Category: Plan D

This isn’t the nicest thing to think, but when you have a conference call with your brother and sister discussing your octogenarian mother’s health conditions, it makes you want to go to the gym.

Not that it would have stopped me enjoying the work Christmas Party last night. It just tells me that truly has to be the exception, not the rule.

Today is nutty because soon 75% of my family will be on stage at the Orpheum for Christmas with the Bach Choir.

And … I’m coming into the home stretch on Plan D. I have to think about how in 2017 to put this over the line.

Well the full on siege of diet versus Christmas is upon us. Two factors impact this.

1. Access to high quality hard-to-resist snacks
2. The hosing of one’s schedule

Yesterday was my choir chaperone day where the kids sang for Peter Mansbridge at the Sutton Place and shortly thereafter we walking in the pouring rain and cold down to Canada Place to sing for folks enjoying Fly Over Canada.

And the eating showed that I was not on my normal schedule.

Ten days until the finish line of Plan D. Would it surprise you that I’m already planning for 2017? I’m thinking of calling it something more creative like “Phase 2.” There are more numbers than there are letters in the alphabet.

Today’s going to be different. I’m helping Catherine escort the Hudson Elementary Senior Choir to two events including the Canadian Club where Peter Mansbridge (better known to the kids as Peter Moosebridge) is speaking and then to Fly Over Canada.

For diet/fitness I had a good trip to the gym and had a chance to chat with my trainer. The kettle bell workout still wins the award for Most Intense even when you aren’t able to do the whole thing. Yesterday was great until the pizza and beer showed up at an office function.

However, by my standards, moderation was applied. For example the requisite sweets selection was present but it wasn’t sufficiently compelling. Could I have taken the sugar addition from major to mild?

It’s December 1 and just after midnight Pacific Time I emailed, tweeted and posted on Facebook the link to this year’s Christmas Story. See https://robertfordfiction.com/stories/2016-angel-redemption/

Another miracle happened yesterday. The management company for the office building in which I work was hosting a free appreciation free lunch in their newly created meeting rooms. It was a Chinese buffet and that was OK because it was easy to dodge the rice. However, in the next room was the sweets buffet, which drew me in like some kind of psychotic moth but at the last moment I veered away from the Nanaimo bars and left.

That was not normal. At all. I had just done a yoga class so maybe the thought of snorfing up sweets 15 minutes after my last downward dog was just too rebellious.

Maybe there is hope in the holiday season.

Important tip. If do a full new kettle bell routine on a Monday, and do all the exercises, don’t expect the same performance the next day.

I rode my bike yesterday. Today it’s a swamp outside. Normally I do a 9 km ride home but when I left the bike cage at about 4:15 PM, it had dropped a ½ degree or so and it was in the nut-frosting range so I took the short route. I’m glad I managed to fit in a bike ride. The weather forecast is dire.

In the diet area, I feel like I’m in damage control as opposed to functional diet mode.

Message to subconscious: Keep … your … hands … off … the … snacks.

Perceptions are interesting. Self-perceptions are truly in need of double-checking.

On the weekend I tried on a pair of old dress pants and was frustrated because they did not quite fit. Annoyed I said, “f**king 8 months of work and I can’t fit a pair of old pants.”

Last night I was going through photos to have printed out for my mother. I was wading through digital images. In summer 2015 we attended a wedding in the US at the Semiahmoo Resort and I found a picture of me in a suit I wear now and man, I was a blob. I asked Catherine if she saw the difference I was seeing and she agreed. I was thinking the camera was weird.

Motivation. Patience. Persistence.

Will power would help but as we enter the Recreational Eating Season (a.k.a. Christmastime) this could be a challenge.

My brain is sludge today because of lack of sleep. Plus it was so busy with volunteer work on the weekend, I was actually anticipating coming to work where it’s relatively more coherent. Which, now that I’m at work, was not a good assumption.

I really have to hit the gym today because the weekend was lame. No yoga. Hardly any walking. Totally crap weather.

And with 15 days to go in Plan D … I’m feeling like an under achiever. The Christmas break will be a time for reflection, calorie avoidance and an attempt to figure out how to finish it off in the first quarter of 2017. Basically I have to take my weight out of the heart attack zone.

So, let’s see what I can pull off between now and December 13.

Let’s examine the role of sugar.

As I write this, I am at a Bean Around the World in West Vancouver. It is rustic, has stable wi-fi, is often crowded, staffed by non uniformed cute young people and frequented by some of the West Vancouver crowd who ooze entitlement. The staff members are the antithesis of the clientele. I don’t know how they stand it.

My tradition is a medium Americano and when they offer me the extra shot I take it. They have a very nice raw sugar that I normally use. One scoop for the coffee, scoop for me — a direct hit of sugar. Today I did not do this. My theory is that my insulin response is in direct proportion to my sugar compulsion. I am trying to convince my body that when sugar is reduced, it needs to grab what it needs from my stored lard.

Oddly, the coffee tastes fine without it. Which means I wasn’t taking the sugar for reasons of taste.

It was not a normal day. Normally I have time with the computer to blog but the children had slightly different schedules and Catherine took one of her Vancouver Bach Children’s Choir groups to Fly Over Canada.

I stayed home and cleaned. This actually is therapeutic because everyone knows with Christmastime coming that much will come and go out of the apartment. In addition my son and I finished a clean up in his room that was started two weeks ago.

On the fitness front, I am sore. The plan was to do some yoga, but the built in baby sitter had an outside babysitting job. But sometimes, you just have to let things settle.

Plus, on the good news side, a draft of this year’s Christmas Story was completed. Now in the edit process. Phew.

Ugh. Up too late last night. But, I do have a draft of the Christmas story for 2016.

Yesterday the kettle bell workout was tested out and refined. The results of what I’m doing going forward to the December 13 finish line are shown below. Muscles in odd places are hurting.

I want to try this routine out today, but I’m kind of cooked around the edges. We’ll have to see.

Kettle Bell Workout Routine #2

Warm up – 5 minutes stair master

1. Kettle bell Swings – Green – 25 reps 3 sets
2. Farmers carry: use the two large Green kettle bells and carry them at your sides as you walk for 60 steps before setting them down. All about posture on this one! Keep those shoulders back!
3. Kettle bell jump jacks! With the blue kettle bell do the regular kettle bell swing but add a jump every time you bring the kettle bell up, be sure to move your feet back to avoid having the kettle bell hit you on the way down! 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Kettle bell squat and bicep curl: into a sumo squat, place your elbows on the inside of your thighs and hold the squat position, grab the small kettle bell (purple) and curl it up 10 times, hold the kettle bell bottom-up
5. Burpees with kettle bells: 2 blue kettle bells in either hand, bend to set them on the ground and hold onto them as you complete a jump back into a Burpees. Remember to keep your butt down and jump so your feet are almost between your hands (like in yoga). Keep your back straight! 10 reps, 3 sets.
6. Kettle bell squat and press: start with the basic kettle bell squat and when you come into standing position you toss the kettle bell up slightly to catch it by the side handle bars before raising it overhead in a shoulder press. Use the blue kettle bell. 10 reps, 3 sets
7. Kettle bell swing and punch – 10 per side – pink