Central Texas Wildflower Hunting

Clump of tiny blue flowers

The last few days I have neglected to post in the blog as we have been driving over this area of Texas showing our guest of honor Christian the lay of the land. East we show the fields of corn and cotton stretching through the mostly flat topography of the Blackland Prarie ecoculture.

Lizard with reddish-brown scale pattern on tail and back.

We traveled west through the genuine hill country to Llano and walked the Llano River shores hoping to spot snakes and arrow heads but mostly seeing lizards and birds. One thing I've noticed is that I find the clumps of tall grass along the river shores so incredibly graceful in appearance, but when I photograph them, the pictures never quite capture the vibrant life I see in nature.

Llano River Grass Clump

Saturday Christian and I kayaked for two hours on Lake Austin where we put in just below the Lake Travis dam and paddling down lake for quite a distance. We fought a stiff breeze on the way down but enjoyed a nicer paddle back with the wind at our back.

Christian paddling through wind-driven waves on Lake Austin

Sheltered from wind by shore

 Easter Sunday, after an enjoyable church service we drove to the Gruene Weide to feed and water Herbie the donkey and after waiting out a spring shower we walked the land photographing wildflowers. The photo at the top of the page is one of many, which you can find the rest on my flickr site at this link.

Family Time Rocks!

(picture here)
My writing lags because I've been spending time with my daughters and the boyfriend of the youngest. He is a nice young man and appears to be a good match to Melissa.

In addition to neglecting my writing, I have also neglected my kettlebell training and my calorie counting with the result that I've gained 4 lbs since last Friday. (I always watch the weight.) Too much feasting but lack of exercise not an issue even without KB training because we have walked for miles every day.

In a way it shows how weight is more a function of calories consumed than quantity of exercise because I have walked and exercised a lot, seemingly mitigating the increase of calories, but no, I'm gaining anyway.

What Makes You Angry?

Spring Flowers Adorn Fence

This morning I got totally frustrated with my iMac - HTC DNA file transfer capabilities. Frustrated to the point of getting quite grouchy. My last HTC phone, an Incredible, just plugged into my iMac and popped up a query if I wanted to attach as disk. But the HTC software team decided to disable direct access of the drive and provided an application to transfer files from device to to device. The problem is, it doesn't work on an iMac. I have found several work-arounds but they all failed to work this morning adding to my anger at not being able to perform such a benign task as transferring these photos from phone to iMac.

Melissa and Christian Bluebonnet Pose

 Thus I write this blog and reflect being mindful of what makes me angry. What are the things that trigger angry responses? Well, as you can see, technology that doesn't function seamlessly often raises my ire. In general, I don't get angry very often and think my trigger point is pretty high. Inge's trigger point is a bit lower and is usually related to people not behaving as she expects. I worry about this a bit because her high blood pressure could be aggravated by reacting with anger to things people do that she has no control over.

That said, I responded with anger at not being able to control technology under my fingertips. So in the end I need to evaluate whether the anger response is something I enter mindlessly and see if being mindful can help to lessen the anger.

Even I pose with Bluebonnets

Yesterday we went out to the land, which threw off my exercise regimen. I knew I would be doing a bit of garden work so I excused myself from Kettlebell training. I hoed, raked, trenched, and planted Black Eyed Peas, Green Beans, two types of cucumbers, and carrots. We also watered both the orchard and garden (170 Gallons worth) both with siphon and a new pump. Finally, we walked the trails in the woods. So I know I am not lacking exercise - to the point of feeling sore this morning.
 

Christian Embraces Prickly Pear Cactus (Dreaming of Melissa)

This morning I traded my Tuesday Kettlebell swings for the missed Monday strength session. I enjoyed the workout but it is hard to start a workout when taking vacation - daily routines get messed up and it's easy to make an excuse not to exercise when off routine.

Melissa and Christian Unite Over Thorny Patch

Family Reunion Brisket Celebration

Primo Grill Installed in Mosaic Grill Table

Melissa arrived from Germany with her boyfriend, Christian late last night. To celebrate her return I put an 8 lb beef brisket on the Primo Grill at around 9 p.m. to allow it to slow cook at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for around 18 hours. I've eaten many briskets in Texas BarBQ joints, but the briskets pulled from my Primo consistently come out better.

Because smoking a brisket produces a large feast, we've invited our Gruene Weide neighbors, Kenneth and Darallenne and my brother Ken, and our daughter Janice to help celebrate Melissa and Christian's visit. Inge also baked a German Strawberry cake and a Cheesecake for afternoon coffee time. It will be fun to have so many friends and family around (but not too many!)

UPDATE - Added photos from Melissa's camera with Jalapeno Poppers and the Brisket we feasted upon.

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Popper on Primo

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Popper Platter

Platter of Primo Smoked Brisket

Short post for today.

Woodworking Mindfulness

Cherry Library With Desk

Returning to the topic of mindfulness for a post, the picture above shows a cherry library I built in our home in 2006. I have a strong passion for woodworking and will in the near future "retire" from engineering to a career in woodworking.

No two woodworking projects are the same because wood, as a product of nature, never repeats the same fine level characteristics from piece to piece. Yes, wood as a whole has repeatable characteristics for which man produced a plethora of tools designed specifically to create wood products. But for me to create a product from wood, I must be wholly mindful that this piece of wood, in my hand at this moment, tells a story about its grain direction and hardness, its suitability to purpose, and most importantly, how it can be best displayed in a product to accentuate its inherent beauty. 

