Changes

So it's been another rather long gap between posts, and this one is where I announce some changes going on over here.

As some of you who follow me on twitter may have seen/heard I'm currently working through a Whole30 challenge. This limits my food choices to things which are health promoting and eliminates things which are not health promoting. That's a pretty big simplification but it's all the detail I feel like getting into here, if you want more feel free to look into the information available at the website of the challenge authors, Whole30.

As part of it I'm abstaining from weighing myself for the duration of the challenge, in using it as an opportunity to stop tracking most of the other things I have been tracking for so long, body fat, mood, calories, water, sweat rate while running, body temperature, heart rate while running, all of these things are going out the window for at least 30 days, possibly longer. The only things I'm still tracking are my daily mileage for walking and running, my workouts, my sleep, and my resting heart rate (and that's not really being logged so much as measured to protect against the mild chance of overtraining as I ramp things up toward my half marathon on Labor Day Weekend).

At the start of the challenge I was sitting at around 205 pounds and a not terrible body fat percentage, and there is good chance the challenge will improve that, but that's not the point. The point is about becoming healthier in my life, my relationship with food, and with my body. So far I'm doing alright with it and hoping to continue to do so. While I'm still highly interested in improving myself and hopefully providing a useful template for others I'm not sure what avenue that will take going forward and what it will look like. I'm going to continue working to improve myself and offer advice and well researched opinions to anyone who seeks them.

In the meantime, take steps today to be the version of you you wish was staring back at your from the mirror. If you want to lose weight, do something to make it happen, if you wish you were stronger, go lift something heavy, if you want to be faster, go run faster. If what you've been doing isn't working try something else and see if maybe it does. Take matters into your own hands and make sure that you do something today, right now, to make yourself into what you wish to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 96)

Sunday once again and time for my weekly update.

Missed last weeks update, was busy with life and didn't get around to it. So this week here we are.

Finally back to running in my Vibrams after the toenail procedure. I'm definitely down a bit in terms of my overall fitness but I seem to be regaining it steadily. Hopefully within another week or two I should be back to full and working on increasing my fitness beyond it's recent peak. My sleep has been improving of late as well which is always a bonus. Hoping to increase the rate at which I'm complying with my planned resistance workouts by moving them from Monday and Friday to Sunday and Thursday, so that in coincides with as few other recurring events in my life as possible.

So what else have I been up to? Today it was cookery. Trying to find some replacement options for the smoothies we've been doing for breakfasts. Made up a batch of the Primal Energy Bars I've done a couple times before, playing around with things trying to find a good match. Also tried out two new recipes, some Primal sausage balls and some hash brown omelette "muffins". Both of them seem pretty decent so we'll have to see how things pan out. For the sweet tooth we whipped up something a bit odd, cookie stuffed brownies, chocolate chip cookies contained within fudge brownies. Those were indeed rather delicious.

So what does the scale have to say? 210, up a pound from last time. Gonna cut back a little and try to get that back down a bit. Bodyfat holding pretty steady. So until next time, keep being the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 82)

Sunday once again, and time for an update.

Not all that much to update with this week, though a couple observations will of course be shared.

My Zeo sleep training program the past week or so has been working on relaxation to try and get to sleep faster, strangely enough it's made my time to sleep higher on every time I've tried using the audio tracks they suggest. This result seems a bit surprising on it's face, but really I don't have too much trouble getting to sleep generally.

Started supplementing Omega-3s again, and my overall health seems to be improving as a result. Once my chewables run out I'm probably going to switch to Flaxseed Oil, as it's a good source of Omega-3, and a reasonable amount of data from the self-experimenting community suggests that Flaxseed oil specifically improves balance, inflammation (which Omega-3 generally is great for), and possibly even reaction time. I'm not sure how much improvement I'm likely to see in most of those categories, but that's the point of testing theories on yourself right? Always testing new things means an ever expanding knowledge base on the way to the ultimate expression of myself.

In that vein I started tracking water consumption and mood this week using a couple of iPhone apps I found. The mood app is nice because it will randomly ping me for input 4 times a day, so that I don't only have readings from times when I feel extremely one thing or another. It's also nice because it will attach a location and tags to my updates so I can track surroundings influence on my mood. The fluid tracker is nice because not only can I track water consumed, but also soda, alcohol, and caffeine. The combination of those makes for a nice tracking app to make sure I'm not dehydrated, or drunk as the case may be. More data for a more complete picture of me.

So what about the weight? 208 this week, up a pound from last week. Bodyfat stayed the same, so that suggests things are moving in the right direction. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 79)

Sunday once again and time for the weekly update.

Not much to say this week really, all been going pretty smoothly.

Got a new piece of tracking tech this weekend, the Zeo Sleep Coach I'd been after for a while. Tried it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well, though it'll be a few days at least before I have any sort of truly useful data on habits. I've also been looking at the data from my daily measurements of my resting heart rate and noticing a few patterns I'm going to try to monitor more closely. Namely, when I go more than a couple days without exercising my resting heart rate goes up, a beat or two the first couple days and then a larger jump on about the third or fourth day. When I go for another run, it drops back down by most of the difference again. I was expecting to see a downward trend in the measurement over time as a training effect, but I wasn't expecting the variation to be that noticeable on a scale of days rather than weeks. Always good to see things working better than I'd expected. I'll keep posting updates on some of my non-weight measurements as I find interesting things to post.

So, speaking of my weight, this week the scale tells me 208, the same as last week, body fat has stayed the same as well. Steady as she goes I suppose. Until next week, keep being the you you want to be.