August 17 - If I am going to try to eat 1 hot Dog a Day for 365 Days, aka; The Hot Dog Diet, I have to commit to a fitness and diet regime to permit me to eat hot dogs.
Before getting to the specifics, I must remark that I do have some experience with unusual diets. A couple years ago, I lost 15 pounds in 15 weeks on the Beer Diet. My rules at the time were simple. I could only have a beer if lost 1 pound a week (a healthy way to lose weight) I was really into beer at the time, sort of like I am really into hot dogs now. Breakfast oatmeal or everything bagel with butter and bacon. Lunchtime, salad or pizza. Easy choice. It was like everything bagel with butter and bacon versus beer and pizza versus beer. Beer can't loose in those decisions. Admittedly, I had some weigh-ins the went down to the wire. I might not eat on a Friday till I got home and weighed in, or if the weigh-in was just a little over, to make weight, I would shave, cut my toe nails, do 15 push ups, get back on the scale. Do 15 more, run around the house a couple times, get back on the scale. The diet worked. I got down to 230. Then I decided to take a two week hiatus before making an assault of 225. Time went by, I never went back on the diet. The weight slowly went back up. I kept drinking beer though eventually I drank less. Beer makes me tired and if you can't drink enough to get buzzed, what's the point in just having one or two beers. Not worth it if all it does is make you tired.
The hot dog diet comes with some real challenges. I am eating a hot dog every day, where on my beer diet I was not having a beer every day, only the option to have a beer everyday.. Also I am older and battling some injuries. I can't run anymore. I have a sore knee and spinal stenosis that make my legs numb and while still strong by conventional standards, not as strong as I used to be. I could rack the leg press and leg extension machine, and do high step up with fifteen pound dumbbells in each hand. Not anymore. The decision to stop talking the stairs because my knee hurt probably just accelerated things. I did go see an orthopedist who told me at my age, I probably had too many tears to make an MRI worthwhile. I had some arthritis in my knees. I should learn yoga she said. This stiff old man will never be able to do some of the yoga poses in the book I bought. I also got a stretching app. I read about it in the New York Times. It said it was only $40 a year. I checked it out and decided it probably wasn't worth $40. As I canceled it out, the screen popped up "How about $20?" Yeah, that was better. So I have been stretching some, but again, some of the stretches I simply cannot do, not even with yoga blocks.
Further complicating my current physical condition, I was sent to physical therapy for my spinal stenosis. The first day the therapist had me get on all fours and try to touch my butt to my heels. It was hard, but, the good student, I worked at it. After the session, I went to the gym and tried it some more. I also rode the bike and did vigorous step ups at a lower height that I used but with dumbbells. Then I swam. At the end of my easy 1000 yards (40 laps), I decided to do a 50 sprint. I kicked extra hard on the home stretch, and felt a cramping in my calf and maybe something in the hamstring. When I got out and got into the jacuzzi, I was fine. I felt fine when I went to bed, but then I woke up in the middle of the night and knew something was wrong. Not even waiting to have to pee as I inevitably have to do in the night, I got up and took some ibuprofen to get ahead of it. In the morning, it still hurt, my knee was swollen. I limped when I went back in to PT. In the weeks since, I have been struggling with the right balance between doing nothing to rest it, doing some movement to loosen it up and get blood flowing and doing too much. My first time on the ambulance with the stiff knee, in order to get in the passenger seat, with the seat already all the way back, I had to push my butt up in the air to have room to swing my leg in. I am a wreck, but I am hoping this hot dog diet will restore me, so maybe I am being a little optimistic, a little aggressive in my fitness declarations, but here goes
Fitness Weekly Benchmarks:
To permit me to eat a hot dog a day, I must in the preceding week meet 6 of the 7 below conditions:
A: Average 7000 steps a day for a week or have all days over 5000 steps or 3 10,000 step days
B: Eat 5 salads
C. Gain No weight
D. Log 4 Strength Training/Gym Days
E. 5 Stretch Days
F. 2 Swims
G. 7 Hours Sleep Average
General Principles:
No bacon except on hot dog (to cut down nitrates)
Green Vegetable and Fruit Every Night
Oatmeal in AM
No regular Soda or no more than one 10 ounce can if that is only soda available to me)
Training Goals by September 2027
1. Run or Run/Walk a 5K
2. Swim a 400 IM in a swim meet
A day after publishing this, my injured knee is swollen again I had worked out extra special hard and the knee is now only half bendable. I may have difficulty making the step counts. I suppose I can still go to the gym with a swollen knee, just moderate my workouts.
Update: Not going well