Slowly disappearing man-tits (10-5-09)

New title for weigh-in posts? You be the judge?

230.6 lbs-- Down 1.8 lbs

Another good week on the scale, mostly due to food. I love it for sure. If I can keep this up, and add in some extra exercise, I'll definitely kick some butt. Not to mention, I think I'm actually gonna get past 230 this week, I have a good feeling about it at least.

Unfortunately, today ended up going down the crapper. Dropped my girlfriend off at the train station, then spent the entire rest of the day screwing with trying to switch out the car battery. Spent about 2 hours parked in front of the parts store using their loaner tools trying to get one of the damn post things off of the old battery, finally gave up and came home to look through our parts. Then it got worse, I broke a friggin socket, dont even ask me how it happened, but I pulled on the wrench, and the socket actually broke, lol, oh then I dropped one of the wrenches I just paid like 4 dollars for and now its stuck on something under the engine and won't come out. Then we go to another parts store, buy a (uhmm pair of pliers that has a tension locking thing) and finally the freaking bolt broke. It was so coroded that it actually broke off inside the battery. So, we get a new post/bolt and FINALLY get the new battery in, and the problem may not even be fixed. GRRRR We probably spent about a hundred bucks on it and it might not be fixed.

Wow, didnt really mean to turn this into an auto blog lol. Gotta get it back on track: Exercise, exercise, exercise, lost 1.8 lbs woooooooooo, exercise, exercise. There, now I'm back on my game.

Anyone ever taken EAS MYOPLEX??? I keep seeing commercials for it, and I think I might try it. I mean come on they have Adrian Peterson and Brady Quinn advertising it, AP is an absolute beast, and Quinn was a starter for like what? 5 games or so? Lol.

Okay, speaking of supplement and stuff of that sort. I've been hearing commercials on the radio for some kind of weight loss thing, I think its actually suppose to be like a weight loss clinic. It talks about using Dr (something or other)'s HCG Protocol, and how it makes people lose lots of weight. "I stepped on the scale after 4 days and had already lost 8 pounds" is one of the testimonials on the ad. The thing is, the commercial absolutely pisses me off every time I hear it, which is like a couple times a day while listening to the radio at work. The main advantage of using doctor whomever's whatever weight loss thingy??? "It only takes 25 days, you don't have to change your lifestyle." 25 may not be the exact number, but you get the point. Now, being that you all are doing what you doing, you obviously see the fault in this logic. But this type of thing, miracle drugs, "cleanses", and I'm sure you could easily add a few to that list, they make me angry. Personally, I'm kind of torn as far as weight loss surgeries go as well, I mean they serve a purpose, but people who have them done very often (I don't have statistics) gain a lot of weight back, because they still do the same things that made them gain it in the first place, I guess it depends on if its used as a beginning or as a treatment in and of itself.

I suppose that this is the type of thing that makes me realize the passion I actually do have for fitness. And believe you me, I've spent a lot of time over the course of gaining like 30 pounds since I got my degree in fitness questioning whether or not I had the passion I'd need to actually have a career in the field, let alone just lose the weight myself. But it is definitely there, just needs to be refueled every once in a while.

I guess I might as well get all of the tangents out in one night. On the subject of EAS, a supplement company if you didn't know, I have a deep interest and fascination in nutrition and supplements. Creatine, ephedrine, nitric oxide, steroids, HGH, it all fascinates me. I think that if I had unlimited time and money, I'd get a Bachelors degree in exercise physiology, a Masters in nutrition and a PHD in sports nutrition/supplements, and since I didn't have to worry about a could hundred thousand dollars of student loans (due to my unlimited money), I'd spend my life teaching teenagers how to live active, healthy, fit lives and help them to achieve their fitness and athletic goals. And it would be completely awesome.

Tits, Tats, and Tots

Taking the advice of my greatest blogging helper the lady CM, I figure I'll figure out a way to use tits is every title, just as long as I can come up with creative ways to do it.

