Ok, so just to update the Myspace world.  That quitting smoking post from July.. I took off my nicotine patch on July 30th.   I got tired of the red circles they left behind.  I have not smoked since.

On the other hand, by the middle of October I went from a normal weight of about 190 pounds to an all time high of 210 points.  So that was my signal to kick my workouts back into gear and do more.

I started my current workout routine way back in 2003, and I've been at it off and on since then.  I started at approximately 190 pounds and 21 percent body fat.   (Yes, I'm a techweenie I have toys that measure these things) and in June of that year I started posting my workouts into my journal.

In October I took a further step, I started weighing myself every morning and following the exercise program from the Hacker's Diet.  I'm currently at rung 29.   So that's daily calisthenics and minimal cardio, on top of now 4 days a week of 40 minutes cardio workout. ( I start my cardio with the calisthenics cardio and just continue).   So far I'm back down about 12-15 pounds (depending on the day) and my fat percentage is pretty much holding tight at 20 point something.   I may need to change the batteries in my scale and see if that changes.   I don't like the idea that h'm losing both muscle and fat in my weight loss.

Today was kind of a kick in the pants.   I use a heart monitor watch to set the pace of my cardio workout, and in the first few minutes it will calculate my "target zone" from it's measure of my heart rate as I warm up.   When I haven't been working out for a long time it starts the low end of that range at 119 beats per minute.. it's been slowly edging that up and today, the low end of my range is suddenly 144.   I have no idea why it jumped up to that point, that's higher than it's ever been, but that's been about my average heart rate through my workouts for the last several weeks.

Now it was the low end.. and my commitment to technology said i couldn't just ignore that, reset it and hope for a lower number.   That's what the watch says so that's the workout you gotta do.    And it wasn't easy.   I had to use wrist weights while I danced around in order to get my heart working harder.   I haven't noticed any real extra soreness today, but I may not see that until tomorrow.  We'll see.