Weigh in is here again and a menu

This happens to be a weigh in day so I guess I will post what the scale said to me this morning, I had an appt this morning that required me to fast after 12AM last night and I weighed myself after the appt so how true the weigh in is I don't know. The scale says that I am down from last week by a whole 2 pounds coming in at 335.0 but I want to add a pound to that weight because I weighed myself at 11:00 am which was after no breakfast and not as much as a swig of H2O so I think the weigh in was off in my favor this week. I am calling it 336 pounds even with the 335 weigh in and that is still down a whole pound from last week and I have had a really bad week on every level besides calories so its one for the W column.

Here is a snapshot of my menu from Thursday.

Breakfast
7:30 AM
2 cups honey comb cereal 220
1 cup 1% milk 110

10:15am
1 small tomato 25

10:45 AM
1 banana 105

Lunch
1:45 PM
4.5 oz deli turkey breast 135
1 lavash bread 100
lettuce/1 whole tomato 45
1 T miracle whip 40

Dinner
6:30 PM
8oz grilled chicken 400
1 cup white rice 200
light sour cream/BBQ sauce 50
7.5oz sauteed squash & zucchini 140

7:45 PM
1 banana 105

Grand total of 1675 calories and that is WAY over estimating the calories in the zucchini and squash which was just sliced up with onion, garlic, olive oil and black pepper. I did drink 1 gallon of green tea and 3/4 gallon of straight H2O and my exercise for the day did not happen as I was suppose to go on a bike ride just before dark and my baby sitter fell through, that and I decided to let wify swim instead of me riding since there was no reason both of should miss out on the exercise because of a sitter issue.

I feel that August is going to be a high loss kind of month for the weight as I am over this throat bacterial thingamajig now and vacation is done and over with so no more caloric distractions for a while and I do believe that will conclude this weigh in post.

Just like always, I thank you for taking the time to follow along and don't forget to stay hydrated! get that H2O down!

As Ever
Me

Reflections...a father's look in a mirror now broken.

Being over weight is not a fun thing, it is not something that people enjoy and lots of times an overweight person sacrifices a lot just to not be the focus in a room. Sometimes people make sideways remarks or comments about fat people (I'm not going to sugar coat it that's what we are folks) and they think that these comments are helping, or are being kind and in reality it makes the situation so much worse and as a heavier person its hard enough as is.

I think about when I was heavier and some of the things that I did or should I say that I could not do compared to now and I cannot believe that I let it get that far before I did something about it. At what point does a person say enough is enough? Clearly remembering how it felt to not be able to do simple activities like taking a walk around the block with my little girl actually upsets me today because how could I let it go that far? how could I let myself get to that point? back injury or not, I was 534 pounds! simply walking was a chore for me and what kind of Dad could I be if I could not move to do remedial physical tasks properly?


Since losing the weight that I have so far I have become hyper aware of calories and nutrition in not only my food but other peoples food as well. I can almost 100% of the time look at a portion of food and estimate the calories in it within a small range of variation and the whats good for you question is ingrained into my head now as well. Last week My family and I went to a Friendly's restaurant on a whim (mostly because I had about 1000 calories left for the day and it was dinner time) we were seated and in walked a rather large fellow (I would guess over 500 pounds) with his wife and daughter and they were seated next to us. I could not help but notice that he ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and extra cheese with French fries for his meal, the interesting part was the conversation that followed and the enthusiasm in the words caught my attention.

The man was talking to his daughter (who was about 30 years old and also heavy) he said "I ate a full rack of ribs last night for you" and the rest of that excited conversation was very detailed and about these ribs and I got to thinking, here this fellow is eating a hefty dinner and talking about the dinner that he ate last night almost as if the rack of ribs was a trophy. Now I am sure that I have had that conversation and have been on the same side of those words as he was at some point in my life and I honestly believe that the company that you keep can help you along where weight loss and better health in general are concerned and on the flip side of that coin can help make us fat as well, but talking about last nights dinner in a very detailed and excited way while eating today's dinner? I was there, it was not pretty and should be the point when a person starts to question what they are doing.

