15,000 steps a day

It feels so good when hard work pays off. We weighed in last night and I dropped 2.4 pounds. What an amazing feeling. I worked hard all week and I love that I actually get to see and feel the results. This gives me even more motivation to keep moving and working out for another week. More step goals, more boot camp classes and more running.

I am still trying to figure out this whole step goal operation because I am only now finding out how many steps I take on a normal day. For example here are my steps since Saturday:

Saturday - 19,532. This includes a boot camp class, a walk with Hila and Eli and being home all day just being a husband and father. I also hit 10,000 steps before noon.
Sunday - 20,579. This includes a run at the gym and being home all day (chasing Eli around the house is an easy couple thousand steps a day). Also hit 10,000 steps before noon.
Monday - 20,000. Went to boot camp at 6 AM but did not hit 10,000 steps by noon since I took a most beloved nap while Eli slept, and yes it was glorious. I mean who gets up to go to bootcamp at 6 AM on a day off???
Tuesday - 16,050. Three mile run and a 20 min walk during lunch. Also a work day so much of the day was spent sitting.
Wednesday - 10,011. Now this is where things get interesting. I worked all day, and it snowed so I did not take any walks. I also went to Weight Watchers right after work so there was no workout involved. This tells me that on an average, normal day I take 10,000 steps with little to no effort.

My original goal was to take 10,000 steps a day but if I am already taking that many steps a day it is not really much of a goal. My new goal will be to take 15,000 steps a day. In order to do this on a work day I have to work out. Unless I am out on a jobsite for the better part of the day, I will never get to this step count without trying to do so. I like this goal. I like that it puts into perspective when I am and when I am not moving enough.

Plan for tonight is boot camp with a mile run before hand. We have a family challenge going on right now and I am getting beat by my wife, Hila is ALWAYS beating me in fitness challenges, she is a friggin beast, so with only today and tomorrow left I need to step up my game,

Challenge accepted!

I think I am safe in saying that the past 72 hours have been 72 of the busiest hours of my life.  Two birthday dinners, two out of state meetings, three mornings up by 5 AM, one 12 hour work day, one boot camp class and not one night in bed until after 11 PM, oh and a partridge in a pear tree...

Needless to say I have had exactly zero time to post a blog or do much of anything else other that the monstrous list of things listed above.  Anyway tonight is not much better, I am able to make it to boot camp tonight but then I have "Learn to read Hebrew" class immediately following.  I will definitely be crashing out early tonight!

With all that said, I have not done well with eating or working out this week.  I am actively trying to get back on track but things being as they have been have made that quite the difficult path.  I hate missing boot camp, it throws everything else off track but sometimes it is just unavoidable.  And from what I hear it sounds as if I have missed some pretty killer classes.  Bummer!  Well, fear not kiddos, I will be back tonight and ready to bring it.  I am also excited to get in a long run this weekend, it has been entirely too long.  There is just something about a run that fixes all the issues you have going on.  Saturday will be my fix it day!  Probably Burke Like for 4.5 miles, yes, yes I think that's it.

So to recap on last week.  Its amazing what one week of eating perfectly within my points does to my body, go figure I lost 1.4 pounds at the weigh in Monday night.  BOOYAH, easy peasy, just like that.  In total that is over a 10 pound weight loss so far.  This week I may have negated some of that but we shall see.  No need to cry over split milk, pick the glass up and pour another one!  Or something like that...or was it don't cry over spilled milk, it could have been beer.  Maybe that's the one.

Anyway it's good to be back after a little sabbatical, now time to check my issues at the door and get my butt in gear.  Challenge accepted!

The RealAge Test.

So after the post yesterday, my trainer Tom sent me another "Fitness Age" test to take that takes into account many more details than age, fitness level, pulse, etc.  This test took me about 10 minutes to take and I tried to be as honest as possible.  There were definitely a lot of questions but worth it.  Hey look my real age is one year younger than my actual age.  Helloooo 33!!  I feel younger already.

Try it here.  Let me know what your RealAge is.

Of course one of the reasons my body is not as young as it could be is due to my diet.  I was already well aware of these issues but now I can see specifically where my faults may be.  I definitely don't eat enough whole grains, frankly with Weight Watchers grains are higher points and I just avoid them in hope to lose weight.  Looks like I need to find a balance between eating more whole grains and still losing weight.  The same applies to nuts, I just don't eat them.  I find I can eat a substantial more amount of food for the same points as I can a small handful of nuts.  So while they may be very good for you I find I don't just eat a small amount of nuts, they are usually shoveled in by the handful, negating the good benefits they contain.  

