Update #4: Post Weigh-in Update

Today was the big day, final Weigh-In for the Lose to Win contest.  My final weight for the competition was 184.6, or a total weight loss of 33 lbs.  The puts me at a net decrease of 15.2% from my starting weight, which I hope is enough to keep me in 1st place.  My nearest challenger was down 9.5% two weeks ago (she stopped weighing in on Mondays to keep me from knowing her progress) so she'll have to drop another 5.7% of her body weight to win.  Anyway, I'll be on vacation next week when the final results are announced so I am going to just kick back and see how it all shakes out!  I did treat myself to a rather tasty lunch today (see below) but I was only able to eat half the steak and baked potato.  Should taste good tonight, though, if my kiddos don't beat me to it.  Maybe I'll have a Kit Kat, too.

Have a great weekend!

Update #3: Two days until final weigh-in

This will be final update before I weigh-in on June 18th for the "Lose to Win" contest. To date, I've lost 31.5 pounds and I am in 1st place in the contest. I've been really working hard this week and I've only been eating about 650 calories a day this week. That may sound a little extreme but the person in 2nd place is right on my heels and I don't want to lose this contest in the last week. There's 500 cash bucks on the line and it's GO TIME! Regardless of whether I finish first or second is really irrelevant, though. I will have met my goal of reaching my "fighting weight" of 180 lbs (by the way, I am updating this blog entry on my iPad!) and I am wearing clothes I haven't been able to fit in for almost two years. My doc has given me clean bill of health and says I have the heart of a 25-year old. Which is good news because next week we'll be in Disney and I am sure we'll be doing plenty of walking! I'll update the blog next week once the final standings are announced. In the meantime, it's time to go for a run..


Click the link below to see current standings.
Https://www.villasport.com/tw/images/pdf/LoseToWin/TW_LTW_Individ.pdf#zoom=90

Sporadic Update #2, I think??

I just realized that my last post was on May 3rd, almost a month ago.  Needless to say, I've been pretty busy at work, church and working out!  I am happy to report, though, that I currently weigh 188.5 pounds and I am only 8.5 pounds away from achieving my goal.  On top of that, I am currently in second place in the Lose to Win contest at Villa Sport.  I've got three full weeks before I do my final weigh-in so I think I have a good shot at reaching 180 pounds and winning the contest.  First prize is $500 so that is nice chunk of change for doing something that I needed to do anyway.  Also, I feel so confident that I will reach my goal in three weeks, that I went to the Apple Store today and reserved my 64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad.  There's about a three week backorder delay so my iPad should be arriving very close to final weigh-in.  Lara, the girls and I went to the Baybrook Mall yesterday to do some shopping for the girls and we had a chance to play around with the iPad.  Lara and I were checking out the MLB 2010 app on the iPad and it totally blew us away.  It's always a good sign when the female partner in the "spousal partnership" thinks that the purchase of a new iPad would be "pretty cool".  All I need to do now is find a campfire app for the iPad and I'll have 100% buy-in from Lara.

~Peace

Update #1 (After Being Back on Track)

Hey folks, I wasn’t able to post on the blog last week (I know you were waiting with baited breath for an update) because it was a very busy week.  Things have been pretty hectic at work and I’ve been spending many of my evenings chained to my laptop.  Fortunately, things are beginning to get back to “normal” just in time for summer!

My fitness challenge has been going very well.  The first few weeks are usually pretty tough for me because my motivation to work out is pretty low and my motivation to eat Taco Bell is pretty high.  This time around, though, I've been able to trudge through this hurdle with decent success.  I weigh in every Monday morning and today I weighed in at 197.1 lbs.  That’s a total weight loss of 17.9 lbs since I started back on March 23rd.  To help me stay on track I am using an app on my iPhone called Lose it!  This slick little free app allows me to enter my current weight, my target weight and the number of pounds I want to lose during a week.  It then calculates the daily calories I can consume and the date I will reach my goal.  Throughout the week, I track my calories, fat grams, protein and carbs of all the meals I eat and I also track all my exercises.  The app has a pretty comprehensive database of foods and exercises so it makes it easy to keep up with the food and exercises.  Another cool feature is when I enter an exercise it is automatically pushed to my Facebook page.  Btw, I appreciate all the comments of support and encouragement that you leave on my Facebook profile.  Anyway, things are progressing pretty well and if I continue at my current pace I’ll hit 180 lbs. on July 1st, 2010.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about!  An iPad just in time for the 4th!