Mindfulness in woodworking though, goes beyond the task of being present in mind about the wood itself while designing and creating a wood product. An extra level of mindfulness arises from applying tools to wood because virtually all woodworking tools can injure a mindless operator. From the throbbing thumb of misplacing a hammer blow, to the potential to loose that thumb to a tablesaw, mindless woodworkers risk debilitating injuries with virtually every project.

In a way though, I think my strong attraction to woodworking arises from the  mindfulness required to create and build wood products. For example, I always approach the table saw with both terror and respect which induces an intense focus on how to accomplish this cut at this moment in the safest manner possible. I find fulfillment in those times I intensely focus in safely performing the task at hand.

As a computer engineer I must also become absorbed in the task of the moment, but the risk of danger to myself is missing and I produce a program on a computer screen that tests a product I can't easily see. The work challenges me mentally and eventually I may see the resulting computer chip, but for me, beholding a minuscule piece of silicon doesn't produce the same level of joy engendered when I behold the warmth and beauty of a table or box or bowl I created from a piece or pile of wood.  

Will Adding Cute Labrador Puppies Drive More Traffic

Cute Lab Puppy Ear Flopping During Run

I primarily write this blog with the intent to serve as a personal goad to continue the fitness and weight loss regimen by publicly affirming the goal. So far, it has worked quite well to that purpose as I am now almost at the end of the third month of exercise and writing and I can see and feel the effects of the program. In another week or so, I'll even snap the two month photo for the before and after comparisons.

However, even as this blog meets the intended goal, there is a small side of me that wishes that other people found what I write about food and fitness interesting or affirming. Thus I try to write about different fitness and food related stuff nearly every day. I have been surprised that nearly three months in I've managed 37 entries (including this one) without repeating myself.

That said, I found the audience of people reading the blog pretty small. I researched why this is so and found that in the world of blogging, the ability to get search engines like google to list a blog in the first page or two of results requires a lot of work to make the blog pop. This falls under the topic of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and after reading what it takes to get listed, I decided that the extra effort (hours of work) isn't necessary given my primary goal for the blog. I'm not in it to be a world class blogger.

Just for the fun of it though, I have posted a picture of Penny as a puppy, looking super cute running with floppy ears across our land, The Sometimes Green Pasture. Isn't she soooo adorable. You just can't say cute in strong enough terms to describe Penny as a puppy. Below is a photo of the litter Penny came from. Aren't little puppies so adorable? Now that I have overloaded today's blog with cute Labrador puppies, maybe I'll get more traffic!

Litter of Chocolate Labrador Puppies

Not Your Average Physique

Cowboy Statue Texas Capitol Grounds

The book, "Counterclockwise" (subtitle omitted) discusses the fact that all medical studies base results on statistical averages. The medical field then uses the statistics to arbitrarily choose dividing lines to provide prognoses with the result that one person may be diagnosed with cancer because a test came in a smidgen above the arbitrary line and the next person whose results came a smidgen below that same line would be diagnosed as healthy. The mental impact for the two receiving the news (cancer or healthy) differs significantly yet the difference is statistically insignificant from a test results standpoint. In any case each individual differs from the norm in ways that the prognosis may not be applicable. Another statistical example is the BMI (body mass index) that purports to define obese vs overweight vs normal people. BMI, however, grossly over-reports people who, through strength training, have high muscle mass vs body fat content.

 I got involved in this train of thought because many different areas of my body don't match what should be "normal" for my height. As an example, my arm length is shorter than should be for my body height. I inherited this from my maternal grandfather as he too had problems where long sleeve shirts always needed adjustments because they were too long. Some basketball players appear to have abnormally long arms - I inherited the opposite trait.

The picture above shows something that relates to another abnormal body feature of mine that impacts my exercise. The cowboy above shows a fully extended and locked at the elbow arm. I have never been able to "lock my elbow". My wife is double jointed and goes beyond locked. There are lots of exercises with weights and Kettlebells that call for a locked elbow that I don't do well since I can't lock my elbow. (That is, my elbow always appears bent.)

Where I notice this is in tasks like shoulder presses or Turkish Get Ups where I am supposed to hold the weight above my head with a locked arm. Since there's no locking my elbow, I have to rely purely on arm strength to support the weight. Tuesday when I performed TGUs, on the last round my arm tired to the point that my elbow collapsed and the weight descended to be supported on my shoulder while I finished the get-up.  But, even with my defects in physique, I choose to do as Clint Eastwood said in "Breakheart Pass", "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome."

Weight Fluxuation and Diet

Blazing Trail Through Brambles

If I had maintained a modicum of self control over the weekend, I might have reached my goal of 180 lbs this coming weekend. However, three days averaging over 2500 calories resulted in a four pound bounce up this week. It peaked at 185.5 lbs yesterday and today subsided a pound.

Mathematically, an excess or deficit of 3,500 calories should result in a pound of gain or loss. However, as someone who has weighed myself daily for years, the math doesn't consistently add up in short term observations. Take this weekend for example. I consumed, for three days, around 2100 calories above my 1800-per-day goal. Yet I gained 4 lbs over those three days. What's up with that?!?

