Category: Daily Logs

Daily workout journal

Saturday April 11, 2020

The Back Log

I am taking the day off from exercises but I did run on the treadmill for twenty minutes, plus five as a warm-up and five minutes for a cool-down.

Last night, I got on the scale and I was 110 pounds. That’s up from my usual range of 93 to 97 pounds. I’ve noticed other changes: I can’t put my wedding ring back on, and a pair of pants that once required a belt to stay up actually fit in the waist now. Needless to say, the extra weight worries me.

For folks who don’t know me or do not know me well, I’m just over 5 feet tall. Some of that extra weight is muscle from karate exercises, but that would accounts for, say, two to five pounds, realistically. The rest is due to to the fact that I no longer work out at the dojo for three to five hours a week. On Saturdays, I would sometimes take two classes and I regularly attended an hour and a half class on Tuesday and Friday evenings.

My morning and evening push-ups, sit-ups and squats, while better than nothing, is no substitute for a ninety minute class. I do not walk four flights of stairs before and after work, because I work from home. Though I take walks during the day, those are not exactly strenuous. Additionally, F and B bake a lot of bread, pies and cookies, and D and I drink wine or make mixed drinks just about every day.

So, given I am:

  • 1. eating more sweets,
  • 2. drinking more alcohol, and
  • 3. exercising less

I guarantee some of that weight is just, well, excess weight! I don’t look particularly fat, granted, but that’s how it starts: a little more here and a little more there. Over time, it adds up.

The black belt test requires cardio fitness, and mine is in August, if we are able to do it. Might as well start now, before I get too out of shape.

The treadmill is in F’s room, but we all use it. Richard walked daily when F was in school. I put on a podcast and got on the treadmill with bare feet. Jogging on the treadmill is not something I enjoy.

I’d tried to talk D into going with me to look for a place to run outdoors. We do not live far from Griffith Park. It rained all this week and now it’s beautiful outside! On a Saturday! My idea was to drive to the zoo area and see if we could walk or jog along one of the horse trails. D thought everyone else in Los Angeles would have the same idea.

He’d previously emailed me an article about how people exercising outdoors could potentially spread the virus faster. Apparently it is also critical to be more reclusive for the next two weeks. Folks are being advised to limit our already limited contact. So I borrowed a pair of loose, old shorts from D, put on a podcast and got on the treadmill.

I admit, during that first five minutes of walking in bare feet, I considered getting off the treadmill to put on shoes. “But no,” I thought, “I’ve finally started and it’s important to push through.” My mind wants to get out of exercising, I told myself, rationalizing procrastination. I’ve started–I need to stick with this. So I did. At the end of my jog, the balls of my feet burned.

My daughter came into the room to tease me about running in front of the window. “I want the neighborhood to see my newly-muscled back. Why not?” I told her. “There might not be a lot of muscle back there by some people’s standards but it’s much more than I had!”

That’s the great thing about being fifty, I told her: you become shameless. “You know what?” I said. “I wish I’d lost my shame earlier!” She laughed.

She’d talked to me about the weight thing earlier. “A few extra pounds will not hurt you!” she said. “You do not need to diet.” I agree.

For context, one of F’s friends was hospitalized for an eating disorder shortly before the pandemic started. This poor girl–a beautiful kid and an overachiever–top kid in her middle school last year, was downright skeletal when she came to our home in January for F’s birthday party. She was quite ill by the time she was hospitalized in late February.

So I told F, “No diet. Just exercise more and eat less sweets. That’s all–just don’t let the weight gain get out of hand. And maybe I should drink less.”

So I was proud of myself for getting on the treadmill and jogging and walking a full thirty minutes, but boy, I blistered the balls of my feet. I showed F. We laughed. “You wear shoes if you go the treadmill, okay?” I told F.

Full disclosure: we both like running around in bare feet. I already had calluses on my heels from wearing Keenes as my normal shoes, even to jury duty. (Once, in the elevator in the court house, a dude in a suit, probably a lawyer, said to me, “Those sure look comfortable.” I responded, “Yeah, they help me get to court on time when I’m parked a good thirty minute walk away.”)

I popped the blisters on my feet with a safety pin dipped in rubbing alcohol, squeezed out the puss, then took a shower. Afterwards, I put salve and bandages on my feet. I wear two pairs of socks for extra padding, and sandals if I need to walk.

Goal for tomorrow: get on the treadmill with sneakers!

Friday April 10th, 2020

The Back Log

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats last night and this morning. I also sanitized the kitchen.

