Weigh In #11

Thanksgiving... Oh how I love and hate you at the same time.
This week I squared off against the great Turkey Tempter. And it was a draw....

289.0

I'll take it and move forward.
Hope y'all had a great holiday (for those US-based readers).

Photo credit to davidlat

Weigh In #10

Another week has flown by. It seemed like a pretty normal week overall, but I gotta say that it was not when I look back on it. We started last weekend with a wonderful wedding and parties for two friends of ours. Then it was a mad dash to get video shooting done on Sunday and editing/post production done for Wed night's show. In the midst of all that is my "real" job (no travel this week!), the two side projects, and two web sites I maintain. Most of them had plenty to do as we approach Thanksgiving.

So, with all that said, it's no wonder that my stress level was up and the amount of sleep I got was down. Neither of those things is good, to say the least. For me, extra stress has always been an excuse to rationalize behavior. In times past, I could easily convince myself that it was OK to eat extra/eat junk/not exercise/drink more/spend frivolously because of the stress or activity. Of course, the two things don't have any direct relationship. It's like saying that the reason I'm bald is because it's Thursday. Non-sequitor.

But, hey, the human brain (and heart) is a very interesting thing when it comes to those internal conversations. Logic and reason can be so easily subverted. I think it was Andy Stanley (North Point in Atlanta) that said that, in the affairs of desire, we make the decision about what we want to do and then enlist our intellects to make up a reasonable excuse for it. Who does that? This guy!

I thought I was doing OK with that this week. I looked back over the week's "Report card" on livestrong.com and saw that I was under 1800 calories every day (including the day of the wedding!). But then I started thinking about the particulars of each day and some things that might not have made it into livestrong. Like snagging the last quarter of one daughter's cinnamon roll when she was done. And grabbing 2 or 3 M&Ms at a time from a bowl - 10 different times.... I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant with folks at work. I added the chicken fajitas to the list but didn't put the chips and salsa.

My rationale for leaving those off? Well, those are too small to really matter. I mean, 3 chocolate candies? That won't matter. And you know what, 3 M&Ms probably won't matter unless it becomes 30 or more pieces. That's about a whole bag. D'oh!

So what caused this honesty retrospective? You guessed it, the weigh-in this morning wasn't as good as I would like it. I stepped up and saw...

286.0

Ok, it's not a badweigh-in. I didn't gain any weight (I actually lost a half pound) but I had it in my head that I should have lost a few. I have to get out of the "short sighted" mind set. I'm in this for the long haul. I've got to keep my eyes on the goal. Not to the exclusion of the day-to-day - I still need to do the right things and hit the marks. But when I look bigger I see that I have lost 32lbs in 10 weeks. That's above my original goal of 1.5lbs a week (80lbs in 60 weeks before I turn 40 years old: 80-60-40). And I feel a lot better and have dropped some clothes sizes.

And we have raised over $80 for Love146.org! I'm going to keep going with the pledge of $1 per lb from now until my birthday (next October). If you want to get on board again with either a one time pledge or an ongoing pledge, please let me know in the comments below, on twitter, on facebook, or in email. I'll add you to the "team." Thanks to those who have donated and pledged as a part of ThisMustChange.org.

Until next week....

Photo credit to NYOBE

Weigh In #9

It feels strange to say it, but this week has been busier than last week. I mean, I didn't travel anywhere this week or do anything crazy. It was just the normal work-a-day of job and life. It's funny about traveling - you are always surrounded by people in airports and on planes, but you are effectively alone. Then, in your hotel, you are alone as well. When you are hundreds of miles from home, by yourself, you don't have the normal "things" that you have to do. So while the travel times themselves may seem very busy, the activities aren't the same and actually tend to drag. At least that's been my experiences over the past 15 years...

So this week, being back in the office everyday and being with the family outside of work, I have had a lot more to do. I'm not saying that's bad... I love being busy with my family way more than being alone on travel. I'll take picking my daughter up from gymnastics over a layover in ATL any day. Driving a few kids around to activities like choir and Girl Scouts tops driving the convertible rental car from the airport to the hotel and back. I think you see what I mean...

So, to modify a work out phrase: "It's a good kind of busy"....

Being busy this week, though, did not include doing any sort of real exercise. No walking. No time at the gym. About the closest thing I did was run my mouth... Fortunately, at this stage of the game with trying to lose weight, exercise isn't always required for me to actually lose anything. I have a feeling the day is coming soon where I will have to make exercise a daily activity or I'll be faced with some drastic, and hard to live with, changes in eating. That being said, let's se what the scale said this morning:

289.6

I really liked seeing that number go below 290. Just over a year ago, I joined in with some other folks (via Twitter and the web) in a friendly game of "lose 9lbs before 09". My goal then was to get below 290. I didn't make it back then. But I have now! And it feels good!

