Realized while working out…

Differentiation is hard! Not being an avoider (when it is part of your nature) is hard! Not getting all tangled up in someone else’s issues is hard!

Okay, you’re all saying “DUH!”

But it came to me that all of this is physically as taxing as it is mental. Since finishing the Schnarch book and maybe even while finishing it, I had slacked off on working out. I had work issues that had to be dealt with and it was hard finding the time or inclination to work out. So while my weight has continued to melt off, I haven’t been able to keep up stamina-wise. While finishing up a session of a marathon Stepmania song, it occurred to me that I really needed to stay in good physical condition. Not to mention the other endorphine-related benefits of a good hard, wet workout. I’m in a better place when I’m in better physical shape as far as my mind and emotions and working out helps take a lot of the urgency and edge off of the frustration.

And there’s plenty of that going on. This morning the skittering away while trying to talk in the bathroom was almost funny if it wasn’t so sad. She’ll kiss and hug for very brief amounts of time, but that’s it. She’s in full-blown avoider mode. 12-step groups are good for learning disclosure but since no cross-talk is allowed, it doesn’t build up much endurance when it comes to a real reciprocal interaction. This illustrates why the “delicate flower” analogy leads to some unintended consequences. “Learned helplessness” is a big one, and we see it all the time in education when kids are used to having things spoon fed to them all the time. That’s not to say that providing support, guidance and instruction is a bad thing. Having some sheltered shadowing can be a good and helpful thing. But if the person you’re trying to help becomes overly dependent, it’s not a help at all.

I was back up on the elliptical this morning before leaving for work and got a good workout and might work again this afternoon. It’s good therapy. Hmm. Had something else I was going to do today but forgot what it was….

D.

189.8

I haven’t updated my weight in awhile, so I think I’ll do that for a minute. My weight loss efforts actually do figure into things. This morning I was at 189.8 which is about 3 pounds off from my eventual target. Over the holidays, I maxed out at about 196 but fluctuated between there and 192, which my body seems to like. I work on the elliptical and the step mat but not every day or even every other day. Maybe I get 2-3 times a week if I’m lucky simply because demands at work have been quite heavy the past couple of weeks. I did manage to download Stepmania 4.0 CSV which is a very nice looking release and I like many of the new display features. But it has slowed me down and I’ve had to adjust to it.

When I first began losing weight and posting about it, it was largely driven by my need for better health and a changing self-image. I needed to get rid of the pounds because my knees were driving me nuts. Anyone else who struggles know of what I speak. So I did some research, found an exercise that I adore, some foods that I also adore and went for it. The little “Biggest Loser” competition didn’t hurt either. But somewhere towards the end, I mused on these pages; how much weight do I have to lose to get my wife to want me? It’s at that point that Rod Smith chimed in with a comment that I really needed to get Passionate Marriage. I had been following 2amsomewhere’s posts on the subject and was somewhat familiar with Schnarch and his writings from lurking alt.support.marriage. This name would come up on other relationship blogs on occasion also.

In November Rod and I did make efforts to contact each other by telephone. One time I woke him up after he was asleep! He was very nice about it, and told me to call back earlier the day the next day, which I did try but got an answering machine. He left voice messages on my phone as well as by email. I’m okay with all of this because just knowing he was there was sufficient. Plus I got the book and figured after reading it I might have more to talk about afterwards. The point being that I was too busy (and careless) to even make a phone therapy connection but as it turned out his advice was spot-on. He gave me a small shove in the right direction.

The last time I had a major discussion with Arwyn, it was almost like an assault or a guerrilla attack. It was short and a skirmish that left more questions than answers and certainly didn’t do anything to make me feel better about our marriage. It was bad timing all around.

This time, it was not planned at all. I went to the store after work and she and the boys had gone to church. We got home about the same time and she put the boys to be while I got ready for the next day. I was tired and was ready to go to bed. This is highly unusual as she normally goes to bed early and I stay up late, mostly after midnight. She was in already bed when I came in the bedroom. I sat for a minute contemplating whether to turn in or go back to the living room and turn on the computer. I laid down and attempted to snuggle up to her in the inverted position. To my surprise, all I found at the foot of the bed was her legs. Her hands reached down in the dark and moved over my legs and bum and wondered what i was doing. I switched positions, feeling a bit embarrassed but was able to snuggle without her moving off. And then we began to talk.

