California Dreaming

So, since I've been in California, I've put nearly 300 miles on my bike:
The original goal was for 1000 miles by the end of March, and I am on pace to make it happen, except I'll be gone for a couple of weeks during Christmas, and for Bryanne's graduation and Miguel's wedding.

It's a nice bike, complete with disk breaks and 27 gears. (Some of the gears are degenerate, though, and I only use about six or seven different gear combinations, in practice.) It also has 29" wheels, which is a departure from the typical 26" wheels on a mountain bike. After test riding several bikes, I found that this size was a better option for me.

I've also dropped about 15 pounds since October, and about 30 since June.
I started lifting weights at OSU in June or so, and my legs and arms are getting bigger, and my calves are super toned. I joined a gym here in Menlo Park (I can't technically use the gym at Stanford), and got two free sessions with a personal trainer, Ulysses. On my own, I've done pretty good though. My squats have increased from around 100 pounds in October to 155 last week. My bench press started under 100 pounds and is now around 120 -130 (depending on how many reps I do). Ulysses (who uses words like "explosive" and "essentially" quite a bit) has designed a workout for me designed to increase power and build core muscles. I don't know how that will go, but I look forward to sitting in the steam room after I lift, at least.

I think that a lifestyle change like this is pretty doable---for me it took a realization that I would be in school for 30 years of my life, and that dying at 55 was really kind of a bad option. That, coupled with the fact that I more or less hate everything on TV (with the exception of Futurama reruns, South Park, football, and the Magic Bullet Infomercial) made it pretty easy. And, of course, I want to be "barrel chested".

There's tons of easy, healthy things to do, I've found. For example, I stopped drinking coffee and started drinking espresso and cappuccino. Coffee isn't bad for you at all---it's full of nutrients, and it makes you thirsty, so you drink more water. What IS bad is dumping half and half or cream into a cup of coffee. Also, for example, ZipLock makes these steam bags so that you can steam fresh vegetables in the microwave. So, for example, I can buy a whole roasted chicken from SafeWay (about $6) and a couple of pounds of vegetables. Then for dinner, I can cut a breast or a leg/thigh off of the chicken and steam up some vegetables. Total prep time is under five minutes (mostly because everything can't fit in the microwave at the same time), and the whole dinner has somewhere around 300-400 calories. For lunch I eat tomatoes instead of potato chips (you can buy these great little cherry tomatoes).

Of course, there's always the barrier that you have to get over first. And I still love fried fish, greasy Mexican food, and a thick steak as much as anyone. But I also enjoy feeling awake and healthy during the day, and not being out of breath when climbing up stairs.