Everyday Systems

JWL

The past two days have been mixed. I'm still getting over a cold, and I get winded very easily and hack up a lung. Not doing too badly, running at about 70% oxygen capacity and holding steady. Forcing myself to get stuff done and trying to take care of myself. Yesterday was good diet-wise, but I did...

JWL

Hi Reinhard, unless you are in a hurry, try going VERY SLOWLY down the stairs, basically using your muscles to slow down gravity.... I guarantee you'll get some exercise from that, especially if you start skipping steps on the slow way down.... The idea is to slowly and gently lift your body weight ...

JWL

wow, very cool.

I think for today's shugg routine, I'm going to try a low rep set... I left my 10# sledge in the trunk of the car which my wife has at work... so I'll either try the 8# or the 16#.... we'll see....

JWL

Today's weigh-in: 333.4 My last weigh-in, back in February, was 328.2. So I'm up 5 pounds, which is less than 2% of my total body weight and, based on experience, within the error-tolerance of my digital scale. This is a good benchmark for me, because despite all the funny stuff over the past severa...

JWL

Hi Reinhard.... you are right, in a sense. Though I would say that more immediately, it comes from a sense of numbness rather than some deeply self destructive, self loathing impulse. I mean, clearly anyone who stops and thinks about how such a habit of gluttony is self-destructive can pretty easily...

JWL

hey david... what are ring pushups?

JWL

OK, time for a quick check-in before I head off to work.... The past couple of days have been successful, for the most part. No gluttonous overeating, though I did enjoy yesterday as an S-day, my wife was baking like mad for a fundraising bake sale and I sampled a couple chocolate chip cookies and b...

JWL

Today was a success. Meal #1 was half of a leftover burrito, and a peanut butter, banana, peach and soymilk smoothie. Meal #2 was at a restaurant with a friend of mine. I had a plate with chicken/cheese quesadilla, black beans, rice, and a salad. Exercise was good. I did a good yoga routine, and my ...

JWL

very cool, Reinhard! I look forward to more videos....

JWL

Once again time gets away from me. Usually when I'm not updating here, it's probably not a good sign in terms of my adherence to no-s and exercise. These past few weeks are no exception. It was vacation time (in the sense that I used one weeks vacation from work), and got lots of stuff done, includi...

JWL

Greetings all! In the spirit of the before/during picture fest, here's my version: http://jwl.freakwitch.net/images/before_during_7.2006-600px.png I have both my 10# and my 16# sledgehammer on my shoulder, and you can also see my old belt with the notches cut into it. Not sure what my weight was in ...

JWL

Today was a ... SUCCESS! Which is easy because my S days are Thursday and Friday.... heh. Meal #1 was leftovers from last night, and a pear. Meal #2 was a burrito with cheese, rice, seitan/onions/garlic/peppers/lime juice/cilantro/chili powder/cumin, more cilantro, fresh tomatoes, and guacamole. Act...

JWL

I wanted to post my recipe for Homemade Roasted Seitan. It is a variation from the one listed in The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook , very similar but I've adapted it in enough subtle ways to make it my own. Dry Ingredients 6 cups of vital wheat gluten 1 cup of nutritional yeast flakes 2 Tablespoons of ...

JWL

Hi Reinhard, your point about 3 meals rather than 2 is well taken. I'm more concerned about the eating after 9pm thing, not to mention the "liquid candy" of the DD coolatta I got yesterday... I wasn't sweating the extra bagel the other night too much. Anyway, I'm happy to say that today was a SUCCES...

JWL

OK, the past couple of days have been a bit odd. Definitely some funny stuff, but I don't feel too far out of whack.... Yesterday I worked an extra shift. It was slamming busy so they bought dinner for everyone. I had some of the pasta they had there (they basically set up an Italian buffet). I also...

JWL

thanks again for all the well-wishes, folks!

JWL

Just to be clear, I don't think that TiddlyWiki is the best solution for what you're trying to do, Reinhard. I think the "standard" wiki software, MediaWiki , would make the most sense, though I doubt you could integrate usernames from this forum to that. Part of it really depends on how much direct...

