I'm spending the second weekend of February on a bit of a forced hiatus where my fitness life is concerned. A recent bout with the flu has left me so lacking in stamina and energy that I'm compelled to take a few days off from both running and kendo to rest and recharge. My nutrition practices--such as they are; and I'll fully admit I've not done very well here since the new year--are likewise rather up in the air. I literally did not eat anything for nearly three days this week (my bug was of the stomach variety, which tends to discourage such things as eating), and I'm trying this weekend to just get my appetite back.
Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. I think if this had been, say, ten years ago, a day or so off from a fitness program (whatever diet or exercise du jour I was trying at that moment) would have surely spelled the end of said program. But I've been fit for a while now, and I've woven running, kendo and nutrition concerns so deeply into the fabric of my everyday life that I'm not at all worried about taking a couple of days off. I'll be right back at it on Monday.
But what exactly is "it"? That's the value of this little weekend hiatus: I can use the time to not only rest, but evaluate. As I've written on this blog before, the key secret to my being able to both lose weight and keep it off for (now going on eight) years is a carefully cultivated ability to constantly re-evaluate myself, take stock of where I'm at and what I'm doing.*
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If anyone who reads this blog finds any value in what they see, it is I hope this: my blog is a daily record of what it takes to not only lose weight (hard) but keep it off (much, much harder). If anyone wonders why I keep blogging like this, day in and day out for years on end (other than the fact that I'm a professional writer, so writing is to me an act akin to breathing), it is to both keep myself accountable to something outside myself (absolutely essential to a fitness program) and maybe, just maybe help someone who runs across my quiet, musty little corner of the Internet who, like me, has struggled with his/her weight and is trying to find solutions. I've lost 100 pounds and kept it off for nearly eight years. How? No diet plans, gimmicks, or anything like that. Rather, I've done it with the sort of daily, incessant banging away that you'll read about in this blog. It's not glamorous, nor maybe particularly inspiring...but whatever it is, it seems to work.
So where do things stand, as of the second week of February 2012?
Winter is always the most challenging time for my running program. Cold weather, lack of options, a busy professional and family schedule all tend to plant roadblocks in my path and generally reduce my miles and the quality of my running. This is a pretty consistent pattern; looking back over the winters represented on this blog, I find my mileage always decreases, despite my best efforts. This is one reason why I've never been able to run a spring marathon; the wintertime training leading up to that point is just too difficult.
This winter so far is no exception. I'm averaging somewhere between 35-40 miles a week, with my best distance runs never exceeding the 10 mile range. I'm not very happy at all about this, but it really isn't anything new. And I'd say that this winter I've done better quality runs, at least in terms of getting in some decent hills/stairs training.
Where kendo is concerned, I'd say I'm slowly progressing towards my goal of improving my kendo to the point of possibly passing my shodan exam, either at the Kentucky tournament March 10, or the Cleveland tournament at the end of March. My plan now is to compete in both tournaments and to register for the rank exams a both: if I fail in Kentucky, I'll test again in Cleveland. And I think I'm getting better, albeit slowly and in small, sometimes undetectable ways. I have a long, long ways to go, of course, but on the whole I'd say the arrow is pointing up here.
And nutrition? Not so much. I don't do horribly here; I generally eat healthy, I'm still a vegetarian, and I tend to keep my worst impulses under control. But despite my best efforts, I'm entirely unable to follow a real, serious plan here. I tend to indulge my sweet tooth far too often, and I go through stretches during which I eat just junk. All too often I eat the wrong things, counting on my running to forestall the consequences--which it generally does, since my weight is still more-or-less steady (in the 170 range) and I'm pretty well able to keep up with my running and my kendo. But I definitely think I'm experiencing what I've seen referred to as "middle age creep"--a very slow decline in my fitness level, and a bit too soft around the middle, more than I'd like--and I suspect that my ragged nutrition habits are the chief cause.
So on the whole, there are good things here, but there are also problems. The problems aren't serious, but they could become so if I do not exercise due diligence.
Specifically, I need to address the following problems/issues (and I'm thinking broadly here; not the myriad details I need to address in my kendo, for example):
- Find a consistent, practical daily nutritional plan that fits my needs
- Strength training. I can tell with my longer runs that I'm slowly and very gradually losing muscle mass, as is normal with age. I can't stop the process entirely, of course, but I need to ameliorate its worst effects, especially if I'm going to do serious distance running in the future. I'm not sure exactly how to proceed here: weightlifting, or better hills/stairs training. But I need a viable approach, better than the spotty and inconsistent strength training that has been my norm.
- Flexibility. This applies pretty much equally to my running and my kendo. In running, my stiffness--which seems to be something of a natural, built-in problem--tends to facilitate some of the little nagging owies I've experienced off and on. In kendo it is a more serious matter, robbing my form of smoothness and fluidity. Again, I'm unsure what exactly to do about this: possibly some pliometrics, certainly better stretching techniques. But as with strength training, I need to work out a good plan before spring.
- Integration. This is more of a philosophical, really almost an existential matter. I need to find ways to make the seemingly disparate jigsaw puzzle pieces of my fitness life fit together better as a whole. All too often my running seems to operate in a separate compartment from my kendo, and vice versa, and both often seem separated from my nutrition. The pieces don't all seem to fit together into a cohesive enough whole--in fact, I worry sometimes that some of the practices I follow in one area are actually a detriment to my activities in other areas. The impetus here is my kendo, more than anything else. Hiro has often spoken of integrating kendo into the fabric of our everyday lives (and I've read similar remarks from runners, as well). He has a point, and its something I'd like to address.
