John’s Ramblings

I put my plateau-ridden ass back on the Warp-Speed Fat Loss plan a week ago, in an effort to drop a few more pounds and thus increase my chances of doing pull-ups and looking better naked.  After the quick loss of a couple of pounds, I got stuck at about 223, and couldn’t budge the number in spite of regular workouts.

After a few frustrating days (and some very helpful words from my wife, who talked me down from the precipice of pizza-consolation), I came to the conclusion that the problem may not lie with output, but rather the input side of the equation.  While the diet worked wonders in February/March/April, it wasn’t working now.  I needed a change of pace in order to wake up my system, and to start getting results again.

I looked (briefly) into a complete change of methodology.  Luka has been having success lately with the “Green Faces” diet, wherein you eat nothing but meat and green leafy stuff for three weeks.  Sounds ok (sort of a variation of the Atkins/ketosis approach), but I’ve seen Luka tuck into a cold tub of browned ground bison for lunch, and the lack of variety would be my downfall for sure.  At the far end of the spectrum is the Velocity Diet.  Sure-fired results, but who wants to live on 6 protein shakes a day (bonus-one solid meal… a week!).  My dedication would soon be trampled under the jack-boots of monotony.

Because I have had success with the Warp-Speed diet before, I have decided to fine tune the portions and some of the menu plan.  It is apparent that my base metabolism isn’t anywhere near as high as is assumed by the diet planners, nor anyone that makes those gawdawful formulas that “predict” how many calories I burn sitting on my ass in front of a computer all day.  The diet plan I was working with before was targeted at about 2,100 calories a day.  I’m going to shoot for 1,750 – 1,800 on non-workout days, and about 2,000 on workout days.  Will it be hard?  Youbetchurass.  I’m in a mental place right now that the frustration of not being able to feed my oral fixations is far outweighed by my frustration at the lack of weight change.

I re-read “300 Opinions” this morning, and it makes for a nice reinforcement of my resolve:

If you weren’t given the gift you can’t get the gift so the best you can do – if your goal is important – is work as hard as you possibly can, pay attention every hour of every day and then maybe, maybe if you’ve done enough and been smart enough you’ll emerge from the muck of mediocrity to shine a bit brighter than you shone before.

I had a 2 pound “pop” this morning, but that may just be a water-retention thing.  I should know by Friday how this is working.  If this doesn’t bear fruit, the next step for John is the Alpo Diet.

For those that remember my rant against the Zephyr Grill at Kent Station, the punchline:

They didn’t even bother to clear all the tables before the abandoned ship.  Hopefully, something nice will open in it’s place.

I’m a numbers guy, so I track and fuss about digits.  Probably too much for my own good.  I figure that if it helps to keep me motivated, what the hell.

The graph above is from FitDay, tracking my weight loss goal that I set back in early December.  Notice how the (red) line of the target weight loss made it’s linear plunge to goal-weight, while John wandered around in the stratosphere, just to make things more challenging.  I started the personal training at Hocevar Performance in late January, where the blue dotted line starts to head southward.

My problem now is those little blips upward you see every 7 days.  “Treat days”.  Not that I’m downing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s or anything, but I’ve been known to have a beer at lunch on Saturday, or a few glasses of wine that night.  It would appear to be counter-productive, and keeping my little blue blips above, rather than below the line.  I think that the degree to which I treat myself needs more careful consideration.  I’m still on target, however.

A friend turned me on to despair.com the other day, where they have lots of those parodies of motivational posters.  They have a do-it-yourself section now, where you can upload a photo, add title and text, and save it to your local computer or even have them print it as a poster (for a fee).  I whipped one up to remind me about how I got overweight in the first place, and why dieting often fails me:

I had the occasion to dine out a few times this weekend… Saturday lunch, dinner, and Sunday breakfast. On two out of three occasions, the place was practically empty. These were all fine establishments, so it is not a factor of the food or service… just a function of the economic downturn.

Staff in these places either have had hours cut, or maybe soon will. Empty tables means empty tip jars, too. If you haven’t been to your local “joint” in a while, please do… and leave a tip!

