A face only a mom could love? Even Mom might have questioned this one.
This past week I have been über active. On Monday and Wednesday I did an early morning boot camp, getting to the YMCA to participate in grueling exercises designed to make someone functionally fit, or vomit.
On the other days I found other things to do, except for maybe Thursday.
On Sunday I generated the face you see here at the The Color Run in Seattle. It’s a 5K starting at the Seattle Center, down and back Second Avenue and finishing back at the center. The weather was perfect, I managed to finish and the event really was fun. The distance may be 5k, but the way they have things set up no one could really do it for time. You start wherever you line up, where other races have people packed in spaces related to their pace. I did intervals and once we got to Second Avenue I was jogging through the walkers in the group ahead of us. Diana called the race a “Try to run a 5k” race,” because pretty much everyone has to walk as some point. At each kilometer there are volunteers throwing colors at the runners. With the sweat I generate it caked on pretty good. I had one guy ask to get his picture taken with me.
Overall I lost 0.2 pounds during the week. I’ve been involved with a Biggest Loser (Looser) group for two weeks and so far all I’ve lost is a couple of pounds and a couple of bucks. It could be worse, right?
The Kings are happy and I am, too. But unlike the fans you see in the background I am restrained from making too public a display of my joy over the Kings' 4-0 series win over the St. Louis Blues.
I am man of my word.
For as long as I’ve been aware that Los Angeles had a hockey team I’ve rooted for that team. They’re not like the Dodgers to me. It’s not that co-dependent. Still, I root for the Kings. I regularly check the standings to see how they are doing, at least once a month. Then I ask my coworkers how they’re doing and what their chances are in the playoffs. I have coworker who loves the Vancouver Canucks. He goes to see them on occasion.
The Kings, on the other hand, have never been seen by me, except on television. No NHL team has been seen by me. There were those minor league hockey glory days I caught in Salt Lake City, but that’s it.
So now the Kings have defeated both the Canucks and the St. Louis Blues, the favorite team of all teams for my nephew. For him I committed to not gloat. So I won’t brag that the Kings have now defeated the Western Conference No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in order and are about to face the No. 3 seed, assuming the Phoenix Coyotes continue their dominance of the Nashville Predators. I will not boast that the Kings are 8-1 in the playoffs this year, that they likely have the best goalkeeper in the game.
I don't watch hockey a lot, but the guy in the white shirt was supposed to keep that little black thing out of there. Now he has to go home.
I am too much a man of my word to do any of that. For sure I don’t want my nephew to feel any worse about the fact that his team totally sucked against mine, which in all fairness to both of us should have been the other way around. I’m so casual about hockey that most years I can’t tell you who won the cup even if it happened the day before. The Kings are my team, sure. I’m not necessarily a fair-weather fan, because I root for them even when they are bad, which is pretty much the case every year except two that the team has existed. I remember when four out of five teams from a division would make the playoffs and usually it was the Kings who got left out. I still rooted for the Kings. I just couldn’t always be counted on to pay attention.
Reggie, on the other hand, lives for the Blues. He sports a Blues tattoo. I’d consider a permanent Dodger ink spot, but putting the Kings on my back would probably start more conversations than I’d be willing to have.
So for Reggie, I won’t celebrate publicly my excitement over the post-season success of the 2012 Los Angeles Kings, who could very well be the best team in hockey, who might kick royal butt on the Yotes and then some collection of chumps from the Eastern Conference to bring to Los Angeles the Stanley Cup for the first time (The Disney Ducks don’t count.) until Sunday afternoon. (There is a timer over in the right column to remind me when time’s up.)
Reggie asked for a week before I celebrate in front of him. I promised I would wait, so on my honor I declare that I will.
I made the decision more than a week ago to join the YMCA. I left work and drove over there and enrolled the whole famn damily and surprised Diana. She wasn’t necessarily thrilled until she went there herself and saw the palace. I kind of already went over this. The machines elliptical machines are Jetsonish and they have these stationary bikes that put you in a mock road race. I really like those, because otherwise I hate exercise bikes.
One of my first days there I saw a friend and he told me about the early morning boot camp. When I joined I was hot on the idea of doing classes, maybe Tai Chi or something. A boot camp, however, sounded like the ideal thing, especially when he said I could do the exercises at my own pace. At first I thought this would be something I would do eventually, but I signed up for a 12-week beginner’s exercise monitoring thing the Y offers and the coach there said “Why eventually?” Again, she told me I could do things at my own pace.
So this morning I got up at 4 a.m., which meant last night getting to bed by 10 p.m. I wasn’t absolutely committed to going and once I went I wasn’t committed to doing the exercises. I thought I might watch to see if it were something I could do. When I got to the gym, though, I chose in and did my best. My butt was thoroughly kicked, but it’s exactly the kind of stuff I want to do. So as of right now I plan to go back. It’s a tough call, in a way, because I’m not normally an early riser. I guess I can become one, eh.
OK, so now I’m an early riser.
