|
Post by M@ on Mar 31, 2020 18:16:06 GMT
Weight: 289.7 lbsStill no scale movement. Annoying. Still 100% compliant to my nutrition plan, so I'm still baffled. I woke up sore all over and thinking that I could use a recovery day. Turns out, it is my recovery day. I didn't realize until I was downstairs setting up. I did an hour on the treadmill instead. As I was going downstairs, Lily came by and said, "Daddy, work out?" I was so proud. I may do some yardwork after work. I'm on a conference call with my entire department and everybody's getting loopy. They're all talking about "The Tiger King" on Netflix. It's surreal. Definitely going to be a Just Dance 2020 party this evening.
|
|
gaz
New Member
Posts: 33
|
Post by gaz on Apr 1, 2020 8:39:51 GMT
Well, this is a crazy situation, huh?
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Apr 1, 2020 17:53:07 GMT
Well, this is a crazy situation, huh? Ah, the gift of British understatement. The world has gone mad, Gaz. Glad to see you checking in. Hope you and your family are all well in the face of the pandemic. Weight: 287.5 lbsI've been avoiding the news recently but indulged myself yesterday and binged on all the horror, hate, and high-valence headlines from the Washington Post, Fox News, NYT, and BBC while I worked. By 6pm I was in one of the worst moods I've experienced in a long time. I adhered to my nutrition plan and didn't drink, but I couldn't get to bed soon enough. I'm glad that day is behind me. I had a good night's sleep and have enforced my ignorance so far today. All is well. The seated calf press machine I ordered is on a UPS truck somewhere in my neighborhood. I'm looking forward to getting it set up this evening. One of us needs to make a grocery store run this evening. We also need to talk about isolation, should someone in the family come down with the virus. I keep reading about these front-line personnel who get sick and have to isolate themselves from their families in the same house. Until recently I just assumed that as soon as one of us caught it, we'd all get sick. Every other disease spreads like wildfire through the four of us. Little kids are plague rats. Sigh. Here comes the anxiety again. I'm going to change my train of thought. I took some time this morning to re-create a tracking template from Tom Venuto's site. It probably still needs some tweaking, but it works in its current form and tracks everything I want to keep track of. I'm looking forward to filling out all fourteen weeks worth of data and seeing where I'm at. Particulary the body measurements. Attached for anybody who's interested. Attachments:14WeekTracker.xlsx (45.52 KB)
|
|
|
Post by macdiver on Apr 1, 2020 21:49:54 GMT
Quite a selection of news sources. Covers all view points.
Since my wife is on immuno-suppressants, I am the one who leaves the house. My goal is to not bring the virus back into the house. I consider everything is contaminated. I wear gloves in the store, remove them before touching my car or car keys. Wash my hands and face when I get home. Sanitize all of the groceries or change packages with frequent hand washing. Afterwords I shower. Interesting times.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Apr 1, 2020 22:03:29 GMT
My game plan is to front load the daily bad news and not read or watch anything about it later in the day. Lots of stress due to current events and it's insidious. In subtle ways I can see it affecting my kids and I know that I'm getting tired earlier than normal.
Thanks for the template.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Apr 2, 2020 21:52:48 GMT
I am the one who leaves the house... Wow, that's a rough job man. I'm grateful that we're in a situation where likely to have a decent outcome if we get the virus. It'll definitely be all of us getting the virus if it happens. I can't convince my wife to dispose of her used Kleenex and can't get my kids to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. Actually, they like how badly it freaks me out and have been pretending to cough and sneeze more frequently in recent days. My game plan is to front load the daily bad news and not read or watch anything about it later in the day. I think I need to make a check-in time around dinner and then strive to forget everything before bed. I've been watching Elgintensity's Gym Idiots videos before bed to disinfect my brain. Weight: 285.7 lbsI put the seated calf raise machine together this morning. My son came down to help me. After it was about halfway assembled he said, "Dad...I made a mistake." I looked to find that he'd wedged his right ring finger through a bolt hole and it had swollen up too much for him to get the finger back out. I had to calm him down, then leave to go get some olive oil. His finger slipped right back out and he kind of lost his enthusiasm for the project. The calf raise machine is a very nice piece of equipment. It's the same manufacturer (Valor Fitness) as my power rack, which has served me well for almost five years now. I'll post a picture of the home gym. It's getting crowded down there. While I was getting the tools out for assembly, I found a box of dust masks that I'd bought when we moved into this house in 2011. They're 3M N95 masks and I had sixteen left. That's two each for myself, Sara, the kids, and both sets of grandparents. I feel guilty that I'm not taking them to a hospital or doctor's office and donating them, but I don't want to go near a hospital and - with luck - us using them may keep a couple of patients out of the healthcare system. I told Sara that we should decorate them as a family project tonight. My folks want to bring some stuff by for the kids (candy and toys they ordered) so we'll give them masks in trade. We also have loads of Kleenex, which they can't find anywhere, so I've got a cardboard box ready to go with a resupply for them. We'll leave stuff out in the driveway and wave to one another in the front yard at the time of exchange. How bizarre. Edit: Paul, I've decided to try your roasted broccoli florets recipe. There's a head of trimmed and washed florets - seasoned with EVOO, salt, and pepper - roasting in the oven now. Sara made a brisket and I've been eating so much broccoli with my chicken that I'm actually starting to crave the taste of it with meat. I'm assuming it will be really good with salty beef brisket. There's a portion of sushi rice in the 'fridge, too, so I'll have a nice meal when they ready. Hopefully I'll still want to eat it after the smell hits. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Apr 3, 2020 15:35:49 GMT
M@, the new normal is jarring. Wifey went to her mother's house yesterday to drop off some groceries and stood on the back deck looking through a window while her mother sat in a chair in the dining room.
