Update #3: Two days until final weigh-in

This will be final update before I weigh-in on June 18th for the "Lose to Win" contest. To date, I've lost 31.5 pounds and I am in 1st place in the contest. I've been really working hard this week and I've only been eating about 650 calories a day this week. That may sound a little extreme but the person in 2nd place is right on my heels and I don't want to lose this contest in the last week. There's 500 cash bucks on the line and it's GO TIME! Regardless of whether I finish first or second is really irrelevant, though. I will have met my goal of reaching my "fighting weight" of 180 lbs (by the way, I am updating this blog entry on my iPad!) and I am wearing clothes I haven't been able to fit in for almost two years. My doc has given me clean bill of health and says I have the heart of a 25-year old. Which is good news because next week we'll be in Disney and I am sure we'll be doing plenty of walking! I'll update the blog next week once the final standings are announced. In the meantime, it's time to go for a run..


Click the link below to see current standings.
Https://www.villasport.com/tw/images/pdf/LoseToWin/TW_LTW_Individ.pdf#zoom=90

Sporadic Update #2, I think??

I just realized that my last post was on May 3rd, almost a month ago.  Needless to say, I've been pretty busy at work, church and working out!  I am happy to report, though, that I currently weigh 188.5 pounds and I am only 8.5 pounds away from achieving my goal.  On top of that, I am currently in second place in the Lose to Win contest at Villa Sport.  I've got three full weeks before I do my final weigh-in so I think I have a good shot at reaching 180 pounds and winning the contest.  First prize is $500 so that is nice chunk of change for doing something that I needed to do anyway.  Also, I feel so confident that I will reach my goal in three weeks, that I went to the Apple Store today and reserved my 64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad.  There's about a three week backorder delay so my iPad should be arriving very close to final weigh-in.  Lara, the girls and I went to the Baybrook Mall yesterday to do some shopping for the girls and we had a chance to play around with the iPad.  Lara and I were checking out the MLB 2010 app on the iPad and it totally blew us away.  It's always a good sign when the female partner in the "spousal partnership" thinks that the purchase of a new iPad would be "pretty cool".  All I need to do now is find a campfire app for the iPad and I'll have 100% buy-in from Lara.

~Peace

Update #1 (After Being Back on Track)

Hey folks, I wasn’t able to post on the blog last week (I know you were waiting with baited breath for an update) because it was a very busy week.  Things have been pretty hectic at work and I’ve been spending many of my evenings chained to my laptop.  Fortunately, things are beginning to get back to “normal” just in time for summer!

My fitness challenge has been going very well.  The first few weeks are usually pretty tough for me because my motivation to work out is pretty low and my motivation to eat Taco Bell is pretty high.  This time around, though, I've been able to trudge through this hurdle with decent success.  I weigh in every Monday morning and today I weighed in at 197.1 lbs.  That’s a total weight loss of 17.9 lbs since I started back on March 23rd.  To help me stay on track I am using an app on my iPhone called Lose it!  This slick little free app allows me to enter my current weight, my target weight and the number of pounds I want to lose during a week.  It then calculates the daily calories I can consume and the date I will reach my goal.  Throughout the week, I track my calories, fat grams, protein and carbs of all the meals I eat and I also track all my exercises.  The app has a pretty comprehensive database of foods and exercises so it makes it easy to keep up with the food and exercises.  Another cool feature is when I enter an exercise it is automatically pushed to my Facebook page.  Btw, I appreciate all the comments of support and encouragement that you leave on my Facebook profile.  Anyway, things are progressing pretty well and if I continue at my current pace I’ll hit 180 lbs. on July 1st, 2010.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  An iPad just in time for the 4th!

Next week, I’ll lay out my plan to participate in the Nautica South Beach Classic Triathlon next April.  It’s a half-mile swim, 19 mile bike ride and a 4 mile run.  I hear Miami is beautiful in April and I’ll get to hang out with my awesome sister for the weekend.

 

Back on Track

A few months ago, Travis Eggett and I set out on our “Fat to Fit” challenge to try to shed a few pounds and get in shape.  We were doing really well until we took a trip to Utah to visit some friends over Halloween weekend.  I knew it was the beginning of the end of our challenge when we ate fried tacos, a couple of large orders of fries with fry sauce and ice cream floats at Pace’s Dairy Ann all within the first couple of hours of arriving in Salt Lake City.  That meal was followed by a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in Provo before eating  a giant burrito at a Mexican restaurant close to the BYU campus.  Anyway, I waded through the next couple of months of workouts but I just wasn’t committed to trying to lose weight.  I had lost all motivation. 

Then…

 

I received the above-pictured issue of The Economist and in an instant I had found and rekindled my motivation.  Steve Jobs announced the Gadgets of all Gadgets:  The iPad.  So, since March 25th, I’ve been back in the saddle working toward my target weight of 180 lbs.  I am down 13.5 lbs. since starting back and I should hit my target weight on July 4th if I continue at the current pace.  I’ve been combining a healthier diet with weight training and swimming at least one mile almost every day, Sundays excluded, to lose weight.  That means that on July 5th I’ll be at the Apple Store in The Woodlands, Texas purchasing my 64GB 3G iPad.  The best thing about this personal challenge is that it is 100% sanctioned and underwritten with spouse approval.

On a serious note, everything I’ve mentioned above about the iPad is done tongue in cheek and with a certain degree of levity.  The bottom line is that I hit the big four-oh in December and I am out to prove that I can get myself in shape and lose a few pounds along the way.  I knew I had to make some changes when I hit 215 lbs last fall and I there’s nothing wrong with dangling an “Apple” to keep me motivated along the way.

Update #6 – Bustin’ Through the 200 LB Barrier!