At first it was about her church, where the senior pastor is taking a leave of absence “to recharge” and another pastor there just left the ministry with no known explanation. More casualties of “church.” I shared with her my evolving views of church. She’s known that my views were under construction, as it were. She thought I was fancying starting my own church as part of a “house church” movement. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but I’ve come to realize that conflict is just part of the growing process. Leaving and starting a church would be a futile attempt to escape and avoid that growth; there really is no escape anyway because conflict is inherent in me. And to carry this where I’m going, leaving my marriage for someone else wouldn’t solve my conflicts because the conflicts that I have with Arwyn are conflicts I have with me.

In that sense, it is about me and my own deficiencies. Confronting my own mess has been a major part of this process. Meanwhile, Arwyn has been working on step 4 in her 12-step program for the second time. This step closely mirrors the process that I was going through as I was learning to confront my own issues. We were going through identical steps at identical times. We did discuss this process. Arwyn went through all 12 steps last year, and I knew she was doing it. I waited for step 8 and step 9 to come around. It never did, at least for me. So when she told me she was doing the 12 steps again, I was skeptical that it was doing her any good at all as she was obviously in some deep, deep denial about what she was doing to me.

She admitted that she had “forgotten” to deal with me in those steps, and I corrected her and told her she had most likely simply chosen to avoid it altogether. She admitted to that and we went into a discussion about our avoidance issues and the fact that we were both first class avoiders. One of the major problems is that neither of us was interested in listening to what the other had to say and so we simply avoided the major issues. We agreed that this was likely something we both acquired from our respective backgrounds and that we would need to work in order to overcome that. Much of arwyn’s avoidance stems directly from issues I brought up in that long thread “XH and Me” where most people forgot all about the “me” part and wanted to talk about XH. Fact is, I have many of the same exact issues as I related there. My brain allows me to intellectually out-flank a whole lot of people and I have my own sense of moral rightness that makes others feel small, stupid and wrong. I can effectively use this to keep people from getting too close and intimidate them while beaming with pride when others tell me how great a Sunday school teacher I am or how great and smart I am in general. Smartness is a long way from wisdom, as evidenced by me stupidly asserting my moral and intellectual superiority over my wife.

Nothing says “I love you” like making a person feel small, stupid and wrong.

Keep in mind, this intellectual power was what fueled her initial attraction to me. She came to the young adult Sunday school class I was teaching and really liked my teaching skillz. She was hungry for knowledge and saw me as being a person who had a lot to offer her.

But later, she always felt judged and controlled by me, and gave up arguing with me a long time ago. To wit: I was always “right” and she was always “wrong.” My “rightness” pretty much put us on a collision course with disaster. God was using my marriage to wring that self-righteous pride out of me. I’ve still got plenty of it so there will be more wringing, I’m sure. But avoidance was about her only choice, as she saw it. She felt she was always walking on egg shells around me. Yeah, I see it, now. I really was judging her and found her wanting most of the time. The more she withdrew from me, the more I judged her as being inadequate which pretty much guaranteed that we would overheat and become disconnected. There was no such thing as a “discussion” because differing views automatically made us adversaries and if I become an adversary with anyone, I play to win. This is not a winning strategy for making friends and influencing people.

For her part, Arwyn had her own way of winning a fighting which was almost a form of emotional jujutso. To wit:

Jujutsu evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for dispatching an armed and armored opponent in situations where the use of weapons was impractical or forbidden.

My emotional fusion made me an easy target for this sort of thing. While I was using my intellect, she was using my own heart against me.

We talked about the whole business of marital sadism. I have a sadistic streak so wide, it’s pretty pointless denying it. Arwyn heartily agreed with that. But the real revelation to her was when I talked about my struggle in dealing with her sadistic side. And that opened the big can of worms that you have all been waiting for.

