163.4

A short entry: went bouldering outside yesterday, skipped lunch and dinner.
Sent v5 outside.  One more thing done before the year is over!
 
Happy New Year!

And I am back

I am back from my trip to Zion, Red Rocks, and San Bernardino.  It was an awesome adventure of easy climbing and paragliding.

So, naturally, I fell out of my training and dietary routine.  It's time to go back after this recharge.
I am at 167 lbs this morning, which is not bad given that I was eating without restraints in the wild for a week.  Going to go bouldering at Castle Rock today.

Happy Holidays!

Intermediate Comp Results

RZ -3.4%

ES -3.0%

RM -2.6%

DL -1.7%

CS -0.001% 

Winning Tip: 15k instead of dinner. That's my secret so far.  It's a crime not to run when you live close to the GG park :).

165.8

Up and down, up and down.  I must admit that I have skipped all workout yesterday.  I am trying to finish some work and get ready for the paragliding trip.

Paragliding is not a cardio activity. I will see you a week and a few pounds later :).

165.0

I don't know, oh Great Balancer, what pleases you this morning to grant me such a pleasant number!  I am sure it has something to do with water balance.  All I did was a regular climbing workout at the gym and Jodi in the evening.  I misbehaved eating deep fried calamari in the evening with Frank D.  I promise to tighten up.


I am not sure what I will do today.  I am skipping breakfast and doing my stretches for Padmasana Challenge at least.  I am hoping to go for a jog, but my laundry list is too big for the upcoming trip.


Oh, the main news: I am climbing the Nose in the Spring!

167.2

Today I am feeling better. I wake up at 5:40, make breakfast, whip out a smoothie and a salad. I skip jogging as I was thinking of going on the treadmill the night before.  Albeit, I realize too late that I had forgotten my running shoes.  So I go for a 4 hour climbing workout: Linked Bouldering Circuit (LBC).  LBC does not go too well as I spend the time looking for a good wall and a set of problems to train on. The wall I saw before is no good anymore as it's about to be reset in 2 weeks.  I find just the right thing, but it will have to wait till after my paragliding trip next week.


4 hour workout is way too long.  I must and will plan it better, so that I am at the office by 11!


Later tonight, I am going to a yoga session and some hip stretching.  Have I told you? My new yoga project for the next year is a lotus pose (padmanasana) and a 30 second wall-free hand stand.  I am excited to let you know that I can already stand for 2-3 seconds!


So, I am off paragliding all next week.  This blog will go on a break.
Happy Holidays my faithful readers!  May the power be with you!.

A short entry

I was 167 this morning.  Feeling sick, so skipping yoga today.  I may go for a jog later on if I feel better.

Up and up

I am 168.4 this morning.  I've been gaining some weight.  Not sure if this is water, muscle or fat.  Either way I don't like it as it adds to the weight my tendons have to pull up the climbs. 


It has been raining a lot since last week, so my morning jogging has been curtailed.  On top of this, I caught a cold last Friday, so I have been mostly sitting at home.  I am mostly better now. 


On the positive side, I just finished my 4th campus workout and the power phase.  Onto power endurance phase now!  I must admit that I am feeling a little flat with my climbing.  I am not as excited as I was when I started.  However, I am committed and I will push on through this plateau.


Anyways, I am skipping the breakfast, doing 2 yoga classes, and starting to run on the treadmill tomorrow! The treadmill is until the rains stop. 


Hoping I am going to feel 100% by tomorrow.

Coming back from the dark side

So, yesterday I had the best intentions of going home and sleeping through my evening hunger after yoga.  Instead I went to Rainbow.  Big mistake!  I bought a loaf of bread and a few other forbidden sins off the bakery rack.  I consumed the sin right there.  And I enjoyed it very much till this morning when the scale tipped to 167.4.

Luckily, I am tenacious.  I decided to give this loaf of bread to a co-worker.  So, I am back from the dark side.  I skipped the breakfast, went for a 20 minute jog in the rain, went climbing in the morning.

