11/14 weigh-in
181.5
18%
Notes: this was following a morning 5k race, so I might have been a little under-hydrated and had only eaten an apple by that time in the morning. 5K race report coming soon.
Ate a bunch of pizza from late-morning on and not much else (plenty of seltzer, though) and I’m sure a bag of popcorn as the requisite evening snack.
I was 183# this morning; 19.5% on the body fat number. (This >5% swing from yesterday is the reason I was wondering about the precision of the scale I have.)
Breakfast today: poppy seed bagel with scrambled eggs & bacon; poppy seed bagel with cream cheese.
I don’t think I’ve eaten dinner (it’s about 2340 already), but I had some popcorn. (Can you tell I’m a big fan of popcorn?)
I’m thinking about a ham sandwich now. (Update: didn’t happen.)
What do you think I should be eating instead? (I have some hummus in the fridge and some raw vegetables I could chop up to bring to the office Thursday.)
Tuesday was a busy day, with lots going on in the rest of my life.
Lunch/dinner was a burrito at Chipotle (I probably shouldn’t eat there too much, but I feel like it’s a good amount of food and the veggies are good in the burrito.) I splurged and had chips and salsa too, because…
my first swimming class was Tuesday night. I lost track of how many laps I swam, but it sure wasn’t enough to brag about! The best thing about it is that I have already improved dramatically over my two days of swimming — as long as you grade on a curve, I’m doing great.
I had a funny thought as I was catching my breath after one of the exercises. I flashed back to the second or third week of basic training, when I was thinking “I may have made a mistake.” But I didn’t want to quit, and wouldn’t have, but I remember thinking that if I just happened to twist my knee or ankle, then I could probably pop out and just forget the whole thing. Then, a few years later, I had a similar thought a week or three into Ranger School — I’m not sure I’ve ever really told anyone these stories — but I knew that the feeling would pass and then it would just be generically miserable, in the way that Ranger School is.
I had popcorn as a snack late after swimming, during a long call with a California client.
I’m apparently back on the post-Ranger School diet now that I’m down to my post-Ranger School weight (that’s ca. 1993 for those keeping score at home; here’s my graduation photo from Class 9-93 — spot me and tell me in the comments!).
I left the office early for a meeting with my son’s teacher and grabbed a large pretzel as breakfast/lunch. I’m looking forward to a quick sandwich at home.
I called the Ridgewood Y today to inquire about swim lessons. I have a sort of tryout tonight to see if I can fit into the class that has an opening. Kinda funny, isn’t it?
I went to the Y tonight to see if I “qualify” for the intermediate class. Considering that the intro class is titled “Chicken of the Sea,” I was going to be pretty bummed if I didn’t get past that — heck, I passed my Ranger swim test, and isn’t that all you need (unless you’re training for an Ironman, that is)? Swimming class starts in earnest tomorrow. I feel like I need to run so I can get in shape for swimming!
I guess I swam 8 0r 10 lengths, short ones, in my short workout. Not an impressive beginning, but I’m satisfied with the notion that beginning is impressive. I’ll know more tomorrow night.
The good news was that my technique wasn’t as sucky as I thought. Oh, it sucks all right; it’s just that I actually have some non-trivial amount of technique, meaning I can breathe from the side multiple times while attempting to swim a length. I think I was going too fast at first because I was getting sort of tired pretty quickly. I would much rather be running: it seems so much easier to just crank out the miles. The bad news is that I have a lot of work to do.
But I knew this was going to be work, a real stretch goal. What’s the point of setting goals you’ve already accomplished?
That reminds me of how I tell people that I could go back to Ranger School pretty much any day in any shape and sail right through — because after a week or two or three, everyone is beaten down physically and so that advantage goes away, as does any disadvantage. Then, knowing that I can do it eliminates virtually any doubt; thinking of myself as one who believes that “surrender is not a Ranger word,” eliminates the rest.
Being = Knowing = Doing
Dinner was pretty much a big ham sandwich 750 cal (5/8 loaf of French bread -600 & 5 slices ham -150 & mustard -0 cal.)
For a snack/dessert, I had a Sbux strawberry & blueberry yogurt 300 cal
Grande awake tea latte w/ just 2 pumps and whole milk — ??? (I suppose I should figure this out — it’s my preferred free drink when I get a coupon from Sbux from my gold card membership.)
Weigh-in Monday 7am: 183#, 18.5% body fat
I’ll use the same scale throughout and generally aim for the same post-shower time to weigh in. It has a built-in body fat calculator, and so I aim for consistent conditions to reduce the variability. (Although even though I took the notes right after I did it, I can’t remember now whether that was actually before or after my shower — and I’m assuming that residual moisture on my feet will affect the conduction test that feeds into the calculations, but maybe that’s not true.)
Hmm, I wonder what the precision of my scale is? Perhaps I should review the scale that tweets your weight to save time reporting it!