I told her that based on Passionate Marriage I had figured out that early part of our relationship that was so vexing to me. Namely that we were having sex all the time and then after we were married, sex had dwindled to pretty much nothing. The reason for that early sex wasn’t desire, but it was insecurity. Arwyn and I share very rich, deep wells of the fear of abandonment. Her sexual behavior was her attempt to avoid that whole abandonment scenario, and so it was all fueled by her insecurities. She would have sex even though many times she didn’t want to because insecurity reigned. However, she was also feeling guilt and shame over our premarital sexual behavior. By the time we actually got married, the shame and guilt had grown to a point where it overcame her insecurity about our relationship. Once the commitment of marriage was finalized, that insecurity disappeared but the guilt did not.

On top of this, we can add a generous dose of resentment. I was pretty much in total reptilian mode in the early years of our marriage. I really liked sex, and my self worth was totally tied to it. If we had enough sex, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I felt rejected and unloved. Arwyn’s self-worth was also tied to sex. But the more sex we had that she didn’t want, the more she felt used. She felt that in my view, sex was the answer to all our problems. She was pretty much right. She resented me for my controlling ways and then wanting sex on top of that. At the same time, her guilt increased because now I’m really making her feel like the bad wife.

And then we tried to fix each other. A classic example of this is the 3^rd year of our marriage, Arwyn bought Relationship Rescue. She went through about 4 chapters and then didn’t read anymore but did leave the book lying around thinking I really needed to read it. I did glance over it back then and thought it wasn’t too bad of a book for her. Two years later, I picked it up off a dusty shelf and then went through every single exercise. When I came to her at the appropriate time and attempted to follow Dr. Phil’s advice, she really wanted nothing to do with it. A few months later, I bought her the workbook for her birthday. That workbook has never been opened. To say she regretted buying that book is an understatement! She bought it with the idea of changing me, but when I did do it, she resisted it! Because it was another case of me controlling her, she wanted none of it.

A major part of this discussion involved our differing ways of getting to this point. Arwyn does better as part of a group-type structured process where I am able to get stuff from a book and learn independently. I went through Dr. Phil’s book alone. I was able to exercise and diet and lose weight without weekly meetings. I was able to discover and apply vital things from Passionate Marriage without a therapist or a support group — apart from my blogger friends, of course! I play with computers with very little in the way of classwork. I even play around a bit in Linux just getting things off the internet. But this is not at all typical, which is what makes me exceptional as a teacher. It’s what makes XH able to do much of what he does. But it also results in some problems relating to others who are not on the same page. I get exasperated at others for being too slow. Arwyn seemed to always be too slow and she didn’t appreciate me reminding her of it. Her going and finding her own group of friends in a different church through a 12 step group seems to be just what was needed for her to work on herself. And she has been doing it with the help of the group and her sponsor. It was helpful having my own background in 12 step groups because much of what Schnarch talks about translates fairly easily into 12-step-ese. I was able to share what I had learned from reading this book pretty much what I shared here. Writing has been another vital part of processing what I’ve learned and I’m getting better at harnessing that in order to internalize and retain it.

I shared with her my revelation about her own sadism in watching me suffer all of these years in virtual sexlessness, knowing perfectly well that I was suffering. She stood by and watched and participated in it while doing nothing or even rejecting my efforts to resolve it. I treaded carefully here, because I knew this was extremely sensitive territory we were in. Almost every previous discussion of sex has resulted in her and I both getting defensive and her totally melting down. But she did not meltdown at all. She took the hit and held it together. That was truly an amazing thing to witness.

Then we got to some nitty gritty. Basically, for pretty much our whole marriage, the sex has been awful. I did point out that she might have been ahead of me in that department for not wanting bad sex, while I was willing to ask for a double portion of it. She pretty much agreed with my assessment: it’s not that she did not like sex. She did not want it from me. It took me all this time to really figure it out to a point where I could deal with it and handle that without falling apart.

This is what emotional gridlock and critical mass does for a marriage. It makes emotional fusion such a totally untenable position that we are forced to move away from it and grow like a hermit crab that outgrows its shell and has to shed it to go find a new one. We were both ready to listen because the alternative was too much to take.

