Introspection

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious mental and usually purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul. It can also be called contemplation of one's self, and is contrasted with extrospection, the observation of things external to one's self. Introspection may be used synonymously with self-reflection and used in a similar way.

That definition came from a Wikipedia entry on the term "introspection". I got to thinking about it while listening to a new podcast experiment from Mur Lafferty in her I Should Be Writing podcast. She has recently started playing with a format of releasing a daily five to ten minute podcast in addition to the "regular" ISBW episodes (usually half an hour to an hour or so). She gets up and uses a small recorder to blurb some thoughts and then converts them and posts it as-is; no real editing to the flow of consciousness verbiage. I hope by the time you read this she's still doing it (as I've said, I often do these entries ahead of time, and she's doing this as kind of an experiment.)

One of the things she did (and drew attention to) in a very early episode of "ISBW Lite" was her tendency to use filler phrases like "Umm" and "Uhh..." during pregnant pauses. She said she normally edits those out of the podcast recordings so listeners aren't aware of how often she really does that, but since these are unedited to accommodate the tight turnaround time of the daily thoughts into the feed she's kind of exposing herself to the listeners of her bad habit.

Being one of the Aspergian mental wiring that is something that really grates on my nerves when I hear presenters do that sort of thing. It's a mental tick that causes me to recoil; if I hear it too much I usually zip right through the podcast or leave the presentation. Mur is nowhere near as bad as many I've heard (a LOT of the ones I hear from the IT Conversations network podcast, often recordings from presenters at technical conferences, I end up just deleting because they're so riddled with fillers that I tend to hear those more than be able to focus on the topic at hand).

I love Mur's podcast on writing. She's one of my inspirations for getting off my ass to even TRY to write; for all my stumbles in life I've really had a fortunate set of circumstances in that I married an English major willing to help with my editing requests as well as stumbling onto The Writing Show with Paula B, Mur Lafferty's podcasts on the craft of writing as well as her podcast novels, and from them stumbling into Scott Sigler and his podcast novel successes to inspire me to plant my ass in front of the keyboard and, even if it fails, just try to write a story that may be successful. I haven't given up my daydreams of trying to create a microISV business...I'm just prioritizing the story writing first.

So as I listened to that episode of ISBW Lite I had a conversation with myself about what I'd say to her to try to overcome that tendency to use fillers in her speech. Being hardwired to wince at hearing a stream of "um" from other people makes me more conscious of eliminating it from my own speech patterns; how did I do it?

Well, Mur, you just need to be screwed up in the head.

I'm betting that's not an option. The next best thing is to become more self aware of your speech. I realized that I knew when it was coming. I just had to concentrate on the sentence, and I gradually become aware of that upcoming "skip", a point where my knowledge was blanked out and words suddenly disappeared from the queue emptying from my brain to my mouth.

I had to become aware of what I was thinking before blurting it out.

Mur likes to inspire people to overcome their fear of writing by giving "permission to suck". It's okay to not be good. I guess that it's more important to be a better editor than a writer. If you're more worried about the story sucking and you forever put off the attempt to write because of this fear, because you want it to be perfect, you'll never end up doing it.

Well, you need permission to have dead air.

Dead air isn't a good thing to have a lot of but it's going to happen. In my quest to get rid of my own verbal filler I've discovered that it makes me a bit lighter on my feet in terms of pulling phrases out of my arse to fill a situation where I'm at a loss for words.

If it's okay to suck, then it's okay to be at a loss for words.

When that mental stutter is the next thing in the queue, just relax, and work instead on the proper word to fill in. Mentally slap yourself when you think that next word should be "Um" or "Uh." The listener knows if you're in mid-sentence that there's more to what you're saying.

What it really takes is the ability to tap into mindfulness exercises, being aware of what's going on in your own head. Introspection.

That's when it started to take a new direction for me.

See, I realized that I have a lot of issues with my current situation because of my inability to control the situation. I've dug myself into debts. I've got a job that I have certain issues with, taking the bad with the good and the bad (there are just some days where that merits the double bad). I recently bought some clothes, a pair of pants and a shirt, and my wife suggested I try them on in the fitting rooms. I sat down to see how the pants felt when sitting, seeing as much of my job involves being at a keyboard, and I was planted right in front of a mirror where I saw my freakish folds of blubber-stretched skin and for several minutes I just staired at myself and wrestled with the feeling that I just wanted to cry. I can't wish problems away no matter how hard I try and I focus on those things, driving me into the brink of a depression.

But I'm trying something here to change some things. I can't control where I am now. I can't fix poor decisions in the past. But I can try writing that novel I've "been meaning to write". I can work on the concept for the software program that may pave the way to a new career after I get this novel out of my head and can use the time I'm using to write to instead code the program framework. Maybe these things will fail miserably, but between now and that time of failure I can at least focus a little less on my problems and a little more on achieving something better.

I needed to explore my own mind a bit more and change perspective, using the same introspection that I was "telling" Mur in my imaginary conversation.

None of that is easy and this isn't an overnight change. Anyone with an overnight life-changing revelation is probably deluding themselves to a large degree and thus setting themselves up for failure. What I am trying to do is take a step in the right direction. I need to become more mindful of certain things and try changing perspective in small degrees.

I suppose I kind of owe Mur a little thanks for that bit of insight. She never intended to help that way, but sometimes the great things come about by accident. Either that or I discovered I need to listen to the voices in my head more often, but I distrusted them after they told me that licking nine volt batteries was a good way to tell if they were old or not.

Fast Food and Healthy Diet

Ironically I found a post from another blog that said that Denny's is being sued to disclose the salt content in their food. The Reuter's article can be found here. I don't know what the basis is for compelling a company to tell you what's in their food if it's not something that'll immediately kill someone, but hey, in America you're free to litigate against anything that annoys you if you have enough money. I guess we need to make sure our justice system has a lot of busywork to earn their pay.

The article says that the salt content in one of the Denny's meal is "dangerously high", and cites certain people that need to watch their intake of sodium that could have problems with the food. I guess this in my opinion is kind of a slippery slope; I feel that there is a point when reasonable people have to take reasonable control of their own lives and responsibility for their decisions; the meal cited in the article is the Meat Lover's Scramble.

Okay...chain restaurant, meal item called "Meat Lover's Scramble" that consists of "two eggs with chopped bacon, diced ham, crumbled sausage, cheese plus two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns, and two pancakes," and a person who is at-risk for salt intake is pondering this item on the menu...

I think there are couple red flags right off the bat that should tell you that you need to avoid that meal. Hell, people without salt issues should avoid it.

I do wish that nutrition information for chain restaurants (Applebee's, I'm pointing at you, you skunks...) were more readily available, even if it's just available online. But to sue over just disclosing salt content (Denny's already has their nutrition information on their website.)

