Tag: exercise

I’ve done some stupid things in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But I’m about to do one of the more dumber things that I probably don’t really need to be doing.  Especially when I’m already starting every single day at like an eight out of ten on the stress level as it is.  But who knows, maybe this is something that can serve to be a distraction to how discontent I am with certain aspects of my life, and such would be tremendously welcome to help take my mind off how much my job makes me completely miserable.  But on the flipside, as a result of this little experiment, I might be hangry all the time, and serve to make not just my own life, but those of my wife and child miserable if I’m a torrent of anger all the time.

For the next month, or rather 28 days, I’m going to be embarking on the Dr. Nowzaradan diet plan, of 1,200 calories a day, high protein-low carb.  Or, for however long it takes for me to tap out and give in to the hunger, to which I really don’t want to fail because I don’t like failing in anything that I set out to accomplish.

Why the fuck am I going to be putting myself through this kind of hell?  I don’t weigh 600 lbs. I’m not trying to get weight loss surgery.  But after years of watching My 600 Lb. Life on TLC the greatest network in the history of humankind, I’ve been clowning on the people who appear on the show for ages now.  They’re fascinating specimens of human beings, and it’s not so much of the train wreck of watching another human being that has somehow managed to balloon up to 600+ lbs. as much as it’s always interesting to learn about their history and their mental conditions that led to such horrific downward spirals.

But the fact is that I have been clowning on the vast majority of the people, especially the ones who are quick to say yes, that they can cold turkey embark on the Dr. Now diet of 1,200 calories a day, but then fall so tremendously short of their initial weight loss goals, which has fluctuated between 50 in a month, 60 in two, or for those who really break the scales at first weigh-in, 100 in two.  So, as mythical wife and I were watching the latest episode (S9 E12), and Tammy bungled her way through her first period of time and naturally missed the mark completely, and I asked her, I wonder if I could do the Dr. Now diet?

And just like that, the ball began rolling, and here I am, on the cusp of putting my life into dietary hell, for literally no reason at all other than to see if I can do it.  I spent what little time I had today to do some cursory research on what kind of meals I could be eating, along with what foods I should be avoiding, and I’m more or less prepared to dive right in starting tomorrow, and only time will tell how miserable I’ll be, or how it’s not that hard after all, and perhaps I’ll lose some weight in the process.

Naturally, my goal isn’t just to do the diet, but also to brog about it each and every day, as if I didn’t already have enough things going on in my life to also take a slice of time to throw down some words about the experience.  But who knows, much like the beer testing in December, maybe it’ll encourage me to write more, and maybe I’ll actually spit up some quality words in the process.

So the parameters are quite simple:

  • 1,200 calories a day; most likely spread across three meals, and maybe some compliant snacks, but the end goal is as close to 1,200 calories at the end of the day as possible
  • I will continue doing my usual exercises, which has really been reduced to 100 push-ups a day, and running three miles, typically three times a week
  • I will try my best to document the food that I am eating for each meal, photos if I’m feeling ambitious
  • In the event that I tap out, it will be announced that I have tremendously failed and admit that I’m an asshole who doesn’t actually understand just how hard it is for the people on My 600 Lb. Life to do their thing

But if I do succeed, hopefully I’ll have lost some weight, and maybe have broken some bad habits in the process.  All the same, I’m already thinking of the things that I’ll probably go apeshit on once the diet is off, and the primary reason why I’ve chosen 28 days is that any longer collides with my birthday, and I think the chances are higher that I’d want to indulge in some capacity around then.  Who knows though, either indulging will wreck me, since I’d been eating clean for 28 days, or I’ll have gotten so used to eating clean that I won’t want to break the streak of cleanliness, even for my birthday.

Pour one out for my dead treadmill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My treadmill died this weekend.  I feel like I’ve lost a limb.

Ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic really began, one of the first things to obviously go, was, the gym.  Something that I’d been consistently doing for literally ten straight years, and if I were factoring in the sporadic working out I did intermittently while I was freelance, butted up against the time before that when I was working and had a gym membership, then probably 15 straight years.

It was not an easy pill to swallow, but it was made easier by the fact that it also coincided with the birth of my daughter, so frankly I was too busy to even consider working out in the first place anyway.  But once things starting settling down (for the time being), I began to notice that my shirts were starting to feel a little loose in the arms, and tight in the stomach.  Obviously my body was beginning to revert back to a lesser state because I wasn’t exercising at all, and most definitely not aided by the sleep schedule of a new father.

Eventually, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore, so I dusted off the treadmill that my mother-in-law bequeathed to us, and began running on it.  I remember the first time I really did a lengthy jog on it, I did probably about 40 minutes at a light pace, and I felt absolutely incredible afterward.  I was soaking in sweat but my body felt alive again, and I most definitely felt elation at the endorphins that were popping anew in my system for the first time in a long time.

Needless to say, running, and running on the treadmill has been the only real substantial exercise I’ve been doing since like, April of last year, and it’s been the only real saving grace to my rapidly shrinking and deteriorating physical state, since I haven’t lifted weights in quite literally, almost an entire year.

My angst and rage at the legions of ignorant fucks who couldn’t be bothered to wear masks and eradicate all this bullshit in just a month and that ‘Murica is still in this fucking predicament to where I still can’t work out, knows no end.

Anyway, I eventually settled into a pretty good every-other-day running routine, and I always feel pretty good after running, because as I’ve always stated as one of my personal exercise mantras, is that time is never wasted when exercising.

But a few days ago, I noticed that my treadmill was starting to make a really loud sound.  Typically I wear my AirPods and am often times watching shit on the WWE Network, so I can’t really hear the ambient noise of the treadmill, but when I was winding down, it was noticeably loud.  I chalked it up as an anomaly, and hoped it would be gone the next time I ran.

It wasn’t.  I popped open the mechanical panel, to see if there was anything obvious about why it was making such noise.  Nothing seemed amiss, and I ran it on a low setting, with the panel open to see if there was any loose parts.  If anything at all, it sounded like body noise that was causing things, which I guess with the aging, vibrating, and the fact that I probably run with an elephant’s stride, shit had jarred around throughout its age.

I closed up the panel and decided to just run anyway, and brace occasionally on the console, to see if I could settle the noise down.  It seemed to be okay at first; but then three minutes into my run, everything just kind of clunked to a stop, and I’m surprised I didn’t hurt myself in the process being brought down from 6.5 mph to 0.

I got off the treadmill and watched it abruptly reset and made a noise, reset and make a noise.  Obviously, something was wrong with it, so I pulled the plug.

As far as I can tell, the treadmill was dead.  I haven’t ran since.

Obviously, I’m at a crossroads where I definitely want a new treadmill to replace the dead one, but I’m not sure if I want a fairly inexpensive direct replacement of what just died, which would probably run me around 300-400, but mythical wife is really suggesting that we spring for something way nicer.  But at the same time, I want to believe that maybe 2021 will be a year in which with vaccinations, I might be able to return to a gym, to which in those instances, my running at home will definitely reduce dramatically as I would be working out at gyms again, to which why would I want to have an expensive treadmill collecting dust?

I don’t know, really.  For the time being, I’m going to have to resort to running outdoors again, but I’m at the mercy of the elements, and the fact that there are still occasionally fucks without masks out there, and I definitely don’t want to catch their coronaHIV while I’m just trying to exercise.

But I’m super sad that my treadmill died. 😢