A pair of milestones

Two milestones to report on today. One of minor consequence, one not so much.

I’m coming up on four weeks in the Steelheart. Not a record or anything, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the little feller for a month (on Monday). Long term lock up and denial, like everything else in the universe, operates on a cycle.

• I first go in, usually after just coming, and the best I can hope for is that the device doesn’t piss me off for the first week.
• By the second week and into the third, I’m pretty horned up. Everything is sparkly and fun and the hormones leave me nicely buzzing.
• Past the third week, absent any external boost, things start to drag. Occasionally, it’ll feel OK being in, but left on my own, everything starts to sag. I can get depressed, demotivated, and all around bummed out by the experience.

The third stage can be averted though some kind of sexual contact with Belle. I think it’s possible to stay in the second stage or very early in the third indefinitely as long as I’m getting the kind of stimulation that keeps the hormones fired up. Belle’s got a new job and is working a lot and has shown little to no interest in me, so I’m well into the third stage now. Plus, she’s out of town again this weekend so there’s no hope of any relief on the horizon. I’m not abjectly depressed or anything, but the bloom is off the chastity flower. Long term chastity is a team sport, as I’ve said. You can’t play it by yourself. I’m not to the point of wanting out or crying uncle, but something has to give soon.

The other milestone is with my personal training and exercise. Getting fit seems to be a bit of a trend in the kinky blogosphere of late. Must be something in the lube. Anyway, I though I was six months in, but doing the math in my head yesterday, I realize I’m not quite there yet. I started in mid-January, so mid-July will be six months. Right?

So. Progress. I have lost weight, but it’s not happened in way I’m familiar with. According to the scale, I’m down to 223 pounds from my peak of 237. On paper, that doesn’t sound too impressive over five months, but I think a lot of the fat loss has been compensated by muscle gain. I feel different. I’m harder all over, but especially in my legs and arms. I have muscles where I’ve never seen them before. Drying off in the bathroom the other day, I was shocked at what my shoulders and arms looked like. Plus, my clothes are fitting differently. It’s definitely working. My scale is one of those fancy ones that measures fat as well as weight and the fat line on its accompanying iPhone app is dropping faster than the weight line, so again, yippee!

I’ve found that cutting back on food has been very difficult, especially as I’ve started to run more. I just need more fuel than I used to. Eating like a bird now would impact my ability to function. I don’t really pay attention to the weight I’m using at the gym, but I know that I can now bicep curl 120 lbs (both arms at the same time) and bench press in the neighborhood of 150 lbs. Those aren’t Olympic numbers or anything, but they’re way better than I could have pulled off before. I’m also able to run for more than 4 miles on a treadmill (which is easier for me than running outside – the best I’ve pulled off on the road is like 3.3 miles) and plank for almost two minutes. I remember the first day working out I was only able to plank for about 30 seconds. God, what a lump I was.

The thing about all this working out is that once you start, it becomes kind of a perpetual motion machine. I wake up every day after the gym with some kind of muscle aching and the running can often cause my legs and feet to hurt the next day, but the only thing worse than doing the exercise is not doing it. I crave it. Running is not all that much fun, either when it’s happening or immediately afterward, but I really want to do it. It bugs me to go more than one day with no exercise of any kind now. That’s good…right?