Hmm...Okay. That's odd. The Meat Lover's Scramble IS on the online menu. And unlike the claim on the article, the sodium level is 3,180 mg, not 5,690 mg. Apparently the group is suing to have it put into the menu, because the company isn't hiding the information (unlike, say, Applebee's). The difference in numbers may be with side items that are separately ordered, I don't know.

So if you're in an at-risk category for certain foods, I think you should actually get off your arse and research it. Look up the menus at Red Lobster or Denny's. Look for the printed nutrition information at McD's. For most reasonable companies you can find it online, or at least exercise some common sense (I mean, c'mon, you read the description of that meal...does it sound like it would be low in sodium?)

The reason I said all of this was ironic was because as I was actually sitting down to do a blog post on whether it was possible to eat healthy meals at fast food chains. Most of the information that got me thinking about it is here at HowStuffWorks.com.

I'm sure you could find, or modify, fast food orders that are relatively healthy once in awhile. But not like what you could make at home (or in some small off-chain restaurants). Once people take an interest in educating themselves about this issue they quickly find that most fast foods are full of fats, sugars, and salt.

Why? Because it preserves foods and makes them taste a lot better. Customers like the foods with the bad stuff in them...and it helps keep the cost of those burgers and salads lower. I mean, if you reduce the flavor or shelf life of the food, how much will prices rise? That's part of the convenience that sells this stuff. Duh.

It's a shame that "common sense" doesn't work for most people when choosing menu items in restaurants. Most people who listen to the media blurbs and sound bites equate chicken with being healthy; often, it's not, and it's not obvious. Even the chicken you get in the supermarket may have undergone "plumping". That's a process where the chicken is injected with saltwater to increase shelf life, flavor, visual appeal...yummy! Too bad it also makes the sodium content skyrocket. Even McNuggets are mostly corn.

But this information isn't hidden, it's just not advertised. The big problem I see is that people in America are anti-intellectual; we do not have a code of ethics that embraces education and learning. We wait for it to be plonked in front of us, handed over so as to save us from having to do any critical thinking.

We resent the idea that we don't have freedoms and choices. At the same time the more I read and listen to people the more convinced I become that people want a world where everything is done for us. We just go along with the flow, do what we're told, except for the one or two things in our lives in which we take an interest.

This would mean that many of our issues...if not most...come from our society, not from other people and companies doing "bad things" to us. A lot of problems would be reduced if we invested more time and effort in becoming better skeptical and critical thinkers.

But that takes effort...and right now there's more TV to be watched.

Reactions Towards Those Who Notice Weight Loss

I recently went to some little social outing. Small thing, but I still didn't really want to go.

My wife said that maybe my mother just wanted to "show me off" with my weight loss.

The problem is that when there are people in the area that I know who suddenly comment on my loss of weight from what I was in January, I get mad, not grateful or glad.

I can't help but think that these people live in the area; they could stop in, they could call, they could do a lot of things. Instead I'm a five-minute topic of conversation (unless I'm a topic behind my back; that's a distinct possibility as well).

I live with food cravings all the time under various circumstances. I can no longer indulge in things that used to offer comfort, relief, and familiarity. An outing to Red Lobster is no longer a heaping serving of pilaf-strewn coconut shrimp; Applebees no longer offers me cheesy fried delights. Parties no longer offer ice cream and cake and no-bake cookies are a no no.

My only comfort now is peanuts and peanut butter, but even that I take only if I'm exercising. It's become a chained reward; I let myself have nuts as long as I am going to be working out at least an hour that day. It used to be that I would feel a little dizzy or light-headed if I didn't have them and I worked out...I don't know if I've adjusted by now, but as long as I'm losing weight I don't see as much need to alter that right now.

I live with this twenty four hours a day. Okay, maybe not when I'm sleeping, as far as I know, but when I'm awake, it's still an issue for me. These people, many of whom are related, don't visit. Don't skype. Don't call. But suddenly I'm worthy as a topic of attention for five minutes, some trite conversation piece to fit in with what Aunt Trudy recently got as a deal at Kohl's and how Mr. Howard has to get a new water heater. I feel as if it minimizes me. I know I didn't make it to the olympics or win a million dollar lottery, but where were you people before?

On the other hand a consultant friend came out to do some work at the business I'm in and he stopped to say how much I changed. He asked questions about the surgery, nodded politely while I talked about things like avoiding sugars and bariatric alcoholism ("I'm a cheap date now! Ha ha! The alcohol more literally goes straight to my brain!"*)

He seemed honest in his compliment, and he travels and hour to come to the site to work with us so he hasn't seen me in a long time. That little jabber session didn't tick me off at all...actually, he was taking time to listen when he should have been getting to the garage to pick up his car before they closed. He started asking the questions, so it wasn't my fault. I tell myself it's his fault if I bored him in that particular case.

But if you live ten minutes away and are a local phone call...please don't pretend I'm a topic of interest. Especially if you couldn't be bothered to contact me at all over all this time, or even notice on those occasions when you did see me that I've changed.

Maybe it's something I need to talk to the therapist about; there are a lot of emotional issues that go hand in hand with obesity and surgery, and coping mechanisms don't always work the way they used to (especially if your coping mechanism begins with C and rhymes with "rake"). I sometimes wonder if they didn't say anything at all if I'd still be mad; going through all this and yet nobody notices a damn thing!

I keep thinking that there was a period of time when I would have appreciated the interest. Back when I lost 70 pounds on my own...no one noticed. Back when I changed eating habits; I could barely eat anything when other people were pigging down at the Chinese Buffets or Country Buffets...no one noticed. I went from losing an Ashley Olsen to a Johnny Depp and suddenly I'm a five minute topic of passing interest before, "Ooh! Shiny!" and flitting away.

Anyway, it just bugged me and hopefully declaring it here will get it out of my head a little.

What Is A Calorie?

The basic definition of a food calorie (yes, there's actually more than one kind of calorie) is the amount of energy required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. There's information on the Wikipedia page on calories. Basically it's a unit of energy.

Since it's a unit of energy, things other than food can be measured in calories. I just saw a story about a kid in China that wanted to be like his hero, Optimus Prime, so he drank gasoline. Unfortunately gasoline is not only rather poisonous to humans but I suppose it could be rather fattening if you could metabolize it...a gallon of gas contains 31,000 calories (technically, kilocalories).

So your car runs on calories. The neat thing is that you, like your car, can't use all the energy. Your car is only about 15 to 20 percent efficient (see here and here)...meaning that when you put ten bucks of gas into your car, eight of it will have nothing to do with propelling your vehicle. It disappears as friction and heat loss. Nice thought, eh?

