Category Archive

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“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” -Henri Bergson

My apologies to those I’ve concerned with my absence. I’ve been taking a break from my online routine, partly in the futile hope that breaking one pattern would lead to change in others and partly from a severe lack of inspiration. Since my blog is mostly about my life, and my life has been fairly static lately, there just hasn’t been much to say. I feel like I’m stagnating, doing the same things over and over again on a daily basis, beating my head against the unyielding wall of unemployment, working out, eating, sleeping. My days all just blend together and I honestly didn’t realize exactly how long it’s been since I updated.

Speaking of working out, I started back with weight training this week, a bit earlier than I had planned. A strictly cardiovascular workout routine just wasn’t doing it for me. I need the intensity of lifting to feel like I’m making progress, I’ve decided to try to change things up with a three day cycle. I’ll do weight training one day, cardio the next, then have a day of rest instead of trying to work out six days straight with one day of recovery. I’m hoping that will give me better results and I’ll be able to stick to the routine. After all, it’s consistency that is the key.

That’s pretty much all that’s been going on. With any luck, there will be some changes soon.

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Well, here we are at the start of a new month. Today is the six month mark in my one year Vow of Temperance and I’m happy to say that I’m still going strong. No alcohol has passed my lips since my fortieth birthday. I’m not even feeling any particular urge to drink at this point. That’s certainly a change from my old habits. Take today, for example. It’s a rainy, cold Saturday. I have the house to myself and no responsibilities to take care of. My default on days like this would be to get a twelve pack of beer and a bottle of something harder, then spend the day watching movies, playing video games and getting schnockered. Not only am I not doing that, but I’m not even fighting the urge. I just have better things to do and I don’t need to wake up tomorrow feeling like crap. It’s kind of a nice change.

In other news, I’m working on getting back on track with my exercise program. My workouts have been too spastic the past few months. I’d spend a couple of days beating the crap out of myself,  miss a week recovering, then feel like I need to make that up and over do it all over again. I need better frequency and more consistency, so my goal for this month is to do less intense workouts more often. I’m going to stick to cardio, no weight training for one month, but an hour of cardio a day for six days a week. I’ll alternate days, so I’ll do Treadmill and Stairmaster one day, then the Rotex and Cardio wave the next. That way I won’t be doing the same thing all the time. I’m also going to start posting my weekly workout results in my blog again to help with motivation.

Sounds like a plan, eh? Now if I could just find a friggin’ job, I’d be set.

… Oh no, wait, it was just New Year’s Morning.

I tell you, if you want to know what it feels like to be the last person on earth, go to a gym at six thirty am on New Year’s Day. I drove in and there were no other cars on the road. (Of course, my gym is just about a mile from my house, but anyway…) When I got there, there were about a half dozen cars in the parking lot, but no one was in sight when I walked in. It was kinda spooky. everything was on and I could hear a bunch of little machine whirs and beeps that you don’t notice when there are people around. The music was on, but no one was working out, no conversations happening, just nothing but myself reflected in the mirrors.

Call me weird, but I found the solitude very enjoyable, not that it will last. Soon, there will be swarms of people with shiny new resolutions descending on my peaceful gym. They come every year, like locusts only sweaty. The good thing is that most of them don’t last more than a month. Those resolutions don’t stay shiny for long. Me, I’m in it for the long haul. I’ll out last the lot of ‘em….

In other news, I finally made a decision on my photo-blog. I shall no longer be updating my Diaryland site. Instead, I’ve opened a Deviant Art account, which can be found by clicking this:

I’ve uploaded about twenty five pictures so far and received several nice comments as well as people adding my work to their favorites. It’s very gratifying, especially since my Diaryland site never got much response. I may also open a photo-blog here on WordPress since Deviant Art only allows members to comment, but for now, I’m content.

In an explosion of originality, I’ll be reviewing my year. Try not to be overwhelmed by my awesomeness.

Well, let’s see…. How about we start with fitness? I worked out on 90 out of the past 365 days, which translates to one day in four being a workout day. Vast room for improvement there. I exercised for a grand total of 143 hours, covering 317 miles, and burning 107,800 calories, which is the equivalent of 30.8 pounds of fat. That’s all good. I’m also proud to say that my body fat percentage is at the lowest it’s ever been since I started keeping track of it. That means the changes I’ve made to my eating (and drinking) habits are working. I just need to strengthen my resolve and be more consistent on my workout schedule.

Financially, I’m totally in the crapper. I lost my job back in June and have yet to find any sort of employment. I have all of seventy dollars in the bank and no income. Finding a job has to be my highest priority at the moment.  On the plus side, I’ve made good progress in improving my photography and set my long term sights on pursuing it as a career. I’ve managed to make it to the finals in one photography contest and had my picture published in their annual. Definitely a good thing there.

Relationship-wise, I’ve made some new friends online and kept good friends offline. I’ve tried to be there for those who’ve needed me, with varying degrees of success, and I’ve managed to avoid doing anything (too) stupid to strain the relationships that truly matter. What mistakes I did make have been addressed and resolved, hopefully to everyones satisfaction. While I have no one in my life romantically, I’m also not feeling all that strong a desire for someone. There’s just too much to fix in my life right now before I’d be comfortable offering myself to someone. I have to be right with myself before I’m right for anyone else.

So, that’s where I’m at right now. All in all, I’m satisfied with the progress I’ve made this year. There’s definitely room for improvement, but I’m confident that I’ll get there. I just have to stay focused, make consistent effort over time, and not try for that magic wand quick fix.

Damn, didn’t that sound all kinds of mature?