Next is weight.  Damn you BMI.  I have always been overweight, always.  Now I don't feel like I am fat by any means, I just am not as thin as I want to be.  Since I am exactly 6' tall, per this test my BMI (28.61) is pushing the obese category.  Really??  How can this be?  My issue with this is that it does not take into account my muscle mass or my generally large stature.  Not every person who is 6' tall weighs the same.  Yes I have weight to lose but for me to get less than 180 I would be stick thin, I don't want to be that thin.  Per this chart the lower section of a healthy weight is 140 pounds.  I could get to 180, cut off my right leg and still not weigh that little.  I guess everyone is different and all we can do is strive for the best everyday.  I may never weigh 180 pounds but I will try my hardest to make sure I am the healthiest weight I can be.  

The 1400!!

Well that is what I am calling it anyway.  Last time we did this workout it was 250 of each.  Push ups, sit ups, burpees, squats with a row, and overhead claps, 250 times each in any order you wish in 50 minutes.  In August I was only able to complete 220 of each.  Last night I finished all 250 is 49 minutes and decided to stay for part of the second class and do another 100 of each for a grand total of 1400 exercises...  350 burpees, what the hell is wrong with me??  Actually today I feel great.  Of course last night was hard but I just pushed through doing 20 reps at a time until I was finished.  Two girls in class still beat me.  Well done ladies, well done.  Just two months of boot camp and I was able to improve my sets by more than 20%.  Not bad, I'll take it.  Ohhhh now I get it, hard work actually does pay off....

Go figure I lost weight last night as well.  Exactly .8 pounds.  Which is exactly what I gained last weigh in so essentially in 4 weeks I have only maintained my weight.  I know why though, as mentioned yesterday... comfort.  Time to focus on eating well and working out at least one weekend day.  Its easy to get to all four boot camp classes, it part of my routine, all I need to do it show up after work.  What is not part of my routine its getting up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and working out, that is is the hard part...where the magic happens as they say.

Side note, probably part of the reason for the above weight maintainingness (yes I made that word up).  Do yourself a favor, on a Cheat Day, and stop by a BonChon Chicken for dinner.  Only item you need to order is the chicken, fine treat yourself to some fries as well, but remember my words, all you will want is the chicken.  It's fantastic.  Double deep fried, covered in soy garlic sauce, it's heaven on a plate.  Feeling frisky, try the hot wings if you dare, they are hot, very hot (매우 뜨거운).  This might possibly be the best chicken I have ever had in my life!!  This is a must try as soon as you can and by the way...I will be accepting thank yous through any of the universally accepted means of communication, yeah it's that good.

Let the countdown begin.

The dreaded weekend.  While I love the weekend for more reasons then I can count, I also know that this is the time where the damage is done.  I will eat and workout every single day of the week, but come Friday night/Saturday morning is a 48 hour countdown to absolute destruction.  Dinners, parties, boredom, get-togethers, wine, whatever it may be, I can easily mess up everything I have done over the past 4 days in the few short hours of the weekend.  My goal this weekend is to focus on not overeating and counting everything that I do eat.  As they say at Weight Watchers, "if you bite it, write it."  That is my plan, no cheating, no making up eating calories by working them off.  All it takes is one night, and yes its easier than you think to put down a good 100 point meal.  Believe me I have done it several times.  And that one meal can be the difference between weight loss and weight gain come Monday night.  Last week I gained .8 pounds and this week I want to lose that plus some.  I need to stay focused and keep my eye on the prize.  The prize = SUCCESS.

I may not be the fastest...

Monday night weight loss - 2.4 pounds.  Down to 211.8.  Getting there...slowly but surely.  Down 8.8 pounds in total.  On average that is about a 1/2 pounds a week.  Now that sure feels like a weight lifted...

I can only hope I feel as great on Sunday as I did on my long run last night, running was just a little bit easier last night than it has been for me on my last several long runs.  I was able to push both the pace and the distance a bit.  Ran 8 miles in just over a 10 minute pace.  Like I said before, not where I wanted to be at this point but still faster than last time, and I felt fantastic!