We discovered that we were on the same page in a lot of areas. We both wanted good sex and not bad sex. We each affirmed the right of the other to avoid bad sex and go for good sex. What entails “good sex” was not discussed, however. Just getting to this point was nothing short of monumental. I told her that I wanted to pursue that with her. I think the act of choosing her was an important one, at least for me. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly done that, before. Honestly, it comes to me that I’ve accepted her, settled for her, preferred her, cared for her, tried to win her, and done other things. But I don’t know if I’ve ever truly chosen her. She asked me out the first time we went out. Schnarch did write extensively about this, and I’m going to have to look it up again as it didn’t register first time through and i didn’t write about it because it didn’t hit me.

Moving on to better sex might be a daunting challenge, but I think she might be up for at least approaching the challenge of it. She seemed to be very open to it last night at least. No we did not have sex. By the time we concluded, it was already 1:30 a.m. and we both had to get up early and I was tired before we started the conversation. But we were snuggled together and touching and holding hands and it really was probably more intimacy than we had shared at any other time. Hence the proposed title “This is the most significant conversation we’ve ever had” which is a statement Arwyn made.

We concluded by deciding that we would avoid more positively. Namely that we were going to avoid avoiding these sorts of conversations in the future!

D.

191.6

Okay so we went up a bit over the holidays, but this is not a big huge concern.  I figure I’m allowed to fluctuate around 5 pounds or so, which I’ve always done.  I just need to remain focused on the diet and exercise.  In fact, as I shift my training a bit, I expect some modest weight gain as I develop some muscle mass.  And that’s really where I’m going next.

While my smallish gut still wants to hang around, I notice that it only protrudes the way it does mostly because I have no chest!  And that’s where I really need to focus some effort.  The problem is the same with every other exercise that I’ve done, which is finding something I like.  So I’m trying out a variation on my Stepmania program, which involves doing it with my hands instead of my feet.  Basically, I’m doing a modified push-up until I get enough endurance up to do it regular push-up style.  I notice that I do get a decent upper body workout over a period of several songs at the lower level by virtue of having to change the position of my hands all over the mat.  The biggest pain is that having a computer monitor that suits me for using my feet on the mat doesn’t suit me as well when I’m on the floor.  I like that I have to hold my head up, but my neck gets a bit extended in that position.  I might end up using a laptop when working the upper body.

Progress on the other storyline remains glacial, at best.  After our talk, Arwyn does make an effort to sleep with her head at the head of the bed (still under her own blanket) but will often switch back during the night.  She’s having some sinus problems which results in her snoring loudly but for some reason this doesn’t bother me nearly as much as my snoring bothers her. 

Other updates are in the works, but I figure I’d at least give you a taste. 

 

D.

 

A Commotion in the Bedroom

Actually, if there is one, I have no idea.  I just put that out there to be teasy and witty.  It’s not that there shouldn’t be a commotion in the bedroom right now.  There should.  but there’s not.  At least not with me in it.

I’m listening to some xtian trance music that I ordered a couple of weeks ago and it came in today, of all days!  And it is pretty cool.  Arwyn likes Christian music just because of the words and not necessarily the music itself.  But this is still too rich and fast for her blood, and she said as much after listening to a bit of it.  I’m the opposite, where I like most genres of music but just because it is Christian rock or contemporary doesn’t make it good.  In fact, a lot of it is pretty hideous.  Most of this is stuff that I like and will eventually get it tricked out with some steps for the dance pad.  It takes several hours of some maximum CPU power to get just a few songs rendered and I’ve got about 7 CDs here.  Tonight I began converting them into mp3’s to get them ready.

This morning I was somewhere in the 196.8 range but tonight I suspended the workout activities in order to eat some cake with the boys.  They were all excited and could hardly wait.  Arwyn could NOT wait as there was a big, giant strip of cake missing on one side.  She’d have gotten away with it if she hadn’t frosted the thing first.  Oh well.

Now that I’ve got some new music, I’m anxious to get back on the mat again and work it out.  I’ll have to really work hard and punish the body a bit for my indulgence but I figured, “What the heck? Why not indulge a bit just once?”  After all, other people do it it, some more often than others.

Too bad I have to work in the morning, otherwise I’d have had a beer or two or three with my cake and my new music.

I’ll give a more detailed account later, perhaps.

D.

199.8

I had to do a double-take on where I was last week, and sure enough I have lost 4 pounds, even after a weekend of not holding back much on the eating and only moderate exercise.

