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I started seeing a personal trainer again.  I’m starting over when it comes to fitness. I feel like I do better fitness wise when I have someone holding me accountable.  I at least want to get on a routine.  I’ve been eating healthier food as well, though I haven’t been perfect with that.  Hopefully, I’ll start seeing results soon.

I started taking guitar lessons as well.  I never had any formal training.  It’s been so long since I really practiced.  I think of myself as a newbie.  I’ve been having fun learning pieces of songs I listened to in the 90s.

I decided to retire my gaming desktop. I’m not planning on getting another desktop for the time being.  It’ll be the first time in 20 years that I haven’t had a desktop.  I’ve always kept a desktop around for gaming during that period.  Who wants to play games on a laptop? (I’ll admit that I have played some games that aren’t too intensive on laptops.)  Early on I would go back and forth from gaming predominately on a PC and gaming predominately on consoles.  Around 10 years ago that changed.  Even though I kept upgrading my desktops, I could never make PC gaming a lasting habit.  I haven’t given up on PC gaming, however.  Playing Overwatch at the Microsoft store has shown me that if you have a powerful enough machine, laptop gaming can be enjoyable.  So I invested in a relatively inexpensive gaming laptop and I am writing this entry on it. Trying something new.  I like that I can bring it downstairs to the living room and put it away when I’m done with it.  I’m installing games on it now.  Maybe I’ll review it once I’ve had a chance to play a few Overwatch matches on it.

Back in the spring, I started a new month-long workout routine.  There are some days of the month that this routine calls for me to run for an hour. Yes, a fucking hour.  While I was intimidated by this number at first, I quickly found that it was manageable.

Not long after this I joined a running meetup called the Queer Pacific Running Club.  They go for a five mile run in Forest Park in NW Portland every Saturday morning and then have brunch afterwards.  They have people of all levels normally, but I’m usually one of the slowest.  I don’t make it to many of these meetings because it takes up a large chunk of my Saturday and I hate feeling like I’m holding people up with my slowness.  They’re a friendly bunch of people and many of them are members of other groups that I participate in.

Not long before this I had started Couch to 5K.  I did this on the treadmill at the gym.  I think I got to my next to last week when I ran with Queer Pacific for the first time and completed the run, so I never bothered finishing c25k.  I’ve participated in 2 5ks in the past few months.

I really enjoy running though I don’t do it as consistently as I should.  I understand the runner’s high now.  Most of my running is at the gym and occasionally I’ll go running in my neighborhood or in Forrest Park.  The most I’ve gone is about 5.75 miles.  I hope to increase that and increase my pace.  I’ll probably keep doing fun 5ks. Maybe I’ll do 10ks since that’s only about half a mile more than my max.  I don’t know if I’ll ever do a half marathon or anything crazy like that.  I’m planning on going for a run after work today and I plan on joining Queer Pacific for the first time in a while this weekend.  I hear there have been a bunch of new faces recently and socializing was one of the main reasons I joined that group in the first place.

Wow! My dating life has taken off over the past couple of weeks. It’s not surprising that losing fat and putting on some muscle can make you much more appealing. People have told me that I seem more confident and my attitude has changed. I’d like to think that has something to do with it as well, but that part could be a direct result of losing fat and putting on muscle. But I guess physical appearance is what makes them interested in the first place.

I’m 36 and the guys that I have been out with lately are all between 20 and 25. I’ve seen one guy twice. This is surprising to me because most guys that young are only interested in guys around that age. In my experience, at least. I have been told that I look younger than I actually am though. It’s nice to hear guys tells me that I’m sexy, that I’m fun to hang out with, and they had fun when we did adult-type activities together.

Growing up, some of my friends would tell me that I wasn’t any fun to hang out with. Some of them would act like they were my friends, but would talk about me behind my back. This kind of thing lasted even into my college years, so even now I’m sometimes surprised when people like me and want to hang out with me.

When these nice, young guys are saying great things about me, there’s a small part of me that thinks there must be a catch. Are these guys up to something? Are they having fun at my expense? Is this some kind of joke? How can they like me?

Hopefully one day I’ll be able to get over these kinds of doubts and truly accept these guys as genuine. I know that I’m awesome and all the friends I’ve made in recent years and dates I’ve had in recent weeks are learning it as well.

It’s been a fairly uneventful month for me.  I did  start a new podcast  – What We Make: A Terminator Podcast.  It was originally going to be an introcast on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Since we were planning on discussing pretty much the entire Terminator universe, we decided to make it a general Terminator podcast.

I’m a lot less optimistic about work improving than I was before.  I spoke to someone in the same position as me earlier, so I’m not the only one who feels the way I do.

Fitness is going well.  I got my measurements today and I’m down to 11% body fat.  My trainer told me it would be really hard to get lower than that, but I’m going to try.  I got a Fitbit Charge HR yesterday and it’s pretty cool to monitor my heart rate.  I don’t like wearing anything around my wrist, but this device hasn’t been a problem for me.