My giant Sunflower that my daughter and I have been taking care of together.

Watching someone destroy themselves further, just like I was doing once upon a time actually bothered me, even though I did not know those people I felt bad because I know that they were in a part of that spiral downward and probably had no clue how to stop it. That gentleman was a lot older than I was and I couldn't help but to think about how that could have been me walking with a cane and breathing heavy if I had not decided to change the way that I do things. The part that really bothered me the most was that it could have been my daughter sitting next to me discussing a full rack of ribs with a child like excitement as she positioned her gut into a comfortable position. I WILL NOT put myself or anyone in my family in that position EVER again and I know that the choices that I am making today will affect my children and family in a positive way.

Sometimes a look into a probable future can have an eyes wide open effect on a person, even if its not my future any more.

As Ever
Me

Da Doc..

Moving right along, I woke up Friday morning with a sore throat and the under side of my tongue was sore (I will leave it at that because the visual is not fun) and long story short I just got home from my Doc's office and I have a bacterial infection in my throat and under my tongue so I am on some antibiotics and sucking on zinc lozenges. Now that my bad weekend is out of the way its back to the grind of dropping weight and getting healthier over all and I have decided to do a few things that I have not been doing on the blog in a while.

I am going to start posting up my menus again because doing so helped me have a snap shot of how things were going intake wise and though I do believe that I have learned how to feed myself with portion sizes that cater to the new way I live my life I also see myself being easier on myself where taking an extra bite of something goes. Another thing that I am going to start doing is the challenge posts again, and if you are fairly new to the blog let me explain what that is exactly. Sometimes (usually when I am feeling unstoppable) I would post up a regular old post but at the end state that for every comment that I got on said post that I would do X amount of push ups or that I would ride an extra 2 minutes on my stationary bike or some other random exercise based challenge. I feel that when I did those that it kept me mindful of my intake and exercise for that week because I had to leave enough in me to complete whatever the challenge was and that is a positive thing so they will come back this week with a Friday challenge post to go with the weigh in this week.

Over all things are going well in my world and I am planning on a bike ride this afternoon with wify despite the humidity, This entire week looks to be high 80's low 90's and pea soup humid so summer has finally arrived. Keeping hydrated will be especially important but the exercise has to continue so that the weight keeps coming down, which has sort of become secondary in this whole lifestyle change for me at this point. Getting healthy and being able to do things physically that I was unable to do just a short time ago seems to be the main focus for me currently and that's just fine because I believe the two go hand in hand, which is not to say that I am not trying to lose more weight because I am.

This week should be interesting because I plan on pushing myself through the humidity and sore throat but it is what it is and I gotsta keep going.

Drink plenty and remember that YOU are the one calling the shots where your health goes so when its a success you know where to point the finger, just don't forget the other side of that coin if you do not do your part.

As Ever
Me

Weigh in time again, You want fries with that shake?

Surprisingly enough I am happy with this mornings weigh in, I will get right to it and say that I weighed in at 337 pounds which is a single pound heavier than my pre-vacation weight and only 4 pounds more than my lowest weight to date. I was not expecting that number when I woke up this morning but obviously glad to see it and though I do have a cold and am not really exercising the way that I should be I am going to shoot for a new low next week. I mentioned in another post that I have been going slightly over on my calories and if I am dropping the weight this fast by doing that I may adjust my intake up a little bit and add 100 calories to each day, this is only an idea right now and I will decide if that's what I do over the next week or two.

It has been raining on and off all week so I have not been outside as much as I would have liked to be, add that with this cold (which may be more than that as its been here for a while) and I am itching to get out and go on a nice long bike ride, honestly I would settle for a nice long walk! Wify and I were talking about how fun this bike has been for both of us, she has been borrowing her moms bike and coming out with me for rides and its nice to have her along with me, its almost like a mini vacation from the kids which is nice sometimes. Riding with wify brings up some interesting conversations as well.

