Sick!

This was me for roughly 6 hours yesterday ----->

That is why I wasn't able to post my weekly weigh in...

I'm not 100% today, but feel better enough to get back to work and blogging....

Is it sad that I saw as silver lining to puking roughly 10 times in 6 hours that I would probably lose a pound or 2 in the process (not to mention the solid ab workout!)

Don't worry...I'm not going bulimic or anorexic or anything...

And I did check the home scale and I am down roughly 2 lbs as a result of this...I'm sure my body will regulate and I will put those lbs back on...

Update: I will not be pushing myself this week from a workout or pushups persepctive...I reset the pushup ticker to 0 and have no plans to do any this week...Sorry Jynell...

Weigh In - Week 23

What a weird and wacky week (alliteration!)...

First...sorry for not posting a whole lot lately...there has been a lot on my plate as of late (rhyming!)...

As you can see, I got the 200 pushups in last week...I also met with the personal trainer and got to see the scary "free weights" side of the gym for the first time in a long time...I'll post more about my personal training experience in a seperate post...

My food choices this week started out pretty well and ended poorly by design...I figured I needed to shake up my routine a bit, confuse my body, and perhaps take a short term hit on the scale for a larger gain down the road...So, on Thursday, I went to see the Eagles take on the Jets in a meaningless preseason game. I had lots of beer, a turkey and bacon hoagie, and sausage and peppers...On Sunday, I went to a Labor Day party and ate lots of blondies and a few beers...

And I lost 2 lbs! Go figure...

Haven't posted this in a while...Here is the excel graph I've been keeping:

Weigh In - Week 22

Slip sliding away...

BTW...that's a Polish road sign...who knew?

Jeebus...This now a fifth straight week with no weight loss...and a 1 lb weight gain to boot...

I'm now officially on the wrong side of my aggressive goal at 1.9 lbs average loss per week. Not too worried, but now I'm officially annoyed with my body...

The good: Worked out twice plus 185 pushups plus 2 bike rides. Food choices were good throughout the week...as for the weekend...well...

The bad: Had 7 bottles of beer on Friday night...Had a small ice cream from Merrymead (sounds like nothing, but it is very heavy)...Had a nice dinner out on Saturday, which was a mixed bag of good and bad I guess...

Maybe I need to go back to my Healthy Choices blog posts for some more focused attention on my food choices...Maybe the pushups are adding muscle which is keeping me from losing weight short term, but will help in the long term...Maybe my body is just telling me this is where I need to be (no wait...that's my Mom)...

Anyways, that's where I am...thank goodness I'm not participating in this weight loss race anymore...I'd be getting my butt whooped in that too!

I *heart* Metacritic

Another post about websites that I love (and frequent often)...

Sure you've taken advice from Siskel (sadly no more) and from Ebert...Perhaps you've read your daily rag to see if they gave the movie you have to see four stars or zero stars...

But they are just one voice out there in a world of hundreds...How do you know if they are the one crank out there giving four stars to that potential $10 movie ticket investment? By checking out Metacritic.

For movies, TV shows, books, music, video games...they go out to all of the critic's sites and convert their scoring system to a 100 point system (i.e. a 3 /5 star review would score as a 60) and then average it all together to come up with one score based on all of the reviews they could find...they won't officially post a score until they have a minimum number of reviews to average either...and they only take legitimate critics into account...

The other reason for posting this is the fact they have a nice chart of when shows will start airing for the fall season. I wanted to know when I can start watching new episodes of The Office and 30 Rock...

Anyway, it's a cool site and I thought I would give them a little love today. I'm not a pay per poster or anything, so it's untainted love...

Getting my butt kicked...

Damn, damn, damn...

I know we both hit my (obviously easy) goal of 150 pushups this week, but Jynell really put the screws to me this week...

311 to 185...Ouch...

She went out ahead early in the week and I had the idea of keeping up with her or staying slightly ahead of her...And I was doing it through Friday when I was at 175 to her 170...

And then I log on late Friday or Staurday (I forget) and see I big whopping 270 posted...and I said, "Forget that"...I'm all for competition, but I'm not going to drop and give 100 just to keep in the game...

So I'll take my butt whooping for the week...

Also, not feeling too confident again about losing (or gaining) any weight when I check in tonight...

Pushup Challenge (cont.)