There are two things I've found  in my many years of weight watching that almost always results in a spurious weight gain. The first case occurs if I perform some work or exercise so strenuously that I have very sore muscles on the following day. Every time I've come away from physical exertion to the point of being sore, I see a two to three pound gain that lasts two to three days. I've done some research on this but found nothing conclusive that describes a mechanism whereby sore muscles creates weight gain.

The second observed way I gain more than expected from caloric intake is when I eat or drink something with a lot of sugar. During the weekend my brother offered, and I accepted, a bottle of Gatoraid to quench my thirst. I drank two of such, each of which contained 200 calories, and each of which contained 21 grams of sugar. Also, I drank six beers over the three days and each beer contains 13 grams of carbohydrates, which get processed to sugars by the body. Therefore, I consumed what I call, "a sugar bomb", over the weekend and as I have always observed, my weight jumped far out of proportion to the actual calories I consumed.

I have observed this effect when eating ice cream, cakes, chocolates, you name it! I haven't done more than a cursory search on this effect, but from a sample of one who tracks weight daily, there is no doubt in my personal experience that sugar bombs increase my weight far beyond strictly counting the calories consumed.

The Hacker's Diet explains the fluctuation as water gain or loss, which certainly has an impact. But the sugar and sore muscle fluxuation observations always occurs in my data.

Dealing With Sleeplessness

Tarp Shelter for camping in pleasant weather.

This morning I woke at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. As a result, I trained a bit weakly during Kettlebell swing session. I accomplished all 240 swings but needed to bull my way through the last two 30-count sets. I only executed 3 of the follow-on Turkish Get Ups instead of the 4 TGUs I performed last week.

A lot of people have trouble falling asleep. That has never been my problem with getting enough sleep. My issue is waking after five to six hours and not being able to go back to sleep. It started about four years ago when I woke every morning at 3 a.m. for weeks on end. I went to the Doctor but he had no solution other than to suggest trying an OTC sleep aid.

One night I woke a few minutes before 3 a.m. and at the top of the hour I heard a tiny persistent beeping in another upstairs room in the house. I was too tired to hunt it down and it took days to track down the source. When I found it I blamed my sleep problem (perhaps unfairly) on my ex-son-in-law. Because about four years ago my daughter bought her husband a watch as a gift. It was one of those inexpensive black plastic button-laden watches and SOMEONE set the alarm for 3 a.m. and put it in a shoe box in a neighboring bedroom. I am a light sleeper and every day for months on end I woke to that distant beep. When I found the watch I threw it in the trash because I didn't want to deal with finding out which of those annoying buttons disabled the alarm.

Without the alarm, the wake time shifted over several months from 3 a.m. to somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. Taking the advice of my Doctor, I tried using an OTC sleep aid. The first two times I took the sleeping pill, I slept through the night but woke up groggy and that grogginess persisted for hours after waking. Then it dawned on me that I could cut the pill in half and I found I could sleep through the night and wake refreshed.

The problem with sleep aids is that people become addicted and I have no desire to be addicted to any man-made substance. In a related vein, I suffered from the usual Austin allergy problems (ragweed in fall and Oak in spring) and tried using Zirtec to help, but found myself falling asleep at work when I took Zirtec. Aha! Sleep solution! I switched to taking Zirtec at bedtime and found I could sleep through the night! Now, to prevent becoming addicted to sleep aids, I mix taking half a sleeping pill a day or two, with a day or two of taking Zirtec, with two or more days of taking nothing (and waking up at 4 a.m.).

I have often wondered if the 5-1/2 hours of sleep is sufficient to not need the sleeping aids, however, on the days I wake at 4 a.m. I find myself seriously dragging at 2 to 3 in the afternoon. I usually have a full day's worth of energy when I get 7-1/2 to 8 hours of sleep.

Camping Fun Equals Eating Excess

Sundown Ribs and Beans

The weekend of camping and drilling on Gruene Weide this weekend lead to eating food such as the ribs and beans pictured above and other "manly" fare to the detriment of my goal of eating light and loosing weight this year. Fortunately, I don't indulge in many weekends like this.

I consumed over the weekend, starting Friday evening, a rib-eye steak accompanied by potatoes sliced, cooked with bacon, peppers and onions and accompanied with three beers spread over the evening. Saturday breakfast consisted of two to three scrambled eggs with sausage, peppers and onions folded in. We ate two bratwurst rolls with mustard for lunch.

We ate the ribs and beans for dinner and I drank another three beers, again spread over several hours. I cooked bacon, sausage and two fried eggs for breakfast and for lunch we bought and ate 3 pieces of dark meat fried chicken while on a fuel run for the compressor.

In the time lapse video embedded below of some of Sunday's morning drilling work, you can see that we're moving and working, but I've certainly worked harder, for example, when digging the garden. I wonder how many of the excess calories were consumed by the fact we worked 9 to 10 hours each day, including activities like gathering firewood. Time will tell.

Friday morning I weighed in at 181.5 lbs - the best this year. This morning I weighed 184 lbs so I have work to do to get back on track after the weekend of campout feasting. To add insult to injury, I have to leave in a few minutes to return the compressor so I won't get an exercise session in this morning.

