Inchworm, inchworm, measuring, john’s wei-ei-eight

Looks like the heady days of 2-3 pounds a week are long gone.  At my official mid-week weigh-in today, I came in at 162.4, down just .4 pounds this week.  And this was with 7 straight days of either treadmill or basketball.

On the positive side, I am still moving in the right direction, and am down 11.8 pounds since january 2nd.  My goals is still to hit (and maintain) 150 by Christmas, which is 12.8 more pounds.  If I keep going at .4 pounds per week, and I have 43 weeks left, I should make it to……<<grey cells straining>>  145.2 by Christmas.

So we will say we are still on schedule, and perhaps it is good that I am doing it slow and steady rather then dieting hard in an unsustainable manner, then shooting back up later.  Thats my story and I am sticking with it.

Next step is to find a way to incorporate some weight training, but that is for another day.

P.S. Finished Gone with the Wind.  It was well worth my time, if a trifle on the long side.  That Scarlett O’Hara is really a character unlike any other in any movie I have seen.

I’m a geek again

Peeked again on Sunday, midweek.  Up .8 pounds.  Shouldn’t do that.  Had a good eating day yesterday, no between meal snacks except v-8, two servings of fruit, and had Papajohns pizza for supper, but only 2.5 slices.

I think I have now exercised 9 days without a break – all treadmill except Sunday night when I played basketball with the other dads.  And I noticed, I can run up and down the court more than I used to without feeling like I was going to puke.  I even made some baskets on fast breaks near the end cuz I was still running.  (BTW, scored 11 points Sunday night, my best in a long time.)

Big presentation on Wednesday I am worried about – not as prepared as I would like and really want to do well.  Wish me luck on this, and on getting a consulting gig that looks good, but no contract signed yet, and would be some nice cash in the pocket.  Pray for me!

Don’t be a geek! No mid-week sneak peaks!

Waiting seven days for a weigh in is hard for me, impulsive fellow that I am.   So despite Wednesday being official weigh day, I pulled out the scale Monday while home celebrating Presidents Day.  NNNOOOOOOO!  I had gained about .6 pounds since wednesday.

So here is the deal.  It is much easier to eat healthy on weekdays, since I’m at work most of the day.  So wednesday is a good weigh-day, as opposed to Monday.  Turns out at my official weigh-in today, I was down .4 pounds from the previous week, to 162.8.  (Serious celebration coming when I get into the 150’s!)

Lesson learned, no midweek sneak peaks.

On a totally different note, I have been working on a project to celebrate and teach about Abraham Lincoln in the virtual world of Second Life.  We had two full-immersion balls for the area over the weekend, with period music and dance.  I played the part of Honest Abe, and here is a link to a great article about it in the Metaverse Messenger. http://www.metaversemessenger.com/pdf/2008/02/MM20080219.pdf

Behind the Curve

Well, for the first week since we began this thing I am behind on my goal.  I stayed even at 202lbs, but had a target for the week of 200.5.  I partly blame my lack of progress on the flu, but that doesn’t explain it all away.  I have been less strict with myself at mealtimes and in-between meals.

This week isn’t shaping up too well either.  I’ve had pizza three times in the last week, and yesterday for lunch it was fried chicken.

On the positive side I am back to working out now that I feel better.  I just finished season 2 of Battlestar Galactica.  It ended with a pretty good cliffhanger.  The first disk of season 2.5 (how do  you have a season 2.5 anyway?) should arrive shortly.

We’ve been continuing the bathroom renovation and it should be done pretty soon.  Over the weekend I finished the tile floor and counter-top.  I grouted that last night.  Elizabeth had the unenviable job of sanding all of the wood trim and cabinet doors.  We’ll be staining those tonight.

Well, that’s all for now.  Next weigh in is two days away.

Should we have a sister site? and movie review

I’ve noticed that we get a lot of hits from another weight loss  blog, http://alardoffmymind.wordpress.com/ which is written by four women in the U.K.  Although their site is arguably better than ours, I wonder if we should think about naming them an official “sister site” of LoserinLaws?  The sites are very similar, basically people blogging to support each other in their weight loss and riffing on related subjects.

So, Colin and our other devoted readers, what do you think?

 Also, I saw the movie Next over the weekend and recommend it.  Nothing profound, but a fun Nicholas Cage movie with an interesting premise about a man who can see the future, but only two minutes into the future.  An enjoyable and light 90 minutes by one of my favorite actors.  (Other favorites – National Treasure because I just  like all the people in it “and he stole my CAR!” and “The Family Man” because I liked the themes of it and cause Tea Leoni is seriously hot as a housewife.

Happy Weigh-Day 163.2

Pretty good week, with some continued eating issues.  Turns out that those bad habits developed in the last 19 years are going to take longer than 6 weeks to break.

 But today was weigh-day, and the number showing on the shiny new Donald and Georgia Howard memorial scale was….  163.2!  2.4 pounds lost this week, and about 11 pounds lost since my new healthier lifestyle started on January 2nd.  Thanks again, Elizabeth, for suggesting working on this together with Colin, and thanks Colin for being a good sport and saying yes. 

Looks like between the two of us, we have dropped something like 22 pounds of ugly fat in just 6 weeks.