I am a HUGE Queen fan, I listen to old Queen songs all of the time and was talking to wify while listening to fat bottomed girls yesterday and she asks out of the blue "Am I a fat bottomed girl?" and after a short pause and a grin from me she laughed and realized that she had put me in that place that husbands never want to be, I mean how do you answer that? "Ya sure are honey!" or "yes" can get the response "so what are you saying? that I have a fat ass?" or perhaps "did you just call me fat?" and then on the other side of the coin we have the "nope" to which the reply might be "so are you saying that you don't like my ass?" so I told her that I would have to think about that question and get back to her, but anyways to my point.

I think a lot of things that are exactly the same can be completely different to different people and what dictates how it is seen is that persons outlook. Weight loss is what it is, the basic concept is to eat for fuel instead of eating for sport, some people look at it this way "You mean I get to eat grilled chicken and sweet potatoes as much as I want? woohoo!" and others see it in a different light "All I get to eat is grilled chicken and sweet potatoes? no way I can do that" I can grill chicken about 10 different ways and it always has just about the same calories in it and never boring so I fall into the first group, I LOVE grilled chicken! its sort of like that comparison about two people that work in a place that has a dress code, the first guy sees it as "I have to get dressed up every day in this monkey suit just to talk to customers? bleh!" where as the second guy sees it as "wow! I get to go to work dressed up in nice clothes every day, man that's gonna help me out in the women dept!" the way things are perceived can make all the difference in the world and if you look at losing weight as something that is hard, or something that you do not want to do guess what? It WILL be a difficult road to walk down, if you look at it for what it is, the task becomes easier than you expected it to be and you will be successful in dropping the pounds.

This post felt a bit random again, I guess its a random kind of week for me, I am happy with the weigh in this morning even though it is still higher than my lowest weight it is much lower than it was last week and within a pound of my pre vacation weight. I do not feel like "Man! I had to RE-lose that weight! Gah!!" because thats just the way life works, there will be ups and there will be downs but as long as the reigns stay in my hand and I control the ups I am doing what I need to do and better health will follow.

The last thing that I will do in this post is answer wify, YES you ARE a fat bottomed girl, and I love me some fat bottomed girls so there!

Now to wait for the next inquiry "honey you said that you love you some fat bottomed girls, whats that S about?"

Thanks for following and drink that water up!

As Ever
Me

Old habits die hard?

Thursday is here and tomorrow I will post an "official" current weight, I do not expect it to be anything great but if I can get in under 340 I will be happy with it. I have been going over my calories a bit all week because of having this cold and me not counting the honey in my hot green tea nor any of the oranges that I have been eating throughout the day so not so bad but still above. I would like to try and get out on my bike after dinner tonight and hit the same route that I rode last time which involves going up this pretty big hill and I want to make it all the way to the top without a foot hitting pavement this time around. My week has been pretty much uneventful and there are a couple goals but I would say that this paragraph pretty much summarizes how I am feeling and doing right now, with that let me switch it up and say that I just got a reality check not more than 20 minutes ago as to just how much of a tight rope has to be walked with my "habits" (old and new) even after all of this time eating right and moving more.

I was making my lunch just a bit ago and an old habit popped in for just long enough for me to literally stop and think "wow did I just almost do that?" and I smiled and corrected what I was about to do. I have to eat low fat for a spell and decided that I would make a couple of toast & tomato sandwiches to have for lunch, I do not know if toast & tomato sammies are something that everyone eats as I have had people ask "a what?" when I mentioned it, it is basically just 2 slices of toasted bread with a light spread of butter (smart balance in my case) sliced tomato and black pepper and voila a toasted & tomato sandwich. My grandmother would eat these all of the time and I sometimes like to make them for something light but in my fatter days I would make them a bit different and its not exactly light when you eat 3 or 4 of them.

Back about 200 pounds ago what would happen is this, open the bag of bread (white bread) pop 2 in the toaster and while it was toasting grab Mayonnaise and a couple tomatoes from the fridge, ~pop~ pull the toast out and place 2 more slices of bread into the toaster and start slathering mayo onto the toast, lay some maters down and bamn! the first sammie was done. By the time the first sammie was done being created the second toast was finished so in went more bread and the process repeated but there was never more than 2 sammies done at a time because while the third set of toast was in the toaster I would be eating the first sandwich, ~pop~ 3rd set done and I had already went half way through the second sammie and in went the 4th set of toast. Between finishing making the 3rd sammie and eating the second the toast would pop up and I would make the 4th sammie, fill a big gulp cup with whole milk and walk into the living room to eat the remaining tomato sammies along with my bucket O milk, that was then.