Calories on labels are already estimated so they're inaccurate; that said, you don't get the full story from the label since your body can only metabolize food to certain degrees depending on how hard it is to convert to energy (digest it).

Confused?

Here's an example. Take about 100 calories of peanuts, a little bit of peanut oil, and a pinch of salt. Take the same amount of those items and mash them together...in case you didn't know, that's basically how you make homemade peanut butter. So you have 100 calories of nuts, and the equivalent as peanut butter.

Both contain 100 calories each. But if you ate them, you won't get 200 calories.

The peanut butter, with the softer texture, will allow your body to break it down more easily and absorb more of the calories; the harder nuts, less. The article cited studies that there's a variance of 5 to 20 percent from the current Atwater-based calorie scale.

Yikes!

I got to thinking about these items again after listening to part of an interview with the author of The End of Overeating, David Kessler. He mentioned in part about obesity today coinciding with foods that are...well, I'd say engineered, but that carries the connotation of genetic manipulation, so I'll just say foods that are targeted for consumer tastes. The food industry works on the same principals as the rest of our capitalistic economy; everyone wants to make more money and to do so they do everything possible to boost demand so we'll return and buy more. Part of this means filling foods with a trifecta of ingredients that actually stimulate certain parts of the brain and condition us to want more more more; salt, fat, and sugar.

This is of course combined with studies on creating attractive textures (oddly enough, usually it goes towards "soft"), aromas, packaging, etc...then the industry turns around and claims that it's the customer's fault if they overeat. They're supplying what there's demand for (makes sense, though, yeah? How can you make money if you create a cupcake that smells and tastes like sewage?)

We don't properly frame what we're eating in context. Do you know how much sugar you're eating when you eat pop tarts? I mean, you can read the numbers and gloss over them easily...but what if you actually saw the amount you're taking in? You can. Here's the website that shows you with sugar cubes. I'd like to try that with someone...just sit down with a baggie of sugar cubes and have someone eat that instead of whatever yummy concoction they were going to have, just to see if they would be so willing to do it.

Sugar, fat, and salt are added to foods to make them not only more palateable but also more attractive. Textures and smells are altered to make them more attractive. The last step is to make it socially acceptable to snack on them...voila! You have a formula for an upwards trend in obesity.

I know it seems as if I'm veering a little bit off topic, but it still ties back together. See, a calorie is a calorie. People don't like to think of it this way, but weight gain and loss (and maintenance) is a matter of you taking in X amount, and burning Y. If X is more than Y, you gain. If X is less than Y, you lose.

Now we know that certain properties of food affect how much of the calories you can extract, just like an internal combustion engine's efficiency affects how much energy is actually put to use from the gas you put in. Raw foods, hard foods, these make it harder to extract energy than softer, more tender prepared foods.

And now we have people in industries that for the last several decades have been perfecting the art of convincing you to eat these more attractive (and higher in metabolizable calorie) foods.

In other words...a population that doesn't care about what they're consuming has plenty of predators waiting to take advantage of ignorance, and we as a society don't care.

Maybe that'll give you something to think about before your next trip to Starbucks. Take a look at the nutrition information from their website or even iPhone/iPod applications that list nutrition information (or the online information from your hangouts of choice), then go to your kitchen and grab a tablespoon and pile up the appropriate amount of sugar on the counter. If you don't want to eat that pile of raw sugar, you might want to reconsider your choice of food when you go out.

Some Thoughts on Gyms

I've been going to the gym for awhile now on a regular basis. Well, awhile for me, since I am allergic to exercise.

It's true. Every time I exercise I end up breathing really heavy and sweating a lot and by the time it passes I'm all achy and sore. Look it up. Sounds like an allergy to me.

Anyway, the gym I go to isn't really all that bad, but I think it could stand some improvements.

Thoughts that occurred to me while working out...

• The stereotype about muscle bound behemoth that lives in the corner of the gym apparently is unfounded. There are some guys I see in there that could obviously inflict a lot of bare-knuckled damage to me, no doubt. For the most part the people I've seen there are toned...moderately muscled, some of them...but none of them look like they could lift a Buick.
• Other clients don't stare as much as I thought they would at the Fat Guy (tm)
• I thought that the stereotype was for hot dressed-for-pilates women to hang out at the gym. Maybe that's just in LA. I'm glad for that, actually...less embarrassing.
• I figured there were gym people and people who loathe the gym; I'd go and find people who were at home with all the protocols and etiquette that I'd have no idea about. Turns out that my reading clued me into the basics of things like spraying equipment down after using it with their spray-bottles of stinky crap. Nope. Other people often use the machines and move on without a second thought.
• Gyms aren't too forward with offering help. Supposedly my gym offers trainers and special programs and even special services for clients with one-year contracts (which I have). For the most part they leave you alone. I don't know how I feel about that...irritated? Or glad they leave me alone and not make me feel quite so stupid around others that seem to know what they're doing? Hmm...
• If I ran the gym: one, no typos on signs. Equipment is spelled "equipment". Not "equiptment". Maybe that's why other patrons aren't wiping down the "equiptment" after use. Two: offer a policy where if you're new you can wear some colored armband as an indicator that you're looking for feedback on what the heck you're doing.
• I hate the TV's on the sports networks. It's nice when I'm there on the slow days (I always try going on the slow days, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) and NCIS is on. But usually they have something on ESPN. Two of the TV's have a radio transmitter so you can listen quietly, but another babbles on about Michael Vick loud enough to infringe on my iPod.
• Use an iPod! I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while trying to pull my arms out of the sockets. At the end I'll slam on some movie scores...lately I've found the score to the Transformers movie and Iron Man to work really well at squeezing out the last mile from my dripping flesh before hobbling out of the building.
• If you have an iPod, get an armband. Sucks when it falls out of your pocket or bounces against you with each freakin' step you take on the 'mill. Elastic armbands are in the neighborhood of $20 for most iPods
• Don't get a Zune. That's not a gym thing. I just don't like them.
• Remember, once you extend your muscles and lift a pile of weights up, you didn't reach an achievement until you gently return said pile of really heavy weight back down to the point where they're supported by the Earth.
• Don't use the machine I'm going to next. Not that you'd know which one that is, but it annoys me. Safest thing for you to do is leave until I'm done. People don't seem to abide by this rule of thumb though.
• Don't sit at a machine or bench and stare at the TV. It makes me want to poke you with a barbell without warning.
• Stop chomping gum with your mouth open like some kind of deranged cow. I keep having this obsessive fantasy that you'll trip and choke while on the treadmill while smacking your lips with your incessant open-mawed chomping. Don't worry if you do, though...I'll save you by poking you with a barbell without warning.
• Turns out there really is a machine called the "butt blaster", and it has nothing to do with passing gas. At least it's not supposed to. I don't use it.
• I take secret pride in maxing out one of the machines (my lower back exercise is set to 200 pounds for 15 reps...I think I can add ten more pounds to it and that's the upper limit). Turns out fat people have latent strength in their legs and back, unless you blow them out.