JWL

Also, Reinhard, in the page you have set up now, I'd be careful about having a 'muscles worked' section. It's true that the ones you have listed are some of the primary muscle groups in each movement, but I think in exercise that is more organic, like shovelglove, part of the beauty of the approach ...

JWL

I've been experimenting with TiddlyWiki , which is really fun, but the problem with that is that it only works on a local HTML file, not over the net. However, there is a version of it that works over the net using PHP and mySQL called ccTiddly , which can be configured with usernames and passwords ...

JWL

hey heathengirl.... 2 meals on N days works for me. Despite the warnings from lots of people to make sure I'm eating enough, I find that I feel best when I do this. I've heard this is the "European" model, that many Europeans eat 2 meals per day. I would say stick with what you think will work for y...

JWL

Today was mostly successful, with one bit of funny stuff. I was awakened early today, with only about 5 hours of sleep, if that. I was really hungry, so I had my first meal today at around 9am (leftover tofu/veggie stirfry with rice). At work, I was then hungry again at around 3 or 4pm, so I indulge...

JWL

today was a kinda borderline, but in the interest of good juju I'll call it a success! No-S My first meal was 2 burritos with cheese, beans, rice and veggies. These filled my plate nicely. Mmmmm.... My 2nd meal was homemade cottage pie with lots of veggies and TVP chunks in a pie crust that my wife ...

JWL

Wow, thanks everyone! I had a great 37th birthday, a mellow day with great food, frisbee in the field, loved ones, and all the rest... I even got some guitar tracks edited... woo hoo!

JWL

Belated check-in. Thursday and Friday were my S-days this week, Friday doubly so because it was my birthday. :-) Thursday was pretty good as S days go, it was pretty much like an N day except I had 3 meals instead of 2. Yesterday was very high calorie, as birthdays are at times. :-) It included 2 me...

JWL

hi Reinhard,

I think this is a good idea. What about a Wiki?

JWL

Today was... Dripping Wet!!!! but a success! No-S Well, I said yesterday that I'd have a smoothie and a salad for breakfast. So I made a soy milk, peanut butter, frozen banana, frozen peach smoothie, and when I finished it I wasn't hungry so I skipped the salad. Dinner was a burrito: cheese, rice, b...

JWL

has anyone ever switched out a handle on a sledgehammer? I know they sell replacement handles. My 16# sledge has a fiberglass handle which I hate. I'd really rather it had a wood handle, so I've been thinking about swapping it out. I think removing it would be a pain, as it looks like it's epoxied i...

JWL

hi wildnight, on the main shovelglove page scroll down to the shovelglove evolution section, and all the moves are listed in the tables there, with links explaining each one. Though, I agree that there should be a bit more detailed explanation of each move on the main page in an easier-to-find spot....

JWL

heh, my wife and I aren't stage choreographed fighters or anything, but oftentimes we'll get silly and do a mock choreographed fight in super-slow motion, matrix like.... it usually ends with one of us pulling out an automatic firearm and, in slow motion, blasting the hell out of the other one.... u...

JWL

hey there, if they have a 30 day return policy, I'd hold off a bit on the exchange. My first week of shugging.... my goodness. I was sore like I'd never been sore before. But I got used to it reasonably quickly. My suspicion is that if you can get through an entire 14 minute routine with the 10 poun...

JWL

oh, I also do the churn butter move one-handed.... these days with the 16# hammer.

JWL

Reinhard, I agree re: butter churning working the chest. I've been doing my butter churning one-handed with the 16# hammer the past few days, and can really feel it.... Another good one for the abs is "chop the tree", which I usually do with my 10# hammer (or the 8#er if I really want to choke down)...

JWL

hey Deb... congrats on the squats. They really are awesome exercises. I'm impressed that you can do 50! I think I'm gonna have to up the number I do... I did 40 one day recently, but I've been sorta stopping at 25 for a while. I think I'm gonna have to work my way back up to 50, just to keep up with...

JWL

Thanks for the love and wellwishes, everyone. It's greatly appreciated. I'm trying to snap myself out of this funk through sheer force of will, on every channel of my psyche. And I'm pleased to say it seems to be working! My body is an incredible machine.... even though I'd been slacking for weeks o...