Well, I am not out of the woods yet.  This weekend I am going climbing again, so I bought a bunch of goodies :).  Well, I need to eat well to climb well.  At least, I have limited amount of those for the trip.

See you on Monday!

P.s. Oh, I skipped my campus 4 workout due to the shoulder being sore.  Gotta do it next week for sure!

166.0

Despite all of my workouts, I only manage to lose 2 lbs.  At 166.0, I am not too far from my goal of 164.0 this week.  Today, I am going  for  a jog, campus climbing workout #4, massage :), and a Jodi's yoga class in the evening.

168!

No breakfast last night, but I got hungry and ate too many lunches.  Also, I stayed up till 2 am working on an urgent issue.  Some peanut butter went down scoopful.  So, it's back at 168.

As promised, I am bearing down on it.  By now I am done with jogging (30 min), Jodi #1, light climbing traversing (30 min).  Can't wait till Jodi #2 tonight.  Boy, will she be surprised to see me again. 

Tomorrow, I hope to finish the power phase with campus workout #4.  So, there will be something to endure during the next phase: the power endurance phase.

Fearsome 166'ies

Today I am 166.4 first thing out of bed.  I had a meeting late last night, so I wake up only at 5:40 am, later than usual.  It is too late to go jogging, coz I need to be at the gym for a 3-4 hour workout before the 11 am meeting.  I arrive to the gym at 7:30, which barely leaves me time to complete Limit Bouldering session #4 before the meeting.  Uff, it's busy at work.  I will jog at night after the salsa class I guess.  Dedication!

Oh, I just skipped my breakfast too.  The lunch is kinda big.  Hopefully, that would not bight me in the tail tomorrow.

And up again

This morning I woke up to hair raising 167.8 :-).  What did I do wrong?  Well, I stayed up working too late, for one.  I ate a large portion of buckwheat at a late lunch for two.  I was working all day for three.  But nothing extraordinary really!  I did most of the things right given my time constraints: went for a jog, skipped dinner.  Hmm, maybe too many snacks.

Ok, the war has just escalated.  I am going to hit with one more Jodi on Thursday or try to go to a Friday yoga to see if it's aerobic enough.  I will try to fit one in today as well, but I am not sure yet.  Also, I am limiting my snacks to once per hour at most: fruit, nuts, or veggie.  Let's see if I can drop back down to 164 range next week.  Uff, fun to hit it with an extra ammo, especially if you have it :).

And here is a Jodi for you:
“Remember, in yoga as in life all good things take work and they are so much sweeter when achieved after going through the challenges.”

166.4 and melting

Nothing unusual this weekend except that I have to work.  I was going paragliding, but the winds at Ed Levin were too strong.  Perhaps, I will try a new hairdresser and drive to San Jose to visit my friend's banya, a.k.a Russian bathhouse.  I might try kiting and paragliding at the Mussel Rock tomorrow if the winds cooperate.

I am going to try to fit a jog in to deal with this recalcitrant weight.  My goal is to get to 164 by the end of the next week.  I shall try to drop something from my diet as well, so that I won't feel starved and will be on target.  Here, I will shrink my 2-egg breakfast every morning to 1 egg.  Also, I will control my snacking behavior more: I will snack once per hour versus at will.  If this does not work, I will add 1 or 2 more days of yoga with Jodi.  I can do yoga twice on Tuesday and Thursdays :).

A short post

Almost forgot to check in with you.  I was 166.6 this morning.  No, I did not misbehave last night! I was at a bar, but I drank water just as if I drank beer.  So, that extra weight is all that water, promise!

I weigh myself every day first thing when I wake up.  It may please you to know that after some personal business, jogging on the beach, and eating breakfast I clocked in at 165.0.

Just to make this post a little more palatable, here is my fave quote of the week from none other than Jodi herself:   “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

So, what are you doing every day that you are so excellent at?  Are you complaining and procrastinating or do you take control of your life in  your hands?

165.6

I cheated on you yesterday.  As the rain seemed to have stopped, I did go for a jog around 5 a.m.  However, I did not run far before I entered some rainy cloud.  So, I turned back after 1 mile.
I had a great climbing workout afterwards.  Too bad I ripped a callus on my finger.  I will have to skip climbing this weekend.  Might as well: I have a lot of work to catch up with on the weekend.

