Skipped A Meeting But Saw A Bear Fight

I honestly INTENDED to go to Weight Watchers this weekend.  I did.  I won’t tell you what my 7th grade math teacher said about “good intentions”.  In her informed opinion they don’t lead to a happy place.

That said, the weather was so outstanding this weekend my family and I went to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia.  It was great.  We saw two brown bears fight.  

I’m sure they were just playing but it looked like a fight.  It was AWESOME!

The penguins were neat too.

Once back in town Sunday I started some changes to my workout.  

I still use the basic strategies Rick the trainer taught me about lifting weights.   I still do a good weight workout at least 3 times a week.  But I’ve changed the cadio component.

Friday, I read through a book written by Richard Kattouf.  He mailed me a copy of “Forever Fit” back when we were still doing the Challenge on air.

I wish I’d read it sooner.

Kattouf is a local doctor and multi-sport athlete.  Some of what he said is familiar from a hundred other sources by now.  In short, a pound of new lean muscle is a great way to burn several pounds of fat.

He says some people get frustrated by their exercise programs becuase they’re working at too high an intesity.  My cadio workout was especially intense.  I would try to see just how many miles I could churn out, or how fast I could do a 5K.  I mostly ignored my heart rate.

But to get the most from that cadio, at least for fat-burning, he says I need to keep my heart rate at about 65% of my maximum.  That’s about 120 for me.

From “Forever Fit” :

“The majority of individuals I have trained over the years come from a background of too much intensity too often in their cadriovascular training.  Let’s look at this all too common scenario : An individual begins a fitness program in order to lose weight.  Their training volume and intensity increases each week.  Their training volume and intensity increases each week.  As the weeks progress, they begin to get frustrated and lose motivation due to increased exercise but little or no weight loss”

So Sunday, I tried going for a longer time at a slower pace.  I cranked up the resistence on the elliptical and went for 90 minutes.  It still generates a good sweat and, hopefully, it will burn more fat.

We’ll see.

If it works, give credit to Richard Kattouf.

I’ll thank him for the book in advance.

Ten Percent, A Keychain, And Optimism

One of my close friends in town greeted the new year by terming it, “The Year of Optimism!”

I’d say that’s shooting for the moon given all that sour national news.  Still, it is ambitious to be optimistic about optimism itself, sort of a meta-optimism.   So, I subscribe.

I’ve been trying to be positive about most things.  Like a lot of people I find it pretty easy to sink into cynicism and presumed misfortune.

The old me, the cynical one I’m working hard to supress, wouldn’t have been much inpressed by the psychology of a reward trinket from Weight Watchers.

 ”I don’t need your motivational gizmo,” know-it-all pessimist me says, “because I’m too smart for that stuff!”

Optimistic me is glad to have a souvenier keychain.  I keep it in the car.

At the weigh-in Saturday I passed what should be, and for me is, a big milestone.  I’ve lost more than 10% of my starting weight.  I was 335.3 according to the WW scales about 3 months ago.

 I was at 300.3 this weekend.  And I got a keychain.  At least I think its a keychain.  It kinda looks like a keychain.  It may not be.  Let’s just call it a keychain.

So, now comes a new goal.  

I’m shooting for 10% more.

But not 10% of what I weigh now.  10% of my original weight.

I’d like to lose another 33.5 as my second mid-range goal.  

Good luck if you’re trekking with me.

And find your own perhaps-keychain-thing if it helps.

WE WILL DO THIS!

Optimism RULES!

Walking The Back 40

I promised a quick update on my last weigh-in.  I’d like to claim the delay in posting was an attempt to prove Einstein wrong but, really, I have no good excuse.

(For the nerds like me, Eisntein theorized that as an object decreases in mass it increases in relative speed.  He also said quantum mechanics makes sense, so we’re not batting 1.000 here.  But I digress…)

I’ve had a good couple of weeks at the Weight Watchers weigh-ins but I’m still not losing quite as fast as I’d like.  Part of that may be my own lack of discipline on the weekends.  I do cheat a bit on Friday or Saturday and I know that’s the problem.

At the same time, the freedom to occasionally eat something I’m not supposed to keeps me motivated the rest of the week.  On Saturday I watched  Mixed Martial Arts with a friend while we snacked on nachos.  They were equally unsettling.  Nachos with cheese and chicken, by the way, equals about a month of Weight Watchers points.

Still, the weight is coming off.  It’s not that easy to notice these days, but I haven’t given up.

Just last week my boss asked me during a meeting if I was “still doing the weight loss”.  The answer is yes.

