Whoops

Weigh In: 286.6

Yikes, two days slipped by without posting. Things have been good - I just got home last night, laid down on the couch and went unconscious. Getting into bed from there was tough. I've been totally exhausted lately, but making the right decisions. We ended up at a BBQ right after work yesterday so I had to make sure I made good eating decisions there for dinner - could have done better, I did have a hamburger, but I just had carrots, broccoli with hummus as my side. And of course I slipped at the end and had two (although small, I had two. Stupid.) sections of this chocolate bundt cake (hell I dont know how to spell it but it was good) just because it was there. I caught the dirty look from Erin and I knew she was right.

It's 6:11 and I'm late for the gym (6am), so this is going to be short - I just needed to get SOMETHING in as part of my deal.

Weekend Done

Weigh In: 286.0
Calories Counted: ? 2400 ish?

Quickie tonight - had a good weekend. Probably drank too many beers (only 3) on Saturday, avoided some temptations, hit the gym when I needed to but missed this morning, and had BBQ type food tonight - so not the best of all, but I saw the weight come down today.

I'll be hitting the gym in the morning and right back on my feet. I'd give myself a B- this weekend. Ate well 'most' of the time and missed a workout. But, I avoided a pizza temptation, hit the gym, and had a good handle on what I was doing. I can't complain.

My first weigh in against my father in law Tom is tomorrow - remember, whoever loses the challenge on Labor Day has to cook a healthy meal for the family. Either way, we both win. But Tom - you KNOW I'm gonna win ;)

The Weekend Warrior Returns

Yesterday's Weigh In: 286.4
Yesterday's Calories: I haven't counted them yet but similar to past few days

Just a few quick notes, going to be out late tonight again so I wanted to get something in. My first week was pretty good - I was at 291 at the beginning of the week and now on Friday, I'm 286.4. That brings me to the weekend. We all know what happens, so I have to continue this momenteum into next week.

I was reading through the Men's Health website and came across this article. Not only is there good information, but for a few of us FAT Coalition folks, a few popular phrases rang out.

"Weekend Warriors"
"Just Do Something"

Here's a link to the article, but if you guys are as lazy about these things as I am, here's the text of the article as well. It's not ground breaking - in fact, it's oversimplified, but it gets the point across and addresses one of my biggest weaknesses - the weekend.

Be strong this weekend, folks.

----------

Abs Diet: Weekend Workout Program

Weekend Warrior Training Plan

How to get the most out of your weekend, workout-wise

The Friday Workout
The workday ends. The whistle blows, you slide down the dinosaur's tail and into your car, and the weekend has begun. Now squeeze in a workout before joining in the festivities.

Here's the plan:

6:00 p.m. Stretch.

6:05 Sweat. Do something aerobic for 20 minutes. Your options: Take a fast-paced walk; do some light jogging; go swimming; hop on a stationary bike, rower or stairclimber; jump rope. Or do any 20-minute combination of these. "It's not so much what you do," says Warren Anderson, M.S., C.S.C.S., owner of Rehab Plus in Phoenix, "it's that you do. Just do something."

6:25 Cool down. Walk around for a few minutes to bring down your heart rate.

6:30 Pump. It's time to move some iron. For your resistance workout, don't feel like you need a separate exercise for every tiny muscle in your body. By targeting the major muscle groups, the following program will hit almost every muscle to one degree or another. For each exercise, do two sets of 10 to 15 repetitions.

• bench presses
• leg presses or squats
• lat pulldowns
• dumbbell curls
• back extensions or seated pulley rows
• two sets of 15 crunches to work your abdominals

A word about weights: "If you haven't done any weight training during the week, you should stick to moderate weights on Friday and then go hard on Sunday," says Gary Hunter, Ph.D., director of the exercise physiology department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "On Friday, aim for about 80 percent of what you could lift if you went all out. In other words, if you know you can bench-press 100 pounds for two sets of 10, do both sets with 80 pounds on Friday and 100 pounds on Sunday." Why not go hard both days? "You don't want to stress totally unprepared muscles," says Wayne Campbell, Ph.D., exercise physiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Which brings us to this public-service message:

6:55 Stretch.

7:00 You're off. If you're feeling social, shower first.

Saturday

If you want to do aerobics, rake some leaves, wash your car or wallpaper your wife. Lay off the weights.