There is always something to do on a weekend at home.  What a contrast to Chicago.  This weekend, besides work, I should go to a Salsa party at Metronome, go paragliding in the South Bay, look for a dating meetup.  I wish I had time to go to an exhibit.  Maybe I will still find time to go, especially if I can find a date to do it :).

Back to work.

P.s. Oh, I weighed 165.6 this morning.  I went for a full jog. Jodi in the evening, yay!

P.s.2  After watching a friend climb 5.13 last weekend, I decided to start a hip stretch program.  That should help my climbing tremendously, I think.  I will do something every day towards being able to sit in a Lotus pose.

165.4

Today I weigh 165.4 lbs.  No jogging for me as it's raining outside.  I am going to a campusing workout #3 at Dogpatch.  Yoga with Jodi in the evening.

My goal is 160 lbs by January 15th.

Tip: If you really skip dinner and snacks in the evening and do some aerobic activity, you are bound to lose weight even if  you misbehave during the day.  Also, a new habit is easy to develop once you have kept it for a week or two.  Try it!

Intermediate Results

DL -2.7%
RM -2.4%
DW -1%
RZ +0.003%

Are you still there?

I guess this blog is turning into my Totem Pole diary.  I hear very few voices in this competition.  Nothing lost!  I know the going is going to get tough on a lonely road to Tasmania.

Great Balancer reports 166.4 this morning.  I am surprised!  Has she gone mad or blind?!  I ate some leftover frozen yogurt from my Airbnb tenants last night.  I am sure I will be punished later.  I just hope that my previous years of not eating ice cream in the city would help.

Climbing-wise, I have been soliciting people to go to Owens for the weekend.  Hopefully someone commits.  Otherwise, I will push to finish my power and start power endurance phases by the next week.

Climbing is not an aerobic activity!

I spent my Thanksgiving climbing at Owens River Gorge about 20 miles north of Bishop, Cali.  I pushed hard and have tried most of the routes on my laundry list.  I came pretty close to climbing my 2014 fall season goal: a 5.12a redpoint.  I am not looking just for any climb rated 12a.  It has to feel hard and be a true 12.

Well, I am back to the race from vacation.  My weight is at 169.4, which is not surprising given that in order to climb strong, one needs to eat well too.  So, I am not too worried!  Back to the beach for morning jogs.

Happy Monday!

Nothing special today.  I keep working on my weight with slip-ups here and there.  I went grocery shopping late last night and partook of banana chips a bit too much.  Surprisingly, my weight is still down at 165.8.  I  am at whopping -2.7%  in this competition.  Come on people, don't make me win this outright!

I am taking a 1 week break from climbing related training as my elbows started to hurt.  Yesterday, I pampered my babies with a massage.  They still hurt when a friend shook my hand last night.

In other news, tomorrow, I am leaving on a climbing trip to Owens River Gorge to soak in the hot springs and take a crack at some climbing projects.  This blog is on vacation till next week, but you are not!  You are still at war!  Remember: your best weapon is not a knife and a fork.  It's escaping outside of your house.  Run and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Yiddish proverb:  If you are going to do something wrong, enjoy it!

Tip: Don't go shopping on an empty stomach.

Bizarre Nuts

Happy Saturday!

The weather is awesome rain!!  Might as well, because I am working today, so that I could take Wednesday off and go to Sierras for Thanksgiving.

As you remember, I took to eating nuts as snacks. Specifically, I have munched like crazy on Brazilian nuts.  I find that they kill my appetite, which might or might not be good.  Yesterday, I only ate breakfast;  I had to skip most of the lunch and the dinner after abusing those nuts.   I literally forced myself to eat some salad.  So, it comes as no surprise this morning that I weigh 165.6.

I don't feel like I should rejoice as the nuts are excellent nutrients, but they don't provide a balanced diet.  Also, I felt very bloated all day yesterday, which was not a good feeling.  Any of you out there with some input, please let me know.

Another day! So psyched!