In fact, I’m closing in fast on 40 pounds.

That’s a big landmark for me.

Even bigger is the fact that my bathroom scale now shows my weight BELOW 300 pounds.  I actually danced after seeing that.

After losing about 4 pounds a week when we kicked this off, I’m losing about half that now.  And given my rather immense bulk, 2 pounds a week isn’t exactly something that makes my big clothes baggy.

I have to keep reminding myself that I knew this would take a long time.

It already has and I have so long to go.

So now I’m closing in on 40 pounds lost.  I’d like to finish down about 120…so this would be the end of the first trimester.

The next two may take the rest of this year.

I’m ok with that and I hope some of you will stick with this blog as I try.

According to weight watchers, 

I weigh 303 pounds right now.

How To Dominate The Football Field

Not to brag or anything, but I’ve got a laser-rocket arm.  Great minds will likely study it as a precursor to the next stage of NASA technology.  My arm was banned from NASCAR.  If people look directly into my arm, they will be temporarily blinded.

I like to imagine I can avoid appearing egotistical by starting three sentences of baseless bragging by opening with, “Not to brag…”.

An example :

Not to brag or anything but I’m pretty much the most awesome pickup football game quarterback in games that strictly involve non-athletes when played just for fun….ever.

See?  Not bragging!

Here’s the thing, we have this annual flag football game here at the station called the “M&M Bowl”.  It gets the catchy title from two employees named “Mark”.  

In the years since the tradition started, one of the Marks left for  a job in Pittsburgh.  We’ve expanded to four teams, all captained by a guy with a name that begins with the letter “M”.  It’s a whole weekend thing with a fake draft, a commissioner, and far more pomp and circumstance than the Super Bowl.

I love the game and try to play every year.

The unfortunate side-effect of that passion is at least 24 (and usually 48 ) hours of screaming pain in nearly every major, and minor muscle.  Last year I’m almost certain I pulled a jaw muscle and you can believe that was, at the time, the most well-conditioned muscle I had.

It’s bad enough that my wife actually dreads the game.  She knows I’m useless for anything at home once the “M&M Bowl” ends.

She’s smart like that.

Now, I may have a leg up on the competition.  Its amazing what a regular workout routine will do for a guy’s confidence.  I’m only down about 30 pounds but I don’t think there’s any doubt I’m in my best phisical condition in years.

That feels awfully good.

That makes the “M&M Bowl” one of the small, but important, motivators that keeps the challenge going for me.

I want keep crushing my workouts so I can crush the competition in a few months.  I want my laser-rocket arm firing like never before.  Plus, I don’t want the rocket to run out of fuel quite as fast this time.

I realized early on that swearing off some foods, and scaling way back on the AMOUNT of food, would mean sacrificing something I truly enjoy.  

Eating.

But each month, each week even, I’m finding something new to enjoy that will keep me on track.

I already enjoyed the “M&M Bowl” and now I think I’ll really enjoy the ability to stand and walk across the living room the day after I play.

Good luck this week and find yourself a good goal.

I’m going to Weight Watchers this afternoon.  I’ll let you know what happened in a post very soon.

A Happy Start To The New Year

First, a confession :

For whatever reason, the weight totals at the gym have always been different that the ones at Weight Watchers.  The ones at the gym are better.  And the odd thing is, it’s not just the starting weights that didn’t match but the CHANGE is different too.

So, while we used the numbers from the gym in the televised portion of the challenge, I’m now relying more heavily on the digital scale at WW now.

Therefore, the numbers I’d post now aren’t necessarily consistent with what we were reporting on the air.

To wit :

When the on-air challenge ended the day before Thanksgiving, I’d lost 25 pounds according to the gym.  That’s a drop from 335 to 310.  I’m happy with the progress to that point.

At weight watchers, on the other hand, the loss has been slower but more consistent.  That’s the biggest reason I’ve changed my perspective.

We used the gym initially because that was the one place that Keith, Judy, and I all met.  Now as we go down our individual paths, I’m looking for the number that I trust most.

That’s the well-calibrated digital scale at Weight Watchers, where I didn’t pass 25 pounds loss until Mid-December.

So, I’m not fudging the numbers.  I AM changing the way they’re measured.

From this point on, the numbers I post in the blog will be according to Weight Watchers and not the gym.

(An Aside : I noticed the problem when the scale in the gym locker room gave me a weight total that differed from the one on the gym floor by 7 pounds.  That’s a little too much variance for my comfort!)

