Tag Archives: health

My Journey from Fat to Fast – Cycling and Health

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1 month ago I resolved to dramatically improve my health, fitness, and ultimately to compete in a cycling race… and then I got a very, very bad flu (or covid). So, I had to wait three weeks to get started.

10 days ago I started… by getting up every morning at 5:30am and working out. I’ve been improving, learning, improving, learning and I’m feeling so great about my progress… even though I’m still just catching up to where I was before getting sick.

You can follow my journey on YouTube on my From Fat to Fast playlist. I publish something daily and I’m always happy for likes, subscribes and shares!

Let me know if you have any feedback too; I’m hoping this becomes a great reference for others who are like me: technically obese, looking at the beginnings of bad medical tests and results, and hoping to avoid the really bad stuff: diabetes, heart disease or stroke.

Weeks 11 to 14: Catching Up is Hard!

Well, I got sick during Week 11, and let my numbers go way way down, and that lower pace, while getting better, has been the norm for the previous three weeks. I’m done week 14 and I’ve set two new records: 1415 reps in a week, and 335 reps in a day!

Next week, my goal is 1800 reps total, one day over 400 reps.

I’m using some new abbreviations as follows:

  • SU – Sit Ups
  • CR – Crunches
  • LL – Leg Lifts
  • AR – Ab Roller
  • SC – Standing Clench

Here’s the boring numbers (Including raw data for week 10):

Week 10

20190320 230.4 25CR+25SU + 25+25+25CR+25+25+25SU
20190321 229.0 25CR+25SU + 25+25+25CR+25+25+25SU+25CR
20190322 25CR+25SU
20190323 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU+25CR
20190324 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU+25CR + 25CR+25SU+25CR+25CR+25CR
20190325 100SU + 25AbRoller + 25KneeLift + 25BenchSU
20190326 day of rest

Week 11 (275)

20190327 50CR+25LegLifts + 25AR (100 total)
20190328 none
20190329 none
20190330 25AR+25SU + 25+25AR (100 total)
20190331 none
20190401 none
20190402 25AR + 25AR+25SU (75 total)

Week 12 (600)

20190403 25AR+25CR + 25+25CR (100 total)
20190404 35+35+30CR (100 total)
20190405 25AR+25CR + 35SU+35+30CR (150 total)
20190406 none
20190407 25+25CR (50 total)
20190408 25+25CR (50 total)
20190409 25AR+25CR+25SU + 25AR+25LL+25CR (150 total)

Week 13 (475)

20190410 25+25CR+25AR + 25AR (100 total)
20190411 25+25+25CR+25LL (100 total)
20190412 none
20190413 none
20190414 25AR+25CR+25LL+25SU + 30+25+20CR (175 total)
20190415 none
20190416 none

Week 14 (1415) – NEW RECORD!!!

20190417 25StandingClench + 40+20SU+20+25CR+15LL + 25+25+25+25CR (245 total)
20190418 25+25SC + 25+25SC (100 total)
20190419 25+25SC + 25+25AR + 25SC + 25+25SC (175 total)
20190420 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 30SC + 30+30+25CR+20AR (235 total)
20190421 30+30SC + 30+30CR + 50SC + 30SC + 30+30SC+20+15LL+30AR (325 total)
20190422 35+35SC + 25+25CR + 50SC + 20LL + 30+25CR+30+30+30SC (335 – NEW RECORD!!!)

My weight has gone back up to the 236-range which is a combination of bad eating and lower exercise levels. However, this past week I’ve started cycling. I’ll be starting to cycle to my office daily soon. Maybe next week. And I’ll start sharing my cycling progress.

4385/500000 and 17th Day of the Baha’i Fast

Last week I was on vacation so some discipline slipped. My sleep schedule became very poor: staying up til 4am, lots of long naps. And I missed a whole extra day of exercise besides my official rest day. And, I also accidentally had a sip of water one day when I was supposed to be fasting (I blame it on tiredness diminishing my mental awareness).

But, I still did well overall with my exercise. I did 900 reps in total for the week. Three days were 200 rep days, and the last day was 200 reps in 5 back-to-back sets of 20 sit-ups followed immediately by 5 back-to-back sets of 20 crunches. Admittedly, the last 50 crunches weren’t done with great form. However, I feel confident in setting a goal for 1200 reps this coming week. I’m getting serious enough that I’m starting to consider getting some equipment to help me, like a bench. I haven’t researched it yet, but if you have suggestions, I’d appreciate them! I’ve been putting off a proper start to my cardio work due to a foot injury. Tomorrow I finally see my GP about it, and hopefully I can start healing soon. I hope to start cycling soon since I think that will be okay for the type of injury I have. I’ll ask tomorrow.