Ok, it's not the best post title for today.  It took me a minute or two to come up with it.  I think it describes accurately how I feel about this competition and myself right now.

Last night, I came home after yoga and was trying to brush up on my French.  Well, I opened a paragliding magazine for a second instead.  Next thing, I woke up on my couch at 1:30 am.  From now on, I am going to go to bed at 9 or 10 pm.  I can get up earlier and do whatever I had to in the evening.  No more being cast away from my bedroom on the couch.

I re-wake up at 4:30 am.  The scales report 166.4.  If this goes like that I will need to stroke it instead of stepping on it all the time :).   I am off to a jog and light climbing after that.

Some  trivia for you: WHO obesity report
The report is a bit outdated.  I heard a 2 billion overweight people figure on the public radio yesterday.  Don't just stay the statistics!  You can do better!

Great Balancer is merciful!

I followed through with my workout plans yesterday: 1 hour of jogging, 2.5 hours of limit bouldering, 1 hour of yoga.  I also skipped my dinner!  I found that snacking on some raw nuts is a great way to kill the hunger.  Why is it so hard to stop eating them though? :)

This morning, Great Balancer revealed that it could be merciful.  She is especially kind to people exercising discipline and delaying immediate gratification.  She told me I am just 166.8.  Woohoo, I am not especially hungry.

Plan for today is simple: rest and skip dinner.  I am off to my rest  day activities: running on the beach and yoga in the evening.  Oh man, I will need some of those real rest days when the only thing I really do is leafing through a nice book and sleeping.

New normal for now

I wake up this morning and consult the Great Balancer as usual:   "Scale, scale tell me: who is the prettiest in the world?".  The Balancer yawns and lets me know that it's not me, but I am on my way :-).  Sounds like my weight has stabilized around 168.2 without me going hungry.  That's great!  Let's see what I can do more.

I done my snickers and run out into the rain for a jog on the beach.  Ahh, what a treat it is to live on the beach.  I am greeted by some amazing views like these every time I venture out.

  Another climbing workout "limit bouldering" and a yoga session tonight!  Busy, busy.

Another day another weight

I was exhausted last night; a sign that my busy schedule is catching up with me.  I tried to go to bed early, but ended up sleeping only at 10:30 pm or so.  Today, I woke up at 4:45 after a really good sleep and got out of bed by 5 am.  The Great Balancer reported 168.2 which was kind of good given that I have not been especially hungry lately.  I put my snickers on and went for a run.  Thereafter, I barely had time to spin a smoothies before bolting out of the door to the yoga practice with Jodi.  Skipping breakfast for a change!

I will go bouldering with Vitaliy after work today.  Will try to skip a full dinner if I can.

Back and forth

The weekend passed without much adventure and now my body is behind an essential vitamin: adrenaline.  I went on a 12 mile hike by Calistoga on Saturday.  Tried going  paragliding on Sunday, but the winds were too strong.  Pacifica is no good for flying in the winter.  I am planning a flying trip down the coast on Christmas.  Instead of flying, I went training for 3.5 hours at Dogpatch gym.

I need to do more running and less eating.  All the training for climbing does not offset my caloric intake.  Off  to a jog!  It's dawning now.

Tip: Don't despair!  Persistence usually pays off one way or another.  It's great for your spirit if you push hard outside of your comfort zone.

Oh no, it's their revenge time

Yesterday I was feeling like totally relaxing and just reading a book.  And what did I do?  I went to Rainbow :).  Let me tell you something about the taste of food when your body has not had enough calories.  Hmm, I probably should skip the graphic description as it might knock you out of  the competition.  Simply put, Rainbow looked like heaven.   I had my paws in the sample cheese big time. I bought some whole grain bread and the cheese.

At home, I decided to catch up with cooking, so that my produce won't go bad: a few more swipes of cheese, bread, and cashew butter.  Oh yes, we might be smirking; meanwhile, the Great Balancer is constantly watching every misstep we are going to make.  It lies furtively and pounces at every opportunity to add a few pounds to our existence.

