D188: 04.22.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Schwinn AirDyne
Duration: 4.25mi/~20 min
Driver: Shotgun Messiah - Violent New Breed
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: My Left Hammy started to get a bit tweaky in there, so I decided to cut it short, given that this is casual month, which might extend into next month also. Legs felt a touch sore this morning, but good enough to at least go light and I normally am trying to keep to nights, but in the before-time, I would do the big gym shit on the weekend mornings and I thought I'd just take a whack at it. Fridays see me normally walking around a fair bit, so perhaps that is contributing...but I shouldn't expect me to be back into it without some ramp-up and I don't. I'm more just taking things as they come. 

The tracking diet is helping, as it always does, and this morning was at 252, again falling a bit outside of my usual process. I have full intent on keeping to the tracking until I'm back where I was when I left off, which was, I believe without going back to actually look, somewhere in the 230s. I need to realistically get much closer to 200, but restoring the previous level is pretty high on my motivation list for starters. 

I should update the mileage thing, which I also keep forgetting. For the year so far, rounding slightly:

Trek FX - 5 miles
Schwinn AirDyne - 20 miles

D187: 04.20.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Schwinn AirDyne
Duration: 6mi/~27 min
Driver: Shotgun Messiah - Violent New Breed
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: As part of a massive WTF, I wound up getting very poor to no sleep at all on Tuesday night. I don't know if it was a bug or if my body is not loving going back to workouts closer to night after not having done that for so very long, but whatever the reason, it was not great...it didn't seem to impact recovery as much as I thought, though, and Legs were not all the way back but good enough to go today. I feel like my body, overall, is bouncing back a lot quicker to this than last time, but I really haven't started pouring in any heavy work as of yet. Air was not especially tested, as I don't think Legs are quite back enough to drive that. Cold weather is lingering on, so I imagine it will be the AirDyne for a while longer.

Me feeling embarrassed is somewhat of a good motivator for me, I see. Despite living entirely alone, I did a weigh-in on Wednesday morning, which was probably a mistake after that night, and despite not following my usual process and being slightly bloated, the scale read 261. This means I shifted 8 lbs in 6 days, which is bullshit...probably. 

In any event, I was so irritated by this result that I've decided I need to take more drastic steps with diet. While it's still cold out, I'm going to finish out the not especially healthy foods I have left, but I've decided to go back to what I always started people with back when I used to train people in college, which was in the fucking 1990s. That first step in the back to basics approach I'm doing now is to keep a food log. I'm not yet going to get into macros, at least not until I resume the gym, but I'm keeping track now, with a target daily calorie load of 2,000...ideally, this will also be spread across 4 or more meals. I've gotten really bad at not paying attention, truth be told, and often I'll have that many calories, sometimes more, in a single meal, like I did Tuesday night and which may have contributed to my sleep issue then. That shit has to stop if I'm going to be serious about getting my fat ass back into shape.

D186: 04.18.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Schwinn AirDyne
Duration: 6.5mi/~30 min
Driver: Ministry - Sphinctour
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: Legs didn't recover super-well, so I wound up taking off the entire weekend. That was a good move, ultimately, as they were a lot better today. Still working through some tendonitis issues with my right arm, though I suppose it could also be a pinched nerve. Definitely need to get diet a lot more dialed in, which will probably help with recovery...duh. I need more to get Legs acclimated, which will help to drive air better, so that is the main focus and I'm trying to ease into it with shorter workouts for now. Weather is also pretty crap, so I'm not tempted to get out on the streets. I'm not always convinced I'm in good enough physical shape to be riding around cars safely, so that's kind of the main goal...that and that trail.

