It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… (apologies to Charles Dickens) The last two weeks have been rough. I’ve been on vacation from work since the Friday before Christmas. I didn’t go anywhere. I just did 16 days of R&R. Not good. I had a total breakdown in discipline. It’s weird how that happens. In the weeks leading up to it, I kept thinking how much I was going to get done with working out and all that. Didn’t happen. The problem was that I let myself get lazy leading up to the holidays and it stuck. Well, I managed to dig myself back out over the last several days, so I’m on track now. I got in a fair number of workouts the last two weeks, but not as many as I would have liked, especially given the amount of free time I had. Not at the intensity I would have preferred, either. Now, on the positive side, the weather cooperated today and I got out for nine holes

You may have noticed that I skipped the progress update last Sunday. I’m going to do these in two week increments during the winter because there’s just not much to talk about. There’s very little golf-related stuff I can do. When the season starts back up, I’ll go back to weekly updates. I feel like the last two weeks haven’t been good for me. I’m in a bit of a funk that I’m trying to get out of. It’s really tough to keep up the persistence during the winter. Harder than I thought it would be. With respect to diet, I haven’t done terribly, but I feel like I could have done a lot better. The scale has been on the fritz, in need of a battery (not a run of the mill type – eBay to the rescue, but still waiting…). That means I don’t have any numbers to tell me how bad I’ve been for the last two weeks. With my workouts, I really need to do a better job. I’ve missed a

This Week Not a bad week at all. I got in three workouts, but I got sort of lazy in the first half of the week and had to cram them in on Thursday, Saturday, and today. My preferred scenario is to space them out more evenly, and to try to get four sessions in. My back is feeling somewhat better, but not great. I’ve been incorporating my rehab exercises into my normal workout routine, but I haven’t gotten them all in yet. I’m waiting to see how that progresses and will adjust accordingly. On the weight loss front, I’m down about half a pound. That’s not a big win in my book, but it’s a step in the right direction. I remembered to bring my putter inside this week so I could get some work in on my putting stroke. That worked out pretty well. I leaned it up against the wall in plain sight so when I happen to walk by, I just pick it up and putt for a few minutes here

This Week It’s funny how when things are going good, bad days really aren’t as bad as they are when things are going bad overall. Not a great week, but I’ll take it. I got wrapped up around the holiday and only got in two workouts this week because of some poor planning. I would have had to go to the gym yesterday and today to make it three, but today I’m a little sore and tired so I took the day off. My plan is to work out tomorrow on my usual planned day off. I was home from work the past four days with the holiday so I don’t really need Monday for my usual relaxation. Flexibility in the plan is a nice mental booster. It’s what has kept me from missing one workout and blowing up the whole week in the process. Diet-wise, I didn’t do terribly, but I give myself the day off on Thanksgiving and ate some stuff I haven’t had in a couple of months, like dessert and other

For the first time in a while, I’m stringing the good weeks together. Part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop and upset this great progress. This Week I’ve been able to keep up my plan to get up early every day. I’m home free now. I get up at 6:30 during the week and on the weekend, I’ve been waking up by 7:00 without an alarm clock. It’s really been a great way to get to the gym before work. Working out doesn’t feel like such a chore now after a long day. Speaking of working out, I got in another three solid workouts this week. I’ve been continuing my high intensity interval training. I was using a recumbent bike, but as I began to adapt to that, I started to increase the challenge by graduating to an elliptical trainer. Right now, I do a couple of intervals on each, but the elliptical trainer definitely takes a bigger toll. I’m continuing with some moderate weight training to gain some strength in