JWL

HI Phayze.... great photo!

Remember also that while you're getting used to this, leverage is your friend... "choke up" (as they say in baseball) your grip until you get used to it....

Have fun with it, this is the best exercise going....

JWL

Hi wildnight, welcome to shovelglove and the forums. I have a few thoughts. First, yes shovelglove does hit abs and triceps. Mostly in the 'stoke the oven' move for abs, and the 'hoist the sack' for triceps. However, the beauty of shovelglove is that you don't need to think this way anymore. Modern ...

JWL

Freakwitch, you have a more neutral relationship with the scale, yippee-skip for you. But let me point out that we are absolutely inundated in this culture with the idea that weight loss is the king of anti-obesity metrics. It's not a sign of weakness or denial to be affected by this. You like the ...

JWL

Well, I just typed an entry, but it was eaten by bad javascript code on a friend's site that crashed my browser.... grrr..... Anyhoo... :wink: Today was an unqualified, unmitigated, without reservation, SUCCESS! No-S I had a smoothie (soymilk, peanut butter, frozen banana, frozen blueberries) for br...

JWL

I'm with Navin. Scales are useful tools, nothing more. Any emotional weight or baggage we give them is a problem with our psyche, not with a machine. I'm gonna channel Jack Nicholson now: If you don't like scales, the problem isn't with the scale, it's because "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!" :twiste...

JWL

I used to do a one-handed move, I called it one-handed hammering. Basically, you do the "flip the lever" move, but keep raising the hammer upward, extending your arm fully so that the hammer is perpendicular to the ground, then bring it back down again. Hard to do with heavier sledges, I did it usin...

JWL

Agreed, change it up. I have a 16# and a 10#, and my wife has an 8#. My daughter even has a 4# framing hammer.... heh. I also have a set of ankle weights that I can strap on to the sledge to vary the weights some. If I could only have one, though, it would be the 10#. That, to me, is where I get the...

JWL

Just over a year ago, I wrote in this forum:

My mantra these days is: stay the course, stick to what you know is healthy, stick to what you know works.

Hear Hear!

JWL

Having said that, today was a very good day. I walked both to and from work for the first time in... man. A long time. On my break, I did 25 squats and some downward/upward dog quasi-Hindu-pushups. So exercise was good. I haven't shovelgloved in a few weeks, and I hope to get back to that this week....

JWL

OK, confession time. I've been slacking. Big time. For a long time. This is bigger than just diet and exercise, though these are key factors; I seem to be dealing with some old demons, beelzelowselfesteem and anhedonicslightlydepressedabub. And whenever these emotions rear their heads, diet and exer...

JWL

I just saw this thread, and I thought it was gonna be about a different kind of meat loaf.

In the meantime, I'll just be praying for the end of time....

JWL

I agree that this poll is pretty close to meaningless, especially without giving a reasonably precise definition of the categories you are laying out. What, for example, is the difference between "religion" and "spirituality" in this categoreal scheme you are putting forth? And also, I'd be interest...

JWL

Heh. Slow is good.

Now where have I heard that before?

JWL

how's the shovelgloving going?

JWL

Welcome! Heathens are just as welcome as Freaks and Witches around here....

JWL

Today was a good day. Leftover pizza for lunch, and some homemade "wham bam bhuna" (vegetarian "lamb" bhuna) with some homemade bread for dinner.

Did 25 squats, and my yoga/shovelglove routine. Still having sore-legs from the walking, but it's a good sore. The squats helped a lot.

Ever onward!

JWL

I just got back from taking another nice walk with my daughter around Portland's Eastern Prom. It was about half the length of the mondo walk I took the other night, but my legs/feet are still recovering from that. I figured another walk was just what they needed. Didn't do much yesterday, all I cou...

JWL

Things are still rolling along well. Haven't been updating as much. Tonight, though, I loaded up my daughter's poodle, my Neuros Audio Computer , fired up the 2-disc version of Marillion's Marbles album and took a 5.2 mile, 1 hour, 45 minute walk around Portland's Back Bay. Very cool walk. According...