Before my trips last week, I was getting my clothes together to pack and I looked at my suit. I thought, "I better try this on before I just pack it." Good thing I did. The pants almost feel off! I told my wife that I needed to head out to the store and buy a couple of pairs of pants so I didn't embarrass myself at the client's office. I started trying on pants and found that I needed 2 sizes smaller than what I wore 3 months ago... Then, this week, I realize that the belt I wear with my jeans wasn't really doing its job too well. I found that I was at the last notch and it would go any smaller. So, back to the store for a belt (actually two, one brown and one black). I have to say that those were two of the nicest clothes shopping trips I've taken in a long time. Aside from spending the money, I'm actually looking forward to making a trip for some new jeans in the near future.

Now, before I go spend all my money on clothes, I'm going to send some to Love146.org. If you've been reading along, you know that I pledged to donate $1 per pound lost until Nov 16th as a part of ThisMustChange.org. The total of my pledges plus the pledges of others supporting me can be seen in the box in the right side bar. I'll be making a donation for that amount next week.

But, honestly, I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep my pledge going until October next year when I turn 40. If you feel like being a sponsor for Love146.org with me, just let me know and I'll add your pledge to the totals starting next week. You can leave comments on this post, or you can email me (address at the top right), find me on Facebook or Twitter. Just let me know.

God bless.

Photo courtesy of LotusHead

Weigh In #8

This was an interesting week to say the least. I ended up going up and down the East Coast for work. I was a bit depressed at the lack of decent food options in our nations airports...

I flew from Charleston to Tampa, through Atlanta, on Monday evening. I ended up grabbing a Yogurt, granola, and fruit parfait from the Au Bon Pain grab-and-go thing near my gate in Atlanta because of a short connection time. I thought I was doing OK but when I finally was able to pull it up on the Daily Plate database, I found it had 620 calories and some not so great ingredients. Ugh.

I worked in Tampa on Tuesday at a client site and went out to a local restaurant. I did OK there with some fish tacos (I passed on the corn chips). But dinner was going to be in either the Tampa or Atlanta airport that night since I was flying to Boston. I grabbed another yogurt parfait, but this time it had the info on the side so I could make a better choice than the previous day. It was 280 calories and no high fructose anything...

The conference in Boston provided a good selection for breakfast and lunch on Wednesday but I dreaded the fact that I would be going from Boston back to Tampa, through Baltimore this time, that evening. I was on AirTran and their gates in the Boston airport don't have any choices so I figured it would have to be dinner in Baltimore. We ended up getting to Baltimore late which meant I was squeezed for time between flights. I hit the Manchu Wok on the way to my departure gate. With some lo mein noodles, some mixed vegetables, and some spicy chicken, I managed to keep dinner under 700 calories (let's not ask about sodium and the like...).

Thursday was back in Tampa working. We went to Chilis for lunch and I stuck with their grilled shrimp salad (minus cheese and tortilla strips) for a decent sub-500 calorie lunch. Dinner was at a great little place right on the beach in Clearwater Beach called Palm Pavillion. I highly recommend the place for food, location, and atmosphere. We sat outside on the deck and could here the ocean (it was bight time or we could probably have seen the waves too). I got a salad with some seared Ahi tuna on it. Delicious, filling, and about 500 calories. I was very tempted to try their frozen specialty drinks but I held my line and passed on them...

I was up at 4:15am on Friday to get out of my hotel, get the rental car back, and get checked in for my flights home. I was going back through Atlanta but it was a very tight connection if everything was on time. So I figured I would grab something in the Tampa airport. Well, not a whole lot was open at 5:00am there. But Starbucks was... I got my Americano (espresso and hot water - it's better than it sounds!) and, yes, another fruit, granola, yogurt parfait. But it was one of the under-300 calories ones...

I finally made it back to Charleston Fri morning, did some work at the office, and got home in the afternoon. It was good to be with the family after the week away.

So, I got up this morning (not too early) and slowly walked over to the scale. I stared at it for a minute and then decided I would go ahead and step up...

293.0

Yup, down 3lbs from last week. I wasn't expecting that with the travel schedule. But then again, with the short times between flights in Atlanta and Baltimore, I did get in some unexpected cardio... :-)

That also adds some more to the total pledges to Love146.org (see the right side bar). There is one more week of ThisMustChange.org to get in on helping the causes. Please let me know (via comments below, email, twitter @scbubba, or phone) that you would like to support Love146.org through me and I'll add your pledge to the total. Or you can go over and donate now!

Photo credit to JohnMason.