That's pretty much everything that's occurred to me lately while at the gym. I've stuck with it since I am trying to make a goal of improving my strength levels and my parents paid a year membership for me as a gift, and I've been doing really well with going every other day (okay, I don't go Friday and Saturday, so there's a three day interval there).

I still don't like exercising. But at least I'm catching up on my podcasts...I'll change my mind when I am able to lift the front of a VW Beetle.

Burgerville and Calories

This was kind of surprising...a restaurant chain called Burgerville is apparently going to be adding calorie counts to the receipt of the customer's orders.

The story appears here.

The story also criticizes the fact that the only way to know what the order's calorie count comes to is to order, then look at the receipt. The restaurant apparently says it's a side effect of the way their business is structured; you can pick and choose whatever combination of goodies you want on the burger.

I went to the website; I wanted to find out where there was a Burgerville since I never heard of them, and I wanted to see what their website was like. I learned that they are only in Washington state (okay, guess that's why I never heard of them) and that their website does have nutrition information.

All I can figure is that this is about the menus in the restaurants, as obviously they have nutrition information on the website. People must be able to go in and customize everything up the wazoo, so they're putting information on labels.

Personally, I think this is great. I don't like the idea of putting calories and nutrition right on the menu. I believe in making them available for people, but I don't want Johnny Public to stand there and drool on themselves, staring at the options and deciphering if it's a price or a calorie count on the list, changing his mind because maybe he shouldn't go with something with quite that many calories or because the fat is a little high, while I'm waiting behind them and know what I want to order. Look it up.

Most places do have the information. It's not rocket science.

Shoving it down people's throats isn't the answer.

Putting this information on the website, then adding it as a customized list on your receipt for you to glance at while shoving your burger down your gullet is a wonderful addon because it removes friction...the issue of waiting for Jimmy the Twit in line taking three times longer to order while people behind him actually already have their minds made up...and because it educates after the fact.

Quick thought: if you want healthy, don't eat out. I'm sure it's not always the case if you really try, but c'mon...sodium counts? Calories? Fried food most of the time? Don't. Eat. Out. If you're going to eat out and are concerned, go to the company website and look for nutrition information. Download and print the menu. If they won't tell you (APPLEBEES) then don't go there.

If you want to make it a cause, email their customer support and tell them why you won't be going to their restaurants.

But please don't mandate something that makes slow fast food lines even slower because people can't be bothered to educate themselves. I'm all for making information available; it's not like when I say the "information is available" that you have to dedicate hours of research or years getting a nutrition science degree. It takes a few minutes of searching a website to get it. Some restaurants take the next step and offer it printed in their facilities.

When the information can be reasonably found with reasonable effort, I think that's pretty good. Don't make it so idiot proof that idiots are holding up the people that actually do their homework.

What do you think?

Weigh-In Progress

This morning was another weigh-in day. I clocked in at 286 pounds.

Since January, I've lost 172 pounds, and since the surgery I'm down 90 pounds.

The reason I'm posting a progress this morning is because I saw a small milestone go by. When I first started dieting in January, the nutritionist at the time that was assigned to me suggested a free website called FitDay.com to track my nutrition stats...it's an online food diary with an array of features, essentially (one of the most successful tools for people trying to lose weight involves keeping a food diary, by the way).

After surgery the orders were to not track calories or nutrition so much as protein intake; I no longer kept track of my nutrition profile (bloodwork periodically taken was supposed to track that, from what I understand) but I still go there to track my weight. One of the things that the online site does when you put in your information and your weight is give you your estimated BMI.

Inaccurate or not...BMI is of course controversial as an indicator of fitness for a variety of reasons...the site finally told me I broke the 40 barrier.

It told me that between 30 and 40 is obese. Above that is...super obese? Morbid obese? Well my current classification on the site is just obese, coming in at 39.89. According to them, a healthy weight at my height is 132.6 to 179.2, and that I'm 106.8 above a healthy weight.

So if I went by that, it means I "should" weigh slightly less than 180 pounds.

It's a little depressing to see how much further I'm "supposed" to go. I guess I'll have to wait and see how far the current exercise/diet regimen will take me.

Went To The Gym and: "How Accurate is Your Scale?"

(keep in mind this happened a few weeks ago...I queued this one up to log some thoughts and information for later on.)

I went to the gym today. I adjusted my workout a little...I think I mentioned I was going to do that...so that I was doing 10 reps at each machine instead of 15, but I increased the weight significantly. Most of them weren't as hard as I thought they'd be to do that. I don't know if it's because I've been going consistently and doing a "workout" or if I didn't know what I was capable of doing; it would be nice if there were some improvements that I could tell were directly from doing this workout regiment.

If you remember I mentioned that I found in general research that there was a theme of doing fewer reps but at a higher weight to give your muscles a workout to train for strength instead of stamina. So I decreased the reps and am working on finding a weight level that really wears on the muscles, so after those ten reps I feel that I can barely move anymore; the one machine that really stands out at that is the leg press (I did 10 reps at 340 pounds); I got up to go to the next machine and I felt as if I was walking on a cloud. Not because I felt great. It was because I couldn't feel my legs between my waist and knees. It was weird but nice to think I was having an effect on them.

I'm a little worried about my left knee...the joint hurts when I work with it, but I can walk just fine on it without pain. I try to be a little careful about that.

While at the gym I found an article laminated and taped to the scale. It was called, "How Accurate is Your Scale?", and said it was by "Cynthia Sass, RD" from the October 2006 Fitness Magazine. I Googled a little bit and the only version of it I could find online was found here. The article linked doesn't have the same title, but the text is almost word for word the same as the article I was reading at the gym.

It was really interesting. Short article, quick read. If you have to periodically face a scale in your exercise or diet routine, take a look at it...it reviews how much weight you gain from things like drinking some water, or how alcohol affects your weight. I'd repost it here except I don't have permission to do so...so check out the link and take a look. See what you think about it.

Progress Wrapup (Or, Diet and Exercise Sucks)

There were a couple comments about my progress since the surgery. Ironically, I had queued up an entry for today that dealt with a topic from going to the gym, but I bumped it ahead a day to put this in.

First, some info on weight.

I had my surgery back in the beginning of April, on April 7th. It's now August 19th (technically 18th as I'm typing this). That means it's been a little over four months; I've been tracking my weight since roughly Christmas (I actually recorded starting in January what my weight was).

