fitness

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Checking In

It’s been a minute since my last post, so I thought I’d write a little this afternoon. Last week I had a couple doctor’s appointments, and I have a few more scheduled for this week. Tomorrow I’m seeing a spine surgeon from Peachtree Orthopedics, and he should be able to tell me the best route to take with my spinal issues. I’ve had quite a few injections in my cervical spine as well as my lower back, before I had spinal surgery about 10 years ago, and I’m hoping that we can take that route with the latest issues. The headaches, dizziness, vertigo and increased tinnitus problems could all be stemming from the spinal issues according to my ENT doctor, but I still need to start Physical Therapy for the vertigo and dizzy spell this week. It’s been kinda hard to keep the headaches in check while managing the pain killers, but I’ve reduced the pain killers to a few 200 mg Motrin a day. Getting back to regular bowl movements while managing pain has been an issue also, but I think I’m back to normal now. My weight this morning after the long holiday weekend was better than I thought, and after my walk this morning, I weighed in at 196.5. Not as bad as I thought but I’m probably going to try another 3-day water fast very soon. I need to keep losing but it’s going to get harder and harder as my body is getting used to a 4-5 mile walk every day. I may try and shock it a bit with adding 30 minutes on my elliptical machine a few times a week. The elliptical machine gives me a full body workout because it has the handlebars for the arms so I can get more of a core workout. We’ll see how that goes soon.

I’m continuing my work on the manuscript for my autobiography and I’m still on track for an October 5th release. I haven’t settled on a publisher yet and I’m still working to find a good fit for the book. All three parts of the book have been created as well as the bonus recipe chapter. Right now, I’m in the process of building the story of “Twenty years on Lanier“. It will be the longest of all the short stories in Part One upon completion. It covers a lot of what I learned along the way. It may shorten the learning curve for beginners just starting to fish Lake Lanier, written by someone who gets to wake up every morning with the lake right outside the window and fish the lake almost every day for years. I can honestly say that there wasn’t a lot of fishermen who fished the lake more than I did in those 20 years.

Part one is called “Fifty Years of Fishing” and it will take the longest because of the time span and the information covered on Lake Lanier. It will be at least another week to complete that chapter. The rest is just short stories about fishing during my life and is dedicated to Lucky, Oscar, Jerry and Steve. They were four of the best fishermen and friends I’ve known along the way.

Part two covers my Navy career, called “Twenty Years of Service” and that will probably take a few weeks to complete, but most of the short stories are ready to go. I will need to add another chapter covering the ugly part of the job. Dealing with death in the military came quick for me and I’ll cover some of the sailors and Marines I didn’t really know as well as friends that lost their lives along the way. You’ll get a raw look at the ground side of life in a few fighter and fighter/Attack squadrons.

Part three is called “Finding my Faith” and it’s also in the works and will be the last part to complete with a deadline of late August. It is another part that will take some work. It’s basically my autobiography as it pertains to my journey through faith and an inside look at some of the unexplained occurrences as well as my course changes and corrections throughout life.

Lastly, part four is the good stuff and twelve of my favorite recipes to add to the end of the book, so if you’re not into the fishing, Navy or faith stuff, maybe a few good Cajun recipes may interest you. Hopefully, there will be a little something for everyone in the book and I’m looking forward to the release.

It’s still a long way off but I fooled around with AI and between AI and Canva editing over the weekend. Here’s a sneak peek at what the cover may look like. This will probably be tweaked and adjusted before the final product goes to print, but it can give you a general idea of what the cover may look like. The cover is probably the furthest from my mind right now as the actual writing has a long way to go before, I really focus on the cover. I’ll post again at the end of my week, and hopefully I’ll know a bit more about my neck and spine issues.

