X Whore Size

One thing is for sure; Gone are my days of being the “active” fat kid.  I used to play soccer, baseball, ride my bike countless miles, walk all over the place and explore new things.  I was a ball of energy.  That was a LONG TIME AGO!

So I’ve been trying to incorporate some exercise into my healthy eating plan.  Really all I can do is walk right now.  And I’m doing about 100% better than I was 2 weeks ago.  But I’m still in the worst shape of my life.

Yesterday, I decided that instead of walking, I’d mow the lawn for my Mother.  She has a small, relatively flat yard.  I couldn’t get it done.  Maybe half way through, my hip felt like it was out of the joint and my legs were cramping.  I was breathing heavy, but I can handle that.  What I couldn’t handle was the pain in my legs and trying to push the mower any further.  I felt awful as I watched my mother, who is 30 years older than me, finish the job.

Today was somewhat better.  I decided to stick to regular walking.  Now, even though my Mom’s yard is relatively flat, the road leading to and beyond her house is straight uphill.  Now I could have opted for going to the park and walking on flat ground around the circle, but instead I decided to keep testing myself.  I wanted to see how far up the hill I could make it before I gave out. 

I stuck the dog on the leash and away we went.  I was out of breath before I even reached the mailbox (FML).  But I pressed on..past one house, then another house, then another, then BAM, cramp!  At this point, I was completely out of breath and had to take a rest.  I just hoped none of the neighbor folks were watching (unless I dropped dead, then come out and help my fat ass!).  The good news is that it was all downhill from there going back.

It appears that the easy part for me will be getting my breathing back.  I don’t smoke, so I’m sure that makes all the difference in the world.  However, my muscles are just not used to moving.  I think it will take longer to keep them in shape.  The cramps are a little demoralizing because I think I could go further if not for them.  I’m keeping myself well hydrated, drinking anywhere from 3/4 – 1 gallon of water a day.

I have also been keeping a journal of my daily food intake, water intake, exercise, and which meds I’m taking.  I’ll keep this mostly for my own sake, but will also bring it with me to the doctor in case I stumble a bit on the weight loss front and let her make some corrections in my diet.  This ain’t my first rodeo, so I think I have a lot of knowledge about my food intake.

I have a short term goal in mind for 2 weeks from now as far as weight goes.  I’ve also set a long term goal of being able to go out and enjoy myself on a couple fishing trips.  Yes I’m damn near too fat to fish (FML).  My problem is either walking to the fishing destination or maybe climbing in/out of a boat.  Hell, I could even capsize a small boat.  In the Fall, since I’m missing my summer river trip this  year due to health reasons, I’ll be heading down to Coastal Carolina and do some Redfish fishing with my brother (he’s a charter fishing boat captain).  Also this winter, I want to go with my buddy Scott and see about catching some monster catfish.  His quote “We don’t even take pictures of 40 lb’ers anymore..too small”.  I hope he lives up to his word.  The pic above is my Dad on one of the redfishing trips.

River on!

Not an hour after my last post, my buddy Charlie called me.  He is the other half owner of the cabin and the contractor on my house last year.  He said him and his cousin Danny were definitely going to the river.  So the trip was on!  Nice!

I called the usual suspects to see what their status was for that week.

Rusty – Oldest of the crew.  Recently married, awaiting child. One of those What Can Brown do for you guys who wears brown shorts and brown socks to work if you know what I mean.  He works for a Hypermega Global Corp. type company and they have all kinds of procedures for vacation days.  He’s pretty sure he can get off the necessary days.

Bub – 2nd oldest of the crew.  Definitely the most blonde.  Fun to get on a sleepless induced tilt.  Even more fun when he’s drunk.  He said he would love to go and will make it happen.  Bub is a trooper when it comes to fishing.

Roger – My oldest friend.  Personal problems kept him from attending these trips the past 2 years.  He’s going to check about getting the days off.  My mother is his boss, so I’m not seeing a problem there :)

Jason? – Other owner of the cabin. I’m sure he’s working on the park somewhere.  Doesn’t answer his phone.  Checks his email like once a century.  His status is very doubtful as I have mentioned the reasons in my last post.  Jason originally started organizing these trips and I hope things work out so that he can go.  He needs a break anyway.

Danny – Cousin to Jason and Charlie.  Overall good guy.  Kind of looks like Sloth from the Goonies, just not as sexy.  Danny has a knack for landing women that are way out of his league.  It’s either all personality or he’s hung like a horse.  By the looks of his up and coming bride to be, I’m guessing it’s the latter.  She’s way too hot for him :)  Danny is the fish at the poker games.  It’s not that he sucks or anything.  He just lives to spew.

Mike? – 2nd oldest friend.  Mike and I don’t get to hang out much anymore because he spends his spare days jumping from airplanes.  Myself, I’m afraid of planes and have never really had the urge to follow him down to SC on these trips.  Mike is the quiet guy that can probably outdrink anyone on the trip.  We grew up in the pool hall together (along with Roger), went to college together, and both loathe our IT jobs together.

So, what can we expect from this trip?  Well, it’s mostly poker and fishing with some horse shoes on the side.  There will be drinking.  There might be some magical tea passed around.  Fish might actually be caught.  There will be grilling and a lot of chilling.

Danny is getting married next month too.  This means, there might be a trip to Charlestown for a bachelor party.  This means a redneck version of The Procedure.  Poker, Booze, Strippers… not necessarily in that order.

Charlestown has strip clubs and a casino.  I’m pretty sure they are running table games now that they are legal too.  If that’s the case and if the Powerball winner that lives beside the cabin comes along, I will try for a stake in the highest stakes game they spread.  If Mr. Powerball gets hammered and starts handing out cash like he did last time this mini-trip happened, then that cash will skip the strippers’ grubby mitts and land in my pocket so I can stake myself :)  That’s how I roll.  I don’t care much for Mr. Powerball anyway.  He’s a pill popping douche who likes to show off his money :)

I did my fair amount of poker grinding over the weekend. The results were poor, but I was happy with the amount of hands I was able to play. Especially since this was a weekend filled with plans.

Friday night, I hit the sack early, so I only played a few hundred hands. I had to be up at 4:00 a.m., so I went to bed around 11:00 or so. I went fishing that Saturday morning. I left the house around 4:00 a.m. and got home around 5:30 p.m. It was a long day and very HOT. I loved it.

I caught a few trout on the fishing trip. I think my final total was 5. I kept 3 of the 5. My buddy Rusty caught like 7-8 and kept all his. It was too hot for trout fishing really, but we made due with what we had to work with.

I was dog tired when I got home, but did grind several hundred hands. I couldn't get anything to hold up and kept getting kicked in the nuts by the dealer. More of the same yesterday as I got up early and grindout out quite a bit.

I think I'm over my LHE phase again. After seeing my winnings go through the roof initially, my win line has cleared the hump and headed south. WAY SOUTH! Back to even. I hate LHE.

So, I started up Stoxpoker and some of Ed Miller's videos and caught the NLHE bug again. I really need to learn that game. So here's my gameplan:

20,000 hands at .10/.25 and re-evaluate results. If I feel comfortable with the game after that amount, then move up. If I'm still struggling, keep studying and do another 20K hands. And basically just repeat this process as I hopefully progress up the ranks.

The one thing I want to avoid is having a heater, decided I'm crushing the games, move up in limits and blow my bankroll because I thought I was a winning player. And here's something I'm going to confess here and now:

Post UIGEA, I'm no longer a winning poker player