Just to get this out of the way, I did put my ring back on.  Xi’s post on retaining the dented finger look after 7 months was the deciding factor, since this was never meant to be a long term thing.  Whether or not it was passive aggressive bullshit remains to be seen.  I never threatened anything or put conditions out there, I was mostly curious in a bullshit sort of way.  And lately I got more curious as to the fit, since I’ve lost a good 30 pounds since taking the thing off.  And sure enough, it doesn’t seem to really dig in as much.  It’s not slipping off or anything, but it’s loose enough.

While in the local Wal-Mart, I decided to try on some jeans, which I haven’t done in ages.   I’ve been buying Khkis with the “comfort fit” meaning some elastic stretch was included and kept me in the 40″ range even though I was probably closer to a 42.  The 38″ jeans still felt pretty loose and the 36″ jeans felt pretty good but one can’t be too sure with the way jeans shrink.  I put them back on the shelf, as I’m not sure where I’m going to end up with this.  I’m thinking I might like to get down around 185, and maybe 34″ in the waist or so and then beef it up a bit with more muscle.  But I’m not sure how I might go about that with my current exercise routine, which I like…most of the time.

It’s a lot like sex for women who might not necessarily be HL.  I feel reluctance towards doing it, but once I get on the mat, I generally have a pretty good time and enjoy myself and feel a lot better afterwards.  I can always think of other things I should be doing or could be doing sometimes while stepping, but generally end up going for the full hour as I find new songs that I’m keen to master.

On the food side of it,  I’m into fish at the moment.  High protein, low fat and it’s different than poultry.  The talapia comes in these individual serving-sized packets that I can nuke in 6 minutes or so with a small sliced potato and lemon pepper, while Arwyn and the boys eat corn dogs, pizza or whatever other sort of junk they fancy.

Arwyn has not said a lot about my weight loss, but she has noticed.  The people at work have really noticed, although I haven’t had any co-workers try and come on to me.  They are all pretty impressed but at a safe distance.

And I do like my slimmer self.  I kind of turn myself on looking at a much flatter stomach.  In fact, I can barely keep my hands off myself!  Hey, I put a considerable amount of work into this makeover, and know where I’ve come from.  I would definitely do me.  And I do.  Maybe it’s better than I don’t have folks coming on to me, else I would become totally insufferable!

D.

Heavy

I was watching Animal Planet with the boys and we were watching a program about moose.  One thing that became pretty clear is that for a bull moose, life evolves around the rutting season which is about right now.  Their massive antlers, their energy stores and behaviors all revolve around getting a chance at that mature female.  The more massive that rack, the more impressive they are to a female.  It’s not a lot different with humans, only instead of antlers we seem to be prized for our massive wallets.  A nice butt never hurt anything, tho, or so I’ve been told. 

 

The title is not so much about my weight, since I continue to lose pretty steadily.  Perhaps this will be the week I finally get under 200 pounds.  The title came to me while doing my daily Stepmania play.  There are 4 basic levels: beginner, light, standard and heavy and occasionally a 5th level sometimes called insanity.  Levels are also measured in “feet” which basically indicates the number of steps on a scale of 1-10.  1 and 2 foot levels make up a beginner level although they can also be considered “light.”  Increasing foot and level increase the speed and style of play.  I have a number of songs that I made into steps myself where “heavy” is 4-7 feet.  It involves a lot more quick steps than a light or standard level with the same number of feet.  My homemade steps are generally easier than regular Stepmania songs but they still stretch me out.  Today I was mostly on heavy mode, just lucky to survive with a grade of “D’, but it’s still progress.  When I started, “light” seemed almost impossible!  So all this nerdy talk translates into a much more strenuous workout going from 60-80 steps per minute to 100-160 steps per minute.  So when 220 steps per song used to get me thoroughly winded, I’m now stretching upward to over 300.  And getting a real cardio workout!

 

Okay, moving on for those still reading…

 

I have cited many reasons for losing weight, mostly health related with financial and competitive incentives thrown in.  But let’s be perfectly honest, here.    There’s also an element of vanity present.  I not only want to feel better, I want to look better.  I’d like to look good for the mature females during the rutting season.  For most of my marriage, I have felt totally unattractive.  I’ve relied on brain power for attraction and not spent any time on my body.  After all, more brains usually mean more income potential or so logic would indicate.

