I'm doing 41 things
I wrote a long, 11 page journal of the Ottawa Race Weekend. It was amazing!
dbigham's Life List
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1. Do one hundred consecutive push-ups
1 entry . 1 cheer237 people -
2. Learn French
1 entry . 1 cheer8,407 people -
3. Learn Spanish
1 entry12,696 people -
4. Learn to fly
1 entry1,889 people -
5. Donate blood
1 entry . 1 cheer2,073 people -
6. Learn Ruby on Rails
1 entry1,318 people -
7. Create a programming language
1 entry45 people -
8. Bike across Canada
1 entry28 people -
9. Read the Bible in a year
239 people -
10. 24 hours with nothing but water
1 person -
11. Have a child
414 people -
12. Bench press my own weight
43 people -
13. Get a masters degree
2,387 people -
14. Get a PhD
2,347 people -
15. Live to be 100
270 people -
16. Hit a hole in one
1 entry36 people -
17. Par the Turkey Point golf course
1 person -
18. Visit 43 countries
1 entry3 people -
19. Fly to 80,000 feet
1 entry1 person -
20. Orbit the earth
11 people -
21. Run 400 meters in 55 seconds
1 entry1 person -
22. Weigh 200 lbs. with 10% body fat
1 person -
23. Create a webpage that receives 1,000,000 hits
1 person -
24. Hit a golf ball 300 yards
1 entry3 people -
25. Learn to play 10 instruments
1 person -
26. Learn to snowboard
1 entry2,130 people -
27. Do a back handspring
281 people -
28. Do the splits
1,676 people -
29. Learn to juggle
940 people -
30. Do 30 consecutive chin-ups
1 person -
31. Throw a baseball 75 mph
1 person -
32. Learn the birthday and anniversary dates of my family
1 person -
33. Know the names and city of residence of 100 people at church
1 person -
34. Go skydiving
5,230 people -
35. Go bungee jumping
1,041 people -
36. Learn to ride a motorcycle
1,345 people -
37. Learn to windsurf
92 people -
38. Learn to surf
6,010 people -
39. Learn to scuba dive
2,214 people -
40. Freedive to 100ft
2 people -
41. finish an ironman
1 entry150 people
Recent entries
I made it!
2 months ago
Well, I’ve lost the 15 pounds I wanted to for my marathon this weekend. Woo hoo! It took about a month and a half I think, so that’s a little over two pounds per week. Something I noticed is that once you stop letting yourself pig out, your stomach does shrink, and then even if you WANT to eat more than you should, your stomach fills up pretty quick. Here are the things that I think helped a lot:
1. Getting up an hour before breakfast (ie. Not eating breakfast for an hour). The theory is that your body will burn some fat since it doesn’t have your breakfast to digest yet.
2. Eating a mid-morning and mid-afternoon “snack”—somewhere around half of a normal meal… and make your other three meals smaller than they would have otherwise been. Eating more often supposedly raises your metabolism and helps shrink your stomach.
3. As just mentioned, reduce the size of your breakfast, lunch, and supper. Especially your supper. Also, be very “objective” about dishing your supper out or making your lunch. Don’t be lazy and give yourself more than you want to eat.
4. Not eating anything after supper, and eating supper before 7:00 PM.
5. Eating a significant serving of vegetables both at lunch and at supper. Everyday. The fiber fills you up, and it’s good for you!
6. Cutting out all bad-for-you foods: Anything high in saturated fat or anything that is mostly refined sugar. No pizza, no hamburgers, no pop, no candy, etc.
I think if someone can do these things, they’ll definitely lose weight. Obviously exercise is the other half of this equation… I recommend running! It’s about the most efficient exercise in terms of time and cost, but ease into it slowly so that you don’t make your legs or feet sore.
Good luck!
GRAND magazine (KW)
2 months ago
Every couple of months we get a magazine named GRAND: Living Well in Waterloo Region delivered to our doorstep. It’s a free magazine that contains interesting, well photographed articles about people, businesses, and places in the region.
An article that I enjoyed reading this month:
“Nothing stops him”: A look into the life of Don Andrews, a local triathalete that specializes in the Ironman. I followed Don and his teammates last year as they trained and raised money for “iron DOGS 4 kids”.
Although I would love to do an Ironman some day, I haven’t done a whole lot of research. And so it was a bit of an eye opener to read that this guy runs every single day (5:30 AM), then cyles or swims for a couple of hours on top of that. (I find running 3 times a week to be lots!)
As he talks about his recent race in Lake Placid, it becomes evident how gruelling an Ironman can be:
Then he hit the wall. Thirty kilometres into the runn, driven by exhaustion, his body began to shut down. Unable to speak or hear, Andrews was reduced to a walk, questioning whether he could even finish. “I was ready to check myself in to an ambulance.” Eating and drinking constantly to rebuild his energy, Andrews walked five kilometres before a passing racer coached him back into the race. Pointing out a shadow that lay across the road, he told Andrews, “When you get to that shadow, you’re running”.
A couple of weekends ago, while I was doing some raking with church friends, a man that I hadn’t met before was talking about his son-in-law’s experience running the Ironman. He said that the swim and cycle portions were ok, but that the run was gruelling. After barely being able to complete the race, his son in law vowed never to do it again. He was helped into a car and taken immediately to a hotel to sit in an ice bath. It was a full two months before he had fully recovered.
On the other end of the spectrum, Meredith has a contact in the financial world that speaks of Ironmans as if they were pretty straightforward. When I chatted with him in Toronto one evening, he said that once you’ve done an Ironman, you realize that they’re really not all that difficult. Likewise, my sister Hannah knows of an older lady who started doing Ironmans in her 50s or 60s and has done one every year for a number of years.
So there are definitely some mixed messages out there!
