Weigh In - Week 18

I'll be perfectly honest here. I was fully expecting to come in to this post with amazement that I was able to keep my weight in check this week. I was shooting for another 196. A quick recap of some of the bad things...

• Only worked out twice this week and both workouts were the bare minimum (cardio, abs, and little / no weights).
• Had a pepperoni cheese steak for the first time in ages. For those of you outside PA, the ingredients are chipped steak, American cheese, pepperoni, all on a 12" white roll. Extremely delicious and the saturated fat is off the charts.
• Went to the bar for drinks on Tuesday night and had beers Saturday afternoon after a successful yard sale.
• Had a Moe's Burrito for dinner on Friday night (Trust me, they're not good for you).
• Finished off a 1/2 bag of multi grain pretzels dipped in Nutella.

By far, this is one of the worst weeks that I can remember since I've started this. There were some positives mind you...Setting up and tearing down the yard sale was a workout in itself. AJ is getting heavier and likes to be held in a way that works the arms a bit. Other than the food faux pas mentioned above, everything else held to my normal weight loss form.

But my faux pas were never this plentiful...Even my trip to see my brother in Phoenix wasn't as bad as this one...and I not only lose weight, but I lose 3 lbs! Someone upstairs must be smiling down on me.

So, I basically am expecting to gain or maintain this week...this was truly a fluke...

Haven't posted the excel chart in a while...here it is:

Finally picked up a scale...

It's amazing that I've gone this long with a program and haven't purchased a scale.

As regular readers know, I've been using my gym's scale as the official weekly reading. I still plan on doing that (and have my next reading coming tonight...wish me luck), but as I get closer to goal / healthy weight, the pounds are not coming off as quickly. Therefore, I wanted to buy something that measures in small increments. This one does it in tenths and that works for me.

Also, I've read horror stories about people crash dieting and losing body muscle instead of body fat. This got me wondering where my body fat % currently is and this scale also does that as well as body water %.

It also saves readings, allows you to track to a goal, and can keep up to four separate users saved at a time. It's very techie / geeky (and guys love techie / geeky stuff). Bought it at Wal-Mart for $39 (Actual photo included above). Only started using last night, but it seems pretty good...

So, in anticipation of today, I jumped on the scale to see where I will probably end up for my "official" weigh in. My unofficial weigh in clocked in at 195.8....since I am going to the nearest pound, I expect to break even this week. To be honest, if that happens, I will not be upset at all and will go into the number of bad things I did this week to make a break even seem OK.

Also, my body fat % came in at 18.9%...which is right at the top of the "healthy" range. Which syncs up nicely with the fact that my weight is right on the bottom of the "overweight" category. Translation: My weight loss program is not causing me to lose weight at the expense of body muscle...which is good.

Extra Bonus: With a digital scale at home, I can now "unofficially" weigh myself without clothes and get an accurate reading. My buck naked weight actually came in at 193.4! Giddy up on that number...Nice to know that my true weight is even better, but for the purposes of the "50 pounds in 50 weeks" game plan, I will stick to weighing myself with tshirt, shorts, and socks...

They are watching...

I don't know whether to be impressed or freaked out...

Go look at the comments section from my little IRS rant...

No...the IRS didn't find it but a VP over at my favorite tax software company did...I doubt he's a regular reader...I wonder what web sniffing software they used to find me...

Caveat Lector...

Deep Thoughts...

..."To pee or not to pee. That is the question. You know the answer." -AJ 7/21/07

Here's a shocker...

...I hate the IRS! (And I'm not too fond of TurboTax either these days)

Long story short...Two years ago, after doing my tax return with TurboTax, I recieved a larger than normal tax return. At the time, I thought nothing of it. We usually got decent refunds each year and while this was larger, I thought it was mainly due to the larger salaries my wife and I were earning. Well, my refund went back down to normal levels and now I find out why...Turbotax took both my wife's income and my income and counted it all as mine. Then it deduced that I paid too much in social security as a result and refunded it back to me. So now I get a letter asking me to pay back the refund I took in error back in March 2006 PLUS Interest on said refund PLUS a "Late Payment Penalty" for not paying it back sooner (how was I supposed to pay it back sooner when I NEVER KNEW I HAD TO PAY IT BACK UNTIL THIS MONTH!)

