I've been a big reader all of my life. I learned to read early, learned to read fast, and was forbidden to watch tv as a child. Instead, I always had my nose in a book. I would walk to elementary school with the book open and my head down. My teachers would try to get me to put it down at recess but nothing was going on around the playground that was nearly as interesting as Swallows and Amazons. We moved a lot during an unfortunate time in my life- grades six, seven, eight and nine were each in different schools in different states and even different countries. But who needed friends when there were books?
As I moved on to adult life, my reading has ebbed and flowed in direct counterpoint to how busy and absorbing the rest of my life is. Without recounting all the ins and outs, I have sometimes wondered which was the cause and effect. Over the past several years, my life has been rich and full. I am completely incapable of putting a good book down and walking away from it. Thus, reading was relegated to a few deliberately lone weekends or solo business trips. I would save up my books, eying them on the shelf and walking around them until it was safe to pick one up, plunge in, and be gone to an alternate universe until the last page is done.
I discovered audiobooks on long drives, and adopted them also for chores and walks. But with audiobooks, you have to start and stop in arbitrary places when the activity is done. Plus, listening is three or four times slower than my reading speed. So my audiobooks are mostly nonfiction, or harder literary fiction, not mysteries or thrillers or fantasy novels. They are books where I am intellectually, rather than emotionally, engaged.
Now I've got my kindle. Suddenly, thousands of books are in the palm of my hand. I like to find mystery or science fiction authors, and then read a complete series. Neither the library nor Borders is likely to have older books in a series, but those are pure profit to Amazon to make available as only electrons.
I got the kindle barely a month ago. In that time, I've read eleven novels- probably more than all of last year put together. They vary in price from free (out of copyright nineteenth century books) to twelve dollars for a best seller only available in hardback. I've just come back from fourteenth century England, in Ken Follett's World Without End. The problem is, I was there almost all weekend. A gorgeous three day weekend, and I spent it on the couch. No walks, (but a sail- I had made a date, and a family dinner date). A fair amount of unconscious eating took place. I had a reasonable sized list of things that needed doing around the house, and crossed out just one small chore as complete. Right now, I'm blinking out, because I finished this absorbing book at 1:00 am this morning.
I think years of my life sped by while my nose was in a book. Now, with the whole literary universe in my fingers, can I manage to retain a grasp on the physical world and not upset my focus on my active life?
- iPhone uPdate
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Statistics
Good news on the numbers front this week. But the pattern shows why its so important to weigh every day, and consider my weight to be the average for the week, not the daily point.
I saw a new number this week - one pound lower than seen for quite some time. In fact, I looked at the graph, and the last time I saw this daily weight was exactly SIX years ago - October 2004! How about that for real progress!
My average for the week was 0.9 pounds lower than last week's average. But on the last day I weighed, I was actually up a half a pound over the weight from the same day last week! Just a factor of the salty meal the night before, but if that was the only data I had for the week, it would be really discouraging.
Progress breeds progress, as activity breeds activity. Hooray for progress.
I saw a new number this week - one pound lower than seen for quite some time. In fact, I looked at the graph, and the last time I saw this daily weight was exactly SIX years ago - October 2004! How about that for real progress!
My average for the week was 0.9 pounds lower than last week's average. But on the last day I weighed, I was actually up a half a pound over the weight from the same day last week! Just a factor of the salty meal the night before, but if that was the only data I had for the week, it would be really discouraging.
Progress breeds progress, as activity breeds activity. Hooray for progress.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sunshine!
I get so much energy and optimism from the light. Today has been lovely, and we're expecting a terrific long weekend. I rode the Vespa in, first time in about three weeks, and every time I do I urge myself to ride it more often.
I got out for a walk at lunch, and stretched my normal mile and a half to two full miles. No ipod, no destination, just striding along (though I did have some really peachy sturdy green shoes).
Here is the route: Friday Walk
And here are the stats:
I got out for a walk at lunch, and stretched my normal mile and a half to two full miles. No ipod, no destination, just striding along (though I did have some really peachy sturdy green shoes).
Here is the route: Friday Walk
And here are the stats:
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My walking seems to routinely be just under twenty minute miles. It's a really comfortable pace, and I think I could keep it up for a very long time. Today on the way in to work, I saw a bunch of pink ladies walking for October breast cancer awareness month. The Avon walk I did back four (?) years ago was the longest walk I ever did. At 20 minute miles, the first day (a marathon in length) would be nine hours. I walked that many hours, but didn't get the whole 27 miles in before I was done.