I keep all my running stats on a site called Dailymile.  All you do is enter your time and distance for each run and it gives you all sorts of different stats.  Since last night was possibly my last run before the race (I may run a 4 miler on Friday just to stay loose and make my total distance a cool 100 miles) I was reading through some of the stats and thought this was interesting.

In the past three months I have run 23 times for a total distance of 96 miles.  The breakdown shows exactly how many miles I ran each week and I like the comparisons about 70 donuts burned, and hey look I saved $5 in gas...sweet.

This is a great tool for tracking workouts if you want to closely follow your progression.  With this site I can see exactly where I missed runs, or how my pace has improved, and even where I think I could have pushed harder.  One difference in my training this year has been a GPS watch, this is the one I have.  I don't know how I ran without one before.  I set the watch to show my pace, so whenever I want to see how fast or slow I am running I just check the watch.  Like last night I kept checking to make sure that I was as close to 6 miles an hour as possible.  If on the uphills I slowed down then on the downhills I tried to pick up the pace.  Without the watch I feel that I just run slower since I have no way to gauge exactly how fast I am running.  With the watch I find I push myself harder because I am in constant competition with myself.  Whether I succeed or not I always try to beat my last time, pace, distance, whatever.  For me this watch helps do that.

Boot camp running week.

Six days in a row working out and pretty much some kind of running workout every day.

Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - 3 miles
Monday - Serious Ass Kicking
Tuesday - 7 miles
Wednesday - Quarter mile splits, half mile splits, quarter mile splits.  Put 2:30 on the clock, run a quarter mile, how ever much time is left is your break, then immediately start another quarter mile, rest.  Put 5:00 on the clock, run a half mile, how ever much time is left is your break, then immediately start another half mile, rest.  Put 2:30 on the clock, run a quarter mile, how ever much time is left is your break, then immediately start another quarter mile, rest.  Sounds easy right, anyone can run a 10 minute mile or faster for only a quarter or half mile right, easy peasy.  Okay, then you try it.  What happens is you start off running at a 6 minute mile and then by the time you cross the finish you are running a 10 minute mile, breathing so hard you want to pass out.  Then you do it all over again, and again, and again.  It was tough, really tough.  Then after all that, we still had to workout.  Needless to say I slept well on Wednesday night.
Thursday - A bit less running but still running none the less.  One partner sits up, pushes, planks, jumps, lunges, whatever while the other runs a lap.  My issue with this is that I don't like anyone to beat me on the run so I take off like a banshee and push myself even harder.  Result, another deep sleep.

I have loved the workouts this week, also felt great to get 6 workouts in a row under the belt.  One thing I have been focusing on this week is my eating and weight loss.  I have not been losing the weight I want mainly due to the fact that if I have one night "off plan" I tend to let that spread into several nights "off plan".  For this week and also for next week I have lowered my allowed daily points by 5.  So normally I get 46 daily points, now I am only working with 41.  Instead of focusing on just eating whatever I want up to 46 points I have been much more focused on eating healthy foods, lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and limiting my carb intake.  I just want to see how this feels and works for two weeks and see how successful I am on the scale come Monday night.  I have a feeling I am going to have a substantial weight loss.  Honestly I feel better.  I feel satiated and just better in general.  I don't feel weighed down by processed foods and crap that really provides no actual benefit to the body other than calories.  I have not been this focused in a while and I want to keep this motivation going.  After these two weeks, if I continue to feel great and satisfied from what I am eating then I may decide to adjust my diet from here on out accordingly.  I have had highs and lows throughout this entire journey, some days/weeks I fall, but I always find a way to pick myself back up.

The world is my playground.

Other than my wife being out of town and the Redskins losing it was an all around great day yesterday.  Made it to boot camp after about a week off.  Although I did not stay for the second part of class.  I was thinking all day that the game was at the normal start time of 8:30, luckily I was informed of the 7 PM start time or I would have missed most of the game.  After class I shot over to Weight Watchers and pulled in a 3.2 pound loss, booyah!!  Felt great to get the gain off from my last weigh in.  Gotta keep focus this week and pull off another great loss next week.  Yesterday was also my first class with our new trainer Kristina.  Great class and my legs are definitely sore today, not to fear though I am sure I will loosen them up tonight with the 7 miler I have planned.  This will be my longest run yet and there is something about a run of this length, you actually get to a euphoric feeling when you are complete, a runner's high.  I don't feel it after a 3 or 4 miles but once you get up to 7 miles I think you burn though all your bodies natural resources and all that is left is the feeling that you accomplished something great.  Even though it will be hot as blazes tonight, I long for that runner's high, it's going to be awesome!