JWL

I just completed a KICKASS workout that I want to document. * warm up with core twists of varying types. Including where you let your arms hang limp, twist your body around using the oblique muscles in the sides, which forces the arms around, such that your palms slap your sides. Also, palms togethe...

JWL

Hi there, Those of us working to lose weight have, for the most part, used food as a coping mechanism for stress. I fully and without reservation include myself in this group. So when we remove the short-term pleasure of eating as a coping mechanism from our lives, we MUST MUST MUST replace it with ...

JWL

Glad to see someone else in Maine is shugging besides me and my wife. :) I agree with Deb. Shovelglove DEFINITELY works your core muscles, and the subtle twists involved are a big reason why. Pay attention to what your core abdominal muscles are doing while you exercise. You'll find they are working...

JWL

Absolutely, yes you can shovelglove. My advice? Start with an 8lb sledge, or even a smaller one if you can find it. Go slow, and be VERY VERY VERY gentle when you are starting. This is a very good workout and will quickly affect your body. Having said that, I don't know what your fitness goals are. ...

JWL

Hi all, no voyeurism to report this time, although apparently my daughter tells me that one of her gymnastics teachers was asking her, "what's your daddy doing outside?" when I shovelgloved there yesterday. :) Today was good too, a shugg session with the 16 pounder, as well as a bunch of yoga, and 4...

JWL

And just when I thought I was back in the groove of posting here, I let a few weeks go by. But today something happened I had to share: it wasn't raining today (bonus!) so once again I did my workout (shovelglove and some yoga) out on the lawn of my daughter's gymnastics studio today while she was i...

JWL

Once again, life gets in the way.... heh. Things are moving well in my reality, still eating a bit more than I'd like, but doing well overall, and still not exercising as much as I'd like, but doing some. Of course I have very high expectations for myself. I'm actually doing quite well overall. I ac...

JWL

You're welcome, Deb. There's a lot to that manifestation thing. If you build it, they will come. :wink: My next task for myself is to try to remember that when I'm busy, and somewhat stressed with lots of things in my reality, I am better equipped to handle them when I am No-Sing and exercising well...

JWL

Today's weigh-in: 328.1. I'm feeling good today. Like my reduced food intake and increased exercise are starting to payoff. Yes! I love this feeling. Just had a bagel and a salad for lunch. I think I'm gonna take a walk with my daughter today, and I'll get a shovelglove session in for sure. More lat...

JWL

Hey Deb, it's my own fault that I have a blister. Yes, I wear socks, esp when I'm breaking in new sandals. But last night the socks I wore were a bit thinner than my heavy-duty Maine socks, but I didn't compensate by tightening the straps. So my feet were sliding ever so slightly back and forth acro...

JWL

Yeah, I haven't had a TV in the house since 1997. My beautiful wife hasn't had one in nearly 20 years. I do watch DVDs on the computer, though. Although last year we did our offseason rental in OOB, and the place came with a TV with all the cable channels. Amazing how easy it is, even for someone wi...

JWL

Today was a success. Mostly so with exercise. I did a yoga/shugg routine while my daughter was in gymnastics class. There were some trees and grass next to the parking lot where she takes gymnastics, so I pulled my 10 pounder out of my trunk and stood in the grass. Warmed up with some arm circles, w...

JWL

Children 'gain weight as they watch TV' David Fickling Tuesday April 25, 2006 Children consume nearly as many calories as are in a packet of crisps with every hour they spend watching television, according to US research. Watching TV also encourages children to eat more junk foods, particularly sof...

JWL

hey, want2behealthy my "inner Buddhist" will point out that health (which I'm glad you want) is mind, body, and spirit. If any one of these is not healthy, then the organism is not healthy. We can do a lot of damage to ourselves with our thoughts, if they are negative. Or, we can heal ourselves with...

JWL

Sorry to but in on the "ladies" thread... LOL I have a thought about eating like birds, or like a 105lb woman or a 205lb woman... this thought is a variation on Ghandi's "be the change you wish to see" maxim. Basically, pick your realistic "target weight." Let's say, for example, that weight is 155 ...

JWL

Today's weigh-in: 330.8. Whew. I was worried about this, because when I lost the plot a while back I was afraid I'd gained some weight. But I seem to be in the same ballpark as where I was. I haven't weighed myself for a few months. So, this is my new starting point! Survived the work weekend, with ...

