Failing apart at 40.

Ok, so it’s been a very long time since I’ve added to this space. There are reasons other than just being lazy. I figured I would bypass one of them and do it anyway. You see I’ve injured my left hand. This is how it happened.

Dave and I were working out about three weekends ago. Nice strenuous workout. Towards the end of it I had my left hand resting on some equipment higher than the rest of my body, that’s when it happened. For some reason the tendon in my birdie(middle) finger decided that it didn’t like the position that it was in and that it wanted to be closer to its neighboring knuckle.

I made a noise somewhat like a whimpering school girl and just looked at my hand thinking “this really, really doesn’t feel good, how am I going to make it stop not feeling good and how do I do it quickly?” So I took my right hand and pointing finger and moved the tendon back.

Problem solved, pain gone all is good in the world again….Right?

Wrong, it went out another six of seven times that day. It got to the point where I just didn’t want to do anything with it. So the next day with it still going out I go get some medical tape and tape my middle finger and my pointing finger together. This immobilized my finger. It’s also made it quite hard to do things like, oh say, TYPING!!

Hence not updating this blog. This takes forever for me now and lots of typos that hopefully I will correct before I post it.

So I end up going to my doctor for a regular check up. I had taken myself off my meds (high blood pressure and cholesterol) because I’ve been running and losing weight and mostly behaving myself. The doctor wanted to make me the poster child for the office. My blood pressure was that of an athlete and my cholesterol was a little high but not that bad. He tells me to keep it up and by the way why are your fingers taped up? I tell him and it’s an orthopedist visit for me next. Ughhhh.

Off to the Orthopedist I go a week later. Got in kind of quick so I was happy. I saw the doctor, told him the story and he looks me in the eye and says “we’re going to have to treat this aggressively”.

Aggressively, WTF?

He saw that look in my eye that said, I don’t think so and then backed down a little bit. He said that I had done exactly what I should have done with taping my fingers and that we should leave it like that for 6 weeks. If/ When that doesn’t work we can put me in a cast for another 6 weeks. If/When that doesn’t work we will need to have surgery and put you back in the cast.

He wants to put me in a cast sooner than that but I’m going to Cape Town this Friday and I’m not about to go there in a cast for 16 days. So when I get back I have and appointment to see the doctor again. I do also have a good supply of medical tape and feel a little bit like Michael Jackson with his taped fingers.

I’ll try to keep this updated but like I said earlier, typing really sucks now.

Cape Town here we come!!!!!!!!!

ok, so now an update.

I'm at 205lbs from close to 215lbs and down to 19% fat from 24% fat.

I think I'm doing well.

But....

I've hurt my hand. the ligament in my left hand middle finger now moves in ways it shouldn't. And it hurts when it happens! Typing is really hard now too.

So I have to tape my fingers together and hope it doesn't happen again. Which it did last night!

Doctor said that it will need surgery but we can try making it not move for 6 weeks and see if that fixes it.

6 Weeks!!!

That's hard to do.

ugh!!

That realy screws up my workout schedule.

So now I'm just trying to make it through the day without it popping out of place.

Still trying to figure out Award availability.

Ok, so Dave and I are going to Cape Town at the end of February. Originally we were going to try and go to Sydney for the Gay Mardi Gras at that time. I looked for award seats on any Star Alliance carrier going west to Sydney. Couldn’t find any availability. So I changed tactics and decided to go through Europe instead. We would get an extra cheep ticket to London and then to through Singapore to Sydney.

This kind of worked, anyone who has tried to get start alliance award tickets on Singapore air in the premium cabins knows that it’s next to impossible. Never the less I got two Business class tickets from London to Singapore and then two coach from Singapore to Sydney. Business all the way back to London.

Mind you this was going to be a three day trip just to get there. All of our friends where going to try and be there because it’s the 30th anniversary of Mardi Gras. Unfortunately Dave and I just never felt the love for it and just couldn’t get excited over it. So, one day when I had a little extra free time I did a search for award tickets to Cape Town for the same time we were thinking of going to Sydney.

