April 8th, 2012: I weighed-in at 287 today. Uncharted waters since January 2nd. The day is starting off a-ok.
Today I’m doing something new that has everything and nothing to do with the program. Nothing because it’s a pistol shooting competition for the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association – a club I joined last week. Everything because it’s something I’ve never done before (well, I’ve shot pistols, just not in competitions). Things I’ve never done before require energy and confidence. I have started to regain my energy and confidence since my Jan. 2 starting date on this program.
One more thing, I used to go for 30 minutes as a basic workout on the treadmill, now my basic workout will be 40 minutes, as it was yesterday (with a goal by July of a basic workout of 1 hour). I’m still improving in speed/incline/calories burned/distance.
April 8th, 2020: How long should I exercise? How hard should I exercise? How many days a week should I exercise? What should I do when I exercise?
All are valid questions; all are questions I ask myself every day (even when I already know the answers before I ask the questions as they apply to me); and all are questions that can be answered technically and definitively in countless fitness articles, on infinite fitness websites, and in thousands of fitness videos, etc.
BUT – A human body, though the most supremely designed machine that ever will be, also has a brain that runs it. This brain can cause all sorts of shit to scramble what the science suggests is the definite exercise answer. It’s because the brain has a mind of its own that applying a step-by-step program, designed by someone else, to my own life, is futile and will end in frustration. I can’t be a mechanical device, I can’t be a rigid computing machine, and I can’t be the test case of my own or anyone else’s fitness experiment.
I wrote in 2012 in the above entry that I was going to increase a standard time on the treadmill time to 30 minutes. Years later, and prior to the hip-replacement surgery, I was training for an ultra-marathon (40 miles). I would stay on the treadmill for 3 hours a day sometimes, and even then, I felt that wasn’t enough. I didn’t do that every day. I would have if I could have, though.
They say listen to your body – my body said I could do that every day. My soul wanted to do it every day. I love to run. I get high as hell off of it. It’s my drug and my favorite form of entertainment now. I couldn’t run that far every day because I have other responsibilities – work and family, etc. I listened to my heart and my soul and literally did run the wheels off of it, though. While I’m certain that training for and competing in an ultra-marathon did not ruin my hip, it definitely deteriorated it significantly. So maybe listening to your body isn’t always the best?
If I remember to, I’m going to explore the three questions at the top there for the next few posts. These questions make up the three most basic variables, plus one, that you have to manipulate in your program as you lay out your personal path to victory. They are duration, frequency, and intensity. And then that last one is something you need to play with too – it can be the deal breaker or the deal maker. It probably overrides all others, actually.
