Catching up and notches

I didn't report in last week cuz I was going out of town. But I did weigh in, and I had lost 6 pounds for that week. Today was another weigh in and I lost 4 pounds this week.

So, overall, I'm down 25 pounds in 4 weeks. Wahooo!

Being off of Diet Coke hasn't been too bad, but I still crave it every now and then.

Part of the fun of loosing weight is having your clothes get looser, and getting back into clothes you used to fit in. Belts fall into this too.
Below is a picture of the belt I have on today.

It's a little hard to see, but when I first got this belt a few months ago, I was using the second to the last notch. You can see it has the most wear. As I added pounds, I had to go to the last notch. Crap! Then what, I either have to drill a new hole, or buy a new belt. Well, as I've been coming back down, after 2 weeks of eating right and exercising, I went back to notch#2. And then today, another 2 weeks later, I went to notch #3 (it hasn't been used before - cool). And so it goes.
Many times you hear (with respect to sports) "It's a game of inches". In this case it's true. Taking care of business 1 notch at a time.

Friday #s

Another Friday, another weigh-in.

Down 5 more this week.

I was hoping for a few more, but I was a slacker this week, and missed workouts on Tues, Wed, and Thurs. Tues and Thurs just cuz I could not get out of bed. Wed was due to going to Cub Camp for the day. But I got there this morning.

Hoping for better consistency next week in getting to the gym, and hopefully better results.

I've finally decided to narrow it down to one scale. I have one at home that is pretty accurate. I will go with that for my weekly weigh-ins. The one at the gym is good, and the one at MD diet is good too, but I'm always wearing different clothes when I weigh-in. The one at home can be done with no clothes - hence, no varying with the clothing weight. I'll still use the other scales, but they won't be my 'standard'.
I'm still managing to make good food choices. It's still hard sometimes (like the other night when I took my wife and son out for frosty's and I got nothing :-( . But, when I got home, I had SF Jello pudding w/ added protein - which is a pretty tasty treat.

1 week down, many more to go

For some reason I like to weigh in and check myself for the record on Fridays. I think it's because if I do decide to cheat, the weekend is the most likely time to do it, and I have the rest of the week to recover before I weigh in again. Truth be told, I weigh myself almost daily at the gym. They have a great new scale, very accurate, and I like to weigh myself before and after workouts, just to see how much water weight I lose during my workout.

Anyway, it was a super week. I lost 10 pounds. Can I get an AMEN! (At no time in 2008 when I was losing did I drop 10 lbs in one week - off to a great start!)



Let's see:
-I quit diet soda - cold turkey. I don't know why it is so hard for me to give it up, and then BAM, I make a decision, and poof, no more pop. Although, I was tempted Friday night when we went out to dinner. In pavlovian fashion, I was about to order a diet coke, but then realized that I'm off that crap, so had water instead.
-I ate really well, all week. Even going out on Friday night, I chose healthy dishes at the restaurant, had the brown rice instead of the white, etc. Went to a birthday party for a friend, didn't have the cupcakes. Went to a Family 24th gathering, and my dinner consisted of green salad and chicken breast.
-I worked out Tuesday, Wed, Friday and Saturday. A good start, but I need to keep going, and being consistent and push myself.
-Sunday was hard. We have church first thing in the morning, and with Sunday being a day of rest, my habit has been to sit around, graze and eat all day. I kept going to the pantry, sigh a bunch, and then grab a few raw almonds and walk away. Changing habits! The good thing is that I totally felt the difference. Typically on Monday mornings, I would wake up feeling like garbage. Today, I woke up and felt great. I think I'm on to something here.
-Speaking of feeling good. When I eat healthy, I tend to not have the afternoon drowsiness that comes from a high carb/sugar/fat lunch. I also tend to not have heartburn. So long Prevacid.
-My blood pressure was totally in line on Friday at my Dr. app. This is how it works: eat right, work out, take meds -bingo. Hopefully the meds won't have to stay around for too long.

The first week is always the best. Hope to keep it up.

Twice is not as nice

Here I stand at the head of the trail again, a very long path in front of me. I've been here before, I've been down this long and winding road a couple of times. I know it's twists and turns, I know it's highs and lows. I know it can be a killer, and yet it's a road I have to travel. The lazy man inside me does not want to go. The husband, father, and guy who would like to live a nice long life knows he must go.
The question is, why am I back here?




