ben.parmeter

The year 2011 just flew by.  I’m happy to report that after a year of dedication to a new weight loss strategy, I actually got some pretty good results.  Let’s re-wind a little.  Way back in April of 2011, I briefly touched on my efforts to lose some weight over the course of the year.  Back then, I was talking about this new fad diet and how I had little motivation to exercise.  At the beginning of the year, I started the slow carb diet (inspiration from Tim Ferriss) and started meticulously documenting my weight and body fat percentage daily (also documented my measurements).  I’m proud to say I kept it all up over the entire year.

Only one thing has changed since then. I’m still on that fad diet and I still haven’t found my motivation to exercise.   However, my weight has dropped pretty drastically despite my sedentary nature.  I dropped over 40 pounds during the year to be more accurate.  That’s more than three (3) average sized bowling balls worth of extra weight that I was carrying with me everywhere, putting stress on my bones, my heart and my mind.

This is great and all, but there is another good 10 or so pounds that I need to drop to be back in the normal weight category (right now, I’m still overweight for a 6’1″ dude).  So, this year I resolve to actually start that exercise at least a couple of times a week to move that body-fat percentage down even more, and hopefully lose those last 10 lbs in the process.  I’ve been thinking that getting back into running again might do the trick.  However, Suzy and turned me on to this whole rebounding thing which involves a trampoline (how fun is that?).  While I feel pretty silly effectively bouncing on a tiny trampoline (and probably look pretty silly too), it leaves my muscles sore and jelly-like after only 20 minutes of jumping.  Seriously… even my abdominal muscles are sore.  NASA can’t be wrong about this… 

For additional motivation, I’m posting my 2011 data here (call it a public humiliation diet tactic).  I apparently love fads… slow-carb, rebounding, public humiliation.  I’m such a chump.

A few months back I finally kicked off a new diet plan.  I hit that moment of clarity where I just said to myself, damn, I’m too fat.  This really has to stop.  It’s like the scales finally tipped (pun intended), as if my sloth-like apathy for any kind of food management had finally reached its apogee.  I had recently gone into my new doctor for an introductory appointment and was going through the list of things that were wrong with me.  That’s when the doctor oh-so-slyly added, “…and you know you are overweight, right?”  Crackle, crackle – Ding!  That’s the sound of the small dim light bulb in my head flickering on.  Yeah, it was well and truly time.

Because I can’t do anything too boring, I decided to try out something new.  One might even call it a fad.   Ok, it’s definitely a fad.  One might even call it daft.  I’m trying out the Slow-Carb diet (yeah, just google it).  Unless you’ve been living in a cave, under a rock, on another planet, etc., then you’ve probably heard of a low-Carb diet.  Well, this is similar, but instead of eating deliciously carby things like bread, sugar, fruits, beer, etc., you replace those things with lots and lots of beans.  Legumes.  Pinto, Black, Lentil, Refried, and so on.

Let me tell you, it’s easy to get tired of beans.  I mean, I love beans as much as the next guy, but try eating them all the time for a couple of months.  It gets pretty boring.  But it seems to be slowly but steadily working.  Though I haven’t seen the incredible results that some claim to get, I have seen much progress.  I’m down over 16 pounds since I’ve started this thing and I feel pretty darn great.

Now here is the shocker.  I have not exercised one tiny… little… bit.  I have maintained my sedentary existence, parked in front of a computer all day, barely lifting a mouse.  I even have a fancy gadget to lift the handset from my desk phone so that I can use my headset. Yes.  Shameful indeed.

With that said, I can accelerate my weight loss, and actually gain energy (so they say) if I just started exercising… even a tiny little bit every other day.  But I don’t.  Why?  I’m really not sure.  I think I need… just a bit of motivation.

I know I should get out of bed just a little early, throw on those running shoes and bag a mile tomorrow morning.  One measly mile.  But I consistently hit the snooze.  Sleep is too awesome to be squandered on some sweaty, heart-pounding, lung-stinging, morning run.

As you can see – I need some help here folks.  Motivate me.

Pat, Cynthia and I bagged the summit of Pyramid Peak (in the Desolation Wilderness) this weekend. We wanted something intense (perhaps even murderous) with plenty of high elevation as preparation for the Mt. Whitney trek coming up soon. Pyramid Peak gave us the challenge we needed with an approximate 7.5 mile round trip and an elevation gain of 4100ft. (summit at 9983ft.). The first mile is a real challenge and took it’s toll on all of us. You can really feel the lack of air at that altitude and I think it was a good prep for what’s in store for us at Mt. Whitney. The day after, I’m a bit stiff, but feeling much more confident that I’ve got the chops to hack it at 14,000ft.

