Heavily Weighted

I have still not found a way to lose weight; and weight remains my largest impediment. Am in NCW now, and have access to a propa' climbgym; and am using that a lot, i'd say. I haven't been on the mt. bike yet, as the trails are still melting; but i have been running more than i have in many years. So the cardio lacketh not.

But i'm still fat.

I haven't been lifting much because i hurt my right biceps, and i can't seem to stop climbing long enough to let it heal fully. But i am doing i think more cardio (again, mostly running) within a proper (and so far gainful) climby season than i've heretofore managed. Have also been hiking some on off days.

On the diet front, i've kinda settled into the standard breakfast/lunch, then have been trying to basically eat raw veggies for supper. That generally ends up being a salad with oil and vinegar. I've managed to cut the meat out at night.

And yet, i'm still finding some way to keep it high-calorie enough that i've lost nary a pound. It's odd, 'cuz i spend decent swaths of the day feeling fairly hungry. I almost never leave off feeling like i've overeaten. And yet the flab clingeth, notwithstanding.

I would like to get a hold on what i'm doing wrong, exactly--not in some emotional "poormei'msofrustrated" sort of way, but more quantitatively. And i say more quantitatively, because knowing me as i do, if i don't keep things very simple, very formulaic, and not overly contrived, i'll fail. Case in point, i tried a couple of weeks ago to keep a notebook about me in order to keep a diet journal. I think i managed it for two days. And that's not to say it was entirely unproductive--it did show me how many calories are in some of my add-ins. It's pretty easy to take 'er back to maintenance intake level with an extra Tbsp of almond butter, or an extra handful of nuts, or the whole avocado instead of half. So super easy to add in an extra 150 calories here and there, and that'll be the difference between losing and maintaining.

But even with the useful visual on that, i can't seem to get a good grip on how to fix it definitively. Basically, i feel like i have breakfast and lunch more or less covered. Not overeating, it's good nutrition, sustainable, and i'm hungry by supper. So it comes to the night meal. And it seems that practically anything i make can become (and in every case manages to become) a substrate for more calories than i can have in order to lose weight.

So 1/4 cup oats with chia seeds, hemp seeds, olive oil, spices and blueberries finds a way to be too much food. Spinach, tomatoes, olives, onion, garlic, oil and vinegar and hummus or almond butter finds a way to be too much food. Maddening to be sure; but pretty dang consistent.

So i'm thinking about keeping daytime the same, and just having maybe a protein supp at night. Sounds dumb, 'cuz i've tried similar tactics in the past, and i think i always find a way to cheat. But it's really quantifiable, and really simple to reckon whether i've been true to the plan or have cheated. Just have to gear up for being hungry every night.

I do think it'll also ramp things up metabolically if i can find a way to no live on a steady diet of cortisol. The stress will end--if God allows it--when i have my tribe with me again, and the job is less chaotic.

We'll see. But the weather's getting mighty nice, and soon there'll be mt biking to do.

Further into Season 8

Didn't realize I'd fallen so far behind in the logging, but i did get in HB 9 & 10, and I've gotta say i really like that program. Do believe we added some strength with that upgrade.

On 3/13/18--would'a' been a Tues--got in Campus #1. That went really well. At this gym, they have Tension rungs, and i believe i like 'em better than the Metolius. I feel like they're...i really don't know...either slightly larger, or just somehow more positive. I tried looking up a comparison, but couldn't find any quant specs. At any rate, i was sticking sequences off the bat that i never did get last season; and the last Campus sesh was 10/5/17--so a bit over 5 months ago.

M' right biceps cooperated, and by the great mercy of GOD hasn't popped on me. The campusing hurt some, but didn't seem to make it worse. Interestingly, I had the harder time leading with my left hand this go 'round. That'd be the opposite of last season when i couldn't seem to stick the hard moves leading right. And that's especially weird, 'cuz it's my right arm that's tweaking on me, so i'd expect having it as the main pulling arm would be even worse; but that seem not to be the case.

