June 22nd, 2012: 253 again today, i.e. no loss or gain. This is good, this is ok, I’ll take it. I feel like I need to do something to ensure 100 lbs. in 6 months, but there isn’t anything short of drastic, so I’m just gonna look straight ahead and continue.
Not much to report otherwise, I’m just head-down working and hoping…
Lift 
Run
June 22nd, 2020: At times it’s hard for me to accept that I need to lift weights, and I remember it being really hard in 2012 – just because I felt like I was taking time away from the straight-up calorie burning cardio sessions. This weightlifting-cardio paradigm switch happened right there in 2012, and sort of continues to this day.
I used to think “working out” was weightlifting, and maybe I could throw in some running or something if I had the time or motivation. Completely opposite in the last 8 years.
My brother put out a real basic bottom line to me by telling me to stop fucking around with this and that at the gym and just run and lift. He said, “If you want to get in shape, you run and lift, period.”
He wasn’t wrong, but there’s so much more to do if you want to avoid boredom, find muscles you didn’t know you had, and be in overall better shape. In my experience, I feel best when I address fitness by working on cardio, resistance, coordination, and flexibility. Within those constructs, the options are endless, but I try to keep it pretty simple and though I rarely do the same workout two days in a row, the overall plan is fairly straightforward.
Almost every time I go to the gym, I briefly ponder what my grandparents or great-grandparents would think if they saw what I do in the gym. I can imagine them exchanging looks when I got onto the stairmaster and walked for an hour and got literally nowhere. What about when I got on a stationary bike? My grandpa’d probably say, “Why don’t you just git on yer damn real bike and ride up a hill?” Or if they saw me picking up and putting down weights: “What a waste of time! Go out and lift hay bales all day!”
For the record, I grew up in the country with cows, horses, and farm chores. It’s tough, no doubt about it. I remember getting a serious trapezius muscle workout from moving pipe. During haying-season my arms and legs always ached – it was like doing a thousand deadlifts. Digging holes and always running a shovel were killer deltoid workouts. Carrying water here and there, carrying everything everywhere…
Anyway, I want to live on a ranch again someday, but I’d much rather get my exercise in the gym. I’m kind of a pansy that way.
