This is gonna be quick, I'm playing catch-up. It was a good workout, with a hundred sit-ups and then over 7,200 steps on the treadmill. My weight continues to be frustrating, being as I have bounced back up over 270. So...  crap. Blah blah blah emotional bear trap.

So I'm not gonna think about it, and move on to Blake's 7.

I just got home from a massage, and am ready to just fall into bed. This is going to be a fairly quick one. I mentioned before that I am trying to work my way up to doing 100 push ups (done in five sets with a two minute break between each set). Two days ago I did 65 in five sets of 13, but I broke on the last set. Today I was very pleased to do the 65 without breaking. That means the day after tomorrow I will bump it up to 70 in five sets of 14. At this rate the very soonest that I will get back up to 100 is in another two weeks, but I am skeptical I will hit that. More likely it will be another month or so for me to work back up there. Still, I'm feeling pretty dang good about that. Other than that, I don't have much going on workout-wise, so let's get down to Blake's 7.

It's another happy day here on the Time Treadmill. My weigh-in this morning came even lower than the one yesterday, which is just lovely. That also means that I am due for a correction tomorrow, but I'll deal with that emotional train wreck when it happens. I was definitely still a bit dehydrated this morning -- I didn't sleep well last night, and this morning I was not able to maintain my previous day's pace. I didn't quite manage to break seven thousand steps, which is a tad frustrating. but on the whole it was a good workout. I am three weeks out from needing to be parading around in my formal business attire at a huge conference, and I am feeling pretty good about that.

As for Blake's 7, the most I can say is that the content of today's viewing did indeed live up to the title.

Right off the bat, can I get three cheers for hyper-dehyrdration? As I predicted yesterday, this morning after my regular workout plus doing the yard work I weighed in more than three pounds lower than yesterday and hit my target of getting back below 270 by the 15th. It's not real, it is an artificially low number, and it will certainly bounce back up if not tomorrow then on the day after. But I am just proud enough to take the win. I spent several hours this afternoon walking around in the Florida sun at Epcot photographing princesses with my autistic son, and even though I have been drinking water like crazy I still feel dehydrated. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but for today I am satisfied. The five day moving average has finally turned in my favor, and it's full steam ahead from here.

Let's say it all together again:  "Weight loss is an emotional bear trap."  Rationally speaking, I am all good. I am a solid three pounds ligher than I was a week ago. Broadly speaking, in my (emphatically non-medical) experience, roughly two pounds per week is a healthy and sustainable rate. Why, then, am I so frustrated? Because after missing workouts for over two weeks, and then literally getting back on the treadmill and logging two days of agonizingly high numbers, last Sunday I dropped to barely over 270. I knew I was hyper-dehydrated that day, and expected a bounce up the next day, but it didn't. So I figured a goal of getting solidly below 270 by the 15th was a reasonable and acheivable thing.  For five consecutive days I kept at it, and my weight crept back up to just over 272. Understand, that's still two pounds lower than where I started after my gap, and a perfectly reasonable number in that context, but it is just so damn frustrating. T ...

Two thousand, five hundred miles as of today. How wild is that? I remember when just five hundred miles seemed almost unachievable. And yet, here we are. Fitness-wise, I seem pretty much in a holding patter. The moving average dropped, only because the very highest number dropped off, but in the last couple days I have had no real movement on that front. Which is, to put it mildly, frustrating. But here at the Time Treadmill we don't dwell on our anxieties, we just press onwards and commit to the program. Right? Well, that's what I keep telling myself anyway.

Well, today is a weird one. My five day moving average finally went back in the right direct, as expected since my highest weight dropped off. But my actual daily weight was up. This is the express opposite of yesterday. I have lost count of how many times I have said that weight loss is an emotional bear trap, and this is why. One thing that isn't helping is that we have an out-of-town guest visiting, and as a result I have gone out for dinner for three nights running. That is not exactly conducive to weight loss, but there you have it. In any case, I remain focused on the the big picture. I did a hundred sit-ups this morning in addition to my treadmill time, and tomorrow I intend to hit 60 push-ups in my gradual quest to work my way back up to 100. All I can do is keep focusing on the fundamentals, and let my body take care of itself.

As for Blake's 7, well... they visited the planet Goth but Nick Cave was nowhere to be found.

Much like yesterday, and once again despite the moving average numbers, I feel really good about today. Over a year ago I was doing a hundred push-ups per day, and had to stop that when I managed to pinch a nerve in my back. I have started inching back up, and this morning I did fifty five, in five sets on cadence without breaking. I will continue alternating between sit-up and push-up days to try to keep from putting my back out again, but it is progress in the right direction. I also inched up the pace on the treadmill from the past few days. Once again, a year ago I was pushing 5mph on the treadmill, and I am a long way from that right now, but I am moving back in the right direction. My moving average for weight went up again today, but tomorrow the largest number (by far) will drop off the average, and the day after another big one will drop off. I fully expect the change in trend to finally start showing in the latter half of this week. I am still well on target to my goal of get ...

The bad news is the chart and the five day moving average look awful today. The good news is, they are technically accurate but not yet revealing the actual trend. I expected to bounce up today a bit in weight, since yesterday's weigh-in came at a point where I was severely dehydrated, but that actually didn't happen. Tomorrow the biggest number will drop off the moving average, and the trend should start moving in the right direction.Mainly I just need to keep plugging along and finally chart some real progress after a couple months of backsliding. Episodes like today's really don't help, though.

You know how yesterday I said my goal was to get back below 270 by the 15th? I am sure you do, because I know that you, my dear imaginary readers, hang on my every word. Well, anyway, this morning I weighed in at 270.4. I will grant you that this particular number was reached by way of extreme dehydration after both doing my morning workout and then doing my yard work in the July Florida sun, but I'll take the numbers however I can get them. If it works for high school competitive wrestlers, then by God it should work for me. The flip side of that, though, is that tomorrow I will almost certainly bounce back up a bit. That's just how it works. But the fact remains I am back on the right track. All I have to do is stay on it, which as been (to say the least) a bit of a challenge these past few months...