The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 25

For today’s prompt, write an exercise poem. The poem could be about a specific exercise, or it could just incorporate exercising into the poem. Or it could be dedicated to a piece of exercise equipment–so an ode to an elliptical machine or those hand grippers or something. Of course, not every exercise is physical; there are military exercises, mental exercises, and so on.

I think it’s important for us to work through our writing. Inspiration is rather easy to find. Read some news, read some blogs, take a walk through town, strike up a conversation, or just sit and watch and listen t people. If you can’t find inspiration, you’re not living. But turning these multitudinous triggers into poetry, prose, a blog, an essay, an article, or a comment on a news site is the hard part. It takes work, even when it’s easy.

Knowledge also helps. I won’t claim to be there yet, but I am working on it. Today I started on a little treasure I found at Value Village. In Rhyme and Reason, John Metcalf and Gordon Callaghan begin discussing connotation. They give seemingly endless exercises and only a few pages in I am seeing the worthiness of re-examining how words affect our writing.

If you were underweight, which word would you most like to be called? What does each word suggest?

1. Skinny
2. Scrawny
3. Slim

Simple exercises with far-reaching impacts.

My first poem came after a mid-morning nap. I’ll admit it: I was drinking last night. Our 4-men book club discussed Thucydides (because we still haven’t all read the beast) and Us Conductors, and it was my turn to provide drinks. I brought some Forty Creek Barrel Select Canadian whiskey and made Manhattans. I had also made my own bitters with Vodka, so we had the Manhattan and Russian angles of Us Conductors covered. Round two was the same but with Angostura Bitters for comparison. Both were good, but the traditional won 4 to 0.

Three ounces of alcohol a drink on a Sunday night with a chaser of straight whiskey because it’s so damned good, makes one drowsy on Monday mornings. I was up at 5:15am, made some coffee, and was back in bed by 9am, but with exercise triggers to ponder.

 

So here’s the first. It’s rather divided, but I think it has content to work with. I suspect an end result, if there ever is one, will look vastly different.

Untitled

Choices are thinning with the hair
There will be no more offspring for this old horse
no more free reigning, in greener fields
where the fillies hop and skip, and prepare
for their runs through the gates

The alarm with the disappearing slider wakes me
2:30 is early enough to eat, read, and catch the five o’clock news
Second sleeps might be luxuries, to the rodent racers
Those high-flying traders of options
But I exercise mine in my own good old time

The second came later, after dinner, after reading some Alice Munro and Metcalf, and after feeling primed to sit and write. So I sat, penned a poem, then edited it as I typed it in. It changed quite a bit as I typed. I think this one has more substance, but I am not happy with it. Pillars of Society. Some odd, disparate metaphor. Still, it has some potential imagery. I like Nixon square and the outreach line.

Pillars of Society

Sturdy, as the piles that hold the pier
the container ships dock and bump
Nixon square, offering basket holey
my eyes search for hope in my lone workout room
not hide in full halls, were the outreach works my pockets
the power-poles guard by wracked body, my racked mind
the only four pillars I trust, with weight on my chest
I wish the pillars of society were as reliable, were as strong
I wish I could revive them with simple protein drinks
and a designed exercise program
but I’m afraid he’s too lazy to care, anymore

 

Weight Training – 1st plateau reached

Tags

rest, sleep, weight training; bill reynolds; progression; diabetes; muscle;

I am not an expert weight trainer by any stretch of the definition. When you read about it, articles often cover the idea of plateaus. A plateau in this context is a period or state of little or no growth or decline: to reach a plateau in one’s career. I can’t say I’ve reached a true plateau 11 sessions into my training. That would indicate I’ve done something very wrong. It’s more accurate to call it a resistance point: I’ve reached the level where every exercise is now difficult and they push me to failure.

As a refresher, my ten main exercises are Squat, Leg Extensions, Leg Curls, Calf Raises, Bench Press, Barbell Bent Rows, Overhead or Military Press, Upright Rows, Bicep Curls, and Tricep Curls. It’s a full body workout which focuses on volume over weight. My Bill Reynolds beginner book prescribes various repetitions. Some are 6-10, others 10-12, and still others are 12-15. Each week I progress the weight or the reps. When I add weight, I lower the reps. I’ve been doing 20 reps for squats, but I’m now at a weight where that’s just too much, so I’m dropping back to 15 max.