In January...the entry is dated 1/5/09...I started at 458 pounds. At that point I began the quest to lose weight in earnest; it turns out that you have to lose weight in order to have weight loss surgery.

I know. It's stupid.

I was told it was insurance issues. The place I was supposed to have the surgery supposedly only deals with patients less than 450 pounds, and that was a close cutoff. They wanted the patient to be closer to 400 pounds. Otherwise they ship me off to a medical center in Rochester where I'm told they are better equipped to handle morbidly obese patients. The doctor said it was due to insurance; the equipment wasn't rated for higher weights, and if something happened such as the table collapsing and they knew I was over the weight cutoff the insurance company will crap a brick.

As much as I'd love to see the insurance company get ticked instead of the usual routine...you know, the customer getting ticked because they're getting hassled and put through the wringer...the way the explanation was framed made the hospitals stance understandable if not a little silly. I mean...c'mon! You have to lose weight because you're too fat for weight loss surgery?!

But I digress.

I weighed 376 pounds the day before my surgery. That was 82 pounds from 1/5 to 4/6.

I just weighed in this morning. My weight on 8/18 is 290 pounds, meaning since surgery I lost 86 pounds and my overall weight loss is 168 pounds.

Yeah...at a little under six feet tall, I'm still morbidly obese. I've also gained a lot of flabby skin. Supposedly it can be removed for another thousand dollars worth of copay at some point, but it can't even be considered until I'm at least a year out from the surgery. It's uncomfortable; I wince when I see the batwings under my arms. I sting from infections under the apron of what was my stomach; I need to periodically powder it now that the weather has turned humid and hot, so sweat accumulates and makes it break out.

Oh. Yeah. Quick warning that I'm mentioning something kind of disgusting, so if you have a weak stomach don't read what I just wrote.

I spend a lot of time trying to just cover up the flab and flesh. On the plus side, the vicious scar running vertically in my midsection from the open Roux-En-Y surgery isn't quite as visible. The fat and flesh kind of caves inward in the front, hiding the purplish scar tissue deep in a valley of fat and excess skin.

But I'm not too concerned about the scarring. If I were, I'd not have used the surgeon I did; I went into this knowing he only did open RnY. Other surgeons today often use laproscopic RnY for reduced recovery time and far less scarring; I went full scar so I alway have a reminder of the painful month of recovery and memories of the bleeding and the memory of what I had done to myself in getting so rotund in the first place. That scar won't be going away for a long time.

Quick story. While recovering I happened to be in a place where a teenage girl I didn't really know was whining about the total intense pain she felt after giving blood at a Red Cross blood drive at her school. Oh, the band aid, oh, the pinching, oh the bruising, whine whine whine...

I was recovering. I could get around by then; it was a couple weeks after the surgery, but with open RnY, I was stapled, bloody from leaks, bandages that had to be changed periodically...in general, it wasn't pretty, and I was still struggling just to manage to get out of bed without assistance, and while she was chugging juice and cookies to compensate for her boo boo I was eating puree'd Chef Boyardee from baby food jars.

After listening to her whine, I got a little fed up. She commented on how much it hurt.

I looked at her and calmly said, "No, this hurts," and I lifted my shirt. Just enough to see the train tracks of staples, the deep bruising, the dried clotting clinging to some of the staples in the line...you get the picture.

Her eyes were like softballs. They snapped so wide I wondered if it was possible to sprain her eyelids.

She didn't complain any more.

Anyway...

I started exercising. The doctors and support people were telling me I needed to exercise. I rode a stationary recumbent bike in the basement, but it's a pain in the butt. Not as much as a stationary upright bike, but it's still a pain. I got pretty good at it though. I typically rode 10 miles a day eventually.

Eventually my parents bought me a year membership at a local gym. I started going every other day, but lately I've been going almost every day. I started out kind of slow...I mean, I don't know the first damned thing about "working out". I was very much the guy who was anti-gym and anti-exercise. Still am most of the time.

Learning what to do in gyms is a full time job. If you want to build muscle you do one thing; if you want stamina, another. Cardio this, weight train that, this many reps and this many sets to do this and achieve that. It's hard. Really hard. And get this...if you want to gain muscle, you have to overeat. That SUCKS! How am I supposed to gain muscle mass if I can't even eat much to begin with post-surgery?

Lately my routine has become alternating "upper body" machines one day and "lower body" the next. I start out with a 1/5 mile walk on the treadmill at various inclination; takes about 10 minutes. Then I typically end with another 1/2 mile on the treadmill. Those two walks alone burn usually around...well, today it was 348 calories together.

In an attempt to gain some muscle mass, from what I've pieced together, you're supposed to do fewer reps at a higher weight, basically pushing yourself closer to your tolerance for moving weight. Toning and stamina comes from more repititions at a lower weight, muscle bulk comes from fewer reps at a higher weight. At least that's what I've pieced together. I don't have a trainer and probably couldn't afford one if I wanted to. So right now I'm usually 2 sets of 5 repetitions at the following weight in pounds, in case you're curious...
compound row: 200
lat pulldown: 165
pec fly: 185
vertical chest: 100
lateral raise: 125
overhead press: 95
bicep curl: 80
tricep extension: 80
lower back: 205 (10 reps each)
abdominal: 120 today
leg press: 400
leg extension: 130
seated leg curl: 195, usually 190
abd/adduction: 200

I have no idea of this is good or bad or just neutral. One person told me that doing 500 pounds on the leg press is considered really good; I'm assuming that was a typo in the email since the machine at the gym only goes up to 495 pounds. Perhaps this would mean more to someone who knows more about working out in the gym; my eyes glaze over when I look at the list, and I have to fill in the bloody form every day I go.

The rough part is that I don't know how much good it really does. I was told that the biggest results are in the first 30 days; it's been about a month and so far no one will think I can rip phone books in half or lift small cars. That weird wriggling crap under my skin? I don't know if that would look this way if I didn't go to the gym. I don't know if it wouldn't, either.

Someone asked me not long ago how much weight I was supposed to lose, what weight I was going to stop at. I honestly don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to look or appear, or what number I'm supposed to aim for. I'm just losing weight. Or at least I keep trying to. I figured it would stop when it wanted to stop. I'm still obese so regardless it appears that I'm wearing a small tent. I'm the one that would end up shirtless if our boat is marooned on an island because the professor needs a sail to use in building a new boat. It's still my lot in life. I deal with it.

I was told that the surgery is supposed to knock off something like 70% to 75% of the excess weight; so if you are 100 pounds overweight, the RnY is supposed to knock off about 75 pounds when all is said and done, meaning you're still overweight but not quite so much.