I was shocked to see First Class availability for two from IAD(Washington, DC) to FRA(Frankfurt, Germany) and then only Coach from FRA to JNB(Johannesburg, SA) and then Business class (that’s all the rest of the world does internally, no first class like in the states) from JNB to CPT(Cape Town) On the way back I got all first class home except for the CPT to JNB which was business. The big flights are on Lufthansa and the enter SA flights are on SAA.

Ok, this we could work with. We also love Cape Town. So I change the award tickets to South Africa and then did some research. Seems that Lufthansa opens up its premium cabin for award travel seven days out. So if you check now for the 16th you will see anywhere from two to four seats available for awards in first. Having figured this out I wasn’t too worried about the coach leg of our flight. I was pretty sure that a week before travel I could get us into first class for that leg. I also found out that Untied will not let you change the ticket if it’s less than three days before travel begins. So there is only about three to four day to make the change.

But I, being the persistent person I am, have been checking everyday to see if first class opened up for that leg. And today it DID!!!!!

For one person…. :-(

So I called and got Dave’s Itinerary changed so that he was in First Class, alas I’m still in coach. But I haven’t given up hope for me yet. I’ll keep checking every day until I get it.

Our ultimate plan is to push the trip back two days and leave on Friday night instead of Sunday night that week. So I’m also checking the flights from FRA to JNB( this is the bad one to get the award tickets on) on the Saturday before. If it opens up for first, I will pay a change fee and get us to Cape Town two days earlier. I’ve already talked to the lady we’re renting from and she says it looks fine for us to come early.

Keep your fingers crossed.

So, going back to the title of this blog entry, I have yet to figure out how and why they open up seats. Today is no more special then yesterday which had to seats. It’s 6 weeks and 3 days out from our trip. Why did one seat open up today? It’s so strange.

Oh, and the diet is still going well, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will only weigh myself on Saturdays. That way I can see the trend. Everyday fluctuates too much.

Emotional Me!

Ok, so I’ve been a little confuse on the whole Democratic nominee thing lately.

I started out thinking Hillary was the way to go. And then I thought she was too much part of the system.

So I started thinking Obama was the one. Because he wasn’t part of the system.

Edwards, who’s that?

But I had a little bit of an epiphany after Iowa. I actually felt disappointed and sad that Hillary didn’t win it. And resentful that Obama did.

That really surprised me.

When Hillary did win New Hampshire, I had a huge sense of relief and almost welled up with tears. That really surprised me too. I had no idea that I was that emotionally invested in this. This has turned into a gut feeling kind of thing.

So now I’ve come to the conclusion that Hillary is the one we need. She has been battling these f*cking Republican morons since at least 1992 in Washington and she knows how to get things done even with the road blocks and petty wars that the Republicans resort to. I feel that Obama will get chewed up and spit out and will not be effective, he’ll just spin his wheels. He will try too hard and will get nowhere.

It’s sad but true.

Unfortunately the way the US is right now, the only way to change it is to “pander” a bit to the right wing constitutes. But one can still change things this way, it just takes longer. Hopefully Hillary and Bill will be able to do this.

Now for other non political comments.

I’m tired, this not eating and exercising things is hard. But I am making some progress. I just have to keep this up for another, oh, six or seven weeks. By that time I should look rather gaunt and pale. But I’ll be skinny. And we all know, you can never be too rich or too thin.

210lbs today. Like I said, making progress.

211lbs, WTF

Well I guess it just goes to show that things can change very fast when you have a body mass like mine. Today I weighed myself in the morning and after working out, 212lbs and 211lbs respectively.

So, I guess I’m going in the right direction and that the day of rest on Sunday had everything settle for a bit. I just had to get it moving again.