My tax friend said I should call the friendly folks at the IRS to explain to them my error and to ask them if they would consider removing the interest and late payment penalties and I would gladly pay the back taxes I obviously owed. What a painful experience!

First, the IRS has a telephone prompt system from the 1980's...It took me a good 10 minutes to weave my way through the various prompts to reach a live person. It was almost like they were hoping I would give up trying to speak to a live person and just pay thier extortion money.

Second, once I got through the prompts, I was put into a Musak queue that lasted an additional 25 minutes "while I waited for the next available agent". Once again, they seemed to want me to give up.

Now I get to speak to a live agent after waiting a good 1/2 hour plus. Already fired up, I start to explain my plight (My defense being, "I relied on TurboTax and it screwed me"). I explained how a CPA friend confirmed the IRS was right and I was ready to pay the back taxes but thought they could help out on the interest and penalty portion. The helpful agent explains that I will have to fill out one form to request abatement on the interest (Form 843) and send a seperate letter requesting the removal of a penalty. She also said to pay the full amount (including interest and penalties) and ask for the refund later, so I do not accrue any further penalties and interest while they decide whether they should grant my requests...

I have no problem paying the backtaxes. That was, in essence, my fault. And if it comes down to it, I will pay the interest (although I'm going after TurboTax to pick that up in the end...it was thier error that resulted in the Fed not getting thier money on time). But I'll be damned if anyone is going to pay the government for assessing a late payment penalty when it was they who never notified me (until this month) that I was late in getting them thier money...

And people wonder why government gets a bad name...

Poll for Vegas...

Not giving away too much of the back story here, but I thought I would poll the general blog reading audience.

You can pretty much guess the fun "discussion" I had with my wife the other night...

I'll fill you in on more of the story later...and feel free to elaborate on your poll answer in the comments section. I fully expect to be lambasted by a certain section of my readership...

Followup on the goatee thing...

Jeez...I never thought there would be so much interest about my decision to grow facial hair...

The answer for now is that I am keeping the goatee (should have some fun followup progress photos on the site as well) for now...

Most of you said to follow my wife's lead and her silence on the subject leads me to believe she is OK with it...

If I decide to get rid of it, it will be because the darn thing is itchy and the hairs rub against my lips and it is generally annoying...but I like the look, so I'll keep it for now...

Thanks to 77% of you who agree with me...

Weigh In - Week 17

So...the positive is that I am exactly at 40 lbs of weight loss...4/5 to my original goal...2/3 to my aggressive goal....Milestone #4 reached before I hit the date to Milestone #2...

The negative is that I only lost 1 lb this week. I know the lbs come off more slowly as you come closer to your goals, but it is a little disheartening to not see the 3 - 5 lbs per week weight loss numbers. As I write this, I know I must sound like the guy who's pissed that he only won $20 Million in Powerball instead of $120 Million...When you've been posting big numbers for so long, it's a little sad to realize you're probably not going to lose 3 lbs in a single week anymore.

I did pretty well Monday through Friday this week. Got my 3 workouts in as usual (I must give props to Flip This Body for making me go to the gym on Friday to check my weight so I could give one final update to her weight loss challenge...FYI...I won with 34 lbs lost between 4/1 and 7/23). Food choices were pretty normal as well. Kashi cereal for breakfast (highly recommend the GoLean Crunch cereal line), salads for lunch, and whatever Carolyn feels like making for dinner.

Unfortunately, my wife and I decided to throw a summer party this past weekend (first summer party in over 5 years) and I show little self control during parties where I don't have to drive. I was going to write a separate post on this, but I'll just cram it all into one. Drinking is evil...pure evil...I still love to do it...but I always regret it in the end...Here are the reasons why from a pure weight loss perspective:

1. Alcohol is more calorie dense than carbs, fat, etc....so you start losing right there.
2. Alcohol is usually imbibed through beer (i.e. liquid bread) so you have the added benefit of taking alcohol in through a carb rich medium. Not helpful.
3. Alcohol, in addition to making you feel happy, makes you feel hungry. The combination of both happy and hungry usually equals bad food choices for me. Especially during a party...my total inebriation usually coincides with the same point in time that dessert is served. Soooo...I usually end up eating a dozen cookies, candy bars, or cookies with candy bars somehow wedged into them. Not helpful.
4. Finally, my total inebriation usually results in some form of day after hangover. This ranges from a splitting headache and extreme nausea to slight nausea. Even in the slight nausea stage, my mind and body usually need sugar liquids and foods high in saturated fats to eventually make me feel normal again. Maybe that isn't the best way to cure a hangover, but it usually works for me.

