Before and Midway - 13 Months and Counting

In December of 2010, I started on a series of lifestyle changes, attempting to make good on my previous failed efforts.  This time, for whatever reason, it finally stuck for more than a month or two.

I began exercising more (and more regularly) and, by spring, I finally started to whip my diet into shape.  I began counting calories on myfitnesspal.com (a really great site).  Then I started cycle commuting.  Since I bought my bike in April, I've put roughly 1400 miles on it.  In addition to this, I even started running.  Well, lumbering quickly, at least.  After years of joking about the people in my neighbourhood running for no good reason (no one was even chasing them), I kind of joined them.  It took a while to make the change but I started walking less and running more.  Now, I can go out and run for 3 1/2 miles without slowing.  In October, I did the CN Tower climb in a respectable 23:57.  That's 1776 steps.  Last year, I would have been gasping for breath after a few flights.

There is no great secret to what I did.  It all boils down to four words - eat less, move more.
 
The November before I started, I went to Vegas.  Though I didn't quite realize it then, I came back with a number of not terribly flattering 'before' pics.

For instance, in November of 2010, I looked like this:

Yup.  Even trying for a more flattering angle just couldn't hide the fact that I was, uh, big.

Last Saturday, I looked like this:

That's me getting ready for my first 5k run.  I'm already signed up for my next one (St. Patrick's Day) and am eyeing up a 10k run for the summer.  I think I like it better this way.  It's sweatier but more fun.

The Only Benefit of Biking to Work at 5am on a Sunday...

...is that no one is around to see you rocking the very retro, yet questionable, combo of long underwear and shorts.  Time to find something warmer for my legs on these chilly mornings.

Other than that, the ride was fine. I've learned that once you resign yourself to the fact that you'll be riding in crappy weather, the ride itself isn't that bad.

Test

Okay. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Couldn't find a way to get my blogger phone app to accept my non-gmail account so I gave up. Thankfully, switching the blog wasn't too hard. Next up, my google+ one. I just wasn't made for this modern world.

How I Roll

This summer, I started bicycling again. I finally ran out of reasons not to bike when I saw that other people in my apartment building had no problem keeping a bike in their apartment. Besides, I took an 8 mile walk out Leslie Spit and back this spring and realized that all those cyclists passing me seemed to be having even more fun than I was having. So it was a no brainer. Sure, the bike takes up space but benefits have far outweighed this one minor inconvenience.

I live about a 5 minute walk from a Trek store so I went down and picked up this beauty:



That's my bike at Bike to Work day back in May. Oddly enough, I didn't start actually biking to work until the weekend after. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to take part in a mass ride down Yonge St. (with police bike escort, no less).



Out for a ride. My sisters will tell you I've worn sillier looking hats.

Since I bought the bike, I've pretty much stopped taking the TTC. As much as I love transit, I have much more fun on my bike. Even better, it usually doesn't take me much longer to go by bike than it used to by transit. Grocery runs, evenings out, I take my bike everywhere. It's amazing how many groceries you can fit into a pannier.

I intended to start slowly, only biking to work on weekends, when the traffic was quieter. It's just under 5 miles from my place to work by the most direct route (the always interesting Yonge St.). The thing is, I started doing it one weekend and just kept doing it. I never really looked at commuting as fun until I started whipping down Yonge St. on my bike. Since June, I've taken transit to work maybe twice. Now, I'm seriously wondering how much winter I'm willing to brave on my bike. The fall is a given. The winter? If the roads are bare, I see no reason why I can't do it. That's quite a change in just a few months.

Biking really is the best way to get around the city. You go fast enough to get from place to place in good time yet you go slow enough that you can enjoy the sights and sounds. You just don't get that stuck in a tunnel or in a car.

So, yeah, sometimes when I'm out there, I kind of feel like this guy:

Some pics that don't really explain my absence. . .

Nothing beats the zoo and a long lens.



I waited about 20 minutes for the elephant to turn around.



From Nuit Blanche last year.



My uncle on his beloved tractor.



My sister at her wedding. Word of advice to anyone with an slr camera - when that relative comes up to you and asks you to shoot their wedding, offer them a toaster instead. The wedding turned out well but was way too stressful for a hobbyist like me.

Canuck Book 13 - Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall

I finished my troika of Toronto novels with this Zoe Whittall book. Whittall is a writer I've known of for a while. I almost bought her first novel (Bottle Rocket Hearts) on a number of occasions but never quite got around to it. After reading Holding Still, I realize I will have to pick up her first book soon.

The story revolves around a group of friends and lovers who live around Parkdale, the slowly gentrifying neighbourhood near the west end of Queen Street. Billy - a one-time teen pop starlet - has split with her longtime girlfriend Maria. She is trying to go to school but suffers from severe panic attacks. Josh is a transgendered paramedic who is starting to grow apart from his girlfriend Amy (who is a filmmaker). There are a few other friends that come and go but these are the main three.

I'll be honest. The book took a while to grow on me. Each section starts with interludes describing an emergency that paramedics are attending to. There's a very detached feeling to these that had me guessing, trying to figure out why they were there. There was no need to question anything, though. Whittall knows what she's doing. The more I read, the more I realized how well she put this story together.

Stringing the last three books in the Canada Reads challenge together like I did was an interesting experience. I witnessed three different takes on Toronto (four if you count Consolation's split narrative) that had surprisingly little overlap. I wonder how many other Canadian cities this can can be said of? Montreal, for sure. Vancouver? Probably. Any others?

Canuck Book 12 - Consolation by Michael Redhill

After reading Girl Crazy, I thought I'd stick with the Toronto novel theme. I'd been meaning to read Consolation for a long time. I was a big fan of his earlier novel, Martin Sloane, so I knew I would likely love this book. Of course, other books kept popping up so Consolation just never reached the top of the pile by my bed.

I'm glad I finally got around to it. Consolation tells two stories. The first involves a family coming to terms with the patriarch's death in late-90s Toronto. The father was a "forensic geologist" who spent his career sifting through the layers of garbage and debris on which the city stands, looking for clues to the past. Stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, he left behind clues for a potentially crucial find on the site where the city is building it's new hockey arena.

The other story follows the life of a young chemist who moved to Toronto from England in the 1850's to run a store he bought sight unseen. As his main business fails, he gradually moves into the new field of photography.

The strange thing about this book is that, as much as I loved it - and I did love it - I couldn't help wishing the author would have focussed on one of the stories instead of splitting the book between the two narratives. Of course, as the book progresses, you do see why the author has set the book up this way. Quite frankly, this is one of the best Toronto novels I've read in a long time. It's a book that sticks with you and makes you look at the city and its myriad construction sites in a very different light.