This has been an ok week - at least I broke 2000 calories every day, and saw a new number on the scale for the first time. More wrap up later.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Jogging
Up and out this morning to get to the gym at work. I spent a half hour on the treadmill and covered by it's measurement exactly two miles. For me, that's a jog, not a walk. On average, that is- I'm doing intervals.
Today I strove for longer intervals at a jog. Most were three minutes long. I'm watching my heartbeat, and I get a bit nervous if it gets too fast. I'm not sure what too fast is, however.
The facts: according to the standard formula, my maximum heartbeat is 165. I saw 92% of that regularly during the jogs. For the first time, today it did not seem like it was continuing to climb. Instead, with deep breaths and focusing on the music, it seemed I could stay at that rate. Previously, I hit that rate and dropped back to a walk because I was nervous, not simply because I was out of gas. Today, I maintained for three minutes at the run and then two minutes at a jog, for the first twenty minutes anyway. Then I stayed at a walk and raised the incline way up, keeping my heartrate at about 80%.
I want to push to longer and longer runs/jogs. I'm definitely making some progress.
- iPhone uPdate
Today I strove for longer intervals at a jog. Most were three minutes long. I'm watching my heartbeat, and I get a bit nervous if it gets too fast. I'm not sure what too fast is, however.
The facts: according to the standard formula, my maximum heartbeat is 165. I saw 92% of that regularly during the jogs. For the first time, today it did not seem like it was continuing to climb. Instead, with deep breaths and focusing on the music, it seemed I could stay at that rate. Previously, I hit that rate and dropped back to a walk because I was nervous, not simply because I was out of gas. Today, I maintained for three minutes at the run and then two minutes at a jog, for the first twenty minutes anyway. Then I stayed at a walk and raised the incline way up, keeping my heartrate at about 80%.
I want to push to longer and longer runs/jogs. I'm definitely making some progress.
- iPhone uPdate
Monday, October 4, 2010
Transportation
I often do business at a building in DC's SouthEast neighborhood, near to the new ballpark. It's just under two miles from my office, two metro stops away. The DC metro has a lot fewer stations than the NY subway, but there is a stop at the corner of my building, and it's the right line to come out right on the corner of the giant new government office complex built to anchor the neighborhood - it had to come before the ballpark could come. Transportation is celebrated there with public displays of ancient artifacts such as old train switches, and the Navy Yard is right across the street.
The metro is convenient, but in the middle of the day you can wait up to fourteen minutes for a train to make the eight minute trip. The new "bike sharing" system has a rack right at the other building, and one is planned for my corner, but its not there yet. Often my meetings over there are right before or after lunch, and I can treat myself to walking one way or the other. It takes about forty minutes, so I can't afford the time every day. I'm always looking for a chance to squeeze in a bit more activity when I can, and this is one I can often justify. Here is the route I took today: SouthEast to SouthWest
Shortly after leaving the office complex and walking past the construction zones outside the ballpark, I enter DC's SouthWest neighborhood. One of my colleagues in the other building, an extremely avid walker, won't walk there, such is the bad reputation of the area. Clearly an outdated and unwarranted feeling, in my opinion, but the area has an interesting history. Over the course of several walks I've read many of the local history signs posted around: River Farms to Urban Towers, and often muse about the effect of transportation on neighborhoods, and on the ability to get fitness.
In a nutshell, this peninsula within DC was cut off from the rest of the city by the building of huge expressways through the city right after World War II. It had been a lower class mixed neighborhood of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, and many of the tenements still had no electricity or running water after the war- this within the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. The solution, according to Congress which micromanaged DC those days and felt no qualms about running experiments with peoples' lives, was to bulldoze the entire place and build the first "urban renewal" neighborhood. The expressway was the excuse for the first bulldozers, and today it still roars through the neighborhood, so loud I can't listen to my ipod during the walk, and only a couple of streets have over- or under-passes to allow making my way north to the government office neighborhood where I work. (The expressway goes underground and heads north past the US Capitol, and then surfaces and just peters out into regular streets. The plan was to continue it north through several more vibrant neighborhoods, including my current home, and connect it to the Beltway on the north. It was the first interstate highway ever blocked by activists, but that is a story for another day.)
