Next up is a trip to Europe in early September. I've been keeping an eye out for international flight deals and finally found one to Copenhagen. Just after I booked my ticket my mother asked if she could come along, so we are now in the process of planning our trip together. We're going to spend a few days in Copenhagen, then Paris, Salzburg, Munich and back out of Copenhagen. I'm really looking forward to it as I've never visited mainland Europe. And traveling with my mom, who has similar eating habits, is going to make things that much more fun.
A few updates:
- I'm still doing the Farmers Walk once a week. I loves it. I'm currently carrying 120 lb in each hand for, oh, about 100 meters. I think. That's just a guess on the distance, but it matters not. I do it twice, then maybe once more with a little less weight before I call it good. After realizing that I didn't want grip strength to be the failing point of the Farmers Walk, I fashioned myself some fabulous looking wrist straps made out of an old road cycling tire (see pic). These work amazingly well with a wristband. Now I end the Farmers Walk because of exhaustion and not my sissy grip strength.
- I've been tinkering with eating most of my food in the evenings between 5:30 and 7:30 ish. I skip breakfast as usual, but now sometimes I skip lunch as well. Some days I'll have sardines and eggs for lunch, but nothing big. I think I've discovered the cure for EVERYTHING here!! Just kidding. I'm tinkering because I can. Nothing more, nothing less. Probably the most interesting thing is to feel what it's like to be really good and hungry before a meal several times a week. *
- I've literally been 'hanging' around on monkey bars at the playground and here at home on a pullup bar. After hearing Christopher Sommer talk about it on a podcast some time ago, and seeing my niece and nephew swinging effortlessly on bars, I decided to practice one and two handed hangs and swings. They've been great for strengthening the tendons and ligaments in my shoulders and arms, but it's a slow process. If someone were to just jump into doing one arm monkey swings without first doing some prep work, it would be bad. Total protonic reversal bad. I'm not trying to connect with my inner monkey or become a gymnast or anything like that, I'm just playing around with movement because I can, and it's fun.
* I think I've mentioned this before, but one of the most impactful quotes I've ever heard about nutrition keeps playing back again and again in my mind. It was uttered by Sir Bradly Wiggins in an interview during the 2012 Tour de France (which he won). He said, and I'm paraphrasing: "It actually doesn't take a lot of food to keep in top form. Surprisingly little, in fact." This from someone competing in and winning, arguably, the top endurance event in the world. Imagine how 'little' food a normal person might well need.
Now, to be fair, he had to be leaner than he 'likes' to be in order to win. Riding fast up mountains is all about your watt to weight ratio, but still, this point is glaring right at me every time I think about it ... It really doesn't take that MUCH nutrient dense food to keep us in top form. Sure, most people's problems go much deeper than merely overeating, but there is that too.