On a slightly different note – there was a Planet of the Apes movie on AMC this morning while I was treadmilling.  Not sure which one, but they(the humans with special psychic powers) stole a whole  bunch of Catholic prayers and parts of the Mass and chanted and sang them while replacing the word God with bomb.  They were worshipping a nuclear weapon.  Then they took off their faces, and… well I won’t spoil it for you.  Let’s just say whoever green-lighted this gem might have needed to lay off the acid. I wasn’t offended, just bewildered by who thought this was a GREAT IDEA for a MOVIE.

Oh and by the way, I rented the first 4 episodes of Prison Break to watch on the treadmill.  Got to the end of the second episode, when they took out the garden tools to start cutting off the hero’s toes, and decided that I need a different series to watch.

Back in the saddle again

I lost another 2.5 pounds this week for a grand total of 10.5 since this experiment started.  That’s the upside.  The downside is that I have another head cold.   That’s the second one in as many weeks.  I am getting pretty sick of being sick, and I don’t have a lot of energy for exercise when I feel miserable.  Sigh.

Hey John.  Did I win for most boring post?

Two good days

Today is friday, and i have treadmilled every morning at 5:45 all week.  That is good.  The treadmilling is getting close to being a habit – I would guess two more weeks and I will have formed a good habit.

I had two good days eating as well.  Wednesday really shouldn’t count, since as Catholics we’re required to fast, but yesterday I did pretty well.  I forgot to bring lunch, and so a colleague brought me a Jimmy Johns sandwich.  (not real healthy, but lettuce and tomatoes adds up to a serving of veggies.)  I got home late, and for supper had a slice of leftover meatloaf, then decided to go ahead and steam a whole bag of delicious frozen vegetables.  It was too much for one person, but I had a huge helping and Laura finished off the bag.  Upon cutting the meatloaf, I decided the portion was bigger than need be and threw away 1/3 of it.

Now THAT is one boring blog entry.  Colin, I bet you can’t make one that boring!

The Gift – or My Wife the Hero

My birthday was about a week ago.  I went out of town with 4 of the kids to a birthday party for my goddaughter.

When I returned around 6, my wife had my gifts ready to open, two of them.  The first was a box of Good & Plenties, my favorite.  The second, and the one my older daughter had hinted was to be really good, was……..a set of headphones.

“I thought you could use them on the treadmill.” Patty said.  Well, I tried to be enthusiastic, but honestly wasn’t sure that I really needed or wanted headphones.  True, I like real headphones better than the earbuds I had been using to listen to books on tape, but still…

“Why don’t you try them on the treadmill?” she said.  Now at this point, I am thinking that I’m pretty sure their isn’t even a headphone jack on the treadmill, but still trying to show how much I like the gift, I head for the basement.  Immediately I turn to pick up a Playaway from my desk.  (A playaway is an audio book preloaded on a simple mp3 player)  So I’m messing with the playaway, trying to see if the headphones will work with it, and the kids have all followed me downstairs, and Laura says”try it on the treadmill.”  I turn toward the treadmill and notice that the basement is neat and clean.  “this place looks good” I tell Patty.  Then I notice that the tv has been moved to the side wall.  Now that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, cuz I’m not sure Malcolm will be able to walk and watch TV, which is a large part of the reason we got the treadmill in the first place.

Finally I head over to the treadmill and only then does it register, mounted up on the wall in front of the treadmill is a brand new, 19″ HDTV!  Its just like at the health club, where the tv’s are all mounted high above the exercise machines.  The picture is great, and with an extension the headphones will reach so I can watch tv and exercise early in the morning while the kids are sleeping without waking them up.  And the DVD player is hooked up ready to go.

The amazing thing is, Patty almost never does home improvement stuff.  So the mounting of it is an even better gift than the purchase.  She spent 4 hours working on it while I was out of the house. 

The level of my cluelessness in noticing the gift was also great, since Patty and Laura will be able to tease me about that for years.  But what a great gift, and what a great surprise!

BTW, weigh day was today, and I stayed exactly steady from last week at 165.6.  I really ate poorly this week, so it is a good thing I have been exercising.  This week will be better, I’m sure, especially with fasting on Ash Wednesday.

I’m swirling out of control

Food!  Food!  FFOOOOOODDDD!

As expected, the biggest challenge I am facing in forming new habits is in the area of sensible eating.  Oh, I have still improved in a lot of ways, but the temptation to binge is starting to win out.

 Last night – had a nice cup of V8 as my nighttime snack after a generally good day eating, then decided a 1/3 of a bag of cheddar and sour cream flavored Baked Lays potato chips would be a good chaser.(Hey, they’re BAKED, thats healthy right??! )

Sometime over the weekend I managed to eat a whole box of Good & Plentys.  I splurged during the Super Bowl, but that was planned and OK.  And I did include both grapes and carrots in my SB meal.

When I have a good day eating, by the end of the day my body is craving HIGH FAT FOOD.  And, oh by the way, did I mention my bedtime snack Saturday of a whole container of Extreme Moose Tracks ice cream??  I don’t even want to look at what the fat calories were in that beauty.

Help, I need support and I need it now!

(On the positive side, I have exercised three straight days and really have been excellent at doing that.  And, believe it or not, I peeked early, and my weight is exactly where it was last Wednesday.)