Thursday, January 5, 2017
Another late start for school. The surrounding school districts already made the call for a two-hour late start and we’re somewhat obligate to follow the pact. I was at work at 4:30 AM. Four more hours and I’ll take a break and go to the gym.
There’s also going to be a bond information tonight at one of the local elementary schools. I’m on the bond committee and really want to work to get our district’s $130 million dollar bond passed so a new high school and a new elementary school can be built and do extensive renovations to our existing high school. The vote will be this Valentine’s Day.
Because I’ve been going to work so early, I’m taking a 3-4 hour break and going to the gym and them back to Taj Mahtrailer (my fifth wheel which is my base of operations here is Moses Lake) to shower. Today it’s my quad and calf workout consisting of Squats (3 sets of 10 reps), leg press (3 sets of 10 reps), leg extension (3 sets of 10 reps), and seated calf raises (3 sets of 15 reps). Finished with cardio: 20 minutes each on an elliptical and a stationary bike.
Weight: 270 lbs. (-1), and I’m on day two of my 1,400 calorie regimen. Not sure where my target, or healthy, weight is, but since January of 2016 I’ve taken off 54 lbs. Last March I was tipping the scales at 242 lbs., but gained some of that weight back. What I find works well for me is prepping my next day’s meals the night before, knowing what I have to eat for the entire day and dolling out a small meal every couple of hours. I’m eating two sandwiches that I cut in half. Each sandwich is two slices of Dave’s Super Seedy Whole Wheat bread and has half a Laughing Cow cheese wedge spread on it and three slices of Oscar Meyer Ham. To make sure I’m getting the minimum amount of protein, I’m supplementing a protein bar and shake as well. I also have a Yoplait yogurt, a Jell-O 60 calorie snack and a couple whole dill pickles. It doesn’t take much to add up to 1,400 calories.
On my way back to work after the gym and showering I was listening to NPR’s Hidden Brain, Episode 56: Getting Unstuck. The topic of this podcast resonated with me and I think it’s part of the reason I decided to start a blog. I’m not writing for any audience…this is more a journal for me to look back at as well as a means for me to document what I can accomplish in a year’s time.
The podcast is about how we can feel stuck in our lives for any number of reasons and applying “design thinking” which is:
Design thinking is about recognizing your constraints, realizing there isn’t just one answer, and then trying something: “Building a prototype,” getting information from it, and then trying something else.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy about my life, in fact just the opposite – I’ve always had a certain fatalistic optimism; it’s just that as I’m fast approaching 50, I have an appreciation for how finite the amount of time we each have and that I want to “design” the life I want to lead.
Here’s the link. It’s well worth a listen:
Here’s the book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans:
I’m going to buy the Kindle version and start reading it.