Why did I do this to myself?
Why did I choose to put the burden back on my frame? I thought I had left this 139 lb burden behind 2 years ago, and now it's back. Not all of it, but 129 lbs may as well be the whole thing.

It tells me a few things. One of which is: the things I did before were not lasting - or I didn't make a lasting commitment to them. Changes to diet and exercise almost have to be ingrained somehow. I don't know how right now, but I need to figure it out.

So, yep, here we go again. I can't say this time will be as fun as the last, but maybe I'm a little wiser this time, maybe I'll be able to make some lasting commitments this time. Maybe, just maybe I can lose those burdens forever.

Back at it

Well, I finally got back to the gym, almost two weeks ago. It had been three weeks since my surgery, and I wanted to see how it would go. Bella had a hard time choosing between Edward and the wolf dude - (can you tell I was doing cardio cinema?). Anyway, it went ok, but I still didn't feel 100%. I took a couple of more weeks off and went back today. Today it was much better. I can barely feel the effects of my hernia, so that's good. Only did 20 min on the elliptical, but that was enough for today.
Still, I am way out of shape, and way too heavy. Numerous reminders this weekend told me I've almost slid all the way back to where I was at the beginning of 2008. I hate that this is such a struggle. I hate that I love to exercise when I finally make it to the gym, but have such a big mental block to getting there ( I hit my snooze button 5 times this morning).
Onward and downward!

Stoopid blood pressure

So, even though I've been back on blood pressure meds for 3 weeks now, my blood pressure has basically stayed the same. This tells me a few things. 1) The meds are going to only help me if I do my part = a) eating right b) working out on a consistent basis. When I did those things 2 years ago, by blood pressure got back in line very quickly.
I'm bugged that I can't work out till my surgery. It's next week. Yes, this time next week, I'll be coming out of a fog and my lower abdomen will be a little (or a lot) sore. Yeah me!
I hate being out of breath and moving in slow motion. Though I was only in shape for a short time, I miss it, and need to get back there. Summer is upon us and I want to be active, not sitting there sweating to death. I have no summer fat clothes - crap! Guess I'd better get my butt in gear as soon as I can.

Yes, it is

a hernia. At least that's what my internal medicine doc told me. Nothing like a little "turn your head and cough" to make an afternoon complete. I know that women have it bad when they go to the woman doctor, but having your boys jiggled by another dude is just not one of life's best events. Anyway, they did a physical on me at the same time. My blood pressure was up (duh! - I have not been to the gym regularly in over a year). So, he put me on some blood pressure meds - which basically mean that I get to go pee a lot. On the other hand, my blood work came back normal - whew - no blood sugar issues.
So, what to do now. I have an appointment with the surgeon next Tuesday to see how and when to get this hernia thingy taken care of. In the mean time, I really need to start eating right. I need to find new morning food besides breakfast burritos and diet coke ( and throw in a donut for good measure). I want to exercise, but what I can and can't do will be dictated by the doc next week.

Hold on a minute...

Just when I was getting all fired up last week about getting fit again, I began to also look into why I was having pain in my lower abdomen. I believe that I have developed an inguinal hernia. This is only by my own diagnosis, with the help of web MD. I have an appointment for this afternoon with my doctor to get a professional opinion. If I'm right, I may have to have surgery to fix it. That would suck. I would be out of commission for at least 4 weeks. I hate getting old.

I'll post tomorrow about what the doc says. Sigh....

It's time

It's time to get back to the gym.
It's time to be accountable for what goes in my mouth.
It's time to keep track of what I weigh.
It's time to stop feeling like crap.
It's time to quit making excuses.
It's time to say good-bye to the donuts, candy, sweets, muffins, and ice cream.
It's time to be an example to my family again.
It's time to quit being lazy.

It's just plain damn time.

Being out of a job for 7 months is no excuse for gaining back almost all of the weight I lost in 2008. It makes me ill to think that I have gone backward so much. I have kept telling myself that I would get back to the gym when I had a more stable 'routine', you know - with a full time job, etc. Well, I'm working full time, but the job is not permanent, and things are still in a state of flux. Doesn't matter. I'm at that point again where I was at the end of 2007, where I knew something had to change or else!

If you don't see an update from me within a week as to what I've been doing to get back on track, plz text me or call me and ask me why not.