If you’re about my age (on the Gen X / Gen Y border) you grew up hearing that “knowing is half the battle.” Well, that may be true, but certainly it’s the easier half of the battle.

I know how to do all sorts of stuff.  I know how to eat healthy, exercise, and set up triangles from the guard. I know how to train dogs to stay out of the trash.  I know how to cut the grass and take the trash to the dump.

But surely in all those years someone should have mentioned that knowing was in fact quite easy, and that the other half of the battle – execution – was at least as important and much more difficult.

I’ve been slacking on avoiding dairy recently (meaning I’ve been eating ice-cream) and I’m paying for it with congestion and other allergy type problems.  I’m pretty sick of it, so I’m going back to the strict no dairy regimen.

I’m also back on no deep fried food and no calories in drinks.  I’m generally avoiding sugar.

My overall goal is to make 219.9 by September 12th for the Dominion Grappling Championships IV, or at least by September 19th for the George Pendergrass Gi Classic 2009.  I’m not putting any more effort in to this than those few diet changes. If I make weight, good, if not I’ll just fight And Up.

I always forget what the wagon expression is – falling off the wagon? Back on the wagon? And I forgot exactly what it means.  Are you supposed to be on the wagon? It certainly doesn’t sound like a good thing to fall off a wagon, but then isn’t it lame to jump on the bandwagon?

Well, whatever the wagon expression is that people use to mean they’ve gone back to drinking, it applies to me diet-wise.  I had a pretty good thing going with the Zone, but it’s been a constant battle with the carb cravings.  Traveling makes it even tougher, and on top that I haven’t spent a great deal of time in the gym recently.   It all amounts to me putting about 5 of the 15 pounds I lost back on, in addition to a general feeling of lethargy.

But there is good news – after a couple of months of not sleeping more than an hour at a time I’ve slept though the night for 3 consecutive nights.  Horray for sleep.

Some people say they don’t run unless someone is chasing them.  I don’t care if you do chase me, I ain’t runnin’.  But I’ve always felt that some kind of roadwork is an important part of fitness, and fat burning in particular.

I have a sort of unofficial goal of reaching 220 lbs before a time still to be determined.  I guess setting a target date would be helpful, but this way I can’t fail – I just remain in a permanent state of “goal not yet achieved.”  I picked 220 because I think it’s realistic (15 pounds) and because it’s the cut off for Heavy Weight in US Grappling’s rules (well, 219.9).

Anyway, the closest I can come to roadwork is time spent on my bike.  I put in a solid 30 minutes today maintaining a good pace the whole time.  The battery on my bike’s computer is dead, so I don’t know how far I went.

Last year I posted 27 Rules for Diets (which I don’t follow) on this blog. To help me reach my goal of 220 I’m going to start enforcing just the first of these rules – “No calories from beverages.”  I’ve never been a soda drinker, but I occasionally drink fruit juice and I love sweet tea.  Fortunately I also like unsweetened tea quite a bit.