Just now when I was making myself lunch I started the toast and just like back then I gathered the rest of the stuff, Smart balance spread, a tomato and black pepper. I started slicing the tomato up and ~pop~ toast was done, I pulled it out popped two more slices into the toaster and started making the first sandwich. Immediately after the lid went onto the first sandwich I took a bite and went for more bread, this was the "wow did I just almost do that?" moment, the bread had already been tied up and put back in the cabinet as the "new habits" are who took 4 slices out of the bag but I guess its been so long since I have made toast & tomato that the old habits kind of just started acting on their own. The tale ends with the previously fatter man taking his 2 sandwiches (one with a bite taken out of it) into the living room with a big gulp cup of home brewed green tea and physically smiling about what had just occurred but man! I guess old habits are hard to break.

Now I don't think for a second that I was even close to making a third sammie past the motion of my hands towards the bag and the bite that I took, but the fact that my instinct was to immediately take a bite from the freshly made sandwich and go for more bread proves that there is more to losing weight than just following an eating/exercise plan. So much of being over weight comes from years of following bad habits, the mental part of being among the more rotund people on our planet plays a HUGE role in whether a person is able to lose weight on a constant basis or not. I have been eating better since January 2008 and not more than 30 minutes ago saw first hand that old habits are hard to break whether I caught it or not.

All of these months later I find myself even if ever so slightly, still battling old habits and have a feeling that this lifestyle change will never truly be 100% without effort. With that said I am still a firm believer in you get what you put into something and if a person does not want to at least try then they have failed before they have even started because I did have the option to make that third toast & tomato but instead I recognized that I instinctively took a bite and went for more and corrected it and that is where I think a lot of people fail when trying to lose weight.

I did not want a 3rd sammie, an old habit popped in for a split second and back in the day it would have been made and eaten without a second thought, something to think about.

Thanks for following along and don't forget that H2O!

As Ever
Me

Day something and random randomness, really? yup

It has been one of those weeks for me, sort of a go go go kind of feeling all while holding at a complete stand still, but not really. I have since coming home from vacation been steadily pushing the weight back down closer to my low weight and have done pretty well with keeping the calories where they should be but I have also been under the weather since getting back too so that's effecting things a tad. I have sort of a lingering cold that's mild enough that I am still taking rides on my bike (I found a killer hill that I need to defeat) but bad enough that the mornings are rough, such is life but I just haven't felt like typing out posts which explains the lack of posting this week.

Over all I am doing great good with keeping to the calories this week, I have been at or under my 1700 calorie limit for the most part barring the random day that I go over by 200-ish calories with a random treat but like I said over all its been a decent week. When I returned from Florida I was up more weight than I would like to admit BUT since I started this blog so that I would have a place to post up my weight and to have some accountability, here goes. The day that I got home from FL I immediately hopped on the scale when I walked through the door and what the scale said literally shocked me, granted I was fully dressed and had just driven 20 some odd hours straight eating lots of things that I probably shouldn't have and drinking instead of my regular green tea a 4 pack of Arizona diet green tea energy drinks (I was excited to find these btw) and hey it was after all green tea right? but anyways the number that I saw was 357 pounds, 357 pounds?? no fucking way! is what I thought and onto the scale again I went and bamn 357, it was what it was and on my way I went.

I immediately began sucking down as much water and tea as I could get my hands on and we went out shopping and filled our fridge with buku veggies and I have basically been eating salad and grilled chicken all week, within a day I was down 5 pounds, and then 2 pounds per day for a spell so I know that it was just a bloated fat man from a week of not taking care of myself the way that I should have but that is a whopping 24 pounds more than my lowest point! Knowing that when I left for vacation I was not my svelte 333 pound lowest I will add that I was 336 pounds on July 4th (my last official weigh in before vacation on the blog) but any way its sliced I was up A LOT! This morning I weighed myself and am back down to 340.8 pounds so I am bringing it back down to "pre vacation" levels and am within 5 pounds of what I weighed before I left and 8 pounds of my lowest weight to date, yes yes this is a good feeling once again.