Also finally have my bike fixed up and repaired from the pedal breaking off.  I am thinking this Friday I will head over to Laurel Hill and ride till it gets dark.  If I ride all of the trails shown on the map it's about 10+ miles total.  I love this trail and it very similar riding to what I will be doing for the MOCO Epic 25 miler.  It has been a few weeks since I have been able to ride and I am beyond excited to get back out on the trails.  Really need to make sure I am riding twice a week until the race, especially since I have taken so much time off.

Something I have been thinking about a lot recently is how much I workout outside of the gym.  I have a gym membership but have not even been in a few months, since I got my sling off.  I used to think that the gym was my only place to workout, if I couldn't make it to the gym then I simply was just not going to workout.  I love working out outdoors, hot, cold, rain (although I still have not been able to get a rain run in yet... hmpf).  Well the heat sucks sometimes, like tonight its supposed to be close to 90 but you know what, hey I will sweat more, which means more weight loss!  You don't need a gym to workout, all you need is yourself, shoes (hell you don't even really need shoes), and a little motivation to just get your butt out the door.  Maybe that's one reason I love my boot camp so much, we are outside.  We spend so much time indoors it's nice for at least an hour a day to just be outside.  

Just going to take a little bit of discipline.

Boot camp Monopoly was a smashing success, as was happy hour for Jen.  I had to modify some of the exercises because of my back, the burpees and push ups.  Other than that I did feel some pain but was able to make it through class without issue.  My teammate this time was Allison and we did not win.  Not only was I taking it slow so as not to injure myself we were also sent to Jail 8 times, I blame Allison and her rolling of the dice.  So that was quite a few times that we did no pass go that we did not collect our $200 (1 point).  We did 6 complete laps and the winners did 12.  Yes, we got crushed this time.  Regardless it was a lot of fun.

Going to be yet again another tough weekend, I forgot it was a three day holiday weekend.  Tonight we are off to the National's game, goal for the evening enjoy a beer or three but avoid the pizza, there is just something about ball game pizza.  Mmm mmm good.  At some point I am sure we will meet up with some friend types for a few drinks or just to hang out, might be a good weekend to light up the grill and the fire pit again.  Been too long on that front.  Just need to make sure not to over do it on the drinking or eating.  To be make these right decisions is just going to take a little bit of discipline but I can do it even if I might not want to at the time.

As far as workouts I need to fit in a 6 miler and maybe a Saturday boot camp depending on how tonight goes.  Since I have had so many days off I think I really need to make it three for three with workouts and days off this weekend.  Yet again more discipline.  I also am not sure if Weight Watchers is open on Monday so I may shoot over at some point to weigh in, need to make sure I have dropped that ungodly 3.8 pounds from last weekend.

All in all I am beyond excited for a long weekend.  Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Well yesterday was a complete disaster.

1.  Weigh in - Atrocious!  I gained badly.  I think the gain was worse because of our dinner Sunday night which was red wine and lamb and copious amounts of each.  I gained 3.8 pounds.  There is something not right about that one bit.  Maybe if the weigh in was tonight instead of the very next day after such a large heavy meal it might not have been so high but the scale does not lie.  I weigh almost 4 pounds more than my last weigh in.  That not only is a lot of weight on my body it also weighs heavy on my mind.  I need to stay focused and not lose track of what I am trying to accomplish here.  Gaining that much weight is ridiculous and not worth the food I ate at any point in time.  Get it in check Bobby!

2.  Boot camp - Disappointing.  Made it less than halfway through the first set before the back pain kicked in full force, so badly that I had to leave class early.  I am now at a week with this issue so it's time to call the doc.  I made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon so hopefully we can get this fixed sooner rather than later.  I am highly upset that I am not able to work out.  Maybe that had something to do with the weight gain as well.  I only burned about half the calories I normally would in a week.  Regardless I need to take care of my body, working out does no good if I cannot move and I definitely don't want to injure myself even more.  So here is to another few more days off from working out.

Without being able to workout all I can do is focus on eating well.  I don't think we have too much going on this weekend with eating out and social events so it should not be too bad.  Focus, focus, focus!!

The cheat day.

