Quasi-Control

This particular post is the culmination of several months of thought and study. I ask you to read it completely; and if you feel inclined please respond with your thoughts.

A number of months ago I wrote a blog post about vegetarian chili, where I mentioned that I’ve been teetering on the edge of vegetarianism. A week ago Aubrey and I decided to do a six week experiment in Pescetarianism, which is essentially vegetarianism but where you can eat fish. (The pescetarianism was a compromise I made with Aubrey as she told me she’d die before giving up her sea food).  Along with not eating meat we’ve decided to cut out a lot of junk food as well (no soda, no ice cream, no cookies, etc).

The point of this post isn’t to declare our recent decision rather I want to explain my motivations for making this change and that our recent decision isn’t just about meat. There are a several motivating factors behind this recent decision, and I guess they can roughly be divided into three major categories (although I’ll be the first to say these categories aren’t perfect): Health, Responsibility, and Spirituality.  Keep reading and I’ll explain more…

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From my previous two posts its quite obvious that I participated in the Ragnar Relay. Its is a 36 hour run that takes place at different times of year all over the country.  This particular race started in New Haven, CT and finished on Harvard Campus in Cambridge, MA.  In all the race was about 190 miles and involved 12 runners. We ran constantly without stopping, which means that somebody on our team was running constantly from the time we started until we got to Boston.

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I’ve been running now for about 4 weeks. I don’t know why but I’m starting to enjoy running. I’m not sure yet why I’m liking running but I have a few ideas:

• I have control over it
• I have a goal that I can track and measure.
• Increased caloric expenditure means a milkshake everyday!
• It makes me feel good

About 10 days ago I ran my first 5k, it wasn’t a official 5k or a race against anybody but myself, but I did it to see if If I could do it without stopping or walking. I pushed myself and finished in about 30 minutes.   The next Saturday I wanted to run again but my knees really hurt. Talking to some friends I came to realize that maybe I started running to far to fast. In two weeks I went from not running to a running a 5k.

I cooled down and did not go running again until the next Tuesday were I ran 1 1/2 miles and then again on Friday I ran 2 1/2 miles.  I was expecting to get about 3 miles runs by now but I don’t want to ruin something I’m starting to enjoy by getting injured and having to stop for a few weeks.

Last night I decided this morning would be the day I finally start running. I’ve been thinking about starting, but it just hadn’t happened yet.  I knew I could procrastinate and delay starting more or I could get off my butt and go running for the first time in, a long time, let just say 6 weeks.

Today I woke up early got out of bed and stepped on the scale: 234.8. Ok ,I thought, plenty of room for improvement, lets get to downsizing this body of mine.  I got dressed, mapped out a 1 mile route on google maps and started out the door.

At first I was running fine but as my lungs started to rebel and my hands started freezing I thought to myself, what the heck am i doing? I felt like an idiot, I wasn’t running fast, I’m sure my form was terrible and I know that man walking his dog was laughing at me.  Some how I pushed through the persecution and finished the my first mile run.

I got home later (lets just say later) then did some stretching and hoped in the shower.  As I was in the shower I started thinking that maybe just maybe I can do this. I can torture my body 3 times a week for a few minutes a day. Feeling pumped I hoped back on the scale hoping to see an immediate effect: ERR! Wow I’d lost so much weight that the scale didn’t know what to do. It was shocked and the only thing It could say was ERR! Just to make sure I hoped back on the scale a second time only to see: 234.8 for the second time.

I use scales enough at work to know how fickle a cheap scale can be.  Sometimes 1mg of something when weighed will read out .98 mg and if you weigh it again the scale will say 1.02 mg. Expensive scales don’t do this but cheap ones do. Rembering that we bought our scale at target for $8.99 I feel confident that the second measure was wrong. I’m sure I lost at least 10 pounds on that run.

This year has been a year of goals, I’m working on many goals and hope over the next weeks or months to spell them out here and get your input. The first area I’m trying to work on is my Physical Health.