 

Okay, I’m doing it for me, yeah.  This is fortunate since while Arwyn has noticed my weight reduction (and corresponding snoring reduction) she hasn’t exactly been wallowing in my rut, if you get my drift.  She still sleeps with her head at the other end of the bed wrapped in her own blanket on top of the bed covers.  She will sometimes tolerate some hugs and kisses, these are not happening very often.  It’s a war I have grown weary of fighting  

 

A couple days after my anniversary I did take off my wedding ring in a dual experiment.  First, I wondered how long it would be before she noticed.  To her credit she noticed inside of a week.  When she asked why I had taken it off, I said it was cutting into my finger, which is partially true.  It wasn’t painful or anything, but that deep band-shaped dent…I was wondering how long it would stay there.  So that was experiment #2: how long does it take for the tell-tale indentation of a wedding band to wear off?  So far it is still there after over 2 months and it is still there although there is no longer any tan line.  I could wear a class ring or something to camouflage it if that was my intent but it isn’t at the present time.  I have the wedding band on my keychain so it is still with me wear ever I go.  I’m not sure how much longer to run this experiment, because if it takes longer than a year…well that’s longer than I’m keen to drag on this particular study.  Maybe a reader out there can give me some real data to render it academic.  I wore it over 10 years so I wonder if there is some sort of formula for answering the question.   

 

We’re otherwise getting along okay.  I decided to match Arwyn’s contribution towards her debt and we sat down last month and went over the statements together.  This is going to have to be a monthly thing until those debts are paid off.  She’s okay with it so far so at least we seem to be on the same page.  If she wants to get something extra at the store while grocery shopping like a music CD, I don’t make a fuss at all.  I’m trying to let her know it’s okay to indulge a bit as long as it doesn’t put us into some sort of hole.  Outside of that setback, finances are fine. 

BTW, I weighed in this morning…

200.0!

 

D.

 

 

205.0

Finally!

I was able to break out of the declining skid I’ve been in for a couple of weeks and get back on track.  But, man!  I had to really work at it!  I mean 5 days of Stepmania and mowing the lawn on Saturday.  Lawn mowing is still a staple of my exercise routine but that’s going to suffer when the grass stops growing.  Things will get tough over the holidays!

I finally found the ultimate in music, which is the Maximum Workout CD.  Every song/mix is 130-140 BPM which is just exactly where I like it.  I had it going while mowing and finished in almost 1/2 the time it normally takes me!  I think I lose weight just listening to it!  So I spent the day (and all night) laying down step tracks to it.  I’m using a special program to do it that pretty much takes all the CPU it can get and still takes an hour for each song to compile.  But the charts are going to be challenging and awesome.

I started this on the cheap by downloading all the free stuff (program and songs) from the Stepmania site.  I bought a couple of cheap mats, from ebay and I was totally on my way.  However, as my skill level has increased, I’ve gotten more into it and there have been some increased costs.  The biggest, by far, is the new music.  Once I learned how to create my own simfiles, I started looking for music I really liked.  I liked many of the songs downloaded from the Stemania site, but there were a bunch I didn’t like at all.  It’s been a blast rediscovering some of the techno stuff from the 80’s and also looking at some groups in a similar genre as DAF that I hadn’t heard of.

The result has been ordering a number of CD’s from Amazon.  Your tip-of-the-day is to always order from the used section if possible, as those folks rely on ratings just like ebay, whereas Amazon has gotten lackadaisical in their service.  Their delivery time, frankly, sucks.  “Super saver” shipping = “Super Slow.”  You’ll be waiting weeks and maybe months.  The used stuff comes pronto and usually for less.

I also bid on some new mats.  The cheap ones were good to start off in but as I get to high levels with faster foot work, they tend to slide all over the place and curl up.  I bid on a pair of Red Octane mats  and actually won that auction for less than $50!  So theoretically, I could sell one back and recover my costs since they retail at 2x that for just one.  But you see that while it’s inexpensive compared to other exercise/recreation routines, it can start to become moreso.  Just check out the prices on metal dance pads and you’ll see.

