Namaste For Noobies

I just finished reading Mike Rohde’s entry on his weblog about The Vital Luxury of Rest and Solitude and it dawned on me as I read it that I too have been focusing on slowing down and relaxing more. I didn’t have a succinct knowledge of what I was doing, it was more of a compulsion really, but I too was going after the same goal. I was looking to make better use of my time, but I was looking to make a transition to a calmer way of doing it.

It all started when I decided I would begin waking up earlier. My normal internal clock makes me a bit of a night owl. My normal clock would have be going to bed around 3am and waking up between 10am and Noon. That’s not a realistic time frame for running your own business, so I’m not able to indulge my internal clock much. That being said, it’s rare when I go to bed before Midnight, or 1am. I tried simply waking up earlier, but that wasn’t working. I was still going to bed at the same time, so waking up earlier wasn’t going to happen. I tried going to bed earlier, but I was just getting another boost of energy at 10pm and going to bed just wasn’t working. So I did the only thing a not-so-sane person would do. I stayed up all night.

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One Small Step For My Wardrobe, One Giant Leap For Self Esteem

As I was digging in my closet this morning looking for something to wear, I noticed that I didn’t have any slacks that were clean. Of course I’ve only had 3 pairs of pants for about the last year. Those three pair are what I have labeled as my “fat pants.” They were my “line in the sand” when I went to go buy them. These three pants were the last in a series of expanding waistlines. “No more!” I screamed internally as tried them on, finally admitting that I did indeed require a larger size since the last time that I bought pants. I had to resign myself that the washing machine wasn’t shrinking my pants, my ass was just getting fatter.

My waist has been on a long slow climb since college. In fact, the first increase in my waistband happened in college, I moved up to a size 34 from a size 32. Since then, I’ve been going up and up, little by little, year after year. Each time I needed a larger size, I took another hit to my self esteem. Reading the label on a new pair of Dockers only validated my feeling of low self worth. As of January 1st of this year, I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been and I’ve grown to absolutely detest going shopping for clothes. Sure I would leave the mall with fancy new clothes, but each tag screamed that I was larger than last year and that’s all that I could hear.

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Walking With The Turkeys

My allergies were out of control yesterday. I must have sneezed a thousand times and my eyes burned all day. By the end of the day I felt like I was beginning to come down with something. I think it was due to all the post nasal drip, but it was hard to tell at the time. Holly wasn’t feeling all that well either and so we went to bed at a decent hour in the hopes that sleep would make us both feel better.

I woke up at 6:30am and took a shower and dressed. I felt more like myself, so I put on some walking clothes. It was still early, so I worked on a web site I’m trying to finish for a little while until it was time to wake up Holly. I meant to wake her up at 7:30am, but I lost track of time, so it was 7:50am before I tip toed into the bedroom to gently wake her.

At first, she woke up and smiled because she was all toasty warm in the bed surrounded by all the cats (the like it when I get out of the bed). Then she saw what I was wearing and that smile quickly disappeared. I wasn’t greeted with the wrath of the day before, but Holly wasn’t happy I was waking her up to go walk either.

Ten minutes later were out the door and walking down the street. We didn’t have as much time as yesterday so we walked up and down just a couple of streets. To help boost the time we did have, we walked at a faster pace. Gracie seemed to appreciate it. We did have one very nice surprise on this walk – we saw a flock of turkeys. There’s a family of turkeys that come around every now and then. I’ve taken some pictures of them, but I’ve never been able to get close. As we walked down our street, we got within 30 yards of them before they ran off. We didn’t even see them until the flurry of feathers alerted us that something was up, but it gave us enough time to make us glad we were up walking at that hour.

It wasn’t raining, but it was definitely misty. Holly pointed that out, but she didn’t complain, or say that she wasn’t going to walk, which was a pleasant surprise. It was also colder than the day before and I was actually the one who did a wee bit of complaining. I’m going to have to put on gloves tomorrow.

As we made the steep climb back up our street, Holly asked if we were going to walk everyday. She reminded me that every workout plan has days where you rest, but I insisted that this could hardly be considered a true workout. We were only walking through the neighborhood and we weren’t even breaking a sweat. She insisted that this was cardio because of the hill and I’d agreed to think about it.

In all honesty, I don’t know what the full workout plan is. My initial goal is just to get in the habit of moving our bodies in the morning. A daily walk should be just that – daily. I’d also like to add an evening walk just after dinner, but we’ll tackle that a little bit later on.

