Sleep schedule is more sleep, less schedule. My right shoulder and neck are tweaked from who knows what. Did some light calisthenics to try to loosen it all up, but it just really hurt. Ended up with just walking an hour on the treadmill and nothing else. Still sore, and kinda down at being so sore from nothing in particular. Tomorrow’s another day — though, that day is mom’s birthday.

The slack is back… day six. Woke up at 4:20 without an alarm, and without the intention to workout that early. It was just the noise of the storm, which guaranteed I didn’t want to go out to Stone Mtn for a class or really turn on any electronics for a DVD. As it was I think I ended up watching people trying to break into a neighbor’s house, until the timer on our front light came on at 5 and they apparently noticed and shut off all their lights, so I lost them. Read More »

Tired of being tired, sore as all get out, yet realizing a great cure for soreness is activity, today I snoozed right out of my early workout. Reset my phone alarm for 7:30, thinking I’d try to do something before work, and of course, snoozed right past that, too.

My head is so much clearer today. I was still sort of yawning and groggy at first, but that didn’t last more than any other typical “just got up” grogginess. Did finally get around to doing a half-hour on the treadmill over lunch, and it did help the continued leg soreness. Clearly I needed to catch up on sleep, so I’m not going to fault myself this morning’s weakness. I honestly haven’t even really dwelled on it today, as I’ve been so productive finishing up some much needed work items.

It is week one, sure. Still doing well on eating, or so I think at least. There’s no bootcamp tomorrow morning, but that doesn’t mean I can’t attempt to get right back on it and do my own thing at the scheduled time. Maybe even over the weekend, I mean, a Friday, Saturday, Sunday seems like a great time to work on getting my sleep schedule handled.

Anywho, no use beating myself up over today. It’s just a day, put it aside and move on to tomorrow.

So, either this is another symptom of this week’s fuzzy brain, or else I honestly never realized how old Wil Wheaton is before. He’ll be 38 this summer, and I’ll be 39 shortly after. That’s only one year.

Problem is, being a few years older than some friends with their Wesley crushes from the Star Trek Next Gen days, I distinctly remember thinking his character was such a punk sometimes, and clearly just a kid. Yup, just some punk kid one-year younger than me and my already burgeoning grumpy-old-man syndrome, apparently.

I have to say, realizing his age was truly a shock to me. I’m choosing to think he was just young-looking for his age at the time, and did a great job playing younger than he truly was, so that he had me, at least, convinced he was such a punk. Of course, looking back on those days, end of high school, beginning of college for me, I think I was pretty good at playing younger than I was, too, especially in the case of acting like a stupid punk kid, so perhaps he wasn’t such a great actor after all.

Never-the-less, I am still fascinated with the punk — so that realizing his age causes the same sort of discord that my own does for me. Plus, since I’m always fascinated by the lists people compile of things “this generation” has grown up without knowing — things like floppy disks or life before the internet — now I have to wonder, does that include a generation of people who don’t realize why Wil Wheaton is cool? Because that’s just sad.

Eat less and move more. Eat less. Move more. How much more basic of a system could there be? Why doesn’t anybody who tries this just succeed? I mean, if the formula is so simple, why is there such an industry surrounding the next big thing in diet and fitness? I swear, sometimes I just think to myself “are you stupid or something? Eat less — move more! Seriously, it’s not rocket science.”

But instead of simple success, I get craziness and drama, and an endless boring saga of “gosh it was hard to get up this morning” and “doing that one little good for me thing led to me being a zombie all day” and I have to wonder, am I just stupid here?

Yes, day three is hardly a habit-forming streak, and it was expected that each day without an adjusted sleep-schedule was going to be harder than the last. Yes, I dragged ass up and worked out, and yes indeedy-do I’m so freaking sore today it’s miserable. This is all part of the expected “hump” to get over to get into this, so I guess I’m right on track.

I think it’s got to be during these early days when most battles are lost. When you’re so digusted with yourself because a little moving around has made your body so sore that you’re groaning like an idiot with every step. It’s these days when my mind can’t focus, and I realize I’m mentally weighing the eventual benefits of doing something good for myself versus causing myself more stress now for working slower — thinking, maybe if I just skip a day I can get a good night’s sleep, find that focus and crank out some work to lower my stress. Then I’ll be back on track to start again, except I know every day I skip adds to this horrible-painful adjustment period.

Power through. Keep getting up. Just focus as best you can, things will get done. Remember to soak and stretch more. The soreness will pass. The sleep schedule will work itself out. This isn’t about deprivation, it’s about enhancement. The more you sulk over things, the more it’s apparent your head is in the wrong place here — this is just a rocky start on a trip to a fabulous destination.