Hope you enjoyed the dinner.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Apr 3, 2020 16:35:19 GMT
Hope you enjoyed the dinner. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think I've turned the corner on broccoli. I think I've been eating it wrong this whole time: On its own, it's like eating something you scraped out of the inside of the lawnmower. With meat, however - particularly chicken and beef - it's really, really good. I roasted three small heads worth last night and had about 1/3 of the results with my beef brisket. I ran out of broccoli while I still had some beef on my plate and went back for more broccoli. I never thought such a thing was possible. The smell of cooked broccoli still makes me gag. Weight: 284.3 lbsWeight's steadily coming back down and my blood pressure's dropping, too. I've had some swelling/water retention the last couple of days so I took a diuretic this morning. The new calf raise machine is great. I had an excellent lower-body power workout just now. I track my workouts using the Jefit app. There's a way to share the summary, but I can't tell if you can share the exercises/sets/reps info. I checked in with a buddy of mine in Tampa, FL this morning. He said that if they need paper products, they have to queue up at Publix at 6:00 am and can choose either a pack of paper towels, a pack of toilet paper, or a pack of tissues per person. Seems crazy, but we don't have anything like that rationing here in VA and it's just not possible to find those items as far as I can tell.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Apr 4, 2020 22:36:30 GMT
Weight: 282.3 lbs
I stayed up waaaaay too late last night. Lily refused her nap so both kids wound up passing out before 9:00 pm, which meant that I actually got some alone time with my wife for the first time in months. We decided to watch an episode of Tiger King on Netflix. Big mistake. Three and a half hours and four episodes later I staggered up to bed. Alex, fortunately, let me sleep in until 9:30 so I made up the three hours on the back side. It feels really weird, though: It shouldn't be this late. I feel like I've missed most of the day.
I'm going to be sure to be asleep by 10pm tonight so that I can get up early, do our taxes, and take the kids to a local nature trail. They need to get out of the house and so do I.
I did, however, learn to make homemade bubble solution yesterday. Sara got the kids bottles of solution when she went to Whole Foods and they were blowing bubbles in the front yard when Alex accidentally knocked the open bottles over. That was the last straw for Sara and I dived into the situation to intervene and give her a break. Apparently it's 3 parts water to 1 part dish soap and two teaspoons of sugar. I got out the kitchen scale and put the kids on the counter so that we could all see the precise measurements. It works! Works better than the store-bought bubble solution as a matter of fact. I may get one of those bubble machines because there's no way I can keep up with their insatiable need for bubbles. I never would have imagined that you'd put sugar in the solution. Neat.
Did abs, forearms, and calves today. I shortened the rest periods because my workouts are getting too long. At the end of the workout I tried to do a strict-form pull up just to see if I could and I nailed it! I couldn't have managed two of them, but it has been so long since I've done unassisted pull ups that I didn't know if I would even be able to do the one. Going from a full lat stretch, to chin over the bar, then slowly back down at 280+ lbs made me pretty proud of myself. I thought there was a real possibility that it would feel like my shoulders were tearing out of their sockets. Nope!
|
|
|
Post by macdiver on Apr 5, 2020 11:41:46 GMT
Sugar, hmm. That's interesting. I thought it would just be soap and water. Just guessing that the sugar probably thickens (viscosity) the solution to make the bubbles last longer.
Nice job on the pull up.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Apr 5, 2020 13:01:04 GMT
Like Mac, I'm surprised about the sugar component for the bubbles.
Congrats on the pullup!
|
|
|
Post by Graham on Apr 5, 2020 20:00:22 GMT
If you take a length of string/yarn and pass it through two drinking straws and tie to make a loop with the straws making up two sides, you've got a wand that you can use to make giant bubbles.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Apr 7, 2020 21:17:39 GMT
I'm not sure what the sugar does, but the formula works like a charm. Even days later we're still getting good bubbles out of the solution. Thanks for the tip on the drinking straws, I was thinking of doing a DIY big bubble-wand. Weight: 288.0 lbsIt feels like I haven't missed a day here because I've still been visiting, just haven't gotten around to posting. Friday's lower-body workout was, overall, meh and I was really disappointed with how little I felt from it after I was done. I, apparently, channeled that negative energy into Saturday, Sunday, and Monday's workouts and completely depleted myself. I've got insane DOMS in all the right places. My calves, forearms, and chest are growing while my waist is shrinking; even if my body weight is pretty constant. I've been annoyed by how underdeveloped my forearms look for a long time. They're not small circumference-wise (13") but, with my height and limb-length, they look almost withered. I'm doing palms-up and palms-down wrist curls with the low-pulley on my power rack and that's giving me a great burn in my forearms, but doesn't feel like it's working the lateral wrist-moving muscles. I've always admired the forearms of mechanics and figured their constant twisting wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. have contributed significantly to their forearm development. I think the best forearm development device I ever used was a 2' piece of hockey stick with a hole drilled through it (and a rope through the hole) to twist a 5lb weight, but that mimics the work I'm already doing. I ordered this from Amazon for the twisting/lateral motion and will see if it gives me the workout I'm looking for. Thunderstorms came through early this morning and knocked out our power briefly. My CPAP went off and I awoke to suffocation/strangulation as it stopped pushing air at 10cm/H20 pressure. Not fun.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Apr 7, 2020 23:23:16 GMT
Scary way to wake up.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2020 16:02:12 GMT
I'm not sure what the sugar does Wet sugar is sticky, so it probably sticks bubble particles together. Did I mention I suck at chemistry?
|
|