I’m feeling pretty good about the weight loss business as it’s been maybe 20 years since I’ve been this low.  Getting below 200 is my main goal and then I’ll see about maintaining while building a bit of muscle mass.  Right now I’m in a race to see how low I can go before the holidays, weight wise.  At the same time, I’m looking at increasing my speed and skill with Stepmania so it helps to have these goals working in tandem.  Less bulk = more speed and endurance and higher scores = more muscle tone = more weight loss = less bulk.  In behavioral terms, it’s an elegant cycle of reinforcement and consequences that sets up an antecedent for more exercising behavior.  I’ve got a video game, some techno music, a bit of computer wizardry… In short, this program really hits my geek buttons!

I’m probably boring you non-geeks to tears, along with a bunch of fellow nerds because I’m not writing anything about sex.   Truth is, I’m pretty much diverting myself from the whole sexual arena through this other diversion.  Avoiding in the classic style of the word.  But I feel like I’m being productive and not pressuring anyone while working off my own edge/urges.  The cage play was basically ramping me up which is okay when frustration is the goal.  But now I’m working it off, and lately feel less uptight about whether sex is on the menu or not.  Since it’s clearly not, I’m becoming less stressed over it.  I have other things to occupy my energy and time that involve a lot less stress.

I’ve given some thought to that rhetorical question XH had in in his “Disfunction” post which was “Why are you so HL, anyway?”  Other than the fact of being a healthy, normal male, I really don’t have a good answer to that.  Why would I want to make it with someone who acts like an advance or invitation from me looks like rape?  No thanks. Perhaps this will be one of those issues that we, as a couple, just sort of outlast, outplay or outwit.  Or maybe not.  We’ll just have to see.

D.

208.0

That’s what the scale read this morning, which wasn’t terribly surprising but after being so swift out of the starting blocks, I’m not liking the slowing trend.  But a loss is a loss, right?  Still, I can’t help but wonder how Finished Last was able to lose his weight so quickly.  I’m not sure he was even exercising at all!

Speaking of exercise, I finally cleared a song on Stepmania at the “Heavy” level today.  People who do the dance games a lot usually are at standard/heavy while lightweights like me tend to remain on “light” mode for awhile.  But in order to really get a decent workout, a body has to move a little more and a little quicker and the higher levels definitely provide that sort of action.  However my dance mat is the cheap variety and slides all over creation when I’m at the higher levels.  So I’m bidding on a pair of Red Octane Ignition mats on Ebay.  I’m hoping I can get two for less than the price of one, if that makes any sense.

I alsoordered some more CDs in order to add to my dancing music collection.  I do better at beat rates that are way up there so that’s where I went.  I once again went back to my old techno roots.  Thanks to Amazon, I was able to order a CD from a group that I have not heard in about 25 years.  Anyone else heard of DAF?  Didn’t think so.  When I was in Germany, my host brothers were seriously into the Neue Deutsche Welle (New Wave German) sound and DAF was way out in front back in 1982-83.  Here’s a little Youtube I managed to endure via dial-up.  I totally get it if it’s not your cup of tea.  It brings back some awesome memories for me, though.  Dancing crazily at the discos just like Gabi, back when I was skinny.  Now I can do it again!–the dancing crazily not so much the skinny.  I also ordered a couple of other CD’s I might review once I get them.

As you can see, this hobby/program, once very inexpensive and cheap is rapidly costing more.  But it’s FUN!

For those of you wondering what I’m talking about with all this Stepmania stuff, here’s another Youtube of me in action.

Aren’t I cute?

Ha!  I wish I had his talent!  He never missed even once.  Seriously the little guy had 301 combos and I’m still thrilled at 100.  And he didn’t even bother waiting for his score before going to play with some other toy!

I usually go for 45 minutes to an hour but have gone longer if I have the time and if I’m really feeling it.  3500 calories = 1 pound of blubber and I can burn 5-600 per hour working out, at least if the DDR sites are half-way accurate.  So given that I work out 4-5x a week, my weight loss would be right on if I wasn’t also adjusting my diet.

I guess I’ll be at this for awhile, at this rate, so it’s a good thing I actually like this little program I’m on, at least the exercise/dance part of it.  Being able to do my own music and steps has made a huge difference in sustaining the effort.  Otherwise it would be easy to get bored.

D.