Week 6: Fitness this Week & Giving Back

Aug. 17, 2010: End of Week 6

hiking with Kerry and Wee-Wee

It was a week of drama and sadness over an ended relationship.  Ironically all of the exercise I've been doing was part of the reason.  The counterpoint of regularly feeling joy became a refusal to participate in the drama. I'd rather be single than miserable. Exercise and diet were all over the place--I even thought I might have gained weight--but I pulled it out at the end and have dropped another two pounds, down from 245 six weeks ago to 227.  Hopefully this coming week will mark twenty pounds lost.


Sunday started with a good bike ride, 17 miles including across the Dumbarton Bridge, the day after my hardest hike since May. I only hit the gym twice, arms and back/traps, and my second week of my second month at 15/lbs per arm and 30 for both arms (because of the biceps surgery recovery).  My gym cardio held steady and (this sounds pitiful even to me) I increased my running from the previous week's half mile to 1.25 miles--baby steps. My face continues to look skinnier.  My pecs feel deflated however; I miss my pump but have since started to get it back by really tensing the muscles despite the light weights. Saturday I did a short hike on "Snake Road" here in Martinez, (Carquinez Scenic Drive) on the bluffs overlooking Carquinez Strait.

My Goals
• Write about the outdoors.
• Get in shape; current goal, drop from 245 to 200 lbs.
• Experience joy more frequently.
• Cycle and Hike, and Popularize the San Francisco Bay Trail & the Bay Area Ridge Trail.
• Leave things a little better than I found them.
• Donate 5% of my income to worthy causes.

Aug 17, 2010 - Six weeks
227 lbs (current weight on August 17, 2010); 245 lbs (weight July 5, 2010)
Bay Trail cycling miles: 28.7 (one-way, no repeats)
All other cycling miles: 44.85
Ridge Trail hiking miles: 6.6 (one-way, no repeats)
All hiking & other cardio miles: 45.9
Gym visits: 14

Finding Joy
There were moments here and there, mostly there was relief; how could I have put up with things this long? There's a movie quote I like, in Beautiful Girls Matt Dillion asks Uma Thurman about her boyfriend, "He makes you happy?" "Yeah he makes me happy.  The ones who make me miserable never seem to last." That's me:  the ones who make me miserable never seem to last.  Talking with my sister, work, hiking with a friend and his three dogs (dogs live in the moment), becoming a sweatly mess in the gym - those were my moments this past week.

Giving Back
I'm picking up a little trash on each bike ride and hike--my price of admission to the parks I visit. I'm also donating about 5% of my income to charity.  It was a self-centered week; I mapped out a couple of donations this week but haven't made them yet.

Donations this year
Save The Bay
Sonoma County Food Bank
Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden at Tilden
To a friend
PAWS
Save Mount Diablo
Bay Nature magazine