Well, this is the beginning of Week 3 of my Back to the Gym adventures, and today was rough.

Last week, my knees (specifically, the area just below my knees) started feeling really achy and sore, and I thought I might have damaged them by overdoing “the running”. I have to use quotation marks with “the running” because I’m not entirely convinced that what I was doing was actual running. More like lurching maybe?

Anyway, I’ve dialed back “the running” portion of my workout to a half-mile, and won’t be adding more distance to my “running” until I can do the half-mile fairly easily.

Today, I stretched, did a nice 5-minute warm-up walk, and launched into my half-mile. It was painful. My muscles felt stiff, and my knees were not letting me do what I wanted to do. I thought “uh-oh”. I probably shouldn’t be doing this.

But I did.

Afterwards, I did I a 5-minute cool-down walk, stretched some more, and cursed more than a little. (I would have cursed more but I was winded.)

Then I tried running the short length of the gym. Back and forth I went. On the third round, I tried to sprint, which I more or less pulled off. I did some weights and, feeling light-headed, I decided I was done for the day.

On the way out to the car, I noticed my legs didn’t hurt.

They stiffened up again on the drive back home, but doing some Monty Python style walking around the house for a few minutes seemed to help.

So, I thought maybe it’s just a matter of conditioning, getting my body used to this. But while rubbing some sore muscle balm (it’s to relieve the pain of sore muscles; not to cause sore muscles) into my legs, Cindy noticed I have tight tendons, which probably accounts for much of my soreness. I don’t want this to become a major problem (or more of a problem), so I’ll take a little more time to stretch, and do more strength and flexibility training. And rest.

Taking the load off my legs and knees by about 50 lbs. would probably help, too. (But that comes later.)

Last month, after Cindy and I finished the juice fast, I wrote “I got to where I am by making lots of small negative changes over an extended period of time that felt good in the short-term but resulted in negative long-terms consequences. I’m not talking about just my weight here, either. So, the only way to undo it without ‘falling off the wagon’, to my mind, is to make lots of small positive changes over an extended period of time that may feel uncomfortable in the short-term but will result in positive long-terms gains.” And when I said “small positive changes over an extended period of time” I meant it  because I’ve now put myself on one of the most gradual running programs I’ve ever seen. It’s almost ridiculous, but since I’ve never been a runner — that is, I’ve never been able to run very far or for very long, even when I wasn’t overweight — I feel pretty good about this plan.

On Monday, after doing 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, and lifting some weights, I ran 0.20 miles on the treadmill. That’s one-fifth of a mile. That’s it, and that’s all. And it was plenty. I spent the next 20 minutes walking around trying to get my burning calves to loosen up. I could barely walk.

Yesterday, I ran 0.30 miles, and while I was huffing after just a few minutes, my legs felt fine afterwards.

My plan is to add one-tenth of a mile each day until I can run one whole mile without stopping. It’s something almost everyone I know can already do, but I have never been able to. Never. After that, I’ll keep going until I can do a 5K.

Today, I had planned on adding one-tenth of a mile to my run, bringing it up to 0.40 miles without stopping. Instead, I did 0.60 miles, which is damn good for me. My legs were getting a little tight near the end, but I felt okay. An hour later, I was feeling better than okay. I felt great.

Maybe there’s something to this running thing after all.

UPDATED: 09.22.2011 - Based on the advice in the comments from Scott, I’m making some changes to this plan. Now that I’ve reached the 1-mile milestone, I won’t be adding any distance to my runs for at least a week. Instead, I’ll be running the same distance (1 mile) every day for least a week to try to build up my cardio strength. When running 1 mile becomes easy, I’ll re-evaluate what my next milestone should be.  

Yesterday, Cindy and I finished our 10-day juice fast, and now we’re heading back into eating solid foods. We broke the fast with what started out as a simple cabbage and broth but morphed into a full-blown (and extremely satisfying) vegetable soup. Tonight, we had veggie pizza.