Anyhoo, the good news :

I missed 2 weeks of WW weigh-ins over Christmas and New Years.  I’d normally go on Wednesdays and the place closed on both holiday’s eve.

I did go on Sunday afternoon with great trepidation considering all the holiday food I’d eaten.  There was a point during the season when I decided that I like Christmas cookies too much to give them up ALTOGETHER!

The result on Sunday?  I’d lost 3 pounds in that 2 week hiatus!

I was thrilled.  It isn’t a huge number but any negative number is a positive for me.  I’ll be honest, I knew all along this would take a loooooong time and any week I finish with a smaller weight than I started is a good one!

A commenter on my last post asked me to keep you posted on my total loss-to-date.  Here are the “new” totals according to the good folks at Weight Watchers :

27.8 pounds.

They sent me a magnet in the mail to celebrate the “milestone” of losing 25.

The good news is, for a guy who endured knee surgery 4 times, my joints have to be a little better off without lugging that 27.8 wherever I go.

I’ll keep you posted on the total progress from now on.

One Man’s Plans

Not to get all Nostradamus-y here but I’m willing to make a BOLD PREDICTION about this week :

Almost everyone will “resolve” to lose weight.

There are, of course, several problems with that. Chief among them is the probability that you’ve made that resolution before.  If it worked last time, would we would be doing it again?

In fact there something about the language here “re-solve” that almost implies an effore to solve something AGAIN.  Let’s assume that what we tried so far was less of a solution that we’d hoped.

I did see something on the “Today” show this morning that made sense in this regard.  The expert, I have no idea who she was, suggested that planning to lose weight was not really a plan at all.

I think it’s the same as saying “I’m going to Houston” isn’t really a plan either.  It’s a destination.  I’m going to take a flight from GSP (for those who can afford that particular airport) to Houston IS a plan.

So, if weight loss is a goal and not a plan, I have one and still need another.

I had a pretty calorie-laden week last week and step one is to get back into the same groove I had going up to that point.

So far so good.  I did make it to the gym on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  If I can find something to do with the kids this afternoon I’d like to workout again today.

I have some short-term goals to pursue too.  They’re more attainable and more inspiring than my big long term be-100-pounds-lighter pledge.

I want to lose 10 pounds in January.  I’m pretty sure that’s something I can do.

The PLAN is to go to the gym at least 4 times a week and lift weights at least 3 times.  The fourth day will be simple cardio and if possible I’ll do that twice on the optional 5th day.

I’ll stick with Weight Watchers.  

I’ve had a pretty good go of it with their plan thus far.  It’s fairly easy to stick to and I like the way they allow for my weaknesses.  If I want to watch boxing and have a light beer with the guys on a Saturday night … that’s OK.

I mean, if it’s OK with my wife.

I plan to keep up with this blog at least once a week.  I’ve been updating pretty regularly on Monday mornings.

The blog helps me keep focus and it’s actually something I reccomend to anyone else doing this weight-loss thing.  It helps with accountability and, even if nobody actually reads the thing, it gives me a way to look at how I’ve evolved as this process moves foreward.

Finally, I plan to try and update the challenge on TV sometime in the first quarter of next year.  A little TV accountability will almost certainly keep me focused.

So, wish me luck.  Wish me lunch.  I wish the same to all of you.

On Christmas Vacation

I’m already tired after two holiday celebrations and another one three hours down the road today.

We had a Christmas get-together with half of my wife’s family in Louisville Saturday.  We had another with the other half the next day.

At one, the hosts made us lots of tasty snacks.  None of it was healthy.  We went out to dinner that night and nothing on the menu was worth less than a day of Weight Watcher Points.

The second half of my weekend had baked ham and roast beef.  There were baked potatos (I had to have one and it had cheese on top) and a million unhealthy sides.

The good news is, I used low fat ranch dressing on the salad!

Today, when we get to my parents in Ashland, my family will have more unhealthy food.  My mom called last week to ask if we’d like lasagna tonight.  I would, in fact, like lasagna.  I probably shouldn’t eat it.

And the food….the food is only a small part of my struggles this week.

I haven’t had 5 minutes of worthwhile exercise in days.  I feel like a slug.  I want  to pump iron.  I want to break a sweat.  Instead I’m doomed to spend at least 8 hours in the next two days cruising along the open road.

My point is, this weekend’s been tough and it ain’t getting easier next week.

 So, challengers, this is the challenge big time.  I’m willing to enjoy myself this holiday season, but I’m going boot-camp-style focused when I return.

Current Weight Update : Unknown

This Weeks Goal : Don’t go overboard.

See you next week!