I’m so busy I haven’t had much time for video games, TV, or movies. That should change this coming week. I’m looking forward to going to Raleigh in April and Mississippi in June.

Until next time.

Back in September I entered the first ever Lose-to-Win weight loss competition at my new gym, VillaSport, which had opened the month before. It ended 3 weeks ago.

I came in 11^th place out of 120-130 people in terms of percentage of weight loss.  I got 1^st place in participation points for going to the events and activities.  I got a $50 gift card at the gym for that. I used that card to buy a larger gym bag.  My team got 5^th place out of around 20 teams.  We each got a $25 check for that.

I’m happy with the results.  I got off to a slow start because I went to Hawaii soon after the competition began.  I didn’t finish as strongly as I would have liked to because of Thanksgiving.  Another thing is that I added some muscle.  Excuses excuses.  Still, I’ve been working hard to get into shape these past few months.

I was working out before the competition began.  The competition was just more motivation to get serious about losing weight again.  I found out because of the competition that my membership at this gym got me 4 30-minute sessions with a trainer. I picked out my trainer, Nate, because he specialized in body fat reduction and metabolic resistance training, which I had heard of and wanted to learn about. I thought I was doing a good job working out before, but these sessions proved that I wasn’t.  What he had me doing was tough.  Fitness has evolved and what he taught me started showing results even after just a few weeks.  Early on though I was afraid that Nate would tell me that I wasn’t cut out for MRT and that I would have to do something else.

In addition to better workouts, I got my eating back to what it needs to be.  I go out of my way not to use to d word.  I went crazy on Thanksgiving,but other than that I’ve been pretty good. I was already doing a lot of things right, but I got some more tips from Nate and a dietitian at the gym. I threw away everything that was unhealthy or expired in my kitchen and there was almost nothing left.  It was fun to go shopping for healthier food.

At one point I lost 5% of my body fat in a month, which Nate says is hard to do and is a record among his clients.  Apparently he’s been bragging about me because of that.  After about 5 weeks of a “basic” workout, I bought more sessions to learn a more advanced workout.  I thought what I was going before was tough, but this is even tougher. I’m getting the hang of and I’m actually enjoying it now. Nate also formulated a food plan that actually allowed for more food each day that I was previously eating.

I had my annual physical last week and unlike last year, my cholesterol was right where it needed to be.  Yay for overall health improvement!

I’ve been showing off how much progress I made after 3 months.  Pictures of me on this blog are pretty rare I think.

Let’s see what I can do in another 3 months.

I bought a Fitbit One about a month and a half ago. It’s one of the many wearable fitness devices that are growing in popularity. It keeps track of steps, calories burned, stairs climbed, etc. You can also use it to track your sleep. I had already pre-ordered the new Fitbit device that’s supposed to be coming out soon, but I got tired of waiting. At one point, I thought about getting a Nike Fuelband, but I didn’t want to wear anything on my wrist. I don’t even wear watches anymore. I can put the Fitbit in my pocket and forget about it.

Fitbit has an app that I use a lot now. I was already using it to track my weight, but now I use it for more. I’m constantly checking my stats throughout the day on the app and on the Fitbit website to make sure I’m making progress toward my daily goals. You can set goals in several categories, but the most important one to me is number of steps. My current goal is 6,000 per day. On days that I work out, I usually take about 11,000-12,000 steps. On Saturday, it’s about 12,000-14,000 because I run errands that day. On other days of the week, I usually struggle to make it to 6,000. There’ve been times at night where I find myself reading and pacing back and forth just to reach my goal.

I once thought that I would never track calories because it’s too time consuming and I didn’t want to become obsessed with it. When I bought the Fitbit, I said I would do it for a few weeks. Well, over a month has passed and I’m still doing it. It’s helped me to see why I couldn’t seem to shake the weight I’ve gained back since I moved to Portland. The king-sized Reese’s that I’ve gotten in the habit of eating again can easily put me over my recommended calorie count for the day. A lunch from Subway or Quiznos can get up to 500-600 calories while the lunches I eat at home are 300 calories at the most. I’m getting back on the wagon and coming in very close to my recommended amount each day. That amount is adjusted based on your activity level during the day. If Fitbit’s estimates are correct, I can go at a medium pace and be back at my pre-Portland weight in August.

I’ve also been using the Fitbit’s sleep monitoring capabilities. You place the device in a wrist strap and sleep with it on your wrist. Supposedly, wrist movement is an accurate way to detect whether you’re awake or asleep. What I’ve learned is that when I fall asleep, I’m out like a light.

Soon after I bought a Fitbit One, I bought a Fitbit Aria, which is a wireless scale. It measures your weight and body fat and uploads it to your online profile. You can go here to check out my online profile. Cheer me on. Mock me. Whatever. A know a lot it is visible only to friends on the site, but you should still be able to get an idea of how I’m doing.