Hiddennode

It’s Wednesday, and that can only mean it’s time for the weekly weight round up.

…

Okay, there’s a lot of jokes in that sentence, as well as incorrect information, especially considering how ‘un-weekly’ this posting has been over the last month. Enough about that, diving in.

So for the last two weeks of February I was doing good with getting out and walking every evening at work. From 6:00 to 6:10, I did a half lap around the building for two weeks.

Then March hit my like a brick and I haven’t exercised since. In that time frame, though, I learned some things. First, my weight as of 3/3/10 is 387 lbs. That’s a high number, but that’s much better than the 396 I was last year in October. 9 pounds less in six months especially when I know that I did bad over the holidays. The fact I loss in that period is awesome.

Second, I’m learning how to treat food properly. I’ve been getting better at turning away from foods I don’t need and avoid eating just for taste. Still not perfect but I’m getting better as I go on.

So, going forward, I’m going to get back out there and walk. The bronchitis is still hitting me, but if I don’t get my blood flowing I’m not going to get back to full and healthy, and the sickness wins. I’m going to take it easy at first, but I want to be where I was two and a half weeks ago soon. I was so close to being ready to doubling my exercise time, and it was torn down by that virus. I’ve got two weeks left in March to get up to speed to double my exercising in April.

And damn it, April will be an awesome month.

nulloperations

So, let’s just agree that I totally made posts between the 8^th and today. The other posts are just, erm, on a mystical quest that they may or may not return from. Let’s wish them luck.

So it’s Wednesday again, which means weight and diet talk. February has been a disaster as far as eating right goes. I’m still keeping count of calories, but as far as keep below my goal I’ve been a mess. I blame my tendency to relax my diet during the weekends.

Also, I need to stop bringing change to work. I seem to be too friendly with the vending machine especially since they just stocked up on my favorite candy. Curse you Raisinets and your tasty flavor!

Food Goal this week: Make it through the rest of the week without grabbing a soda or candy at work.

Exercise has also been pretty bad. I still try with the hula hoop, but I haven’t quite got the knack with it yet. I need to spend time this weekend really learning how to use it properly and get active.

I’m starting to realize at this pace I’m going to cost myself extra money for travel expenses in September. The only person I’ve got to blame is me at this time.

nulloperations

Sorry for the delay with posting, certain things kept this from appearing on the usual day.

The last week with dieting has been a mixed bag of success and failure. Primarily I failed on Friday and Monday. Friday happened because of ordering out at lunch, dinner, and having a pastry (which is worse because I turned one down that morning but still had one later that evening). Calorie count for Friday was ~2450. Monday failed at dieting but it was a planned failing. It was my anniversary and I knew whatever we did, wherever I went, I was going to be bad.

That’s fine if that’s my one day this month. After that, I need to remain good and loyal to my diet. I’m down to seven months left to lose enough weight to reach my goal of needing only one plane ticket to reach dragon*con.

Frankly, that’s the goal. No weight value, no size value of clothing. Just so long as my fat behind fits in one chair in an airplane, I’m happy. That’ll be over $200.00 in travel expense savings over my planned trip budget.

So now I just have to figure out the size of the seats on the plane I’m riding up in and see how many inches I need to lose to squeeze in.

nulloperations

We’re almost a month into the new year already and things are starting to take shape. In the past few weeks I’ve found myself being far more productive, focused, and driven than I have in the months leading up to the change of decades. I’ve returned to some old favorite activities and have taken up new causes to change how I act and behave. Anyone reading this realizes one such is the new focus on working on my blog, so I’ll leave that one to rest while I go over some of my other recent changes.

Today, as I discussed in a post last week, I’m taking more strides towards weight management. I haven’t started up the exercise portion of the practice but my changes to what I diet on and when are becoming more noticeable. I started my new efforts to begin the day with a hearty breakfast, and slowly end with a very tiny meal for dinner. I’ve been doing it in reverse and I’m wagering that it really hasn’t been helping my metabolism in the least bit.

I guess Wednesday is my “talk about the diet, health thing” day.

Oh yeah, and thanks to a post over at the F7lans forum, I bought a hula hoop to try to learn to exercise with.

Don’t you judge me.

nulloperations

I was looking through some of my archive this morning, and noticed a post I created back in August (Living and writing). Five months ago, I had apparently been really focused on exercise and it was having a positive impact on both my health as well as my writing. In fact, I notice over the last five months at least a third of the posts have related to health or being active in some major way. So it’s on my mind a lot and with this being the new year, maybe I need to actually get myself into gear with all of those great plans.

Thinking about the writing when looking at the archive, I also notice most of my blog posts are about two-three weeks apart. One wonders why the readership here has never really “sparked.” Perhaps I can change that. I can make enough time in the morning to exercise and write if I actually go to sleep when I’m supposed to. There isn’t a single thing that should keep me up past 12am on any given weeknight and that would let me wake up around 7.

So maybe that’s what I have to do now. Write and exercise. It’s a good combination and I think it’ll lead me to a more fulfilling place in terms of my desires. Now, mind you, I won’t be writing a blog piece every weekday. There is only so much I can write about without focusing more on reporting on things. Yet, there are pieces of flash fiction I could write every other morning, posts to write over at TDC, and projects tied into my game creation work. There’s always something to work on available, so I frankly don’t have a viable excuse to not do something creative each morning.

nulloperations

Okay, I’ve bitched about my weight before in the past. I’ve talked about how I did great here, poor here, and lose and gained after this and that. Well, the juggling stops here, because as of January of next year, I am officially on diet using a big motivator.

Money.