Rearranging Wardrobe

Sun Splashed Roofs and Rainbow, walking through neighborhood in Speyer Germany

Have you noticed you look better in clothes than out of them? I do anyway. I look a lot better since I've lost weight and improved my definition through Kettlebell training, but nice fitting clothes still hide a lot of defects that exist in my physique. In particular, though my tummy and love handles have shrunk considerably, they're a lot less visible hidden under nice fitting and nicely cut clothes.

This past week, as I was looking for a pair of dockers to wear, I kept stumbling across 38 inch waist trousers, which was what fit in December. Now they look increasingly baggy and the 36 inch waist trousers fit quite comfortably. I had moved all the 36ers out of the way late last year because they just pinched too tightly. So Wednesday, I had the joy of moving all the 38ers to the side. I learned though that I am short of 36 inch waist dockers so I need to go shopping.

Back in 2006 when I lost 40 lbs, I actually fit and bought two pairs of 34 inch waist pants. However, that was briefly lived as they got too tight too quickly and I ended up giving them to our usual clothing charity, Texas Paralyzed Veterans. As a veteran, I am honored to be able to support a worthy veteran's cause by donating clothes and other items they can use for the cause.

I took the day off to prepare for the weekend of camping and drilling out on our ranch, Die Manchmal Gruene Weide. My brother and I will spend all day Saturday and Sunday drilling a water well I started working on almost two years ago. It is a two person job and I seldom have the second person to help on weekends. By my calculations, we should drill below the water table this weekend which would be an exciting thing. We won't be able to tell though because we have to add water to operate the drill. There's a good bit of arm strength and endurance required so there's some exercise aspect to the work.

Because I'll be off the net, there won't be a new post until Monday.

Pushing Over the Plateau

Inge and I on a Piedmont Plateau at Ranch 63, Montana

The above photograph was taken by our trail guide on a plateau in Montana. We spent a week at The 63 Ranch near Livingston, Montana. We rode through forested mountain passes, along rocky ridges, over grassy plateaus, and through the flower bedecked valleys between, constantly awed by the beauty that surrounded us. Every night I braved the fall chill to stare in awe at the Milky Way, which shone brilliantly in black skies unsullied by city lights. We drove cattle twice, encountered moose and bears, and once I cast flies for trout in Mission Creek. Daily we ate hearty ranch fare and nights we slept in a rustic, but comfortable, cabin. Inge and I both rate the 63 Ranch experience as one of our best vacations and we hope to repeat the experience soon. If you're interested you may visit my 63 Ranch Flickr Photo Set to see more pictures of the beauty we encountered.

But I put this photo here to relate to the topic of plateaus because I have plateaued for two weeks in my weight loss goal bouncing within 2 lbs of 184 lbs. I set the goal to be at or below 180 lbs before my daughter arrives to visit from Germany on March 23rd. However that date rapidly approaches and I am not certain I will reach the goal before she arrives. I believe I may be able to reach it while she is here - if I can manage the self control to withstand the feasts Inge will put on in honor of her (and her beau's) visit.

Recognizing my stagnation, I set out yesterday and today to go dinner-to-dinner (about 24 hours) on a severely reduced calorie regimen, but not to fast. I wrote about fasting earlier and decided that I would rather avoid the discomfort and grouchiness I get by the end of the fasting period.

Therefore, I decided to try a new approach to pushing over the plateau - low calorie nibbling. Yesterday I started the day with a single-egg ham, cheese, and bell pepper omelet of 210 calories. For lunch and snacks I brought one ounce of beef jerky (80 cal), one tomato (22 cal), and 16 green grapes (~64 calories) to work. I nibbled on the grapes twice - late in the morning and around 3 p.m. and I ate the jerky and tomato for lunch. In all I consumed 376 calories dinner-to-dinner. By dinner time I felt hunger, but the day's light nibbling appears to have prevented the usual fasting induced grouchy or irritable moods. I ate normally for dinner with the good fortune that our dinner of beef and bean burritos with salsa facilitated good portion control.

Today I ate two small slices of bacon and one fried egg for breakfast, and plan to eat a lunch of an avocado, a tomato, and 16 grapes for a dinner-to-dinner total of 596 calories. (Avocados contain a lot of calories!) I hope the two days of nibbling helps bust through the plateau. However, a future hazard exists because I will be camping out with my brother this weekend which almost always leads to calorie bombs in the form of drinking three beers instead of just one. Maybe I can maintain some self control while camping?

Nah! Sometimes it's necessary to let loose and have fun!

Listening to Body at Exercise

Leveling Posts for Water Harvest Shed

Ladders creak, and so do I. I listened to my body as I executed my 16 session Kettlebell strength regimen today and came up with a catalog of creaks and pops that presented fodder for blogging today. I first noticed a creaking in my neck that got me thinking about listening to my body. I heard the creaking while performing the first round of KB swings. I realized that by watching myself in the mirror I caused my neck to rotate at the head, which remained stationary, while my torso bent at the waist. If I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and let my head follow the torso my neck stopped creaking.

When performing KB rows, my right shoulder and elbow popped on many repetitions, but on the left side, only my elbow popped. I couldn't find a position or method that stopped the popping as the sound occurred intermittently.