Today was the first Limit Boulder sesh, and it was a pretty good start. Did climb yesterday doing lead routes with some friends, and that was probably poor planning; but i surely still had a fine day today. Started out with the warmup bouldering ladder, and ended up sending a V6-7, which was honestly a kind of victory all by itself. Then did come up with some pretty decent limity sequences on the serious wall. That was pretty hard on my arm, and i'm feeling it now. Do believe i'm going to just have to take a couple of weeks off of anything that requires a lock-off. Anyhow, really great workout, and encouraging.

Then i went for about an hour run on the river trail. Starting to get past that point of looking for incremental objectives, and being able to just run because there's more time in the day--which is really nice. No speed work yet, but the endurance is coming back.

And it was one beautiful day. I really, really wish my tribe were here with me.

So: the Plan

So yesterday i picked up some little notebooks i can keep in my pocket for "diet journals". Now, diet journals (in my opinion) are useful in two major ways. Ostensibly they reveal what one is eating, such that it can be faced and potentially corrected. But they also tend to cause one not to eat the stuff one knows he shouldn't, as he'll subsequently have to write it in. I'd reckon that's the Observation Effect respecting dieting. Problem with that (if there is one) is that you don't get an accurate picture of what the maintenance (or gaining, as the case may be) diet looks like.

On the other hand, if it works, and you really are able to clean the garbage out of the diet just by focusing attention on it, then who cares if you're a li'l fuzzy about where you started?

As i understand it (and this seems pretty reasonable to me) a brutha's gotta cut about 300 calories/day outta the diet in order to lose weight. Now, i know that's not strictly speaking true. Sorta like if you continuously add 1 N net force to an object, you'll eventually approximate light speed, in an analogous fashion you'd lose weight by snipping out a net calorie or so consistently. But in a practical sense, cutting a net 300 ca/day would work.

My diet is generally pretty rock solid. That is to say, with very rare exceptions, i eat basically the same thing every day. And that's the cruxy bit to me: breakfast and lunch--even with some snacks--are extremely consistent, and i don't imagine i have a lot of room to tweak that without spending all day hungry and miserable.

So really supper, i believe, is where it's at. It's certainly where i fail when i fail; but it's also the most variable meal of my day, and the place where i could feasibly cut 300 cals without wanting to punch someone.

But first i need to calculate my typical foods-especially supper. I'll try to get some numbers up tomorrow. But today seemed like a pretty good day.

Dusty, yet fluffy

Funny...2 1/2 years since my last post on here. Really gets away. In the interim i ruptured a biceps, rehabbed that, and moved 20hrs away. Haven't stopped logging workouts, but left off the side-musing seeing as no one at all cares.

But i feel a need to ruminate again on obliquities which--notwithstanding--failn't to connect.

I've been struck (and i've been struck with such many, many times heretofore) by how my workouts are not meshed nor periodized. That is to say, i find myself again stuck in a rut on most fronts, and my workouts make no sense and don't build on each other--or, for that matter, even complement each other.

For some reason, i've never managed to mesh weightlifting with any other sport in anything like a sensible fashion. I absolutely cannot say why that is. I think that i just loathe lifting light weights--seems pointless, even though it isn't. So when i try to maintain a power program in the irongym while i'm ramping up a triathlon or climbing program i end up damaged. That, or i end up wrecking my more important workouts. Total nonsense, but it's like a mental disorder from within which i can't see the problem. This time 'round i've very nearly ruptured my other distal biceps, and am trying to stave that off now. I'm sure it's very much like why i cannot get my diet dialed to lose weight.

Today i was hangboarding (and had a very fine workout in fact), and there was a 16ish year-old kid also working out. Bouncing between campusing, hanging from wooden pinches on a 270, and finally just endless projecting on bad holds on the 40deg overhung proj wall. Strong dude, for sure. But the guy weighs maybe a buck forty. So i'm considering the weight i'm having to take off for some of my hangs, and thinking Man! I'm stripping weight to get down to this kid's weight. And it once again occurred that if i could find a way to disencumber myself of 20-30 lbs, i'd go from being a decent climber to being a monstrous climber. I realize there's no useful way i could get to 140lbs; but i could go from the 203ish i'm at now to 180 without necessarily even losing any muscle.

But i can't figure out how.

I will explore that on here.