Weight Loss Bet

Started a new weight loss bet with 8 friends on Monday.  Weigh-in Monday evening was 306.6.  Ouch!  But I am happy to report that as of this morning (so a day and a half later) I'm at 296.  All I have to do is continue at this pace for 15 days and I can lose my whole 100 pounds!

Weights

So I worked out at my new gym for the first time Monday.  Did about 25 minutes on the machines and then 20 minutes of cardio.  I'm a little sore but not too much.  Last night was basketball so this morning I was back in the 260s, which I'm happy about.  Hopefully Friday will be even better.  It is a day of fasting, after all, so that should help...

Big step

I joined a gym today!  Cardio is one thing, but I really need to develop some muscle as well.  I've been getting the Fitness19 ads in the mail for a while, and I finally bit on one.  After a relatively steep $168 down it's only $10/month forever.  Given that it's also really close to my house, I hope I use it.  I plan on riding my bike there on nice days.

I've been running and playing basketball, but my weight hasn't dropped.  Which I attribute to all the eating.  Somebody could get insanely rich developing a safe, working appetite suppressant...

Back on the wagon -- for the 43rd time

Writing this blog is like going to confession.  It's the same thing every time.  But yesterday's 80 degree weather reminded me that pool season is almost upon us, so it's time to get serious again.  Unlike rich guys like Bill who have their own pool, I have to go to a public one where other humans will see me with my shirt off.  Since I own a mirror, that thought is serious motivation...

I'll weigh in Friday.  I'm hoping to somehow be lower than my last weigh in, so I can pretend the time off from blogging was not spent sitting around eating.  (And working a ton, unfortunately.)

Ash Wednesday post

When last I posted, things were going pretty well.  Since then, Girl Scout cookies have been delivered here by the semi truckload and friends have been dropping of meals nearly every day.  (Therese was pregnant but ended up losing the baby and had to have a D&C last Friday.)

I am determined to use Lent to get back on track, and obviously God's trying to help me b/c I woke up in the middle of the night with a nasty stomach bug that has my insides in turmoil.  I'm definitely not going to be gaining any weight today! 

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated

Sure, it's been since November that I've posted.  But I'm back!  (Thanks, Bill.)  Sadly, in the intervening time I've gained a bit.  I topped out near 280, but as of yesterday was back to 269.2.  So that's what I'll put down for this week and see how I do next week.  I've been playing basketball every Tuesday and racquetball most Fridays, and usually get in one job a week.  But the weather is getting nicer so I should be able to run more and start biking again.  Also tennis, maybe...

I've disable the automatic email notification on this thing, so now people can just visit if they want and ignore me otherwise.  Mostly it's b/c I'm kind of embarrassed at the backsliding.

Update

Sorry for the lack of posts (Bill); I just need to get back in the habit.  By last Friday I was down to 261.8, so down 5 pounds.  I'll weigh in tomorrow for this week, then try to avoid going buck wild later in the day.  There's a Nagle thanksgiving as well as a Griffin thanksgiving, but at least I'll have Friday off to recover.  I'll try to find someone to play racquetball with me on Friday.  Any volunteers??

Thanks to Bill, I'm pushing this:

Thanks to Bill and Peggy (and Therese), I'm trying to get back on the wagon.  I really appreciate all of you who have been supportive.  I'm finding out how easy it is to let your guard down and fall back into bad habits.

I got on the scale yesterday morning and weighed 266.8.  It's really hard to put into words how depressing that is.  I'm up more than 20 pounds from my low this summer.  I went back and looked at my records and the last time I weighed this much was ... Nov 12, 2009.  More than a year ago! 

Since I last checked in I've run a half marathon and done a 50 mile bike ride, but those were both in October and I haven't done much since then.  The weather is really pretty decent for running but I've just gotten out of the habit.  But with both Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, the next couple months are full of land mines, so I need to get back into the regular workout habit.  More importantly, I need to start watching what I eat as well.  Halloween certainly didn't help, but the kids are now out of all the cany that I like, so that temptation is dying down. 

At any rate, I plan on starting up the weekly weigh-ins again.  Those really did work, since they held me accountable.  If anyone out there ever wants to play racquetball, just let me know.  I'm available almost every night. 

I'll leave you with this photo, and the thought that goes through my head upon seeing it:  "How can a guy with that size belly bend over so far to grab the handlebars?"

OK, now I really am getting serious

So this weekend was kind of a cluster-f, as always.  Maggiano's on Saturday then Blaine's Smorgasbord of Smoked Meat on Sunday.  I got on the scale this morning and was back up to 260.8 from 254 on Friday.  But then I ran 7 miles today and was back down to 254.8.  Given that I ran the whole 7 without anything to drink, that's probably mostly water weight.  But I have hoops tomorrow night and then Therese and I are doing our longest bike ride yet (40ish miles) on Wednesday.  Then we have the half century on Sunday morning.  So maybe by NEXT Monday I'll be at a respectable weight again.  I sure hope.  It's been a while since I hit a new low.