The next sound I heard was my left knee popping when doing KB goblet squats. That occurred pretty consistently, but a squat is a squat and I didn't know how to reduce the sound without reducing the effectiveness of the squat. I also found right shoulder presses caused right shoulder pops and finally I heard the sound of my elevated heartbeat at the end of the session.

I googled "joint popping" and found a joint popping article on John Hopkins Medical Center web site, along with other sites that say the popping is nothing to be concerned about. Occasionally my pops inflict pain, but nothing to write about (hah!)

Which leads to another type of body awareness to mention here - that of feeling and quantifying pain. Prior to starting this exercise regimen I had noticed that the inside muscles of my right elbow hurt, possibly from a strain due to improper bowling. It wasn't enough pain to prevent me from working out, but I noticed a diminished ability to perform right-side exercises due to weakness around the right elbow. Being right handed I found it odd that I was able to perform more reps on the left side than the right side. However, several weeks into the strength sessions, I find the pain has diminished and the strength is slowly returning to my right arm.

Throughout the course of exercise I constantly notice tiny twinges of pain in various locations, perhaps a right shoulder twinge caused by favoring the weakened right elbow, or knee and hip twinges while doing squats - an exercise I haven't performed in years. The pain is always light and fleeting though and I carry on. But I always listen because I never want to go over the boundary of creating a real injury.

Changes to Enhance Attractiveness

Window flower boxes seen while walking in Bamberg, Germany

I have always loved how Germans dress up their windows with flower boxes. Many of my Cedar Park neighbors also dress up their yards with very nice landscaping and my wife and I have created nice landscaping in some areas of our yard, but a lot more needs doing. For the most part, people try to make a good impression on others by dressing up their surroundings, and themselves.

A few weeks ago I saw an article online where it was emphatically stated that women don't think men wearing tennis shoes (sic) to work is appropriate or attractive. That stuck in my mind because, as an engineer, I had not thought about my footwear in terms of attractiveness and I wore New Balance Shoes to work nearly every day, whether it was with jeans or dockers. I always put comfort first, especially after I started standing at work all day.

After reading that article however, I started wearing dress shoes and loafers to work more frequently and the New Balance shoes much less frequently and it occurred to me this morning that my change in shoes would make a good topic for today's blog. Why did I change my behavior after reading that article? Seriously! I've been married 32 years, (33 in May) and I'm not "on the hunt" so to speak, so why, after reading an article about tennis shoes not being attractive, did I start wearing loafers and dress shoes instead of tennies?

Even when I wore tennies to work, I always wore nice clothes above the shoes. I'm no fashion plate in any sense, but I like to wear nice dockers or quality jeans with quality button-up and polo-style shirts. I almost never wear t-shirts to work even though it's perfectly acceptable. Mainly, my choice in how I dress for work is a function of having worn an Army uniform for 12 years. To my way of thinking dressing nice carries on the uniform tradition I learned and it presents a professional face to the world which I hope speaks to my competence. In fact, during the years I worked as a manager, I almost always dressed in slacks and button-up shirts because that fit my ideal of a manager's appropriate uniform. While manager, I relegated Jeans and tennis shoes to casual Friday (even though that's not a work dress policy.)

So, back to the shoes - I changed my behavior after reading that article, which means I do wish to be attractive to people, and women in particular. I guess the shoes are my way of putting the flower box in the window - it's put there to let neighbors and passers-bye know you care about the appearance of your surroundings. In the same vein (vain?) I started wearing the dress shoes to show that I care about my appearance as does my pursuing fitness. Although the health benefits stand foremost in mind, as I want to live and enjoy life a lot longer than my father, I believe a side effect of attaining fitness is an improvement in appearance.

Today I appear to have regained energy after the lag of the past two days. I reached a new record of 240 Kettlebell swings, and another record 4 Turkish Get Ups on each side, with all but the last left side TGU of the "strong man" style. It felt great to tackle all of that!

Stamina and Stress Observations

Installing Fence

The stress incurred during the last few weeks of travel and day-long discussions may have taken a toll on my energy levels and stamina. By the end of Friday's discussions I was visibly drained and I didn't perform as well with the last person as I did the first few folks.

By nature I am a morning person. I often attribute that nature to 12 years of getting up at 5 a.m. nearly every day I served in the U.S. Army. But whatever the cause, I am aware of the fact that I achieve my best work performance early in the Morning through lunch. By the afternoon though, especially around the 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. hour, my energy ebbs and my brain operates in a fog and I because of that I choose to work on things that don't require great concentration in the afternoons.

I have found in the last two years or so, that if I get the opportunity to take a 10 to 15 minute nap or light doze at lunch the dreaded 2 p.m. let down doesn't occur, or at least at reduced severity, and my afternoon productivity greatly enhanced. If the weather is anything except freezing cold or blazing hot, I typically head out to the parking lot at lunch to get a doze session sitting in my truck. Unfortunately, I have far too many lunch meetings to do this as often as I like. I don't often doze at my desk at lunch because, at least to my thinking, there is a stigma attached to napping here in the U.S.

Yesterday, my energy levels ebbed to the point that everything I did felt and appeared lethargic. My wife commented on how pale I appeared and, in fact, I asked her to drive home from our visit to Gruene Weide because I knew I would have trouble staying awake while driving at my low energy levels.

