September 29, 2012 - Cheat Day

September 29, 2012 (Saturday)
(Post 613, Day 273 of 2012, 638 days since original post)

Daily Comment

What a nothing day. Watched TV and some movies on my computer. That's it.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        201.6 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    199.4 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     + 2.2 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011

Diet Comment

The bachelor party, basically a pre-cheat day cheat, had its expected effect. I probably should have cancelled the cheat day, but I'd already stocked up. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Chocolate chip cookies. Ezekiel Golden Flax sprouted grain cereal with blueberries, almond milk and stevia-erythritol blend.

Lunch

On the road: Second Nature Wholesome Medley (dark chocolate chunks, roasted and salted peanuts, almonds and cashews, tart red cherries and dried cranberries).

Dinner
More of everything I'd eaten earlier: Cookies, Wholesome Medley, Ezekiel Golden Flax sprouted grain cereal with blueberries, almond milk and stevia-erythritol blend.

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  0 oz,  Water: 64+ oz. 

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September 28, 2012

September 28, 2012 (Friday)
(Post 612, Day 272 of 2012, 637 days since original post)

Daily Comment

Do clothes make the man? I don't think so. I hope not. I'm more of a "can't judge a book by looking at the cover" kind of guy.

I think it is easier to put up a facade by dressing to impress (no matter what impression you are trying to make) than it is to dress in a way that is an expression of your true self; and, if you are in touch with your true self, I don't think you are giving much thought to society's ideas of fashion, or, outside of the functional aspects, to what you wear at all.

In the past, I have been very self-conscious about how I dressed. I tried to express myself through clothing, but, in fact, only wore what I thought expressed the image I was trying to project.

"Image" and "project" are the key words in that last sentence.

I have always known (and admired) people who seemed to effortlessly look neat and composed, well-dressed and well-groomed. People with poise.

But I never really considered even trying to dress like that, because I thought, for a number of good, bad, physical and psychological reasons, that I couldn't pull it off. 

Physically, I was (very) tall and skinny, not particularly well-coordinated. Off-the-rack clothes rarely fit in a way that looked neat, and I didn't have the physical coordination required for 'poise.'

Psychologically, I lacked the self-confidence, and the compensating social skills, to project the image of who I wanted to be. 

It always seemed to me that, you had to just have it, effortlessly. I never understood how it developed, what was required to 'have it.'

These days, I've given up worrying about it.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        199.4 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    202.0 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     - 2.6 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011

Diet Comment

A successful 24-hour fast helped the chart today. Tonight's bachelor party might prove to be a setback. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Cocoa-kale protein shake (almond milk, whey protein (36g protein), kale, chia gel, large egg, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, stevia-erithrytol blend).

Lunch
Spring Mix with red cabbage and balsamic dressing.

Snack
Pepperoni.

Dinner
This was a bachelor party - we went to a number of places, none of which were restaurants. A lot was eaten, a little was drunk. None of it was on-plan. None of it. I don't remember much, but it did include things like popcorn, potato skins, fries, wings, burgers, nachos, M&Ms, and, finally, pie. This is what happens when, for social purposes, you cede control. Epic fail.

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  32 oz,  Water: 104+ oz. Jameson's: ~4oz, and two bottles of Mich Ultra

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September 27, 2012 - Fast Day

September 27, 2012 (Thursday)
(Post 611, Day 271 of 2012, 636 days since original post)

Daily Comment

To quote Cyndi Lauper, "Money changes everything."

For me, usually not for the better.

I am not certain why I have this diffidence about money matters, but I can tell you this: Anything I have ever tried to do for the sole or primary purpose of making money, has failed.

I have no stomach for pursuing wealth. In fact, even when I've been successful at accumulating surplus money, I have managed to give it all back (and then some) or spend it or somehow end up, at best, only slightly better off. 

I have heard that if you do something you enjoy, the money will come. I can't dispute that, but everything I've ever enjoyed doing has become less enjoyable, and in a few cases, odious, when I've tried to turn it into a money-making proposition.

That is despite my enjoyment. A recent example is photography. For fifty-five years, I have enjoyed taking pictures. I think some of my photos were quite good. Recently, I read about the money-making possibilities of micro-stock photography. I spent a little money on information on how to make a go of this, there are online courses available.

Then I spent quite a bit of money upgrading my camera, buying lenses, software, etc. 

I read the courseware. Nothing in it turned me off, but pretty soon I found myself taking fewer pictures, and feeling uninspired when I took my camera out. I was turned off to photography.

That is just a recent example. Past examples include almost everything I ever did that I don't do any more.