Well, this week I achieved a significant milestone; I broke the 200 lb barrier when I weighed in on Wednesday.  My official weight is now 199.0, down 1.4 lbs from the previous week.  I’ve been using the same scale (balance beam scale at 24Hour Fitness) in order to get consistent readings.  For convenience, we bought a balance beam scale for our office because there are others who are trying to lose some LBS.  The bad news for me is that it is running about 1 lb heavier than the one in 24Hour Fitness.  This is despite spending a lot of time calibrating it to zero using the poise weights.  Anyway, I am going to use it next week because it’s very convenient and I’ll just chalk up any weight gain to the scale calibration technicality!  Next week, I am running a 5 mile race in The Woodlands with some friends of mine and the week after that, I’ll be running a 5K when we’re in San Antonio visiting Lara’s sister.  Now that the weather is cooler running is actually becoming enjoyable and I am able to re-live my days of being White Lightning on the RSS track team!  Many of you have encouraging me along the way and I want to let you know that I appreciate the feedback.  My goal is still to be 180 lbs by my 40th birthday, but it’s looking like that might be mathematically impossible (like the Astros trying to make it to the playoffs).  If I don’t make it, my next target date will be January 11th, Lara’s and my 18th wedding anniversary.

                                                  

Update #5

I did not provide an update last week because, quite frankly, I knew that I had gained a couple of pounds after my Halloween weekend trip to Utah.  I visited Utah (SLC and Provo) with a friend of mine who grew up in the SLC area and we went to a few of his favorite eating places.  We basically ate with reckless abandon and it was awesome!  Anyway, I really got after the workouts this last week and I weighed in at 200.4 and I am happy about that.  I was able to fit into some 34” waist pants that I haven’t been able to fit into for awhile.  Granted, they were stretchy pants (when you read “stretchy pants” imagine Jack Black’s accent in Nacho Libre!) but it still felt good to be able to wear them.  I bought a fancy doctor office balance beam scale for our office so we shouldn’t have any more issues with inaccurate readings.  Check in next week for another update.

                                  

Update #4 - A Tale of Two Scales

"It was the best of scales and the worst of scales..."  You might be wondering why I am "quoting" Charles Dickens as I begin my post.  Well, it started out being a very frustrating weigh-in day at the office.  About a month ago, I bought a digital scale from Target for our office.  I've been weighing in every Wednesday on this scale and it has been pretty consistent and accurate in measuring my weight.  Today I jumped on the scale and there was no change in my weight from the previous week.  I knew that couldn't be right because I really had a good week of workouts and eating.  I did "two-a-days" from Saturday through Tuesday (except for Sunday), alternating swimming and running so there was no way I could have stayed flat.  I was pretty amp'ed up about it, so I got in my car and drove to the local 24Hour Fitness and used their balance beam scale which is pretty accurate.  So, after weighing myself at the gym, I am down 2.4 lbs to 200 lbs.  Needless to say, I was relieved and encouraged by my continued progress.  To celebrate the accomplishment, I enjoyed a gourmet burger from Red Robin.  Stay tuned for next week's update...

One more thing, some of you may be thinking that I am simply looking for the scale with the most favorable readings.  It turns out that some plumbers came to our office last Friday to fix our hot water heater and during the course of draining the hot water heater they got the scale wet and I suspect it shorted out.  That's my story and I am sticking to it. 

Update #3

Today was weigh-in day and I am happy to report that I weighed in at 202.5 lbs, down 2 lbs from the previous week.  My goal was to drop 4.5 lbs this past week; however, I received several comments indicating that losing that much weight in one week wasn't healthy.  I took that advice to heart and made sure to keep my weight loss at a safe level.  To that end, I went to Dairy Queen on Friday night after the GCM football game and had a foot-long cheese coney, large tater tots and a large vanilla Coke.  To top it off, I had an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate (that kind that gets hard when it hits the ice cream)!  Thank you Mr. Dairy Queen Ice Cream Man!  By the way, many of you have asked for me to post my "Before" picture so here it is!

I'll be posting my next update next Thursday so stay tuned...with a little luck and some hard work I should be right at or a little under 200 lbs. 

Update #2

I am a little late with this entry but things have been busy at work so I am just now getting around to posting my weekly update.  I weighed in on Wednseday and my current weight is 204.5, down .7 pounds from the previous week, and 9 pounds overall.  I was expecting a little more of a weight loss since I did some pretty intense workouts but I guess there will be weeks when, for whatever reason, the expected weight loss doesn't happen.  I am beginning to see visible signs that the weight is coming off, which is definitely a source of encouragement and motivation.  For example, my pants and shorts are fitting a little looser.  I also had to cinch my belt down one notch which is encouraging.  Overall, I am pleased with my overall progress but a little bummed about the last week's scant weight loss.  Nevertheless, my buddy, Travis, and I are looking forward to a better week this week and my personal goal is to lose 4.5 pounds.  That will put me at 200 pounds on my next weigh-in.  I can't believe I would ever be excited about hitting 200 pounds since I had never been heavier than 190 pounds but I guess that's what happens when you're pushing 40 and your body no longer responds like it's 18!

Update 1.5
One of my weaknesses is craving Taco Bell food. Well, I found a Burrito Chicken Supreme on the Fresco menu with 340 calories and 8 grams of fat. It was off the HOOK!

Fitness Challenge

This is my first post from my iPhone which I think is way cool.  My friend Travis and I are going head to head in a fitness challenge.  My goal is to get to 180 pounds by my 40th birthday in December.  I am on my way to reaching my goal but I thought if I posted my achievements on my blog for all the world to see I would be more likely to stick to it.  I officially started my challenge on September 16th, 2009 and I will be posting (YIKES!) my "Before" pictures later this evening.  Stayed tuned for my weekly update this Wednesday.