That’s right, starting in January me and my wife will be going to a diet clinic getting doctor guided dieting methods. I don’t know the details of the clinic just yet, but we’re finding them out as we go. Ideally this will help us stay focused and on track with our food plans, and maybe, just maybe, I can become healthy enough that I won’t be in pain all the time. That I’ll be able to walk the distance a normal person can. That I’ll feel good about how I look.

I really need this, especially considering I want to go to Dragon*Con this year. If I’m this big when I get to the convention, I won’t be able to do nearly half of what I want. That’s an unacceptable waste of money.

It’s scary though, I’ll give you that. Damn near terrifying thinking of just how strict things will be. At the same time, though, I’m eager. I want to lose the weight and spending $70.00 a week to do it is a great motivator.

I will be posting the results of these weight-ins once they start. I don’t know my exact starting weight right now, but If I had to guess, I’d say around 395-400. Yeah, I’m that big. And just think, when I had my heart surgery two and a half years ago, I was 345. Disgusting…

Now I just wonder if I can get my insurance to help cover it.

nulloperations

Thanksgiving has come and gone. The past four days were glorious moments of family, friends, and of course, food. We’re entering December and the heart of the holiday season and frankly, I think my diet has already had it. This morning I threw away an apple fritter from Friday, some pumpkin bread from turkey day itself, and tonight I’m tossing out the mini-cupcakes and cookie cake from Saturday. Far too many sweets in my house. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ll be eating bad again come 25 days from now, but I can do my best to not during the three and a half weeks in-between.

That said, I’m going to also need to start burning these calories if I’m expecting to actually still lose weight this holiday season. I’m off to a bad start but it’s never too late to turn that around. First I’m going to start walking during one of my breaks at work. Second, I’m going to try to add in walking either in the morning or the evening at home. Likely in the morning because by the time I get home the chill will already be heavy in the air. That and it’ll be bad for my sleep schedule to get worked up that soon before heading to bed.

I’m still near 400 pounds and frankly, I’m tired of it.

Hey, are the rest of you trying to balance the tastiness of the holidays with staying healthy and eating right? It’s not an easy feat, especially with the scores of temptations out there. Let me know what ways you’re cutting back and staying active.

nulloperations

More realizations are coming to me as I focus on my writing. It’s not that’s too surprising but I’m finding that the days I’m working out I have a greater drive to create. Fresh oxygen, adrenaline, and endorphins pour into my brain and kick start my creative engine. Further, I’m also finding a desire to exercise. The idea of looking forward to exercising is such a bizarre and amazing experience. Granted, I realize the three reasons above that are kick starting my mind are probably giving me a bit of a happy buzz in terms of chemical release. Such movement based bliss might even become addictive.

Guess I’ll have to suffer with an addiction to having a healthy body then, eh?

How about the rest of you? Do you get a buzz from working out? It’s exhausting I know, but do you feel good afterwards? I’m interested in hearing what any of you have to say about living a healthier and active lifestyle?

nulloperations

Ah misleading titles, how you do nothing for my audience.

Oh wait, no, this one is actually relevant.

Last week I mentioned in twitter that I would be heading to doctor. Well, I went and returned not a few hours later. I come bearing something important from that fated meeting. Except for the whole “being morbidly obese” thing, I’m in perfect health. Well, at least my heart and cardio system is. Doc gives me a gold star rating on heart health and doesn’t want to see my mug for another year. For someone who is a Marfan’s Syndrome paitent, that long of a span is an amazing thing and it really points to a happy healthy heart.

That in mind, I need to work on getting the rest of the body healthy. This means one thing. Diet. Yup, time to get back on that horse. It’s time to take Raven’s advice and just try the cut carbs approach. The heart doctor suggested the same thing and well, stubborn as I am, I’m inclined to start listening. Only now I need support from Raven. This isn’t a line of “oh it’s her fault” thing, but just a mention I need her help in my cause to get thin but not suggesting some of the foods stuff that I really don’t need (like awesome but bad for me pizza). I need to get that whole willpower thing to turn it down, but it does help to not even have the temptation in the first place.

Speaking of, Raven’s back in town. Picked her and her friend up from the airport Friday night. Nice drive there, not so nice on the way back. I crashed hard that night too (Sleep wise). Got home around midnight and slept until 10. I guess the week caught up to me. Or maybe it was waking up at 5:20 Friday morning.

I want my weekend back.

jdiehl

So I found an interesting site: http://www.wesleychapelforums.com/. Don’t recall if I’ve mentioned the city I live in, Wesley Chapel, but yeah that’s where I live, and this morning I found a website dedicated to that city. From what I’ve read, this isn’t the first version of the site, but it is the most recent. They are just getting started out so I’m going to do what I can to be involved. Who knows, I might just make a friend.

So my sister-in-law found out there’s going to be a writer’s workship/meeting thing at a nearby Barnes and Nobles. As nervous as I am about being around folks I don’t know, I might give it a shot. I believe it’s part of the Florida Writer’s Association, but I’m not positive. I also believe it’s tomorrow but it might be next weekend. I know she said it’s the first Saturday each month, but this is the first one… I think. I admit, my information is shotty at best, but I can verify it when I get home later tonight. Actually, later in like an hour.

Leaving work early today for a doctor’s appointment. My cardiologist isn’t going to be happy with the weight, but eh, I’ve failed to lose it in the last year. Going to talk to him about special diets. No, I’m not interested in weight loss surgery. I’ll pass on that as it’s really only a temporary fix at best. Raven has been talking about maybe a liquid diet. Frightens me but if it must be…

I caught up 2000 words this week already. I have some more to do which I will do tonight after I get home from the doctor’s but before I head out to pick up Raven from the airport at 10pm. Want to get at least 5000 words out by tonight. Maybe more this weekend.

Okay, there, a real life update for once. Need to work some more of those in.

jdiehl