Today's episode is titled "Tenerife Rd. Doesn't Cut Through," or...

... "How My Bike Ride Went From 28 Miles to 35."  Gmaps said our route was possible, but they were wrong.  At the end of Tenerife Rd we got to a private drive with lots of No Trespassing signs posted everywhere.  28 miles was already 6 more than I had ever ridden, but now we had to double back and the 28 became 34.  We were pretty low on water, but luckily Becky Hall lives right on Tenerife, so we filled up our bottles from her hose. We were both totally spent when we made it back to the car, but we did make it.  And we've got ten more days to build up to another 15 so we can do the 50 mile ride the 19th.

As for weigh-ins, I was "down" to 256 last Friday.  I'm down a couple more this week, but I'm still eating too much.  Must be residual cruise ship disease...

Cruise update

I'm back.  We had a great time, even with all five of us in one small (very small!) cabin.  Therese and I did tour the fitness center on the ship, and marveled over all the fancy machines, but that was pretty much it for me.  They also had a jogging track that I didn't use.  (I did think it would be funny to wear the GPS watch while running around and around the jogging track while the ship was moving, then check the map printout.  It would be just a huge curly cue well out to sea.)

As expected, the food was good and abundant.  You could have Chateaubriand with a side of Chateaubriand, not that I did that.  Much.  There was a chocolate buffet one day, but luckily no midnight buffet.  And we did walk a little, since our room was in the fore part of the ship and the dining room was aft...

So, the envelope please!  11.8 pounds.  Up, of course.  Which I an actually VERY happy with.  On one hand, I'm back in the 260's (260.8), which is depressing.  On the other hand, I can gain 12 pounds in a weekend at home, so after a week on a cruise ship I expected massive damage, not just 12 pounds.

But since 12 pounds is 12 pounds (and since Therese and I signed up for a half marathon in 5 weeks), it's time to head out for a run.  I also want to do this in 3 weeks (Therese thinks the half is a good place to start, so 50 miles), so I've got to train for that as well.  I'm running out of time...

Getting ready for my cruise

Looks like I once again will not reach a pre-vacation goal.  I wanted to get in the 240's before I went to Hawaii and didn't make it till I got back, and I wanted to get in the 230's before the cruise and 243 was as close as I got (a few weeks ago, ugh!).  This past Friday I was up to 249.  I'm playing basketball tomorrow, but we leave Friday afternoon, so the 230s will have to wait until September.  Until that time, enjoy this picture of the weight that Therese apparently hopes to get down to, since she's clearly not happy with her current weight.

There are so many things wrong with this photo...

Hat tip to Dan Flook for the pic.

Body fat percentage update

I had Peggy check me again last week (thanks, Peggy!), and I'm down to 23.65% now.  When I was measured in December I was 26.6% and I was 29% when I started.  Those numbers don't seem that impressive, but when cleaning off my desk over the weekend, I did find a piece of paper from my original body fat analysis where one method (there are several ways to derive the number) had me at 34%, so I'm down more than 10% from that number.  I'm not sure why (other than embarrassment) I used the 29% number officially.  I apparently still have 58 pounds of total fat on me (247 x .2365), so a zero body fat Jim would weigh 189.  I'd be happy to split the difference and lose 29 more pounds and be 218.

But my new percentage is exciting because now I'm just overweight!  Goodbye obese category!  (BTW, there's no feeling in the world like dieting and exercising for almost a year to get "down" to ... "overweight"?  What an accomplishment!)

Here's a chart I found online:

Men

Age	Underfat	Healthy Range	Overweight	Obese
20-40 yrs	Under 8%	8-19%	19-25%	Over 25%
41-60 yrs	Under 11%	11-22%	22-27%	Over 27%
61-79 yrs	Under 13%	13-25%	25-30%	Over 30%

So another 4.65% gets me to the "healthy" range.

Drew Carey loses 80 pounds in 8 months!

Wow, way to make me look like a piker!  That's an insane pace, and good for him.  I just hope he keeps it up.  At least I'm not a public figure so there's not nearly the pressure that he has.

It sounds like he's doing hard core Atkins, which is even more impressive, since I know how hard that diet is.  I mean really, 8 months of no bread??  I can't go 8 minutes...

Working out hard and...

...gaining weight?? I don't get it. I know that I don't exactly exist on salads and egg white omelets, but come on. 18 miles on the bike Tuesday, 5 1/2 miles running yesterday morning then 1.5 hours of tennis in the evening, then 18 more miles on the bike today, and I'm still up 3 pounds from last week. It just doesn't seem possible. I guess the one thing I missed this week was my basketball game Tuesday night (stupid Steve Miller concert), but that shouldn't make this much difference. I'm working on the 4th straight week not making a new low. I'm running out of time to reach my 230's goal before the cruise! And a possible beach trip to NJ next week isn't going to help things.

