Inspiration? Exercise? What the Hell?
So, yeah, last time I wrote was a friggin long time ago. Let's summarize that bit of time, shall we?
Job - got promoted, got a new boss, he transitioned away, got a new boss, old one is coming back, started focusing more on the Fraud work. Good times, good times.
Car - parents bought me my granddad's old 2005 Sunfire. I slapped an Ohio State vanity plate on it, so now it says "(Block O)K WTF". I LOL'd
Apartment - moved to a new apartment. This one is larger, better location, not infested with kids, and they let you drink poolside. All in all, very nice.
New Orleans - Went, was fun, got drunk, lost my wallet, dealing with a bunch of charges I didn't make. Still sucks.
Dragon*Con - Amazing, as per the usual. Reprised my Tusken (except this year it was 501st accurate) and my Jayne (complete with fuzzy hat), along with a Captain Hammer (i.e. black shirt with an iron-on plus black gloves and combat boots) and a Spy from Team Fortress 2, complete with Borat, Christopher Walken, and TF2 engineer disguises. Oh, and also the "gentlemen" pose. Had tons of fun, drank a lot, took pictures, made some new friends (waves at pallagia and tenner ), and came home with a fresh case of post-con depression.
Instead of wallowing in a pile of blah for a few weeks until it blows over, I instead decided to take the negative energy and use it for good. tenner told me about this "Couch to 5k" plan, so I figured "What the hell, let's give it a shot." I haven't regularly exercised for nearly a year, so I figured that it's be better to start with something I hadn't done before. That has the added effect of me not trying to push myself to get where I was before, like I tend to do when I swing back into lifting weights.
On top of that, adding all of the crap that I'd eaten before the con (since neither sadirakitty or I wanted to go shopping), at the con (since the food is either WTF-expensive or bad for you in that special way that only mall food court food can be), and after the con (since neither of us wanted to cook). Holy crap, my diet is terrible. Combine that with regular lunches out with co-workers and it's amazing that I don't weigh more. So, I'm going to combine that with the whole running thing. The inner geek in me knows that it's a lot easier to cut a few hundred calories a day than it is to work it off. However, exercise has other auxillary benefits that my body has been missing. Combining the two should hopefully have good results.
So, simple first steps there - I'm going to severely limit my habit of going out for lunch, and instead come home and eat there. I'm also pushing us to not go out for dinner nearly as often as we do. Hopefully I can limit our restaurant dining to maybe once or twice a month, but we don't have any set goals there. We have already been cutting the "hidden" calories that love to creep in to our diet (e.g. we drink diet pop, have light salad dressings, sour cream, yogurt, skim milk, etc). We do need to work on our snacking, though... Hopefully we can shift snacks to lunchmeat, fruit, and lower-fat cheeses as opposed to chips. We've still got some work to do here, but I think that a more gradual approach will lessen the possibility of failure.
So, I wrote this at the end of my very first Couch to 5k experience. On paper, it sounded simple. Brisk 5 minute walk for warm-up, then alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. When you aren't in shape, this isn't so easy. I made it, yes, but with the help of a C25k podcast - I have a feeling that those are going to be crucial. Adding to the difficulty was my decision to take Toki along with me. Holy crap, was she confused at not being able to stop and sniff every 2 minutes. She had a really hard trouble understanding why I kept switching paces, as well. Something makes me think that Toki won't be coming out with me on these any more. Regardless, it was kinda nice to actually work up a bit of a sweat from just running. I've got to work the bugs out of my system, but I think that I can handle this.
As a way to keep myself accountable, I'm going to make an effort to post after each workout. According to www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml, I should have 3 of these a week. Next step is planned for Tuesday, pending weather. So, if nothing is posted by Thursday, get on my case.
Until Next TIme,
Brandon
Job - got promoted, got a new boss, he transitioned away, got a new boss, old one is coming back, started focusing more on the Fraud work. Good times, good times.
Car - parents bought me my granddad's old 2005 Sunfire. I slapped an Ohio State vanity plate on it, so now it says "(Block O)K WTF". I LOL'd
Apartment - moved to a new apartment. This one is larger, better location, not infested with kids, and they let you drink poolside. All in all, very nice.
New Orleans - Went, was fun, got drunk, lost my wallet, dealing with a bunch of charges I didn't make. Still sucks.
Dragon*Con - Amazing, as per the usual. Reprised my Tusken (except this year it was 501st accurate) and my Jayne (complete with fuzzy hat), along with a Captain Hammer (i.e. black shirt with an iron-on plus black gloves and combat boots) and a Spy from Team Fortress 2, complete with Borat, Christopher Walken, and TF2 engineer disguises. Oh, and also the "gentlemen" pose. Had tons of fun, drank a lot, took pictures, made some new friends (waves at pallagia and tenner ), and came home with a fresh case of post-con depression.
Instead of wallowing in a pile of blah for a few weeks until it blows over, I instead decided to take the negative energy and use it for good. tenner told me about this "Couch to 5k" plan, so I figured "What the hell, let's give it a shot." I haven't regularly exercised for nearly a year, so I figured that it's be better to start with something I hadn't done before. That has the added effect of me not trying to push myself to get where I was before, like I tend to do when I swing back into lifting weights.
On top of that, adding all of the crap that I'd eaten before the con (since neither sadirakitty or I wanted to go shopping), at the con (since the food is either WTF-expensive or bad for you in that special way that only mall food court food can be), and after the con (since neither of us wanted to cook). Holy crap, my diet is terrible. Combine that with regular lunches out with co-workers and it's amazing that I don't weigh more. So, I'm going to combine that with the whole running thing. The inner geek in me knows that it's a lot easier to cut a few hundred calories a day than it is to work it off. However, exercise has other auxillary benefits that my body has been missing. Combining the two should hopefully have good results.
So, simple first steps there - I'm going to severely limit my habit of going out for lunch, and instead come home and eat there. I'm also pushing us to not go out for dinner nearly as often as we do. Hopefully I can limit our restaurant dining to maybe once or twice a month, but we don't have any set goals there. We have already been cutting the "hidden" calories that love to creep in to our diet (e.g. we drink diet pop, have light salad dressings, sour cream, yogurt, skim milk, etc). We do need to work on our snacking, though... Hopefully we can shift snacks to lunchmeat, fruit, and lower-fat cheeses as opposed to chips. We've still got some work to do here, but I think that a more gradual approach will lessen the possibility of failure.
So, I wrote this at the end of my very first Couch to 5k experience. On paper, it sounded simple. Brisk 5 minute walk for warm-up, then alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. When you aren't in shape, this isn't so easy. I made it, yes, but with the help of a C25k podcast - I have a feeling that those are going to be crucial. Adding to the difficulty was my decision to take Toki along with me. Holy crap, was she confused at not being able to stop and sniff every 2 minutes. She had a really hard trouble understanding why I kept switching paces, as well. Something makes me think that Toki won't be coming out with me on these any more. Regardless, it was kinda nice to actually work up a bit of a sweat from just running. I've got to work the bugs out of my system, but I think that I can handle this.
As a way to keep myself accountable, I'm going to make an effort to post after each workout. According to www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml, I should have 3 of these a week. Next step is planned for Tuesday, pending weather. So, if nothing is posted by Thursday, get on my case.
Until Next TIme,
Brandon