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Definitely Seeing Improvements

Weight: 196.2lbs post walk

Diet: Fish, cottage cheese for dinner, banana for dessert and 1 protein bar for breakfast

I did the exact same distance as I did yesterday to see what the difference would be and there wasn’t much, as far as the distance, but I did plan to push a little harder today since it was the end of the week and I could rest for a day or two. My body definitely needs it. My left foot has been the work horse for the last 3 weeks, mainly because I’m still recovering from the right knee replacement and the weight shift has been to the left side. You can tell a lot by looking at the bottom of your shoe and analyzing the pronation wear. Normal pronation should show shoe wear somewhere near the big toe on the sole, or the inside toe area of the shoe. The heel should show normal wear on the heel, just to the outside a little. If you are walking or running normally, the wear should be even from the left shoe and the right shoe. If there is a weight shift, it should show on the sole as more wear on one shoe compared to the other. It usually takes some mileage before the wear starts to show, but it’s a good idea to check your soles from time to time, so you can tell if things are correct in pronation.

Today I dropped to my lowest weight yet. Last week when I came off of my fast, I weighed 196.4 and under a normal diet with no fasting, I dropped down to 196.2 this morning. A few of the things I’ve been doing this week to drop weight was to stay away from any greasy stuff, very limited amounts of sugar, no chocolate unless it was in a protein bar. No fast food and no beef! Obviously, no soda, unless it was Fresca, but I didn’t have a Fresca this week. I did start drinking Gatorade to supplement the electrolytes for hydration during recovery. I like those little Honey Stinger energy chews during my walks. I just pop one in my cheek and let it slowly dissolve while I’m walking. I usually have about 3 chews while walking.

Once I got home there were some guys working down at the dock and I needed to chat with them. I wound up making 3 trips up and down the hill to the dock which is about 72 steps from the back door to the dock, so I hit 10k steps before lunch today. Usually, it’s mid-afternoon. I can also count those 3 trips down to the dock as hill work this week because coming back up is a lot rougher than the trip down.

All in all, it was a good week and there were definitely some noticeable improvements in appearance and energy this week. Diet and exercise go hand in hand for weight loss. Have a great weekend!

Song of the day. Love some Katie Holmes!

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End of the Road

Weight: 199.0lbs post walk

Diet: Chicken, asparagus, rice and soup for dinner and 1bagel and honey for breakfast

According to the trail, the milage was just shy of 5 miles but the watch said somewhat less. My gut and my sore feet said it was close to 5 miles, so I’ll go with that. I went a little further than anticipated but I wanted to see what was ahead of my usual turnaround point. When I used to run the trail years ago, I would go quite a bit further than my walks have taken me, but when I got just past the 2.2 marker the trail ended with a gate across the trail. Distance-wise, that was probably enough for one day. I really liked the time splits because my 4th mile pace was almost as fast as the first mile pace. That tells me that I hit the runners high after a couple miles which is typical for a distance runner. I think I’ll work with the distance I’m going now and work on increasing the speed a bit. The way I always increased my speed as a distance runner was to work on my gate, do some intervals (fartlek training) and the dreaded hill work. One way I can accomplish this is to do some up and downs on my steps going down to the boat dock and back. That will work on the hammies, as well as strengthening the muscles around the knees. It will also work the ligaments around the knees in prep for some soft runs later on.

I did a little bit of soft running this week and it was brutal on the knees. Just when the knees settled into a soft running pace, I went back to walking and I could feel the knee confusion. A lot of that was due to weight so I need to work on that a little more. I’m probably going to do another fast next week. My last fast was very successful, and I went a total of 60-65 hours with a water fast.

One thing I know about my body is that it is very smart. After a few weeks of walking, my body thinks this walking thing is the new norm, so the metabolism freakout is over and it starts to slow again. That would explain the slow-down in weight loss over the past week. I always need to combat the metabolism slow-down with new surprises. I may need to incorporate some light sculpting weight training or maybe hit my elliptical for a few hours a week. The elliptical machine is a great way to combat a metabolic slow-down but it has its dangers too. If you’re not careful you can overdo it and hurt yourself when introducing new stuff to confuse the body and tap into a few new muscle groups. I need to take it slow and trust the process.

Tomorrow is the last day to hit the trail this week unless we do something with the twins on Saturday. We’re baby-sitting the twin 2-year-old grands Saturday afternoon and evening, so I’ll get a pretty good mental and physical workout from that. They are like half spider monkey, half octopus, all jacked up on expresso with at least eight grabby hands, but best of all, there are 2 of them to chase around. In all honesty, I wouldn’t trade any of my grands for the world. I’ve been blessed and looking forward to tomorrow.

Song of the day.

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Finally broke 200lbs!