My goal is three months of training to build u a core of strength. My longer term goal is to add muscle for the real objectives of health, weight loss, and performance. My doctors all say I need to exercise more, and they won’t help me with weight loss until I do. So I am. I’ve gained three pounds this past month, hopefully all muscle.

My experiences say there are three phases when beginning a training program from scratch.

1. Stiffness – the first sessions should be very light to get the muscles used to the new stresses.
2. Finding the limits – we want to train to just about failure, but if you start too high, you’ll run into some very tough workouts that will over-stress your body and possibly lead to injury.
3. The zone – we’re doing fairly high reps with fairly low weight and the last reps are at or just about at failure

I’ve just reached step three after eleven sessions. I’m now in the working zone. Phase one was surprisingly brief. At past attempts, the first sessions would just about kill me, and we’re not talking big weight at all. This round I was arguably in the worse muscular shape of my life, yet I was barely stiff at all. I admit I had been working in the yard in the weeks leading up: stacking two cord of wood, weeding the garden, and trimming some evergreen trees. The wood probably served as a nice break-in. I’ll say phase 1 lasted three sessions and phase 2 seven sessions. I just completed session eleven.

I’ll throw some images at you, with sparse comments.

This graph breaks down my effort by total weight lifted. I’ll argue it doesn’t accurately measure strength or muscle gain, but I’m not picky. In my last session I lifted 23,282.5 pounds of weights in 100 minutes. The previous session I lifted 24,195, but I was stronger before my last session. The red line represents my lower body exercises and the green my upper body ones.

Squats use the biggest muscles and make up by far the biggest chunk of weight I move. 140 pounds is still very light, but I can feel it. I can feel it through the next day too. My thighs, but, calves, hamstrings are all getting tighter and more muscular. Add leg extensions, leg curls, and calf raises, and I get a burn that lasts. I love squats, and I feel awesome when I do them and after I do them. I have squatted 350 pounds in my home gym in previous, younger years. I don’t plan on pushing that level, not for a long time anyway, and probably not alone at home. I say probably because weight training can be addictive.

I prefer laying triceps extensions, but I do these instead with a curl-bar. This progression illustrates more how I will be proceeding from now on. It will be slow. I will add a few reps each session, and when I get to 12, 12, and 12, I will add weight and drop back to 8,8,8 or maybe 10,10,10, depending on weight added and how stressed I really was. My work graphs will proceed up but not as fast. It always amazes me that I feel like dying with the final rep, yet the next session I move past it rather easily. The secret to these beginning programs really is steady, mechanical progression tested by your failure points.

I work out three times a week: Friday, Sunday, and Wednesday. You really do need the rest, and that extra day is important. Good nutrition and good sleeps are important too.

Experiment: Weight Training

Tags

diabetes, exercise, weight loss, weight training

A brief history:
– four years LCHF eating
– down 21lbs and fluctuating up and down
– Blood Sugars fairly good but not best
– Constant ketosis and feeling great
– Not exercising regularly

The last point, no regular exercise, is something I want to tackle. Let’s face it though, I’m a thinker. I’d rather sit in a nice soft chair with a coffee and think random thoughts all day. To get up and say mow the lawn takes a Samsonian effort. Procrastination is my middle name. My Google blog, which I haven’t posted to yet, is called “Hopelessly Delinquent.”

Of course my endocrinologist, God’s gift to diabetics everywhere *that was sarcasm*, harps on me for not exercising more. According to the holy one, it’s the only way I can lose weight. And after these four years of fighting him, I think he may be right. I participate in many discussion forums, and a common thread I hear is “you gotta work!” The time has come for John to work at getting those fifty pounds off, and if that doesn’t work, we’re going to have a serious discussion with the almighty endo.