At least I'm not eating any of these:

Can you believe KFC's Double Down (which has chicken patties for buns and bacon and cheese in the middle) has barely over 1/3 the calories of the Friendly's Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt?  So you could eat 3 of them!

Hmmm, what would Homer order?

How far would this set me back?

Hat tip to Mark Sparacino for this one.  1500 calories and 79 grams of fat might just be worth it!

Yes, you saw that correctly.  The sandwich, at Friendly's, uses two grilled cheeses as the bun!

(BTW, I just looked it up.  That would be 37 points on Weight Watchers!  More than a whole day's worth!)

Things I learned this week

1. When biking a long distance on a sunny day, a short shirt that rides up a bit above the waist when bent over pedaling will leave a nasty inch tall sunburn line.  Kind of like a red belt!

2. Even though I thought I had gotten better, I still stink at tennis.  (Thanks, Anil!)

3. Cycling does get easier.  Obviously it should, just like running, but it seems to be happening pretty quickly.  I've gone from 12 or 13 miles to a little over 20 in a couple weeks.

4. My problem isn't the working out, it's the EATING.  Does anyone know of a safe, effective appetite suppressant?  I took phenteramine for a few weeks once, and it worked great for a little while, but then the effectiveness wore off.

Looking ahead...

...because I don't want to look back and see more failure.  Yes, I was up a bit this week.  But I was working out really hard, and I'm getting more fit.  I think I've just been "carbing up" a bit too much lately. 

But looking ahead, I realize that I only have about 6 weeks till my one year anniversary.  [I wonder what I should get myself for my anniversary?  Candy?  Flowers?  Gym membership?]  Therefore, I need to set a one year goal.  I think the goal should be reaching the 230's at least.  But that doesn't seem like that much of a stretch from here (Ha, famous last words!), so maybe something harder?  220's?  Unrealistic, I'm afraid.  Let's split the difference and say 235.  That's more than 10 from where I am today, so that seems reasonable.

I also plan on making my official "year" weigh in on August 20th, since the next day we leave for a week long cruise.  The cruise ends only a week before my Sept 3rd anniversary date, so I think the safer course is to weigh in for the year before the cruise, even if that does mean fudging it a little. 

Peggy, I'm also going to enlist your help again since I'll need to do a one year update on the body fat percentage.  You'd hope that 60 or so pounds should make a big difference!

As a bookkeeping matter, I've decided to stop measuring my total weight loss from the 295 I was the first week and instead measure from the 301 that I got up to before I started the blog.  That's realistically how I think about it.  I didn't do it that way at first b/c I didn't want to confuse the matter, but now that I'm so far into it I'm going to make the switch.

Almost made it back

I was up .2 this week. Like most weeks, that was a major accomplishment. I was up a full 12 pounds as of Tuesday morning, so I've lost about 11.8 in the last 3 days. I know this reads like a broken record, but wouldn't it be great if I could just maintain over the weekend and then be down a bunch the following week? Oh wait, it happened a couple weeks ago and I had my biggest weekly loss since the first week! So that would work! Now to set about doing it this weekend. Last weekend was a little tough with the holiday and all, and I'll have Erin staying here this weekend to keep me honest.

50+ pounds!!

Well, today was a milestone day.  I was 243.2 after this morning's bike/run twofer, and the 6.6 that I was down was the most since my very first week of blogging, back in September.  It also put me down 51.4 pounds since the blog started, so I feel good about that, also.  I also realized the other day that I've been doing this for 10 MONTHS now, which I truly can't believe.  I guess that puts my monthly average at 5.14 pounds, which seems like a reasonable pace.  But it hasn't been a nice, smooth, regular 5.14 per month but a series of plateaus and then drops.  Someday if I have time I'll use Excel to plot a line graph which should look pretty interesting.

The reason I'm down so much this week is b/c I've been a working man.  I took some leave Mon-Weds and spent the time pulling weeds and trimming bushes/trees and putting down mulch in 100 degree weather.  And also eating well and exercising at night.  I did start to feel it on Tuesday at hoops when after two games I had absolutely nothing in the tank and had to sit.  Normally I'm the guy wanting to run full court to get a better workout, but I was spent.  Today I did a little tri practice by riding for 12 miles and then running.  Big E, I'm not sure I'll be ready for the 14.06 b/c I was dying today.  Let's see what another week brings.

I also took some updated pictures last week and this week.  I haven't updated the slide show yet, but I'm going to soon.  I'd like to see if I can tell a difference.