I don't want to confuse anyone and have people think that I condone eating badly because that is not the case, but something that I have found that works for me is a cheat night.  Not a cheat day or a cheat week but a cheat night.  I only pick a cheat night the night after a weigh in and usually only if I have actually lost weight.  It gives me the entire week to get back on track and helps me to stay focused.  What I have found is that by having one meal where I eat whatever I want takes away that burning desire to eat badly the rest of the week.  Now, I am not talking about mainlining straight butter, okay?  I am talking about just eating whatever it is you may be craving so that you don't end up on the wrong side of a late night chocolate chip cookie dough bender.  I think we have all been there once or twice.  For people like me, the average everyday over-eater, if we restrict our food intake too much we can end up craving something so badly that no matter what happens we seek out this food at all cost and end up feeling guilty because we strayed from the plan or ended up not losing weight because of it.  With a cheat night I find that I am able to satisfy that craving without going crazy.  There is one caveat, a cheat night only works if you have not already done so at another point during the week.  For me for example, the past two weeks I have been spot on with food.  I have eaten within my points all week and even had some of my weekly points left over come Monday night.  Because of this I felt comfortable with a cheat night after the weigh in.  Now the week of Hila's birthday where I ate something like 130 points in one meal, I would be better off skipping the cheat night, because 130 points in one day is probably worse than cheating on one meal.  Usually on a Monday night we will order out and eat Chinese, or something from Spartan's or just eat what we have at the house and have a nice bowl of ice cream (a Bobby to be exact).  If you are one of the unfortunate individuals who has never had a Bobby then let me tell you that you are missing out.  Vanilla ice cream, extra crunchy peanut butter, magic shell and topped with graham crackers crumbs.  Watch out Ben and Jerry, I don't have the patent on it yet but if I see it on your shelves I am coming for you.  This concoction has done wonders for people, its beyond good and to be enjoyed as often as possible, within reason of course.  Ok, back to the topic at hand, sorry peanut butter has a tendency to distract me...

So last night, as I thought was another successful weigh in, down 2.8 lbs. to a total of 213.8.  Since I stared this that is a total weight loss of 6.8 lbs.  It is because of this success and only this success that I feel like a cheat night helps me.  I am able to resist the pizza, cookies, cakes, etc. that are littered around my office each week simply because I know if I resist I can reward myself with exactly what I want and not feel guilty about eating something mediocre just because it is there.  This plan may not work for everyone but I have found that it works for me.  Try it out and let me know what you think.  Best of luck to you.  Dinner last night was some homemade (by Elyanah and Sarit) Israeli food and was beyond delicious.  Also added a glass of wine in there, ok two.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

It's days like today that make this incredibly hard weight loss journey all worth it.  Finally a victory on the on the scale.  Down 3.8 pounds!!!  Booyah.  (current weight 216.6 lbs)  That makes me very happy.  One reason so many people give up on weight loss is they don't see the results they are looking for or they don't see them quickly enough.  I would say on average an individual should be losing between .5 and 1 pound a week, tops.  Until last night for the past three weeks I have only been at a total weight loss of .2 lbs, that's nothing, especially not where I wanted to be while writing a weight loss/fitness blog.  But now, on average, I am losing more then a pound a week, I'll take it.  The only real difference this week compared to the others is that there was not a single night where I ate like a buffoon.  I tracked everything and even had some of my weekly points left over.  I am very proud this morning.  This little bit of success has given me even more motivation to push harder to achieve my first goals.

Tuesday means run day so no boot camp tonight and another trip to Burke Lake, hopefully a better run than Sunday, can't be much worse.  I will take the Tom Kalka approach tonight and possibly run in the rain, see what this rain running is all about.

You win some and you lose some.

This week I lost, not actually but figuratively.  I lost the challenge this week to lose weight, I gained.  Only one pound but still a gain nonetheless.  Yesterday I was hopeful that by accounting for all my food I would still be successful.  Well that is not the case.  You cannot eat more than 100 points over your daily/weekly allowance and still expect to lose weight.  Lesson learned.  Could have been worse I suppose...

Well today is a new day and the start of a new week.  All my points reset and so does my mental state.  I am back in the game and ready to play all nine innings.  Another week, another set of challenges.  At least this week will be in the mid 90's so I should lose at least that gained pound in water weight alone just from sweat.  Kind of gross but at least I have that going for me :)

I am sure it will be another killer bootcamp class tonight.  My thoughts for this week are hydrate, hydrate and then hydrate some more.  I need to be constantly aware of my water intake, dehydration is not something you want to mess with when it is this hot outside.  It's only 11 AM and already I have consumed at least 1.5 liters of water.  I should double that by the start of class and easily consume that much more again, during and after class.