So there you go. Besides causing you to make horrible dating choices, alcohol also causes you to make horrible eating choices. And you probably don't want to attempt a cardio machine during or anytime after imbibing either.

So, that is what I'm chalking my poor performance up this week. Besides eating way to many Doritios and Lime Bars the night of the party, I also had 3 helpings of sausage and peppers the day after to make myself feel better...

But I am at the 40 lbs marker...Go Team!

Observations at the Gym...

I've been thinking of putting a post together about gym observations, but Spidey at Lose Weight Now has beat me to the punch in a very funny way.

Here's the rant that hit home for me:

"Women that wear a thong and a tiny bikini-top and then
glare at anyone that looks at them? Not to mention that when these ladies sweat
they end up with big wet spots on their crotch area that give everyone a pretty
good view of the mythical "camel-toe." So why do women act amazed, p*ssed-off,
or hurt when everyone is staring at them when they are bouncing around the gym?
While there are some really hot women that dress provacatively, at least half
the time we are talking about people who are at least ten or twenty pounds too
heavy for whatever they are wearing. Same thing goes for people who walk around
with their stomachs hanging out. Women with flabby guts should not be wearing
those tube tops. That goes double for fat guys."

Not to say that I am checking out the women at the gym, but some people just put it all out there and are begging to be gawked at. Instead of shooting me a dirty look, try dressing a little more normal next time. Thanks.

(and thanks to Spidey!)

What works for me? - Food Edition

About 2 weeks ago, I posted a bunch of tips having mainly to do about working out, but never got around to posting what works for me on the food end of things. Today's post is to cover that aspect of my weight loss routine.

I may end up rehashing some thoughts from previous posts, but all are good ways that keep me on the right track:

1.) Always, always eat breakfast. I don't care if I'm running late in the morning. I don't care if there is nothing in the house (Stop by the local convenience store). If there is one thing I've read on every weight loss article, it's EAT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST! There are simple reasons why. Breakfast starts up your metabolism for the day. You will almost certainly burn through your breakfast (unlike that late night snack). You will not have a craving for a chocolate bar from the vending machine mid-morning.

2.) Speaking of breakfast, try to make the meal high in fiber and protein. Fiber makes you feel full and protein makes your metabolism burn better. My favorite breakfasts are Quaker "Weight Control" Oatmeal and Kashi brand cereals. Both are high in both categories and both taste good as well. For a short while, I started to eat Fiber One bars on the way to work as well.

3.) Moving on to morning / afternoon snacks. I was a Coke junkie at work. I would have 1-2 Cokes per day from the vending machine. Not only bad for me, but I was dropping roughly $8 / week into the machine (I should have been smarter and just bought a case). How did I change? I now stop at the local grocery store in the beginning of the week for lunch and to pick up snacks for the week. I generally buy nuts (good fiber, protein, unsaturated fats), fruit (bananas and oranges because not as perishable), and a gallon of Diet Green Tea. Sometimes I'll mix in dried fruit and low fat string cheese. The point is to always have "good snacks" at the ready. I even have idiot co-workers who try to tempt me by leaving chocolate on my desk, but I really have no desire to eat it as long as I have something else ready to enjoy in a healthy way.

3a.) Point #3 also applies to my home life as well. The only difference is that I can eat even better "healthy" foods like blueberries and raspberries.

4.) Lunch. A have a few tricks here. One is to workout near your work. Use your lunch hour to workout. Instead of dropping 500 calories down your gullet, why not drop 500 calories and burn 400 calories. Much better option to me. Don't forgo lunch to workout though...bad idea...you don't want to starve yourself because you will only end up gaining the lbs back at some point.

