Good afternoon to all who have decided to enter Davidville, population: me. I know on the outskirts of Davidville there are some sparkly places out there. I wanted to thank you for avoiding the eye candy next to my little neck of the world. You may be wondering to yourself, out loud, “how can being kidnapped and dragged by the nape of your neck mean you have chosen to be here?” And the other thought passing through your brain is: “what is this eye candy he speaks of?” Mostly the eye candy. If you were wondering, Monica Belluci and Ryan Gosling are not in my basement. That would be wrong! Right? What I do have, as opposed to eye candy, is your latest fitness blog from your fitness blogging hero. Wait! It’s not a fitness blog. But we have reached a new week. It’s Fitness Week 11: Tooth Wars.
What do my teeth have to do with my fitness progress? I’m glad you asked. For a mere $19.95, plus shipping and handling, I will send you my tell-all book, “How My Teeth Made Me Into The Man I Am Today: Holey and Toothless.” With it, you get the handy dandy pocketbook guide to take with you, “10 Easy Steps To Subdue Your Enemies And Turn Them Into Sniveling Cowards.” It begins with step one: take a hammer and smash their teeth in. It proceeds from there to steps two through ten: Repeat Step One Until Finished. But that’s not all. Along with the tell-all book and the guide, you get a super impressive journal where you can talk about how you have singlehandedly started an amazing show choir who’s hit song is, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth And A Restraining Order From This Lunatic.”
And if you thought that was all, you would not be even close. Because for the first one hundred subscribers, you will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Davidville. Situated right next to Bedlam and bordering Straight Jacket, you will stay at the Padded Cell Inn. While there, examine the beautiful recesses of my chaotic mind. Visit the amazing and spectacular Sanity Falls. And take a trip down Memory Lane, where you could tell people dropped off their change, and what was left of their brain in the Fountains of lLost Teeth. (This is not to be confused with the Fountain of Youth which was equally mythical.)
This great deal could not be sold in stores. But here at the Guide, for just the small payment of $19.95, plus shipping and handling, you will get the book, the guide, the journal, the trip, AND the amazing tour of lost blog posts. All together this would value at one zillion dollars. But today only, and for the first one hundred subscribers, you will get this exclusive offer. Please call now as operators are standing by. (Not valid with any other offer. Void where prohibited. Which is the 57 states according to some quasi-sane congressman. Of for those in reality-ville, the 50 states plus seven territories. Every nation on planet earth, the moon, and mars. No refunds! No take backs! Just Indian Givers!)
Landing back in the plane of reality, it is the eleventh week in my fitness journey. Somewhere in the middle of this week, I had my hump fitness day. Hump fitness day is the median day of my fitness blog. Counting 21 weeks, that would mean that Hump Fitness Day was the 74th day of my fitness cycle. The actual median of this journey would really be 73.5 days. But as we do not count half days we will call the 74th day Leap Fitness Day as it only occurs once every 21 weeks. Or half-century, which is more likely the next time I would dare consider doing such a series again. This hump fitness day was Monday of this past week. Everything from there went downhill. In all seriousness, that is what happened. But let’s not skip ahead. So without further ado, I proudly present my Fitness Week 11.
Fitness Week Eleven: Tooth Wars
I think this week could be subdivided into two separate entities. Everything before midnight Easter Morning, and everything occurring thereafter. It would be hard to talk about my week without going into a long discussion of my crazy tooth incident. But I spent a whole blog talking about that kind of craziness. So please visit here to get caught up on all of the details. Suffice it to say, when the tooth pain struck me on the way home from Knott’s Berry Farm on Saturday evening, enjoying the Berry Festival, my week’s projections collapsed into a quivering mess of pain and pills. I exuded energy and stamina before. Afterward, I modeled myself after Mr. Wimpy. Sanity eluded me, as did hamburgers . . . and food.
Looking at this objectively, I must focus on my goals and not on my teeth. To this end, I put forward the goals that I listed at the end of week ten. The goals changed significantly from the previous weeks. We need to visit each of them to see how I measured up. Rotten could be the best description; however, it might not be the bloodbath that I thought.
