Okay, so my “Summer 2010 Fitness” plan has been officially initiated. This formerly fat, formally skinny fat kid hereby states his willingness, eagerness, and self-mandate to lose at least 40 lbs. of excess flab by the close of summer 2010 (August 31, we’ll say).
Presently — and now this shit’s getting personal — I weigh, give or take, about 210 lbs.
The weight on my driver’s license — from close to five years ago — says 141 lbs. Thanks to girlfriends past and present, a lack of willpower, and far too many trips to Applebee’s, I’ve basically lost all traces of my former obsession with working out, and my eating habits are all too American.
In high school, my T-shirts were size S. That’s SMALL, for those of you who pay attention to nothing. Now, to look less-than-ridiculous, I wear size Large. And it’s fuckin humiliating. Downright sorrowful. I used to look good, but lately I’m wondering if I could float across the Atlantic to save on boat tickets.
So, despite my absolute enmity for anything mathematical, I shall initiate a fitness plan based on percentage-of-completion. Right now, based on a freebee of 3%, which includes a trip to the driving range and whatever walking I’ve done so far this summer — a trip to the zoo, mostly — and a half-hour bike ride, I’m at 5%.
I shall outline my criteria as follows:
- full hour of walking = 1%
- full hour of running = 3%
- full hour of biking = 2%
- every 1 hr. of weightlifting = 3%
I will succeed, given these guidelines; it’s really nothing too strenuous — just the sort of stuff I used to do all the time, but now do very seldom. Due to laziness, distractions, and various other obsessions (i.e. fiction writing, which will benefit a great deal from fitness training, actually).
June 22, my best friend, Rob, will be returning home from basic training and a one-month post-B.T. stay in Oklahoma. He’s gonna be in shape; basically 400% of my own cardiac capacity. Well, shit, I don’t know math. But you get the point. I may be of fuller frame, and possibly greater overall bodily strength potential, but he’s definitely going to be kicking my ass when he gets back. Which means he has the power to be my own personal Master Yoda. He’ll hopefully beat the shit out of me, sculpting me into my former, 18-year-old self.
In other news… I should finish reading Crystal Rain any goddam day now, so maybe I’ll write a review; maybe I won’t. It’s really, really good so far.
I have received 15 rejections as of yesterday.
I have completed 2 first-draft manuscripts (one 10,000-word manuscript, one of 2,500 words) in the past two weeks, meaning I’m staying on track with my story-a-week summer goal. The 1,000 words/day part isn’t exactly going as planned, but I can fix that. I love writing, but without the privacy, time to think, et cetera, it can become difficult. What’s often most difficult is explaining your need for solitude to your partner/spouse. Ashleigh’s very supportive, but of course I always worry I’m offending her when I choose to take a night apart to work on a manuscript rather than be with her.
As is required of anyone trying to make a professional sale, I have to get more individual stories out to market. So, my current “Race Score” is at 6 — novelette S.O.G., short story T.B.D., short story T.D.S., short story T.C.O.T.F.D., and short-short story C.O.W. are all on various editors desks/computer drives across the nation/globe/galaxy. Within the next 2 weeks, for sure, it’ll be up to 8, once I get novelette L.S.B.T.W. and short story N.O.T.W. fully polished and mailed (L.S.B.T.W. to Writers of the Future, N.O.T.W. to whatever “weird tale” market doesn’t already have a story of mine on-hand). Of course, by then I’ll also have 2 more first drafts finished. By summer’s end, the world will be flooded with Alex J. Kane manuscripts.
To maintain my current goals of making a Pro Fiction Sale, losing at least 40 lbs. (or making sufficient effort to do so), and completing 1 story/week this summer, I shall make my percentage/completion for each specific project public here on my blog, therefore raising the probability of my success. I shall also do the same with my reading by having a “currently reading” status, as well as book reviews when I feel they’re appropriate — no point in reviewing, say, Ursula K. Le Guin’s classics or the works of Philip K. Dick. More likely, I’ll review the works of Tobias S. Buckell, Jay Lake, and other fairly new writers or brand-new works by established writers.
WOOHOO! Alex, this is awesome! It’s always tough to look at your current condition, conclude it sucks, and figure out where you want to go from there. Fitness is so hard for me because I’m the kind of guy who likes to finish something, have it done, then forget about it. Alas, fitness is a life-long thing, and it seems like for every week you put in, you can lose that whole week with just one or two days of not working out, or eating badly, or both.