D185: 04.13.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Schwinn AirDyne
Duration: 5.4mi/~31 min
Driver: Ministry - Sphinctour
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: Legs are definitely not keeping up, so I wanted to go a bit light today. Very inclement weather outside, so bike was absolutely out. Air wasn't really tested, but even at a pretty light pace, Legs were struggling a bit. I wanted to hit them enough to get the blood flowing a bit and leave off there. I'm not sure how much using the handles will tweak the tendonitis, so definitely just want to take things easy, pick up a little more saddle time and get acclimated again. No idea what the weekend will be like, but definitely will be hitting one or the other at least one of those days, depending on recovery. My intention is to keep things light through April, then maybe start to open it up a bit again for May, depending on how things go.

One bit of annoyance is the weigh-in I did today, which was 253. Obviously, that long of a layoff is more or less starting back again at zero and I expected it to be not be great, which it wasn't. Definitely need to bring diet back around, which will help a lot there...also, if I wind up getting a gig finally worked out, that will as well and additionally, I really hope I can finally resume the gym, though I'm not even remotely in good enough shape to consider that at present. Definitely need Air working a lot better than it is now and dropping some of those pounds will certainly help to that end.

D184: 04.11.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Trek FX 7.3
Duration: ~3mi/~35 min
Driver: N/A
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: I think I may have gotten the times a bit wrong, as this was closer to what I was anticipating...unless I also got the times wrong today...I may need to just turn on the stopwatch thing on the iPhone rather than relying on memory for start/stop times. These are casual rides and will be that way for a bit. I got thrown off a bit today, as there is a storm coming in tomorrow afternoon and I wanted to get a ride in before it, so rather than going this afternoon, as I normally would, I instead got things a bit mixed in my head and went this morning...all to the good, I suppose.

Today, I went in the opposite direction, South rather than North...there is a golf course at the end of one street I can use as a landmark and avoid construction...only a couple dangerous intersections, though this area does have a few of those as well. I haven't made it to the park, as of yet, and may not, as I generally prefer areas that have less people. I still need to get a lot more confidence on the bike, and really want to do that trail run, which is going to take a lot better cardiovascular performance than I currently have. Today, I had to stop the bike and regain air, which is...decidedly not great. A bit less hilly today, which was good as my Legs were definitely not recovered since the last ride. On the plus side, even though these are really short rides, not getting any saddle soreness particularly, so take the positives where I can...

D183: 04.09.23

Workout: Cardio
Equipment Used: Trek FX 7.3
Duration: ~1.75mi/~80 min
Driver: N/A
Calories: ???

Quality Level: N/A
Observations/Intel: Well, that was a much longer layoff than expected and I missed pretty much any and every goal I had for last year. Instead, what I did was have a lot of tooth trouble and much larger issues of hardcore depression. Everything seemed entirely exhausting and daunting (a lot of it still is)...couldn't manage to get a gig sorted out, which really didn't help (still don't have that part done), but I didn't want to keep being used to have a set routine that involved working out during late morning, which I would to change and adjust and also planned to get to a gym, which I find myself missing greatly. So, the idea was to move things to nights and so on, but the tooth fucked things and motivation became a huge issue. 

As noted, despite a lot of Air Dyne time, which helped things, my performance on the bike, once I actually got on it, was complete garbage, which was a gigantic setback to some other plans I had floating in my head. It wound up being a perfect storm of circumstances that sent me into a pretty hard spiral. I've been debating the Air Dyne on and off for a couple of months, but it's been really cold and as it gets towards night, I find myself much less interested in going to the basement where the Air Dyne is. I got stuck up my own ass good and hard and it wasn't until today, when it was excellent spring weather, and I saw some others cruising around on their bikes, that I decided to air up the bike and get in the first ride of the year. 

There's a lot of construction around, so I might need to consider putting the bike on the car and driving elsewhere, but I really want to go do a lot of that exploring I had in mind. As I'm now more content with the idea that I will necessarily have to have a much slower pace until my fat ass is more in shape, I'm going to try to start working in some longer rides as long as the weather holds out. 

Legs were, as might be expected, a bit off...but not nowhere near as bad as air, which was fucking awful. Definitely need to get back into the swing of things and do some Air Dyne work, even if the weather doesn't work out for riding. At least I seem to have my motivation back, which is a very nice and welcome return.