I have been riding my bike (big surprise eh?) almost every day, and I know that I am starting to sound like a broken record but I don't even feel like I am exercising when I am out on that piece of metal and rubber! I am thoroughly worked out after a ride and my rides have been lasting roughly 30 minutes lately (I ride kind of hard and don't stop, just ask Pumpkinface, er Heather) but I want to get up to an hour per day on week days and more than that on the weekends. Wify has been coming along for the ride lately and its nice to have her to ride with and she is getting in a workout as well so its a win win in my book. I have to say that where I live is ALL hills, when I say all hills what I mean is that I cannot honestly think of one spot that is flat for more than 30 to 50 yards before a hill comes into play and it feels like there are more ups than downs which I know cannot be the case but man! my legs get burning on some of those assents! which brings me to the descends, I am still getting use to being perched up top on a bike again and because I am me I have to try and do whatever I am doing as hard as I can and I was coming down a decent sized hill and hit 35 mph (which to people that ride bikes probably is not all that fast) but when you are 340 pounds, back on a bike for less than a month and on a mountain bike (knobby tires) when cruising down a hill at 35mph and gaining speed the thought of "what would happen if" starts going through your head hardcore and the brakes are applied. I know that the answer is ride more and get a set of road tires so that I will feel better as well as handle the road better but I want to keep the knobby tires on the bike so that I have some resistance because I am after all using the bike for exercise and that's free burned calories there, plus I do ride on a section of grass and dirt when I ride around the lake.

As I am feeling random, my post shall reflect that and onto another subject, my calories for yesterday came in at 1830 which as you know is above my allowance but I am ok with that as I am still getting things together in the fridge and meals are planned again so I should not have a problem going over again this week. I went out and bought $53 worth of fruits and veggies yesterday and there is some green tea brewing out on the kitchen table as I type and I feel great about my intake over the next couple days, now if I can kick this cold that I have I would be doing as great as I feel, um about my eating, not physically because I am sick, but then I just said that so now I am being redundant.

With that I will end the post for today and I hope everyone is keeping on with the keepin on, or something like that, or at least I hope you are all getting that H2O into your days.

I am off to catch up on some of your blogs and read through a few emails, thanks for following along.

As Ever
Me

A review of sorts, Seasons 52 is a must go to place for the calorie counter.

I am late! this morning has been a bit busy and I had a new window installed in my bathroom so I have not had the time to get on here and post up but here I am. I am down in weight from my initial "after vacation weigh in" so I am feeling good about that but I am still substantially heavier than my lowest weight to date so that I am not too happy about but it is what it is and ain't nothing I can do but get back into the groove so that's the plan.

I want to talk about my bike for a paragraph or so, I am thoroughly addicted to riding it, my children got sick on the way home from Disney and thus as is the way things go I got it too, I picked it up yesterday but did that stop me from going out for a ride? nope! in the past during this whole weight loss extravaganza when I was sick I would stop the exercise immediately because I felt yuck, but with this bike? yuck just doesn't seem to matter, I just keep on riding the bike. Upon returning home from FL I took a ride, yesterday after dinner I took a ride, and today I feel worse than I did yesterday yet when wify gets home from work the plan is, you guessed it to take a ride! I cannot believe that I was worried about what someone might have thought about a rotund fellow riding down the street on a slender bike because I just don't care any more, it appears that Freddy had it right once again.

Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah
Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race

I mentioned that a restaurant was recommended to me by another blogger, before I left for Florida I emailed the other Tony that has lost more than 200 pounds because I had remembered that he lived down there. I asked him if he knew of some beaches that may rent bikes and had a boardwalk as well as if he knew any place to get a good not so bad for you meal out there and he gave me the name of a place called Seasons 52 so I made a note of it and decided that I would check it out.


