Keeping Goals in Perspective/Reality

I've posted frequently about my effort toward the Presidential Fitness Champion awards.  With Silver still 20% away, then Gold and 1,000,000 points to the Platinum award, this is going to take a long time.  At the same time I'm contributing to the John Stone Fitness Forum 1,000,000 push-up challenge.  You would think that challenge wouldn't take long.  Even as a weightlifting, power-lifting and bodybuilding forum where most folks lift weights instead of doing calisthenics and body weight exercises some push-ups have to be done as warm-ups and cool-downs.  The real problem seems to be the short duration of posters keeping track of their push-ups and logging them.  Inconsistency is also a problem-I know I don't log in often enough and add the few push-ups I do.  The 1 million push-up thread has been languishing just over 160,000 push-ups for a long time-only 1/6th of the way to the goal.

This is pretty bad.  With 844,000 push-ups to go this might never get done.  But it wouldn't be hard if a few folks that consistently do push-ups jumped on board.  Imagine a handful of people that did 25-50 push-ups a day tracking their effort and posting.  5,000 push-ups a month would make some progress.  That would still only be 60,000 push-ups a year-so 14 more years!

I'll have my Platinum award by then. Nothing like big goals....

Update on the Presidential Fitness Champions Award

Catching up on data entry bit by bit.  I'm almost caught up for the days I can go back and enter data at the President's Fitness website.  Last night a marathon session of recording favorite workouts and point earning events resulted in topping 75% of the 90,000 points needed for my Silver award!

Progress!

I don't use a FitBit or a pedometer so I have to guess steps.  Websites vary with the average number of steps an American takes in a day.  I also know my days vary-some I'm walking around a lot, others I am your typical sedentary American.  But I have upped the number I enter as I was probably way low at 2000 a day.  With all the other ways to earn points and being more consistent in recording them, I should have the Silver award soon-hopefully January at the latest.  Then it's 70,000 more points for Gold, and I only have 68,206 right now!  Nothing like long-term goals you can make progress to every single day.

Supplement try-out, review to follow

I travel a great deal, and usually take a few days to adjust to the new time zones.  My co-workers and I discussed sleep aids last night.  So I'm trying the first one tonight and will see how it does.  It is an OTC sleep aid from CVS but I don't know what's in it.  I took it just over an hour ago and am a bit sleepier but not conked out.  I'll see how well I sleep-I'm three time zones "later" or east of home and have been sleeping fitfully.

Review to follow with info on what's in the pill too.

Too much "can do" can do you in

When I was a student at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center (NDSTC aka The Dive School), one of the Diving Medical Techs/Corpsman had a saying.  He would often say "Too much 'Can do' can do you in."  You see, "Can Do" was one of the motivational sayings we would use, and his point was being too "can do" at the wrong time could have very serious complications when you or your dive buddy's life depended on your physical and mental condition.  Did he mean we weren't to push ourselves?  No-while he didn't look the most imposing physically he could PT just as hard as any other instructor and his workouts were no joke.  But knowing ourselves and our condition became a reinforced instructional point as we progressed to being Navy Divers and Navy Diving Officers.

Fast forward over 20 years, and we're both long retired from the Navy.  But his words rang true again yesterday as I did a full day of chores for the first time since my back spasm I've already written about.  One task even involved shipping a large heavy box-what contributed to the back spasm in the first place!  So throughout the day I was conscious of when my posture started slipping-like raking/sweeping up leaves bent at the waist or bending awkwardly while working on my motorcycle.  The back seemed to hold up pretty well and I'm not too sore today.  Just the usual age related stuff mainly, so hopefully I wasn't too "Can Do" on my Honey-Do list!  Oh yeah, I also need to book a whole bunch of hours of household tasks type work on the Presidential Fitness Challenge.

A shotgun blast of short updates-no new "theme" per se

Ramblings of an over-caffeinated yet rested and generally pain-free brain:

1) Back spasm pretty much resolved after one month, relapse, chiropractic and medicinal treatment and lifestyle/stretching changes.  What I've learned:  These may get worse as I age, so proactive care will be needed.  Nothing I don't already know but need to keep doing the right things-posture, stretching, lifting and calisthenics to maintain core strength.  New tricks I learned this time around:  Heat immediately, not ice.  Stretching flat on back on a hard surface helps.  Psoas muscle as much the culprit as back muscles.

2) Diet important and getting enough calories helps across the board.  I'm less stressed, sleep better and generally healthier on a whole food diet but also need to ensure any calorie deficit is short-term and the rest of the diet is very solid if that is the case.  I have reached a new "set point" weight wise at 178-179 instead of 190-192 and happy at this weight as I start lifting again.  putting 5 pounds of lean muscle back on would be good but not essential.

