Quickie Update

Before I left for my beach birthday weekend I weighed myself and intended on writing this here update before I went away. However, that obviously didn't happen and so it is happening now whether you are ready or not.

The weigh in was 266, a 3 pound loss for the week and 13 pound total drop since the beginning of the year. Since I'm still stepping on the scales too often, I was actually a little disappointed because at one point during the week I was at 264. Gotta stop that habit somehow and maybe this weekend will help. You see while I was down in OCMD I did NOTHING, except eat, drink and relax and it was glorious! It was a much needed mini-vacation as the 6 day a week work and workout thing had me worn out. But the side affect of doing what I did down there certainly put some weight back on, I weighed myself when I got home and it was kinda ugly. So now I plan to stay off the scales until next Friday, mostly to avoid feeling guilty about having a fun, relaxing weekend.

I decided to stop lifting last week and strictly focus on the cardio stuff. Swim, bike, run....The Tough Mudder is like six weeks away so I need to focus on getting ready for that. I had what I describe as a breakthrough in the pool last week during my lesson. Coach Warren has been very remindful that I am not looking relaxed in the pool. In my defense, there are a lot of things I am trying to remember to do right in the pool,; how to breath, taking full strokes, the kick....and all that thinking makes relaxing difficult. But somewhere in the middle of the lesson he told me to do the breaststroke for a length. This is a stroke I am pretty good at (please keep laughter to a minimum about what strokes I'm good at) and very comfortable with. When I got to the end of the pool, he said that was the most relaxed I looked in the pool to that point and then made me swim freestyle back but told me to try to duplicate the feeling. It was the best lap I had swam, and by the end of it I didn't have the same exhausted feeling as I had on EVERY lap prior. In fact I swam 4 laps without that "Oh My God, this is so hard" feeling. Hopefully I can continue to strengthen my swimming skills with this little breakthrough.

Since I want to stay off the scale for a few weeks you hear won't from me again for a week and change....peace out!

Ok update time

Today I weighed in at 269. There is progress beginning to take shape once again. That make 10 pounds since the new year and the rebirth of this project. I am actually a lil disappointed by the weigh in because I have developed the nasty habit of stepping on the scales at work every day and at one point this week I was down to 265. So I had high hopes for this weigh in report, but we have to settle for 269 this time. By the way, it is a terribly bad habit to weigh yourself more than once a week if you are trying to drop some weight. What I have learned over the past year and a half is that weight loss is a fickle SOB. The negative reinforcement of bad weigh ins are much more damaging than positivity of good ones and in many cases your daily weight is affected by other factors such as water retention. Remember that you can't be discourage over a bad weigh in or two, if you are eating healthy and working out diligently the weight WILL drop.

Since our last chat, I have begun swimming at the gym. In my last blog I told you I was gonna start, well this time I'm telling you, HOLY JEBUS, SWIMMING IS HARD! The first time I got into the pool to swim I didn't make it one length of the pool (25yds) without needing a lifeguard. lol just kidding there, but I really didn't make it the whole way. Humbling, to say the least. Later that week I met with Warren the swim coach and found out that my first big problem was that I wasn't breathing enough and that was leading to my early exhaustion. He commented that there was a real good base to work with as it pertained to my form. My two biggest areas of concerns are that I am getting no propulsion from my kick and my butt sinks into the pool to deep which causes extra drag in the water. I would have thought my big booty would float better. Swimming is gonna take a lot of work to get better at, that's for sure. As for some of the other stuff, since I started swimming my hamstring issue has seemed to fade away. I am back pushing real hard in Spin and I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill. This weekend I'll try to tack on another half mile.

From a diet standpoint, I am doing much better controlling what I eat, but I still have my bad meal every now and then. I need to really try to force myself to eliminate these "cheating" meals and save them for my diet day off. Thanks to fellow Spinner, Don, I am gonna start tracking my daily meals again, but this time I will use the website suggested by Don www.fitday.com to help me plot out my numbers and see how I am doing. Do it for a week and you may be in for an eye opener! Potentially the diet may suffer over the next couple of weekends as this Saturday is Tubefest and next weekend I'm planning on heading to OCMD for the first beach trip of the year, and oh yeah its my birthday that weekend too.....gift cards to Dick's Sports are fine .

Well gotta go and get ready for work, ugh.....ttyl!

I'm back!

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly three months since my last posting. In all honesty, I really needed to step away from this blog until I was able to right my emotional state. I was in a very, very bad place since my dad's passing. It wasn't so much the grief of his death but the continual beating I have seemed to have been taking all year long had me worn out. I had finally given up on fighting back. My passion and drive for this goal was completely gone. For the past four or five months, I've been pretty much just going through the motions of life as I waited for the next shoe to drop. Thankfully, the past couple of months have gone without any negativity and with that I am ready to get re-focused on me.

Because I wanted to start writing again, I decided to re-read all of my blog entries in order to regain the spirit of why I was writing. Lots of emotion was stirred up over the past two or three hours as I smiled because my joys and accomplishments and bemoaned some of my bad behavior. Before setting out on re-reading my postings I was well aware that this week marked an ugly anniversary. One year ago this week I began this year that can only be described as 'calamitous' by regrettably posting an entry to this blog that was intentionally hurtful and ruined a friendship. Maybe the Karma gods punished me over this past year for that post, but that year is now officially over and it is time to once again pick myself up in Rocky-like fashion, all bloodied from this brutal year and start swinging again.

"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place... and I don´t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit... It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward... how much you can take, and keep moving forward." from Rocky Balboa watch it here:


So with all that being said welcome back to my diet blog. The goals are still the same, 220 pounds and to run an Olympic triathlon. I have already signed up for Tough Mudder in April at Bear Creek, they've lengthened the course to 9+ miles and by all accounts their events are indeed tougher. The one in Jersey actually had an obstacle in which you had to run through a patch of LIVE WIRES dangling like jellyfish tentacles!!! I have re-upped my contract at Body Zone and have added the pool to my membership. Also got the number of a swim coach as I have never learned proper swimming form, so tri training can begin in earnest now!

My first weigh in of the new blog year is a positive one. Over the past two weeks I have managed to drop 7 pounds as I have finally gotten my self-discipline back and have managed to stick to the diet plan whole-heartedly. The weight as of this moment is 272, I will not lament the fact that this is 30 pounds heavier than I was at my best. In order to be successful I must allow myself to forgive and forget this past year. I have 50 pounds to lose regardless of what I weighed in May last year. That doesn't matter anymore, my battery is recharged (thanks Mary when you used 'recharge' in Spin I knew I was gonna steal the concept) and I'm back in the fight!!

My wounds will heal with time and prosperity. I will be successful, I promise you that. I will make 2011 a much better year.