Welcome To Mashby’s Booty Camp

Last night, right as Holly and I were just going to bed, Holly made the comment, ‘Michael, I’m fat. You have to help me get back on track.’ I’ve heard this kind of rhetoric time and time again. In my opinion Holly is not fat. She’s not the lean mean pageant queen I met back in 1988, but she is in no way fat to me. I find her ravishingly gorgeous more now than ever. I’m not just saying that because I think she might read this. One because she doesn’t read my weblog and two because it’s true.

What made this conversation a little different was the fact that Holly alluded to the fact that her libido was directly tied to her self image. Every man I know wishes that his wife was frisky more often and I am no exception. When I delved a little deeper on the subject and confirmed what she had said I discovered motivation I had no idea even existed. All of a sudden, the idea of getting healthy had purpose. In fact, losing weight was no longer just about shedding pounds, it was about a sexual revolution!

So I told Holly as we were going to sleep to remember that I loved her because starting the next morning, she was entering my personal boot camp. I fell asleep with a smile on my face knowing what tomorrow would bring.

This morning I let her sleep in till 7:15am, but that was a far cry from her normal 9am (she doesn’t have to be at work until 10am). As her eyes opened and she heard me explain that it was time to get up, Holly turned from the sleeping angel to the cranky bear. Over and over she insisted that it was not time to get up and that I needed to leave her alone. I gently, but firmly persisted until she was out of the bed. Not that being up on two feet changed her attitude one iota.

Still grumbling, Holly eventually made her way downstairs dressed to take a morning walk with me. We took Gracie with us and started an easy, but somewhat brisk pace walking down the street. As we walked Holly made the ultimatum that she was never going to walk if it was raining. It had rained during the night and it was very overcast and windy as we walked, but it wasn’t raining. However, if it was raining she re-iterated that she was not going to be taking a walk. Now I’m not an overbearing person usually, but if Holly truly wanted my help and if this little “boot camp” was going to work, there was only going to be one chef in the kitchen.

“Are you sure you want to give me this ultimatum?” I asked with a smile. “Michael, I am not walking in the rain, period.” was her reply. “Fine, then if it’s raining I’m going to wake you up an hour early so that I can drive you to the gym and put you through a brutal treadmill workout. The choice is yours.” I wasn’t kidding. I was taking on the role of being her coach and as such she had to respect me as one. Holly has to know that if she things she can get out of something by simply smiling, or by putting her little foot down, that it’s not going to work. I’m not being harsh mind you. I’m saying all this with a smile on my face, but there is going to be a program and it’s important that she get on board.

We walked for approximately 45 minutes around the lower portion of the neighborhood. I kept the pace moderate thanks to Gracie and her constant quest to see what was just down the way. As we walked, Holly and I talked about the day and what was coming up for the week. it was really nice. Eventually we made our way up the big hill to our home and I pushed Holly a little bit to keep up the pace and not to rest halfway up the hill. It was a good walk and I plan on doing another one tomorrow morning.

Stutter Stepping

Holly and I didn’t walk yesterday. She had an appointment to take Monkey, our Siamese cat, to the vet and we didn’t wake up early enough to do our walk. I figured we could walk when she got home, but when she called sobbing after leaving the vet, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. It seems that Monkey may have some liver problems. We’ll know more this afternoon when we take him back for an ultrasound.

I did manage to take a little extended walk that afternoon with Gracie. Our street is at the top of a very steep hill, so walking down and back can give you quite a little workout. I need to get an inclinometer, so that I can figure out what the grade is and then really impress you. In the meantime, take my word for it, it’s steep.

This morning was all about Monkey too and tonight is the Friends season premier, so I doubt there will be much walking then either. Until we find out the status of Monkey’s health, things are a bit on hold at the moment.

Taking It Slow

Holly and I began walking last night. We walked for about twenty minutes after dinner. It was supposed to be a little jump start on our new exercise program and I think it helped.

We hit the snooze button a few times this morning and didn’t get up until 6:30am. Even Gracie wanted to stay in bed longer. At around 6:45am we finally made it out the door and took a walk for about 30 minutes. We walked a good part of the neighboorhood, but decided that it was time to get ready for work and what not.

It was nice having Holly up in the morning. She’s not a morning person, so it was rare to have her up with me. We were both groggy, but we didn’t sucomb to going back to bed. Instead we had breakfast and talked about our day. It was really, really nice.

I don’t have any stats to report because I don’t have a pedometer yet, but we’re working on it. Maybe by next week, I can start tracking some of this stuff.