Another picture from Dan F.

Hopefully nobody will be serving these this weekend!

Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated

I know I don't post as often these days, but it's because I don't want to sound like a broken record.  For six months now I've just maintained my weight.  Sometimes I get discouraged and stop trying for a few days and gain a few pounds.  Then I get annoyed that I wasted all that exercise and work so I lose those same few pounds back.  Like many people, I'm just stuck in a rut.  I'm exercise plenty, I just eat too much.  And besides being swimsuit season, this is also barbeque season.  What's a meat-loving former fat guy to do?? 

It's depressing b/c instead of being excited by the upcoming long weekend, I'm dreading it.  I only lose weight during the week, when I have my regular routine and normal sized meals.  This weekend is full of pitfalls, with poker Friday and cookouts to attend ALL THREE weekend days.  All I'm thinking about is how to get through the weekend without blimping up again.  (And for all of you whose advice is "Just don't eat that much," that's not particularly helpful.  Obviously if I had that level of self control, I would never have been 300 pounds in the first place...)

After last weekend, I was in the low 260's.  (I didn't weigh myself b/c I just knew that I was.  After 6 months of being in the same narrow range, I pretty much know what my weight is without weighing.)  This morning (after soccer Monday, hoops Tuesday and track workout last night) I'm 253.8.  So once again the cycle continues.  My goal this week will be to break that cycle.  I have determined that this will be the week that I remain strong over the weekend and hit a new low next time. 

One last note:  Welcome to new watcher "Katty Z" from the Czech Republic!

What would 50 pounds look like??

From my buddy Dan Flook:

Exerspy

So Peggy lent me her Exerspy device, which is pretty cool.  You wear it all day and it tells you how many calories you burn, how many steps you take, how many hours/minutes of activity you had, etc.  Given my age/height/sedentary job, Peggy determined that I need to burn 3023 calories a day to maintain my weight.  Obviously, that means I need to burn more than that (or eat less than that) to lose weight.  I figured a typical day not exercising would be less, and it turns out it's a lot less.  Something like 2400 calories was all I burned in a non-exercise weekday.  I'm sure a weekend would be more than that b/c I'm not sitting at a desk all day.  On days I exercised, I burned about 3500 calories.  So I guess it reinforces what I knew, but it give me specific numbers to shoot for, i.e. eat 600 few calories on a day I don't get to exercise.

As for today's weigh in, I was up a pound.  Given Caroline's First Communion party Saturday and then Dan's graduation party Saturday night, and given all the extra subs and chips and sodas we got that we didn't need, I guess I'm not too upset with that number.  Therese and I have been playing tennis in the mornings after dropping the kids off at school, so that's been nice.  Exercise that involves games is so much better than that which just involves running.

Time to start weighing in again

I was 254.8 today, my first weigh in in 3 weeks.  While that's up, it's not devastating.  The weather has been very good for outdoor exercising and pool season fast approaches, so those should be motivators.  Therese and I also joined a coed tennis league at our club, so that will be good exercise on Wednesday nights.  Also good for my humility, since I'm terrible at tennis.

Thanks to the readers I have left for your encouragement.  (Peggy, what's the "Exerspy" you mentioned?)

I'm not done

Thank you to Bill for bugging me.  I took a week of b/c of the Hawaii trip, and since I've been back I've just been lazy.  This morning I was 256, which is up 5 from my pre-Hawaii days, but not as bad as I expected.  I'll run tonight and see what tomorrow brings.  Thanks for hanging with me, everyone!