Author Archives: tim

Deschutes steelhead & Yakima trout

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It had been a few years since I’d taken a fishing trip thanks to illness but in the spring I signed up for this trip figuring I’d be back to 100% be fall.  Well, I wasn’t quite to 100% and had some doubts just weeks before the trip but decided to go for it figuring the worst that could happen is that I flared up and had to be boated back to the car early, at least there was an option for that with this trip.  Jeff decided to come out to join me since we hadn’t fished together since Miami and the Keys back in February 2013.

The trip was a hosted Gink + Gasoline trip organized by Louis Cahill who I met at South Andros back in 2011, was it really that long ago?    The guide service was Jeff Hickman’s Fish the Swing and they seemed ready to deal with my diet and the possibility of an early evacuation if needed.   The plan was to use jet boats to head to camp up the lower Deschutes and then fish split days from a single camp instead of floating the river like we did back in 2008.

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Weight up again, new podcast

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IMG_8733My weight had been stalling a bit but this morning is back on the upward trend. I just weighed in at 158.6, this is the most I’ve weighed since January 2014 when the big downslide in weight began.   This is huge, it has taken me nearly two years to climb back up to this point.  My interim goal of 160 seems to be getting within reach.  Let’s see how this trip goes and if I can maintain weight while on it.

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Weight and sleep update, ready to hit the road

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IMG_8630It has been three weeks since I started pigging out in my attempt to gain weight and two weeks since I started to work on my sleep.   How’s all this working?    Well, my weight was steadily climbing and I thought for sure I would be at 160 around now but instead I’ve dropped back a bit once again.   Today I weighed in at 157 and seem to be stuck around 156-157.   This is better than being stuck at 151 and at least my BMI is now 20.5 which is  in the range where I can live with it.    The weight training is working, in the few weeks since I got serious I’ve increased 3 lbs. and have found my quads and biceps both grow by 0.5″ already.    I’m trying to get in weight workouts at least 3 days a week and have really noticed an increase in strength.  I could initially only leg press 180 and just barely and now I can do a set of 200, I think I can actually get to 210 or 220 next time. Quad and hamstrings were at 80, now I can do 100 with them.  It is kind of amazing how fast the strength comes back when you get serious about it and my workouts only last about 15-20 minutes since I’m just pushing the hardest weight I can get off the stack until my muscles just fail.

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Sleep restriction one week in

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sleep_efficiency_1I’ve been on my sleep restriction plan for a little over a week now.  The first few nights I slept pretty well then I cratered but since then have worked my way back up to where last night I slept my whole allowed 6.5 hours.   I’m hoping that this trend of high sleep efficiency continues and I can start adding in some extra sleep time at the end of next week.  I was pretty drug out the first 4 days of this but now am used to sleeping less and actually feel pretty good most of the day but do get really tired around 7 p.m.  Staying up after Catherine goes to bed is the tough part, I just want to go to bed then too but usually have another 90-120 minutes to stay up.

Seattle paleo burgers

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I realize I’ve posted about Paleo eats in Portland and the Quad Cities but have never mentioned Seattle yet.  Well, in the last few weeks I’ve actually eaten out a few times at burger places that are Paleo friendly and thought it was due a post.

Blue Moon Burgers

IMG_8511First was Blue Moon Burgers in Fremont which Kristen and I went to on the day of the Geocaching Block Party.   Blue Moon has an extensive Gluten-free menu and even a Paleo Burger on the menu which consists of a 1/3 lb. beef patty, two strips of bacon, an egg and red onion all wrapped in lettuce.  I left the sauce off.  They also have sweet potato fries of various forms, regular and curry which are also GF.   Blue Moon also locally sources it’s beef and gives back to the community.   Blue Moon has location in Fremont, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill.

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Weight Update

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IMG_8602It has been two weeks since I got serious about trying to get my weight back up with Operation Bradley Cooper and a little over a month since I cratered out at 151.   What has happened in the this last month? I’ve managed to gain 5.8 lbs is what happened!  I’m now at 156.8, the most I’ve weighed since February when my weight started declining again.   It really seems that something in my system shifted in the last few weeks since I’m finally able to gain weight and keep a steady gain.  Granted, I’m eating a lot more calories than I’m burning so maybe still not absorbing perfectly but at least I know  that if I eat enough food that I can indeed keep the weight trending in the right direction.

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The sleep plan – phase 1

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As I mentioned in my last post, I have been dealing with some middle of the night (or sometimes early in the night) insomnia for the last month and decided to go to a sleep clinic to see what I could do.    I had the appointment on Wednesday and, of course, on Monday and Tuesday nights slept like a baby for over 9 hours each night, I think I had hit the point of total exhaustion.

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Sleep issues, if it isn’t one thing it’s another

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For the last two weeks my sleep has been really rough while my SIBO has been minimal and my weight has been on an increase finally.   I never sleep great but usually I can eek out 7.5-8 hours per night with a few wake ups in there but since coming back from Iowa early in the month I have been progressively sleeping less and less with many more interruptions in my sleep.   For the last week, at least, my pattern is to fall asleep no problem, wake up 2 hours later and then fall back asleep after maybe a bit of reading.  I then wake up again 1.5-2 hours after that feeling pretty wide awake, my body thinks it is 4:30 in the morning and it is 1:00.  I  then never really sleep great after that, I’ll doze off and wake up again every few minutes.  Some mornings I crash again around 4:30 and finally crawl out of bed between 5:30-6:30.

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The old PRs continue to fall

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Ignore that distance, it was 10.4 miles. GPS in the Watershed is always off.

Today was the Summer Blast at the Redmond Watershed put on by Northwest Trail Runs. The Watershed and this run are special to me since I ran my first ever trail run, a 10-miler, at the Watershed, did my first marathon at the Watershed and ran my fastest half there too.   Plus I spent a lot of time running in this park when I lived in Redmond, it was my primary training ground.

I was originally signed up for the half thinking maybe I’d be ready for it by today but alas, I was not.  I stopped running for the most part after dropping weight again so since the Lord Hill 10k I’d run maybe twice and those were 4 mile runs.  So I hadn’t even made it half of a half marathon in distance yet.  On top of that we are heading to Mount Rainier on Monday to do the Northern Loop and I didn’t want to be totally wiped out before starting that.  So, I bumped down to the 10-mile run figuring I could bail at 5 if I needed to.

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Operation Bradley Cooper

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nrm_1421857985-elle-bradley-hEven though I feel about 99% better and much healthier than a year ago I’m still struggling with my weight.   I was up to 159 in December and thought that I was on my way to 160 and done with all this weight loss that I’d been struggling with after dropping from 183 to 146 earlier in the year.    Then early in the year I dropped down into the 156-157 range and stayed there for several months.  In March I dropped down into the 153-154 range and ended up stuck there for months.   Most of the early summer I fluctuated in this range and started trying to eat more to see if I could bump it up.   Then in late July Catherine said I was looking gaunt again so I weighed myself and was at 151 which was the lowest I’d been in a year.  Since then I have been struggling to stay above 150, mostly stuck right around 152 even eating around 3000 calories per day.

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