When we pulled up I noticed that the restaurant overlooked a lake and had outside seating which looked like a good idea if it had not been so hot the day that we went so off to a good start, we walked in and were seated (inside) by one of the most courteous greeters that I have ever met. We sat down and shortly thereafter greeted by Marcie, our waitress who was honestly an amazing server that was polite and prompt about every aspect of our meal. Marcie talked with us about the concept of the restaurant with a seasonally inspired menu with none of the dishes having more than 475 calories and went on to recommend a few items to us after taking our drink order. We started off with an appetizer and chose to get the caramelized crab and shrimp stuffed mushrooms with roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese, very tasty and was quick to come to the table so I was happy with that. One thing I will mention is that there is not much of a kids menu but Marcie recommended some of the things on the menu that could easily be adapted into a kids meal and my son chose to have a grilled turkey burger with portobello mushrooms and mozzarella cheese and my daughter had a flat bread pizza which was honestly pretty good, you know that I had to take a taste.

On the menu was Copper river salmon which came with corn risotto & corn sauce, grilled asparagus & red peppers and a sour cream dill sauce, Marcie mentioned to us that this is only on the menu for 3 weeks out of the year (there goes that seasonal concept) and since I am a huge fan of salmon I just had to order that dish, Wify ordered a flat bread pork taco which had marinated pork, pablano peppers, goat cheese, jalapeno, pico de gallo and a chipotle sour cream on it and had a mixed green salad with toasted sunflower seeds and white balsamic vinaigrette on the side, and both dishes were full of flavor and cooked perfectly, the salmon was flaky and very good, the corn risotto complimented the flavor of the fish nicely and who doesn't love grilled asparagus with red peppers? so I was very pleased with my meal. Wifys flat bread taco was about a foot and a half long and she loved it, you know that I had to taste that as well and I have to agree that it was full of flavor and decently spicy but then with all of those peppers on it it should be! The main entrees were if I had to pick a word amazing!

Taking pictures of dessert, on my vacation, for my blog? that's dedication!

Onto dessert, you knew there had to be a dessert right? Seasons 52 has what they call mini indulgences, and what they are is individual servings of classic desserts, basically its a double shot glass made into a tasty treat that's just big enough so that you get the point but small enough that loosening of your belt will not be necessary. The mini desserts range from Key lime pie to Summer blueberry cheese cake right on down to Market fresh fruit, I opted for Pecan pie with vanilla mousse while wify chose the Key lime pie and the kids of course picked the most chocolaty of what was there, I do not recall exactly what they each got. The desserts were very yummy and like I mentioned were just big enough so that you felt that you were bad, Wify had coffee with hers and over all I am very happy that We decided to ride on over. Amazing service, and I mean that, it usually takes a lot for me to be impressed with service at a restaurant but our waitress was great (she deserves a raise seriously) and the food was just about as perfect as a meal could be so props to the cook as well. I do hope that Seasons 52 expands into my area, I know that they would make a lot of the green stuff off of me because over all it was a 100% positive experience that my family and I had, here is the address of the Seasons 52 that we went to.

Seasons 52
At the Plaza Venezia
7700 Sand Lake Road
Orlando, FL 32819

The week that I have been home has gone well with my keeping to my calorie range and I have ridden my bike every day this week so I am getting in some exercise and hopefully I can get within a few pounds of my low weight come Friday. I am staying hydrated (something that I did not do in Florida) and in fact I am trying to over hydrate because of my vacation, I have not had a chance to go through all of Emails that I got within the past few weeks but I will get to them so if you asked me something and I have yet to respond know that I am reading them. That's all I got for today so keep on keepin on and all that and don't forget to drink that H2O!

As Ever
Me

I'm Back! Groggy and up in weight but here I am.

If you follow my blog regularly, you have probably been wondering about the lack of posts lately and if you are new to the blog it likely just appears that I do not post often. I was on vacation for the past week or so hence the lack of posting but I have returned! you can now stop crying because you missed me, awe.