I even stopped playing bass for quite a while, because I had gotten unhappy monetizing it, trying to make money playing. Pretty soon, I had lots of other priorities. During those years (twelve!), I forgot how much I enjoyed it. When I started back into it, it was just for the fun of it. When it became a chore, when I joined a gigging band that was focused on being a 'success,' it got bad for me again, and I stopped playing for almost a year. 

I came back to it after moving to Syracuse. I decided that I would not play for money, or for any reason other than the enjoyment of playing. As a result, these days, I enjoy my bass playing more than ever.

I don't believe that money is the root of all evil, at all, but I believe that, for me, the pursuit of money is.

Which is interesting, because, in the past, I have shown that I can be successful at it, at least in the short run: Temporarily. For whatever reason, this success is not inspirational, and I don't get a whole lot of pleasure in it after the novelty wears off.

And, after the novelty wears off, I find the things that I enjoyed doing, the things that were responsible for that success, no longer give me as much pleasure; as a result, I stop doing them, or don't give them enough time, and that results in losing whatever I had gained that way. 

In some cases, that enjoyable thing (for instance,the processes I used to become, temporarily, a successful equity investor) stopped producing good results. That's what happened with my greatest investing success: The techniques I used that brought me success, stopped being working, and I lost a lot of money - a lot - waiting for the process to regain its past success. It didn't. I stopped using it, and, years later, I checked: It never came back.

An expensive lesson.

Or, there was the time in my early 20s that I had considerable success as a sales rep, traveling all over the Northeast. I was good at it, but when I wanted to enoy my success, I found out that the time spent away from home had negatively affected my relationships - I was on a different schedule, and enjoying a different lifestyle than most of my friends. As soon as I became dissatisfied with constantly being on the road (see hundreds of pop songs about the pitfalls of life on the road), my business suffered, and pretty soon, events came to bear that put me out of that business.

Every time I've ever tried to do a job where I didn't like the work, just to be employed and have an income, I, or the job, have failed.

So it goes.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        202.0 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    204.8 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     - 2.8 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011

Diet Comment

Eating on plan and drinking more water gave me a nice loss on the day. Today's fast should help preserve the weight loss, if not extend it. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Skipped.

Lunch
Skipped.

Dinner

Wild-caught salmon burgers with rainbow slaw. Not shown: Spring Mix with red cabbage , hard=boiled eggs and balsamic vinaigrette.

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  32 oz,  Water: 120+ oz.

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September 26, 2012

September 26, 2012 (Wednesday)
(Post 610, Day 270 of 2012, 635 days since original post)

Daily Comment

I reached a milestone today.

I checked my account, and find myself to be, for the first time, debt-free.

If you exclude home mortgage loans (and two auto loans, the second one of which was repaid by 1996), I was debt-free from 1979 (when I paid off a small student loan that originated in 1977) to 2005. I started taking on debt when I got married for the second time (although, without going into more debt myself, I paid off all my fiance's loans before we were married on Christmas Day, 2004). At that time, thanks to investments and stock options I got in 2001, my net worth was in the 6-figure range.

Four years later, I was unemployed, homeless, and deep in debt. In October of 2008, when I had moved to Syracuse (3 months earlier), rented an apartment, unpacked and bought some new, needed household goods, I took  stock and found myself with about $13,000 of credit card and $17,000 student loan debt from my failed attempt at Nursing school.

No magic, and not painless. Here's how I did it: I made a budget. 

I figured out my bottom-line cost of living, looked at the difference between that and my take-home pay, and used about 90% of that for loan repayment. I did a one-time prioritization of the loans, in size order, smallest at the top, student loan at the bottom. I paid twice the minimum payment on every loan except the top priority loan (the one with the smallest amount); the lowest balance loan got all the remaining loan repayment money. 

All tax refunds, and any extra income I made, went to loan repayment. I paid back loan after loan this way, and on Monday, I retired the student loan, just short of 3 years after I did my original budget.

I got my first credit card, from Barney's, when I was sixteen years old (1966, if you're keeping score). I freaked out when I got my first bill and saw how much interest I was paying (no interest-free repayment period in those days). For the rest of my life, I did everything I could do to avoid credit card debt. Debt just felt wrong to me.

Like most people in the industrialized world, I have a complicated and highly emotional relationship with personal finances - although I would bet that a huge majority choose to deal with this primarily by paying it no attention.

I could never go that route. I used budget software as soon as it was available (Dollars and $ense, 1984). I did my own taxes as soon as the first version of TurboTax was made available. I got into the habit of keeping track of all my expenses. Very OCD of me. All right, not so much OCD as anal retentive. Or maybe they're the same.

How did this strange behavior came about? There were childhood influences, like feeling I (my family) was the poorest among my friends; having a financially astute grandmother who was similarly obsessed, and always fighting with my mother (frequently, about money); and watching my father declare bankruptcy after his first heart attack). 