Losing 10 lbs. as a result of being on the juice fast is nice, but I expect it to be temporary. In fact, I weighed myself before writing this entry and I’m already up more than a pound from yesterday. I had been losing about a pound a day during the juice fast. I’m okay with that. Any real change is going to have to come from making…well, real change. It’s that simple. And this gets to the heart of why I did the juice fast.

It’s easy to set my mind at starting something…but hard for me to finish it. I have a long history of stopping projects. I thought the reboot might help me figure out more than how I really think or feel about food. I thought it would show me how I manage to talk myself into quitting projects. It’s easy to quit something when you see it as insignificant, unimportant. The problem with doing that is that eventually you start seeing more and more things as insignificant, or something you can put off until tomorrow. But eating? Now, that’s a challenge! Because it’s something I do everyday, several times a day.

What I needed was to set my mind to something I knew was way outside of my comfort zone, and then do it. When your comfort zone includes comfort foods, not eating is seriously outside the comfort zone, folks. The juice fast couldn’t be something so short-term that I could do it without much effort, but not something too long that I would be setting myself up for failure. 5 days, I could do easily. 7 days is harder because weekends are our time to explore and enjoy the foods this town has to offer. I really missed having brunch at You Say Tomato on Sunday, let me tell you! For me, getting through Saturday and Sunday was more difficult than getting through Monday to Friday. I needed more than a nutritional reboot. I needed a mental reboot. And because I can’t resist wanting to go just a little further, I chose the 10-day fast instead of the 7-day (which I think would be plenty for most people).

What I learned from my juice fast was something obvious: my body and my mind are not on the same page. That’s nothing new to me. The fact that I’m overweight is a pretty good indicator that my life is not balanced, and hasn’t been for some time now. But by drinking juice for 10 days straight, I became very aware just how often my mind lies to me. When I think I’m hungry, I might just be thirsty. When I’m hungry, I might just be bored, whether I consciously think I’m bored or not. For example, I would get hunger pangs late at night, and I would usually just fix myself something to eat, watch some more TV, and then go to bed maybe an hour or 2 later. Not so easy to do on a juice fast. Instead, I would drink water, turn off the TV, and read a book. 15 minutes later, I would notice that I wasn’t feeling hungry. It’s one of those things you know you do, but you don’t realize to what extent you’re doing it until you have to not do it, night after night.

Another very obvious thing: I do not drink enough water.

Now that the fast is over, I’ll be adding in more salads, fresh fruits and vegetables. I’ll also make fresh juice more often when I want a snack, and add more fish and seafood to meals. I’m also seriously considering making 2 days a week meatless (Geez, did I just hear someone hit the floor after reading that?) Last night’s cabbage/potato/onion/garlic/celery/carrot soup was pretty damn tasty. I definitely feel like I have a better appreciation for vegetables when done right. (I’m still going to always choose fried okra over boiled any day of the week though.)

Also, considering I spent the last 10 days not grazing and not eating anything after 8 PM, I’m definitely more mindful of late night eating, and the need to curb that impulse.

But I’m still down for the chili bacon cheeseburger with fries, and fried chicken, and ice cream sandwiches. And I’d still be up for some good Mexican food, if there was a place to get it here in Kansas City. I’m not eliminating “bad” things I like to eat. I’m adding in more “good” things, more micro-nutrient foods that I also like to eat but have neglected, and I’m giving them the same level of consideration as I would to all those comfort foods. Before this fast, if you had told me I would love eating a bowl of vegetable soup, I would have thought you were crazy.

The 60-Day juice fast that Joe Cross and Phil Staples did in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was remarkable. And radical.

But I’m not doing that. I got to where I am by making lots of small negative changes over an extended period of time that felt good in the short-term but resulted in negative long-terms consequences. I’m not talking about just my weight here, either. So, the only way to undo it without “falling off the wagon”, to my mind, is to make lots of small positive changes over an extended period of time that may feel uncomfortable in the short-term but will result in positive long-terms gains.