Sunday

Similar to Friday's workout, with two exceptions: First, try to do a different activity for your 20-minute aerobic workout. "I recommend doing different stuff both days so you don't overstress any one muscle group," says Campbell. "Then, there's no problem at all doing aerobics multiple times in the same weekend. The idea is to get a good workout without crippling yourself for Monday." Second, do the same strength routine, but use a little extra weight. Campbell recommends lifting as much as you can handle for two sets of 10 to 15 repetitions.

Quickie

In between 1st job and 2nd, have literally 1 minute.

Eating great today, worked out. Yesterday I couldn't get home to get the dinner that Erin made, so I ended up having ONE piece of pizza for dinner. Could have been much worse. I wish I wouldn't have had pizza, but one slice didn't kill me. In fact, the weight went down again.

286.4 today. Leaving for work now, back after 11:00pm after being in the gym around 6am and working first job all day. More later.

3's a streak

Weigh In: 287.4
Calories Counted: 2407
Days Blogged in a row: 4

Another day of being physically exhausted, but productive. Played softball tonight, went 2 for 3 with a home run (which Erin missed cause she was talking to people instead of watching lol), and a triple.

Came home and had a great dinner. Kind of hard to really line it up in calorie counter, but had salmon-kabobs with salmon (duh) and veggies cooked with non-stick spray and BBQ'd with corn on the cob, salad and a small serving (about 5 bites) of noodles. For lunch I had the turkey chili, for breakfast the shredded wheat again, and bananas for a snack. Also had a package of those small peanut butter/cheese crackers which wasn't bright, but its' a 200 calorie(ish) snack and it was the only thing I had between 12pm and 9pm, so I'm not sweating it.

So I'm doing well. The pounds are coming off, but that's not a shock. I know all too well that the first few pounds after a HUGE weight gain are easy. Anyone can lose a bunch of water and salt by being good for a few days. Hard to get excited about 287 nowadays, but I have to get to 287 to get to 267, so I'm on my way.

LOOOONG day tomorrow. I'm going to try to blog, but I hit the gym at 6am, work the first job from 8-4:30pm, then head to the second job from 5:oo-11:00, which will turn into midnight. If I don't blog tomorrow night, you know why - but I'm hoping to. Catch you all then.

Graphic Graphs

Calories Counted: 2192
Weigh In: 288.4
Consecutive Blog Days: 3

A few quick things - Tom (father in law) has challenged me to a 'most % of body weight lost by Labor Day' challenge - the loser has to cook a healthy dinner for the entire family. I like that challenge - and I kind of feel bad for him - he's got no chance to win ;)

Second off - I'm flat out exhausted after another good workout, 13 hours of work, and I'm ready to go to bed. If it wasn't for this blog I would have totally skipped the whole internet thing tonight, but I made the commitment, so here it is.

So, here's my food from today. Pretty damned identical, except we baked salmon tonight.

Mon, Jul 21 2008
	Breakfast
	A- KELLOGG'S STRAWBERRY MINI-WHEATS	107	358
	A- Milk, Lowfat, Fluid, 1% Milkfat - With Added Vitamin A	244	103
	Lunch
	C- LEAN POCKETS Brand Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza	504	560
	Dinner
	A Bread, Whole-wheat, Commercially Prepared	140	346
	A- Salmon, Atlantic, Wild - Cooked, Dry Heat	185	337
	Concord Grape Jelly - Smucker's	80	200
	Snacks
	A Bananas	324	288
	Total Calories Consumed		2,192

Here's something that really, really bummed me out - but put this whole thing into a perspective. First off, of COURSE Kevin and I are lock step in everything we do - including suffering right now. I just started plugging my weights back into Calorie-count.com again, and when I did my weight graph, this is what I saw:


If you click on it, you can see the entire thing with more detail. Basically, I lost over 14 months of hard work by being a complete loser the past 4 months. Take a look at that graph - the last time I was 291 pounds was May of 07. Honestly, that pisses me off. Why work at things? Why spend time sacrificing, if you're just going to be a complete dick and not finish what you started?

So yeah - I feel like a total failure right now in the weight loss department.

The good news is - I have to take the advice I've given others a hundred time - "the only loser is the one who quits".

I haven't quit. I'm back on my feet. I'll lose this weight, if it kills me.

