Things That Fit, But A Mind That Doesn't

There are some things in life that you can not appreciate, or perhaps even fully realize that are out there until you experience them... like a BBQ grill in the shape of a pig! I gained a good chunk of weight over the winter, but am working very hard and shedding it quickly. My clothes once again are starting to get “breathing room” in them. I tried on my skinny guy shorts (the smallest pair I own) the other day, and they are at the point of near wearability. I can button and zip them up but they are not quite at the point of being comfortable. . I’m starting to eye XL shirts again. Not really ready fully comfortable ready yet either, but I can jam myself into some of them. One of my friends mentioned about how her ring fit different as her weight changed and I got a kick out of putting on my old college ring again. One serious shaking and it goes flying off.

So I got a new experience today. Picture three parking spaces beside one another. I pull my car in the middle one, there is a car on both sides. The spot was just a bit “mind the door” tight but I got out with minimal effort and walked over and I started talking to a guy in the spot next to me who has an old truck next to my passenger side. I like antiques so we get talking… now next to my drivers side a woman who is a passenger of the other car gets beside her and my car and says loudly, “How am I suppose to get in there!”

I heard this and step to the side saying, “Oh, did I not park in the lines?” I was going to move but realized I wasn’t out of my space, neither they theirs, we were both in our respective spots… I guess they just are small parking spaces. Now the guy in the old truck suggested she just wait for the driver to back out of the spot first before she got in. Never underestimate the power of the practical wisdom of an old farmer.

She sort of grumbled but they figured it out in short order. As they pulled away I shrugged looking back at the farmer guy in the old truck and said, “I got out of my car ok?” sort of earnestly puzzled as it was snug but I didn’t think the thing was really impossible or even really difficult beyond just being careful not to ding their door. If I had gotten out how couldn’t she have gotten in? It didn’t make sense.

Now the thing that made my day… the old guy shrugged and without the slightest hint of sarcasm says, ”Well, she’s bigger than you.” Just a very simple, matter of fact, obvious explanation that makes perfect sense said only like an old farmer in an old pick up truck can. He said it so off the cuff and moved on like it was nothing, I was so truly blindsided by it. I almost stumbled away. I’m starting to bump into people who weigh more than I do now. No offense to them… hey I’ve been to the point where I think a 350lb doctors scale would not have covered it at one point… but now somehow there are people that are bigger than me?

It sort of made my day in one way, yet perplexed me and threw me off the whole day to no end. Perhaps some of you out there can understand? There are times where I think my self image goes to both ends of the spectrum. I honestly don’t think I can “really” see myself much at all. Whether I’m blocking it or twisting a perception, I really am blind when I see myself in a mirror… up or down. Had you honestly asked me about that woman I wouldn’t have thought of her as big, never mind bigger than me.

Even when I get on a scale. Naturally I like those numbers going down and all but somehow they don’t seem real. The only times I really seem to pick up on my changing form are occasionally I’ll be lying in bed and somehow brush an elbow or something and it feels sort of alien, I guess because part of it sort of isn’t there. The other times is in bicycling, the first couple of times I make a new hill without stopping… or suddenly notice I’m in a higher gear than what I’ve been using.

This happened once before with finding my wrist bones. I remember it was such an odd experience I actually questioned if I broke something at the time. There are times when my mind doesn’t fit. It works the other way too. The other night I really wanted to keep riding my bicycle, yet my body just couldn’t do any more miles… my body just wouldn’t “go” as much as I wanted to and tried to.

So much for the mind/body connection? Both of them have to check their day planner first before getting together?

At Foolsfitness we wonder how much Ego can we cram in a smaller body?

Bicycle Scavenger Hunt

In this picture you can see my 7 speed Raleigh I named “Boba” in front of an official tobacco store cigar Indian. My challenge to you is to get out your bicycle and ride to some place to take a picture of your own bicycle in front of something unique and post it up on your blog. Maybe you can find a neat named street sign, an old car, or in front of a nice backdrop. Let’s see who can find the oddest thing to take a picture of their bicycle with. Let’s have some fun while getting fit too.

Last year I put on about 205 miles on this cargo bicycle and this year I’m planning to do at least 300… perhaps more. A basic goal of 50 miles a month in the “fair” weather months. April was right on at about 56 miles. May so far I’m about half way to this month’s 50 with a few days to the middle of the month to spare. You can see a pick of my bicycle odometer…


I attribute a lot of my getting more fit to being in the saddle of the bicycle. I haven’t burned off all the winter fat yet, but I’m on my “weigh” (bad pun!) At least I haven’t popped a tire in the spring of this year (yet).

Happy and safe peddling! Foolsfitness- Alan

Going to the Hospital

I got my first “sports injury” playing Volleyball Tuesday night. If you look close at the pictures in the top one my right ring finger is rather puffy. I’ve put up a picture of the other hand to show the vast difference in size below it. I almost look at it as a badge… See this right here, I got that playing sports!