I think, having done this juice fast, and coming out of it feeling like I’m in control of things that would have typically gotten the better of me, it’s going to be a much easier road to travel.

I’m going to be better for no good reason.

I’m not going to lose weight because I’d feel better, or because, if I lose enough, I’d promised myself I’d get a tattoo, or anything like that. The truth is there is no one reason why I would want to do something like lose 50 lbs. There’s too many reasons why losing weight is a good idea, and no matter how long I could spend speculating about all the ways my life would be improved, I’m bound to experience unforeseen benefits.

So, I’m wondering why I should even bother trying to justify it with some one-off reason. I know I, like other people, have used those reasons for motivation. You see it all the time on The Biggest Loser — someone always says they want to see their grandkids grow up, or they want to be able to live long enough to walk their daughters down the isle, or they want to set a good example for their family — and while I totally get how that can motivate these people, the truth is they’re going to benefit from their new bodies and new mindset way beyond any single reason. The ability to lose weight was always there for them. And the reasons for losing weight have also always been there. But they haven’t been able to do it on their own. Having two trainers yelling and pushing them for 6 hours a day, and having healthy food provided and prepared for them doesn’t hurt though because it forces them to change how they think and feel about themselves, to stop using all the things that didn’t work in the past.

What usually happens when people attempt some life-altering endeavor — losing weight, giving up smoking, taking up running — is that, at some point, they get discouraged, or frustrated, or lazy, and fall off the wagon. I’ve fallen off so many wagons, so many times, I’ve lost count.

When it comes to losing weight, there are several ways to measure progress: calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI), use a tape measure, and the obvious one, stand on a scale. Weigh-ins are great, but I think too much is made of them, especially on shows like The Biggest Loser. But, that is, after all, what the show is about: who can lose the most weight.

Here’s the thing, though: inevitably, there will be a weigh-in where someone doesn’t lose any weight, or worse, they gain a few pounds. And then the breakdown starts. Here’s a person who was feeling fine one minute (not just fine, but in the best shape of their life), and the next they’re in tears, all because the scale said something different than what they thought it would (because they felt like they had lost weight), and they have a little meltdown. I’ve seen this happen in Weight Watchers, too.

On the show, which is part healthy living (eating and exercising), part confidence-building competition, part developing mental resolve, and part flat out game-play, not losing enough weight means the difference between staying on The Ranch and leaving. Does it make sense that, after 10 weeks of daily exercise and healthy eating, anyone would fret about a 0-pound weight loss? Only on TV. And only because of the game-play.

In the real world, most of us are only competing with ourselves, which is why we lose all the time. The goal of losing weight comes with all kinds of negative consequences. The two big ones are being forced to eat better, and exercise more. I think a lot of people see it as a punishment for wanting to do something good, which is why people try to cheat the system with magic pills, and taking courses in advantaged mathematics as applied to counting calories. Everybody wants to lose weight. Nobody wants to eat better. Nobody wants to exercise.

Every fat person I’ve known who wanted to lose weight also spent a lot of time bitching and complaining about the new foods they would have to eat. What they’re really doing is trying to convince themselves it’s just not worth it. I’ve even heard things like “I’d rather be happy than thin” as if this is an either/or proposition. I understand though because nothing makes me happier than being ridiculously winded after walking up two flights of stairs. Those health nuts out there don’t understand what fun they’re missing. Look, every fat person knows how to lose weight, I promise you.

Maybe the problem is that it’s too easy a goal to want to lose weight. Who the hell doesn’t want to do that? I say forget it. You know how people who have lost weight say it was a lot of hard work? Why? What about it was a lot of hard work? Well, they’ll tell you, they had to exercise everyday, and they had to learn how to eat better. Ah, so, losing weight wasn’t actually hard at all, was it? The hard part was eating better, and exercising regularly.

How most people think about losing weight is backwards.