Check out the gallery of photos here which includes the an altitude chart, topographic maps, and satellite imagery.

I literally watched a guy get knocked out yesterday. It was a pretty traumatic experience really, although most of us at the scene tried to put up a facade of calm strength and confidence. But it was hard to watch when this all unfolded. I’m hoping that writing about it will bring some closure to the experience.

It was the first half with approximately 2 minutes to go before half-time of our indoor soccer game. The man from the opposite team was driving hard down the field toward the goal (I was playing goalie this particular game). One of our players was right at his hip trying to defend as best he could. The player from the other team decided to kick the ball square into the wall (a bit of a sloppy and unconventional tactic, but not totally out of the ordinary) which the ball promptly ricocheted back off of in another direction. The player defending from our side was a bit more agile and changed directions rapidly to track the ball. The attacking players momentum was just too much and he collided with the wall with incredible force. Unfortunately for him, he must have absorbed a lot of that force into his skull because he immediately fell onto his back on the ground, completely unconscious.

It was a strange 3 seconds while we watched to see if he was going to get up. He didn’t. His arms and legs twitching, eyes half open rolled back. I started to run over to him, since he was only about 25 feet away from me. One of the girls from the opposite team also came running up to assist yelling “Call 911!”. I was glad she was so quick to respond with instructions because I wasn’t even thinking about calling for help at that point. I was intent on making sure the guy was still breathing.

When I got to his side, his arms were starting to curl up and he was indeed breathing, labored (almost snoring) breaths. It was a bizarre and macabre sight as his brain must have gone into some sort of auto-reboot mode. He lay there convulsing, unresponsive with several of us leaning over him. One of the girls from the other team was at his side, instantly trying to speak to him, telling him not to go to sleep. Another woman, spectator, who I speculate was his mother entered the field and began to cry hysterically. That sent a wave of hysteria over another girl standing close by as she watched in horror. I began saying to the two crying women that he was going to be OK, and that he was breathing and that’s a really good sign. This seemed to help calm them down. At this point the mother was summoned to get some ice and to speak to the 911 operators on the phone.

Eventually, after an agonizing few minutes, the man began to regain consciousness. He began to communicate, but it was clear that he was still unable to move or was unaware of his surroundings. He said he felt sick, and started to sit up, even as we told him not to move. At this point, the mother was back with the ice which we put behind his head, wrapped in a soccer jersey. At this point it was clear that he was going to recover, but most likely would have a severe concussion. I walked back to the sidelines where the teams had gathered.

The ambulance arrived incredibly quickly and we watched as the put the man in a neck brace and eventually on the stretcher. The man vomited a few times before being wheeled off the field and into the ambulance. The mother and a few of the woman players were sobbing. It was a horrible scene.

And that was it. They whisked the man away in the ambulance. We finished playing the last 12 minutes of the game, of which the opposing team played extremely hard, surprisingly. We were really too shell shocked to put up much of a fight after that. We ended up winning the game by a point, in the end, but we still don’t know what has become of the man. I sincerely hope he’s OK.

Now that the Whitney trip is “on”, I’ve been obsessing about the details. I’ve also started what I call mini daily-doubles. This is probably a story for another time, but we used to have one to two weeks of daily-doubles to get conditioned for the up-coming soccer season in high school. It was brutal, with two hours of practice in the mornings and two hours in the afternoons. It was pretty much just running, sprints, running, other painful fitness activities and more running. Anyway, I’m now going to try to maintain a regimen of training twice a day. In the mornings before work, I’ve been going to the gym and working out on the elliptical machine (which I believe will help build up those quads for the 6000ft. plus climb). In the evenings, when it’s cool outside, I run through the neighborhood. The first couple of nights were torture on my body. I could barely squeak out 2 miles in 20 minutes and I felt as if my lungs, calves, and quads were on fire. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve trained. But something magic happened on the third night and I felt great. I managed to bang out 2 miles in 14 minutes. The diet is also going pretty well too. I’m managing to watch my calories pretty well. I’m keeping my intake around 2000 calories a day which is pretty darn low for a big guy like me. Too low maybe?