One of our neighbors from Clybourne came by. She had a little dog. She wanted to talk to Miriam about the noise complaint regarding the dog.

Lawrence, our neighbor, had put in a complaint about the dog and Miriam backed his complaint in a kind of formal proceeding.

The lady’s name was J. She’s seventy-three, and also lives with her extended family. The dog, a puppy that was some kind of mix with Chihuahua, was awfully cute and sported a pink, studded collar. I took down her number. She wanted Miriam to know that she’s been working with her puppy to train it to bark less. The dog was sweet and energetic, and didn’t bark at all while they stood with me.

I remember, as a kid, we called dogs like that one “hot dogs.”

Later, when Miriam came down, I spoke with her about the neighbor and her dog, and gave her the number to call.

Funny, my moods change rapidly these days. During work, I can get pretty wound up. After work with the kids, I’m really happy. I feel bad about not working on my science fiction book in forever. Then again, I’m happy to be keeping up with this journal and planning to make it a website.

The actual karate exercises have the power to change my mood.They can be hard to get through, but then I feel really good afterwards. My arms look thicker–I see actual visible changes in my body–at least in my arms. My shoulders often feel tweaked, though, but usually heal over the weekend, or during the one week of rest I take every three weeks. So I’m almost through one week of 70. (Sensei is having me stick to 60 push-ups.) One more workout tonight and it will be the weekend.

We are doing Passover Seder tonight, so if I have a bit too much wine, I might push the workout to Saturday morning. It would be better if I can get it in before the Seder. That’s the plan.

Thursday April 9th, 2020

The Back Log

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats last night and this morning. The second set of thirty “chest” push-ups on the matte were hard, so I did at least the last ten on my knees. I also messed up the Japanese count. Hoping to go as low as I could, I added a couple at the end.

Sensei texted last night, asking how I was doing with exercises. I told him where I was at. He texted back that he’s been practicing the gong. I think he was both serious and kidding at once. My favorite art professor, Don Evans, did that a lot, too.

I need a shower. It’s easy to put that off or skip it when you’re not going out. I’m cooking Joey’s breakfast eggs while I write. The eggs require checking. I just cut the heat under them and covered them. We still have Indian vegetable pouches from Trader Joe’s. I took those with a bit of oil then add beaten eggs to congeal it and give it more protein. We have maybe six pouches left. We’re trying to only get food through delivery. D’s still pretty worried about exposure during the pandemic.

The governor of Arkansas was on the news, defending his choice not to require residents to shelter in place, as most of the other states have done. He says it is “recommended,” but he’s leaving the “choice” open, which means employers, like my sister’s, can ask people to go to the office. She lives in Arkansas.

In my sister’s case, her employer has asked her to go into the office. She has no health insurance and is really worried about contracting the virus. Even if, in theory, the federal government covered health issues caused by the virus, it is not clear they would cover complications, etc., not solely due to the virus. Also, if you are not able to get tested and prove the virus is behind your medical problems, then that kind of federal “help” will not help. Bankruptcy and possibly serious long-term health issues are not things my sister is willing to risk. She has told her employer she is caring for an elderly family member.

Aunt D will back her if she needs it. I hate that both my sister and my aunt have to make these kinds of horrible “choices.”

Wednesday April 8th, 2020

The Back Log

I did do push-ups, sit-ups and squats this morning and last night. I have a cat here trying to help me write. Cafe, a black and white tuxedo cat, sits on the recently sanitized table before me. He chases my pen if I am not petting him. He’s very sweet, it goes without saying, since he’s a cat.

We did not have karate last night. Sensei doesn’t have the best reception at his place. Given the puckets of water falling from the sky, which we are grateful for, it is also not a great time to get out and drive, nor is it a good time to expose yourself to getting sick during a pandemic.

But F ran the Pinans with me, after I did my exercises, and S ran Gekisai Dai, Gekisai Sho and Yantsu with me. We tried to remember the one with all the stances, Tzuki no, but we should probably look it up. It was difficult to remember.

Also, to complicate matters, we each imagined different orientations for where we were, that is, which direction was “facing forward.” Basically, we needed to mentally map the space of the dojo onto my bedroom, the space where we practiced karate. We discussed where the dojo “mirror” would be. We decided to align the dojo’s “front door” to the bedroom closet. The back door, then must be the balcony door . This left the dojo’s wall facing the mirror to align with the bedroom’s back wall. Nevertheless, it was good to practice karate.

Sensei texted and both F and I checked in with him. F is also interested in doing an on-line diary for her Shodan preparation.