That low energy continues to today as I was unable to complete my 16 session Kettlebell strength training. I accomplished everything except the 16th and last session of left side windmill and I didn't follow up with the extra KB swings I've added to the strength session the last couple of weeks. I pushed myself to complete the last few exercises, including finishing the full 25 seconds of 20 lb shoulder presses but that killed the energy needed for subsequent windmills.

I have observed over time that I have energy levels that flow from peaks in the morning to ebb by afternoon and I also observed energy levels that ebb and flow over longer periods. I haven't taken the time to log and quantify what the duration of the longer phased energy levels are and if there is a consistent cyclic rhythm to those longer period energy flows. But whatever the nature of the longer flows, I believe, from my own observation, that stress plays a role in accentuating the peaks and valleys of the long cycle energy levels.

San Diego Sunset at La Jolla

Sub-title: blogging on the road.

La Jolla Beach Sunset

I started this blog sitting in the San Diego airport blogging with my ASUS Transformer pad. It was not an easy go as the first issue encountered was that the blogger tool wouldn't upload my awesome sunset photo so I had to complete the upload at home that night. "Typing" is also a lot slower on these pads than a keyboard. (I've been typing for a  living since 1978.) Still, it was nice to be able to spend some of my wait writing. In the end, the pad/browser couldn't handle more than three paragraphs of text so I saved it and finished the blog at home. Blogging on the road with this pad is not as effective as it should be and needs work!

Friday after my day-long meeting in San Diego I sat, bored, in the hotel lobby, when it occurred to me that there was enough daylight left to go to the beach. So I decided to jump in my rental car and see the sunset from the nearest beach. A google maps search for public beach showed La Jolla Shores beach nearby. (I told the guy sitting next to me on the flight to San Diego that I would be staying near 'La Jol-la' and he said, "Oh, you mean, 'La Hoy-ya'." You would think a native Texan would know how to pronounce La Jolla. But then we Texans pronounce the Llano River with a 'La', not the 'Ya' sound. )

I arrived at the beach with 40 minutes left until sunset so I walked along the beach to get some light exercise. Along the way I took pictures and picked up a pretty rock along the way. As I got to the south end of the beach I found myself standing at the entrance of a seafood restaurant I had looked up earlier in the day. "This day is turning out great!" I thought to myself.

By then the sunset displayed its stunning hues through the remnants of earlier storm clouds as you can see from the photo above. As the sun sank lower though, the onshore breeze rapidly chilled the air to the point that I stood shivering before that georgious display of nature. I determined to stick it out through the whole sunset, cold or not. Fortunately, as the sun finally set, I turned to immediately enter the restaurant and warm up with a glass of red wine and a Cod Fish dinner.

I noticed that folks were eating huge bowls of black mussels but I had never tried them before. So I wound up the courage to ask the bartender if he could bring me a sample and he obliged by bringing out a bowl of four mussels. Wow! What an explosion of wonderful flavor! They were steamed and served in a bowl of slightly buttery seafood broth with leek, onion, red chilli peppers, and other spices. If I am so fortunate to go back to San Diego, I'll definitely stop at The Shores Restaurant at La Jolla to order a full serving of Steamed Carlsbad Black Mussels.

Overcoming and Succumbing to Excuses

Nap in Hammock after trail work

Last night and this morning I had several occasions related to both diet and fitness to exercise restraint or overcome excuses. Today's blog entry covers the reasoning that led to both success and failures in the art of overcoming or succumbing to excuses.

Inge cooked one of my personal favorites last night, Schnitzel, Rotkraut, und Kartoffelbrie - Chicken schnitzel, red cabbage, and mashed potatoes. I must be a simple guy because I love simple food! (My three favorite vegetables, in order, are spinach, cabbage, and asparagus.) For the last few weeks, I have been watching my portions and for this meal, I try to limit myself to one schinitzeled chicken breast half. However, Inge, in her ever generous way, put one and a half schnitzels on my plate.

I immediately entered a mental quandary with thoughts and excuses ping-ponging through my brain:

"It's only half a schnitzel extra," I pontificated to self.

"But I have been loosing weight so well. I can't eat the extra because it'll spoil my diet!" replied the other side.

The trident bearing half responded, "since you HAVE been doing so well, half a schnitzel won't hurt!"

And in this case I succumbed to the temptation and ate the whole thing along with extra portions of Rotkraut and the first beer in two weeks. For the first time since the New Year, I was stuffed to the point of discomfort and just a bit peeved at myself.

The annoying thing about this is the half-vs-whole thing. If she had placed a second whole schnitzel on my plate I would have immediately put it aside to eat as leftover because schnitzel on a slice of German rye bread makes an excellent leftover. But half a schnitzel borders on insufficient for leftovers and to discard it would have wasted food - something I discussed last week. So I ate it to my chagrin.

Today is the beginning of another travel day and I also had an early morning international conference call scheduled. So I rushed through my morning routine, the morning walk with Penny, and my Kettlebell swing session. Tuesday I had executed 15x15 swings but this morning I was sorely tempted to do fewer using the time crunch as an excuse. During the second session, I was mindlessly swinging and realized I went past the 15 count so continued to 30 for a double session. Still thinking about stopping early I decided on the 9th session to double up to 30 again, and thus zoomed past the tempting 10th session stop. From then on, it was just a matter of doubling my sessions the next two times to skip past even stopping points and repeat Tuesday's 225 swing session. By doubling up on the last three sessions I overcame excuses and temptation to slack off.

