Back on track...

After a long weekend away doing very little exercise and eating mucho rich food, including my first french fries in a year and a half, I'm hoping to get back on track this week.

Monday: Met up with the TnT regulars at Balboa Park for a nice 4-mile session. Tried to work on my form a bit. Kat, somehow talked me into doing some sit-ups after the walk session. Some little torture she calls "bug-crunchers". She took pity on me and we only did one set although she threatened more sets in the future. The session started at 6pm and I since I get out of work at 5:30pm, I don't usually get a chance to eat beforehand. After a big walk, a man hungers. Erika threw out the idea to get sushi. Kat had to be somewhere at 8:30 so we had an hour to find a place. We ended up going to Whole Foods and eating it there. I was a little dubious of eating sushi from a supermarket, even if it is from a health store but it was pretty good. I hadn't been in the store in a while and didn't realize that they actually cook in the store. Had a nice little picnic on one of the outside tables and then called it a night.

Tuesday: Rushed to the Lake Miramar TnT session. I got there a few minutes after 6pm and saw two teammates, including Mentor Kathy, at the meeting location. Parking was at a premium and it took me a few minutes of driving around to find a spot. In the meantime, my teammates took off without me! In fairness, they hadn't seen me. They had a decent head start and I decided to do a little speed walking to see if I could catch them. They were pretty quick, but I was able to see the distance closing slowly but surely. I caught up with them around the half-way point, 2.5 miles in, and was kinda proud of myself. The rest of the session we walked at a nice clip. Kathy has one of those hi-tech watches with a GPS in it that tell you how far you've traveled and what pace. We walked a total of 5 miles at a pace of 15.22 min/mile, my fastest yet. I got a late start so I was even faster than that! Burned a little over 600 calories.

A Wedding

Roamed a little further than normal this weekend. Here is a photo taken of my brother, Angel and my new sister-in-law, Phoebe mere moments after they were married this past Saturday in Santa Cruz, CA. Sorry about the red-eyes! The wedding was a great success. They were married outdoors in a beautiful setting surrounded by a ring of redwood trees. Good times.

Congratulations!

In the battle of function vs form there is no clear winner here.

Global Warming Got You Down? Try Zegna's Solar-Powered Jacket

By Sara Gay Forden

A sporty jacket with solar panels on the collar

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Global warming zeitgeist has made it to men's fashion, if the runways of Milan are any measure.

Fashion executives and store buyers are stocking slimmer, lighter suits next spring made of high-performance fabrics that repel water and don't wrinkle, they said at shows during the last week of June. Some can even recharge your iPod. Favorite color: a pale, pearly gray.

``The world is a lot warmer, so you need to buy a suit that you can wear 10 months out of the year,'' said Colby McWilliams, men's fashion director for Neiman Marcus Group Inc., based in Dallas. ``What we're seeing in the spring is the technology in the fabrics to make the suits more comfortable and low- maintenance.''

For the truly ``green'' conscious, Ermenegildo Zegna SpA, known for its luxury men's suits, presented a sporty jacket with solar panels on the collar that can recharge a mobile phone or an iPod. The $750 coat, something James Bond might be proud to wear, will be in stores in November.

``We haven't solved the problem of global warming, but the Solar Jacket shows there are steps one can take in the right direction,'' said Gildo Zegna, chief executive officer of Ermenegildo Zegna.

The solar panels detach and can be used independently. Five hours of sunshine can recharge just about any portable electronic device, Zegna said. Available as a bomber jacket or in longer styles, the coat was developed in partnership with Starnberg, Germany-based Interactive Wear AG, a maker of wearable electronics. It comes with adaptors for different devices.

Extra `Juice'

``This is truly a solution for the guy on the run, who loves his gadgets and can always use a little extra `juice,' especially if it is `green,''' said Tom Kalenderian, general merchandise manager for men's wear at Barney's, the New York chain owned by Jones Apparel Group Inc. that Fast Retailing Co. and Isthithmar PJSC, the Dubai investment firm, have bid to buy.

Packin'

Got out of work a bit late today so couldn't join up with the TnT group. I ended up doing my normal gym routine, 45 minutes on the treadmill and some light weight work. I wasn't too motivated but tomorrow is the mid-week check-in with my HMR coach, Michelle and I want to have some physical activity (PA) logged. Managed to burn around 632 calories, not bad as the minimum requirement for an entire week is 2,000 calories.

My brother, Angel gets married this Saturday so tonight I'm taking care of some last minute details. Number 1 on the list is figuring out how to iron my Barong Tagalog. This is a crazy cool formal Filipino wedding shirt. My brother's fiancee, Phoebe is a Filipina and they decided to go that route in lieu of tuxes and big ole wedding dresses. The shirt is made of a very sheer, sturdy fiber made from the leaves of the pineapple tree. The front of my shirt was hand embroidered and it is very slick looking. I'm worried about taking an iron to it and damaging it. Going to have to break out the old wet hankerchief trick that I learned from my Tia Eva to crease my pants back in the day. Also have to finish writing my toast, shine my shoes, find my digital camera, and pack the rest of my clothes for the weekend.