I want to start off my return to the blog by saying man did I eat bad while on vacation! it was not so much over eating as it was not eating the right things, don't get me wrong, I DID eat more than usual but hey I am on vacation right? I know, I know vacation is no reason to go off plan, this is after all a lifestyle change and not a diet right? Yes, yes it is. The way that I look at it is like this, it is a lifestyle change and it is easy to just let my guard down for a little more than a week and just go with the flow grabbing food on the run but those choices are not always the best and on a tight schedule getting a good solid nutritious meal is not always an option so I traded off "good solid counted meals" for "eat when I can" because it was not really what I would call a laid back vacation, we were sort of go go go! the whole time and in the spirit of getting as much in for the kids, meal planning went out the window, yeah it was for the kids, that's it!

He offered me corn but I took the cake instead!

Over all I did a lot of walking on vacation but I did eat way too many bad things and I am up in weight today, I am not going to do a weigh in post for tomorrow because I know that I am dehydrated, I am sore and the ships have been docked for 2 days and I don't feel that it would be a very accurate weigh in, so I will wait until next Friday for a weigh in post. I do want to mention that on one of the days I was out in not so sunny Florida (it rained like every day we were there) that I had the opportunity to check out a restaurant that was recommended to me by another blogger, his exact words in the email to me were "The best restaurant ever"and I have to agree with him on that because the food was amazing, the service was even better than that and it was a healthy way to spend an evening so I felt good about being able to get it into our time in FL. I will be giving that place a post of its own (it deserves it!), maybe tomorrow to replace the weigh in post.


I am still a little groggy this morning as I type because of our twenty some odd hour drive back to New England (we drove straight through) but I wanted to get a post up, so here it is. I have some weeding to do in my garden and want to get a nice leisurely ride on my bike in this afternoon so I will end the post here for now.

It was a great vacation and some junk was eaten but I am back home now and its time to get back into a groove and hit my weight loss and health goals for the year. Thanks for following along and now I have to follow my own advice and get hydrated!

fini

As Ever
Me

Where O' where has Zeusmeatball been?!

Zeusmeatball will be back in the Office and posting regularly on Tuesday July 14th after some recuperation with a new post, some pics, some stories, and some good (and bad) food! and a teaser photo below for a clue to where I have been all week.

I'm Back!

As Ever
Me

Late weigh in

This morning the scale said 336 lbs, up slightly but then I was expecting that so no worries. I have lots to do today including a bike ride as soon as I hit publish post so short and sweet is the post for the day, hope you all have a great 4th, stay safe!

As Ever
Me

Priceless!! and I forgot to weigh in this morning...

I have been pretty busy today and it dawned on me that it is Friday and I did not weigh myself when I woke up, ooops! I will weigh in tomorrow morning Saturday July 4th and post the results up, I do not expect to have dropped weight this week as I have been neglecting my exercise but the post will be here tomorrow morning for your viewing pleasure.

I do have to post up a picture though, and here is the back story. When I was about 20 years old I got my first "real job" and on that job we ruined clothing so the boss bought us company tee shirts with a logo on them (which photo shopped off of the shirt for the pic) so that we did not have to ruin our own clothing and the biggest size that he could get at the time was a 3xl and I was starting to push a 4xl but he bought the shirts anyways. I have always said that I would fit into one of those shirts one day and I held onto one for all these years, so we are talking about a 16 year old tee shirt here! but since I didn't wear it, it is brand new unlike the others that have long been cut into rags. Jan 2008 I tried this shirt on just for a reference and it would pull over my chest but no further, kind of looked like a tank top on a woman! I decided that it would be my "goal shirt" and back into the closet it went. I was just at Walmart to pick up a cooler and wify said "go grab a pair of jeans, they carry your size" so I figured why not "just to see" if a 42 waist fits and I grabbed a pair of jeans and we finished our errands and home we went, when I tried them on and they fit, I decided to grab that old tee shirt out of the closet and see how things went. It is not the most flattering photo, I need a shave on both my head and face but I just had to post it up.

Old work Shirt from 16 years ago $0.00
Pair of 42/32 jeans from Walmart $8.00

Bag of BIC disposable razors $6.89

Having it all fit? PRICELESS!