Well...the battle has been joined...

I thought that the pushup challenge from Jynell would be a simple one to beat...count me as a sexist pig or what have you, but I didn't think she could hit the 150 (heck...I had a hard time hitting the 150 my first week!)

But she not only hit the 150, but came in at a 163 to my 160. A little emasculating sure, but I'm willing to admit I was beaten by a girl. So this week, I came out of the gate determined to put up a number that would blow her out of the water. I pushed my sets from 10 pushups to 20 pushups and knocked out 70 in the first two days...Pretty proud of myself...So what do I see when I check Jynell's blog today? 75. I swear she is watching my number and doing just enough to keep ahead of it!

Which is fine...the way this competition is going we will be knocking out 300+ pushups by week's end and, in the end, we both benefit from this healthy (in more ways than one) competition. After seeing her 75 number, I immediately hit the floor in my office and pumped out a 20 set just to keep ahead myself!

So Jynell asked me to set some ground rules and I'm happy to oblige. This is obviously a pretty loose, "on your honor" competition, but please try to hold to these minimums:

• Must be "man" pushups (see the pic above if you have any questions...no knees on the ground!)
• Must knock out a minimum of 10 pushups before resting (the idea is to feel some burn from this)
• No maximum per day.
• Get a blog tool that you can use to track results (Tickerfactory is a good choice)
• Update your totals immediately if possible. Try to log on before the end of each day to post. I don't want to think I'm beating you 150 to 10 and then log in on Saturday to see you've posted 200 pushups in one sitting (unless you've done 200 pushups in one sitting).
• Try to hit the goal that's been set each week

At this point, it's just been Jynell and I. If anyone else is interested, though, we can make this thing larger and I can post everyone's weekly progress, etc...Here's also why you should join.

Weigh In - Week 21

Honestly...now I'm getting pissed...

I put in my 3 workouts this week...I did 160 push ups...I pretty much held to my eating parameters this week with the sole exception of sharing a bag of cotton candy with my wife at a local carnival...I was actually 2 lbs down on Friday...

...and I weigh in at another 193...this is 4 straight weeks for those keeping score at home...

I was running out of 193 roadsigns to post, but someone at wikipedia added this wonderful DC sign in the past week.

I saw your note DC&Z and read the web page, but I don't think it applies to me as I already mix up my eating patterns...I don't do the "points" thing...perhaps I should personally pig out one day a week to keep my metabolism guessing...I dunno...

At least I should be glad that the weight isn't going up...I guess...

At any rate, I had 1 free personal training session which I never used...so I've decided to use that up next week to get some ideas on how to better train...perhaps find ways to increase muscle mass to increase metabolism to lower weight...In the mean time, I'll keep the push up regimen going and hope that my body will bust through this...

Vick pleads guilty...

As a pet lover of all stripes, I hope he gets more than the 1 year that is being speculated and I hope he never plays in the NFL again...

I'm all for contrarian views and taking a look from all angles, but I find this take on Vick to be pretty reprehensible. It makes Vick look like this poor 6 year old who can't be trusted to make his own judgements.

I'm all for finding solutions to society's ills and all, but we all make our own decisions at the end of the day and we all have to live with the outcomes.

Mission Accomplished

Misssion accomplished on the pushups!

Completed 150 as of 11AM this morning...

Threw in an extra 10 this afternoon because I could...

And yes...I beat a girl while I was at it...I rock! (Althought it looks like Jynell will make it to 100...congrats on that!)

I put up a little gold star graphic to reward myself...

Update: Apparently, I must have done too much self congratulation. While Jynell had 93 pushups when I checked yesterday at 4PM (and I thought there was no way, she would catch up to my 160). This morning, a reader alerted me to the fact that Jynell posted 163 pushups for an amazing 70 pushups in less than 24 hours. Either a) Jynell has some serious pushup power in her or b) she was lax in posting her updates or c) she saw my taunt and felt obliged to show me who was boss or d) all of the above.

This kind of reminds me of when I've bid on Ebay and had the winning bid up to 30 minutes before close, only to have someone swoop in at the last minute with a higher bid.

Regardless, we both hit the magic number we set this week. I'll graciously give her the win this week. If she cares to go about it again, I'll take the challenge...

Hey Brad!

I'm still reading you pal...don't give up the ship!

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