I'm carpooling up with the a grip of my cousins and we are planning to leave at 8pm. 9 of us in a Suburban for about 8 hours of driving! Going to be interesting. Friday is the pre-wedding party and Saturday is the big day and then back home on Sunday.

Getting my workouts in and watching what I eat is going to be a major challenge this weekend.

Tuesday Skippage

Tuesday and I skipped my workout. Tuesday is the day I attend HMR weight management class and it is the start of a new week in my diet program. So this means that everything resets to zero and I have 7 days to meet my exercise, recordkeeping and eating goals so sometimes I procrastinate and just use this day to run errands. I had some TnT fundraising stuff to organize during my lunch hour, including sending reminder emails to bunches of people. Shook loose another $200 today! I'm approaching the half-way point but the raising the remainder of my $6,500 commitment is starting to look daunting. I'm quickly running out of family, friends and co-workers and am going to have to really start thinking outside of the box.

I attend class immediately after work and today filled out a questionnaire to determine how healthy I am. I filled one out last year when I was much heavier and was determined to be in a very high risk category; like crossing the interstate blindfolded high risk category. I'm very curious to see how this evaluation compares to last year. Should be much better.

I need to have blood drawn as part of this evaluation so I'm going to get up early and head in before work tomorrow. It's fasting blood work which means that I can't eat before I leave for work, which is going to throw off my whole routine. I've found that a large part of weight loss and maintenance is all about how you deal with disruptions to your normal routine. There are two paths to go down. 1) hit Denny's for a Country Grand Slam after getting my blood drawn. 2) pre-blend my normal morning protein shakes and take them with me. It comes down to choices like that, sometimes.

Should have gone to the gym after class but went to pick up my new Laser Disc player that I was having serviced by Ross and decided to play with it instead. Laserdiscs may be a dead format but I love them. I was finally able to track down a Pioneer CLD-704 after years of searching for one. Great player and hard to find, made in 1994. Ross lubed it up, replaced the belt, fine tuned the laser focus and got it working like a champ. Threw in some audio heavy discs and got the pad rockin'. My neighbors must love me.

Back on track tomorrow.

Monday, Monday

Today I met up with the group at Balboa Park for a little hill work. The workout was a reasonable 4-mile jaunt and the weather was very nice. I was happy to climb a few hills after skipping my weekly hike. We walked around the perimeter of the park and did a little people watching. Lots of exercisers, dog walkers and a few lovie dovie hand holders. There was a guy sitting in a convertible playing the trumpet. Pretty cool. We had 8 walkers today. It's nice being part of the group and I can see a real bond developing as we continue to train together.

They might be right...

Was very sore today after yesterday's activities. I took the time to sleep in (8:30am!) and rest up, a luxury I rarely afford myself. Feels pretty good. Back to training tomorrow.

Working at the car wash, yeah.

Saturday is the big day for our training. Today's course was at Lake Murray and I walked 12 miles which caused a bit of commotion. Let me explain. One of the first weekend session involved walking a timed mile. We were placed in one of three categories depending on our time. There are three groups, A, B, C. The A group are the fast, skilled walkers who have usually competed in previous events. Group B are good walkers but not as fast as the A's. Group C walkers are generally inexperienced walkers. Group A, B, C...kind of sounds like Orwell's 1984. B's are the best because A's have to work too hard, etc.

I timed in at a very solid B. I was about 30 seconds away from being in the A group. The training requirements of each group is slightly different, with A's walking longer mileage earlier than the other groups. To make a long story short, as a "B" I was scheduled to walk 11 miles. Well, walking along with my fellow B, Christine, I was feeling pretty good and decided to do the extra mile. She was cool with it so we did. Apparently this was a major gaff, resulting in one of the coaches, who was ahead of us, actually coming back to walk with us to make sure I wouldn't collapse into a heap of rubble or something. When we got back to home base, we were double-teamed by another two coaches and given a stern talking to. The concern is that we not push too hard too fast. The season is long and we risk an injury by not following the program to the letter. Lesson learned. One other bummer is that since we did big mileage on Saturday, I was strongly discouraged from taking my weekly Sunday afternoon hike which is one of the highlights to my week. Gotta give the legs a rest, you know. Hmmm.

After the workout I immediately took off to participate in a car wash fundraiser. Six of us on the Team and a few volunteers washed cars from Noon to 4pm. It was a lot of fun, but boy was I wiped out afterwards. 12 miles, then an additional 4 hours on my feet in the blazing sun scrubbing down cars. Hardest $55 I've earned in a long while. I'm going to have to think of a fundraiser with a little more bucks for my bang.

Afterwards, came home, showered and took a short nap, followed by a pasta dinner at Demillo's with my Mom. First pasta dinner I've had in 16 months. Felt I earned it, though.

Sunday is a rest day. Grrr.

Gertrude

DeAnza Cove and Walk Form

Met a few of the team members for a midweek workout session at DeAnza Cove. This is a nice beach area/boat launch right off I-5. The session was run by Coach Roger and features a beautiful 5 mile walk along the coast in the early evening and interval training. Coach Roger is a former competitive speed walker and is blazing fast. He was kind enough to give me some pointers on how to improve my walk form, which is going to be important when I'm on say, mile 19 of the Dublin Marathon.