Oh and last but not least, drink more water, stupid! Chills after exercise are apparently a pretty common sign of dehydration. I’m pretty sure you knew that, if your brain had just been less fuzzy.

Day two wasn’t exactly up and at ‘em, but as I think I mentioned on Facebook already, when the alarm saves you from an amazingly tedious dream where you’re stuck working over and over on some frustrating work problem, you almost thank it — even after you realize the time.

Bedtime was horrible again, somewhere around 12:30 for my 4:30 wake-up. I decided to stop trying to force myself to go lay down earlier, because I end up laying there miserable for hours, mind racing, and I think that only added to my resentment and excuses when that alarm goes off so early. Sort of… “I slept like crap, how can I be expected to go workout.” Now, if I’m not sleepy, I’m not laying down yet. Whether that means only a few hours sleep or not, at least when I lay down, I’m out. I don’t wake up feeling like I’ve wasted time in bed. I’m tired, sure, but the only frustration is really that my body hasn’t made the adjustment to allow me to be sleepy earlier yet. I have faith it will adjust.

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It’s almost midnight, so clearly the sleep schedule is still wonky here, but I am happy to say that this morning I got up with the sunrise-alarm by 4:40 AM and went to workout. It was not so horrifically embarrassing as I’d imagined it might be, and I was really just sort of jazzed at myself that I was actually awake and doing it. Of course, stayed up too late, so as soon as I was cooled down all I wanted to do was crawl back in bed. It’s probably partially that it’s still cold and dark when I get done that doesn’t help. So, I changed back into PJs and crashed out hard. Don’t think I moved until I realized the shower was running and James was up — having never heard his alarm go off.
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It’s just after 8pm on the last day of January, 2010, and my stomach is twitchy wondering what ominous thing tomorrow morning will bring. Of course, I sat so still yesterday at my desk for a total of about 10 hours — working, playing, trying to get ahead on a Saturday home alone — that I was beyond sore last night when I lay down. The slightest twist brought on major cramping down my sides. So far the resolution to “move more” seems to only be on regular work days, and not fanatical-computer-devotee-weekend-bender days. I did, at least, manage to do some household chores today to break up the fanatical-computer-screen-staring.

It occurs to me that I really miss going dancing. *Calls up a last.fm “club dance” tag radio.* Yeah, this music is not suited for sitting on a ridiculous balance-ball chair at your desk.

Speaking of ridiculous balance-ball chairs – which was supposed to keep me from sitting still all day and force me to sit-up more, improving my posture — I got to thinking last night about all the money I’ve put into various fitness trends over the years. How can any person have so much fitness equipment and still look for the next thing? Probably because they’re fresh out of stock on motivation. Wonder who sells that? Oh well, if you need a treadmill, elliptical machine, aerobics step, yoga mat, entire shelf of hand-weights, jump rope, ankle weights, thigh-master, workout bands, or balance balls (I have two) I’ve got you covered, along with a crate of workout DVDs, their older VHS cousins, 6 versions of Dance Dance revolution, Yourself! Fitness for ps2, Wii Fit with Biggest Loser for some incentive to use the gear. I’ve also got workout clothes in a range of sizes for a variety of activities… oh, and the birthday bicycle that I think made one trip outdoors in 2009 — though it was a long one.

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90 lbs in 90 weeks should be reasonable for anybody, right?

February 2010 begins the 90 week countdown to my 40th birthday. A reasonable weightloss is 1-2 pounds a week, and I probably don’t actually need to lose 90lbs to be healthy, but a goal of 90 in 90 seems doable, or at least catchy. There’s no definate plan of action yet, other than weekly weigh-ins, and to start blogging some workout info again.

You should see a weight-ticker below…eventually.

Somehow, in the jumble of my day, this song popped into my head and I continued to catch myself singing it. So, I looked up the video on YouTube to just listen to the whole song and perhaps do away with the one line I knew to repeat over and over.

I stumbled across this little gem.

I don’t remember being terrified of The Muppets as a child, but why don’t I? If we’d had a television the size of our television now, I think I would have been, but perhaps tiny, grainy TV screens helped preserve my sanity.

On a related note, perhaps I was (was?) a little insane, since I did used to (used to?) terrorize people with my animals on a stick!

For Jimmy, I give you Winston and pals.

Yes, one of those is Frankenstein. Just be thankful I no longer have a vehicle with a sun roof.