Today, there are still some very un-lovely buildings dating from the fifties and sixties, and slowly the urban solid concrete jungle is being busted up to allow for some more green elements throughout. There has also been extensive re-development throughout the neighborhood, but there is still a gritty element in the less lovely sections. I can understand my colleague's lack of comfort in walking there, and I understand how tough it was in the past if you lived there. Not a place you would let your children go out and run around in. Many of the people there would not have their own cars, but you would want to cluster at the bus stops, not wander through ugly streets with no trees, no art, ugly buildings, and questionable people. At the bottom of the peninsula is Fort McNair, today home to the National Defense University, and which was where the Lincoln assassination conspirators where imprisoned and hung. The Fort is a very lovely urban oasis for those with the right id badge to get in - now - but it used to be much more industrial in feel, with big trucks running in and out, adding to ambiance of the neighborhood.
It makes for a very interesting walk, which keeps me moving.
The metro is convenient, but in the middle of the day you can wait up to fourteen minutes for a train to make the eight minute trip. The new "bike sharing" system has a rack right at the other building, and one is planned for my corner, but its not there yet. Often my meetings over there are right before or after lunch, and I can treat myself to walking one way or the other. It takes about forty minutes, so I can't afford the time every day. I'm always looking for a chance to squeeze in a bit more activity when I can, and this is one I can often justify. Here is the route I took today: SouthEast to SouthWest
Shortly after leaving the office complex and walking past the construction zones outside the ballpark, I enter DC's SouthWest neighborhood. One of my colleagues in the other building, an extremely avid walker, won't walk there, such is the bad reputation of the area. Clearly an outdated and unwarranted feeling, in my opinion, but the area has an interesting history. Over the course of several walks I've read many of the local history signs posted around: River Farms to Urban Towers, and often muse about the effect of transportation on neighborhoods, and on the ability to get fitness.
In a nutshell, this peninsula within DC was cut off from the rest of the city by the building of huge expressways through the city right after World War II. It had been a lower class mixed neighborhood of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, and many of the tenements still had no electricity or running water after the war- this within the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. The solution, according to Congress which micromanaged DC those days and felt no qualms about running experiments with peoples' lives, was to bulldoze the entire place and build the first "urban renewal" neighborhood. The expressway was the excuse for the first bulldozers, and today it still roars through the neighborhood, so loud I can't listen to my ipod during the walk, and only a couple of streets have over- or under-passes to allow making my way north to the government office neighborhood where I work. (The expressway goes underground and heads north past the US Capitol, and then surfaces and just peters out into regular streets. The plan was to continue it north through several more vibrant neighborhoods, including my current home, and connect it to the Beltway on the north. It was the first interstate highway ever blocked by activists, but that is a story for another day.)
Today, there are still some very un-lovely buildings dating from the fifties and sixties, and slowly the urban solid concrete jungle is being busted up to allow for some more green elements throughout. There has also been extensive re-development throughout the neighborhood, but there is still a gritty element in the less lovely sections. I can understand my colleague's lack of comfort in walking there, and I understand how tough it was in the past if you lived there. Not a place you would let your children go out and run around in. Many of the people there would not have their own cars, but you would want to cluster at the bus stops, not wander through ugly streets with no trees, no art, ugly buildings, and questionable people. At the bottom of the peninsula is Fort McNair, today home to the National Defense University, and which was where the Lincoln assassination conspirators where imprisoned and hung. The Fort is a very lovely urban oasis for those with the right id badge to get in - now - but it used to be much more industrial in feel, with big trucks running in and out, adding to ambiance of the neighborhood.
It makes for a very interesting walk, which keeps me moving.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Tea Season is Back
I am not a habitual tea drinker. I have to have my coffee in the morning, good and tasty and caffeinated. I'll drink ice tea in a restaurant at lunch, if I can get good brewed tea with no sweetener. But I won't touch bottled ice teas, which are almost universally sweet. I'm generally too lazy to make my own herbal ice tea in the summer, because it requires planning ahead enough to make hot tea then cool it down.
But when feeling tired and cold, or like I may be getting sick, or just housebound and bored, there is nothing like a cup of hot herb tea. I forget how much I like it. I simply forget to make it. I fall out of the habit in the summer.