I think I’m probably  pretty healthy.  Whenever I’ve had my blood pressure taken its usually low (110/65ish)  and I always have more then enough energy to get through the day, but I’ve never felt very physically fit or like I’ve been in great shape. There have been a few times (mostly when I was in High School, or right before I got married) that I was physically active every day. I really enjoy physical activities and have involved myself in various activities throughout my life:

• Rollerblading in Junior High
• Lacrosse in High School
• Rock Climbing, I had a membership as a freshman in college
• Racquetball, I took a summer course
• Cycling, I was given a bike as a gift and would ride 25-35 miles  up Provo Canyon

By far my favorite was cycling but then I moved to Boston where there are fewer bike paths, more drivers who run red lights, and all around less nature to look at as I ride. Needless to say, cycling like most everything else I’ve tried didn’t stick.

Now as spring is approaching I’ve decided to make this be the summer that I do something. No more talking about getting fit, no more scheming about ways to get fit. This is going to be the summer that I get fit (err or rather more fit than I am). I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, (mostly to calm my wife’s fears of being a widow at the age of 30).

Two weeks or so ago I got an email from my wife’s cousin Jared Jones. Jared recently decided to participate in the Ragnar Relay race from New Haven, CT to Boston MA. The relay requires a team of at least 10 people and Jared invited me to join his team. Participation on the team requires me to commit to running each week and I will be held accountable for slacking off.

The race is in September so that means that I have plenty of time (I hope) to get ready and prepare myself for something I never thought I’d try.  Each runner has 2 or 3 legs of the race to run from 3-8 miles on each leg  with the entire race taking about 25-30 hours to complete.

I’m excited to start working out and I plan on keeping a log here, so that I can track my progress.  If anybody has any suggestions on the best ways to build up endurance and numb yourself to the pain of and hatred for running I’d love to hear them.

Back in December I decided to make and keep a New Year Resolution. This was a new thing for me because I had either forgotten to make them or decided to rebel against society and not make one.  For some reasons this year was different. Maybe it was because I was sick of having sweets support me through my afternoons. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel like supporting the soda and candy companies in the trying economic times to come. Or maybe I was thinking about the risk of diabetes, but for whatever reason I decided to have no Soda or Candy-bars for a year.

After a few days of keeping this resolution I wasn’t sure if I could do it any longer. I was missing my mid-afternoon sugar rush and was having a hard time staying awake without a heavy dose of caffiene, but after a two weeks or so I was weaned of the sugar addiction and started doing really well.  I was surprised how quickly I was able to get over my sugar cravings and how little self control it actually took.

As the weeks progressed the first thing I noticed was how many extra calories I was no longer consuming. In 2008 my average lunch came with two of my favorite things:

• A 1 liter bottle of Mountain Dew
• A Milky Way bar (on lucky days I’d opt for the King Size).

Compared to 2008 I am saving about $3.50 a day that is $77 a month or $924 a year! I was also consuming 600 less calories then in 2008. To put this into perspective a pound of fat can store 3500 calories, or roughly 6 days of what I was consuming. By cutting down these two things alone I was effectively reducing my potential weight gain by a pound a week.  I’ve been tracking my weight gain for well over 6 months now and I wasn’t gaining a pound a week but I was consuming enough calories that I could have.

With the arrival of Charlotte last week I wanted a way to celebrate. In lieu of buying cigars or champagne I decided to celebrate with a 20oz Mountain Dew.  I bought one today, actually a friend bought it for me, and I was surprised by how not good it tasted. I used to love Mountain Dew but today I was surprised by how sweet and overpowering the flavor was.  Also, within the first few sips I could already feel the effects of the caffeine.  I can’t describe exactly how it felt but it was a feeling I am used to.  My head started to feel tight and tingly almost like I was about to have a migraine or was having a very mild migraine.  I am very familiar with this feeling as I get it everytime I drink caffeine after not having any for a long time. Most people get headaches when the stop drinking caffeine, I get them when I start.

I was expecting to enjoy my celebratory Dew but I didn’t. My celebration wasn’t a complete failure because in the end it reminded me of the reasons why I made the resolution to begin with, and only increased my desire to keep it.