Happy Birthday, Doughboy, 1 month later

- 2 minutes read - 420 words

I’ve not posted about this because, well, I didn’t want to flame-out in public.

DOR

Not gonna D-O-R

1 month ago I started my quest to relieve my midsection of an amorphousness that had surfaced there over the last decade or so. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel freakish about it. To the contrary, I feel incredibly average about it.

I hate averageness.

So, in a putting my foot down against a slide in a very wrong direction, I bought the hideous red shoes and have now completed 1 month of training to make some small, regular changes that will hopefully return me to better health.

Run thrice weekly until I reach the 20 minute sustained run mark

I’m doing well with this. I’ve made the 3x weekly commitment without fail but plateaued a bit on my up-scaling from “run 1 minute three times.” I’m currently stuck at the run 3 / walk 4, three times, setup. I’m stitching up in minute 2-2:30 on my right side. It’s the damnedest thing.

I’m told that it’s a sign that I need to stall and get more comfortable, so I’m doing that. I want to run a 5K in November (the whole thing), so that’s the near-term goal.

Lose a roughly pound a week until I hit 200 lbs

I’m told that at 5'10" my acceptable weight is between 195 and 205. I figure, split the difference. I started at 214 and as of yesterday I’m about 210. I know the first several come off easy, so I’m not throwing any victory parties.

Make good choices

I’m also restricting my calories to < 1200 per day. This means a lot of little choices: only one Tacodeli taco.

Fortunately Lauren and I go dancing twice per week. I’m going to try to get another day or two in there.

Drop cream

Mmm..cream, I love you so in coffee. But you are no longer in the picture. I’m going to try to move to black coffee in the next month or so…but I’m not there yet.

Mental Exercise: Read more

I love reading, I always have. But since I got into programming and took up an occupation I just let this slide. Thanks to the totally sweet Kindle Lauren got me, my compulsion to push buttons and my love of reading are making sweet music together. Thus far I have read 4 books since my birthday: Moose (about handling your weight), the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, The Wordy Shipmates, and Cloris Leachman’s autobiography.