This week, with fall weather and fall dark evenings on me, I found myself "mouthy" in the afternoons. Not hungry, but wanting to eat. My seltzer didn't appeal. Had to be hot and filling.
Suddenly I remembered tea. I got out one of my teapots and surveyed my stash of teas from last year. Such names, such marketing. Tension Tamer, Soothing Moments, Camomile Bliss, Lemon Smoother, and simply Peppermint. Except for the last, I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell one from another in a blind taste test. But when I'm in that restless "gimme hot food" mode, four minutes to heat water followed by pouring from the pot, holding the heated mug and surrounding my nose and swallowing the hot liquid and feeling it filling me up wherever I was empty can be just what I need. All that I need for just that moment. Another brief triumph over the siren call of fat sugar and salt.
- iPhone uPdate
But when feeling tired and cold, or like I may be getting sick, or just housebound and bored, there is nothing like a cup of hot herb tea. I forget how much I like it. I simply forget to make it. I fall out of the habit in the summer.
This week, with fall weather and fall dark evenings on me, I found myself "mouthy" in the afternoons. Not hungry, but wanting to eat. My seltzer didn't appeal. Had to be hot and filling.
Suddenly I remembered tea. I got out one of my teapots and surveyed my stash of teas from last year. Such names, such marketing. Tension Tamer, Soothing Moments, Camomile Bliss, Lemon Smoother, and simply Peppermint. Except for the last, I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell one from another in a blind taste test. But when I'm in that restless "gimme hot food" mode, four minutes to heat water followed by pouring from the pot, holding the heated mug and surrounding my nose and swallowing the hot liquid and feeling it filling me up wherever I was empty can be just what I need. All that I need for just that moment. Another brief triumph over the siren call of fat sugar and salt.
- iPhone uPdate
Saturday, October 2, 2010
It's a Downward Trend, If Ever So Slightly...
This was not a particularly good week for me. Everything feels really hard. I want to turn into a hibernating slug. I'm so tired, with aches and headaches and a nagging soreness in my throat. I'm seriously wondering if I'm over-training, because my body doesn't seem to recover between the strength workouts. I did keep all three appointments this week, and that is good, because I didn't dedicate any time to serious aerobic working out. When my overall calorie burn is as low as it it, "over-training" sounds absurd, but it is a possibility on the strength side. I think about cutting the appointments back to two times per week, but on weeks like this it is what reminds me how committed I really am to being strong and fit. Here is my pathetic calorie burn for the week, per the magic device:
Some days it didn't even reach 2000!
How did I do on eating? Not so good. I logged the first two meals of every day, but tended to blow off the evening meal, which is always harder to calculate anyway. Then, there was the incident with the apple turnovers.... Rather than share the details, let's just say I knew when I bought them I have a history of finishing them off, and I bought them anyway. My calorie total for the week, if summed up, would still be quite a bit over goal.
But, the joys of weighing consistently almost everyday, and considering your weight to be the weekly average, not any single day! I am on an almost undetectable downward trend. Each week for the last three weeks the weight has been lower than the week before, and all three weeks were the lowest for this weightloss effort.
Here's the picture:
I don't know if I would be as motivated to keep on going if I didn't have this picture to tell me I'm on the right track. No one bad day - or even bad week - can derail my progress. It is consistency and persistence that will make the difference over time.
A very small victory, but it's big to me. This month, I'm going to see a couple of new numbers for the first time, and I should need to adjust the axes on this graph to show the new, lower, results!
How did I do on eating? Not so good. I logged the first two meals of every day, but tended to blow off the evening meal, which is always harder to calculate anyway. Then, there was the incident with the apple turnovers.... Rather than share the details, let's just say I knew when I bought them I have a history of finishing them off, and I bought them anyway. My calorie total for the week, if summed up, would still be quite a bit over goal.
But, the joys of weighing consistently almost everyday, and considering your weight to be the weekly average, not any single day! I am on an almost undetectable downward trend. Each week for the last three weeks the weight has been lower than the week before, and all three weeks were the lowest for this weightloss effort.
Here's the picture:
I don't know if I would be as motivated to keep on going if I didn't have this picture to tell me I'm on the right track. No one bad day - or even bad week - can derail my progress. It is consistency and persistence that will make the difference over time.
A very small victory, but it's big to me. This month, I'm going to see a couple of new numbers for the first time, and I should need to adjust the axes on this graph to show the new, lower, results!
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