The jeans look a little bit, how do I say? not baggy enough? for me so do think I will return them and grab a pair of carpenter jeans or something less straight legged but the 42/32 fit perfectly! thats down from a size 56 pushing a 58! (I wear my pants below my gut, if they are worn above surely this number would be much greater) that's 7 whole sizes! or more than 14 inches off of my waistline since Jan 2008. The tee shirt is a little snug for my liking and I don't think that I would wear a shirt froma company that I don't work for out or anything it does fit and I honestly thought this shirt would fit me at my goal weight.

All of that paired with the new bike bottle and bike computer that I bought has left me in a good mood for the evening. Wify wants me to watch all of the Harry Potter movies (am I the only person that has not seen them?) so that we can go see the new one and we are starting the first one tonight so it looks like my weekend is off to a good start regardless what that scale says in the am.

Thanks for reading, drink that H2O and keep on keepin on and all that.

As Ever
Me

C25K, Meet bike, Bike, Meet C25K...Hi!

Today is Thursday, that means that tomorrow is normally weigh in day and I at this point in the week I am usually going over my excel sheet and checking how I have done all week but somehow this week it has escaped my focus because I have not stood on my scale at all and my excel sheet looks kind of random. I almost don't want to get on the scale because I suspect that I am up in weight, I have not been exercising like I should, I have not run C25K in more than a week now but I have bought a bike so I am at least getting that into my days. The newness of the bike that I have now is carrying my decisions where working out go, which basically means that my posterior hurts a bit as well as my quads so I am kind of in a transition phase with getting use to the bike, again because its just really fun to ride right now.

There are a few things going on in my life right now not related to weight loss which need attention that are taking up lots of my time and when that happens I tend to not workout as hard or as often and is a point that I need to work on so that I can keep the weight going in a downward direction. I had a birthday so I ate cake this week, I was getting over being sick and not running because of that and now I have my new toy on top of all of that which I had a problem with so I had to go get that corrected, and then there is the personal stuff going on. I make no excuses and I accept that I have just been really busy so the exercise has suffered a bit and none of the above means that I am off track, just a tad more than swamped with stuff not related to weight loss, with all of that said I have kind of put together a plan of sorts on a cross training program for myself which includes completing the C25K program while adding bike riding.

What I plan on doing is starting where I left off with the C25K program continuing with week 3 but instead of following the duration that the program calls for I plan on adding biking between the running days, to start off it will look something like this.

Monday - C25K
Tuesday - Off day (calisthenics & light weights)
Wednesday - Bike ride
Thursday - Off day (calisthenics & light weights)
Friday - C25K
Saturday - Bike ride
Sunday - Off day

With the above program I will just run each week of C25k 3 times like the program calls for and will just run the third run on whatever day it falls on. This is what I am planning to do until I am comfortably riding the bike ie: no more sore sit bones! once I am comfortably doing this set up I will change things up a bit hopefully ending with a program that resembles this.

Monday - C25K or (running normally)
Tuesday - Bike ride & ST
Wednesday - C25K or (running normally)
Thursday - Bike ride & ST
Friday - C25K or (running normally)
Saturday - Bike ride & ST
Sunday - Off day, possibly a hike

I wrote running normally because I don't know when I will complete the C25K program and when I do complete it I plan on running alternately with the bike riding because I have really come to like running. If I am being honest I just cannot do both together right now because I am spent after running and I am spent after biking and overworking myself will surely result in an injury which will just slow progress further, so when the novelty of the new bike wears off and my arse is not thumping the day after a decent ride is when I will get back to C25K which with any luck will not be long at all. I want you all to know that I am completing C25k but I am also going to enjoy exercising on my bike too so there it is, and actually its all working my body out! I actually think that mixing it up with biking/running will result in a stronger me as well as keep the weight moving in the right direction.

I have to admit that this week I kind of veered of track with the eating and hydration, I have not been drinking as much as I should, less than a gallon on some days which is a far cry less than my two plus gallon pace that I usually do and I have not had green tea daily this week either. I have rectified the situation and have started drinking all of my fluids again starting with today and my excel sheet is being used properly again as well.

Here's to the coming weeks and the lower weight! have I mentioned that I love my new bike yet? keep on keepin on and all that.

As Ever
Me