Losing weight is an easy goal, something we want to do. But, if you’re the kind of person that feels that, as a consequence for this goal, you are punished with healthy food and exercise, you’re going to fail.

Focus, instead, on being better. That’s the mindset I’m working on right now. Don’t eat better foods to lose weight. Just eat better foods. Period. Don’t focus on exercising to lose weight. Just exercise better. Period.

I don’t need a reason to be better, do I? Isn’t being better reason enough? Isn’t everything we’ve ever wanted for ourselves simply the results of constantly working to be better?

I’m not talking about trying to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect, and nobody’s ever going to be perfect. But we can all be better.

There’s this scene in Serenity where Malcolm Reynolds is making a deal with two “businessmen”, Mingo and Fanty. And one of them tells Mal that he’s too unpredictable. “You run when you ought to fight; fight when you ought to deal.”

It’s not a pivotal moment, but sometimes I think about that line because I’m like that, sometimes responding to a situation one way when another way would be better. I think a lot of people do that.

Take any number of things that need to be done: bills that need to be paid, phone calls that need to be made, paperwork that needs to be filled out…a story that needs to be worked on.

Sometimes, I’ll put this stuff off because it causes me stress or anxiety. In other words, I chose the flight option. I run from the problem…maybe for just a day, maybe a week…maybe longer. And while that flight instinct could save me from any number of situations, it doesn’t really do me much good when it comes to bills, phone calls, paperwork, and writing because those things come with deadlines, due-by dates, and office hours. And if it’s one thing you can’t outrun, it’s Time. So, the flight instinct, at best, simply delays the inevitable. Fighting, that is, taking action, is really the only way to alleviate the stress. Delaying action increases our stress and anxiety, and makes us want to run farther from those unresolved tasks.

Hell, taking action makes some people feel better even in situations where doing nothing is the most appropriate response. They feel like they should do “something”, although they’re not sure what that “something” should be. We just don’t like feeling powerless, do we?

So, why then, do we delay taking action toward solving problems? Why do we run when we ought to fight?

Happy Star Wars Day, everybody!

Some of you have heard this before, but some of you haven’t. And this being Star Wars Day, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to write it down.

Those of us who grew up wanting to create for a living — writer, actor, artist, etc. — were often encouraged…right up until the moment we were actually old enough to give it a go. Then, things changed, and we were cautioned against it. As well-intentioned as that advice and concern was, for most of us, it came across like a sucker punch. These were the people who had always said yes, you can do it, but now they didn’t think we could.

The advice usually sounds like “Acting (or whatever) is nice, but you might want to develop a skill you can fall back on…just in case it doesn’t work out”. So, what do we do? We move our passionate pursuits to the back burner, and we focus on developing that “fall back” skill, like accounting, or construction work, or law. But unless you’re truly thrilled with accounting, construction work, or being a lawyer (and some people really enjoy what they do), maybe you should just ignore that advice…or think again about giving it. It’s confusing, and disheartening, and sends the message that you shouldn’t do something because you might fail.

The thing is you might not fail.

Whatever it is you’re wanting to do, that thing that people keep saying is risky, or is “a lot of hard work”, or whatever it is that somebody is trying to make you afraid to do, do it. You might fail, that’s true. But, you might not. Just do it, and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, move on.

But don’t let your “fall back” become your life. Have a Plan B, they say. And while that’s good advice, you have to know how to look at Plan B.

In reality, there is no such thing as a Plan B. We use labels like Plan A and Plan B for convenience, so we can keep shit straight in our heads when we talk about them, but really there is no Plan B.

It’s all Plan A. When you find yourself making a living doing your “fall back” job, that’s not you’re “fall back” job. That’s your job. That’s your life. You might tell yourself “Oh, I’m just doing this until I have a chance to do [whatever it was you gave up]“, but that love, that passionate pursuit that you’re not pursuing anymore, that’s Plan B now, the back burner dream.