Oh...other changes...I'm off diabetic medication. The surgery means supplements...lots of them...every day. But I'm hoping to get off some of the pre-existing medications this year. Each morning I take: iron, B100/complex, B12, a multivitamin, something for blood pressure, something for cholesterol, a medication to cut down on stomach acid (prilosec? doesn't matter, I go off it in October), and calcium with vitamin D. Oh, and vitamin D. Some supplements are just lifelong because of the surgery...RnY introduces a deficiency in your digestive system from shortening the intestine, so you don't take in as many calories but you're also not absorbing the nutrients you need. Other pills...the cholesterol and blood pressure medications...are doc-prescribed until they see improvement in my test results.

Nine pills in the morning.

At night, I take another multivitamin, a B12, and iron.

But I went off byetta and metformin. My blood sugar has been diet controlled, sticking around the 100 mark in the morning and night. Another plus.

So that's been my progress. I have a nice scar in my abdomen to remind me of my bodily transgression as well as a really long belt that I've had for years in which I add more notched holes when I need to tighten it more. I blogged about the length before. It's...pretty darn big. It's my reminder of what I've done. And a symbol of hope for what I will achieve. Plus it makes a really loud thunderclap sound when snapped against itself like some kind of Foley soundstage sound effect tool.

This pretty much sums up my changes since the surgery. Or even before the surgery, technically. Now I spend my time at work, the gym, and trying to get a writing show entry completed...I think my gratis editor is almost done with the second draft suggestions. I'm really hoping that sometime later today will be an update on the status of that story!

So until next time...um...any suggestions for a good exit tagline here?

Getting Buff...

Here's some thoughts I've been pondering over a the past few days.

I've been faithfully going to the gym on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, doing a full circuit on the upper- and lower-body machines along with my walks on the treadmill. I haven't been recording it here because It's kind of a waste of space; just reposting the same type of information over and over. I'd rather just post about issues and thoughts on doing the workouts than my statistics since I doubt anyone would be interested in those numbers.

But what am I getting from the workouts?

I'm obviously not "buff" and muscular. It's too much to think that would happen overnight. Or over a month, I suppose.

In working out you're supposed to have a goal. It could be to tone your muscles, to define your body shape (with all this excess skin I could be toned out the wazoo and you'd never see it anyway). It could be to help your cardiovascular system. It could be to just burn some calories.

I was thinking that muscle mass is supposed to burn fat and in the process boost your metabolism. Okay, it doesn't burn a lot of calories, but it's still better than fat. So I'm thinking I should try focusing on building some muscle mass.

That's where the problem comes in.

See, every site I look at for building muscle with weight training states that to do it, you need to take in more calories so there's more material from which to rebuild muscles. My understanding is that basically when you're building muscle, it's done by creating micro-tears in your existing muscle and then waiting 24 to 48 hours for those muscles to rebuild and repair the tears and in the process experience the effect of increasing muscle and becoming stronger.

I found information at
Muscle Building Tips
How To Get Bigger Muscles And Six-Pack Abs
The 10 Commandments of Muscle Building Nutrition

There are many other sites, but I wanted to just cite a few of the sites I read over; but the pattern of information gleaned from my Google search seemed to corroborate each other (or they all get information from the same sources).

But after weight loss surgery, the focus is on reducing the number of calories you take in. As a very very rough guess I'm thinking I have 300 to 400 calories a meal three times a day for a total of probably 1200 calories, all said and done. It's a rough average because I probably have about a cup of nuts (mostly peanuts) over the course of the day with my meals; I found that if I didn't have these I started to feel kind of wonky around my exercise time (usually I'm riding the stationary bike for an hour or so if it's a bike day or I'm at the gym for an hour doing weight training with Nautilus machines).

I don't eat until I feel stuffed or full; I figure that if I habitually do that, I'm going to stretch the stomach and just keep going after awhile. I have some nuts during the day but my meals I weigh with a kitchen scale to keep at less than 6 ounces each (although I aim for 5.5 ounces).

My surgeon will beat me if he sees this...

I know I'm eating far less than I used to. I forego a lot of the things I used to enjoy. But this has been what I'm working with now. I eat less and have been pretty good about getting in my exercise.

Before I go any further off the point I'll bring up my worries. The sites state that building muscle means consuming extra calories and increasing the weight you lift until you can only do four to eight reps before ending the set.

Basically you push your body to find the limits to your strength before experiencing failure. Oddly enough, building strength through finding your failure point is apparently controversial. Another reason I hate exercise...to be any good at it, you basically end up having to live exercise, making it one of those things that pushes the hobby limit to a career interest, and I have no interest in making the gym my career.

Which basically makes figuring this stuff out just that much harder.

Caloric intake is also an issue. Some articles are saying that weight training involves people building muscle by consuming three thousand to five thousand calories a day over the course of six meals! No way I could do that now; it would ruin my surgical alterations. Some of it is specifically banned from me like weight lifting diets that involve sky-high amounts of particular fats or protein powders and additives (my surgeon told me not to take protein supplements after I went off my soft diet).

For now I'm going to stick with my program as I have it laid out and then start making adjustments to "toughen it up" as I grow comfortable with the weight levels. I'm thinking I might have to increase the weight and do fewer reps and see how that works out.

Keep in mind that I've pre-queued this entry; it's actually mid-July. So by the time you're reading this I've adjusted my routine and I'm either injured or I had a successful transition to increase my strength level.

Anyone want to take bets on how this had turned out?

Time Magazine: Exercise Doesn't Work?

Wow...interesting how much noise is being made about this article at Time postulating that exercise doesn't help in weight loss.

I thought it was interesting. Then again, I think much of the article correlated with what I've observed in my time with exercise and people's habits, so it may be simply a matter of noticing some form of confirmation bias on my part.

I read the article about a week ago. But now there's blog entries and articles appearing to comment on the piece. This article from juancole.com declares the article to be an "epic fail", concluding that:

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The science on all this is perfectly clear. Vigorous exercise (both aerobic and resistance training) combined with a low-fat diet is what allows people to take weight off and keep it off. Time is shockingly wrong.

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The diet-blog had this snippet:

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n summary, the article essentially claims that exercise won't help you lose weight, and may in fact be responsible for people GAINING weight. Hmmm... The author, John Cloud (ooh the irony in that surname) goes on an anecdotally-based tirade, side-stepping contradictory evidence and common sense on route to his perplexing hypothesis.

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I thought this was an interesting claim since in the article author quotes Eric Ravussin of Louisiana State University as well as the journal Public Library of Science...diet blog implied that the entire thing is anecdote-based.

Further, the article doesn't say you shouldn't exercise; it states right in it that "In short, it's what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward."

In other words, the article is saying that exercise is good for you, you should exercise for those benefits, but exercise alone won't necessarily help with losing weight.