I have 400 pounds of standard weights, 7ft, 6ft, and a curl bars, and a power rack. You’d think there’d be no excuses for using it. Mind you the room has been filled with junk all summer as we’ve replaced the floors in the house. But there’s no more acceptable excuses. It’s now Grok time!

I’m hitting a routine I’ve used before, a basic full body workout where I perform three sets of 8 to 12 reps, generally. Some exercises like bench press I’ll do 6 to 10 reps, and others like squats, I’ll do 15 to 20 reps. This is a program out of an old Lou Ferrigno book. It has worked for me before, and I plan on following it for three months to build up my all around strength steadily and safely.

I’m starting out very light, extremely light. People will laugh at my weakness. Pfft. Remember, I’m overweight and out of shape. I need to get my muscles used to lifting and I need to find my points of failure. I will add weight rapidly. Anybody who has ever started from scratch knows that you feel like a convoy of trucks ran over you in the early going. Your stiff all over and your body shakes and quakes from the intensity. You really do need to start out light.

I also know I won’t go real heavy. I work out at home alone. I am protected by my power rack — my squats and bench presses are statically spotted. I can drop 500lbs on my chest and know the bars will catch them. They restrict movement slightly, but hey, I’m doing the exercises. It takes me an hour, maybe a bit more. Joining a gym would cost me two to three hours plus lots of bucks I don’t have. The hardcore trainers will of course cringe, but feel good that John performs safely. He doesn’t lift more than he’s capable of, and he practices good form.

I progress steadily. When I hit my max reps, say three sets of 12 reps, the next session I will add weight and drop the reps down to three 8’s, or maybe a bit higher. I will then progress the reps until I max out again. Here’s an example.
– Day 1 100lbs 10 10 10
– Day 2 100lbs 12 11 10
– Day 3 100lbs 12 12 12
– Day 4 110lbs 8 8 8
– Day 5 110lbs 10 10 10 (previous day felt awesome, so I stepped it up)
– Day 6 110lbs 12 11 10
– Day 7 110lbs 12 12 12
– Day 8 120lbs 8 8 8

You can by following this method of progression my resistance increases steadily. The idea is that the final rep on th third set will be very close to failure. For obvious reasons I don’t go to failure, especially for the dangerous exercises such as squats and bench presses. But if I fails on a leg extension, who cares? I might make a long bang, but I won’t drop anything on a body part.

I listen to my body. I’ve never strained a muscle training before, but if something does happen, I know enough to stop, rest, and seek help. I hope.

My first session was Friday Aug 10. I started with two sets of squats using 70lbs. I did 20 reps each. I proceeded through leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises, bench press, bent rows, overhead press, upright row, bicep curls, and tricep curls. I skipped wrist rolls. I performed only one rep of the last two exercises. These are not major muscles, and I already felt worked. Again, we’re talking very light weights here. 40lb bench presses will not impress anybody.

I’m tracking vitals while I do this:
BP 132/71 before and 120/65 after
BG 6.0 before and 9.0 after then 10.0 an hour later

It’s interesting that BP dropped and blood sugars rose. These were actually expected. Another interesting note is I didn’t hypo later. Past sessions have always resulted in major BG drops through the night.

On day 2, Sunday, I upped intensity. I felt stiffness in my calves, but nowhere else. I barely felt stressed, but I didn’t let that go to my head. I upped my reps to three sets of each, and I upped my squats to 90lbs, 3×15. I didn’t fail at anything; though those nasty 40lb bench presses stung. I’ve always struggled with upper body strength. At one point I could squat 350lbs and barely press 120. Pfft.

I felt worked after this session, and my vitals were once again interesting
BP 130/71 to 108/62
BG 6.2 to  8.9 and it kept rising. I changed my pump set and got it around 7 for bed. I woke up around 7, so once again no major hypos following. This morning I’m feeling worked. I’m feeling muscle tingling and tightening in my legs, butt and chest. I feel the work, and that is an awesome feeling.

So we’ll se how this goes. We’ll see if I can continue, if it helps me lose fat, and if it helps me feel better and write better. I’ll revisit after a month.

[Starting weight: 229.6]