The weekend

"Oof! Grunt. Groan, Ahh!"

Shanae, aka "The Boss," called from the next room, "Did you overdo it again? What am I saying, of COURSE you overdid it, you always do!"

I was in the process of rising from the couch and was seemingly stuck in a crouch; my lower back muscles had seized up. Again.

"Take any ibuprofen for your back yet," she said, as she rounded the corner into the family room.

Not waiting for me to reply or attempt to lie to her, she went on, "Go take some. Why do you always overdo it?"

After 13 plus years of marriage, there was no need to answer; she knows me better than I know myself. In fact, we know what the other is going to say in most situations that there have been times when one of us have delivered both sides of an argument while the other stood there, mute. I've even fast-forwarded at the beginning of a tense situation to going straight to the couch, it's just more efficient that way.

As predicted, Joshua and I worked on stripping paint, sanding, and caulking our bay window. I had no idea it would be so much work but it's turned out to be a boon for muscle development! Josh and I must have spent at least eight or nine hours each wielding paint scrapers and electric sanders this weekend. I can't speak for him but my core also got a work-out, and now I'm paying for it. Or is that "paining for it?" Either way, my back hurts.

I've always had issues with my lower back muscles. There's nothing clinically wrong with it, it's just bad posture and weak muscles. One of the benefits of being more fit is a less-achy back. This enables me to do more yard work and not have to lay around the house moaning for the next day or two. On second thought..... that doesn't sound too bad at all! I'm kidding, seriously.

Joshua tells me he's still working out, though he hasn't at all this weekend. I assume it's because I have him working with me on the bay window. He assures me that for The Challenge, I'm going down. We'll see.

Rest Day

As we were given a half day off at work today, I didn't take my gym bag with me. I had delusions of coming home by noon and working with Joshua stripping the heat-blistered paint off our south-facing bay window, but it was about all I could do to stay awake while driving home. I suffer from Narcolepsy and usually by Friday I'm doing the duffel-bag drag. Today was no different, I got home, made and ate a sandwich, and took a nap.

Having the occasional rest day (having no formal work-out), I learned a few years ago, is important. Muscles need a chance to heal up after a few consecutive days of work-outs. A buddy of mine made a comment about this when we were reminiscing about Infantry basic training. He said, "The Army was really good at tearing down our muscles, but was terrible at building us back up." He really nailed it. Speaking for myself, I was constantly sore from head to toe, not to mention exhausted on the few hours sleep we got a night.

My game plan today was to not hit the gym but to work on the bay window: stripping the paint off, caulking around the aluminum siding, and maybe even painting. This way I would be active and moving around, getting some increased blood flow to my muscles. Alas, it never happened. Tomorrow I will be bold and do some needed yard work and work on that bay window!

Something else I promise I'll do more of from now on: be more active: mowing the lawn more (vice having the kids do it), walk outside with The Boss several times a week, etc.

My daughter Jenn has gotten into the spirit of The Challenge by walking on the treadmill every day and even participating in the trash talking my son and I do. This is what she wrote on the white board on her big brother's bedroom door:




Hey, wait a minute, shouldn't she be encouraging me????? If so, she'd better not call me jerk.

Day 2

I woke up this morning and didn't have any soreness, which was a relief. My family had had side bets on if I could crawl out of bed this morning or not. They should have taken the under. My goal yesterday was to get into the gym and do a light workout. Mission accomplished.

The usual suspects were in the gym, plus one of the trainers, who was leading a fitness class of some type. Bob was already at the free weights.

I've thought about how I was going to whip myself back into shape and I decided that I needed a base to build on. More accurately, anything I did in the gym would benefit me in some way. With this in mind, I start off with stretching, followed by a ten-minute walk on the treadmill. Next up was lifting weights. Ignoring the free weights for now, I begin on one end of the row of gleaming machines, no doubt designed by Torquemada's himself. What I'm trying to say is that I don't know the names of the machines, so don't ask. However, I do know what muscles they work, and that's pretty much all of them.

While Bob and calmly discussed politics (Ha! More like argued and ranted), I thought I'd try some free weights, and managed to do one whole set of..... well, I was exercising the pecs, that's all I know.

He brought up another good point with the question, "what are you doing about nutrition?"

I shrugged and said, "eat better and about half as much."

Shaking his head he replied, "nutrition is 80 percent of losing weight and being healthy."

Having been skinny once in the recent past, I had figured that losing weight was about half working out and half eating better and eating less, but I didn't say anything. He did make me think more about my dietary habits.

I love food, and it shows. I also eat very quickly, which is bad for me I know, but something I've always done and which was reinforced in basic training. I know the little switch in my brain that tells me I'm full and I can stop eating is really slow. By the time I'm full, I've successfully overeaten all that wonderful food, thus circumventing that little mental warning signal.