Let’s think about skydiving for a minute. You have a main chute and a reserve chute, right? And when you jump out of the plane, what are you going to pull first, your main chute or your reserve chute? (By the way, nobody ever says, “First, pull the reserve chute, because there’s a chance your main chute won’t open, so let’s just go ahead and assume it’s not going to work, and pull the reserve first.”) So, let’s say your main chute fails. If that happens, you have to try the reserve chute, right?

Now, let me pause here for a moment, because I want to say that I am fully aware that, as you’re falling to your possible death, there’s no way in hell you’re going to care what’s a main chute and what’s a reserve chute, but….

At the moment your main chute fails, your reserve chute becomes your main chute. It’s the only one you have. There’s no other chute. There is no reserve anymore. There is no Plan B. There’s just a Plan A, and failing that, there’s a new Plan A. It’s whatever you’re doing at the moment, here and now. It’s always Plan A. Plan B is just hypothetical.

Luke Skywalker never said, “You know, if this whole ‘becoming a Jedi Knight’ thing doesn’t work out, I can always go back to moisture farming on Tatooine.” Sure, he was a whiny little snot, but he stuck with it. He was told he couldn’t do it, that he’s too old, and he had moments of doubt, and he was shot at, a Wampa beat him up and tried to eat him, he froze half to death, his dad cut his hand off, he had to fight a Rancor, Jabba tried to throw him into a sarlacc pit, he made out with his sister, and the Emperor tried to electrocute him. He had every opportunity in the galaxy to say, “Okay, that’s it! I’m done with this bullshit! See ya, I’m outta here.”

Stick with it, whatever it is. As Yoda said, “If you end your training now – if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did – you will become an agent of evil.”

Okay, maybe you won’t become an agent of evil, but you’ll probably have a few really shitty regrets that will make you hateful, or scared, or cynical, or bitter in your old age, and — well-intentioned or not — you’ll find yourself trying to sabotage someone else’s dream.

Oh, wait, that’s totally an agent of evil.

Hell is other people. — Jean-Paul Sartre

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – from Hamlet , Act II, scene ii

I’m usually game for a good argument…but holy hell, it’s hard to find one. It’s much easier to find people spouting off a bunch of nonsensical ramblings, backed by misinformation, untruths, tortured logic, and double standards.

There’s a lot a inane people who spend a great deal of time complaining about the most insignificant things. And engaging with them on their level creates nothing but sadness and fury, bringing a whole lot of negativity into the world. After a while, I found myself wondering if their lives were so empty and sad that maybe this, this incessant bitching, complaining, and whining, was all they had.

And then, listening to all of that noise, I also wondered why the hell I was participating in it. Was my life just as sad?

If I couldn’t do anything about other people, then maybe I had to do something about myself. So, I stopped. I drastically cutback on my own bitching, complaining, and whining. Whatever it was that I would normally bitch, or complain, or whine about, I would do my best to let those thoughts go. I would ask myself questions like Why am I dwelling on this? What different does it really make? What can I do about it? And most of the time, I didn’t have good answers.

Since I wasn’t complaining as much anymore, I started listening — really listening — to other people complain about small things. It was all noise — gas prices, gossip, drama, weather, politics, etc. — all the time, on an negative feedback loop. Whenever I found myself engaging in petty bickering about some stupid shit, I would often catch myself, stopping abruptly. I would feel a touch of guilt because, of all the awesome things that are going on all around me, in my life and in the lives of my friends, I decided to devote 3 minutes to something petty. (At the very least, it should be funny, right?)

What I found a little unsettling was the realization that without all of those things to bitch, complain, and whine about, I didn’t have as much to say.

But I wanted to say something, and because I refused to devote as much time and energy to complaining, I was forced to talk about more positive things. And the only way to find good things to talk about was to look for more good things. Oddly enough, they were easy to find…once I started looking for them. Go figure.