It seems that I've been walking completely wrong all these years. I've recently gotten really into hiking, especially the climbing part. I love to just power up the hills as fast as I can, taking huge strides. This is the exact opposite of what you are supposed to do as a speed walker. The focus of the walk form is to waste no energy. The engineer in me really likes that. Don't lift your feet too high or take too long of a stride. That's all just wasted energy. There's a sweet spot in every walker's stride. I'm still looking for mine, but this is the perfect length of stride where all your effort is focused to move your body forward with no wasted motion. You are also supposed to walk heel to toe and really propel yourself forward with each step. Your arms are supposed to act as sort of pistons, but it seems that they are also there to help you maintain a rhythm. Then there's what I call the butt wiggle, you know the one. The wiggle is a consequence of flexing the hips to lead the legs forward. Not using your hips, is essentially like driving your car, while riding the brakes. You are restricting your full and complete range of motion, thereby reducing your efficiency. Even after you get all the individual parts down, it is a major challenge to get them all going at the same time and keeping the rhythm. I had a couple of instances during the walk where it was all flowing and I could really feel the difference. My calves were getting a bigger workout than normal, but my hips, which are normally very sore after a walk, were feeling great. Still got a lot of work to do to get it all down, but its coming.

One other interesting thing that happened is that Coach Roger hung back with me a bit and walked about 4-feet ahead of me. It really helped me establish and maintain a rhythm. I later realized that he kept slowly speeding up and I subconsciously sped up with him. Sneaky sneaky. Tomorrow is a gym day, 45 minutes of treadmill work with a 15% incline and some light weight work.

Basal Metabolic Rate Calculator

Stumbled across this last night and thought it was interesting. The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is how many calories a person's body consumes just to keep breathing and the blood flowing. It is how much energy your body consumes while at rest, doing no exercise, like when I'm sitting on my butt watching Film Noir movies on my living room couch. Go here to calculate your rate, based on your height, current weight and age. It is possible to get the real number via a medical exam for around $60 if anyone is interested. From what I've read and heard, the calculated value ends up being very close to the medically measured number so it usually isn't worth spending the money.

Note that this calculated value doesn't account for the energy you spend walking around doing your normal daily routine or any actual exercise you would do. Add those calories to your BMR and you get the number of calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight. If you want to lose or gain weight, another rule of thumb is:

Men: Goal Weight X 12 = Calorie budget for the day
Women: Goal Weight X 10 = Calorie budget for the day

Yes, the ladies get the short end of the stick. Besides being able to pee standing up, it seems that men have the further advantage of burning more calories due to greater average muscle mass.

So if my goal weight is 180 lbs then my calorie budget is (180X12=2160) not counting exercise. I'm fortunately at my goal weight so I can a eat a bit more depending on how much exercise I do. Nice!

The Story So Far

Those that know me personally are aware that I've made some major changes to my life over the last year and a half. Turning 40 is a real kick in the pants. One major thing I've done is lost a lot of weight. I've lost 210 lbs since March 7, 2006 and am now weighing in at a semi-svelte 180lbs. It's a good feeling and my feet, knees and probably my heart are very happy. I participated in a medically supervised weight loss program recommended by my doctor. It's a great program called HMR and incorporates, dieting, exercise, record-keeping and nutritional training to change your lifestyle. I can't recommend the program highly enough.

I've really embraced the exercise component of the program and now exercise daily. Changed my life, that kind of stuff, I'm super into it. Well, I'd also been kicking around the idea of trying to volunteer some of my time for a while now. I had thought of tutoring math, mentoring programs like Big Brother's, assisting in my church's Sunday school classes and stuff like that but hadn't really found the time with my busy work schedule and increasingly growing workout schedule. One day, I got a Team in Training flyer in the mail. I'm not even sure how I got on the mailing list. I've had two very dear and close family members pass away from Leukemia and then it all clicked. I could donate my time, energy and enthusiasm to promote a great cause that has personally affected my family and incorporate my newly found love of exercising. Sychronicity, the Police wrote a song about it.

So here I am. More to come but I've gotta sign off now. Have to go on my daily lunchtime walk and log some miles.

What is this blog thing?

My very first blog. I'm so proud! Hey friends, family and foes, I'm writing from the sunny land of San Diego, CA. I'll be writing about my training exploits and experiences for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. This is a great non-profit organization whose purpose is nothing less than finding the cure for blood cancers (Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma). Team in Training is a group of fanatical volunteers who train for and participate in endurance events such as marathons, triathlons, century bike rides, and major hiking trips all to raise awareness and money to find a cure for cancer! I've taken on a major challenge for my first event. I'm trying to raise $6,500 so I can participate in the Dublin Adidas Marathon. That's 26.2 miles which should take me somewhere between 7 and 8 hours of continuous walking. Yow!

I've had a lot of requests from those that have already contributed to my fundraising effort to keep them informed on how my training is coming along so blogging seemed like a good idea. I'm doing pretty good so far, having raised over $2,300 , but I've got a long way to go. If want to chart my progress or hopefully contribute, roam over to my TnT site.