Ok, so that's probably not the best analogy to use, but you know what I mean.

Off to bed - more tomorrow.

Deja Vu

First Weigh In: 291.0
Calories Counted Today: 2216
Days In A Row Blogging: 1

I said yesterday that there were three things that I had to do to make sure I get my ass back in gear.

1: Go the gym on a consistent basis
2: Count and report calories
3: Daily blogging

This is what I have to do to get back on track. I've "said" I was going to get on track a few (ok, about 43 times) in the past, but I never followed up on this. It's the key ingredient to this whole process - accountability. So, here's the first step - my eating for today:

Sun, Jul 20 2008
	Breakfast
	A- KELLOGG'S FROSTED MINI-WHEATS, bite size	111	382
	A- Milk, Lowfat, Fluid, 1% Milkfat - With Added Vitamin A	366	154
	Lunch
	C- LEAN POCKETS Brand Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza	504	560
	Dinner
	Greek Dressing	112	400
	A- Salad, Vegetables Tossed - Without Dressing, With Turkey, Ham And Cheese	435	357
	Snacks
	A Bananas	303	270
	B- Peanut Butter, Chunk Style - With Salt	16	94
	Total Calories Consumed		2,216

Bugs me that the peanut butter isn't the right kind but I only had 1 tablespoon of the Kroger reduced fat and the program won't let me do 'half' a serving, since the serving size is 2 tablespoons. Other than that, it's pretty on. I think I did too much of the greek dressing too, but I'd rather be higher than lower.

Also, I hit the gym hard as hell today, used the Belly Off "Summer Special" - tons of squats and such, so my legs are totally destroyed. I actually went to do some time on the Eliptical today after my workout by my legs were shaking so hard I literally got like 90 seconds in and almost fell off. So, good workout.

I also avoided a temptation. We ended up going to dinner with the parents and grandparents tonight - I got the salad (actually split it with my wife, I had the smaller "half"), and as we were done, the waitress tells us that "with every dinner comes a complimentary dessert tonight". I had the choice between rice pudding, tapioca or wild cherry ice cream (which is one of my favorites of all time).

I chose nothing.

So, one day in the books. It means nothing if I screw up day two - stay tuned.

Reality Check

Ok, so I've been talking about a 'break' for a while now, and how I had to get my head back into this game. I've given you a ton of excuses, given myself a ton of excuses, and basically pitied myself for not holding up to my end of the deal.

I've given a bunch of "comeback" speeches, but have never delivered at the end of the game.

My weight is up just.. bad. I mean, bad. I don't want to report until tomorrow morning, because I am going to rely on that weight as my 'starting weight' - the first weigh in of the morning. It's not pretty. In fact, it's just to the wrong side of ugly and 'holy shit'. I'll face that music tomorrow morning.

This is what HASN'T happened in a while:

A: A consistent gym workout plan - I will be downloading one of my old workouts from the Belly Off program tomorrow morning and will be begin to utilize it. It gives me a plan, a focus and a realistic goal once I'm in the gym instead of just letting myself half ass my way through a so-called 'workout'. I will finish it this time.

B: Counting calories and REPORTING them - I have done a flat out piss poor job with this. And, we all know why. It's because it's damned hard to lie to yourself about your caloric intake when you're blatantly cheating on a daily basis. It's pretty freaking pointless. I will be much better at this.

C: Blogging DAILY. None of this "I don't have time tonight so here are my numbers" shit. Straight up blogging. Talking about my goals, how I am going, what I plan to do next, how I'm feeling, etc. I've done over a year of blogging and one thing is clear - when I'm consistently doing all three of these, I'm losing weight. When I'm NOT, I don't.

It's that simple.

I was gone on vacation up north all last week (from Saturday until today), so I basically took the past few weeks off knowing that it was going to be a fat chance in hell that I would stick to a good eating plan up north - hell, I haven't been able to do it at HOME.

So, no 'comeback' speeches. No bullshit.

I have to complete each of those three things - blogging, counting calories and an organized workout plan - each and every single day.

Accountablity is how I was able to lose the weight I did. Losing that accountability has really, really hurt me.

So, if you're still reading this, stick with me. Business is picking up. More tomorrow morning when I get a workout plan printed and my official weigh in. It's going to be bad - but it's on me to change that.