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Today is my last personal trainer workout for the year. My set of prepaid sessions are up and I won’t worry about this until the New Year. I also weigh in but I’m not feeling very secure so I think I’ll keep the data until later, no later than December 13, the last weigh in day.

I feel like I’m the same weight but my middle seems to have pulled in. We’ll find out later if that’s true.

This has been the most distracting phase of this Mutant Diet operation. The hernia. The US Election. My mother being ill. Last night I was working with my daughter on chemistry with all the fuss and bother with valences and atomic weights. Why is it that a positively charged ion is missing electrons? The fact it was in French wasn’t helping much.

So much to do today.

Sunday night yoga is not an odd thing, but I was feeling very much not like doing it because I had just spent a couple of hours out in the cold selling raffle tickets.

In the initial poses I could feel this attempt by some organism to give me a cold. There’s certainly no time for this sort of thing so I concentrated during the class on sending the heat that was being generated to the nose/throat area. It also helped that he class was unusually intense. Seeing my mind wasn’t really in the room yet, I didn’t notice until some of the poses were super intense that the class was well underway. I was very warm and sent the heat to the immune system and said to myself “just BBQ the bugs will ya?”

And today I rode to work and feel fine.

Considering the kids have been bringing bugs into the apartment and people at work have been hacking away, I’m thinking of sending a thank you note to my immune system.

I am ready (ish) for a new week. Meat has been cooked. Salads obtained. I’ve chosen my next superhero for imagery. 23 days to go before then end of Plan D. I have no doubt that my weight loss will be far less. However, I can tell my body shape is changing for the better.

The coming days accelerate in complexity due to the family’s various festive commitments. One equation that’s for sure in diet/fitness: a busier schedule does not make dieting and fitness plans easier.

If you want to avoid potholes in the road, driving faster does not help.

Wow. Now that’s neck tension. I suspect my kettle bell workouts are leading to tension headaches. However I know a few tricks to self-stretch the neck so, hopefully, I can bring this under control. I have too much brain work today.

I did a big Costco shopping trip and will have supplies. When I am not stocked up the carbs creep back in faster than crows to road kill.

The Christmas season cramps us up insanely for time which is another risk for dietary diversion. Ooh, I like that alliteration.

OK. Much to do. Back to the mines.

I want to focus on the positive.

There should be absolutely nothing about the display of utter disrespect for American voters shown by Trump even talking to Mitt Romney, let alone considering him for a cabinet post. The things they said about each other during the election should have precluded them talking and the fact that Romney is Establishment 101 should make Trump supporters want to barf into their own shoes at the duplicity.

None of that.

Rather, let’s talk about a beautiful woman at the gym who is 20 times fitter than I am. But this is a good thing. I was doing my kettle bell routine and the only space was beside a lady who was doing a kettle bell routine but with much heavier weights that mine. I told her I was jealous of her, especially given she was only slightly taller than my 8-year-old son. She was gracious and encouraging. A little later a 40-something man in the same area said to me, “I’m tired just looking at you doing that routine.”

Kettle bells rock … despite what my right hip says.

But it brings to mind body image. Although a woman, half my size and about a third my age, the lady with the kettle bells could have accidently encouraged me to quit. I could argue I’ll never reach her level and I’m told old and fat to even try. However, the truth is that comparisons are meaningless. She and I are so different with different goals at different time of life that comparisons are like comparing apples and penguins.

See you at the gym.

I’m weak. I must continue. Send chocolate. Losing consciousness …

To achieve everything on my ponderous to-do list will require mental and physical horsepower not seen in horses. But I feel I can’t quit because that leads to the darker corners of the mind.

Compassion and logic. You don’t often see those together. For example, I can be compassionate for someone who’s part of a problem but I don’t have to let their issues ruin my day.

When it comes to diet/fitness I’m part of the problem. My own deep, profound and utterly messed up cravings for sugar and carbs defy logic. But compassion and simply saying logical stuff like “giving up won’t make you feel better about yourself” and “remember that all Fords (with the exception of your own son) have these same exact totally ridiculously tight hamstrings.”

One of my ancient forebears somehow decided that the tall guy (whose hamstrings were so tight that he could not bend sufficiently pick up a berry) was the right guy with whom to make babies. You think flexibility would have been prized among the hunter-gatherer crowd.

OK. Back to the to-do list.

This is probably the latest in the day I’ve written this post. I didn’t even get the diet blog part scanned. Despite the grotesque rain that forced me onto the bus this afternoon, I did ride to work unscathed this morning. The massage therapist’s work from yesterday was holding because I had better neck movement while ride. At lunch I took my normal yoga class and I realized that a lot of me is still kind of locked up. One of my right hamstrings is twitching as I write this.

It’s an absurd world where people can be hungry minutes away from people like me who have extra, especially around the middle. It’s also absurd that the markets and Canadian politicians can react to stated plans from someone not yet in office and for whom nothing sensible has ever been said.

Back now to your regularly scheduled cognitive dissonance.

Today I went to the massage therapist. My right side is out of alignment and my neck mobility is limited.

Ouch. I now feel like I have little tweety birds flying around my head. Worst part is when she tried to make the quads release.

I think today I may skip the gym and concentrate on posture. For example, when you stand up, check your feet. Are they aligned or askew? When you sit, are you knees falling to the side? Are you glutes just sitting there or are they supporting the lower back?

I don’t know if “doomed” is the right word but I’ve got one month to go and I feel like I’m in the “unprepared for final exams” space.

I entered the stats for the last while and the numbers are down, primarily due to rain. Even by Vancouver standards it’s been really wet. (Good news I did cycle to work today.) Last night’s blood pressure was weird. I could correct the top number with breathing but the pulse was higher.

One aspect of this time of year I have to allow for is recreational eating. I.e. Christmas celebrations in advance of the actual day. There’s the office party and other events that are very tempting. I have to have enough mental power to dodge, duck and weave and not allow traditional patterns to take over.

This is a mind game. And I think I’m losing. Carbs are my new sugar.

Yesterday was a painful day with neck and shoulder issues that clouded thinking, making everything a chore. I broke some of the spell by using a lacrosse ball on the hip and neck areas and then taking two ibuprofen and going to bed.

When you are tired and sore the least temptation is harder to overcome. You need mental energy and rest to pre-program the mind NOT to do the usual. Thinking thinking thinking.

And there are so many distractions that rob us all of mental power. The entire of the United States is a distraction. The total frog-licking mess that is BC Education. is a distraction. And Emily Ratajkowski … but for different reasons.

If there was every a time for focus, this is it. Oooooo, what was that noise in the coffee shop I’m at in West Vancouver?