Goals:
Six workouts at the gym or outings this week –
If I am going to be fair to myself, I need to realize the impossible situation I was put in on Saturday evening which threw everything into chaos. But prior to that, how did I do? Two full days out with birthday celebrations, and two full days of outings. Perhaps, the outings affected what transpired thereafter. It is impossible to say. But given those two full days worth of outings, it would have been quite easy to make the six workout mark. Lack of sleep and pain pills thereafter made this goal impossible. Unfortunately, the pain continued after Sunday. This meant that I continued to need pain medication. Unfortunately, gym workouts and dizzy spells do not mix. Hence, I give myself an honorable mention for the two out of six here.
Eight Glasses Of Water Per Day –
When I am out and about, getting hot and sweaty increases my desire to drink water. I do not have an answer as to why this happens. I just know that when I exercise, water reinvigorates me the quickest. So I drink more of it. The first two days I easily drank eight glasses. Drinking water the other four days challenged me. Ironically enough, the tooth problem made me a bigger water drinker. First, the taste of soda changed somehow after the hospital visit. And just when things returned to normalcy, the dentist extracted my tooth on Wednesday. From then on out, I could not drink through a straw to aid in healing. As I usually drink soda through a straw, this ended my soda drinking for the week. Hence, eight glasses of water? No problem!
Counting Calories –
This end of my fitness goals reversed what happened with the exercising. At the beginning of the week, it was hard to keep track of because of Knott’s visits with the festival. But by the end of the week, my hunger subsided. First, the tooth pain and getting food stuck in the tooth made it less likely. Then, the extraction made it even harder to eat. This meant that I ate small meals and could easily track how much food I was contributing to my dietary needs. Maybe this did not affect my weight-loss goals much; but, it might put me on the path to better weight loss when I hope to get back going to the gym this week.
Overall Grade: B
I give myself a solid B because some things were beyond my control this week. And I really did make some steps to doing the right things. I truly hope that I can completely stop taking the hydrocodone now and can manage the pain with an Advil, if necessary. Pain pills and narcotics scare me, and they should scare you too. Too many people become addicted to these medications. So we should be using them sparingly. In that vein, keep me in your thoughts as I stop taking these highly addictive drugs this week.
But I cannot end my blog here or else I could get away with doing nothing for next week. I know that I need to continue on and see this journey to its end. Because what is at its end? Zihuatanejo of course! Get busy living! Or get busy dying! And I plan on living. So here are my goals for next week.
Goals For Week 12 –
1) Go to the gym six times this week.
2) Drink eight glasses of water per day.
3) Limit my calorie intake to 1600 calories per day.
These three things should get me on a steady road to fitness. I think the one minor change in all of this is that instead of the nebulous counting calories, I have set down a marker for myself with the 1600 number. This forces me into being honest with myself and my calorie goals. I do not get to make up a goal. It is now in stone. We shall see how all of this works itself out this next week. Or you can just buy my non-existent book. It’s a fair price, don’t you think?
Continue the Conversation –
I know that things have been crazy this week. I want one week to go right and then I can get back on track for the summer. It’s rapidly approaching. . . way faster than I thought it would. I want to finish up strong. Races are won in the last lap and not the first. They can be lost in the first lap, but they are never one. I am not quitting on my fitness goals. And neither should you.
What do you do to finish strong? How do you pace yourself along the way? And who would you consider to be your role models when it comes to being healthy? I look forward to hearing from you. If you liked this blog, if it made you laugh, if it made you cry, if it made you want to run and jump out a window, please sign up for the blog. OK! Maybe if you actually jumped out that window you need to go to the hospital first. Then sign up for my blog. And feel free to peruse my other fitness weeks at the bottom of this one.
Until next time, this is me signing off.
David Elliott, Single Dad’s Guide to Life
Fitness Week 0: Not another fitness blog
First Fitness Week: Week One
Second Fitness Week: Two Down. Nineteen to Go.
Third Fitness Week: Forced Reboot
Fourth Fitness Week: I Just Adore Four
Fifth Fitness Week: Give Me A Five!
Sixth Fitness Week: St. Patrick’s And DST Conspiracy
Seventh Fitness Week: Not Quite Heaven
Eighth Fitness Week: Lucky 8?
Ninth Fitness Week: Dressed To The Nines
Tenth Fitness Week: This One Goes To Eleven