Well, this has been an interesting few days. This weekend I was ht by a severe desire to drink. Not just the passing “A beer would taste good right about now” urge I’ve had in the month since I took the Vow of Temperance, but more of a “I want to get so blitzed I don’t even know my name” kind of craving. I’m proud to say that I didn’t give in to the desire. Instead, I tried to figure out what brought it on. Last week was just a regular week, nothing bad happening nor anything to celebrate, so it wasn’t triggered situationally. However, this was the first weekend since I stopped drinking that I didn’t have anything going on, so it could be the default of “I’m bored, so I should drink” combined with the fact of it being over a month since I’ve had any alcohol. What really surprised me was the strength of the urge and the persistence of it. It’s like all weekend part of me was that whiny little kid in the supermarket, begging his mom for candy and just getting louder and whinier the more she says “no”. On Sunday, I had one of those dragging, no energy days and ended up sleeping for sixteen hours. Then Monday came and *poof* the urge was gone. Hopefully, it won’t return.

Today, I had a really good day at the gym. My numbers went up on all the cardio machines and I came out of the workout feeling really good instead of dragging butt. The only snag was that I broke one of the Cardio-wave machines while I was using it.  I was about halfway through my normal routine when one of the pedals just gave way, dropping down to the base of the machine and not coming back up. It must have made quite a noise too ’cause it got the attention of everyone in the gym. Happily, the only damage was to the machine and I finished the rest of my workout without incident. I’m hoping the rest of my week goes much better.

So, yesterday pretty much sucked rocks. The frustration with my CD player set the tone for the whole day. Everything I did was way more complicated than it had to be and idiots abounded in my path. Now I know, intellectually, that a good part of it was the fact that I was already in a foul mood, so every minor irritation was magnified tenfold. Still, it was also one of those days. I went to Best Buy to replace my CD player ’cause I’ve always had pretty good luck with their products and their prices are generally good. However, after searching the entire store, I found all of one style of CD player available and that looked pretty damned similar to the piece of crap I was replacing. Not at all what I had in mind, so I decided to take the leap into the digital age and checked out the MP3 players they had. Luckily the price on those has come way down so I was able to find a nice little two gigabyte model for only twice what I’d hoped to spend. Still, two gigs is plenty for my needs and I have to admit, after using it at the gym this morning, that this thing is sweeeeet. I’ve got four hundred sixty songs on it. The sound is crystal clear and, on random play, each song segues smoothly into the other without any annoying lag while it decides what (and if) to play next. It was so nice to be able to just enjoy the music, let my mind drift, and get into my workout again. That’s something I just wasn’t able to do in the six months I was using that piece of crap Coby CD player. That’s COBY…. C…O…B…Y. Their products are garbage. Don’t buy their stuff.

Speaking of workouts, I’m pleased to report that I exercised 15 out of 31 days in October for a total of 20.1 hours. I went a distance of 52.5 miles and burned 15,750 calories which is the equivalent of 4.5 pounds of fat. I’m fairly pleased with myself on that and I plan on making November even better.

I just got back from the gym and I’m feeling extremely aggravated. My cheap ass CD player decided it was only going to play half of any song if it was going to play anything at all, so the whole workout was just one long bout of frustration. This thing has been nothing but trouble since I got it and I spend way too much time at the gym to put up with this on a daily basis. So, now I get to go out and spend money I don’t have on a new CD player I can’t really afford. Then, I’m going to come home, get a hold of a heavy, blunt object and smash this friggin’ thing into little….tiny….pieces.

Well, I’m feeling pretty damn good about myself at the moment. I just got back from the gym and I had one of the best workout sessions I’ve had in quite a while. For the past few weeks, I’ve been concentrating on cardiovascular exercise exclusively and I have to say that my energy level has been going through the roof. The plan is to take a break from the weight training and push the cardio for overall conditioning until the end of the month when I’ll get back on track with the lifting. So far, it’s been working very well. In the past ten days, I’ve done 11 hours of exercise, burning 8,813 calories and putting in just over 30 miles of distance. Considering that two out of those ten days were rest days, I’m feeling pretty proud of those numbers. The intensity of my workouts has also jumped up up, with my average physical index increasing from an average of 15 to 20 per workout.

All in all, I feel really good. I’ve been in a better mood, more sociable and a way better attitude about everything. I’ve just got to keep this up.

We all know what the ‘taint‘ is, right? Well, if you ever should happen to rub a raw spot on that particular area ( Perhaps by spending forty five minutes on a treadmill with oddly bunched underwear, just sayin’ ) do not, I repeat, NOT spray the irritated area with Lanacane First Aid Pain Spray. OH…MY…GOD! That was almost as bad as the time I got the bright idea to use Ben-gay as a “personal lubricant”.

As part of my continuing quest for physical fitness….. Well, actually fitness in general, not just in the body….. I have started doing a Yoga routine in the afternoons. I rented a DVD that starts you off with a basic 12 pose routine that takes about 45 minutes to do. I intend to add this to my regular workout program. I’ll be doing weight lifting/cardio in the mornings and then Yoga in the afternoon, but for the first week, I’m strictly doing the Yoga. That way my body has a chance to adjust to the new exercises. I figured trying to do it all at once was asking for trouble.

I’ve only been at it a couple of days, but so far, I really like it. My flexibility is in drastic need of improvement, and Yoga’s really good at that, but it’s the meditative qualities that I think I enjoy the most. Just taking some quiet time to focus on my breathing with no outside distractions is invigorating. I realize part of it is just that “trying something new” excitement, but I really do feel more focused and serene at the end. I’ve even taken a few extra minutes just to sit and breathe without stretching at the end of the program.  I think I need that focus. I spend a lot of time trying to distract myself or with a bunch of thoughts just swirling around in my head. It’s nice to take some time and just make everything quiet and settled.

Heh, maybe with practice, I can expand that feeling into more of my life.