weight loss

Diet & Fitness Update, Week Ending 8/19/06

To all of you who scoffed at my intention to go jogging: you were right.

However… despite that, I still managed to lose 2½ pounds. That brought me down to 205 even. w00t!

Last week saw the return of the DietOrganizer program for Palm OS. Monday was kind of a shocker for me, as I just ate how I would normally eat, evening binge and all, and the calories just kept piling on. My little carb meter was in the red, and my overview said I’d eaten 600 calories more than I should have. Damn. After that reawakening, I was much more careful about my portion sizes and my foods in general. Let’s hear it for an electronic conscience.

Now, I *had* said that I would allow myself to buy some cool new clothes when I hit 205, buuuut… I think I’m going to wait until I’ve proven to myself that I can *stay* there. If I’m still 205 or lower by this coming Saturday, then maybe I’ll go on a little mini-shopping-spree. (See, I weighed myself on Sunday morning, after a day of Indian and Chinese food, and I’d gained a pound and a half just from that. I’m counting on losing that buffet weight pretty quickly, though, but I forgot to weigh myself this morning to check my progress.)

For this week, I’m continuing to track my food intake, and adding one more element: exercise. I haven’t done my PUSH workouts in much too long. This evening, I tried to step up to the next DVD, just for something different, and it was way too much for me. I’m going to have to go back to the last workout I was on before I slacked off, and continue with that one this week. No shame in that. I’m still exercising.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve also restarted my podcast. I’m hoping that this will force me to focus on my eating and fitness habits (which is the reason why I originally started the podcast in the first place). Can’t go being a hypocrite, after all.

It’s slow going. I keep falling off the horse… but as long as I get back on, I’m OK. As long as the number on the scale is creeping downward instead of upward, I’m winning.

I’m gonna be all right.

podcasting

New Podcast Episode Coming Soon!

I was sitting here tonight, feeling like being a lazy slug, when the sudden urge to podcast struck me. I hooked up the handy-dandy MXL 990, printed off the notes I’d written myself TWO MONTHS AGO, and sat down to podcast about why I hadn’t been podcasting.

I’m so kewl, I even figured out how to make Movable Type post entries at a scheduled time in the future. So, Episode 11 of the Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast will be up at 8am tomorrow morning.

I’m going to try to keep a weekly schedule, complete with main topics that are recorded weeks in advance (what a concept!). I have… *counting* …eight show topics right here on a list by my desk, with two book/diet reviews ready to go and a couple more books to read yet.

So, miracle of miracles, my podcast is back! And, for those of you not eating low-carb… it’s really not going to be totally about low-carb eating. Some of my future show topics include:

  • Vinaigrette
  • Average Your Weight
  • Disappearing Low-Carb Products
  • Throwing Away Food
  • Setting Yourself Up For Success
  • Order An Appetizer
  • Positive Thinking
  • Stop When You’re Full
    (or, it doesn’t do any good to put your fork down between bites if you’re going to stuff yourself anyway)
  • Moving Outside Your Comfort Zone
  • Review: Body For Life
  • Review: Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet
  • Review: Protein Power

Basically, I’m writing down ideas that come to me at random times, and planning to write an outline about each of them and jabber about them for about 10 minutes each. Resources and references will be used heartily.

Oh, speaking of resources… I have a voicemail line! 206-984-2-EAT (2328). If you’re into the diet thing, and have some diet or exercise advice or commentary you’d like me to include on my show, please call! You’re also welcome to e-mail me mp3 files, too, if you so choose. But you know those free night and weekend minutes are eating a hole in your cell phone pocket. 😉

anecdotes 7 Comments

Earwashing

I’m not quite sure what happened.

One of my co-workers had mentioned this week that he had to have his ears cleaned by his doctor. A few of us ended up discussing various good and bad ways to clean out your ears: borax, hydrogen peroxide, Q-Tips, etc.

This evening, I decided to clean out my ears with hydrogen peroxide and a warm water rinse, just like Mom used to do. Did it shortly after dinner. One capful of peroxide in the ear, head tilted all the way to the side, with a washcloth standing by for drips. After the fizzing died down, I flipped my head over, washcloth to my ear, and dumped the peroxide out of my ear onto the cloth.

When I came upright again, I felt a little funny. Dizzy, almost. I figured it just had to do with me having my head on its side, and went ahead with the second capful of peroxide. Same thing — I was *really* dizzy when I straightened up this time. But I still had to rinse, so rinse I did. One capful of water in the ear, same way.

Then I was unusually dizzy, but not off-balance. Not too much, anyway. Almost disoriented. Nauseous.

I laid down on the couch to watch World News, then changed to the Food Network to watch Good Eats. Still nauseous.

Even now? Still kind of sick to my stomach. Something went horribly wrong during what should have been a welcome ear-washing experience, and I’m still not sure what.

And I didn’t even get to wash out my right ear.

Update, 8/18/06: I did some Googling to see WTF I ended up doing to myself. Read on to see the sources I found…
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writing

Self-Publishing

There’s only one work of writing that I’ve actually a.) finished and b.) felt was acceptable overall. I wrote it back in 2001, and I will admit that the first paragraph or two was loosely based on my own real life. After that, I let the story do its thing, and if elements of myself appear in the main character… well, it happens.

I’ve decided to post it here, under a Creative Commons license. I think it’s entirely too cliché to ever be published anywhere, but deserves to see the light of day somewhere. I did post it on my website years ago, and got some positive feedback about it, so here it is again.

I know my writing-related limitations. If you feel the need to critique, I’ll try not to take it too hard, but I’m not specifically calling for critique. I’m just sharing, for whatever fucked up reason. Remember, this is a sample of my writing from five years ago — not that my writing style has changed *that* much since then. Although I was hard-pressed to keep myself from making minor edits as I plugged in the HTML for italics and such.

[Update: I didn’t mean you shouldn’t leave any comments… If you read it and liked it, or even if you were ambivalent about it, feel free to leave your thoughts.]

Please be aware that this story contains sexual situations, occult hocus-pocus, and ending dialogue adapted from a chapter of one of my favorite Star Trek books. If you aren’t turned off yet, read on…
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