Is it possible to describe a personal blog without it sounding self-absorbed?
The title Off the Bridge is to reflect that I created this blog in part due to peer pressure. When I created and named it I did not anticipate still using it years down the road.
I generally post my thoughts on topics that have been floating around in my head in the previous days. I hope you find something interesting. In any case, thanks for stopping by.
I have long been interested in solar eclipses. When I was fourteen an annular eclipse cut across the United States, and I remember being disappointed that my entire experience with it was through a pinhole projector.
When I found out last year that an eclipse was going to be going through the area, I almost immediately told Golden that I wanted to see it, and I wanted the kids to experience it too. This led to me researching for months the best possible place to see the eclipse. We ended up going with one of Golden's friends, and bringing the kids she watches during the day, so this significantly affected which locations would be ideal.
I bought our eclipse glasses early, and we planned a trip to a park in Liberty, Missouri. The morning of, we checked the weather forecast, and I steeled my nerves for disappointment as the weather did not look promising there, but it looked better than most of the other places I had been scouting out.
When we got to the park we had to sit in the car for 45 minutes while we waited out a rainstorm. Then, just as the eclipse started, the clouds parted. We got to watch the entirety of the eclipse from start to totality without any clouds blocking our view. Then, within five minutes of viewing totality the sun was hidden behind clouds.
Totality was spectacular, and a completely different experience from watching the eclipse through eclipse glasses. It's hard to describe, but the entire world sort of changes, and the thing in the sky looks completely different than we're used to. Adding to the experience is the crowd around you getting excited as well.
I know several people who made a good-faith attempt to see totality, but missed out due to clouds. And so, I feel just a little guilty and a lot fortunate to have been able to have this experience. It's definitely been a bucket list item for me, and so I feel very privileged that at least this once I was able to experience this with the rest of my family.
Sorry for the length of this post. My health routine has sort of taken over my life, so there's a lot I want to report. No one is under any obligation to read this entire thing.
As should be obvious, I have had the longest hiatus from posting to this blog since I opened it. This wasn't intentional, but was a direct result of my exercise routine and church teaching prep cutting into the spare time I would have had to post.
I did want to report back in on how my healthier lifestyle is progressing.
When I started this exercise routine I wasn't extremely excited about it because I had real doubts that I would be able to stick with it, and to me it was worse to start and give up than not to start at all. I still have those concerns because it's an extraordinary challenge to squeeze my routine in, but I have stuck with it. I don't know if I'll be still doing this in a few years, but my mindset right now is that nothing I'm doing now is worth it if I don't stick with it over the long haul.
One thing that changed since I last posted is that I did actually start watching what I eat. I didn't at first because I didn't want to commit to more than I could stick to. However, in March I determined to try modifying my diet because I felt like if I'm already exercising hard I should do what I can to see good and more speedy results. I started using the app Lose It! to keep track of what I eat, and I've been a real stickler to keep on top of it. This has actually helped me stick with the exercise routine because it's undeniable now that there's a benefit to what I'm doing.
At this point, the benefit I can see is having lost about 35 pounds and somewhere between three and four inches of belly fat (belly-button level). My body fat levels have gone from somewhere in the 25% to 28% range to 20% or 21%. I know my VO2Max (how much oxygen your lungs can take in) is improved too because I can breathe better when exercising, but I don't know how to measure that. All of this is gravy (hmmmmm... gravy), however. My real goal is to lower my triglycerides and LDL cholesterol, and I won't have a reading on those until my next annual doctor's appointment in January.
I've had a few observations along the way.
Most of the diet challenge was finding foods I'm happy to regularly snack on at night. For now I've settled on a rotation of apples, celery, pickles, oranges, and carrot sticks. I'm convinced that this is the change that has effected my health the most.
Early on, I'd occasionally still be hungry come time to go to bed, but I rarely am any more.
I still snack on cereal and cheese and crackers occasionally. The difference is that it is more sparing, and I'm careful to limit the amount of milk I swallow with the cereal. I remember my great aunt telling me that I should use all of the milk that I poured into my cereal when I was a kid, but I believe now that advice made more sense when she was a child during the Great Depression than it does today.
I used to make peanut butter and jelly regularly just because it was easy. I very rarely do that any more because it's a high-calorie food.
If I'm ahead in my calorie count for the day, I absolutely splurge on some food I'm craving. There are two reasons for this. One is that eating too few calories negatively affects metabolism. The other is that there's a great psychological benefit to being able to regularly eat higher calorie foods when I'm ahead for the day.
I track calories because those are quantifiable, but I'm coming to believe the calories matter less than that I'm eating more fruits and non-starchy vegetables.
I personally avoid diet and fat-free foods and beverages. I used to drink Diet Pepsi, so I cast no judgment on those who use those. In fact, if you like the taste it might make sense. Whatever research I've been able to find on those products has made me doubt that diet and fat-free foods are beneficial, however.
My weight loss has been reasonably steady at around a pound a week (maybe a little more) throughout this whole process. Everything I'm reading indicates that you don't want to lose more than two pounds a week.
Just in the last few weeks I've started watching videos from NutritionFacts.org. They basically just walk through what the research says about different dietary habits, and it's extremely interesting. I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in improving their health through (possibly minor) dietary changes, such as consuming a few more nuts a day or eating brown rather than white rice.
I never dreamed I'd be the sort to look into supplements because that's the world of snake oil salesmen and bodybuilders. In fact some research indicates that vitamin supplements have a negative affect on peoples' health. However, I just ordered creatine supplements for the first time because the effects that specific supplement has on the body align with my personal health goals (namely, I'm targeting18%-ish body fat). It's a whole new world for me.
Even after exercising for this long it's still obvious that my body has not been gifted with endurance or the ability to get a runner's high. Maybe it's because running is not part of my routine?
I'm actually amazed at the number of minor things that these life changes have helped with (example), and I've also discovered some things that I didn't realize were an issue that I still need to put a plan together to address.
I have never once exercised in a gym, and I don't ever expect to have a gym membership because I don't have time to go. If my exercising relied on me going to the gym, I wouldn't exercise at all. Everything I'm doing right now is from a FitnessBlender YouTube video in my living room.
So, lest anyone make the mistake of thinking I'm doing anything extraordinary, the following is the routine I've been doing.
When I first started out I was very out of shape, so I just rotated through the following routines, exercising five or six times a week until I started seeing some improvements. Mind you, they felt very slow in coming, but I did start to see them after a few weeks.
Then, I started working in some resistance exercises into my routine because I had read that it was important to have a mix of cardio and resistance to lower LDL cholesterol.
As I improved I slowly started working in more challenging and/or targeted routines and dropping old routines. Right now I have a five-day rotation that I typically go through in a week.
Day 1: Abs/Core (The hardest of all days)
Day 2: Tabata Style HIIT Aerobics
Day 3: Arms and Legs
Day 4: Beginner HIIT Aerobics
Day 5: Total Body Workout
I'm constantly reassessing this, so there will be changes in the future. I still have a lot of room for improving how challenging my cardio routines are, and I need to start stepping up my weights on "resistance" days. For now this is what I'm doing, though: about 140 minutes of exercise a week plus some watching what I eat.
Golden sometimes joins me in my exercising as well. Those are fun days.