Eating, for me, is the truly hardest part. I’ve never paid any attention to what I eat because I was that teen who could eat whatever he wanted, and he never got heavy. I was always a rail. Even in my 20′s I was a rail, and then… Well, the scales have tipped. I’m not too heavy yet, but my body fat % sucks and even though P90X is kicking my butt, it won’t show if I eat like drekh.
Anyway, so excited for you about your plan. GO DUDE!
Thanks, Brad. It’s good to have the support of others. I used to be skinny as a rail myself, but it only lasted a few years — then girlfriends happened, and I found myself eating out more and more (and boy do I love to eat!), and before long I was just unhappy with what I’d done to myself.
But, as you argue, it’s not about making excuses. What’s important is that you make an effort to achieve the desired results. My buddy who’s currently stationed in Oklahoma is a huge workout fiend, so I’m looking forward to his return on June 25th, so that we can bike, run, lift, all that good stuff. Without a friend, that stuff is just torturous to me. Can’t stand not having someone around to motivate you, or just to have the pleasure of conversation. I’m a big proponent of long-distance bike rides, which consist first of conversation, then a warmup, then an intense, prolonged distance ride, then a cool-down, then more conversation. That’s the ultimate workout, to me.
*grumble grumble*
Yeah, I’ve slowly been getting off my ass this year, too, since I don’t have a stressful 70-hour a week job to blame my ass on anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back down to my modeling weight, but I sure do miss being able to pull myself up a V3 bouldering problem on the rock wall or run a couple miles. Sigh.
Good luck, Alex! (and Brad!)
Annie, given the overall sedentary nature of the American populace, I’d say any physical activity you do — whatever it is — is a good thing. Me, I am getting aggressive because I am technically “middle age” and I want to hit my 40th birthday (still 4 years away, thank God!) looking and feeling better than I have in my entire life. I also feel like I owe it to my wife to be in that kind of veery-good shape, for all kinds of reasons. I will be healthier, I’ll be nicer to look at both in and out of clothes, it’ll be more fun in the bedroom, and she won’t have to worry so much about me being a heart attack case like my Dad was at that age.
Alex, you and I both love to eat. Or at least I love to eat a lot of crappy snacky stuff. Fast food, MMMM, can eat it all week long if I don’t stop myself. The diet portion of P90X is far harder — to me emotionally and mentally — than the exercise. Which is an eye-opener because I didn’t realize how wimpy I was in this aspect. I need to toughen up and learn to put the cake and cookies and ice cream down. Especially when I am mood eating. (Yes, men mood eat too, ladies, surprise surprise!)
I hear ya. First, let me again start by saying that what I like about your blog the most man is that it is very very honest. Never let go of that. Look at King, much of his best writing reads like someone sitting across the kitchen table from an old friend and telling an old late night story. Second, I am right there with you. I was 215 lbs, but less than 7% of my body weight was fat, according to Calipers, and am now 240 and not 7%! I did a 25 minute run and a 20 minute walk yesterday at the lake and could see serious looks of concern from every passerby. I wouldn’t have blamed them for calling an ambulance if they had, my face looked like one giant blister the way it was swollen, red, and practically squirting sweat. I had to ice both knees and ingest several mg’s of ibuprofen just to get to sleep! Any way, I took today off and am doing a 15 mile bike ride tomorrow that I am going to prepare with a warm up, stretch, and more analgesics prior and post workout. But hey, you know the rules of writing, YOU HAVE TO MAKE TIME TO WRITE, which often means devoting every spare second, that others spend bellied up to a bar or knocking out a P96 session, in front of a key board punching out word after word and then trying to organize thoughts into something descernable, and interesting. Eat plenty of veggies and fruit, and puke out as much prose as you can. And good luck!
Thanks, man. Glad you like it. I, too, appreciate honesty. And more importantly (pragmatically speaking), posting your goals publicly on your website makes you much more likely to follow through with them. I said that I was going to write a story every week this summer, and so far, with the exception of the first story, which took two weeks because it was a huge bastard, I’ve been keeping up. Finished one last week, and wrote a story last night from 6:30-11:00. They’re never all that good without a fair amount of revision, but I’m glad to be getting words out. Can’t wait to start losing weight and getting back in running shape, man. I know what you mean about “looks of concern”–that had me laughing, actually!
Ha, Brad, I’m getting aggressive about it now that I’m facing 30
Ryan had me cracking up, too. Love the face like a blister image (I’m Irish, we turn bright red with any sort of emotional or physical reaction).