Tuesday

I’ve now officially been on my diet for a full week. I’ve lost 8 pounds, but that is just weight I’ve put on since my last push. And the weight always comes off quickly when I start eating healthy again. Then I hit the wall (as I did at the beginning of the week) and things stay constant for a few days before the loss slowly begins again. There will probably be a small relapse because of St. Patrick’s Day today, but it’ll be back to the grind tomorrow. I want to get back to fighting shape for sports this summer. Not that I’ve every really been in fighting shape (in terms of weight) but if I can play sports at the level I do now, dropping another 20 pounds will do a lot towards stepping it up.

I had my usual Tuesday night ultimate game last night and we played very solid for a convincing victory. I had an old teammate subbing for us and it was great to get to play with her again. The familiarity between us and another player on my team made for some great plays. I’m going to have to start seriously thinking about what I’m going to do for ultimate in the summer however, as my usual team has fragmented somewhat.

I swung by the bookstore on my way home and discovered a new book by Guy Gavriel Kay while making my usual circuit. Kay is one of my favourite authors and his Finovar Tapestry trilogy is perhaps my favourite book. It is always a pleasure to find a new novel of his on the shelf. I also broke down and picked up the hardcover of The Da Vinci Code. I’ve been hearing good things about this book forever and I devoured his previous two novels when I tracked them down in paperback, so I’ve been looking forward to reading this. I thought I’d have the patience to purchase the paperback, but with 30% off, plus an additional 10% with my discount card, I couldn’t resist. I also saw the trade for Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and added that to my bag as well. I came very close to grabbing the hardcover of Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, but it didn’t have that 30% off sticker, so I held back. Of course, I just checked online now and Indigo has it listed online as 30% off, so I may have to order if after finishing this post.

Of course, the reason why I stopped into the bookstore on my way back from ultimate was to check to see if they had the most recent issue of Canadian Poker Player. I figured the magazine’s title summed me up pretty well, so I decided to pick it up and give it a read. This is the third issue, and the first available at retail outlets – the first two were distributed only at casinos. Some of it was good, some not so good. And it was nice to see a listing of all the legal poker rooms in Canada – not too many of them.

Played a few more hours on True Poker last night as well. Was running pretty well, but then my connection died – after a raise with a premium starting hand, with my all-in protection having been used about 23 hour previously – and my fortunes began to turn. This time I can pinpoint most of the bad play that cost me money, though I had my share of bad luck as well. I was actually down to 7$ of the 49$ I came to the table with at one point.

But for the second night in a row I buckled down after some bad play and started playing solid poker. I think I’ve been associating the True Poker interface with the type of play I saw at the tournament in the back of my mind, and haven’t been playing correctly on tables where 6 people may call my pre-flop raise. My big hand was an AKs that turned into trip aces on the flop. Oddly enough there were two people in the hand, one of which raised a bet ahead of me. I was worried about the made boat, but I’ve been too paranoid recently so I re-raised and the bettor and raiser called. The raiser leads the bet on the turn, a blank that gave me a four-flush. I raised it up and the other two called again. On the river (made my ace-high flush)it was checked around to me and I extracted a single bet from each of them. The raiser ended up having pocket tens while the other had A7o. It felt real good to drag that 20.5BB pot, my biggest in quite some time.

I fought on for another hour or so after that, but it was getting late and I called it a night down 2.5BB. But I did unlock the next 10$ of my bonus, so I turned a small profit. I should be beating these games straight though. There are a lot of fish willing to pay me off. I just have to be careful not to grow fins myself every once in a while.

3 Responses to “Tuesday”

  1. jeremy says:

    Have you read hussman.org? Good info on fitness and dieting from a medical perspective. One thing to watch if you’re really dropping several pounds a week is that you’re probably burning muscle at a faster rate than fat. Either that or losing a lot of water weight.

  2. tp says:

    I tend not too read too much about dieting and fitness because every time I do I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that is out there, some of which is conflicting.

    So, I generally content myself with sticking to a good diet – balanced meals, smaller portions, no junk – and keeping active. I have volleyball and ultimate every week and I do a lot of walking, but could probably use a session or two at the gym added to my weekly routine. If only I didn’t hate it so much. But, paying attention to my diet seems to be an effective tactic for me, I just have to stick to it.

    As for large weight losses over a short period, I do realize that it tends to indicate muscle loss over fat loss. And I know it wasn’t water weight because I always drink a large amount of water every day (8-10 glasses), whether dieting or not. But it’ll probably be slowing down to a more normal rate now.

  3. Mary-Ann says:

    my brother does in-home personal training if you’re interested. i hate gyms and work out with him once a week which isn’t a whole lot but even that is making a real difference for me…and i HATE working out.