Sleeping in Lately...

Man, I feel like a bit of a failure this morning. Today is the second morning in a row that I've missed the gym - so frustrating!

I had gone on Monday and did my cardio, then Tuesday I knocked out some lifting. Yesterday I'd set the alarm, but slept through it - I ended up deciding I'd work from home as I woke up SO LATE. Of course, I logged into the company's intranet and saw that I'd been assigned to attend a mandatory meeting, so suddenly I had to haul off to the office. I guess because I'd slept so late, I couldn't sleep last night and didn't doze off until 12 - normally bedtime is about 10:30. So of course, I seem to have turned off the alarm in my sleep this morning and woke up naturally at 6:30 - right when I'm supposed to meet Dan at the gym. Dammit!

Tomorrow morning Dan and I aren't going to the gym - we're meeting for breakfast to celebrate his 34th birthday instead. Seriously, I CANNOT sleep in and miss it. I already feel like a guilty tool for the last two mornings, and I can't let him down by effing up tomorrow. Grrr... Might be time for some sleeping pills tonight, just to make sure I'm dozing as required. Oh who am I kidding? I hate the idea of pills to regulate me, in any fashion. I've got two different alarms set on my phone now, 15 minutes apart. And I found the most annoying ringtone available to sound when it's time - c'mon me, don't fuck it up!

Tuesday

Looks like I didn't totally eff up this past weekend - I'm still in the 240s this morning. Sweet!

Good God you guys - I dusted off the stove this weekend and actually cooked - cooked! by myself! - I made my mom's white chili. It called for me to dice up 8 cloves of garlic. I don't own a garlic press, and I don't really know exactly what I'm doing in the kitchen. Anyway, point being, it's now Tuesday and my hand STILL stinks like garlic! Never again. Blech.

In other news, I've been mixing up the cardio by doing intervals instead of a flat speed. Frankly, I find it more challenging and engaging, and I'm enjoying it. Rumor has it that there are better "afterburn" effects too, which is that I'll continue to burn calories longer once my workout is done.

Let's see, what else? Oh, Sign #27 that Today Might Not Be a Good Day: After my workout I walked into the showers to find them... not working. Ugh. I'm giving serious consideration to heading over to another fitness location at lunch to scrub up. I feel gross with no shower after a workout!!!

Sign #106 that Today Might Not Be a Good Day: I left my work shoes at home and I'm wearing my freshly-sweated-in gym shoes.

249.5

Things are continuing to improve

I had another great day of watching what I ate, staying on plan (on the krab, according to my man Carlos), and getting a great martial arts workout in, and then a great conversation with The Gal to end the evening. I'm feeling really, really good these days!

I'm starting to think about my goals - where do I want to be in a month? By Christmas? Where do I want to be next year? I haven't formalized it - right now I'm enjoying riding the wave of my recent success and seeing where it takes me, but there's certainly a drive to be in the 230s by the time I see my folks at Thanksgiving next month. Frankly, I think that's an attainable goal, though right now my focus is just getting to 245 and crossing the 90 pounds lost barrier. Perhaps by next Friday? Biggest rule - don't fuck up over the weekend!

248.4

A bit of tough from Mom

Man my neck is sore. Seems that I whip my head around too fast or something when I'm doing the martial arts thing as these sore neck muscles have been a theme as of late. Hopefully my body will just get used to it, but until then it's Advil and Tylenol for me.

At some point either last week or the one prior, I was on the long drive home from work and was on the phone with my mom. When it was my turn to give her some updates, I whined a bit about being stuck at 255 for so long. She asked me what I was doing when I was having success, and I told her that I was counting my calories, but that I felt like that was just a pain in the ass. "Well, maybe one day you'll wake up and decide that counting calories isn't as big a pain as being stuck at 255 is. Then things will change."

I've been counting all last week and so far this week. This morning I'm in the 240s again.

Thanks ma.

So i put my hands up, they're playin' my song

Butterflies fly away...

Oh man - last week I'd really found my mojo and got her working again. So much so that by Friday morning I weighed in at 250.2 - almost back into the 240s, and this time for keeps, right? Well...

Friday The Gal and her sister and I piled into the car to head south to Chicago for a weekend out, visiting another of her sisters. I was a calorie-nazi on Friday. I knew that it would be tough as the dinner was already planned - pizza. So I had a breakfast, counting every calorie. Once on the road, I drank water, then made sure to skip a burger and do a 6" Subway and more water. I left room for two slices of pizza and didn't go over the limit. It was a numerically-perfect day.

Then Saturday came.

