Long Time Coming

Bless me, reader, for I have blogged. It has been almost two weeks since my last post. What's worse, it's not like I've been too busy working out to write something.

It all started when my beautiful little angel brought a cold home with her from day care. Generous little infant that she is, she decided to share that infect with my wife and I. Thankfully; I didn't get too bad a case. I never had to miss work, but it did affect me. I felt like I was smuggling a few liters of lead around in my sinuses, and I had a killer sore throat. The real problem, though, was that I woke up every morning feeling just awful. Upon getting out of bed, I inevitably felt like I was going to toss my cookies.

Here's the thing. It's hard enough to motivate oneself to get out of bed early and workout when one is a peak (peak for me at least) physical condition. Doing the same thing while nauseous...pretty much impossible. The result was that I honestly didn't work out at all for more than a week. I missed two weigh-ins at the Summit.

All of this would have been okay, if only I'd been smart and continued to track my calories on LiveStrong. Of course, that isn't what I did. Being sick I was able to rationalize all sorts of culinary evil. I was eating just as many calories as if I'd been working out consistently...without the part where I actually did work out.

Most unfortunate of all, though, I let all this just build and build. I could have started tracking calories at any point, but I didn't. I wrote off an entire week because I figured I'd already messed up to badly to redeem it. Then, even after I had recovered, I was scared to get back to work.

I haven't posted in the last two weeks not because I was sick, not because I was busy but because I was ashamed. I messed up, and then I let my embarrassment over the mistake keep me from getting back on track.

I apologize to those of you who have been so faithful about reading these silly posts and offering me such kind encouragement. Ultimately, it was the repeated comments from friends and family about my dearth of posts that initiated this one. This Monday, I started working out again. I did the same this morning, and I'm committed to keeping it up all week. Likewise, I'll be back on LiveStrong holding myself accountable to my eating decisions.

The lesson here is nothing novel, but it is still profound: it's never too late to turn things around. I don't know how much weight I may have put back on the last two weeks. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I found myself back in the 200's Friday, but that won't keep me from weighing in. I'm back, baby!

No, I don't think I can dance...

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I do a lot of my working out before sunrise in my living room. I've had some very positive experiences with workout DVD's. While the overly enthusiastic presenters often get on my nerves, I like getting pushed further than I would normally push myself. Still, watching the same videos over and over can get tedious. Rather than just buying a bunch of these things (which could easily stink), I decided last week to try renting some from Netflix. I'm a fan...of the idea.

Netflix has a spectacularly large selection of workout DVD's. You can browse through over 1,100 videos offering everything from prenatal yoga, kickboxing and boot camps to workouts featuring tennis and (I kid you not) aerobic striptease. The big question, where do you start?

I started with familiar territory. I'd had a great time sweating to The Biggest Loser: Fatburn Yoga, so I thought I might as well stick with discs related to reality programs I often enjoy.

This is the part where I point out that I watch a lot of football, own power tools enjoying camping. In other words, I'm a dude, a manly one. That said, Dad, if you're reading this, stop now before it gets ugly.

The first workout DVD I rented was So You Think You Can Dance: Cardio Funk. I know what you're thinking. Stop. I got interested in the show through my wife (a dancer from age fetus). I like seeing her respond to the performances. Those dancers are superhuman.

All that to say: I rented the video thinking it might be a fun way to get a really good workout. The reality, however, is that the workout was neither very fun nor very high impact. I felt much, much sillier trying to follow along with the "choreography" here than I ever did playing karate kid with the Budokon disc I tried a while back. At least with that disc I broke a sweat! I understand that they had to dumb down all the movements to make them achievable by non-dancers such as myself, but the result was a workout so diluted that it barely earned that distinction.

I like the idea of trying a workout disc out before I buy it. I'll definitely be searching the Netflix library again in the future. I won't, however, being doing back to this particular disc ever again.

Sorry, Dad.

Three Day Weakened

The past three days have been spent celebrating Labor Day. Is that why I felt the need to gorge myself until I felt like I was about to go into labor.

This weekend, we spent time with my wife and my parents and a group of their friends. We laughed. We played games. We passed around the baby. Oh, and we ate to the point obscenity. I took this photo of the desert table. Dontt adjust your scroll bar. You read that last bit correctly. They had a desert table, dedicated to itens that were rich with sugar, butter and evil...I spent a lot of time there.