Enough about that junk. I’ve also been obsessing about what kind of food to eat on the mountain over the three day trek. We had some advice from Paul Richins at the seminar a couple weeks back, but it was pretty much the standard menu. I’m also intimidated by Cynthia, who apparently puts together a pretty amazing culinary package on her trips. At least that’s what Pat tells me. It’s killing me to know what’s up her sleeves for this one. It’s immature, but in my head I fancy a competition to see who can hike in the best meal. I think she’s the top contender. Maybe with a little research I can put something together that is lightweight (yet filling), nutritious, and tasty. Usually you have to compromise in one of those areas – that’s the challenge.

It’s Iron Chef, backpacker style. Game on.

Over the weekend, I took Suzy out to a fancy dinner at the local fancy dinner place. In fact, this place is suit worthy, meaning I had to dig into the closet and dust off the old jacket and pants. It’s actually something I dread now, because it’s one of those things where the reality slaps me hard in the face. This reality is, of course, that I’ve let myself go. As I put the pants on, I noticed that they were just a bit tighter than usual, which wasn’t a big concern. But the wake-up call didn’t really strike me until I put the jacket on. As I strained to button the jacket up, it struck me that I must have added at least a couple of inches of girth to my chest (and that’s not muscle folks). So I went the entire night with my jacket buttons unbuttoned, in general discomfort because of the tightness of everything. And on Sunday, I decided to jump on the scale to confirm my fears. Sure enough. My weight has literally sky-rocketed. I’ve shot up 12+ pounds since prior to the wedding last year. That’s incredible to me and is a serious awakening. All of this lead me to remember an episode of Family Guy where Chris realizes he’s fat and that it’s a bad thing. Here’s an excerpt:

Pool Security: I’m sorry sir, you can’t park your van on the diving board.
Lois: This is my son.
Pool Security: Oh, my apologies. Hey, Tom. He’s not a van, he’s just a fat kid!

Click here for the YouTube Clip.

Or this one…

Security Guard: Alright son, just give me those hams. (reaches into Chris’ shirt)
Chris: I NEED AN ADULT! I NEED AN ADULT!!!
Security Guard: Oh, your not a shoplifter, you’re just a fat kid, aren’t you, fatty fat fattington!

Click here for the YouTube Clip.

Truly hilarious. My increased mass, however, is not hilarious. It’s time to get serious. Time to buckle down and start the fitness routine back up. Time to eat smaller healthier portions. No more pizza, carnitas, or beer. It’s time to get hard-core serious about weight loss. It’s for my health after all – and if I’m going to be climbing a mountain in a month I had better shed some pounds. It’s back to FitDay.com, and possibly Traineo.com, from now on I’m going to use restraint and whip my body back into shape. Time to go jog.

I have resolved to lose approximately 20 pounds in just two short months. That’s alot of weight folks. Alot. And it may be folly, but I am going to try my darndest. I’m off to an reasonably good start and have been working out almost everyday since Sunday of last week. Sure – I took Friday off last week to do some partying and Monday off this week due to a small emergency, but I’m back in the saddle. I’ve been hitting the gym (or the pavement) every night. I started off with just short jogs and I’m slowly working back into those 20 minute 2+ mile daily workouts. I’m also half heartedly starting to lift weights again too. I want to regain that definition I had at the peak of my fitness. Tonight I signed up for traineo which I found on digg.com a week ago – it’s a web 2.0 “fitness community”. Buzzwords galore – but at first blush it seems really promising. You can check my page out here and watch my progress. The difference with this site is that you can assign motivators to help you achieve your goals. Hopefully this motivates me to keep this up. It’s like a mixture of MySpace and 24-Hour-Fitness. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: I’m fickle.  I’m switching to http://www.fitday.com/ (Thanks for hooking me up Suzy!)  Sure, it’s interface is clunky and doesn’t have all of that bubbly web 2.0 design, but it’s got features that traineo hasn’t got yet.  It allows you to enter in the food I eat with more detail (and in calories).  It’s got the roughly same activity and weight tracking tools, but allows you to enter more than three activities (hugely crippled in traineo).  My only gripes, it’s not as pretty, there isn’t a “community” feature, the graphs are a bit wonky (not linear), and the “public journal” feature actually shows my weight.  Yup - you can see just how fat I am now.  That should be motivation enough.