Walking On Fumes

Dearest Rachel –

When I got up this morning at 3:30 (I have no idea why or how – I was up until 10:30 last night watching videos with Daniel, so it’s not like I had what I would call an early bedtime. Yes, I know you’d call it that, but five hours isn’t a lot of sleep, no matter how you slice it) and stepped on the scale, I thought I might title this letter something like “Trust the Process.” After all, despite the challenges involved with fasting over the weekend, I actually managed to get all the way through Sunday without consuming anything but water (well, and about three cups of coffee in the morning before each service, if only to keep myself on my toes in the booth), and it did get results.

I should mention that the challenge of going forty hours without eating seems more psychological than physiological. I’ve mentioned how we both used to eat when we get bored, and I still struggle with that. Occupying my time and mind with YouTube isn’t always the best solution, either – so many of the shorts I found myself watching involved food, whether the one guy who’s visiting every restaurant in a certain underground shopping arcade in Japan, or the fellow who’s preparing and ranking last meals of condemned prisoners. You’d probably think of this as a form of torturing myself, and maybe it is; honestly, none of what I was watching felt all that much like I could get my hands on it whether I wanted it or not, so whether I was hungry or not, it wasn’t something within my grasp. At least it kept my mind off of the various snack bags in the room, or near at hand in the pantry.

Meanwhile, the sensation in my gut as it dealt with the absence of fuel was not what I would have expected. Despite doing this primarily over Sunday, I can’t say that it felt like it brought me any closer to God; to be honest, I really can’t figure out how that’s supposed to work. Maybe it’s a matter of deliberately focusing on Him for such a prolonged period of time that food becomes superfluous – Daniel claims to ‘forget’ to eat from time to time, which may be along similar lines – at least for a while. As for myself, while I wasn’t hungry per se most of the time – at least, not the ravenous, “I could murder a hamburger right now” kind of hunger – there was a certain distinct sensation in my gut. But it felt more like nerves, or anxiety; the kind of feeling you get when you’re summoned into the boss’ office, or when you’re waiting for a reply from a girl you like, but you’re pretty sure she doesn’t like you, at least not that way. It was kind of unexpected.

But when I got up this morning, I was pleased to note that I had finally cracked the two-ten barrier – and I had yet to head out to the gym for the day (although I had been there yesterday afternoon while the boys were watching their podcast; Sunday afternoon at the gym is much less pleasant when the Bears are losing, I should mention as an aside). The process, difficult as it had been to get through, had worked; I had reached a new low, and it wasn’t even as if I was all that hungry. Why not, I reasoned, really work up an appetite, and see what results?

It made sense to put in an extended workout, too; the last couple of times I’d been in the gym, I’d felt somewhat pressed for time, and felt like I had to forego doing much in the way of weight training, but rather just hop onto the treadmill and start walking. But since I was heading over just as it was opening up for the day at four a.m., with the moon and more stars than I can usually see directly overhead as I did so, I could spend several hours there and still be home before I would ordinarily wake up, and who knows how many calories, and pounds of water weight, I might shed in that span?

And so that’s what I did. Between one machine and another, I put in a hundred and forty abdominal crunches (wild to realize that I couldn’t do a hundred less than a year ago – although I split this between two machines, doing eighty on one and sixty on the other), as well as a score or so each of lat pulls, pec flies and delt pulls. Some of them had me just trying the weight as set by the previous patron, and learning I could press or pull more weight than I thought. Even being able to do just a handful felt like proof of how much I could do, even with no fuel to speak of to be running on.

Finally, after the better part of half an hour, I decided to get on the treadmill. I was hoping to do two sets, since the machine wouldn’t allow me to work out indefinitely; each one would cover at least three miles, and burn a thousand calories, and hopefully finish in less than an hour apiece, before the cooldown period kicked in, and the speed and incline were reduced whether I wanted them to be or not. The first set went all right, finishing out just shy of the hour mark, and actually took three and a half miles to burn the thousand calories I wanted to.

So for the second set, I cranked the incline to its maximum setting of fifteen degrees (I like to think I’m used to this), and set it at a lower speed, but which would increase with every fifty calories burned until I was climbing at a four mph pace. And while the first few hundred calories burned slower, that burn rate quickly accelerated with the speed, and it looked like I was doing fine and was on pace to accomplish my goal. Trust the process, I thought to myself, it’s all working out.

Except it couldn’t keep doing so forever; I was already running (or would that be walking?) on fumes. About halfway into the second set, I found myself dealing with a nagging backache and weariness in my arms. Now, my arms I could understand – I’d put them through their paces on the various weight machines, and on a steeply inclined treadmill, I’m holding the bar both as a means of measuring my heart rate (which barely topped out in the high 140s, even after all this) as well as keeping myself from falling backwards from such an angle. But why should my back be hurting me? I tried to adjust my posture; slouching forward, leaning back, tilting from side to side, all to no avail. It got so bad that, with only a couple hundred calories to go, I decided to give up and stop when I reached the three mile mark. I passed nine hundred calories on that set, but would not be able to burn an aggregate total of two thousand for the first time.

It turned out to be just in time, though. While I didn’t sense it while I was moving, the moment I stopped, my vision clouded, and a wave of dizziness washed over me to the point of nausea. I had to make my way to an unused ab machine and sit down for a few minutes before I could resume the process of cleaning the treadmill of the worst of my sweat and head home. In some way, I may have been lucky just to make it home under my own power.

Even as I washed myself off in the shower, I still felt this sense of dizziness as I soaped myself off. I barely managed to finish rinsing before another wave overcame me, and I dropped down onto the seat in the corner of the stall, head between my knees. There was no question in my mind that I had overdone things; but how else can you find out what your limits are if you don’t push them? Still, it was a most unpleasant experience to be sitting there, gasping for air, on the verge of vomiting, for those few moments – all the while wondering how I was going to find the strength to stand back up and squeegee the marble walls of water and other condensation like we’d been advised to when we first had it installed in the shower.

Eventually, I finally did regain my feet (which, while admittedly sore after covering six and a half miles in less than two hours, were nothing as compared to my back) and got everything taken care of – from cleaning the shower, getting dressed, putting breakfast together (albeit a simple meal of corn flakes and toast with that dark chocolate spread I’ve been ordering through Amazon these days) to heading out the door and driving to my ‘office’ at the folks’ place.

So with my exercise out of the way – and the results to show for it – I think I’m looking at a fairly calm and normal day. I just hope I don’t conk out before Sparks is over tonight. So with that in mind, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.