What is it about spending time with loved ones that inspires us to do so much cooking and so much eating? Have you ever attended a really fun reunion in which people set out a table of fitness accessories or periodically engaged in group work outs? I haven't.

Something about the magic of an extended weekend seemed to lead me to mistakenly believe that calories didn't count and fitness was optional. This has me more than a little nervous about upcoming longer holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Now I'm left with four days to makeup for my bad behavior over the last three days.

Weekly Weighin: The More Things Change...

It's Friday, so this morning it was once again time for me to face the scale. I didn't make it to the pool this week, but I've been really good about doing morning workouts in my living room each morning. These are the weeks that I don't know what to expect.

According to the scale, my ambivalent feelings about my weight loss were completely warranted as I neither gained nor lost any weight. Once again the scale read 199. I guess I'm a little bummed to have not lost any weight, but part of me is just happy to have stayed below 200.

It's been a bit of roller coaster lately.

I've lost, gained and lost weight. Now I appear to be sitting still. This week I'm going to really step it up and make things happen.

Outside My Comfort Zone

Yesterday, I woke up at 4 a.m. and felt a little ill. Deciding that a little extra sleep might be a good remedy, I turned off my early workout alarm and went back to bed. After all, wouldn't bouncing around getting exercise make me a lot more likely to puke? Still, the instance got me thinking about how hard it is sometimes to push myself out of my comfort zone.

Even after four months and 20+ pounds, I still have trouble getting up early enough to workout. I still struggle with basic dieting priorities, too. My wife made some awesome chocolate chip cookies this weekend. Do you think I turned them down? Do you think I even passed the jar all weekend without eating one? I wish.

It's amazing how quick I am to revert back to my lazy roots. Sleeping in is still an attractive notion. Ignoring a few calories still smells like a good time.

In life, doing the right thing isn't usually the hard part; discerning what the right thing is, poses the real challenge. It seems to me, therefore, that getting fit is deceptively simple. I almost always know what the right choice is (except for my peanut butter fiasco). It's just that the right thing isn't always the most fun.

Weekly Weighin: There & Back Again

First of all, if you got the reference in the title of this post, I owe you one hug. Now that we have that out of the way, on with the morning's blog. It's Friday, and I'm posting in the morning, so you know I must be happy with the results of the morning's weighin.

Last week was the first time I've gained weight since I started this journey. Suffed to say, I was mildly displeased. This week, I really cranked up my diet (less than 1,600 net calories every day). I also got in two good swims at the Belton High School pool and a pretty good living room workout yesterday morning.

All that to say that I was confident I'd lost weight this week, but I wasn't sure how much. All I wanted was to weigh less than I did two weeks ago. I figured that would go a long way to erasing the shame of last week's gain. Stepping atop this scale this morning, fingers cross, muttering to myself: less than 99.8...less than 99.8...less than 99.8...

Sure enough, the kind little robot registered my new weight as being 99.4. That means that I lost all the weight I gained last week plus an extra 0.4 pounds.

My goal for this week? I want to lose enough weight that even if I gain weight again the week after, I'll stay below the 200 mark. I call it Ambitious Mediocrity.

Fat-butter and Jelly

One of the things that I love most of about LiveStrong.com is that is makes tracking my calories really easy. Still, there a few little things that I often don't bother adding to the count. For instance, if I pop one of those after-dinner mints on the way out of a restaurant, I don't bother counting that. Likewise, I often don't count diet sodas because they don't have any calories. This morning, though, I discovered that one of my "doesn't really counts," does, in fact, count...a lot.

Thing is, I like me some peanut butter. Like any average 5-year-old, I could eat a PB&J for lunch every day and have nothing but burps and grins to show for it. Sometimes as a snack, I'll grab a spoonful of the stuff and just savor every minute of it. Lately, as part of my campaign for increased slimness, I've even switched to the low-fat variety. Good for me, eh?

Thing is, it isn't good for me, and it does count. I looked on the back of my jar this morning and had to enlist the help of three co-workers in pealing my jaw off the floor. Do you know how many calories are in just 2 tablespoons of reduced fat peanut butter? 200! Those calories are spawning from a whopping 13 grams of fat!

Holy Toledo! I might as well have been injecting a few syringes of lard into my jugular each night! For every spoonful of this delicious little evil that I was consuming, I would have to swim about a kilometer.

Morals of the story? 1.) I'm an idiot. 2.) Snacks, and I mean all snacks, count, so we should be counting them.