Here are my records for the last two weeks:

20190305 232.6 day of rest

20190306 233.2 40SU + 30+20+20+20SU

20190307 50SU + 20+20+20+20SU

20190308 233.0 100SU + 15+15SU

20190309 232.8 30+20SU + 20+20+20+20SU

20190310 230.6 20+20SU + 20+20+20SU + 15+15CR

131/92 89bpm 30.57%

20190311 231.4 50+25+25SU + 25+25CR

20190312 day of rest

20190313 25SU+25CR + 25+25SU+25CR+25SU

20199314 none – failed to exercise

20190315 25SU+25CR+25SU + 25SU+25CR + 25CR+ 25SU+25CR

20190316 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU

20190317 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU + 25CR+25SU

20190318 20+20+20+20+20SU+20+20+20+20+20CR

I admit that the period of fasting has not been as spiritually rejuvenating as I would like. I think that’s partly due to my own lack of discipline wrt prayer. I’m typically not saying prayers in the mornings. However, I also think it’s because I haven’t been forming or strengthening bonds of friendship. So, I have a plan: I’m going to set aside Saturday nights for visiting. I’ll start by inviting friends and acquaintances out to dinner, and hopefully bringing along a family member or two. Eventually, I hope to have people coming over. I’ve realized that I’m actually pretty lonely. As an introvert it has kinda crept up on me.

In other news, I’ve done some nice ceramic art work. I’m working on another “vase”. It hasn’t been bisque-fired yet. I’ll post photos of it and some other pieces soon.

The featured image for this post is a double rainbow seen a few days ago from my deck.

3485/500000 and 10th Day of the Baha’i Fast

My day of rest was good and I’m taking another ont tomorrow (one a week). This past week I set two new records: 100 reps of sit-ups in a single set (!!!) and 800 reps total for the week. The 100 reps was really hard and I felt awful afterwards. I also did another 150 reps day. However, I’ve added crunches to the traditional sit-ups, and I’m just calling them all “sit-ups”. So now, I will do 100 proper sit-ups per day and start working on increasing my crunches. I’ve also lost a bit of weight, about 7 lbs, mostly due to eating only one meal per day due to…

The Baha’i Fast has been great this year. It’s a little harder than last year, truth be told, probably because of my week off of work. I find it hard to ignore hunger and tiredness when I don’t actually have to do anything during the day. The part I’m having a hard time with is really getting some good prayer time in. There are distractions, but also I’m just having a hard time remembering. I have, however, been trying to spend time with each member of my family during this week. I have to do something with Ocean and Justice still. I went for dinner with Melanie, dinner with Haifa, and a movie with Verity (Captain America – good, but not great, btw).

I’ve tried doing a bit of pottery/ceramic art, but I feel like I haven’t got the hang of it right now. I tried an experiment for making tentacle sculptures, but it didn’t work out so well. And this evening I started a new “vase”, but it’s too early to say if it will work out.

I finished reading “Great North Road” by Peter F Hamilton. Fantastic sci-fi/detective/creature novel. Some really touching moments. Nice long read too, and completely self-contained. No sequel to wait for. No really unique ideas, but extremely well-written and enjoyable. I highly recommend it!

New 50 Goal: Lose 50 lbs by Age 50

So I’ve made some good progress on my goal to 50000 sit-ups by time I’m fifty years old. I’ve been thinking a lot about other goals and I will have several more… but for now, I can announce my second 50 goal: to lose 50 pounds by time I am 50 years old. I weighed 238lbs this morning and losing 50 would get me to 188lbs. This is a little higher than my ideal weight of about 170, but would still be an enormous improvement. My current weight is the highest it has ever been. So, as I work my way down, I hope to find ways to make it completely sustainable. I also know that I can lose fifty pounds much faster than the three years until I am fifty, but by making it a long term goal, I can also aim for sustainability. I will start by doing some things that have been successful in the past:

  • having green smoothies or green juices every day,
  • eating keto-style stir-fries regularly,
  • restrict my eating hours (probably noon to 8pm),
  • drinking lots of water, and
  • doing more and regular exercise (beyond my sit-ups goal).

For exercise, I know that cycling and swimming are good. But bad weather can kibosh those so I will also get back to using the elliptical. I’ll start tracking that exercise and reporting it here too.

(Photo is me today as I post this. I’m not going to share a full-body image. I think those are kinda gross. As my weight improves, it will be easily visible in my face. )

590/500000 The One-Tenth of One Percent Mark

I did another 285 sit-ups this past week up to and including today, Feb 4th. This brings me to 590 so far. I’m still continuing to accelerate, but I have quite a ways to go to get to a good number per week: about 4000! My goal this past week was just to break 200 so I’m doing well. This next week I hope to do 350 in the week. I’ve also added doing multiple sets in a session, so far just twice. So my expectation is that I will do a single set every morning of 20+ and two sets every evening of 15+. I’ll probably do more.

In other news, I started tanning again. I find it incredibly relaxing. I’ve never really liked massage, and so this works well for me. I don’t need a lot of time to relax: 12 to 15 minutes is great. It’s warm, has a huge amount of white noise from the fans that run, and it’s completely private. And, particularly in the winter, I really appreciate the light.