Next week, I’ll lay out my plan to participate in the Nautica South Beach Classic Triathlon next April.  It’s a half-mile swim, 19 mile bike ride and a 4 mile run.  I hear Miami is beautiful in April and I’ll get to hang out with my awesome sister for the weekend.

 

Back on Track

A few months ago, Travis Eggett and I set out on our “Fat to Fit” challenge to try to shed a few pounds and get in shape.  We were doing really well until we took a trip to Utah to visit some friends over Halloween weekend.  I knew it was the beginning of the end of our challenge when we ate fried tacos, a couple of large orders of fries with fry sauce and ice cream floats at Pace’s Dairy Ann all within the first couple of hours of arriving in Salt Lake City.  That meal was followed by a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in Provo before eating  a giant burrito at a Mexican restaurant close to the BYU campus.  Anyway, I waded through the next couple of months of workouts but I just wasn’t committed to trying to lose weight.  I had lost all motivation. 

Then…

 

I received the above-pictured issue of The Economist and in an instant I had found and rekindled my motivation.  Steve Jobs announced the Gadgets of all Gadgets:  The iPad.  So, since March 25th, I’ve been back in the saddle working toward my target weight of 180 lbs.  I am down 13.5 lbs. since starting back and I should hit my target weight on July 4th if I continue at the current pace.  I’ve been combining a healthier diet with weight training and swimming at least one mile almost every day, Sundays excluded, to lose weight.  That means that on July 5th I’ll be at the Apple Store in The Woodlands, Texas purchasing my 64GB 3G iPad.  The best thing about this personal challenge is that it is 100% sanctioned and underwritten with spouse approval.

On a serious note, everything I’ve mentioned above about the iPad is done tongue in cheek and with a certain degree of levity.  The bottom line is that I hit the big four-oh in December and I am out to prove that I can get myself in shape and lose a few pounds along the way.  I knew I had to make some changes when I hit 215 lbs last fall and I there’s nothing wrong with dangling an “Apple” to keep me motivated along the way.

Update #7 – Thanksgiving Post

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I weighed in this week at 204.2.  I knew I would be up this week because I wasn’t as consistent with my exercising and eating as I should have been.  After all, it is Thanksgiving week and this is a week for eating and being a little lazy.  Even though I slacked off this week, I did manage to run in the “GE Run Through the Woods” 5 mile race in The Woodlands on Thanksgiving morning.  My time was 49:06 which averages out to be a 9:50 mile.  I went up the night before with Emily and Rachel and we stayed the night at a local hotel.  We met up with my friend Travis and his kids and had dinner at the Mongolian Grill.  We had a lot of fun and the hot tub at the hotel was a nice touch after the race.   I’ll be back on the program starting Monday and I got a head start today by running 3.5 miles and swimming a few laps.

                

Update #6 – Bustin’ Through the 200 LB Barrier!

Well, this week I achieved a significant milestone; I broke the 200 lb barrier when I weighed in on Wednesday.  My official weight is now 199.0, down 1.4 lbs from the previous week.  I’ve been using the same scale (balance beam scale at 24Hour Fitness) in order to get consistent readings.  For convenience, we bought a balance beam scale for our office because there are others who are trying to lose some LBS.  The bad news for me is that it is running about 1 lb heavier than the one in 24Hour Fitness.  This is despite spending a lot of time calibrating it to zero using the poise weights.  Anyway, I am going to use it next week because it’s very convenient and I’ll just chalk up any weight gain to the scale calibration technicality!  Next week, I am running a 5 mile race in The Woodlands with some friends of mine and the week after that, I’ll be running a 5K when we’re in San Antonio visiting Lara’s sister.  Now that the weather is cooler running is actually becoming enjoyable and I am able to re-live my days of being White Lightning on the RSS track team!  Many of you have encouraging me along the way and I want to let you know that I appreciate the feedback.  My goal is still to be 180 lbs by my 40th birthday, but it’s looking like that might be mathematically impossible (like the Astros trying to make it to the playoffs).  If I don’t make it, my next target date will be January 11th, Lara’s and my 18th wedding anniversary.