However, I know how long it takes to shower, shave, and dress so I knew I didn't have enough time after the swing session to perform my Turkish Get Ups this morning. So I skipped TGUs, rushed to get ready, fired up the work computer just in time for the 7:30 meeting, only to find that the meeting was canceled. Go figure! The lesson here is to adjust my morning to fit my exercise into the schedule even for an early morning work meeting.

Anyway, I always live knowing that life throws curves and even when I give in to temptation or find an excuse not to perform as I should, I don't beat myself up too much. It's easy enough to get back on track as long as I don't fall into the trap of letting excuses take over every day.

Is Pursuing Fitness Narcissistic?

Passing Ski-lift while hiking in Schwarzwald in Germany

This morning, while engaged in my Wednesday Strength session, I watched myself exercise in the master bath mirror in my usual shorts and t-shirt. About half way through the 16 sessions, it dawned on me that I couldn't see what was happening with the t-shirt on so I pulled it off during one of the tabata rest sessions.

As I continued my strength session sans t-shirt, I found myself fascinated to watch what muscle groups were moving around as I performed the exercises. There was a lot of shoulder activity I wasn't aware of during Kettlebell swings. Shoulder presses naturally hit the shoulders and arms but also activated upper chest muscles too. I was less than impressed with any visible muscle activity while doing curls, but my biceps and triceps communicated enough pain and strain to tell me that's where the action was and I just couldn't see it. From a mindfulness standpoint, watching the various muscle groups helps one understand what's being affected by each of the exercises executed.

So, I exercised, shaved, showered, got dressed, and for a minute or two admired myself in the mirror before heading out to work. It was then the topic of this blog entry popped into my mind. I googled narcissism and by its very definition, my exercise this morning and the past few weeks, and my admiring how I looked before departing is narcissistic. Darn! By definition, my pursuit of and my writing about fitness describes a narcissist and so I ask, is that a bad thing?

One way to look at is is re-framed the way one asks if one is alcoholic - does the consumption of alcohol negatively impact one's life and relationships? If so, it's time to seek treatment. So, does the level of narcissism reached in my pursuit of and writing about fitness negatively impact my life and relationships?

I would say that, overall, this fitness obsession currently positively affects my life. I am achieving better physical conditioning, thus, hopefully increasing the length and quality of my life. I don't think I'm negatively impacting any personal relationships in this fitness kick. The only negative thing I can think of is that writing this blog takes a bit of time, but one principle reason for writing about my pursuit of fitness is to serve as inspiration to keep going. I also have the rather vain (and narcissistic) hope that publicly sharing my thoughts and feelings about getting fit could serve to inspire others in their pursuit of fitness.

Across the Board Intensity Increase

Ice Capped Berry - 2007 Austin Ice Storm

Unlike this berry, temporarily frozen in time, my exercise regimen receives adjustments over time to ensure the correct intensity for what my body can deliver. Yesterday I amped the tabata up by 5 seconds per session, resulting in a 25% increase in my strength session length. Today I increased my swing session from 180 swings to 225 swings - 15 sessions of 15 swings.

For the swing sessions I don't deliberately set out to elevate the swing sessions ahead of time. I evaluate how I feel, mentally and physically, at the beginning of the session and set a target which I adjust as I progress through the session. Today I felt both physically sound and mentally rested and realized as I progressed that I could up the count from 12 sessions to 15 sessions without any problem.

However, that doesn't mean I was whistlin' dixie or shootin' th' breeze by the end of my 15th session. No, I was a pantin' sweatin' exhausted soul, wonderin' why I do such foolish things. Then I executed my Turkish Get Ups, thinking briefly of trying to execute 4 sets but could only accomplish 3 sets each side due to exhaustion from the expanded swing session.

I believe that by consistently pushing my exercise session boundaries I am incrementally improving my fitness and conditioning over time. Both subjectively and objectively I feel I have obtained a significant improvement in my fitness over the past six weeks of consistently working out. In fact, I feel better than I have for years!

Amping Up Tabata

Sailing Lesson, Corpus Christi Bay

Today I decided it was time to give my Tabata session a tweak so I edited my Android Tabata Timer app to bump the exercise period from 20 seconds to 25 seconds. I kept the 16 sessions and the 10 second rest period, just added 5 seconds per session.

You wouldn't think adding 80 seconds to a 320 second exercise session would make much difference, but I can tell you, it does! I was winded, extra sweaty, and quite exhausted after my workout today. On my 20 lb shoulder presses I couldn't even continue pressing the entire 25 seconds on each side. I decided after that to drop to the 10 lb weight to perform the windmill because I knew I wouldn't be able to support the 20 lb weight for the entire 25 seconds and I wanted to be sure to windmill for the entire period as it is an ab exercise and my exercise emphasis is on toning my abs. I figured, "better 25 seconds at 10 lbs than 15 seconds at 20 lbs."

I still added the extra Kettlebell swings afterwards, but kept having to mentally egg myself on after 15, 20, and 25 reps because I really wanted to quit. I completed 30, which I felt was sufficient for today's workout given the extended Tabata timing.