I haven’t gone to the hospital for it. A couple of days it’s still puffy, sore, and doesn’t bend well but I doubt it will need to be chopped off. What I *DO* go to the hospital for believe it or not is dinner or lunch a few times a week. Crazy? Isn’t hospital food terrible?

Hear me out. First of all the hospital bakes all their foods rather than frying them. Second they are cheap, for example I can get salads for 1.50 less a pound than at the supermarket. Lastly, one of the things I’m trying to do is learn serving portions. The hospital café tends to be inexpensive, reasonably healthy, and not completely heap the plate. At home one of the things I’ve adopted is measuring out my cereal and milk with a measuring cup. It’s so easy to just pour a double serving in a bowl otherwise.

There is one flaw to my hospital café eating plan I noticed last night. The nice lunch ladies there are starting to recognize me and seem to be starting to increasing the amount of food on the plate, perhaps out of trying to be nice and wanting me to get a good deal or something? It was a huge error last night as it seemed to trigger me to also add in some bread and a brownie for dessert… somehow I ended the day with like 3,100 calories!!! I’ve got to share my plans and goals with them and get them on my side. Sure I want a good deal for my money, but I either got to take some of it to go or get a half serving or something.

Now for something totally irrelevant to weight loss. But I have to rant… I watched the new Green Hornet Movie last night. I was so disappointed. I’m a huge Green Hornet fan, the comics and also the old radio programs… they made the Green Hornet into a buffoon. The “tech” and effects were great (I loved machine guns in the suicide doors!). I did like that they respected Kato more but to make the Hornet into someone who just “lucks” into stuff… I don’t think they paid it proper due. I guess it’s a hard movie to make because he’s a lot like Batman. Brett has more class than that.

Over 55 Pounds Gained?!

(The picture is the conflicting scene at my works break room... Did you see the donuts or the scale first?!)

Speaking of conflicting... Well I’ve enjoyed quite the roller coaster gaining 55.5 pounds of winter fat!!! Last years low was about 282 and at the end of the winter I had skyrocketed to 338 pounds! That’s a mere 5 pounds away from my starting weight a couple of years back!!! All that work and poof in six months!!!

Though fear not. This is indeed Fools Fitness but even a fool can learn, abet slowly. In the month of April, naturally April 1st I tried to renew my commitment to a more fit me. In April I dropped 21 pounds!!! Currently I am 317.

So what have I learned? What has changed? Wow there seems like so much. Some of it seems so elementary yet it really takes me a while to pick up on stuff.

1) I am *way* more active in the summer. (example Aprils bicycling over 50 miles, March zero) At lot of the fitness I enjoyed centered around walking and biking.

FIX: Now Set a rule of minimum 4 days a week walking (or bicycle) at least 3 miles. OR during bad weather an hour in the pool doing my Alan Paddles. (I don’t call it dog paddles because it would insult dogs. A simple goal of to keep moving.) It usually ends up more miles and more days a week but the minimums get me out.



2) I may have set myself up for failure in setting my calorie intake too low and never eating anything of any seriously nutritious value… then starved and binged.

FIX: bumped up my calorie intake to 2000 calories a day, and try to hit all major food groups. Even that tracked at a consistent 4 pounds dropped each week for 3 weeks. This works when I am active.

I even take a multivitamin from time to time! My rules of all foods stands though. I still have pizza, Funny Bones, gooey yummy Chinese food, ice cream, peanut butter, and Doritos. Big Macs are still tasty! Anything goes! But not everything of anything! I try not to do them all at once!!!



3) I fail to continue to pay attention. I also get a bit overconfident as I succeed.

FIX: I’ve started to write down all my food in a journal as well as the exercise I do, every day. No exceptions. Tracking it keeps it fore front in my mind. it’s a bit of work but I think pays in the end. I can see trends and writing it down physically makes it real and tangible. Also the blog journal. If I stop paying attention and start my evil super villain laugh it’s a set up for a failure.


4) I can’t cut corners loosing the gym membership.

FIX: I need the mood and energy boost, especially during bad weather… rain or snow. That membership is very expensive, but it’s also very expensive to get in a funk and gain 55 pounds!



5) Food is not medication and it will not fix my car!

FIX: awareness and reminding myself that some comfort food really isn’t a good long term fix for what ever is going on.


6) Staying connected… The blog and friends are key elements too!

FIX: there is a correlation when I dropped writing and started gaining and I don’t think its coincidence. If that means bringing a jump drive with a blog entry to upload at the library it’s still worth the effort. Also having feedback (on the comment section as well as with friends off line) is helpful. It gives me a third person perspective, keeps me thinking, and with new ideas. I’ve got to stay connected somehow.