But, mainly, I think it was because of my own life-long struggle with impulse control. I got myself into financial troubles a few times in my mid-to-latet-20s. At times, these problems caused enough stress to give me an anxiety attack. Putting attention on my personal finances helped.

I have a lot of gratitude for all the forces and influences that have somehow managed to get me to this place, so near the end of my working career. I admit, it is a good feeling to know that I have paid off every financial debt I have ever had. I wish all my debts could be accounted for that way, but there are some debts you can never repay. But, they're not financial.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        204.8 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    202.8 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     + 2.0 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011

Diet Comment

Ugh. Yesterday's off-plan  snacking plus late night feeding did real damage this time. I have to cut back. Also, start drinking more water. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Chia gel.

Lunch
at Ling-Ling Chinese Buffet:

The stnadard: kimchee and, from the "Mongolian Grill" chicken, pork, bean sprouts, cabbage, onions, peppers, broccoli, mushrooms in a chili sauce with hot pepper sauce.

Dinner

Roasted turkey breast, celery and home-made mayonnaise.

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  22 oz,  Water: 100+ oz.

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September 25, 2012

September 25, 2012 (Tuesday)
(Post 609, Day 269 of 2012, 634 days since original post)

Daily Comment

I spend more time alone than most people, I think.

I live alone, so the only opportunity to socialize is at work or when I go out. 

I work alone, too - my job is 'virtual' which means I am not co-located with other members of my department. My cubicle is in rented office space in a medical office building, not the Syracuse VA Medical Center. Everybody around my cubicle is in the Accounting Department. 

80% of my interpersonal dialogs happen via email, the other 19.5% happens by phone. There are only occasional opportunities (and not daily) to talk with other people. And they don't come up daily.

A lot of times when I leave work or my apartment, it is to run errands, a solitary task. While I try to be polite but engaging, any conversations I have are impersonal, relevant only to the task on hand.

I don't play team sports, have any real interest in college or pro athletics, and I don't go out for a beer at the neighborhood bar (I go there on Open Mic night and drink club soda). I rarely socialize without an occasion (although I will go out for any occasion that gives me the opportunity to spend time with friends and family). 

I have to drive for four-plus-hours or take a seven-hour flight to be in the company of family members. It is the same driving distance to see  friends from my pre-Syracuse (three years) past, so don't get to see them as often as I'd like, either. Any out-of-town visits are confined to weekends because of that travel.

Music is my main social outlet - which may be most of the reason I limit my music-making to ensemble/groups and don't have an inclination to play solo. Or even to practice that way. The only times I enjoy music on my own these days is when I'm working on a 'private' musical project (which usually means transforming a group recording to a CD), learning a tune or driving in my car.

It turns out that I'm okay with all that. I don't feel lonely when I'm alone. 

I have cultivated lots of interests (outside of music) that  I enjoy doing by myself. I don't feel that everything I do can or has to be done with other people's participation. I'm okay when I'm on my own, and have always been. I wouldn't be happy in isolation, but that isn't something I have to deal with, either. I am comfortable in social situations.

Does my alone-ness have a down-side? Of course. There are times when a desire for company goes unfulfilled. There are activities that are more fun, or only do-able when shared. I'm left out of those things these days. And I don't participate in couples activities.

At this point I am really focused on  the things (outside of music) that I can do alone. 

Of course, all this makes me a terrible candidate for a "relationship." Especially a romantic relationship. But I don't feel any sense of loss in that. 

I reject the idea that I need someone to "complete" me, or that my happiness depends on someone else. It isn't that I think I can (or must) be completely self-reliant, it is that I don't make my happiness someone else's responsibility, even in part.

I feel I am open to new relationships. I have formed dozens of new relationships in the last three years since I came (alone) to Syracuse. But until I meet someone who feels the same way about these things as I do, it isn't going to happen. 

It is a high bar (wall?) I have put up: It requires someone who rejects the notion that other people are responsible for their happiness or satisfaction,and doesn't need a dependent or codependent.

Still, the possibility that I could meet some like that tomorrow, or in four years, when I won't have the social opportunities of the workplace (permanently) or the musician's life (temporarily), or any time or place thereafter. 

I hope I'm not kidding myself that I'm open to that.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        202.8 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    202.8 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     - 0.0 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011.

Diet Comment

No movement. At least, yesterday's little bit of off-plan 'lunch' plus late night mass-feeding didn't do any damage. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Chia gel.

Lunch

Salmon salad on Spring Mix with red cabbage and balsamic vinaigrette.

Snack
Cookies and crackers.