The article states that people wipe out a lot of the calories burned by going out and eating more because, after all, they worked hard at the gym...what's the harm?

I've been going to the gym and found that a half-mile brisk walk on the treadmill...ten minutes...burns about 150 calories. That means that if I walked about 3 miles per hour for twenty minutes, that's a plain cheeseburger at McDonalds.

Keep in mind that most people don't eat a cheeseburger. If it's not a double cheeseburger or bigger, most people won't order it. With fries. And rarely do I see people getting the diet soda.

The article emphasizes that alterations in your diet are necessary for losing weight, not keeping the same habits except for an hour at the gym.

The blowback I've been reading online like to comment about how the article is so wrong, how exercise helps you lose weight, la la la...please. Weight loss isn't a subject that boils down easily.

• Fast foods and processed foods are inexpensive and convenient. They're also loaded with fats and preservatives, sugars, and salt. They also make up most of the American diet.
• Americans are fat and getting fatter. If it were as simple as waving a wand or just declaring that we want to lose weight, we wouldn't have this problem. We do.
• Americans overindulge. We simply eat too much. Portion sizes are out of control.
• Our media barrages us with images of foods that are engineered to make us want more and to eat more. It's socially acceptable to eat a brownie at the convenience store or slather on fat-laden dressings. Foods that seem like healthier choices aren't necessarily healthy (salads are good for you! Until you put on the dressing...chicken is good for you! Until you see the salt content...). Sound bites alone apparently don't help us make the right choices once you dig below the surface.
• Lots of health nuts talk about things like "muscle burns more calories than fat". Yeah...it does. Except it's not a dramatic difference overall. It's about 4 calories per pound. Muscle burns 6 calories per pound, fat burns 2. So if you replace 10 pounds of fat (burning 20 calories) with 10 pounds of muscle (60 calories) you're burning 40 calories a day more. That's it. One cup of sugar-free jello pudding (chocolate) is 60 calories. Ten pounds of added muscle isn't enough to burn off the sugar free pudding.
• They also like saying that muscle weighs more than fat...that is supposed to make you feel better about not losing weight while exercising. Which is interesting to me because, quick! Which weighs more? A pound of feathers or a pound of sand? Um...they're both a pound. Plus, in my researching muscle training for lifting weight, you actually have to eat more calories because muscle won't build itself. You have to supply more energy and building material in order to bulk up. If you're truly focusing on losing weight, you're not gaining muscle, because you're eating less. Otherwise you're on a weight training regimen where you're eating more and working really hard to track what you're eating and how you're working it into your body properly.
  

I know that empirically speaking, this isn't evidence, but sometimes you have to sit back and start analyzing your own observations and using common sense.

First, in order for you to maintain your weight you have to look at your Basal Metabolic Rate; basically it's the calories you burn when you sit on your ass all day. It's the energy used for metabolizing food, breathing, generating body head, circulating blood, and maintaining your weight level. Yes, fat does take calories to maintain. Just not as much as muscle. When you look at the BMR for what it takes to maintain an overweight body, you should get a very rough idea of what a 400 or 500 pound person is eating each day in order to stay at that weight level, regardless of how much he or she protests that they eat as much as their skinny friends do or exercise as much as their friends do. The body doesn't absorb mass from osmosis through your skin. Raw materials...water, protein, etc...come from your food and drink. You eat; the body processes it and integrates some of the material as fat or other tissues, the rest is excreted as sweat, urine, feces and water from your breathing.

Second, I find far more people who refuse or actively ignore simple things like counting calories or reading food labels. Food-wise, one of the great sources of depression I've found comes from finding out just what is in those McD's burgers and breakfast wraps and all the labels at the supermarket. I have had virtual sticker shock from discovering just how many calories I was actually shoveling into my gaping maw over the course of the day; a slice of cheese there, an extra helping of Chef Boy-R-Dee there...it adds up. It's amazingly simple to pile on a couple hundred calories by just adding on an extra helping at lunch and dinner. Eating out? Oh lord...the foods taste good because they have fat, salt, and sugar in various forms added. Wonderful taste, but they're all essentially treats; foods that should be eaten sparingly. Read the labels. The wraps I prep at home have far fewer fats and processing in them compared to McD's sausage burrito for breakfast, despite in some ways being similar. But the difference adds up. One of the most effective weight loss plans for the long term involves keeping a food diary...most people simply won't do it.

Third, as the article states, I've seen people who reward themselves because they've been working hard for the day or think they cut back a lot at lunch (do they actually check how many calories they saved, so they could treat themselves? One huge muffin from popular fast coffee chains can easily top 400 to 500 calories...that's most of a meal in itself...so an entire hour or more of a workout could be wiped out with ten minutes of yummy time. While in college the fraternity I belonged to had a "wing night" where we'd all meet at a local sports bar and generally hang out and eat wings and be obnoxious (although the waitress put up with us because we were regulars who ended up leaving a nice tip for putting up with us, and since they were nice while we were there we'd usually try picking up after ourselves as a tip-of-the-hat for their patience). We happened to pick a night that apparently a local weight loss group does their weigh-in. We knew because later that night the same group of very overweight individuals would come in and order pie as their "treat for the week".

Yes. Morbidly obese individuals were coming in from their diet group to celebrate making it another week on their diet by eating pie.

I bring that up because:

• It illustrates the mentality of depriving yourself or torturing yourself in the gym means an obligation to treat yourself. It's an unhealthy attitude because it's so easy to go overboard...do I really think they were just having a slice of pie once a week? I'll put it this way...in the years I was at the college, they never really changed the way they looked when they came in.
• I'm fat. Grossly, morbidly obese. For some reason this seems to give a free pass for making observations about other overweight people. But this doesn' t really matter in America because, as it's been said before, the two classes of people that are still socially acceptable to make fun of are fat people and smokers.
• These people were like millions of other Americans. I've heard some of their conversations. I have little doubt that they were looking for a simple way to lose weight that involved anything except what's known to work...take in fewer calories than you're burning. They would try all the diet plans, pills, herbs,...the most telling is if you ask someone on a diet how many calories they're getting a day and they just kind of give you that glazed-over look, then they're not tracking what they're eating.

Fourth, how many people have gym memberships but never go? Gym memberships are reaching record levels in America. I have trouble believing that those memberships are necessarily translating into higher activity levels. At the small gym I go to there's a sign in sheet on which we're supposed to "X" the days we come in, presumably for their record keeping. I see some people with solid X's across the sheet and other people with X's every other day or so, but there are plenty of names that have nothing down. To be clear I don't sit and analyze the sheet closely; I see names as I'm flipping to get to my name, and I'm fully aware that some people may not sign in as the big notes on the doors ask us to do. It's just an anecdotal observation. But I have a hard time believing it's not a possible trend.