Just making sure, it appears that the wonderful Jack Sh*t has accepted my challenge???

Yesterday I was surfing on the internetz, and being inspired by news that Rio will be hosting the 2016 Olympics, found myself closely examining the USA Triathlon website. See, I figure that of all the Olympic sports, I can actually do the triathlon. I'm about a foot too short for basketball, no where near fast enough for track, don't have the coordination for gymnastics, and I'm not even close to being skilled enough of the water to compete against junior high swimmers. But the way I see it, if I bust my ass and completely dedicate myself, I can do the triathlon. I'll admitedly probably never get close to being in the Olympics, but in all honesty thats not the goal, its just a cool thing to day dream about. Oh and also, the IronMan thing is completely intriguing, I'd love to be able to do that.

I guess that gives me some extra goals, on top of beating Jack to 200 in the race of the century.

Hows about a challenge

Okay, first of all, I almost did it. Ran my mile today, in a blazingly fast, Prefontainesque, 10:44. Not quite there today, I felt it about a lap in. I think I didn't warm up enough, maybe it has something to do with the cold weather, its like 55 out there tonight, or maybe I didn't stretch out enough, but however it happened, my calves were tighter than last time, and it seemed like I didnt quite have the push I did either. Finished 1/2 a mile in just over 5 minute, right on pace, then about half way through lap 3 I had to walk a little more, then I had to walk a little bit at the end of the lap. Last lap, just like last time, I went all out, for about 2/3 then had to walk a little bit, but then I sprinted at top speed for the last like 75 meters or so. I'm definitely happy that I took almost a minute off of my time, but I'm also a little disappointed that I didn't hit my goal, especially because I was so close last time. But here is the plan, I'm going to re-up my training, give it another shot in 2 weeks, and hopefully I'll obliterate 10 minutes. My new goal, well as far as breaking my current goal, is to take another minute off my time, that means I'm shooting for a sub 9:45 mile, woohoo, I like that kind of goal. And I like how I said, sub, makes me sound like a legit runner, lol.

Anyways, now to the meat of this post. Last post I did, I received a challenged, haha like all two of you reading don't already know that. Heres why I dont like that particular challenge: Being that its Wednesday night, probably Thursday by the time you read this, Jack has probably already lost his 1 pound and change, so I've probably already lost. I need a little time to make up the difference. So heres what I'm gonna do, I'm going to lay down my own challenge.

Mr. Jack Sh*t, I'm challenging you to a race to 200 lbs.

YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE T*ts on.that Weigh-In

Just taking a little advice on spicing up my boring titles. Haha, I thought that was pretty damn funny, thanks for the tip Ms CM. Good Stuff, good stuff indeed.

232.4 lbs--- Down .4 lbs

I suppose that this proves that nutrition probably has more impact on my weight loss (at this point) than does exercise. I think I've mentioned on here before that my job is pretty active and I burn a good deal of calories doing it. Just in case you haven't figured it out yet, I managed to follow up my "triumphant" workout Friday with nothing at all over the weekend. Its kind of funny how a couple extra hours can soon disappear completely. Saturday, after I got home from work, I spent a couple hours impatiently waiting for the mail to arrive to see if my paycheck was in it. Lately my mail hasn't been showing up until like 4 or so, but I figured I'd give it some extra time just in case. This may sound loserish, but I really wanted that check, I had big plans for it, lol. So anyways, after it still hadn't come by 5:30, I went to pick up my girlfriend from work, then we went for a late (well late compared to my normal routine) dinner. By the time I got home at like 7:30 or 8 I had no energy left to workout. Similar type of thing happened Sunday and I ended up not working out this weekend.

HOWEVER, The good part was my food intake. I normally end up, in the course of my 4 day work week, eating 4 breakfasts and 4 lunches (I leave for work at 4am and get off at 5) all from various fast food places, with an occasional Subway or similar sandwich mixed in. This week, I managed to eat only 1 breakfast and 1 1/2 lunches from fast food (1 lunch wasn't technically fast food, being from a food cart at my work, although it definitely wasn't healthy). Replacing my normal variations on a sausage egg and cheese croisant with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for three days, and subbing home made tuna sandwiches on wheat, and hot dogs (still not healthy, but less calories) with my normal choices, typically some type of burger, or fried chicken, or something else full of a million calories.