I’ve been working from the BERTEIG office downtown as much as possible. It has brought focus to my work and has given me the regular company of two of my colleagues: Iryna and Shradhdha. Mostly we listen to music as we work independently. But it’s nice to see other people around. Sometimes other colleagues or visitors come in as well. I work on marketing, sales and consulting with customers. Iryna does bookkeeping. Shradhdha does software development. My only complaint is my desk chair is a bit uncomfortable. Maybe my CFO will authorize the purchase of a new chair sometime soon! At home I have a fantastic chair by Humanscale: the Diffrient World. I love it more than my Aeron.

135/500000 Sit-ups

One week has passed towards my goal of 500000 by my 50th birthday. I just had my 47th birthday so I have 365 x 3 + 1 (leap day) – 3 = 1093 days left.

I did 10, 20, 20, 25, and 20 reps over the days since my last post. Because I have a long ways to go, I can be patient with myself.

I’ve thought of taking a “before” picture, but I’m not really doing this for weight reasons. I hope it will help in that regard, but really it’s for general physical fitness. Sit-ups are one of the easiest, most flexible self-powered exercises. No excuses about equipment, space or convenience possible.

Sabbatical Day 26 – Missed Class, Homework

Today was the first day I missed a class.  Honestly, it’s because I was unwise with my sleep schedule.  I bought a couple books yesterday and read one of them cover-to-cover and read about half the other.  Both are fiction.  And I stayed up until after 3am doing so.  I got up in the morning anyway, and when I discovered that Justice had already left for class by bus, and didn’t need a ride from me, I decided to go back to bed.  I didn’t really consciously think about it but I didn’t set another alarm so I slept in until 11am – and missed my class from 10:30 to 11:20.  Honestly, it’s not a hard class, but I really can’t miss them regularly because I need to keep up with the concepts and terminology.  I’m still a bit ahead of the class in reading the textbook so there’s that.

So given how late I woke up, I decided to ask Melanie to go to lunch with me.  We had a very nice date.  We talked a bit about work (almost inevitable), but mostly just enjoyed our food and company at a great little place called “Which is Wich” downtown London.  The “Wahn Mi” is an excellent choice if you find yourself there.  After lunch, I came home and spent a bit of time on the phone with a colleague.  There are some “adjustment pains” that are partly related to me being on sabbatical.  I’m not going to go into any detail here, but suffice it to say that I believe it is part of the maturation of BERTEIG that various large and small crises will be dealt with.  One of the things about BERTEIG is that there is no individual positional authority in the organization.  The “management” structure is that the three Partners, myself, Melanie and Travis, must make significant decisions as a group (usually unanimously) in order for them to be valid.  This includes hiring, firing, major changes to people’s roles or other structural aspects of the business, strategy, business goals, large spending decisions, etc.  It’s an experiment in governance that is based in part on the Baha’i principle of consultation.  The key concepts include that consultation is about searching for truth, that consultation results in united action,, ideas are not owned by individuals, and that conflicting ideas (not conflicting people) leads to truth.

After my colleague’s phone call, I basically just continued to read my new novel for much of the day until dinner time.  After dinner, Verity, Haifa and I went to the Baha’i community gathering in our neighbourhood.  Haifa brought along her dog Katara who is being trained to be a service dog.  She (Katara) did very well in her first social setting.  She was mostly calm, obedient, and quiet.  It wasn’t perfect – she’s a puppy and she had a small pee accident – but everyone at the gathering enjoyed her presence.

After the gathering, Verity started to feel quite anxious about her homework project.  She and I spent about two hours working on it together.  She made some good progress and I think she feels much better about it.  She and three others have to create a public service announcement for the London Arts Council.  Verity is tasked with writing the script for the PSA.  So we talked about slogans and other ideas that she could take back to her group tomorrow.  I love being home to help the kids out.

At 11pm I sent Verity to bed and I got on the elliptical.  I’m trying to get significant (30+ min) of exercise every day.  I miss a day here and there, but with biking to school, walking the dog, swimming or the elliptical, I’m doing a pretty good job of getting the activity in.  Yesterday, I took my racing bicycle in to get it tuned up.  I hope to use it a bit before the fall weather gets too cold.  It’s much easier to ride on than my mountain bike, and I can go waaaay faster!  The only problem is that the handlebars are really low so I’m bent over quite far… and my big stomach gets in the way!!!  It’s very uncomfortable and provides some motivation to lose some weight.  So that’s something that I’m officially working on.  The exercise is part of it.  The next part of it is to restrict the hours when I eat to a 8 hour range (e.g. noon to 8pm) to do a mild form of intermittent fasting.  After a week of that, I plan to start adding more vegetables and fruit to my diet.  Currently, I eat very little greens.  It’s probably not healthy.  I eat a bit more fruit, but still it’s only a few times a week, not every day.  Eventually, I’ll try putting limits on some of the more unhealthy things I eat (sugar mostly).  I don’t expect to make rapid changes, but I want to get from my current weight (about 233lbs) down to under 190lbs, and then keep it there.  I also have an intermediate goal.  I hope to be about 215 by mid-December when we go on our family vacation to Panama.