4a.) Lunch. Option 2. Salads. In this day and age, I have no excuse to not eat salad. So many restaurants, supermarkets, etc. are not only selling salads, but selling TASTY salads. Go to Boston Market and try the chopped salad topped with chicken. That things tastes good and fills you up. Same thing for the Mango Chicken Salad at Baja Fresh. These aren't the tomato, onion, cucumber, lettuce salads that Mom served. For women, this should be a no brainer. For men, I understand the stigma of going out with co-worker buddies and being the only salad eater in a table of burger eaters. My manly answer to you is to suck it up and order the salad. After the first few times of doing this, the comments will die down and you can eat your salad in peace. Last note on salads: I don't put dressing on my salads (like my meals mostly dry) and I usually don't eat the croutons either (or at least eat less of them).

5.) Dinner. Since I follow the points above pretty religiously, I don't kill myself over dinner. This is also due to the fact that my wife is now the preparer of said meal and I don't want to discourage her culinary adventures. When I buy frozen bag meals, I usually try to find low fat, low cal options and Trader Joes is usually a good option for that. I also have become a big fan of iced green tea and will have that zero calorie, metabolism enhancing drink with my meal.

6.) After dinner. I usually follow my points on snacks here as well. I'll usually have fruit at this point. For the summer that usually means blueberries, grapes, oranges, peaches. My guilty pleasure (if you want to call it that) is chocolate milk. I used to drink 20+ oz. of chocolate milk a night, but have cut it down to 8 oz. every other night. And I've been a 1% Milk drinker since childhood, so I figure it's not THAT bad...

So that's my food story. As I've said in the past, I really don't believe in the whole "point" concept. I just try to stick to a loose plan that I can live with. I'm definitely not starving myself and the weight continues to come off, so I'll stick with it.

Guys in a Woman's World

FYI.

I have started a new blog listing on the right titled, "weight loss blogs by guys". I think the title is pretty self explanatory, but I thought I would give some context and ask for some help.

In my quest, I have looked to other bloggers for ideas and inspiration. While the female crowd has provided that, there are certain issues that really require another guy's perspective.

For whatever reason, most men do not like to blog about weight loss. It is definitely a female dominated section of the blogosphere. Even the men's section of the fat fighting bloggers contains mostly dead or outdated links. I feel a little lonely from a gender perspective.

So, as I find them, I will post links to blogs that are written by men and are focused around weight loss, diet, and exercise. At this point, I'm not even going to discriminate on quality of content. I just ask that you fit the following criteria:

• Male
• Blog mainly about weight loss, diet, and / or exercise
• Blog at least once a week
• Have posts current to the last week

If you are someone or know someone who fits this criteria, send a note my way (through comments or email (jfarrlley AT gmail DOT com).

Weigh In - Week 16

Another week, another 2 lbs loss...

So now I'm where I should have been 2 weeks ago...Don't focus on the negative though...I'm only 1 lbs away from my fourth milestone and I haven't even gotten to my second milestone date yet (although that one is fast approaching).

For full disclosure, I actually was more like 197.3 this week, but I've been measuring in full lbs and I'm not going to begrudge myself a little rounding error now and then...

Let's see...what notes can I share:

• I did the obligatory 3 workouts this week. The cardio for me is getting easier and I'm pushing the dial up on that side of the coin. On the other hand, the strength conditioning is either getting harder or more tedious. I really don't look forward to that portion of the workout although it probably would get me the most benefit from a weight loss perspective (muscle mass increase = metabolism increase). If there is an area I should focus on, it would be strength training.
• Food choices were pretty good as well. Didn't even eat out that much, because the workouts had to occur over lunch to fit everything in. The one major fall was on Saturday night at a neighbor's party. I always tend to overdrink in certain social situations and this party was no different. I probably had 6-8 beers (maybe more). Of course, after drinking a bit, I tend to want to eat and the effects of being hungry and buzzed causes me to make extremely poor food choices, such as scarfing down 10 or so mini-Kit Kats or a half dozen hush puppies. When I unofficially weighed myself on Friday, I actually weighed in at 197, so I actually gained .3 lbs over the weekend...I count myself lucky though...

So, I wanted to be at an even 40 lbs loss through 16 weeks, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. As long as the lbs are moving in the right direction, I'll stick with my extremely loose plan and keep positive!

