Category: Phase 12

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I am picking the Defenders today. We need them. Of democracy. Of Climate. Of Indigenous rights in near Burns Lake in Northern BC.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 26
Today is officially a cake day because it’s my wife’s birthday.

In the meantime, I am waiting for the insurance nurse to come over to weigh me and take some blood. Then I wait for the insurance company to try to bilk me for life insurance. It’s not that I’m pessimistic; it’s that I’ve had experience with insurance of all sorts.

I’m still mentally recovering from the Tuesday weigh-in, although it taught me that I have to be easier on my feelings during this process. I must accept that this is inherently slow and that the workouts and improvement in things like digestion are worth it.

The workouts seem to be the thing keeping me from despair. Even a short workout activates all the muscles. And I might be able to use my own muscles to pull my right hip assembly out of its stuck place. That would be cool if I could limber that area up. Stuck and clenched since Jesus was a lad.

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Last of my X-Men series. Moose in New Brunswick are dying from ticks due to climate change.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 25
Here’s why weight loss is a bitch. That 3.4 pounds over three weeks? I could gain that back in a weekend.

Moving on, I did a yoga class that gave me insight into how my “newer” muscles can influence my clenched-in-one-place-since-the-80s hip. I was working at both stretching past its normal boundary and accessing the muscles around it as it I were trying to pull a large piece of metal deep out of a heap of soggy trash in a garbage bin. It felt different. I declare this as a good thing.

I was as sore after the yoga class, which seemed normal at the time, as if I had done my trainer session.

More X-Men. A moron on a Toronto – Jamaica flight joked about the new virus. Schmuck of the Year.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 24
I was upset yesterday because I feel like I lost more weight than I did. 3.4 pounds over a 23 day period. I started heavier than I thought, but the pants are looser than they were when I weighed lighter in a previous phase.

So much lovely stigma with weight. Ain’t it grand?

The way I feel and the numbers once again defy common sense. I am still getting stronger. With the trainer I deadlifted 195 pounds from the floor. It was a challenge but not crazy.

Unfortunately the muscle pain and emotional stress led me to chocolate, but that’s all gone now and my intention is to chill out and stick to the plan. There’s my wife’s birthday this Friday and cheesecake is on the menu.

As to weight loss and exercise, I keep reading contrarian articles. E.g. stretching isn’t that great. Exercise has no bearing on weight loss and they all do nothing to help. What is the right process? My personal theory is that the exercise results are helping me mitigate diet mistakes. In the past three weeks all three weekends had too many treats. Had I been on the old Weight Watchers style of diet, and basically sedentary, I would made no progress at all and no one would be surprised.

In the end the 3-week check in on progress for a 9-week phase was a good idea.

More X-Men and Wolverine. So much rain there was a mudslide in Victoria.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 23
The more I read about diet/fitness, the more confused I become. I stumbled across a BBC article raking vegan junk food – e.g. the Beyond burger stuff – over the coals for not being as good as real meat. It was all about the absorption of stuff like fish oils and what not. I stopped reading it because most of India is vegetarian. Also, it’s JUNK FOOD. No one thinks it’s good for you anymore than anyone really thought switching from Coke to Diet Coke would improve your health. The keto and anti-keto diet crowds are ready for a damn cage match and lo-carb folks are equally pissing off the science folk. Scientists aren’t free of taint either because there are MDs pushing useless supplements and Wakefield, an MD, kicked off the anti-vaccine mess and is responsible for the deaths of untold number of children.

Gosh that rant felt good.

Today I see the trainer and I’m going to look at the numbers. There may be some gnashing of teeth.

This is the X-Men shortly after Wolverine introduction. A landslide near Agassiz has blocked people in at the ominously named Sasquatch Mountain Resort.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 22
Today started with a chiropractic appointment. It was a good adjustment. I should have thought of doing that the morning following a yoga class ages ago.

Yesterday I suspect I was still recovering from the Saturday platelets donation. The yoga class was tough to complete and had moments of lightheaded-ness that were not typical.

The calorie count from yesterday was so-so but not egregious. Today needs to be an on-plan sort of day because there’s a weigh-in tomorrow. I promised myself I’d look at the four measurements that started on the second day of this phase.

