Woohoo!

I'm happy to say that two weeks after my delicious birthday meal, and less than a week after visiting the Puyallup Fair unencumbered with children, I am back on a downward trend. At 253.2, I weigh less than my previous low of 254 on my birthday. This makes me quite glad, as I was just speaking with my friend earlier today about running some baselines on the basketball court next summer. At least I'll have plenty of time to look for shoes. Hahaha!

30 pounds in 3 months!

On a whim, I weighed myself this morning, and it read 254.  I was heartened by it, but I hadn't put it all together yet, as I had other things on my mind.  I knew it was somewhere about thirty pounds, but I let it pass.  while I showered and took the garbage out before departing for work.

I just went back and looked at the spreadsheet (Thanks Google Docs!), and there it was, clear as day.  My first weigh-in was June 3rd, and I was 284 pounds.  Today, September 3rd (Happy Birthday, kEnny!), I am 30 pounds lighter.  I am truly surprised and pleased at how much progress has been made.  I have another 14 until I reach my first goal of 240.

As the continuous streak of good weather is quickly fading from view, I'm looking forward to revisiting some of the places we went walking when we first started this.  I think we'll have a lot more fun at some of those extremely steep-hilled parks.

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Woohoo!!

I gotta do a little dance about now.  I'm down to 260.5 today.  Only twenty more to my first target of 240.  I'm wearing clothes that haven't fit since Allison and I were married.  Speaking of which, she's doing great, too!!  I'm proud of us both.  Time for another walk?

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Checking my "Health" at work, and being rewarded for it!

I just finished the first part of my "Health For Life" health check, where my height, weight, and blood pressure were measured, and then my blood was drawn for testing.  I'm 6'3", and weighed in at 264 pounds (with clothes, and less than I measured on Saturday).  My blood pressure was 128/70, and my body fat was measured at 32%.  Blood pressure is a little high, but I'm happy to see that I'm officially in the "Healthy" category for body fat.  One percent more and I would be "Overfat," which I probably was before.

I was presented with an AmEx gift card for $25, and will get another after I meet with the local health coach.  I won't get to do that for a few days, though.  After my blood test results are done, I'll answer some survey questions, then I get to meet the health coach.  This is kinda fun!

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Visiting Oh-Hi-There!

We're visiting Allison's family and friends for a week and a half, and Allie & I have gone for walks each day we've been here.  Miamisburg is a quaint little place to hoof around in, and it has been fun taking in the sights on foot, being able to stop and gaze whenever we want.  Eating-wise, we have pretty much stayed on track, but there have been a few excursions for social occasions.

This morning we made a shorter walk to the grocery store, but came back with a couple arm loads of groceries, which I used to give myself a slight bit of an upper body workout.   We picked up an apple-cinnamon coffee cake to take to visit Allie's grandparents, and once it got broken out, neither one of us had any to eat.  It was very tempting, but we got past it.  We have a number of appointments with naughty foods to keep still, so it was just as well that we could side step this particular temptation. 

If you want to see our most exciting walk yet, click here.  We got some major hill time in on this one.

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Still dropping!

According to the faulty scale of terror, I was four pounds less last night before dinner, which almost makes sense because I ate a lot and drank a lot, but haven't gotten rid of a lot in the mean time.  Oh well.  I'll take my 273.7 and run with it.

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It seems to be time for the burn

Even though I'm still losing inches and pounds (well on my way to 270), I'm finding that I notice more of the food I've given up. There will be some struggle to keep my head pointed in the right direction, but I think I'm up for the challenge. :-)

Additional notes

I don't know which helps more, raising my bicycle seat closer to the proper height or losing a little weight, but riding my bike to and from the vanpool was much easier today. It took considerably less time and effort to get up to cruising speed. That makes me happy!

Quick updates

No weigh-in today, as I was at work before the sun was thinking about showing up.  I did weigh myself last night after dinner, and came in at 277.4.  I don't consider that too bad since I ate a lot of food.  Hahaha!

I have officially dropped Map My Hike/Run/Walk/Spasm/Sloth from my regimen for now, as Nokia Sports Tracker is doing a great job for me.  I keep reading that there used to be a variety of sidebar widgets that either didn't work, or are no longer available for some other reason.  This may indicate a problem on the horizon, but while I can still upload the information, I'll keep using it.  I am looking forward to further use of it.