6/17/2025

Weight: 199.2lbs post walk

Diet: 1/2 chicken breast, cottage cheese and pineapple squares

I had to split my walk today because I accidently reset my watch when I turned around to head back to the trail head where I started, so I have 2 different recordings today. The second half was a little less because it took a few steps before I realized what I had done. This fitness watch does a pretty good job though. I wish I would have had something like this 30 years ago. I knew I was going to be close to breaking 200lbs this morning, so I pushed just a little bit more and it paid off. I dug through my closet this morning and found a pair of unused New Balance 613 cross trainers that I had rat holed a few years back. New Balance shoes have always been the Cadillac of running shoes for me but the 613 isn’t really ideal for distance running. No further than I was going walking today, it wasn’t a big deal and the shoe is definitely lighter weight than those Asics I’ve been using. Feet are just about always an issue for distance runners. I can’t ever remember training for and running a marathon without a few blisters on my feet and dropping a few toenails along the way. It’s just part of the deal and pain tolerance is very important because you will experience pain if you’re going to train for marathon distance. I wrapped my big toe with the giant blister this morning, but little did I know that the big Band-Aid I used was rough and rubbed a blister on the toe next to it, so I wound up with another bloody sock today.

I gotta say that those blisters were all worth it when I weighed myself and saw that 199.2 on the scale so I decided to celebrate with a slice of my homemade crawfish pie for dinner this evening. Great morning out there on the trail this morning and I even stopped to have a quick chat with momma deer. She stayed around while I chatted with her for a little while and she said that she liked my shirt, before trotting off.

Just pulled the crawfish pie out of the oven and it will still be warm for dinner! It’s awesome with a dab of sour cream on top. If you’re interested in making a crawfish pie, my recipe is in the recipe section of this blog.

Favorite tune from today!

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Friday Morning Wrap-up

6/13/2025

Session: 75-minute walk (3.5 mi)

Weight: 203.4lbs post walk

Diet: Egg drop soup yesterday evening

It’s the Friday the 13th edition. I was hoping my awesome shirt would get a few smiles this morning on the trail and it did with three runners! Yesterday was a wash so no journal entry. Yesterday I had some work done on a bone graft in my jaw so I can get a permanent k-9 tooth. They jacked me up on valium and gas which made the procedure much more fun. That oral surgeon was flexing on my jawbone yesterday, but I didn’t feel a thing. As soon as he started, I started praying and I didn’t finish till he finished. To be honest, I haven’t felt a bit of pain yet. He was scraping, drilling and poking at my jawbone yet it was completely painless. Thank the Lord for that!

Afterwards, no solid food for a couple days and a regiment of pain and antibiotic pills for a few days. I didn’t think today would be a good day but to the contrary, it was pretty awesome. I felt no pain anywhere this morning, with the exception of a blister on my big toe. I stretched it out a little more today and went a little further. Prior to yesterday’s procedure, I had a little bit of solid food after my water fast on Wednesday, and I think that helped with me feel a bit better in spite of the drugs I had to take yesterday. Today I’m fine and so I’m probably going to stay on the soup, chicken and asparagus diet till tomorrow. Total weight loss since last Friday is 11lbs and I’m closing in on 200lbs fast. I don’t think I’ll get below 200 for another week, so but that’s my short-term goal.

Speaking of goals, I believe they are very important, not just in fitness, but for life in general. I’ve always believed in continuously setting new goals for myself because that’s how you grow in life. Succeeding in your goals also leads to self-worth and self-motivation. I also believe that you should ask where you see yourself in 5 years. I believe you should fill your life with short term and long-term goals. Setting goals is how I became a better distance runner, and I always pushed myself to do better. I never got complacent in my training, and I always strived to improve my time. If you have to re-invent yourself because you’ve run it off in the ditch, no worries, make a plan, set some new goals and better yourself. I’ve done it and to this day I’m thankful that I did.

I picked up a health and fitness wristwatch yesterday and I should be able to monitor and record more data starting next week. Right now, my goal is just to keep pushing and losing more weight till I get down to a healthier weight, then I’ll start on some toning and lite running exercises. A lot needs to happen before I get to that point, but it seems like my body is responding well to what I put it through this week.

Favorite tune from today.