So I think the point is, somewhat better food, some exercise, and a lot of MIPHA (moderately intense phyiscal activity) lead to a good result on the scale. Nothing especially exciting or flashy, but it works. And if I could just do that every week, at roughly a half pound loss, after a year I'd be down like 20 lbs. Not too bad eh?

Wow, after that long and boring disertation, I'll add a little sunshine, figuretively speaking.

Today we went to the beach. In Seaside, we paroused the shops, walked the beach, hunted for shells and sand dollars. At Cannon Beach, we looked at some more shops, found the beach, walked about 3/4 of the way to the waterline, then turned around. By the time we got back to the car, after a stop at a grocery store for drinks, we were drenched, as in completely and totally to the bone, gotta love the Oregon coast, lol. Then in Tillamook, we went to the cheese factory, sampled some cheese, bought some cheese, and some chocolate milk, and some fudge (go figure, fudge at a cheese factory???). After that, and still soaking wet, we got back in the car and commenced the long drive home, well actually its only a few hours. After stopping at Hooters for some dinner we got home. My girlfriend dumped the sand out of her socks (dont really know how it ended up there, I guess its because the socks she wears barely get over her heels, I only had sand in my shoes, not socks) and changed out of her still damp clothes. My clothes has dried by then, but hers were still somewhat damp, this was like 3 or 4 hours after we got back to the car. All of this activity totalled roughly 24,400 steps. And despite getting caught on the beach in a downpour, it ended up being a completely awesome day and it left me with a few good ideas of other things to do at the beach. Not what you may be thinking, far more mature than that.

Now its back to be active tomorrow, lol.

"Use your abilities at this time to stay focused on your goal. You will succeed."

So said my fortune cookie when I ate at a Chinese restaurant several days ago. Well technically it was my girlfriends cookie, but she showed me the fortune and I stole it. I thought it was pretty cool, given my current situation and everything. Apparently some mysterious ancient oriental prophet thinks that I'm going to get myself in shape and go on to have a successful career in fitness. Right on.

Alright, remember how I mentioned last night (at the end of a super long, but good post) that I was going to get in a strength workout? Well.............................

I DID IT! Okay, definitely not trying to sound like a won a war or anything. But its the first time in like 3 weeks that I managed to get in a workout after work. I switched it up a bit too. Did my workout at home. All body-weight stuff, 12 exercises total, probably 140-150 reps all together, given some stuff that I had to do on both sides. Anyways yeah, I'm nice and sore now. Just in case you needed proof that you can get a challenging workout quickly, I was pouring sweat, and I'm sore, and the whole thing, including some stretches afterward, took no more than 20 minutes.

I get off at 3 tomorrow, so I should be able to get in a nice run tomorrow. And I'll be sure to let you know how I feel after my workout tonight. Haha.

I'm With Mike

I'm going to change things up a little bit today, and try to pay a little attention to other things that definitely deserve it.

Here in the Portland, OR area there is a local sports talk radio host named John Canzano, hes also the Associated Press sports writer of the year. Over the summer he help a charity event, it was an eating contest. One of the participants happened to be extremely over weight and unhealthy. After the contest was over, Canzano decided he would like to help him. So, after discussing it with the guy, 3 weeks ago he launched the "I'm With Mike" campaign.

The idea was to use the radio show to assist Mike in his journey to get healthy. It is now a weekly segment on the show, Mike comes on and discusses what he is doing and what progress he is making. After the first segment tons of people called in wanting to help, nutritionists, personal trainers, phyical therapists, health clubs. They made the decision that they wanted to be safe and have medical supervision, so after Canzano asked for a doctor to help them along, Mike announced yesterday that he was about to go to his first doctors appointment in several years, with a doctor who heard the plea on the radio show.