My latest discovery is weekend breakfast at the Copper Falls Restaurant at the Auburn Golf Course. They start serving at 9 a.m., and the chef makes the greatest breakfast potatoes I’ve ever had. While there are a couple of other famous and not-so-famous breakfast places in Auburn, this one deserves better patronage because of the quality of the food, the excellent service, and it’s the only one of the three that can serve you a bloody mary!

Being in a Friday celebratory mood last night, I gathered up Terri and Brendan for a trip down to Kent Station for dinner. I’m a fan of this collection of stores and restaurants, to the point of working it into our Newcomers bike rides here in the valley.

Last night I thought we’d try the Zephyr Grill and Bar. Terri and I ate there once, shortly after they opened. We were underwhelmed (as I recall), but I chalked that up to the establishment being relatively new. I think that they have been open for over a year now, so my hope was that we’d have a better experience. Silly me.

The server was a bit intense, asking us at least 4 times in 5 minutes if we were ready to order. A simple observation that we were all still squinting at the mouse-print menu might be a good indication that we were not ready to order. Terri and Brendan both opted to have the duck. “We don’t have any duck… in fact, we’ve never had it since it was put on the menu.” Brendan’s fall-back position was a braised lamb shank, Terri opted for my choice of veal saltimbocca served on a bed of white beans. We also ordered an appetizer of artichoke-gruyere dip.

The dip was actually ok.

The saltimbocca was very much like eating pork-and-beans, only less flavorful. The bonus was the very chewy pieces of meat. Brendan’s lamb shank was a giant bone with a big hunk of meat at one end, served in a bowl with a little broth. Once he managed to extricate a bite of meat from this beast, it was apparent that it had been boiled to the point of having zero flavor. He sent it back to the kitchen, and to their credit they did take it off the bill. All dinners were served with tonight’s vegetable, which was a hunk of broccoli that had been steamed to death.

The atmosphere is pretty upscale, as are the prices (entrees range from $15-$25 or so). The service and food, somewhat less so. Visit Kent Station, and eat at either Duke’s, The Ram, Fondi, or Zao. I’d recommend giving Zephyr a wide berth.

Yes, AGAIN.

Saturday I headed out in the morning from home to get in a “long” ride. From Auburn I rode out to Lake Sawyer, 4 corners, Landsburg, Kangley, Kanaskat, Cumberland, Green River Gorge, and back via Green Valley (a.k.a “Over the river and through the woods“). I ended the day with almost exactly 60 miles, and a pretty good case of “bonk”. I ate poorly at breakfast, and snacked on a single Clif Bar during my ride. By 1 p.m. when it was time to head up the hill to my house, I threw in the towel. Lessons learned on this day were:

• Eat and hydrate properly before a big ride, starting the day before.
• Stop for lunch, dude.
• If you ride almost every ride at 20 miles in length, your body will become accustomed to riding 20 miles. 60 will be 3 times farther than your body will want to go.

Sunday was far more low-key. We met a local group of riders at Mountain Bike Outfitters in Kent, and had a leisurely ride out to Green Valley for a little of their outstanding beef jerky.

Have I told you about the beef jerky at Green Valley Meats before? I thought so, but I’ll tell you again. They make it there, in more flavors than I care to count in the middle of a Sunday bike ride. There are fruit flavors, Jack Daniels flavor, thick, thin, turkey, elk, and buffalo to name a few (and, lest we forget, a flavor called “MyAssIsOnFire”). This is not your “Oh Boy” kinda mass-produced mystery meat. This is the real deal, crafted by people that know how to make it, and served by people that care if you like it. Their meat is damn good as well. In the summer I’ll take a small folding day-pack, and end my ride with a run down Green Valley. I’ll stop 1 mile up the road at Mosby Brothers’ Farm for some veg to grill, then stop at Green Valley Meats for the main course. All their meat is natural, and delicious.

60 miles Saturday, 20 on Sunday (there’s that 20 miles again), 904 year-to-date. Big Billy-Jim-Bob Carson has pointed out what would be obvious to anyone other than me, so I’m now shooting for 1,000 miles in the 1st Quarter of 2007 (double last year’s effort).