Robot Monkey Pants

Sigh. I expected a bad week, but I got one in spades. No excuses, just reasons — too much food with too little exercise. I blew off the gym Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday. Combine that with some not-so-healthy choices and I pay for it.

It’s okay. This week I’ll make sure I compensate for the bad week by being vigilant about going to the gym every day, eating right, and no nighttime snacking (another of my downfalls).

Enh. It’s a gain, but it’s a bump in the chart. If you look at it, you’ll see there are other bumps, and I always got past them, and I’ll get past this one, too. I’m disappointed, but my own actions (or inactions) led to this consequence, and that’s how I learn.

Onwards!

Weight Loss Chart

Another loss, which is always good.  I’d have liked to have done better this week, but I’m guessing my weekend activities (which included the ever dreadful pair of drinking and pizza) would preclude me from having a stellar week.  But it’s a good loss nonetheless.

Next week, I cross 50 lbs gone.  Without question.

I just read a post on my friend Ti’s blog about being creative. It rang home with me as well, and got me thinking. It’s time I spend my non-work time doing things that are more personally satisfying. It’s going to be time to have some fun.

I’ve an urge to start painting again, but as I learned the last time, it’s a messy endeavour. I don’t really have a spot where I can do something like that right now. So, another outlet for creativity must be used. To that end, I’m going to start trying to make weekly updates to my Flickr account; I’ll try to take one interesting photograph a week.  I’m not sure if “forced” creativity is going to be worth it, but this will be an interesting personal experiment.

Some folks are discovering this blog, which is cool. First up, I’ve made sure all my Weight Loss Updates point to where I’m charting my progress, so you can see the big picture. My immediate goal is to hit 50 off my Weight Watchers starting weight from the beginning of February. But I’ve got a long way to go, as well. I want to have lost 100 by the end of the year, and 200 by the end of the following year.

However, these are merely checkpoints I’m looking towards — shorter term goals. The broader goal is to have acheived a full lifestyle change that incorporates eating healthier, maintaining a healthy weight, being active, and generally leading a more productive and interesting life.

At the moment, the “interesting” part isn’t terribly prevalent, since I’ve been typically putting in 12 hour days at work, then 2 hours at the gym… It doesn’t leave time for much else. I’d like to get out and start taking some photos, but either my schedule or the weather don’t seem to cooperate when I feel so inclined. But, I digress.

Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone. I really appreciate it!

Weight Loss Chart
Not too bad this week. I didn’t expect anything like last week’s loss since the weekend in Omaha was not a healthy eating weekend, plus I lost a workout on Friday last week due to the travel.

Still, 1.4 pounds down. Getting closer to 50 total lost. I should hit it next week if I behave this weekend.

My workout routine seems to have settled on trying to get a good workout while not staying too late at the club, though today I went longer than I usually do. My baseline and starting speed is 3MPH, and I go up from there, varying it depending on my mood and energy level, but I don’t slow down below that except during cooldown. I hit 4MPH on Thursday — today I was more in a mood to play with the incline, going at 7.0 with a speed of 2.5 for the extra 20 minutes I spent on the treadmill today. Typically, though, it’s a level surface with 3.2 - 3.5 MPH.

Because I work out in the morning on Wednesdays (I like to get a good workout in before I weigh in), I’m off until tomorrow after work. I think, in general, I prefer the end of day workout; I get to work out the stress of the day, and puts me in a good mood before heading home to sleep. The downside is that since I’m typically working 8-8 these days I don’t get to eat supper until around 10 or 10:30. I’ve been making sure I stay on top of my other meals to counteract my body going into ’starvation mode’ and storing fat.

I think I’ve successfully stopped skipping breakfast, but habits are hard to break. I am never hungry at breakfast time. I don’t even think about food then. But then, typically, I don’t think about food unless I can see or smell it. I don’t really know what it actually feels like to be “hungry”, which is weird, considering that you’d think someone who eats the way I used to would do so out of a feeling of hunger.

But, no. Sure, I occasionally get a craving for someting, though it’s almost exclusively because of some outside trigger. I’ve gone whole days without eating, usually because I’m involved in something that’s taking all my concentration. I’d lay in bed and go over the day and realize I didn’t have a meal, or a snack.

It’s weird to think about that — it’s made my whole Weight Watchers experience interesting. I hear others complain that they feel hungry all the time when on the program, for example. Now, granted, my allowable point total is a lot higher than most, because it’s based on your present weight. But the last time I was on the program, I pretended I was only allowed 24 points a day on some days and didn’t have a problem. I didn’t feel hungry, but I missed the foods that were so bad for me. I mean, I enjoy a nice healthy sub from Subway a lot. But I really would enjoy a slice of pizza — well, frankly, many slices of pizza. Or a Bacon Double Cheeseburger from Burger King; That burger is my weakness.

I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned from my times in Weight Watchers — the portion control is so important. Keeping track of what you eat is very important, and to adequately track it, you need to know the points for each portion. Some foods come with a *surprisingly* low point total, but then you look at the serving size and realize that a box you used to treat as a single serving is actually 2, 4, or 6 servings!

So I don’t have a whole pizza; I have half of a Freschetta 8 inch pizza, which is a two-serving pizza. I don’t have a bacon double cheeseburger; I have a cheeseburger. It’s okay. I occasionally splurge and have something that’s not terribly good for me point-wise, but that’s what the 34 point wekly buffer is about. Plus I tend to take it lighter on the other days and ramp up the workout if I feel I went overboard.