My insurance medical is scheduled for Friday.

The cool thing with the X-Men is that they have many different variations. 256.6 mm of precipitation at the Vancouver Airport in January.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 21
Good grief. Three weeks in.

I am trying to get back on it today but doing so with some self-care. In the form of calories. Yesterday had mishaps from parking tickets to misapplication of bleach in laundry and my mood took a bad turn. It was not a balance response.

And I spent two hours lying on a bed having platelets and plasma removed. I feel like I’m doing a good thing, but it hoses up the day.

Last Sunday I tried to live on three slices of bacon until 1 PM or later. That didn’t work. So I got a muffin to enjoy mid-morning to try to balance things out. I feel less stressed. And I’m still only about 600 calories into the day.

Lunch will be much healthier. And I’ll do yoga later.

But for mood, the risk of heavy negative self-talk is there. I am trying to talk to myself more and apply absurd humour. Send comedy thoughts please.

Onto the X-Men. I am curious how the future with Disney/Marvel will work. Vancouver and the South Coast took an absurd amount of rain yesterday.  Now it’s sunny.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 20
I’m about an hour away from donating platelets. Or that’s the plan. If my initial platelet count isn’t high enough, they won’t do it. The uncertainty is no fun because it’s a 2-hour donation process and you kind of have to plan your whole day around it. Last time I was a bit woozy so I’m taking precautions.

I broke diet yesterday but I did turn down the baked potato at The Keg. However, the team did not help me enough with the red wine. I’ve been try for two weeks so I really felt it. Back at my desk I was working hard to stay with the process.

Then there was a social/fundraiser. I didn’t eat too much there, but when I got home, I was hungry so ate healthy stuff late. Most perplexing. I find my body fusses over change of any sort. What until I’m trussed up donating platelets for two hours.

Harley Quinn and Black Canary. Richmond school district is showing signs of germ-o-phobia.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 19
My diet was affected by someone who I learned had taken his own life. It was shocking. It was not a person close to me, but close enough. 11 people per day die of suicide and the rest of us seem obsessed with surgical masks that make no difference.

Take care of yourself and the people around you.

Regardless, I went to the gym and I did the hard high intensity workout. Today I take people out to lunch for winning a contest. I am going to customize my order. But I will enjoy it. Tomorrow I donate platelets. It takes about two hours and I’ll need to eat well. My cheat day is an attempt to save lives.

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. Apparently in Ottawa, CSIS is in trouble for discrimination. Let that one sink in.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 18
I have a couple of concerns. I was in yoga class and I was feeling almost lightheaded. It wasn’t normal.  Yesterday’s conditions compared to previous weeks weren’t substantially different. I have also made some mental errors like asking for coffee to stay at a Starbucks that not only does not have seating but also from where I never have asked for coffee to stay. I then proceeded to spill a bunch of the coffee on the way out.

Ironically, I don’t remember the other mental gaffs that I had yesterday.  Oh wait, I just remembered. I went to yoga class with my mat, but not my shorts and t-shirt.

Fatigue? Stress? Too low a calorie count? (I say this one because by the time I’ve hit yoga, I’m only about 400 calories into the day.)

Awareness is the key, I suppose, which I why I write this down. Now … where did I put my pants?

Harley Quinn getting clobbered by Wonder Woman. In Guelph, they built an epic-sized snowman.

Mutant Diet Phase 12 Day 17
Yesterday was the personal trainer day and the deadlift session had me speaking in groans for the rest of the day. I also weighed in with the numbers written on the secret paper. My trainer could not suppress, despite my previous instructions, an utterance of “well done.”

I still didn’t look at the numbers.

But I will. I received an additional incentive to keep on plan. The old life insurance policy is up for renewal and the insurance company will gladly auto renew you for about four times your original rate, no questions asked. If you want questions asked, it involves a physical. I am fairly bullish on the medical exam because if it happens four weeks into a mostly on track Mutant Diet Phase, I won’t have much issue with the blood work.

My calorie count was off due to chocolate almonds. I used them to offset the strain of the personal trainer session. I can’t make that a habit.