Dinner

Pepperoni, hard-boiled eggs, celery and home-made mayonnaise.

Snack
Blueberries and Ezekiel Golden Flax sprouted grain cereal with almond milk and stevia-erythritol blend.

Late Snack
Celery with mayonnaise. 

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  32 oz,  Water: 64+ oz.

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September 24, 2012

September 24, 2012 (Monday)
(Post 608, Day 268 of 2012, 633 days since original post)

Daily Comment

News first.

Today, I had two doctor's visits: My regular doctor's visit (every three months - blood panel review for medications and blood sugar); and a post-op visit to my surgeon.

Good news first: My surgeon is done with me, having seen that everything is doing well. I got a complete (I hope) level-set for the remainder of the healing process. The doctor says I do not need to modify my diet in any way, that I do have some stitches in two of my four small incisions, but that they will self-dissolve within the next 6 weeks (more or less). No follow-up necessary.

The good news from my regular doctor is that he is discontinuing my hypertension drug - my blood pressure is well-controlled.

The bad news is, that 3 months after discontinuing my statin drug, my cholesterol has crept up - but all LDL (aka 'bad') cholesterol. My HDL (aka 'good') cholesterol is actually down, and my triglycerides are up  as well. So, albeit at a lower dose, he's bringing back the statin.

Sigh. So close. If my lipid profile had been better, I would actually be off the medication bandwagon completely (except for my hypothyroid medication, that I have been taking for almost 25 years, and that is 'permanent' - not going away, like, ever).

I have very mixed feelings about taking statin drugs. First, I'm not sold on the idea that having high cholesterol is a problem. Supposedly an indicator for future heart problems, the literature suggests otherwise, in that half the people who die of heart attacks have 'normal' cholesterol levels, and the introduction of statins, the world's most prescribed medicines, has not improved changed that. 

There are also some worrisome side-effects if taking statins, chief of which, for me, at least, is that the FDA has found that taking statin drugs increases blood sugar levels/decreases control of blood sugar, leading to diagnoses of diabetes. Statins have also been implicated in increases in inflammation, especially of the muscles.

On the other hand, the AMA insists that the benefit in people who, like me, have multiple risk factors for heart disease outweigh the possible negatives.

For now, I'll trust the doctor, but I would rather control my cholesterol (which is still not, in total, at a dangerous level) with diet, or not worry about it at all, then take the drug for the rest of my life.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        202.8 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    203.0 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     - 0.2 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011.

Diet Comment

Not much movement from yesterday's almost-fast. Spending all night eating the entire pot of chili I made won't help, either. But it was so good. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Cocoa-kale protein shake (almond milk, whey protein (36g protein), kale, chia gel, large egg, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, stevia-erithrytol blend).

Lunch

Unfortunately, a very long weight at the surgeon's meant that all I ended up having for lunch were some crackers from the break room. Bad.

Dinner

Chili (Ground beef, black beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, spices) with peas and Greek yogurt.

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  32 oz,  Water: 80+ oz.

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September 23, 2012 - Fast Day

September 23, 2012 (Sunday)
(Post 607, Day 267 of 2012, 632 days since original post)

Daily Comment

I'm almost completely back from my surgery - except for one small thing.

My endurance is shot. I get tired very quickly. This is probably as much to do with the 10 days of bed rest I took, as the after-effects of the surgery itself.

But it is a fact, and I'm listening to my body, and doing the right thing - going home and getting rest when I feel I need it, but I can't say this is pleasing to me. Not at all.

Today I went to the Westcott Avenue Cultural Street Festival, where friends of mine were playing on the big stage. It involved quite a bit of walking, and then about 90 minutes of standing around (well, foot-tapping and in-place dancing once the music got going). There were two bands I wanted to see, but by the end of the first band's set, I was done. All I could think about was to go home and take a nap. 

Later, I went to one of my regular jam sessions. By the time my number was called, almost two hours had passed. I played a set, and, again, show's over for me. Home and to bed. 

Of course, I paid a price for my nap and woke up at 3:30AM Monday morning (which is when I began writing this commentary).

Tomorrow I have multiple Doctor visits - one to my regular doctor, and I'm hoping to lose my high blood pressure medication, which would meet my goal of being medication-free. 

We'll see.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        203.0 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    198.6 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain:     + 4.4 lbs

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011.

Diet Comment

Today's fast was a little shorter than I wanted - just over 17 hours. I got hungry, very hungry, so I had an early dinner. 

Food Log

Breakfast
Skipped.

Lunch

Skipped.

Dinner
Baby carrots, home-made mayonnaise and rainbow slaw (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, red and white cabbage) and hard-boiled eggs.



Liquid Intake
    Coffee:  32 oz,  Water: 88+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!