Daily Summary: 07–13 March, 2021

Folks seem to like these daily updates and the infogramphics more than a multi-day overall summary. So … let’s try a 7-day daily summary?

On Sunday, I had already planned that the week would be fairly low-carb, so I made dampfnudel. I’ve made it twice before. It’s a sweet, steamed/poached Germany bun that’s fun to make and quite tasty. The day was also warm so I got out for a walk with the bf, we did 5km in 50 minutes with about a 225ft / 75m gross elevation increase, so not too bad. Then he left, to return Tuesday night, since he needed to be at work Monday and Tuesday and it’s a 1.5-hr drive.

I didn’t know he was going to be gone until a few days earlier, so I pushed meals out and planned to make pizza, eating half Monday, half Tuesday. I used my new cast iron pizza pan, which was crazy-heavy, and I forgot that cast iron stays hot a lot longer than aluminum so the crust got a bit too crispy and dry on the bottom. It was another nice day with temperatures near 60°, but, for some reason I had some motivation problems on Monday, spending a few hours just laying in bed staring at the ceiling, twice. I still managed to do 10 hours of work, get a weight lifting session in, and stay reasonably within (or not stray too far from) my food goals.

Tuesday, I had an early morning meeting that got me up at the horrible hour of 10am, and I again had a motivation issue mid-day which meant I didn’t get out for the last 60° day to go for a walk. Lunch was the second half of the pizza, dinner was beef when the bf got home. I also started to look at the forecast: The greater Denver area was expecting a snow storm of 2–3 ft of snow, starting Friday. I was planning to go into work and do the monthly grocery shopping Friday, so I moved it to Thursday.

Wednesday, I only managed to really work in the morning. I got weights in in the afternoon, and then I spent two hours making biryani. It’s really a quite involved dish with three moving parts with different timings that all have to be assembled and cooked together, after you make each one. Then, because I hadn’t yet, I spent the next four hours meal planning and then grocery planning. Returning to the weights for a moment, though, I finally went up again in everything but military presses. Basically, I’d been at the same weight for a month or so, after going up on at least one exercise every time I went downstairs for a new session. So, it was nice to go up again, and I figured +5 lbs (2x 2.5 lb weights) was negligible and I should be able to do it. Doing so put me at a new personal best for calf raise weights at 150 lbs, and I’m back up to my previous max for biceps curls at 80 lbs (bar, not dumbbells).

I did no real exercise Thursday, though with walking from my car to the office, walking around grocery stores, and bringing in and putting away the groceries (which I counted as a “flexibility” exercise on my watch), I filled my rings. I also managed to time work and grocery shopping around/during four different telecons. One at work, one while at Costco, one while at King Soopers and driving home, and one I was a minute late to just as I got home. These pandemic times are just wonderful.

Friday was another large work day, and then I cleaned and then made Chinese chive turnovers. Basically, beef and scallions (because Chinese chives are hard to find and are expensive!) with soy sauce and sesame oil, wrapped in a dough and pan-cooked. I don’t make them often because the assembly takes quite a bit of time, but they’re good. They are low protein, though, so the egg whites were needed to meet my protein goal.

I only did one hour of work-work today! Yay! I spent several hours doing stuff I’d been putting off around the house, like new plantings with the hydroponics, putting together a new chair, cleaning out the pressure washer and putting it away, etc. And, the bf joined me in working out in the basement this afternoon, he did the elliptical while I did weights, then I helped him with weights since he’s a bit of a n00b. Made Chinese fried rice for dinner (leftovers tomorrow), and then overdid it a bit on fruit and cookies so the carbs are high. But, I’m good on the week.

So … that’s my “daily” summary for each day this week. I fell like I’m still treading water with this. I’m not doing worse, I am reinforcing some good habits, but I’m also not making progress. Sometimes, though, maintaining what we have is a pretty good accomplishment, regardless. I mean, we are kinda in the middle of a global pandemic, right?