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog last week and he had posted this video:

Here’s what he said about it:

My favorite part happens just before the first minute mark. That’s when guy #3 joins the group. Before him, it was just a crazy dancing guy and then maybe one other crazy guy. But it’s guy #3 who made it a movement.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been taking one hour a night and devoting that hour to working on a project. I have about a dozen projects, and, all totaled, I believe they can be completed within a year.

Many of these projects are creative ones. Doing something creative, and putting it out there for the world to see can be scary. After watching the video, I found myself thinking about what it was like being on stage at USAO.

Our drama department put on some pretty damn good shows. They didn’t start out being damn good shows. Usually, they started out as awkwardly-delivered lines and half-understood scenes. But we would stop, re-read the lines, pick apart the scene, the words, we would try saying the lines a different way maybe, we would try out different blocking to see what worked best. We devoted ourselves to understanding the story, and the characters. And, by the time opening night rolled around, we knew what the hell we were doing. We knew how to make the audience laugh, and we knew how to make them cry.

And the reason the performances were good was because a group of people agreed to look foolish together, and to say that it’s okay to look foolish. This permission to look, and act, and be foolish is why members of an acting troupe can be so close to each other. Only by being willing to suffer through looking foolish can we develop our skills.

If you want to learn how to roller-blade, you have to be willing to look foolish. You’re going to scream, flail your arms about wildly, and fall flat on your ass. Somebody will laugh. You might be tempted to give up, but you shouldn’t.

Give yourself permission to look foolish, and over time, you’ll scream less, you’ll perform fewer gravity-induced gyrations, and your bruised ass will heal.

Now, that first guy in the video? He’s brave and/or crazy. The second guy? He’s also brave and/or crazy. But that third guy, the one Godin says turned crazy dancing into a movement? He’s the tipping point, the one that gave everybody permission to look foolish, to do the thing they wanted to do when they saw Guy #1 and #2, but couldn’t because they were too afraid. He’s the one that gave them permission to express themselves, and have fun.

But it all started because Guy #1 didn’t quit, and we need to remember that. So, if you have your own creative project, you and I, we’ll be Guy #1. Our friends? They’ll be Guy #2.

And let’s keep going until Guy #3 shows up, okay?

I took the idea of the grape soda Ellie Badge (if you’ve seen Up, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen Up, go see it…take tissue) and changed it to better suit me and Cindy. I think Moxie is more fitting for us. Not only is it one of our favorite drinks of all-time, but it’s a quality we strive to bolster within ourselves.

And we’re going to need a lot of it to get us through the next couple of years

Last month, Todd and I ran across this article (via Consumerist) about how Charlie Munger, the Vice-Chairman of Warren Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway, used to set aside one hour each day to work on personal side-projects for himself. I like this idea for a couple of reasons:

1. One hour is about all the time I can spend on a project right now.
2. It’s such a small amount of time that the pressure of producing something “epic” is kept at bay.

Over time, these little actions will yield big results. It’s not a new idea, I know. But it’s easy for me to get caught up in a mental gumption trap, believing that I shouldn’t or can’t start something right now because I don’t have the time to give it the attention I feel it deserves or needs. Of course, that is complete and utter bullshit.

Over the past week, I’ve been trying to keep this in mind, working on various side projects I’ve intended to get around to someday. Not surprisingly, at the end of each hour, it’s satisfying to have been able to work on something that’s been sitting around in my head for weeks, months, and years.

After doing this for just one week, a couple of things become obvious:

• I still watch too much television.
• I don’t get enough sleep.

And these two things greatly influence how well I do other things throughout the day. I need to fix that.

As the article asks

“…if you aren’t satisfied with your current situation, why not work for yourself an hour each day? Instead of just idle dreaming, set aside specific time for action. Perhaps the key is small chunks of time, but at regular intervals.”

How very Kaizen. How very Bird by Bird.

At the end of the month, I’ll have a better idea of which projects I’m actually enjoying spending time on, and which ones I’m better off ditching.