55.5 pounds x 3,500 calories= 194,250 calories gained in six months… Mind boggling. Am I a bear needing a winter coat? I may be in a cage, but I’m still a panther!!! Doctor Chinese Food and his Diabolical Ice Cream Minions armed with Hunger Ray Guns won a round… but don’t count out Captain Unbelievable yet! 21 pounds gone… AGAIN! A month ago I was devastated, but these things I think I am learning are gems of incredible value. Gaining 55.5 pounds is a victory at Foolsfitness.

(Captain Unbelievable, Doctor Chinese Food, and the Diabolical Ice Cream Minions with their Hunger Ray Guns are intellectual property of Fools Fitness May 1st 2011... Get your own Superhero and arch nemesis… before they are all gone!) Foolsfitness- Alan

The End of the World is Coming, I Got a Planner

When I was in school my friends and I made a pact because we were *real* artists. We’d never be “sell outs” painting sail boats or light houses, and never own a daily planner! The end of the world would be near before we’d start producing general pretty picture flowers junk commercial art!!! We were Artists! (Notice it’s even with a capital “A” too)

I held on to that pledge actually for quite a while. I don’t know when it happened but I think someone gave me one of those Kitten Planners that are so tiny and innocent looking all 3 by 5 and costing like a dollar. I thought it was rebel too, big ruff and tumble me with the little booklet with 2 little kittens on it.

One year I got totally out of hand. I got a planner given to me with post it notes complete with duplicate carbon copy sheets and even a calculator. The corners of the pages had tiny perforations to tear away so you’d instantly flip to the right date. I kept a pen clipped in the planner! The sickness of it. Now addicted to planners last year I actually started buying my own, my mind twisted by imposed indoctrinated thoughts of systematic conformity I even shelled out *15 bucks* for one with tabs! What was I thinking?!

Today I started the year off in a normal Fools Fitness random manner. Some people have resolutions to catch up on bills, loose weight, or stop smoking…I ate more Chinese food than I should, spending money I really don’t have, started smoking my captain black pipe tobacco, and buying another planner. Just to be safe I cancelled my gym membership in December too. (Yes, all this is true) But my new planner was under 4 dollars, so I‘m not a complete sell out am I?

Most people break their New Years resolutions… So I’m playing the odds. I’m also trying to figure out a way that I can buy lottery tickets but somehow bet on that they are actually non-winning tickets. Maybe I could bet the people in line at the connivance store that are buying them that they won‘t win? Think outside the box my friends. Make your resolution to loose weight another day than in a News Years resolution… like me on April Fools Day!

Back to my new planner date book. I actually do find it helpful to keep track of appointments, write down the odd note, and make lists at times. I think it’s important to have a plan and refer to it over and over to see if you are heading in the general right direction. However my great plans for world domination seem to be always encountering unforeseen, ill prepared for, or just plain development in general that I could have easily avoided if I wasn‘t so full of myself laughing manically not paying attention and losing focus.

Isn’t that the way though? It’s so easy to make a plan, “I want to lose weight”. After all I have a planner and I can write it in there. It’s so simple, yet then there are the details and following through, keeping on course, dealing with the random events… Like the end of the world. I’ve penciled it in for a possibility for May 21, 2011 or just a general massive Earthquake and Tsunami that wipes out the eastern USA on December 20, 2011... And am trying to keep a general open calendar for all of 2012.

I don’t think anyone is suppose to know the exact date of the end of the world but I figure someone is bound to hit it eventually. Maybe those Mayans just got tired of making the calendar and stopped writing. I’d go on strike too if someone told me to keep going after I made a calendar that covered a couple of thousand years. Maybe they just ran out of room. After all I only got an 18 month planner at the store.

Just a few parting thoughts about my new “plan ahead” CVS 4 dollar planner. Does anyone find it really helpful to have those sections like the “weights and measures” that gives you the fact that 40 rods equals a Furlong or the CIA‘s website address? (Both are really preprinted in my in my planner)

At Foolsfitness paintings of lighthouses and sailboats will be gladly made in exchange for food, rent, gas, guitar fund, captain black pipe tobacco, or general cat care supply funding.-Alan

Foolsfitness Merry Christmas VIDEO!

A Merry Christmas VIDEO from Fools Fitness.

The Blues and a Guitar that Quacks Like A Duck!

First an odd disclaimer: to someone that might be reading this that I promised a guitar to for Christmas… (*NO* this one is not your gift, and you can’t have it… this is a different guitar! Yours is a deep red classical, and of a quite higher pedigree)

OK, Back to the blog post:

Well, I’m almost back to functional here. But the tosses and turns have somehow left me spun around and like 40 pounds heavier in about 3 months… insane, I know. after all the hard work, all that damage… I blame that wild medication reaction some, but I also have take full responsibility for me eating waaay too much and not doing gym, volleyball, or riding the bicycle… What can I say other than I just don’t feel well…

With all this bizarre stuff going on I got into a funk, I’m still in a funk…

Naturally I should start learning the guitar and play the Blues, right !?!