The exercises include different kinds of push ups, none of which I can do fully; sit ups, which I really can’t do that well; lunges, which I can’t do fully; and other stuff I can’t really do. I mean I’m about 200 pounds overweight, so there is stuff I can’t do. I can do a lot, though, especially for my size. It was hard work and I’m tired, but I know from doing things like this in the past that if I lose weight and continue doing this kind of exercise, then a few days from now I’m going to notice that I feel like I can do more with my body than I could before.
Afterward I shot a few baskets just to make sure I did something fun. Now it’s 7:45 and I’m about to leave for work, which is an early start for me. I imagine around 10 or so I’ll be battling to stay awake. I’m sure there’s something for that.
The Atlantic half of the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.
In reading last week’s post I recognize I didn’t ever explain why I went to DC, and I said I would. I had envisioned doing an entire post on the trip, but here we are a week later and I have yet to do that.
So, suffice to say that most of you know that my day job is covering politics and government. The DC seminar was focused on the changing political landscape thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. That has spawned the emergence of SuperPACs, which can essentially take huge donations and spend tons of money supporting or opposing individual candidates, something they were prohibited from doing before. That has the most implications in the presidential race, but could become an issue locally as well. Over two days of classes I learned some of the technical details themselves on how to find who the donors are and where they spend their money. The most interesting piece of the weekend for me was a discussion of what donors get in return.
The trip was great for information I received, but it was also great in that it gave me a chance to see DC again. I first went there when I was 18, traveling with my parents after we had driven from California to Missouri to attend my brother Jim’s wedding. We made a nationwide tour of it, skipping New York City. DC was amazing to me then and it continued to be during my two college internships there and it was last week. It’s been too long since I’ve been back, so I left Sunday with a desire to return often.
As for the real purpose of this blog post, two developments could shape my future and my shape. One is that our friend Tristalene Morgensen began another local “Biggest Loser” contest. It’s spelled “Biggest Looser,” on the Facebook board, which is appropriate in its own way, because our clothes should become “looser.” It looks like 17 of us will compete for 12 weeks to lose the biggest percentage of body weight. I did pretty well last time around, but fell back toward the end and didn’t place. I’m in it to win it this time.
The second piece is I signed the family up for a YMCA membership. The facility here in Silverdale is an absolute palace and feels like kind of a resort. I signed up for the 12-week fitness program they offer, but I’m really looking forward to hanging out in some of the classes.
On my own these past couple of weeks I have not done well in going moment to moment making decisions to be healthy. I did well Sunday though, and that’s a start.
I’m still big. No news there. What was news was the almost big problem in the sky.
This weekend I had a chance to go to a Sunlight Foundation seminar in Washington, D.C. I’ll post more about DC later. What I want to get to are the flights.
Why Houston would be a good connecting point on the way to DC is beyond my pay grade, but that’s another issue. It was almost four and a half hours to Houston, then another two and a half to DC. Same time in reverse coming back.
On Thursday I was stressed about the flight, wondering if I would have the same luck on United that I have on Southwest. Being a big guy, a fat guy at that, I had to ask for seatbelt extenders on the flights to Las Vegas, but not on the last flight coming home.
On the first leg Friday I found my seat and learned quickly I would fit just fine, that the seats are roughly the same as on Southwest. I did need the extender, but I had an aisle seat on both legs and the flights generally went fine.
On the first leg back I got the extender and sat on the aisle and it was all good.
On the final leg I had a middle seat and I was one of the last ones on the plane. I got to my row and pointed to it and the guy on the aisle said, “Uh uh, this isn’t going to work.” I told him I tried to get my seat switched, but that didn’t really matter. I was a little frustrated that he was not going to at least let me try to sit in my seat first before rendering judgment. He tried to sit somewhere else, something I was rooting for. The flight attendant was diplomatic with both of us, but told me I might have to buy a second seat. I didn’t get to argue that I had fit just fine on the other three legs. When it became clear there was no way the flight wasn’t going to fill up, I moved over to that middle seat and fastened my seatbelt. I didn’t need an extender. I put the armrest down and it went down fine.
I don’t need a second ticket, but I’m pretty close.
In fact I’m kind of surprised and relieved this isn’t an issue for me more. I’m big enough that some people must certainly give thanks they’re not forced to sit next to me. As it was the flight was perfectly comfortable. I don’t think the guy had a real problem. I told him in the end I was glad he protested, though, because I needed to hear that message, that I make people uncomfortable. Somehow I fit just fine in an airplane seat, but in a way that’s beside the point. It shouldn’t be that close a call.
This weekend I travel to Washington, D.C. for a seminar on campaign finance. While I am terribly excited to be traveling again, I do have a little anxiety about being so big on an airplane sitting next to someone I don’t know. I fly from Seattle to Houston, then Houston to D.C. on Friday and make the reverse trip on Sunday. I know I’ll survive whatever happens, but this is a tangible reminder of why losing weight is so important to me. I don’t want to always have this fear about traveling.
No milestones hit this week and after seven days my weight stayed essentially flat. After the week before and losing 9 pounds I had hoped for even a few ounces of progress but it started heading north pretty quickly.
As I’ve said before, weight is a bit of an imperfect way to measure health, but it’s the best one I’ve got.