About the picture - my wife and I decided to take sailing lessons last fall and in some ways we found it was a lot of fun, but we also came to the realization that it wasn't an activity for us. The instructor thoroughly emphasized the risks of running over sandbars and wrecks and pipes by sitting quivering over his GPS worrying if we were about to crash into something unseen beneath the waters. I don't see how one can have fun sailing if, as an experienced sailor, one has to sit staring at charts and GPS's perpetually worrying about the next imminent wreck.

Sometimes, Rest is Called For

Backyard Compost Heaps, Resting

Yesterday I chose to rest. After the stress of my travel and discussions during the trip, as well as other work related stress, I decided that it would do my soul good to just rest. I walked Penny on one of the shorter 15 minute routes and other than making a trip to buy a bag of donkey food for Herbie, spent the rest of the day watching movies and documentaries. That doesn't give much to write about and from a mindful vs. mindless aspect, it was certainly a mindless type of day.

Today we drove out to the ranch and watered the orchard and garden, fed and brushed Herbie, and spent a good bit of time with shears and loppers busting brush. We named our land, "Die Manchmal Gruene Weide", which means, "The Sometimes Green Pasture". However, we could have just as easily named our land, "Die Dornig Weide", which means, "The Thorny Pasture" because the woods are overrun with climbing brambles. We have cleared out a lot of nice paths through the woods, but there are still years worth of bramble clearing work to do there.

I wish to go back to discuss the mindless day. The effort required to always maintain a level of mindfulness seems to me to be a potential source of stress.  If the definition of mindful living requires attention to every thought in every task at all times, then that definition becomes an unreachable goal, just as Jesus' re-definition of adultery from the physical act to simply having lustful thoughts of another means it is impossible for normal people to attain a life free of adultery. In the latter case the point is being made that holiness is impossible to achieve of our own accord due to the fallibility of our human nature and our holiness only comes by the grace of God.

In the situation of mindful living, I do not believe we humans, by our very nature, can perpetually maintain mindfulness. Therefore, my answer and approach to mindfulness is treat it as something I try to achieve when and where I can that, at that moment, could result in a betterment of the situation I am in at that moment. I can apply this at work while tackling a difficult task, or when bowling, to achieve better scores, or during my workout and eating to hopefully achieve better health and fitness. I find though, at least for me, that it is far easier to accomplish these and other events of life in a mindless way and I must deliberately and with conscious effort be mindful. In fact, I just forget to be mindful most of the time. Would that I possessed a tiny mental alarm that pinged me when I drift through a task mindlessly.

One Month Before and After Picture + Travel Report

Without further ado, here is the one month side-by-side before and after pictures: Warning, no Adonis here!

Before and After @ 1 month - can you tell which?

These two pictures were taken with a similar relaxed pose and in my biased opinion I can see shrunken love handles and gut and some definition improvement in the chest - barely. No six pack abs, but the beer belly screams, "feed me more beer!" Today, I weighed in at 187.5 lbs, which is six pounds fewer than the before picture. That's not a lot of weight difference, so I posit that the difference (such as it is) comes from the Kettlebell workout sessions combined with ranch exercise. 

I now present my travel report card - Food D+, Exercise F. I didn't exercise at all (though I only missed one day, Thursday) giving the excuse that I only brought/wore dress shoes and didn't want to go to the gym (which I didn't even look for) wearing dress shoes and sweats. This morning it dawned on me that I could have exercised anyway by doing some push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and a couple of TGUs (sans weights) to get some activity going. So in the end I admit I copped out on a lame excuse.

From the food perspective, the first day I stayed under my calorie budget, which surprised me. In addition, the quality of the food wasn't too bad either - two soft-boiled eggs, Thundercloud turkey sub with avocado, very tiny bag of airline pretzels, and a meatless baked ziti (which I didn't finish) for dinner. Perhaps I ate too much bread and pasta but otherwise not too offensive a selection. 

Thursday drove my overall food grade down because I ate a hotel waffle (with sugar free syrup) and sausage, a Longhorn Steakhouse steak salad, and in the wait for, then rush between, late flights I drank 1.5 glasses of red wine, ate a Starbucks blueberry scone, and finally, grabbed an Einstein Bros pepperoni pizza bagel for a late dinner between connecting flights. The salad was good, everything else, from food quality standpoint was bad (though red wine is supposed to be good for you which is why I drank that instead of a beer.) Not only was the quality bad, but the total caloric intake of 2200 calories busted my daily budget to the tune of 400 calories. Booo!

Some thoughts about the waffle syrup choice. My choices of accompaniment for the waffle was syrup, of which the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or a sugar free syrup which replaced sugar with sucralose. I also could have chosen a fruit spread (more HFCS) or eaten the waffle plain, or added sugar. I really love waffles but I get to eat them very infrequently. Therefore I decided to enjoy my waffle, but choose the chemical unknown of sucralose syrup rather than ingest HFCS as the latter is something I've been trying to avoid after reading the, "Fat Chance" book where the author basically labels sugar, and particularly HFCS as a toxin. (And he applies the label based on recent scientific studies.)

I knew heading into this trip that there was a potential to go off the wagon. I have another similar trip next week and I need to take the lessons learned from yesterday's travel experience to improve next week's results, both on the exercise and food front. I saw plenty of fruit offered at the airports and it would have been a lot better from a health standpoint to grab some fruit instead of a scone. We'll see how I approach the food and exercise choices next week.