So let me share a story about my new hobby and not giving up…

Foolsfitness would like to tell you a story about a guitar. This is not just any ole guitar, but the kind that is destined for legend… or at the least it just has a bit of the blues injected into it through it’s tough times. I can see writing up several blues songs just about this guitar I call “Mouse” that I have starting out walking on the blues road with.

I’m talking about an old Harmony ¾ folk steel string acoustic guitar, near as I can tell circa 1984. How the little guy started out I wonder… maybe like most of his other little siblings in some hard life stuck with an abusive relationship with a kid who didn’t know any better or much care about how he treated some whim Christmas present.

Of its past I know it was bought at a yard sale, and *then* stored in a barn for years. A lady who is a friend of mine, her mother gave it to me. While it was in kindness, that I appreciate, I think she appreciated to be free of the clutter too. The mother’s husband put on a high E string as the old one had long since seen string heaven.

So I get the guitar and turn it over looking at the sunburst color on the front and deep wood grain on the back. It was proudly showing off it’s “steel reinforced neck” sticker that was peeling up and I heard something loose rattling about as I turned the guitar around. Apparently in it’s life it had also had some side work as a mouse shack. I removed a bit of fuzz and a little kernel of something I couldn’t quite reckon what it was from inside the sound hole after a *whole lot of shaking going on*…(Couldn’t resist the song pun)

These strings, or the five that hadn’t been replaced were rusted. I take it to a pal who tunes it by ear the best he can, He’s old and hard of hearing, but I’m tone deaf and can’t play a chord to sound right anyway, so I don’t much care. I figure close is just fine.

Over the next week I broke another string and while tuning it after replacement broke a third. Then broke one of other the *new* ones I just put on… maybe some bad mojo for running away with some mouse’s pad, or just ignorance on my part being new and over tuning it?

So I cut off *all* the strings and spend a night just cleaning the whole thing. I bring it to a local guitar shop who says it won’t stay in tune because the bridge was lifting, wants to charge me 25 bucks to put strings on it with also the warning that he could snap off the bridge in the process too… on a guitar that bought at J C Penny that cost that much new, and street value now is about 20 bucks! Let’s just say between two sets of strings I have invested more than what I could likely buy another whole guitar just like it for.

So I take my frustration and a new set of soft steel strings (2nd set of strings) away from that shop and hunt down *another* friend. This one a bit younger and still has that youthful “can do” enthusiasm. She takes the guitar and lets just say the old thing needed a woman’s touch. However sure enough the bridge starts prying up and she can’t keep it in tune. But she explains to me that it’s still a good starter guitar and it’s reasonably close to in tune.

I squirted a whole tube of super glue gel under the bridge to keep it from popping off and it seemed to harden enough to keep a bit better tune for a couple of weeks. I’ve become Ahab and this is my whale obsession. Yet there is something freeing about the whole thing here. I have it leaned against my bookcase and maybe because it didn’t cost a lot it’s less intimidating somehow and I seem to pick it up frequently to practice a few chords while dinner is cooking, and also I’m not afraid of leaving it out around the cat. She has NOT decided it is a scratching post (Yet?)… even though I’ve decided to call my new (er old) guitar “Mouse“.

The superglue turned some of the bridge wood and surrounding area white. So naturally I took a trusty sharpie marker and went to work on my guitar's shoe shine, as well as touched a few chipped color areas too. Superglue, permanent marker… hey, no duck tape yet.

As I'm starting to learn more I'm exploring the neck of the guitar a bit in playing beyond open chords... I've got a few high spots that buzz a couple of notes here and there that I know after looking very careful is not my finger position. Perhaps this will make me learn alternate fingering of notes as I'm going to have to work playing around them.

Yet in the “Blues Beggar style” (Do I even have a style yet?) I think I have developed a signature note. You could look at the guitars warped neck as irritating, and I do to some extent... but I found playing a version of the four note “I am a man” or Hoochie lick (Low E fret 3-0-3-5) the last note gives me an odd buzz. So I've been working on a pop of the string and a twisting lift off bend that makes the note "Quack" So it doesn’t have duck tape yet, but it can quack!

So in the future when you think of Quackery (or is it tom foolery?), you may just think of “The Blues Beggar“!
aka Foolsfitness
or Alan…
aka the artist formally known as any of the above and just likes to refer to himself in third person.

So the “Mouse” and I are both playing a little out of tune just fine together. It’s not as tasty as Chinese Food, but I can practice my “licks”… actually so far it seems like a bit of good therapy. -Alan