So, now you know the story.  I wake up this morning a bit later than usual after sleeping about seven and a half hours.  And I am back up to 167.8!  Time to employ my jogging weapon in the war.  The plan is to go running, eat a light breakfast, and go to the gym for two 30 minute climbing sessions.  I was planning to do some 'campusing', but my hands and elbows are still not 100% from Wednesday.
No dinner again and none of that forbidden heavenly cheese snacking, Dmitriy!  Watch me!

Tip:  Don't go food shopping and cooking when you are hungry.  Go to sleep instead.

Mind the rules

Here are the competition rules from my original email for an easy reference.

By the end of Amber, many of us are going to gain a few extra pounds due to all the stress.  To help people get back to pre-ambrian shape, I would like to propose a health nut competition.  Whoever(+me) enters this competition will compete to lose the highest % of their body weight as measured between next Monday, November 10 and February 1st, 2015.  On Monday, all the participants will weigh off by taking the maximum of their weight first thing in the morning over 3 days (Nov 10,11,12): N1.  On January 30,31 and February 1st, the participants will measure their weights and take the minimum: N2.  Then, they will calculate the weight % lost: N1-N2/N1.
The winner will be determined based on the % weight lost.  You do not need to report any of your calculations to me, just %.
The prize will be calculated as follows:
The losers(?) will pay the winner $50-(number of pounds lost during the competition).
If you are in, send me an email by Monday noon.
Restrictions:  Please, do not enter if you have any health issues.  The only fair means if competing is through eating right and exercise. 1 recommendation: stop eating those cookies at the office :).

And the scale tips back!

Last night I almost caved into eating a dinner after the yoga practice.  Instead, I munched on an Asian pear and some walnuts.  Also, I kept myself busy with fixing some climbing gear for a friend.

Today, I wake up to pitter-patter outside.  It's raining.  Even though I skip my morning jog, I am happy thinking about some snow coming our way with the arctic blast!  My daily ritual of going to the Great Balancer is very heartening.  I am at 167 and back on track!

Though I am not hungry, I eat a fried egg and a small piece of salmon washed down with some fruit & kale smoothie. I just know that I need the breakfast to keep me from crashing after my morning workout.  The time is pressing me into rushing out of the door and onto the gym.  At the gym, I climb lightly about 20 minute non-stop to promote recovery from yesterday's long workout.  Then, it's time for yoga.  What a joy to start the day with Jodi!

Well, my friends.  I am going to skip the dinner today again.  I think going to bed early is the key to this. And that is my tip for you today.

It's all about attitude

Wake up at 2am and linger in bed till 2:30.  Finally get up and go to the bathroom to weigh myself.  The scales won't lie: 169.4, almost back to my initial weight 170.4.  Oh crap, yesterday's indulgence shows: nice salad bar at Whole Foods and nice meal at La Costañera right after it.

This is war! The enemy is attacking again.  A little planning session is on.  I am going to start running with minimal food intake to deal with this.  I look at the clock and it's 4:30!  Where did the time fly?  I throw on my snickers and run off into the night.  Amazingly there are people who are already up: a fellow jogger, a fisherman, someone driving to work.
I cautiously descend the steps to the beach.  Running on the sand burns more calories and builds core which is so important for climbing.  The Mori Point hills come up in the dark.  I brought a flashlight, but it's light enough that I don't need it.

After I come home, I am 2 pounds lighter.  I know this is mostly water, but it makes me feel better.  I gather my stuff and run off to the gym.  After a 3.5 hour workout, I feel great.  I have just climbed my first V7 ever!  Ok, it may have been a little soft.  Yet, I am one step closer to climbing Totem Pole.

Looking forward to Jodi's yoga session at Mission  Cliffs tonight.  I am feeling strong, so I will try to skip the dinner.  We shall see if the scales behave better tomorrow!

Tip: I think that having enough sleep at the correct time is tremendously important for weight management.  It's better to go to bed early and get up early rather than stay up late getting even more tired and putting oneself in more sleep debt.  I used to need 8 hours of sleep.  After I started going to bed almost as soon  as I am tired, I can get by with 5-6 hours!