September Weights and Measures

Second monthly roundup of measured data and analysis.

Data

Since blogger is annoying in how it handles images, I’m going to upload an Excel (2003) spreadsheet. Here’s a link:

http://www.forefrontpb.com/phildiet/Diet%20Records.xls

The "Weekly Graphs" worksheet shows the weekly average of weight and the weekly average combined BM score and quantity.

The "Weight Chart Daily Graph" worksheet shows the daily morning weight.

The "BM Score Daily Graph" worksheet shows the daily combined BM score and quantity.

I'm keeping a food log and notes in a written notebook, which for the sake of putting off an annoying task, I will scan and upload when I'm done rather than every month.

Analysis

My second month has been interesting. I gained about 5 pounds, give or take, and my energy levels have shown steady improvement. My bowel movements have settled into a pattern: I go once or twice a day for a few days, then I eat or do something that unsettles me and I get a spike, which settles down after a day or two. It looks like sausage is my new nemesis.

I played in a two day paintball game in mid-September, on punishing terrain, and performed about as well as I always do. I didn’t notice any special fatigue or any inability to perform. My meals were much easier, since I basically ate hamburger and pemmican the entire time.

I had an interesting experience in the later half of the month. I was trying to work a piece of meat out of my front tooth and ended up prying off what looked like a piece of tooth enamel. This was disconcerting to say the least, so I went to a dentist, who said it wasn’t a big deal. Given the volume of material that I removed, his lack of concern was surprising. I figured he’d be rushing to do $5k worth of restorative work. Incidentally, my blood pressure was 112/68.

I’ve been doing pushups and squats every other day for the past month. I do three sets of 30 pushups, and then 3 sets of 10 squats. I added pullups for the last few workouts and usually end up with something like 5 then 4 then 3. My squat cage arrived along with a new bar and I got Dad’s old weights, so October 5^th will be the day I start lifting real weight.

On September 31, I had to get my brakes fixed. So I left the car in the Byram STS and ran to work (with some walking in the beginning to warm up). That was about 3.2 miles, at what turned out to be a 5.6 mph pace. At lunch, I ran back to get the car. Again, 3.2 miles, this time at a 7.1 mph pace. Not bad for someone who hasn’t run a mile in years. Of course, my guts reminded me of why I don’t run anymore, but I’m going to try to work up to a sane running level so I can be in better paintball shape.

Using my August reference point for energy and overall sense of wellbeing, September is definitely a positive 1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. I still have occasional bouts of tiredness, and work can still sometimes cause weird fatigue, but that appears to be slowly going away.

My cow is on order from a different farm in Wykertown, NJ. We’ll see how that goes.

Two months down, ten to go!