Generally though, I’m happy with my progress and lifestyle changes. We’ll see where it goes from there.

Onwards!

Well, at the moment, Council Bluffs, Iowa. But I was in Omaha earlier tonight! We spent most of the day driving across the fine states of Illinois and Iowa, making our way deep into the American Heartland (or, for any east-coaster who might happen to read this, you may think of it as “West Flyover”), before spending the evening having supper with some coworkers and a stranger upon whose couch Alan is crashing this weekend.

As oddly appealing and terrifying the concept of couch surfing may be, we opted for the more traditional hotel stay, in a cheap hotel just outside downtown. Which gives me the opportunity to wax philosphical on the bizarre design choices made by those doing hotels. The theme of the day appears to be “greens”. I use the plural, since there are a number of them present throughout the room, none of them the same, and none of them complementary. Adjectives ranging from “Lime Life Savers” to “Alien Life Form Excretion” run through my head as I attempt to do the room’s decor justice. An orgy of paisleys and fleurs-de-lis might have resulted in the pattern that festoons the bed covering, while the curtains are a celebration of golden moths splatted against a deep green solid wall of mold.

Yet, for some reason, the room designer’s flair for decoration is not sated by these bold and incomprehnsible statements! No! Two pieces of K-Mart Artwork hang proudly on the walls, wherein white herons take flight from a clutch of tall reeds against an orange, salmon and beige backdrop.

I am certain the intent behind these dramatic room adornments is to immediately make one’s eyes cower in fear and befuddlement, which allows the owner of said eyes to take in the glory that is the carpeting. Criss-crossing vectors of pure hatred and evil form a sea of yellow, green, and even more green, bringing to one’s mind the image of adorable little maggots crawling across a mossy plain.

Indeed, it is a feast for the eyes and mind. I’m sure Buddhist monks, training for battle* endure sights like this in their daily rituals. And, unquestionably, I am a better man for having endured it myself.

*It is a little known fact that Buddhist monks battle alien invaders every day. They keep this fact secret, so as not to alarm the populus. They have emerged victorious from every battle for the few millennia they’ve been practicing their trade, though I weep for the planet should they ever lose. But that’s a story for another time.

Liquids are banned on planes? Huh? This is complete and utter reactionary nonsense, and it’s got to stop.

There’s a constant problem of trying to stay one step ahead of the terrorists (or, in many cases, one step behind), and it’s not actually getting us anywhere, except more and more inconvenienced without any added safety.

The path is clear. We must fly naked.

Seriously. Well, not seriously. But… seriously.

Think about it.

First we ban small blades, which is meaningless as anything stiff can be fashioned into a knife (at least, if my myopic view of the US penal system that was formed through way too many years of prime-time TV is correct).

Next, we start x-raying shoes to look for explosives, ever since that Mensa candidate tried lighting his shoes on fire. But, is it inconceivable that you could simply make a shoe that is entirely composed of some sort of explosive material? I don’t doubt that it’s possible, though I’ve no idea if one could get something like that past a sniffer. But, for argument’s sake, let’s say you can.

Lighters are out, but matches are okay (just not more than 5 books). Come again?

Liquids are currently on the no-fly list. So are electronic gadgets should you happen to be flying to or from the UK. But we can still hide things in our carry-ons that are innocuous-seeming, but potentially dangerous.

So we ban carry-on baggage. Ah, but the nefarious evil-doer can smuggle something in his clothing. In fact, his entire fetching ensemble could be some sort of fashion bomb.

Our path is clear.

Tape your passport to your forehead, strip off all your clothes, and fly the friendly skies in all your natural glory. It’s for the good of the country, people! Let’s do it!

Weight Loss Chart
Woohoo!

Picked up a lot of momentum this week. My workouts have been going well, though they’ve changed slightly. I only got 4 in last week (and will likely only get 4 in this week as well), but I’ve tried making them more difficult.

Currently, I do at least 3MPH on the treadmill, occasionally boosting it higher. Since I bring my DVD player with me and watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica while walking/jogging, I have a pretty straight 44 minute timer. At the end of the episode, depending on how I feel, I’ll sometimes go longer. Today I didn’t, but I was presed for time. Yesterday I did an hour, and on Thursday I actually went through two episodes (totalling 88 minutes) since at the end of the first I felt like I was in a pretty good groove and didn’t want to stop.

It paid off. I worried I had maybe gone a bit overboard this weekend, but in retrospect it wasn’t too bad.

I’m now trying to get my daytime eating habits into something more sensible, by actually not skipping breakfast, and eating a more regular lunch. We’ll see how it affects things.

I’ve definitely got to dig out my smaller shorts, the ones I have do not fit anymore. Likewise, my 4X shirts are pretty much only good for workout clothes now, as they’re far too baggy to wear anywhere else. I’m also wearing my wedding ring on my right ring finger since it’s falling off my left.

Alright, moving on!

Woo, much better! I was a pretty good boy this past week, worked out regularly, stayed mostly honest through the weekend, and it paid off. Sure, I couldn’t pass up a plate of Gnocchi at Calo’s but we’re not often in that part of town. Plus we walked a good half hour in the hot hot heat to get there, because I woefully underestimated the distance to the restaurant.

In any case, I’m back on track — I lost what I gained, plus a little more. Down below 350 for the first time in a few years.

Here’s to another week of success.