When you are retired for going on seven years, weekends lose the charm that they once held. Even Saturday night is not worth staying up late for. Or maybe I’m just an old geezer shouting at the clouds. Whatever the case may be, my window for adventure doesn’t stay open long these days. A sweet Saturday stroll with Swan in the morning, some beach time in the afternoon, food and live music in the early evening, and back home by 7:30 p.m. That’s pretty much how I’m rolling through life lately.
I fill the hours between the morning walk and late afternoon imbibing wasting my time on the internet and wasting your time with boring blog posts like this one. As beer o’clock nears, I try to decide where I’m going to plop my sorry ass to down some brews.
Anyway, I thought we’d do a Baloy Beach Saturday evening, starting with that new bar, Drunken Sailor, at the Baywatch Resort. I was curious if business had picked up any since my last visit. I guess it hadn’t, because it was closed. That’s a shame; it could be a nice venue with a little effort. Oh well, not my problem.
Then we popped into another newish venue, Kim’s Place, ordered some beers, and pulled up a seat on the beach. I chatted with Kim, and he is ready to host the March 31 Hash On-Home.
Then we moseyed up the beach to Treasure Island and enjoyed the live music.
Over the course of three hours, I had three beers at Kim’s and four at Treasure Island. If my math is correct, that’s only one beer every twenty-five minutes. I guess I really am learning to slow down. And despite it only being half past seven, I was ready to call it a night. I’m not complaining; that’s just the way it is these days.
I’m no expert on CICO diets, but if my total intake for the week is in line with the sum of my daily goal, does that work? In other words, if I’m over by 300 calories total for We, Th, Fr, but under by 300 on Sa, am I still on track to lose weight? Yeah, I’d best just stick with trying not to exceed my daily target.
I don’t know, maybe I was getting a little homesick four months into my Korea life almost twenty years ago, but I posted some pics of American gals at the Mardi Gras. Meow! In the comments, my dad advised me not to take my gun to town. I miss those days when I had family that gave a shit about my life.
Facebook reminded me that six years ago, I was enjoying views like this while Hashing in Palawan.
I really need to go back there again one day soon.
Today’s YouTube video talks about weird aspects of Filipino culture. I don’t know, I’ve been here long enough that everything is getting normalized. Except the driving. Damn, still amazes me how bad they drive with no common sense or skills. Choosing not to drive here was the right call.
How about these:
Time to get back to those Sunday routines. Feeding, floating, eating, and drinking. What a life, eh?
You’ll be out traveling again soon, though, yes? So a little marination in everyday banality seems apropos.
As for CICO, the underlying idea is that it’s all math, so whether it’s for a day or a week, as long as your caloric intake results in a deficit, you ought to lose weight. About 3500 calories should equate to the loss of a pound of fat. That’s a 500-calorie deficit every day for a week. 500 × 7 = 3500 for the week. At that rate, you’ll be losing a pound of fat a week, every week.
The reality, though, is that most of us don’t lose weight in a linear, mathematical way. We usually end up plateauing; weight loss becomes more difficult. CIM (carbohydrate-insulin model) explains this better. According to this way of thinking, spiking your blood sugar with carbs will spike your insulin, and insulin is a fat-storing hormone, making it hard to get rid of your fat. So radically reduce both carbs and the frequency of eating to minimize your daily insulin spikes, and you’ll lose fat (which isn’t the same as losing weight, but it’s arguably healthier).
I still don’t understand how CICO and CIM mesh together, but it’s plain to me that both of these models need each other to get you closer to seeing the whole truth. Adding muscle mass through resistance exercise also helps by increasing your metabolism (muscle has to burn a lot of fuel to maintain itself), meaning you’ll naturally burn more calories even in a rested state.
Upshot: stay 500 calories below your daily budget, and start doing some resistance training—squats, core, push-ups, etc.—and your weight will remain on a downward trend. As for laying off the carbs: the best thing you could do for yourself is to lay off the beer—if not totally, then at least reduce your intake. Until that happens, I’m not sure you’ll ever lose the gut.
That’s the good news and the bad news.