Fat Bastard

So, I'm a fat bastard... I mean here for a while now, I've been trying to get my 41 year old frame back in shape. But round is a friggin' shape isn't it? I thought I'd been making progress. I have had a bit of a plateau here for a little over a week now, due to some pain/injuries. Between the bad kink in my back and what feels like spike being driven into the side of my knee, I have had to skip 2 or 3 running sessions. Others, I've suffered through the pain, and just kept moving. Now fast forward to today... this morning to be more precise. Since I'm a lead here at the ole Bureau, there seems to be an interest in keeping me healthy (or maybe they just wanna know my weaknesses so's they can apply pressure in the right areas!) Anyway, so I go down to the Health Unit this morning at 6:45. I'm subjected to a battery of vision, and hearing test, medical history questionnaire, both personal and familial. Blood pressure, lung capacity and force, heart rate and heart rate recovery following exertion. AND the grandaddy of ALL great reckonings... "step up on the scale!" (You there in the back, stop with the snickering!) Hey, I'm actually all happy at what I'm looking at when the scale finally stops its digital teetering back and forth. It actually shows that I've lost in the neighborhood of 23 lbs, since I got off my backside and started running again. Go cheer_dad!!! Then, we start with the crunching of the numbers. I'm somewhat vertically challenged at 5' 9 1/2" (not an oompa loompa by any stretch of the imagination.) But pit that with the 207 lbs I'm carrying around... and measure it up against this here Body Mass Index chart: http://www.consumer.gov/weightloss/bmi.htm. And what ya got yourself there, is an obese male of the species. Following along if you will. The height puts me at 70 inches-ish (they round up) thank goodness for the half inch! Then, throw in the weight, and you get yourself a BMI of 30. Not just overweight... obese! I so depressed... I A WOOSER! Still I suppose there's hope.

Despite the gloom and doom report on my physical well being, I think I'll live to see the sun rise again in the morning. My goal has been all along to get back down to 180. You know where I'll only be half the degrees of a circle. (Sorry my daughter's geometry homework is showing through.) I'm getting there... dealing with some aches and pains, associated with someone in my advanced years! : ) And the creator of the BMI chart can kiss my obese ass if he's so inclined. If not, let me get back to the business of living. Undeterred during the lunch break, I headed down to the gym and put in my standard 3.5 mile run( which I do at least 4 times a week!) So stick that in the ole BMI chart!

Well it "started" as a quickie post

I'm working on my ambidextrous skills... not so much by choice. I'm a rightie, but today I'm switching my computer mouse over to the left hand. I've begun (again) to have pain in my right wrist, which hasn't gone away now for about a week or two now. It's a dull, nagging ache and is likely due to the repetitive motion of mouse clicking, the dreaded carpal tunnel. A few years of swinging a steel framing hammer in my younger years probably have had an effect on my wrist as well. I'll see if through "switch-hitting" I can give it some much needed down time. The click and select isn't giving me problems as much as copy and paste keyboard shortcuts are. I've always used the left hand while the right is occupied on the mouse, and the damned CTRL+C or CTRL+V just doesn't flow as freely using the right hand. I suppose I could remap, and really screw myself up! Yes, it sucks to get old.

Another haunting pain is a direct result of renewing my running routine. Since I started back up very seriously a few months ago on the treadmills here at work, I've come along further than I thought I would. I'm back up to running a little over 3 miles in a 30 minute time frame about 5 times per week. I've lost a little more than 20 pounds. : ) Another 20-30 to go and I'll be carrying a stick to keep all the babes away. NOT!!! The unfortunate side effect is of course another source of pain. This week it's my right leg, to the inner side of the knee. Inflammation, ache, and now I'm finally living better through chemistry, sucking down the ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation and make it less painful during continued running. Yes, I am continuing to run on it. As with all runners, if we didn't run, when we had a little pain, we'd soon be walkers or worse, couch potatoes! It's funny to feel a pain start up in one leg and slowly migrate itself around your body until it finally exits out the opposite leg. Someone once joked about that to me, but it is true. The body will overcompensate to favor the uninjured body part, but in the process put undo stress elsewhere causing additional problems and pain. YEEEEEAAAAAAH running!!! Anyway, I have loose goal of eventually getting down to around 175. From there I'll re-evaluate. But 175 is totally doable! At the height of my running in my past life, when I was putting in 30-40 miles per week on the pavement, and running a few long distance races, I got down to 148 pounds. BUT, Teresa reminds me that she didn't like how I looked at that point. More sickly than she cared to see me. Although the spandex running shorts and pants did garner a bit more of her attention. (How U Doin'!) I feel pretty motivated this time, despite the fact that I haven't been running outside this time. I decided to treadmill it so I would keep track of myself better, know the kind of pace I was keeping, and take the excuses of inclimate weather out of the equation.