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Lunch time!

A lovely not-quite taco salad.

Doing the new/old clothes dance

After wearing shorts to work for the last few days to better facilitate riding my bike, I thought I'd see how some of my smaller wardrobe residents were faring and tried on some of my old pants.  My current Jeans supply has been getting a little trodden upon, and I have been wondering if I would need to buy new pants.

Here's the good news: I don't need to!  I can fit into all my size 42 waisted pants now! 

The interesting part is that I haven't worn them for a long time.  Allison and I talked about it for a bit, and it has been at least since Elias was born if not longer, since I was wearing these new/old clothes.  This is a nice little confidence booster, as I hadn't really given too much thought about smaller clothes so much as just making it easier to get around, and maybe go running and play basketball again.

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That was fun!

In looking for an easier way to map my meanderings, I happened across a service still in beta from the maker of my phone, Nokia.  The service is called Nokia Sports Tracker, and I tried it for the first time today.  I started the Tracker when my walk began, and ended it when we got back to work.  I left it to run in my pocket during most of the walk.

When I got back to my desk, I registered with the service (because I had only installed it on my phone up to that point), then proceded to upload the route to the service.  You can see where I went here.  This was both simple and painless.  I might be dropping Map My Hike soon.

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A moment of realization

Allison and I spoke about our diet progress so far, our hurdles, and those faced by our friends. After visiting a restaurant that once catered to alternative diets and now does not, I was confronted with my own "Menu-Mortality." I wonder how well I'll be able to stay on plan in a year. We are planning on eventually transitioning to having a weekly naughty night, but after looking over the menu this evening, I have to question the strength of my own will down the road.

Breakfast

Home made hummus, celery, and non-fat milk combined with V8!

Another check in the red column!

Yes, that means I'm posting a loss.  This morning's scale reading was 277.1.  Very nice.

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One more step

In an effort to collect more data about what I'm doing to lose weight, make myself smaller, and generally be more fit, I have become a member of Map My Hike, which allows you to log about any kind of geographical exercise activity and provides some estimation of how many calories were burned.  It should be fun!

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A first

I just finished my first full half mile on the elliptical, in I don't know how long. I think I'll go collapse in the shower after my legs cool down. :^)>=

The funny thing about losing weight

You know how the most useful thing for tracking your weight is something to accurately weigh yourself?  Guess what:  Our scale is proving itself quite variable in performance.  I weighed myself this morning and logged the results, then Allison told me that it weighed her about five pounds heavier than her visit to the clinic.

We gave it the old 5 gallons of water test (a gallon weighs about 8.35 lbs.), to see how well it did, and it measured 43.7, which leaves almost 2 pounds for the container.  I took a gallon out and it measured 35.3, which is pretty much in line, considering the assumed 1/10th pound of accuracy.  I also weighed myself 5 more times, putting my weight on different parts of the scale, and measured between 278.5 and 281.9.  I'm still logging my original 281.5, just to be consistent.

Until we can find something to buy that we can trust, I'll be continuing to use our "Weight Watchers" branded scale.

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On a walk

I don't know if it is going to rain or not, but I have to warm up for my stint on the elliptical trainer this afternoon. Woohoo!!

Time for little snack!

Nothing exciting, just an uber-yummy hard boiled egg. :^)

Another new beginning

We're gonna do it this time, and I'm going to track it here.  I'm joining my wife, and a bunch of our friends, on a quest to lighten each of our respective loads by a considerable margin.  I will be blogging about our trials, and I hope you won't mind following along for the ride.

I'll be blogging mobile-ly and in stationary format, and I'll take any feedback you have for me.  Google will be my companion of choice, supplying not only the blog, but the method for entering and storing my weigh-in statistics, and then generating the pretty graphs you will see in the lower sidebar.  The graphs have been pre-loaded with some of my previous scalar readings, just so there is something there to look at.

I'm thinking about adding other measurements to make the data more interesting, so I'm happy to entertain any suggestions you might have.  I'm all about making the tracking process as easy to maintain as possible, so if you would like any help with it, I would be happy to help.

Thanks for reading!

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