First let me say, that I think it is truly awesome that a radio host would even take the time to show interest in something like a fat guys weight loss. But to me, the most amazing part of the whole thing, is the huge amount of support that they have gotten in such a short time. Not only was their all the interest from health/fitness professionals that I mentioned before, but hundreds of people have called in and emailed just to express their support for Mike. Thus the name "I'm With Mike". In my opinion, its a completely awesome idea, and you can bet I'm going to be listening every Thursday at like 3:30 or so to find out how Mike is doing.

If you're interested in finding out more---
Uhm, I'm aparently not good at this whole linking thing. It looks like they don't have the podcast of the segment today on their website yet, but hopefully they'll get it up soon. It'll be Thursday 9-22, hour 1, and it'll probably be like 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through it. BTW scroll to the bottom of the page for podcast lists.--- http://thebaldfacedtruth.com/#two


Oh, and I made the decision to not workout out tonight, in favor of trying to get some extra sleep so I'll have energy to get in a bit of a strength workout tomorrow, then its on to the weekend, which I should be able to utilize some nice weather to add rack up some miles. BREAKING IDEA---- I SHOULD TOTALLY RECORD MY TOTAL MILAGE WEEK TO WEEK. haha brilliant, good non-weight way to track my progress.

As for now, listening to Smokey Robinson and Joss Stone on Leno, they're awesome. And then going to bed.

FUCK

Okay, I normally try not to use much profanity on here, but this time it is warranted, way warranted.

I've mentioned several times recently that I've been contemplating taking a crack at lowering my mile time, and trying to hit my 10 minute goal. Well today was the day.

So I got in a nice warm up, a good stretch, hopped on the treadmill and got going. First lap in slightly over 2:30. Second one passed at just about the 5 minute mark. I was starting to run out of steam, so I took it a little easy on lap 3: something like 7:45 or 7:50, I really didnt think I had a shot at 10, but it was still a PR shoe in. A little bit into lap 4 I figured what the hell, lets go for it. Up goes the speedometer (I think its called that on treadmills?) past 6 mph, past 7, past 7.5. There I am, sprinting my ass off, over 8 miles per hour, I've gotta be like 50 meters away from the finish line (imaginary of course because I'm on the treadmill), and I'm closing in on 10 minutes. I might not make it, but I'll get damn close. Then................................... BAM.

The treadmill stops. Shuts off, completely dead. The belt freezes, comes to a complete and immediate hault. To be completely honest, I'm probably pretty lucky that I didnt get hurt. But man, I'm so freaking pissed that it did that. Completely killed my workout too. After it happened, I tried to do some elipticalling (thats my new action word for using the eliptical), did the 3 minute fitness test thingy, scored like a 10.5 and it told me I'm Olympic again, lol, but didnt have any motivation to do more, tried to do some pushups and other body weight stuff, couldnt get into it. So, I did a little stretching, told the attendant about the treadmill stopping (she said it does it every once in a while and that I should use the other one, which I'm going to do from now on, even if theres people that are working out over there and watching TV and I dont want to get in their way) and left.

Perhaps the thing that suprises me the most, well other than almost dying on the amazing stopping treadmill, is that I feel pretty good. I'm tired, but thats normal after a tough workout. My body feels good, I figured I'd be really sore after that run. But I felt like I could keep going, not at the same pace, but keep going nonetheless. I guess the main lesson I learned today, is that even though I'm not losing much weight, I am getting in WAY better shape. Now I just gotta get the weight off, then I'll look good busting out 10 minute miles, lol thats slow but I'm working on it. And I'm gonna go up there and kick the 10 minute mile's ass in the next week or so.

By the way, Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters, the cashew ones, are freaking good. I just had one, like 10 seconds ago, and they're hecka crunchy, but really good. (And 100% Natural, adds the girlfriend, haha)

On that yummy note, have a nice night, and a successful tomorrow.