I'll concentrate this time on eating better, eating less, and eating slower. Denying myself favorite foods such as....well... pretty much anything that doesn't run too fast won't work, so I won't even try. Instead, I'll treat those delicacies such as double bacon cheeseburgers, dark chocolate, ice cream, french fries, etc., as treats to be enjoyed in moderation and rarely.

24 Hours into The Challenge

So here I am, 24 hours into The Challenge. I got home today to my son trash talking me. I actually don't mind as I want him motivated and focused. I trashed him back, calling him a punk. He calls me an old man. Yeah, we're real original.

I make up some outrageous lies about my first work-out, saying I ran ten miles on the treadmill in 30 minutes. Joshua's (my son) not so hot with math, but The Boss (my dear wife) instantly calls BS. She's right but what the heck, it was fun seeing the look on Joshua's face.

Joshman (he was really into Batman as a kid) bragged about his workout routine today - how he walked and ran on our treadmill, and knocked out push-ups every hour or two. I'm proud of him but I can't tell him that, instead I scorn and mention yet another Army story where only my daring-do saves the day. Eyes roll in the room.... I think they're onto me.

My almost-12-year-old daughter comes into the den later and shyly asks me if she could also participate in our challenge. Together we look up the Army PT scores for females and she writes them down on a pad of paper. Twenty minutes later, she comes up from the basement, her cheeks bright red, and proudly tells me she just ran a mile on the treadmill! Just where does she get her Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder from, I wonder?

I'm starting to think about bed and I'm only a little sore. This is good as I didn't want to push it my first day back.

We'll see how it goes when I attempt to get out of bed tomorrow. Getting old is not for the faint of heart.

The First Day Back in the Gym

Five in the morning and my alarm goes off. I stumbled into the closet and tripped over my packed gym bag. Oh yeah.

Amazing how my initial enthusiasm had worn off after only one night's sleep.

After avoiding it as long as I could, I took the once familiar route to the office gym. The locker room hadn't changed; cramped, small, adorned with institutional puke green tile on the walls and floor, it reeked of man sweat and mildew.

I was determined to take it easy, having been here so many times in the past - fat, out of shape, starting yet another work-out routine. After stretching out, I walked on the treadmill for a whole ten minutes, then got my weight lifting card from the filing cabinet for a very light session of lifting.

My goal for the day was to reacquaint myself with the gym, a kind of, "body, gym....gym, body. Don't hurt us please!" routine.

"David, over here!"

I turned. It was Bob, my work-out buddy from years past.

Bob and I go back to when I first got to my current work site and was a work-out nut. He's about my height, with greying hair, a goatee, and sports a weightlifter's deep chest and arms. Bob turns 51 this year. I hate him.

I really don't, but you'd never know it the way we argue politics, religion, and discuss our respective families. The rest of the gym collectively groaned when they saw Bob and I start right up where we left off the last time we saw each other: "hey liberal," I called. "Ha, fascist, what's going on," he shot back.

He looked at my belly, "so what are you up to?" He wasn't asking about inflation or the Dow Jones.

"As of two minutes ago, 226 pounds."

Filling him in on the bet I had going on with my son, he thought I had pretty good chances of winning. We'll see.

The Challenge - it begins

"You and your generation are SOFT! When I was your age, I was in the Army, getting run around all over the place!! I was a machine!" I was approximating the truth, but I didn't want him to know that.

"Geez, dad, there you go again," he grumbled.

I thought I heard him say sotto voce, "yeah yeah yeah, five miles in the snow, uphill both ways....." but I wasn't entirely sure; my hearing's not what it was.

I blustered further, "I tell you what, I'll turn 45 this July, right after you turn 20 and I bet you I can outdo you in the Army PT Test in two month's time!" Dammit, did I really just say that????? Sheesh, I can't back down now - my kid's whole lives have been filled with stories of how their barrel-chested father (okay, fat father) was a paratrooper. I even sang them Blood on the Risers instead of lullabies before bedtime!

I held my breath. My son, built like me, called me on it. "No way old man! What's the bet, lawn mowing for a few months, you wanna try to take my money?"

"Bragging rights, the purest form of a wager," I shot back. I was committed.

I should be committed, I had two months to get myself whipped into shape. I wasn't worried about beating him in the PT Test (max push-ups in two minutes, max sit-ups in two minutes, followed by a two mile run), I just wanted to survive it all so I could gloat afterward.

I've always been on the heavy side, though I spent two years in the Army and a further six years in the Reserve Forces. I was Infantry most of my time and managed to get into an Airborne unit where I (barely) passed Airborne School and made a total of sixteen jumps before calling it quits.

I ballooned up from there, getting to almost 240 lbs before turning into a work-out maniac, about seven or eight years ago, which culminated in running (and jogging, trotting, striding, walking, crawling, and finally rolling across the finish line) a marathon. I was then 39 and weighed 140 lbs on a 5'7.5" frame.

I'm still almost five foot eight inches tall....and almost the same height laying down. Sigh. This is going to be work.