I walked home the long way last night. By the time I got home my legs where wobbly. I didn’t help that I have a huge head cold going on right now. When I got home I cleaned a little bit and then put some of our left over gumbo in the microwave just in time to see that I had gotten a call from a friend who wanted to go out to dinner. I had to call had give him a rain check. I didn’t want to be around people while I felt that contagious.

It’s much better today.

I ended up taking some cold medicine and watching some movies. I was in bed by 9:30 and up at 5:30 this morning feeling much better but still having the sniffles. Here is the morning routine:

• · Get up and go down stairs to the kitchen to make coffee. It's Tuesday so it’s trash and recycle day. Empty the trash cans and recycling bin and place in the appropriate place for pick up while I wait for the coffee to brew. Pick up news paper while doing this.

• · Drink coffee and check emails. Wait for coffee to “work”

• · Coffee starts to “work”, go to bathroom, read news paper and get cleaned up.

• · Get dressed, pack workout clothes for gym at work in backpack.

• · Make oatmeal, do stomach exercises while waiting for it to finish cooking.

• · Eat oatmeal and head out the door. Leaving by 7am.

From here I take the long 5 mile walk to work. I’ll take the same walk back tonight.

So, here’s hoping all the work begets some results.

Later.

Well, up to 213……

But I need a new hole in my belt!

What’s up with that?

I guess fat turns into muscle which weighs more but, shouldn’t 1lb of fat turn into 1lb of muscle? If not, is the mass coming from another dimension somewhere?

Ugh….

Anyway, I walked the long way to work today, about 5 miles. I plan on walking the long way back, about 5 miles. I plan on keeping this up until I can see the muscles in my stomach or i drop dead. I might keep doing it if I like the results. What's two hours of my life a day?

I also only want one chin, not two or three.

I did chest and back today for weights. I starting to look like Chriszilla. I’m use to being big, but not this big. I’m hoping that once most of the fat is gone I’ll start leaning up and showing more definition.

Onwards and upwards….. To space and beyond!

January and the unobtainable goal!

Being the crazy wacky kind of guy I am, I’ve set up a goal to lose 20lbs before we go to Cape town at the end of February.

The way I’m going to do this you might ask?

Well it starts with cutting out alcohol for at least a month. Yes, you heard me. No booze for at least a month. Do you know how many empty calories there are in booze? LOTS!

And a strict exercise regime, 1 and ½ hours a day for six days a week. Monday through Saturday or until I drop dead. Also, 40 minutes of walking to work and back every Monday through Friday.

Eating about 1600 to 2000 calories a day, I should have about 3100 to keep my weight where it is now. So far so good.

Did I mention that I’m not smoking either. This one wasn’t so big because I only did it when I drank, and that was on the weekends.

So we got a head start and worked out four times before the new year. I’m glad for that. I finally weighed myself yesterday, Jan the 2nd, and I was at 213lbs. This might sound like a lot to you guys but I was thinking I had gotten up to 220lbs. Sooooooo, I’m already ahead, right?

So here are the stats so far for yesterday.

Calories eaten = 1855
Calories burned = 3634 (exercise, walking to work, working, just living and sleeping)
Net loss -1779
Weight 213lbs


Today I have these stats.

Calories eaten = 1699 (estimating the snack and dinner that I have planned for this evening)
Calories burned = 3798 (exercise, walking to work, working, just living and sleeping)
Net Loss -2099

Weight 212lbs

So, why am I doing all this now? Well, because we have just gone through 10 days of excess, too much eating, too much drinking and not enough exercise. At the end of the holiday season, when you look in the mirror naked, you realize you just need to stop and detox for a bit. Not to mention losing some weight.

I would love to go into the details of the holiday season but I don’t have enough time or space to do that. Suffice to say we all had a great time, especially my mother. And besides, I’m moving ahead right now and would rather focus my attention that way.

I will keep this blog updated with my progress/digress hopefully every day. I hope I will make my goal and look good in a speedo in March. Wish me luck.