Linking

Adding a site to my "blogs you should read" area and I thought I would give some love in a seperate post as well:

Big Britches

I note this for 2 reasons:

1. 1. The site is pretty good as weight loss blogs go. I like the little trick she pulled in the visual interpretation of her future weight loss (see pic above, but go to her site to see how she did it).
2. I use feedburner to check my site stats from time to time and actually got some traffic from this site I never heard of before. So, I went over and it was awesome to see someone link to me without a solicitation. (Hint: If you're regularly checking out my site and have a blog of your own, it wouldn't hurt to add me to your blog list, would it?)

That's it for now. Thanks again for the link Figi!

Another poll...

This one is a little more personal in nature. Here is a picture of me with a goattee. I haven't attempted to grow facial hair in over 10 years. During my trip to see my brother in Phoenix, I decided to try it again. Here's a pic:

So now, the obvious question is, "What do you think?". Vote now!

Weigh In - Week 15

Back on track...

I said after last week's weigh in that I wanted to get back the 3 lbs I gained during my trip to Phoenix. Well, I didn't get it all back, but I got back most of it.

After my first 10 weeks of weight loss where I was losing anywhere from 2 - 5 lbs per week, I'm coming to the realization that the weight loss will come a little more slowly as I start inching closer to my goal weight. It's funny how I started this with the mindset that 1 lb per week would be plenty to lose. Now I lose 2 lbs in a week and I'm happy with it, but not very happy. Odd how expectations get raised...

I took this past week to try to make up for the sins of the previous week. Some highlights:

• Worked out every time I went to work this week (4x) instead of the usual 3x (and I was sliding to 2x most recently). I probably would have worked out on Wednesday as well if it wasn't for the Fourth of July. Damn Independence Day! :)
• Back on the fruit & nuts kick for snacks and since my lunch buddy at work is on vacation, I generally had a chicken breast for lunch and then worked out over the lunch hour.
• Dinners were generally healthy. My wife makes dinners and I make a point not to make an issue if the food could be healthier. I figure I do the right thing for breakfast and lunch and as long as dinner is not a Double Quarter Pounder, I'll be doing OK. My wife makes healthy meals for the most part anyways.
• AJ is starting to sleep better through the night, which means I sleep better. And a good night's rest always helps with the weight loss (or so I have been told).
• Oh, and I'm back to drinking my green tea at work (diet sweetened) and at home (no sweetener).
• Double Oh...Carolyn and I went out to dinner on Saturday night. Dined al fresco in a trendy area called Doylestown. I had the best salad I have ever eaten. Grilled chicken over mixed greens with candied pecans, wedged citrus, goat cheese, a little guacamole, and a cilantro-lime vinaigrette. I write this to remind myself to go back and get this again at some point.

The only real low point (from a weight loss perspective) was going to July 4th party last Wednesday. Great party and I had a good time. The hosts are not folks who generally eat healthy themselves, so the dinner options were somewhat limited. I ended up having a sloppy joe, deviled egg, cucumber salad, 7 layer dip, ice cream cake, and some beers. And I still lost 2 lbs!

Till next weigh in...

My Fave Internet Sites - Shopping Edition

Thinking up ideas on blog posts and one easy and obvious post is to let everyone know where I visit on a daily basis. You can all see some of the blogs I frequent on the right hand side, but I would like to dedicate this post to my favorite shopping related sites. Some will be obvious, but perhaps some will be new to you...

• Even though it has been a while since I've purchased from it, I usually check out http://www.woot.com/ once a day. This is sort of the granddaddy of the "one great deal a day" sites that are becoming more popular. The woot model is to make large volume purchases from suppliers at low cost and then offer 1 item per day at a price usually below what you will find anywhere else (and I will check the woot price against other vendors...more on that later). Sometimes the deal is so good or the inventory starts so low that the product will sell out in hours. There are folks who will log on every night at 12PM CST (when the deal changes) to make sure they can take advantage. Plus they always write up fun to read descriptions of the products they sell. Go visit!


• Perhaps you like the concept of woot, but you're not into the electronic products they often sell. Well, the woot concept has become so popular that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of knock-off sites doing the same thing (another one I freqent is http://www.tanga.com/ for toys and games). Rather than attempt to rattle them all of here, I have found a cool site that keeps you updated on what each site is currently offering. It is http://www.dealsucker.com/. They now have deal a day sites for clothing, "mother related" things, and really anything you can think of.