I've also been lifting weights regularly 3-4 times per week, in addition to the 5-ish days a week of running 3 miles. But none of this stuff happens overnight though. It took time to pack on the weight, it'll take time to offload it as well. Regardless, I feel better, and from some of the comments I've received lately from some friends I hadn't seen in a while, they told me that I looked like I'd lost a lot of weight. That made me feel pretty good, and put a little extra spring in my step the next time I climbed on board the treadmill. But in the end, I'm doing this for me, and for no one else, and it's all about personal gratification. I'd say I'm "pleasuring myself" but that'd be a completely different topic that I just don't wanna cover! : ) Probably another possible cause of the carpal tunnel, huh!!!

Oh, and I promise some poker content will show up on this here poker blog... soon. I just haven't had time to play online, and live play has been merely a fond memory. Saturday though, the crew converges for NDPT #18 at my house, so there will be some cards in the air that night. After such a long hiatus, I'll likely bust out first...

Regards,

cheer_dad

carpe viam :-)

Dreary day...but despite this fact, I managed to get in my walk up Market Street at lunch. I haven't posted much about this BUT I've actually been giving an honest effort at trying to get "active" again. Decided to work up slowly for a while and walk, instead of jumping right back into the running thing, and frustrating myself. Ticker might have given out on me...and I thought I should spare the world from that much blubber flappin' in the breeze. I read a while back that one of the Bloggers I read frequently was none too pleased with the body staring back at him in the mirror, and was going to get back on a diet and lifestyle change. I started to post a comment to his blog, wishing him well, and tell him we were pulling for him, but then I thought...his decision (like mine) is a very personal one. You're not doing it for anyone but yourself. It's the one time that it might be okay to be selfish. It's yours and no one can force it on you, or want it enough for you. So, I stayed out of it. I didn't even bother to tell him that I've been walking for about the past 3+ weeks. Honest. Around 3-4 times a week, when I started. No it's nearly every work day. AND now in the past week or so, I've also added in a treadmill walk/run for around 30 minutes. I'm working my way back up to where I'll easily be able to run that first mile without being winded, or in pain. I gotta stick to this. Lotsa reasons. I think the mysterious abdominal pain I had a while back was due to carrying around too much tonnage. My cholesterol is still high, despite medication, and the doc already told me that my cholesterol levels were "directly" tied to my weight, and that yes that sucks, but it does empower me to at least do something about it. I just needed to stop living a sedentary life, and get up and fargin' MOVE! I've seen that same type of comment from some of the pro poker players as well. You have to work at your own physical and mental well-being in the same fashion that you would work on your poker game. So, I've been trying to do something about it. I've made some "small" modifications to my diet, trying to limit the overindulgence, but I'll admit, that I still occasionally dive into a little junk food. Sadly, when I used to run ALL the time, so many years ago, I ate just about whatever I wanted. I was burning off the calories quickly and easily. I want that body back again. I want to fell that "good" again. Why did I stop? Life... I don't know, I wish I had an answer. Now I have the "privilege" of going through the long and arduous struggle of getting back to where I was. Feels like a back at zero proposition. I'm also convincing myself that efforts in this physical fitness realm are going to have a very real and profound affect on my poker game. I'll become more happy, more confident, eager and aggressive, or so I'm telling myself at least. I may be fooling myself BUT as with other tricks we play on ourselves, it just might work. Sometimes when you feel lucky, or your confidence level is high, a great many good things happen. I'm tired of moping around about the weight...and for that matter my run of cold cards. It's time to take the bull by the horns. It's time for me to get off my "fat" ass and get moving again. In keeping with the motto of the Dead Runner's Society of which I spent a great deal of time reading and discussing a passion for running it's time to:



-translation from the Latin: 'Seize the Road!' or specifically 'Seize the Way!'





Words to live by, at least for a runner. I wish I'd never lost the passion for the thing. I'm hoping I can get it all back. I think it is absolutely essential at this point to my mental and physical well being. No need to comment, this is about me, for me, and not for any of you. I've gotta do this thing. It's not only going to be healthy for me, but it may lift the "brain-cloud." Now how many of you know what that means? Where it came from? Hell I think I may have even mentioned it one other time, in a past blog post.

Enough about my turning over a new fitness leaf...on to other things.

A few more articles in the press regarding poker in WV:

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Business/2007102213
http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/501292.html

High points (quotes) from these articles:

"Seats in the poker rooms were filled to capacity until at least 5 a.m. Sunday, and even then the rooms remained largely filled, officials said."

"He added that from an operations standpoint, the opening went 'very well.'"

"Neither Marshall nor Mountaineer track officials would say just how much revenue was taken in over the weekend, but West Virginia’s state coffers are awaiting their take."

"The tracks are responsible for paying the state taxes equaling 35 percent of their gross revenue."

“Even during our very busy opening this weekend, guests only experienced a 45-minute wait time," he said. “We are confident players will be able to be accommodated throughout the gaming day at Wheeling Island.”

I wish them all luck, in continued successful operations. May my well wishing, contribute to the "karmic-well" and some of the will flow back to me in spades, or aces, or just some nice friggin' starting hands!

Enough uber posting for the day.

Regards,

cheer_dad