One challenge tonight is going to be dinner out.  Hila and I are social people and one main thing we do is socialize with friends over dinner.  We are going to a Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church called Huong Viet with our friend Dominique.  We have never been before and there are no nutrition facts on the website so I really have no idea what to expect.  Should be interesting trying to calculate the points for this meal but I will try.  Hopefully I will succeed.  I cannot control that food itself but I can control the portions, no need to be the "human garbage disposal" as I have been referred to in the past.  I will try my hardest and hope for the best!

Starting weight 220.6 lbs. I can do this.

Day 1

Starting weight 220.6 lbs. (a surprising 3 pound loss from my last weigh in 3 weeks ago, apparently ordering late night pizza and drinking wine and barbecuing on the fourth of July is the new 2013 weight loss plan!)

I am not sure the best way to start this blog so I may adjust as the days go on but I can already tell you that I feel more motivated to stick to the plan than I have in a long time.  Now I just need to keep that motivation for next several months.

Yesterday was a good day all around.  Bootcamp pretty much kicked my butt, I will get to that shortly.  Food wise, it was great.  I ate in my daily point allowance (47 points) and felt good since I had a weight loss at Weightwatchers.  I was thinking that my goal was 40 lbs. but after yesterday it’s actually only 35 lbs.  So already I am closer to goal.  Under 200 lbs. is definitely attainable, too bad I didn't start this a few weeks ago since I am going to the beach in two weeks, hey even a few pounds of loss is better than nothing.  Not only does the plan call for me to eat within a certain point allowance each day it also calls for me to “Track Healthy Checks” which is to make sure that I drink enough water, eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables and incorporate whole grains, milk products and healthy oils.  Yesterday I had about eight 16 oz. glasses of water, eight servings of fruits and vegetables (thank you Burke Farmer’s market) but no whole grains, milk or healthy oils.  I have never been one to incorporate the healthy oils simply due to the point value (3 points a TBSP for olive oil is a lot for no actual food).  Maybe as time goes on I will see about adding that in and see if I feel any different. 

I think I over did it yesterday with working out.  Our bootcamp class is outdoors at 5:30 PM, needless to say its summer and it was hot as blazes yesterday.  Actual temperature was 86 degrees but on a black parking lot it feels so much hotter, you literally can feel the heat coming off the black top.  I got to class early so I decided to go for a 2 mile run just to get in some extra burn.  Of course once we started class we did upper body workouts like chest press and chest fly while you and your partner alternated running laps.  A lap is just around the parking lot which is not very far but throughout the entire class we ended up running 22 laps, that on top of the run I was pretty much useless halfway through class and the exhaustion and heat started to take over.  At this point I don’t think that I am ready to be running before class just yet.  While I did get a longer total workout in it actually took away from how well I could participate in class.  At this point that is not good.  Because I was so tired from all the running I was not able to do the actual exercises as well and I just took more breaks then I should have.  Lesson learned, no need to be the hero just yet.  I will just be doing the standard class schedule until I get into better shape.  I have bootcamp again tonight and I’m sure it will be just as hot.  Another thing that happened to me yesterday was I ran out of water about ¾ of the way through class, mental note, bring more water to class tonight!

I have plenty of fruits as snacks today along with soup and a sandwich for lunch.  I think today will be another good day with food even though one of my coworkers brought in an entire platter full of cookies and brownies from her 4^th of July party this weekend.  I will be strong and resist the temptation, the weight loss will feel better than the taste of the cookie, at least that is what I need to tell myself for now…

And here we go...

I have been struggling with not only losing weight but also sticking with a fitness plan so I have decided to write a blog.  We shall see how this works but I want to make myself accountable, well more accountable for my actions.  I am going to take pictures of myself and post about my struggles with food and working out.  I currently am a member of Custom Fitness Concepts (http://www.customfitnessconcepts.com), CFC to the in crowd and am a weekly meeting member of Weightwatchers.  I weigh in tonight so I will update my current weight after the meeting.  I also recently had shoulder surgery so I have been pretty much out of the working out loop for several months.  Before the surgery I was what I would call in pretty good shape, although I still lose every long distance race to my wife, Hila, lose is an understatement, I get crushed.  She is fast and in incredible shape.  She recently ran a marathon and she has been a lot of the inspiration for me to take my fitness to the next level.  I have a few goals that I want to set up front.  