• Enough on the "deal a day" sites. I spoke about it before, but I have to give a shout to http://www.craigslist.org/. This is probably another obvious one to folks, but this is a *great* site for classified ads and since posting is free, people are willing to post anything for sale. What's the downside? If you post and somebody is interested, you made some money. If not, then you've only lost the 5 - 15 minutes it took to make the posting. I'll often go to the "For Sale" section and put in my hometown as a keyword to see what I can pick up locally. I've bought poker chips at 80% off new, baby swing @ 60% off new, and even posted for free firewood when I had to have a tree chopped down. The landscaper wanted to charge me $250 to remove the tree, but fellow Craigslisters hauled it away for free! I love Craigslist...


• Whenever I think I see a deal out there on the web, I always make sure to validate that the price is a steal. How do I do that? There are actually a few sites that can help if you have the right information. They are http://www.pricegrabber.com/, http://www.nextag.com/, http://www.froogle.com/. The key here is to have the manufacturer name and part number. Punch that into the search engines and see if any other merchant is selling the same product. Some of these sites will even estimate shipping & tax for a true total cost if you provide a zip code (always look at shipping and tax!). Don't always believe the hype that you will never find a better deal. If one merchant is willing to sell at a particular price, chances are that there are others...


• An off-beat, shopping related site that I like to visit is http://www.consumerist.com/. They mix in deals with general tips on shopping and avoiding scams. Great tips on how to shop for cell phone service and things to look out for when using services like Geek Squad at Best Buy.


• One last tip: If you like to get freebies in the mail, I recommend http://www.bargainist.com/. They also provide daily deals from major retailers, but I especially like the "Freebies" section here (Click on tab at top of site). Once a month, I'll stop on by and click through to all the freebies and sign up for whatever is still being offered. Perhaps I'm opening myself up to extra solicitations, but I like my free stuff (I think my wife wonders why so many freebies show up in the mail as well).

That's all for now. I hope some of these sites are new to you and that you get some benefit out of using them. Disclaimer: I get no $$$ out of recommending these sites. Just my personal wisdom that I thought I would share with everyone.

A progress photo...

This was taken after AJ's baptism on 6/24/07. I am roughly 200 lbs here.

I think they call them "Non Scale Victories"...

Is that an official Weight Watchers phrase or what? Maybe somebody can clue me in with a comment. I've seen that term used a lot in the weight loss blogosphere...

Anyways, since I've lost 35 lbs, there have been a lot of these NSVs (for short) to comment on:

• The first is actually a scale victory I guess, but with a non-scale kinda feel. My official scale at the gym is one of those doctor-ish scales with the weights that slide from left to right. (I've added a picture to help out here). When I started this thing I was very clearly on the 200 lb bottom weight and slid the top weight over to 36 (for a total of 236 lbs). It was quite a rush when I was able to slide the bottom weight over to the 150 lbs. Now I basically slide the top weight all the way to the end, but still...it is awesome to at least be on the correct "big" weight. Am I rambling? I'll move on...
• The second is definitely non-scale in nature and it's a mixed blessing. In addition to my weight falling, my clothes sizes have dropped as well. When I started, I was a 38w pants size and moving to a 40. Most of the pants / shorts I like to wear are a size 38. Now I am easily a size 36 and moving towards a 35....which is awesome. The problem is that I'm a cheapskate on certain things, and do not want to go out and buy a new wardrobe until I hit and maintain my goal weight for a bit. I do get comments that the pants I'm wearing look a little silly in my new body. My belts are cinched all the way to the last hole as well. I do have some older clothes (think 3 -5 years ago) that fit me again and I am putting them back into the rotation to get by...
• The third is the positive comments I get from people. This started happening around 2 months ago, but has really ramped up in recent weeks. The first comments came from family, employees who work for me, and from salespeople who want to do business with me. I thought that those comments were just people with, shall we say, incentive to flatter me. But when people who you barely speak to at work, come up to say they notice the change...that really pumps me up. Some even ask what I am doing to lose the weight and I really don't fancy myself a weight loss expert...it's nice to share war stories though...
• Fourth and last...feeling confident to go topless at the pool / beach. My body is no where near being "Baywatch" ready, but I do feel a lot better taking off my shirt at the pool. I've never been a big beach guy and one of the main reasons is that my body has been too scrawny (ages 13-18) or too fat (ages 20+) to feel comfortable in that environment. I hope to be close to there by my trip to Cape Cod in mid-September and I will definitely be there by next summer. Hell, maybe I'll even have some semblance of a 6 pack (the good kind, of course)...

