COUNTING EVERYTHING, EVERY DAY. My goal for the week is to enter every morsel I eat into My Fitness Pal, as well as getting enough sleep and getting to Inbox Zero. More on this theme next week.

Finally, Happy Mother's Day to all of you and especially to my wife Shannon. We had a great day golfing with the boys and just generally enjoying a lot of family time together.