Author: Robert Ford

This page of the comic put terror in the hearts of comic book readers. Ragged nerves in Toronto.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 72
Legs. Last night by the time I had jockeyed myself, my bicycle and my ailing car to the dealership, my hamstrings were fried and the quads toast.

I noticed, when documenting that my calorie count, that it has been sneaking above the 2000 limit more frequently. I have a weigh-in today and I’m going to have to pay attention to the numbers because I’m feeling increasingly odd. If I don’t connect metrics to reality it will feed the negative voices. There has to be a way to take this process to a set of observations that inform but don’t judge.

Of course there’s free coffee and muffins in the meeting room. D’oh!

I was feeling nostalgic for old Spider-man. Does anyone know how to pronounce Osoyoos?

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 71
Given the ongoing battle with negative voices, this might turn into a mental health blog instead of diet/fitness.

Let’s talk physical pain. My wife and I managed to escape to the 75-minutes yoga class last night. As soon as I entered the room and took a preliminary stretch, I realized the quads and hamstrings were like cement. They had not recovered well from Friday’s workout and ride. I couldn’t help but think of Star Trek Next Generation and the Borg’s “resistance is futile” motto. My legs were saying, “Resistance? I’ll give you resistance.”

I was sore waking up today and it took longer than I wanted to get moving.

Once I was at work in work clothes, those garments felt looser than last week. It’s odd because the weekend was not a good sample of this diet plan. It wasn’t a blowout or anything, but the weekend was not to specifications.

The longer I work at this, the more mystified I become.

I really needed a Hulk image today. No nervous energy in Toronto, hey?

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 70

Yesterday showcased botched time management due to a car starting to malfunction and commitments with my wife’s choirs plus the usual lessons and chores.

My diet was not as good as I’d hoped, but could have been much worse. The new jeans from a couple of weeks ago are feeling loose, which is good. However, could the negative, defeatist voices please fuck off?

Yesterday was also a no workout day because, by the end of Friday, I was in a fair bit of OWWWWW from the high intensity workout and the 23 km ride.

Mental strain and diet don’t mix. Add physical strain and boy o boy that’s a recipe for a mess.

No version of Wolverine is in the new X-Men movie. Saskatoon had an odd car theft situation.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 68
Yesterday was a hard day to stay in the calorie count and by my estimates I didn’t. I was still hungry by the time 8 PM rolled around. I used coffee to hold off.

The workout was odd. The sled machine was lame. Couldn’t get it going. Then deadlifts and bench press were far better than the Tuesday trainer workout. What the …

It’s Friday and I need to see if I can stay on the path. I started by eating breakfast early but then had to grab peanuts early. So weird.

Old Man Logan with a nod to the first Wolverine/Hulk cover. Apparently Vernon BC is having issues in their downtown.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 67
Is it Thursday already? Dang. I just had a cheat breakfast with bread and potatoes. So now I have to lock down the rest of the day. That will be interesting due to scheduling. I have to start planning it now so as to remove risk of further deviances.

I had an odd situation where I did yoga at noon and the class was fine. I didn’t have any usual issues. There was only the normal strain, no real pain. But when I left, I was super space-y. I was hyper aware of surroundings and almost light headed. I assumed it was the result of it being lunch time.

But as I write this, the extra sized breakfast I just had is really helping my focus. Yesterday I had breakfast before I rode – also due to timing issues – and I arrived at work (3.1 km) not as stressed.

I may have to re-examine the timing of food and the timing of exercise.

Avengers vs X-Men. Calgary has a disturbing court case on.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 66
Despite hiccups diet-wise last week I chose to look at the weight changes. Despite the negative voices, it’s good news. And not just because I have a weight loss trend, but because I learned something new.

In two cases in the past 66 days, I’ve had two wipe-out weekends where I gained weight. But in each case, I was back on the 2000 calorie process and recovered within the same week. I used to think, if you’d made a mistake, it wasn’t worth immediately getting back on the horse.

Anyone out there reading this, does this happen to you? Have you tried? In my case this is the first time I’ve tried quick recovery after a mistake. See the chart below for details.

Wonder Woman and Cheetah. The next movie sin’t out until June 2020. Thunder Bay Ontario.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 65
Weigh in day. I’m ready. I have to look at the numbers. The diet part is not as strong as at the beginning. There are always reasons. The goal here is to connect efforts to results, even if those results are not what I want. Reality should just be the state of being at a moment of time. Not a judgement of character or quality of a person.

Tell the inner voices that and they don’t like it. Not one bit.

I wish my inner voices thought more about fun things.

Huge workout and numbers for walking, riding and gym work. And I don’t limp much.

Retro Spider-man, Hulk and Avengers. Another tornado in Ottawa?

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 64
Fatigue and not feeling 100% (scratchy throat) don’t lead to good food choices. My daughter was out for fancy dress prom and the remaining members of the family felt cheated so we went out and cheated on my diet.

The 2000 calorie limit is as easy to blow past as it is difficult to maintain.

I have a weigh-in tomorrow and I’m going to look at the week-by-week weight changes no matter what. I’m feeling disconnected from the process and that’s not good.

I would like to stay clean and on track today.

Spider-man and an obscure villain named Shathra. Winnipeg has a 100-year-old aqueduct.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 63

I pushed the boundaries a little.  Yesterday I had to take a few times to lie down and just let the workout from Saturday and the long ride and workout from Friday integrate.  I have an improved speed of recovery from exertion, but I found it.  There was also a bit of a sore throat trying to happen.

I want to stay on track so that I’ll look at the weight differences from week to week on Tuesday.

At this stage, I am angry with how long it has taken to arrive at this point in the diet/fitness process and daunted by how far there is to go.  To put my dismay into context, I first retained a personal trainer before my daughter was born, which was when my current trainer was in elementary school.

Neither feelings of anger or fear are helpful.  I’m open to psych counselling 101 hacks to counteract this.

Spider-man with extra arms fighting an artificial vampire. I have this one. Saint John NB has a measles outbreak. Humans are dumb.

Mutant Diet Phase 10 Day 62
Space dogs, I hurt.  I’m amazed I even made it up the stairs at the gym this morning.

Trying a weights workout less than 24 hours after yesterday’s weights work out was a less productive as I expected. It was such a gorgeous day yesterday that I did the 23 km Stanley Park ride home.

Ouchy butt. There was wine later.

I’m going to need to take it easy the rest of today to fully recover.