1.  Weight - The "book" says I should weight 185 lbs., where this book came from I have no idea but that is pretty low.  I bet I am about 225 right now so that is 40 lbs.  Holy hell that's more than I thought I had to lose.  I am going to make two goals about my weight so that the 40 pound goal does not seem unattainable.  First goal is to get below 200 lbs., I have done it before and I can do it again.  My goal weight at Weightwatchers is 203 so once I beat that I will be free again, that's and extra $40 a month just for being skinnier, I'll take it.  Second goal is to lose the last 15 lbs. and get to 185.  I am not sure that I can get to a healthy 185 but we will see how it goes.  

2.  Fitness - I have several fitness goals all of which I should be able to complete this year, except one.  First, bootcamp, bootcamp, bootcamp.  I really need to make an effort to get to class more often.  This Saturday I passed up a perfectly good opportunity to go to class for no more reason than I just didn’t want to.  Sure I made some excuses in my head about cleaning and running errands since we had company coming over but really they were all excuses.  I should have gone.  Hila was planning on going all weekend and asked me a gazillion times to go and each time I said maybe, damn well knowing I was not going to go.  Of course I heard the class was awesome and I felt guilty the whole rest of the day for not going.  Yes, I ran some errands and got some things done but bottom line is I did not get in a workout.  One day farther from my goal and that does not make me happy.  

Second, the dreaded run.  I really need to up my running game.  I am slow, fat and lazy right now.  I have run in several races but never have I been a good runner.  Frankly I hate it, but I know that running and running alone with improve my fitness level all around.  I am signed up for the Army 10 miler in October and my goal for this is to run the entire race in under a 9 minute mile pace.  That will be a minute faster than I have ever run a 10 mile race.  

Third is mountain biking.  I have recently taken up mountain biking and would also like to take this to the next level.  I am currently participating in a weekly race series called Wednesdays at Wakefield.  Its 4 races on 4 Wednesdays, we have raced two so far and this week is the third.  First I raced in the Clydesdale category (200 lbs. and over).  This consisted of three 3.3 mile laps, needless to say I was the absolute last person to cross the finish line.  Coming from a background of being better than average physically this was a hard one for me.  I knew I was last place from the word go.  I was lapped by just about everyone, even the racers who were doing 4 laps.  Quite the humbling experience.  The next week I contacted the race director and asked to be moved to the beginner level which is only two laps.  While this was a much better fit for me I still finished second to last out of 16 guys.  We will see how I do this week.  My goal for this is simple, get better.  In October, the weekend before the Army 10 miler, there is a 25 mile ride in Montgomery County called the MOCO Epic (http://mocoepic.com).  My goal is to ride in this ride and do it well.  This is not a race but I want to be able to complete this ride without feeling like I want to die.  So far 10 miles is the farthest I have ridden so 25 miles is quite a feat.  

Fourth is another Tough Mudder (http://toughmudder.com).  I have run two of these so far and unfortunately the next one is the same day as the Army 10 miler.  So while I may not be able to complete this goal this year, its something that I want to do soon.  I completed both TM's previously but could not do so without walking.  My goal for this next one, whenever that may be is to complete this race without walking at all.  

3.  Looks - I have never been classified as having a good body.  I pretty much have, no not pretty much, I have been overweight my entire life.  Simply, I want to have the beach type muscular body I see on TV all the time.  How the heck to these guys look like this??  I am not sure how this one will come about but with any luck it just will by following my goals and sticking to the plan.  

Now other than my own head talking me out of working out and eating right I do have a shoulder issue.  Yes I just had surgery so its extremely weak but I also think this surgery has not fixed it 100%.  I have had rotator cuff surgery twice and I have a feeling I will need it again.  I will work through the pain and weakness for now and will update again once I go back to the doctors for my 6 month follow up in July. 

This will not be easy but if I put it out there for all to see there will be no reason for me not to meet my goals.  I have a fantastic wife who is willing to workout with me any anytime.  I have tools from the folks at CFC to reach all my fitness goals.  Now the hard part is just doing it.  I have bootcamp tonight and then Weightwatchers afterwards, I will update on each tomorrow.  Let the goal reaching begin!!