JWL

No worries, Reinhard. Thanks for the support. :) I just lost a detailed entry (doh!) when I had to restart my browser. I thought I'd already posted it but no. Thursday and Fri were my S days this week. Today was back to No-S. I had leftover lasagna for lunch and a subway sub with lots of veggies for...

JWL

Yesterday was a mixed bag. No-S was a success, no funny stuff at all, but I skipped exercise completely. I wanted to take a walk, but the blisters on my feet had other ideas. So I was gonna do shovelglove and yoga, but the next thing I knew it was nearly midnight and I was wiped out. :evil: Ah well....

JWL

Actually, there wasn't any sitting, or trees involved. But we did take a 4.5 mile walk on Old Orchard Beach tonight. It was fabulous! The warmest day we've seen yet this year in Maine. And I haven't smelled that ocean air as much lately; though I live on a hill overlooking Casco Bay , we don't get t...

JWL

Indeed, Simon... :wink: Today isn't over yet, but I wanted to post the exercise routine I just did before I forget what I did.... I started with about 15 minutes of yoga (including breath of joy, downward/upward dog, Hindu squats, and several other abdominal exercises that I do). I then did my first...

JWL

I'll call today a SUCCESS. No-S was great. No funny stuff. Dinner was yummy, I sauteed a huge pile of veggies (onions, garlic, spinach, red pepper, zucchini, celery, mushrooms), added oregano and a cup of leftover tomato sauce I'd made earlier, and threw in a box of small shells (al dente). Mixed it...

JWL

Hi want2be, For what it's worth: I think you should slow down. Spend a day where you focus on your breathing as much as possible. With each attentive breath, imagine your body letting go of a bit more stress and pressure. We put so much pressure on ourselves to lose weight. And when things go wrong,...

JWL

OK, it's been very busy. I'm presently sitting at work (on Easter Sunday), having just finished a 3-day marathon recording session with my band in the studio. The session went well! We got what we needed, what awaits us now is many hours of sitting down in front of the tracks we recorded to listen a...

JWL

I'm still feeling better. I ate too much dairy today though. I think tomorrow I'm gonna have to refrain from cheese. I did the most amazing exercise session though. I did some of the deepest breathing I've ever done. I did some good yoga. I really want to learn the Sun Salutation. I did some improvi...

JWL

past few days have been reasonable, though last night I had a fever of 101.2. :( I'm feeling better today, the fever broke, but I'm still coughing a bit and kinda achy. Better now than at the end of the week, since I have a three-day recording session for our first album! So yeah, No-S has been good...

JWL

Hi Tim, for me maple syrup and honey are OK. They are natural, unrefined sweeteners and are reasonably healthy for you in moderation. For me, it falls under the "when," if you have them with a meal it's OK. The closest thing to funny stuff is that every morning I sweeten my iced americano coffee wit...

JWL

Hi Deb,

When I'm at my healthiest, I eat 2 meals per day, and I'm trying to reassert that. Good news: no more funny stuff today. I even got to do another set of yoga on my other break, I did downward/upward dog, it was awesome!

Today was a SUCCESS, even with the bit of funny stuff.....

JWL

FREAKWITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK, fine. Say I'm biased. :wink: My all-time favorite band is probably Marillion. Lately I listen to a lot of Porcupine Tree, Ani DiFranco, System of a Down. A bunch of stuff. I'll listen to just about anything. Anything, that is, with heart. Most pop music (no m...

JWL

Hi Huntergatherer, Are you running Linux? I only ask because you mention the GPL. If you are, I strongly recommend checking out Planet CCRMA , which is an add-on to Fedora Core that will get you set up with more GPL'd audio production software than you can shake a stick at. I'm a pretty hardcore Lin...

JWL

Too funny how we all have such different perspectives.... I *loved* V For Vendetta, but I'd never read the GN. Part of it is probably that my own politics are similar to V's. Oh, except the killing-people-to-advance-one's-political-agenda part. :shock: LOTR (which I regard as one 11-hour movie, with...