3) Presidential Fitness Challenge and John Stone Fitness 1,000,000 push-up challenge are going to take a long time!  As most recently noted in this post I'm back to logging points for the Presidential Fitness Challenge.  I'm making progress, but as the awards get higher in value, the required points expand.  Getting to Silver is going to take a few more months, and then Gold and above are likely years away.  Another challenge I am doing is the 1 million pushup challenge over at www.johnstonefitness.com.  I may be the only person posting right now, and since I'm not doing a lot of pushups currently we might never make it.  Help out if you can!

Well, that's it for today, maybe some advice or work-out tip over the weekend.

Giving platelets again

I'm laying here with one armed tied to the arm of a donor bed.  I've been hooked up to an apheresis machine for exactly an hour on my way to giving 1 trillion platelets.

They look good, and I'm going strong.  This donation gets me over 32 gallons of blood product credits.  For reference, one whole blood donation is 1/8 a gallon!

Good blood pressure, pulse and hemoglobin before giving too.

Neat kitchen gadget I remember from my youth

Do you remember flour sifters from your mother or grandmother's kitchen?  I remember Mom had one that she would use baking.  Filling the sifter with floor, then turning the handle to sift the flour, break up smaller clumps and have nice uniform flour both foreshadowed yummy baked treats and looked like fun.  Getting to be old enough to use the sifter was a goal for a few months-simple but fun to use.

Via Commission Junction, or CJ now, the company that is the clearinghouse for my affiliate marketing, I received an e-mail from Jacob Bromwell Company that has been in business many years making classic American kitchen and household sundries.  One is the All-American Flour Sifter.  The company website states they have been making this sifter since 1819 and held the first patents for flour sifters.  Their sifter holds 5 cups of flour-probably close to as much as many of my foodie friends need for their recipes!  Built out of stainless steel, it is guaranteed not to rust and will likely become a family heirloom from the day it arrives at your house.



What a great Christmas present (or late birthday present) for that baker/foodie in your life.  In the sake of full disclosure, I do get a commission as an affiliate marketer for purchases made via this blog, and even more disclosure, since it's Movember I'm donating a portion of those commissions to the Movember Foundation in honor of my late friend Ed "Hoggy" Herrmann.

Follow-up: Hinesville GA YMCA Water Aerobics class

Nearly eight months ago, I wrote a post about swimming laps at a Y indoor pool when the water aerobics class took over about 1/3 for their class.  As recounted in the original post, some of these folks would never be considered "fitness models" as many are fighting what appears to be morbid obesity, limited mobility and other chronic issues.

Recent work travel has taken me back to the Hinesville/FT Stewart GA area and I stayed at the same hotel that comps workouts at the Y.  I had remembered this benefit, and packed my goggles.  I was able to swim some laps during my stay there, and sure enough I inadvertently timed it where once again I was finishing up as they warmed up and started their class.  One of the gentlemen in the class I remembered from February-while still very large, he's still there, getting his workout on.  I would bet not a one of us would look at him in another setting and realize how committed to his workout regimen and what fitness he can develop this man is.  We normally only think of the shapely person who meets our cultural and personal standards of fitness and beauty as disciplined and motivated to take care of themselves.  I readily admit one of my greatest prejudices is against obese people that appear to not be taking efforts to remain healthy.  How judgmental of me-I would hate to have had to compare workout logs with this man and other class participants, as I have been much less consistent this year than in the past.

Well done, Sir, and thank you for the encouragement and kind words!  Keep fighting for health.

Presidential Fitness Challenge Update

I finally got back to logging activity on the Presidential Champions page of the Presidential Fitness Challenge website.  While this hasn't been a great summer for working out, I have been modestly active.  Especially as the Presidential Champions website allows all kinds of activities as I have blogged about before, it's more the requirement to log each activity separately that is time consuming.  I've been kicked off the page a couple of times for no known reason too-frustrating when trying to catch up.  Currently you can log about two months back-so I've entered entries up to October 5th.  I'm still making steady progress-over 60,000 points without going to high point activities and still have most of October and this month's workouts and household activities to enter.  I may be able to get my silver award by the end of this year, but probably closer to January or February.

Getting the Platinum Award for 1,000,000 points is still way way off!  940,000 points to go at 4-5,000 a month means 186 months to go-15 and a half years.  I'd be 64 or so, but hey, what else are goals for?

It's Movember 2015!

Just a quick update.  I'm participating in Movember again this year.  I shaved this morning and for the rest of "Mo"vember I will be growing a mustache or "Mo" to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues.  Specifically, Movember raises awareness of prostrate cancer, testicular cancer and men's mental health.

I formed my team to honor Ed "Hoggy" Herrmann, a friend who lost his battle with prostrate cancer last December.  Here's a link to the team, please feel free to join the team or donate.

Thank you!