The long and short of it is, when I did the add-up, I clocked in at a whopping 5000 calories. Mutha-fuck! Guess that's what a breakfast of Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks and a dinner of Cheesecake Factory will do, especially when bad choices are made along the way. Add in a burrito and a road-burger for the drive home yesterday and I was up 8 fucking pounds when I stepped on the scale last night! Shit. This morning I was 256, and I'm planning on clean-eating for the week so I can get back under control, but damn kids. Your hero took some hits.

Thankfully I hit the shit outta intervals on the elliptical this morning and began the purge. I downloaded that annoying Miley Cyrus song and found that it was perfect for getting my ass in gear - great pace, good groove. I'm not a fan of it, but damn if I didn't wake up with it in my head as I heard that ditty several times over the weekend. Whatever it takes man, right? Noddin my head like yeah... Movin my hips like yeah...

Winter Coat Revisited

This weekend it snowed here in beautiful Minnesota. Obviously this meant that I had to rummage through the closet to find my winter coat.

Two years ago I bought a gorgeous, full-length black wool overcoat. I wrote about it here. Then I was able to get to a point where I retired that coat and found my old green one, which I wrote about last March. To save you the time of going back and rereading the posts, I'll summarize: Oldest coat was super-big. Basically a XXXL. Then I dropped down into my green one, which was a XXL. That post ended with the line, "She's a double ex. She fits wonderfully again. I can't wait to retire her and wear a single ex."

Well kiddies, when I put her on this fall, she was too big. So off I went, to find a new coat. One that fit. One that was a single ex. And guess what? When I got to the department store? I had my pick of the litter - they'd *just* put out all the new coats, and every single one of the XL fuckers fit.

I chose a black wool coat, simple clean lines (I hate those ski jackets for everyday wear - all the weird, angular cuts, the overly-bright color choices, the noisy nylon or gortex or whatever the hell... let's go for classic!), buttons with a zip interior for when the wind blows. Love it.

I don't see much change, but my body tells me that it's still happening. The weight is shifting around on my body. My gut isn't so big that I have to wear a XXL coat any longer. :)

Next up, a XL shirt. I scored one from Dan the Workout Partner the other day (btw Dan, nice unload on me - those stripes are fucking hideous!), but while I can get it on, it doesn't look too great. I take some comfort in the fact that the label says, "athletic cut", but not too much. ;)

Anyway, I've already had two liters of water, peed three times and have a urine spot next to my left knee - man this dick is big. Gotta go refill this water bottle. See ya!

253.2

Some things about me

Just want to share some things about me. These are things I like, don't like, believe, whatever. I haven't written in awhile adn I'm struggling with that a bit as I feel like I *want* to write; I just don't have anything to write about. So with that in mind, I'm write about something besides weight-loss. I'll write about me. :)

My favorite compositional style of music is a fugue. You find them mostly in classical music - it's when one instrument starts, typically with a melody line, then other instruments add in their voice, creating a thicker sound. A counter-melody, a rhythm section, a doubling of the melody... whatever. It just starts small and builds and builds and builds. Love 'em.

I love serial storytelling. Shows like Lost, whose stories connect directly from episode to episode, they're my favorite. I like to obsess about where the story might be headed, and I like when the writers drop little one-liners in the show which reward long time viewers.

I love vampires. Dunno why, those there are oodles of psychobabble out there if I were so inclined to find something that lines up with myself. I used to watch Buffy and Angel religiously (they're also serialized!), and before that I read lots of Anne Rice (got out before the books ended, but still stayed with her too long). I remember reading and re-reading Dracula as a kid. Bottom line, regardless of quality I'll always check out vampire stories. Still need to see True Blood, as well as the Vampire Chronicles. ps - Twilight sucks.

I think poop is super-funny.

I think Darth Vader is the coolest villian of all time. Total bad-ass, yet he still had to answer to someone. Not a raving psychopath. Wears a cape. That dude is money in the bank.

I think a husband's first responsibility is to his wife, and a wife's to her husband. If that relationship is the strongest and most important, then the kids will be taken care of; they're a product of and addition to the relationship, not a replacement for. I think that my parents were a wonderful model for this.

When I'm in a fight in taekwondo, I think that the most important thing is to be fearless. I'm no great shakes, and will lose to people (quite regularly in fact), but I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid to try, and I'm not afraid to win, and I'll never just roll over in a fight. Sometimes this comes off as me being overly-competitive, but I feel that it's my responsibility to always try.

I hate feeling like I'm in someone else's shadow, personally and professionally. At work, I'll often say that I "don't like working on someone else's code - it's too hard to know what they were thinking", but really what I'm saying is, I'd rather not have to follow in someone else's footsteps. I don't want to design some website using a pre-made style guide. I prefer to originate my own style, even if it's not as good as someone else's.

I like horror movies.

You know what I hate?

I hate that piss spot that sits slightly left of center on my crotch/upper leg when I've been in the bathroom 6 times before lunch. Drink you fucking water kids.