So this article in time isn't necessarily misleading from what I've seen and experienced. The article's points sum up as exercise is healthy and you should do it because it has many benefits, but for weight loss you need to rely on cutting down calories and changing your habits more than relying on exercise. I don't know why this is a point of contention for people on the blogosphere. The article isn't saying you should drop the gym membership or stop the cardio routines. It's saying you need to stop getting off your arse if it's to walk to the fridge or pantry for a "little snack"...

What Has Wings and an Apron? Me.

One of the more difficult things to cope with after weight loss surgery are the reminders of your fat body.

That means waking up every day to a large mound of flesh hanging over your waist and pubic region because some of the excess fat may be gone, but the flesh doesn't go away. The connective tissue is too damaged to "bounce back".

I can't count the number of times people suggested going to the gym or just waiting and the skin would just magically recede. It doesn't. It's damaged. Period. It's one of the casualties of the lifestyle that led me to be nearly 500 pounds, and it doesn't just go away (it won't go away on it's own at all).

I hide it with my clothing. Longer shirts. Pants that cover my waist as well as my hanging apron of flesh. Then I try not to see it, pretend I don't feel it when I sit down or shift the wrong way.

Just when that's out of sight, though, my sleeves creep up and the massive pendulous wings of fat under my upper arms starts swinging madly like a six year old learning to hit a baseball. Sometimes if I'm reaching for something it hits me in the head. I wince just thinking about these things.

I'm the oldest basset hound on the planet.

My wife tells me that my insurance company will cover a panniculectomy and maybe even surgery to remove the underarm skin. I think they may only cover it if there's complications...skin breakdown, rash, infection,...whatever it takes to interfere with life so that the procedure isn't just for cosmetic reasons.

Which, of course, gives them all the leeway in the world to turn it down.

And that's assuming that I have the same insurance down the road and that their terms don't change. And, finally, I have the couple grand available to pay the surgeon's copay. Right now I don't even know if I'm going to cover all my bills.

It's really depressing, but it's not like there's much choice. I either get out and once again slog through the day dragging this extra fat and skin around or...well, there's an alternative that involves just not getting out of bed, I suppose. Just being conscious allows me a reminder of this alien landscape that shifts and rolls without my mental commands, as if it has a mind of its own.

I remind myself that it's a reminder of what not to do again. But it doesn't help me feeling like a freak in public, trying to quickly jerk my sleeves back down over the flesh fudge of my upper arms. I look forward to Winter's long sleeves and jackets and sweaters.

I am keeping my eye open for something to use as a pressure garment over my arms. I tried bandages, those wraps from ACE? They work for about fifteen minutes. Then my skin starts to bulge through where the bandage edges fold mid-wrap, creating some weird scene like the Blob breaking through a barn or shed where the heroine is seeking refuge, the gelatinous goo pulsing and bubbling through the thin crevices between the wooden slats. No matter how much I adjust the bandages they just don't hold.

I hate it. If I'm not covered enough I won't even look into a mirror. I'm afraid of what it would look like underwater...I'd probably be mistaken for some kind of jellyfish with wings.

Finding a Good Cooler

I don't get up early enough in the morning to get my breakfast. I have to get up and get around for work but also take my nine pills in the morning (some vitamin supplements, cholesterol pills, blood pressure, Prilosec as the stomach heals...etc...); then I'm supposed to wait for a period of time before eating so my stomach empties of water.

To simplify having to get decent food without much fuss, that means that I normally pack my breakfast and lunch for the day along with a couple bottles of water.

That means I've been searching for a good cooler that will keep my breakfast, my lunch, about a liter of water, plus the plastic cooler packs cold from around seven in the morning until at least one or two in the afternoon, as well as a pocket for things like my swiss-campfire-spoon/fork/knife combo and napkins (just in case they're needed).

So far the best lunch cooler I've found is from California Innovations, Inc (Arctic Zone line...apparently in 2005 CI acquired Arctic Zone); I picked it up from Wegmans in their seasonal summer aisle. Here's a photo of it:

There's a mesh pocket on once side, a zippered pocket in the front for my napkins and silverware sets (or my sporks!), a shoulder strap and the large interior is just big enough for the breakfast and lunch and ice packs and usually two bottles of water. Nice.

Unfortunately, I can't find it anymore.

I bought a second one from Wegmans when we were out grocery shopping in case something happened to the first one. I've been testing out a number of nice lunch coolers, but none have been quite as versatile or successful at keeping those items cool as this cooler. I was terribly disappointed when I discovered that I couldn't find it listed on Wegmans website or at the California Innovations website. I couldn't even find it on Amazon. So...it must be discontinued. California Innovations has a lot of great cooler products, but I really have liked this one. The one they don't have anymore.

It figures. At least I grabbed two of them.

If you're in a situation where you need a decent cooler for carrying two meals along with some drink with enough space for some ice packs, see if you can find this cooler out there somewhere. There must be some excess stock still floating around out there...

Book Review: Weight Training for Dummies

It took me about a week to finish reading Weight Training for Dummies (this review is being posted long after I've finished the book) by Liz Neporent, Suzanne Schlosberg, and Shirley Archer.

The book includes the trademark Dummies 5th Wave comics and is filled with the entertaining, down-to-Earth writing style I've come to expect from Dummies books. At a glance, the book includes chapters on "Before You Pick Up a Weight", "Weighing In with Weigh Training Wisdom", "Tackling the Exercises", "Setting Up Your Workout Programs", and of course no Dummies book is complete without "The Part of Tens".

I'm a complete novice at the whole weight training thing. More than that, I hate the whole fitness "thing". Hearing people slinging lingo like "abs" and "glutes" makes me immediately try to tune out the conversation and being lectured about the importance of fitness sounds like one long la la la la la...

However, due to the surgery, I had to do something to try exercising. I love biking, but the area I'm in makes it difficult to ride. I managed to stick with a stationary bike routine but I still wanted to do something to add some variety.

I mentioned to my parents that I was considering doing something with a local gym and they decided to gift me with a one-year membership there. Knowing nothing about working out in a gym, I picked up this book to try learning some of the ins and outs of what to expect with a workout routine.

Keep in mind that I am anti-fitness and knew next to nothing about it.

This book communicated in a clear and fun way to a complete novice different things to remember when weight lifting, from safety to courtesy in gyms to some background on the Nautilus machine versus the Nautilus brand.

If you're considering starting a weight-lifting routine and don't know a dumbbell from a barbell, you should definitely start with this book to start your learning journey. I didn't finish the book an expert by any means but I definitely had a better grasp of my goals and understanding of working out; it was at least enough to help put me a little more at ease the first time I walked into that gym.