Week 10

216.9/220.9

There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. - Hindu proverb

John Walker's "The Hacker's Diet" suggests a simplified version of the Royal Canadian Airforce's 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) plan to achieve some muscle tone and cardio fitness along with losing weight. The basic premise is that within 10 - 15 minutes, you do some toe-touches, pushups, situps, leg lifts (face down, to work glutes and arch your back), and some running in place. Daily. Over time, you increase your number of steps running in place (presumably by going faster, to stay in the 15 minute range), and the count of all the other exercises.

When I first started my diet plan 10 weeks ago, I embraced this very gung-ho. I started out sucking wind pretty quickly, barely able to do 10 situps or 5 pushups, and after a couple weeks I started having joint problems, my ankles hurt from the impact of running in place, and the pushups started making my left elbow pop and get inflamed the next day. But, I was starting to make progress strengthwise and my endurance was definitely picking up. I decided to keep exercising, but to scrap 5BX.

My "Plan B" was to replace running in place with lots of daily walking, and to replace the pushups with the butterfly machine in my neighbor's basement. I did both of these things, coupled with some occasional ankle exercises, and kept adding on one more little thing, slowly building up a more complete workout. The DDR Supernova game helped out a lot, as there are songs with different speeds (beats per minute range from 95 to over 200), and each has different skill levels for step complexity, so you can gradually increase Calories exerted and impact. I bought a Pilates ball and mini-bands, which let me switch to some high-rep, low weight exercises to, among other things, use my triceps without over-stressing my elbow. I used the freeweights lying around the house, and did some curls and dumbbell presses, a little of this, a little of that, until I had too many choices and couldn't formulate a good workout plan.

On top of that, I kept reading bodybuilding and weight loss websites, and looked through list of exercises on wikipedia (coming across a few I was completely unfamiliar with -- bent press? what the hell is a bent press?). Eventually I decided to choose all the subjectively "best" exercises that I could do with the equipment I have, and put them all on paper so I could track progress. Measuring has been, in my path to fitness, as important as my other focuses: will and patience. Adding a third thing to measure, in addition to daily Calories and daily weight, requires trivial effort, and results in me thinking about exercise more, and working out in a more balanced, consistent, and safe way.

So for the last 5 weeks, I've been going DDR happy, increasing my endurance and my ankle and knee strength. Seriously, my ankles and knees are stronger from methodically hopping around. A lot of direction changes and a pace that sometimes makes me stay on the balls of my feet to keep up. I'm currently at 450 Calories per session on workout mode, which requires slightly more songs each time I enter a lower weight into the game's calculations. Between that, my roughly 45 minute daily walks (at a brisk pace replacing the meandering I started with), and my 38 pound weight loss, I decided to put my new body to the test. I joined a soccer team.

The Raiders, a local co-ed adult team, is captained by a friend of mine, also a dad of a pair of girls on Stacey's U10 team last season. He had asked me to join the team last year, and I said I'd like to, but I was worried I wasn't in good enough shape to run for more than a minute or two, and that I'd most likely cripple myself in the first game. This time, I thought I could do it.

Sunday was the first game I attended, and I played the first quarter, and then the game was called due to bad weather. I didn't cripple myself. I ran and did not grow weary, and I walked and did not faint, to quote the good book. I was incredibly happy.

I played defense, and I did not get scored on. I felt a little out of position for most of my time on the field, and I went one for one against the striker on the other team, who was wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt (their team color was green). I booted the ball back up field when he was driving down once, and later he managed to get around me in the red zone, but I attacked his strong side and he went around me to his left, and our goalie got the ball before GL could get control again. I was tactically correct, but I lucked out.

My mind and legs are in the right place, but I'm not quite the Stork yet. However, there's no game next weekend because of Memorial Day, giving me two weeks to train before round 2. I plan to be ready.