A few ounces would have put me ahead of where I was when I regrouped before, and I am certain I’ll be there again.
One way I heard about three decades ago to boost metabolism is to have a one-day feast. My weight wasn’t going anywhere good, so I decided to give it a try. I don’t know that this will work again, but it seemed to this week. My weight, despite my conscious effort to focus on the next day’s scale, wasn’t moving in the right direction day after day. Again, there may have been more than my diet affecting that, but I wanted to shake things up. On Friday I ate a lot. On Saturday I went back to my new regular way of eating and was even down from where I’d been. By Sunday I was back close to where I was a week ago.
Here’s to passing my former low this week and maybe even being able to pass 30. If I do, I’ll let you know.
Does a car with a name run better? Let’s assume it does, because the other benefits of giving a car a name take too long to explain.
It’s those reasons, though, that had me a little bummed when my car broke down and I feared it was dead. I’ve been driving it a few years and had yet to name it. I’ll concede there are no tangible benefits to giving a car a name. In fact, it might even be counterproductive. A car should probably be treated like the machine it is. But that’s not very fun. And giving a car a name, especially to a car you don’t like, can make driving it a little more palatable.
I only picked this car by default. My dad was driving it, couldn’t drive anymore, so I inherited it. It’s a 1998 White Ford Taurus. I’ve never understood why Tauruses are so omnipresent on American roads. When I graduated from college and got my first job, even before I reported the first day, I bought a Jetta. Named it Biff, because Biff in those days suggested a bit of snobbery. (Egads, Biff, this caviar tastes common.) A Jetta wasn’t a BMW, but it was more than my friends who were still in college could afford. We named my friend’s Mazda 626 “Hoffy” as in Hoffman, when my friend graduated.
The runner up
In coming up with a name for the Taurus, I consulted Wikipedia and found a list of people who died in 1998. Phil Hartman was in there and for about a day I thought I had settled on naming my car Lionel Hutz, a character Hartman voiced on “The Simpsons.” But Hutz is incompetent. The Taurus may be uncool, but it’s not incompetent.
Then I thought of another actor who, like Hartman, is often a memorable, but supporting, character. On Sundays when I’m out in the Taurus I often get to listen to the NPR show “The Tobolowsky Files.” Stephen Tobolowsky, in case the name doesn’t immediately draw your memory, makes an appearance in nearly every movie and television show. He is almost never the star, but his parts are memorable. Know why Mr. Schuester teaches the glee club. It’s because Mr. Ryerson got in trouble. Tobolowsky plays Ryerson on “Glee.” It’s not a regular role, but it’s frequent and usually worth remembering.
That’s Tobolowsky’s role in show business, for the most part. He could win an Oscar one day for best supporting actor. If someone were to make a movie of my life, I wouldn’t want Tobolowsky playing me, but I’d want him in the movie. And take that storyline and attach it to our highways and you have the Ford Taurus. When was the last time you went on a drive of any length and did so without seeing a Taurus? Did it make you want one? I didn’t think so. They’re not cool, but they’re everywhere. And you know what? They work just fine.
It’s because of all this that I have named my car after one of Tobolowsky’s characters, who shares the same last name as his Glee character. From Groundhog Day, I give you Ned “Needle-nose” Ryerson.
My first trip back on the running trail was on this one at Battle Point Park on Bainbridge Island, Wash. Saturday.
If this were the old days, like two months ago, this would be a big week of celebration. I lost 9 pounds in a week, news that is tempered somewhat by fact that I still am not quite back down to my lowest weight since I started this and by the fact that I checked the scale this morning and I gained a pound from the Easter feast.
As I am now stepping on the scale every day, for a few days in a row I kind of prepared to see weight gains on the scale. It wasn’t that I thought I had done poorly the day before; it’s just that I know measuring pounds are not a completely accurate indicator of health when I’m looking at it every day. One-day weight movement may have more to do with muscles or some other body function (I’m trying to be delicate here.) than it does fat. So I would go to the scale knowing that I had rocked it the day before and could still see my weight go up for a day.
Today was the first day that happened, though I didn’t really rock it yesterday. I had dessert. Dinner wasn’t terribly fatty, but it wasn’t fiber-rich either. And there were those tortilla chips earlier in the day. ¡Ay, hombre!
There may have been some muscle weight added, but I would have expected to see that show up on Sunday’s weigh in. I ran for 30 minutes on Saturday for the first time in several weeks. Plus I did some standing squats after the run to strengthen my legs for the next run, which is today.
Next time you’ll see an update is when I pass 376.2. I’m only 1.2 pounds away from that, so if I do my job it shouldn’t take long.
One-day results on the scale can be deceiving, something I’ll have to remember when the news is bad. This morning, however, the number was good. It was really good. It was 378.8, which means I’m back to having lost more than 25 pounds.
The program I’m doing is pretty simple. I eat regularly and well, but less. I don’t get famished and I don’t get full. And I remember that in the morning I’m going to step on the scale.
As a bonus my hip doesn’t hurt and the heel pain I have with the plantar fasciitis is way down. It may be time to hit the jogging trail again.
Talk to you on Monday, unless another milestone happens sooner.