JWL

Hi CarrieAnn! I remember when I started working on the weekends (I homeschool our daughter during the weekdays) how bizarre it was that so much food that is SO CRAPPY for us is readily available! I mean, the vending machines alone, ferchrissakes....! :shock: I find it harder to stick to No-S at work...

JWL

After taking my Friday and Saturday S days, I'm here at work on Sunday and it's a No-S day. It's been difficult today. I've realized that my portions have been gradually increasing over the past several weeks so I'm trying to reign those in, and get back to my normal No-S portion size. So for breakf...

JWL

Hi Scott, it also occurs to me that you are using a 12lb sledge, which is pretty hefty.... be gentle with yourself. I'm a big guy with gym XPs and I started with a 10 pounder, which was quite enough of a challenge.

Keep working at it, and let us know how it's going....

JWL

Today was great. I did a really cool exercise routine out by the firepit, including a good shovelglove routine (still using the 10 pounder) and some yoga. I did 21 squats. Also, for the first time this year, I got to throw the frisbee in the field! w00t! It's clear that I've been slacking in the exe...

JWL

Thanks for the welcome, pangelsue!

BTW, I look great in a bikini!

Glad to be back, even though now I'm JWL. Suits me better.

JWL

Also, Reinhard, I know we can only vote in polls once, and when I voted I ticked the 10 pound box since that's what I was using. These days however I regularly use both the 10 pounder and the 16 pounder, so you may want to increment the 16 pounder by one next time you hack the database. Or would tha...

JWL

Hi Reinhard,

The testimonials page is shaping up! Though I'll point out that I live in Maine, not Main.

JWL

Don't knock placebo effect, it can move mountains. :-) Agreed, Reinhard! I remember taking Psych 101 in college, and marvelling over the fact that when they taught the scientific method, they required experiments to account for the placebo effect so that it could be systematically ignored! And here...

JWL

well hacked, Reinhard!

JWL

It'll likely take a few weeks, Simon. Be gentle. I find that if I gently go down into a squat and hold it for a while to let my knees get used to the idea, I can then do them more easily. The key for me was to learn to keep breathing evenly while doing the squats, breathe in on an upward motion, and...

JWL

Simon, squats are awesome! They go very well with shovelglove. I do the "hindu squats" that people like matt furey talk about.... Very challenging and beneficial.

JWL

I've done No-S with 2 meals per day (with some down times) for almost a year now. I find it works better for me, though I was advised against it by many people on this forum. Much of the world is accustomed to 2 meals per day, but it does require a certain amount of getting used to. Given your crazy...

JWL

Bottom line, it's gonna take a LOT of willpower to get your body used to your new eating regime. It takes at least 3 weeks. But here's some tips that help me: 1. Drink LOTS of water 2. A useful "Jedi Mind Trick" that I've written about many times on this forum: if your body is hungry, then that mean...

JWL

congrats, 3aday. I know what you mean, there are very few absolutes in my life. I don't cook meat at home but I do eat it out once in a while. One statistic that stuck in my mind -- from "Diet For A Small Planet" --is that if Americans were to eat only 10% less meat than they do now, and if the grai...

JWL

gah! Google ads on the forum now?!?!?!?

Bad form, Reinhard....

JWL

Yeah, definitely choke up the grip. hold the metal weight of the sledge in yoru palm ifyou have to. The key is to maintain good form to get the best benefit. When I do mine I always lift the weight as far as I can, well past the horizontal point, maybe about 120 degrees up from the floor. Stick with...

JWL

Yeah, I wanted to do the same thing so I duct-taped an adjustible ankle weight around the business end of my 10lb sledge.... but yes, eventually I removed it and just bought a 16 pounder. Now I use both hammers in my workout for different reasons. The benefit of the ankle weight is taht it's adjusta...

JWL

Here's my testimonial, feel free to add it: Shovelglove is easily the best overall workout I've ever experienced. I'm a big guy and I've spent a lot of time in gyms over the years, but it wasn't until I started shugging that my strength -- and my biceps -- grew dramatically. It's a much more balance...

Everyday Systems

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JWL's before and during pic #1

JWL's roasted seitan recipe

putting a new handle on a sledgehammer?

Children 'gain weight as they watch TV'