The Long Run

Back in the day, when I was wearing smaller pants, back when I didn’t need to buy pants in special “big man” stores, I tried running in those 5 and 10k races. I was never actually GOOD at it but I’m not hard to please.  Any 5k I finished in fewer than 30 minutes was a win.

I’ve been pretty good about the exercise component of my “Challenge” and thought I was doing well overall.  So, with that renewed optimism I ran in a great charity 5k called the “Jingle Bell Jog” this weekend.

It was, for one thing, a mistake to do an hour on the elliptical machine before I went.  It was, for another thing, a mistake to think I could jump back into any kind of race this soon.

The race was fun but I didn’t break a half hour.  I walked more than ran.

To make it worse, I ran with my 9-year-old daughter who is, unlike her father, in tremendous shape.  For a full 3.1 miles she’d sprint 100 yards ahead.

Stop.

Look back.

And yell…
“COME ON DAD!”

Sheesh.  To be taunted during exercise.

When I finally crossed the finish line, she was waiting on the other side holding a bottle of water and smiling.

“FINALLY!” she screamed.

Oh, to be young….

And I’m only 34.

This morning I’ve already gotten strange looks as I sit and rub my shins at the desk.  Running on pavement hurts.  My legs are still killing me.

So let me add another goal to purse.  By this time next year I will run in a 5k and do it in fewer than 25 minutes.

As for the original goal….still moving ahead.

I lost another few pounds.  I’m down 31 overall.

Survived Thanksgiving But Please Hold The Cookies

Back when I was at Verity Middle School, we still had the DARE program to keep kids off drugs.  We had this play-acting thing where I applied “peer pressure” to a fellow student and tried to talk them into using whever illegal substance we learned about that day.

It was mostly a good 5 minutes of me saying “C’maaaahn” and them saying, “NO!”

At the time, I thought it was just good practice for when I asked girls out on a date…more of a learn to handle rejection exercise than anything else.

I think I failed to understand the power of a group of people trying to talk me into doing something my good sense tried to avoid.

I went to Atlanta for Thanksgiving.  I had two servings of turkey and potatos and stuffing.  Then, I wasn’t hungry anymore so I stopped.

Sounds reasonable no?

Then my family started in.  My mom, my gran, my aunt all with the “C’mahhhn have some pie….just a little won’t hurt!”

On the one hand, my family has been great with this whole challenge thing.  They all mean well.  To my wife’s credit she never tried to force and desert my way.  But it took a good 10 minutes of discussion to avoid any dessert.

I ask you, “Why isn’t NO enough”?

People simply assume that I’m not eating some foods as some sort of stoic denial of satisfaction when sometimes, beleive it or not, I just don’t want to eat.  We even talked about this in Weight Wathers once, how people who you really care about can unintentionally sabotage your efforts.

It isn’t easy being strong.

Just this past weekend I went to a short party at a neighbor’s house.  I had a glass of wine and a very nice time.  I ate before I went as part of the careful planning I’m using with my diet.  I WASN’T HUNGRY.

Nonetheless, nearly everyone at the party tried to convince me that “JUST ONE COOKIE” won’t hurt.

It won’t.  I agree.  But I don’t want to eat it.

Why is that hard to understand?

I wonder if this is the same problem for everyone this holiday season.  If people who care about me and mean well have any clue just how much I wish they’d stop offering food.

I’d love to come to a great holiday party….but please, hold the sugar.

Good Luck Tomorrow

I’m thankful that I don’t feel as bad as I did yesterday.  This morning, a sick day from work, I was able to sleep until 7:30.  In my line of work that’s an almost unequaled luxury.

I’m thankful that after work tomorrow I’ll get to head to Atlanta and see some of my extended family for dinner.

I’m thankful that I don’t have  TV weigh-in right after that.

I’m thankful to have lucked into two great challengers for this.  Keith and Judy were random entries on this website and we could have ended up with bad attitudes, bad intent, and bad results.  We got good people who worked hard and lost weight with a smile.

I’m thankful that I’ve lost some weight so far.

I’m thankful that with schools closed for the next few days, nobody will send Dale to work wih a cake.

I’m thankful for all of you who actually read this vanity blog because your support means the world as I try to be healthy.

I’m thankful for all of you getting healthy with me.

I’m thankful that the Kentucky basketball games on Friday and Saturday will actually be on TV.  

I’m thankful for a day where the wind doesn’t feel like razors in my face.

I’m thankful for my family, my job, my friends.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Eat turkey.

It’s OK.

We’ll see you back here when you’re done.