That's it for now...thanks for letting me share my positive stories...hopefully they inspire just a little bit...

What works for me?

You know what? It's been 13 weeks doing this thing and I've lost 35 lbs already...Some of you out there must think that I'm cheating by taking pills or starving myself. There's no way a person that much weight...Well, I did...

I thought it would be informative to post some of the things I am doing that I believe are keeping me down this path of weight loss. Perhaps it will set off a light bulb in your head...

1.) One of the biggest things I inadvertently did was to set myself up for a weekly weigh in on Monday at the gym. There are actually a couple of things going on here:

1a.) One, by weighing in weekly, I allow myself to not succumb to daily weight fluctuations. I also set myself up for posting a large number. Stepping on the scale and losing a 1/2 lb or 1 lb is certainly nice. Stepping on the scale and losing 3 lbs or 5 lbs really gives you a sense of accomplishment and pumps me up for the upcoming week.

1b.) Two, by weighing in at the gym, I force myself to the gym at least once a week. If I used a scale at home, I would have one less reason to hit the gym. Instead, I look forward to getting to the gym on Monday to see what the "official" scale shows.

1c.) Three, by weighing in on a Monday, I set myself up for getting my exercise in each week. If I am excited to get to the gym on Monday and put in a solid hour, I am setup to get in 2 more appearances for the rest of the week. If I miss Monday, it's a lot easier to miss Tuesday and then Wednesday, etc...Getting that first workout of the week completed first thing makes the rest of the week that much easier.

2.) Speaking of exercise, I try to put in a balanced workout each time I go. If you look back at my earlier posts, I try to blend 20 - 35 minutes of cardio, with a little ab work, and some kind of strength training (legs on time, chest / arms another). I know there are people who say that strength conditioning is the real way to lose weight, but the balanced approach has really worked for me.

3.) Staying on exercise, although I get to the gym 3x a week, I've also got a set of weights in my bedroom to knock out some arm exercises. I also have been trying to add some pushups into my routine. While I do not expressly look to do these as part of my routine, doing a quick set of arm curls, keeps my muscles on thier toes (and muscle mass = increased metabolism = weight loss).

I was going to do food, but I'll save that for another post...

Holy cow...did I just post more than once a week? What's the world coming to!

Weigh In - Week 14

Ugh...


I guess it was bound to happen...


After 13 straight weeks of weight loss, I finally hit the bump in the road. I posted a 3 lb weight gain!


I thought that perhaps I would break even this week or perhaps gain a pound...but 3 lbs caught me for a loop...

Now, I know most of you out there will not be throwing any pity parties for me. I've made the weight loss seem effortless, but I guess that means that I have to keep on the program to keep it off. Let's recap the bad things I've done this week:

• Worked out only 2x again this week. Once at the gym and once at the hotel where I stayed on a business trip. The hotel facilities were somewhat limited and I just did an extended cardio routine on the elliptical.
• I actually did pretty good on the "business portion" of my trip (Wed Eve - Friday Afternoon). My only transgression was eating Taco Bell at 11PM on Wed night when I got into Denver...Probably not the best idea. But I did exercise at the hotel in Phoenix on Thursday night...
• What really sunk me was extending my "business trip" to a "pleasure trip" by staying at my brother's place in Phoenix. My exercise consisted of a round of golf and lounging in his pool. My diet consisted of bacon, egg, & cheese burritos for breakfast, burgers, dogs, ribs, fries (first time I had fries since March), and LOTS of beer. There were not many opportunities for me to eat anywhere near healthy from Friday afternoon through Sunday.

I had a great time, but it really hit me that I need to focus to keep this weight loss going. I actually stepped on the scale on at the hotel gym on Friday night and still weighed 198. So I gained the 3 lbs in a period of roughly 3 days....that's impressive and scary...

My plan this week is to hit the gym 4x (M,Tu,Th,Fr) and get back into the good eating groove. Hopefully I can grab back those 3 lbs pretty quick....they haven't been on my body for that long...

Here's the progress chart with the unfortunate bump: