Day One of Ramp Up
Partially Successful…
So a good start. No writing, almost 12,000 steps, did some running, and got the food intake under control. Tomorrow I will add in the writing, get over 12,000 steps, and repeat the rest.
Tonight, while walking, I set a new goal for myself, longer term than just 100 days for the weight. I want to hit 167 pounds, with luck by October 1st. If I do that, it will mean I have lost 100 pounds since my heaviest. So a great goal.
I also want to be able to do ten pull-ups at that point at least. Can’t do one right now. Not a one. So got work to do on upper body strength as the weight goes down.
Kris and I worked on more stuff from the Licensing Expo at lunch today and I did five more videos tonight and have them live on the Licensing. I knew I was going to learn a lot, but this is just crazy amounts. What fantastic fun.
So off to bed so I can get up fairly early, get into the Main Street Station Buffet and get some writing done. (Yes, I will be able to watch my eating in there.)
18 Comments
Helge Mahrt
Maybe you can dictate while walking, like Kevin? 🙂
JR Holmes
So I managed to get my weight down more than 25% from my own peak, but that was only about 80 pounds (BMI now down to about 26, which was one part of the actual goal, the other is VO2max).
How tall are you that you have set that goal weight?
dwsmith
6 foot even. But the less weight I pound on my knees, the easier the marathon will be. I think ideally I would like to settle right around 170. But want to hit the 167 so I can go celebrate losing 100 pounds. Taken me years, and will take me another four months to finish it off.
Joseph Bradshire
JR!
Where you been man? We’ve been wondering.
Haven’t seen you in forever. I just private messaged you.
Kate Pavelle
Great goals! Trying for much of the same, I got a free one-month subscription to yoga international (one word), which has a ton of workout videos at various levels. I spent one morning doing isometrics to prepare me for a hand-stand. Cool. I was sore for 2 days, apparently I don’t need to get twisted into a pretzel to derive tangible benefits 😉 It also unkinked my back from sitting at my computer too much.
allynh
Dean,
You are in Vegas now. You have access to gyms throughout the city, some only cost ten bucks a month with no long term contract, with personal trainers that can help you build up your strength.
Just as you pay monthly for access to InDesign, you can focus on a gym for a few months until you can do what you want.
dwsmith
LOL, We signed up at LVAC (with eight gyms around the city, five with indoor tracks) the second day Kris and I arrived here in March last year. I use it most days, especially during the summer.
Jason M
Dean, I’m 6’2″ and 220 lbs, almost all muscle, in excellent shape…
… and I still can’t do 10 pullups.
I can only do 9.
With correct form, they’re torture.
I’d rather do a set of 40 pushups (which is my normal) than a set of 5 pullups.
FYI
dwsmith
My ultimate goal is to be light enough and upper body strength enough to do a salmon ladder, for at least a couple rungs. That is a very, very long ways off.
Joseph Bradshire
Dean I’m hugely overweight, like 350 pounds this morning. I have been walking for the last few days and doing great, getting my calories right, cutting sugar, etc…The one thing though, I’ve always lifted weights. So even at 350 I can do 2 pull ups. Haha. I was amazed.
Of course, when I was 175 lbs and 18 years old in the military I did 25…now I can only do 2 of the ugliest pullups ever.
dwsmith
Joseph, at least you can still do them. Have fun with the walking and eating right. Annoying at first but it makes you feel so much better and have more energy and that, actually is even more annoying that it does that. (grin)
Joseph Bradshire
Dean I’ve been having success calorie cutting by having 2 meals a day instead of 3. Lol. So I still eat like a pig, but eat less often. Haha.
dwsmith
Joseph,
Not so sure about the health benefits of that. (grin) What I have become amazingly adept at is eating a bit of everything on my plate, to enjoy the taste, then getting rid of the rest. If food sits in front of me, I will eat it. So I am a master when eating out at eating about half my plate and then handing it to a waitress as she is walking by. Once the plate is gone, it takes no will power.
Same at home. I will often eat a bit of everything, then stand up and take my plate to the sink and toss the remaining food into the garbage. Amazing how not having to live up to that shit our parents taught us about cleaning off our plate can really save on calories. But I must admit, that took some training to learn to do that regularly.
Joseph Bradshire
Waste food? Go to your room! 🙂
As for meal skipping, it’s no biggie. Lots of people are doing fasting, intermittent fasting, etc…it’s the current fad. I just find it easier to do that than to have the discipline to throw food away or go smaller on portions. I’m never really hungry until 10am anyway, so I just push it to lunch time and it works. YMMV, of course.
How are you with walking in the heat? I’m in Northern Cal, about the same climate as Vegas, for walking I have to get up very early before the sun really hits. It’s hitting 100 every day now.
dwsmith
Malls, Health Club with tracks, and in the halls in our condo. Our condo is massive, a block around, so four laps in the air conditioned halls of the 7th floor make a mile. Our hall on the top floor is very short, so we go down to the 7th floor. So between indoor malls, health clubs with indoor tracks, and our condo, we are fine. Running at the health club, walking at the malls and hallways.
On some days Kris gets up really early to run outside, but not on the heat warning days like today.
Mike
About a year ago I switched to doing body weight exercises instead of lifting weights. At the time, I could do maybe 2-3 strict pull-ups (overhand grip) and 6-8 chin-ups if I really struggled.
I used a technique called “Greasing the Groove” (link: https://thepullupsolution.com/blog/grease-the-groove-training-doing-pull-ups-every-day-for-rapid-results) which helped.
Just do a little bit every day (or regularly enough to where it’s almost habitual). Keep track, not necessarily to push yourself forward (though that isn’t the worst thing) but just because, for me at least, the process of keeping track became more “the thing” than the result.
A year later, I’m still only doing sets of 5 but doing them as part of a warm-up or as a “rest” between other exercises… doing at least 25 daily, usually more like 50. They no longer really register as “work,” which is essentially the point of Grease the Groove.
It’s surprising what a little bit, consistently, adds up to. A lot like writing, actually.
dwsmith
Thanks, Mike. All sounds logical and sort of what I have been doing.
Gunnar
Dean, there is a calisthenics training book called convict conditioning, that gives a nice 10 step progression from very easy standing wall pullups, up to more difficult versions. Once you master one level you move to the next. It could be helpful for the pullup goal.