Monday, September 29, 2014

Monday, Monday, Monday!

Typically Monday is the second work day of my ... well, week.

I work Sunday, Monday, off on Tuesday, back at work for Wednesday and Thursday, then off on Friday and Saturday. I work 10 hour shifts. I got into the gym at about 3:50 AM today, and won't leave work until 3:30. Basically, I'm present on my work site for 12 hours a day, 4 days a week. About an hour in the gym, 10 hours working, a half hour lunch, and the other half hour (almost) is basically walking to and from my car. It takes about 7 minutes to walk from my car to my desk, 3 minutes maybe to go from the car to the gym locker room. Our parking lot is way out there.

It was a good workout today, spent my time on the elliptical machine doing the "weight loss" work out which alternates from an incline of 1 (flat) and 4 resistance, to incline of 8 and 10 resistance. Since machines all vary, this means almost nothing to everybody else. :)

Did some work on my arms and chest and called it a day (in the gym) and headed back to the car to drop off my gym clothes bag and grabbed my lunch, then headed to my desk where I am now.

Speaking of lunch (and breakfast which I bring), here's the rundown:

Coffee (w/ creamer which I'm now measuring out to make sure I don't just absorb an extra hundred calories for almost nothing in return).
Muscle Milk (1 scoop of powder)
Cottage Cheese (1/2 cup - 2%)
Grapes (about 14 oz.)
Chicken Chipotle Flautas (lunch, 2 sticks)
Fruit Snacks (1 pouch - maybe)
Granola Bar (Peanut Sweet & Salty - Nature Valley)
Ritz Crackers (on standby in my desk drawer)

All of that comes out to about 1,257 calories. Not sure about dinner yet. Was going to make tacos (we bought like 5 pounds of hamburger at Costco, I sectioned it out and froze 4/5ths of it), but wife and daughter aren't thrilled about that, so I have to figure something else out.

Overall, I should stay under 2,000 calories today. The biggest challenge, probably, is keeping myself disciplined on my three off days and not mindlessly eat little things here and there that add up super fast. It's like Fighter Diet founder Pauline Nordin says (paraphrased), "It doesn't matter the work you do during the week if you're undoing it on the weekend."

Also, it isn't much, but between 2 weeks ago when I weighed in (293.8 lbs) and today (291.4 lbs) the scale is at least headed in the right direction.

Monday, September 15, 2014

The Two-Step...

Two days in a row? Might be something going on...

Hit the gym again this morning after getting to bed at a decent time. Getting up at three isn't easy if you're going to bed (sleep) after 10. I was pretty much out around nine last night, so I only did the snooze dance one time this morning.

Decided it was time to get back to the weights as I have not been on those in quite some time. Nothing big since I'd been away for far too long. A few sets with the bench press (95 lbs), shoulder press machine (uh, not very much, I'm shocked at how weak my shoulders are), and the triceps extension machine (again, WEAK!). After all of that, I hit the elliptical machine again for my 33 minutes. I went a little harder this time, getting my heart rate up into the 150s and burning around 400 calories (according to the machine - my Lose It app says around 600).

It's about consistency right? Time to find that rhythm and keep at it.


Sunday, September 14, 2014

Almost 5 months...

Somewhere along the way motivation wandered into a dark room and decided to stay for a while.

Now, I've gone to the gym here and there and just never got back on track.

Inspiration comes in different forms. Heroes. Best Friends. Striving for health. The list goes on and on. My wife is an inspiration for me to get back on track. Mostly out of fear of being totally left behind.

About nine months ago my wife was struggling with weight loss, like well, pretty much all of us. She'd been doing roller derby for about a year at that time and was still considering herself one of the "big girls." Those are the rare gals that somehow combine weight and speed to be formidable blockers and intense hitters. They kind of remind me of football players that line up in the trenches. You know the big guys, that look like couch potatoes (sometimes), and then totally shock you with their speed and quickness.

So, my wife began cutting her portions. A lot. Now, it kind of comes easier for her than others because when she eats, she pays a price. It (eating) makes her sick a lot of times. She has to eat, but sometimes it's a gauge of how sick she wants to tolerate that day. The weird thing is, nobody can figure out what's wrong. Doctors haven't figured out the trigger, and for all intents and purposes, the triggers are everything and nothing.

Some days she'll eat a salad and be fine, a couple of days later, she'll eat the same type of salad and wish she was dead because of the pain she's experiencing. Same for burgers, fish, dairy, bread, oh hell, I'll save some time and just say "everything."

In the last nine months, still doing roller derby, my wife has shed an amazing 65 pounds. Sixty-five! She's gotten to the point that she can push it really hard and compete with some of the jammers.

Even when I was hitting the gym consistently, I was seeing nothing happening. Granted, I sure didn't give it a year. Messing up that muscle (excuse coming) in my back/neck back in March just made me revert back to being only "slightly" active.

Food consumption changed only a little bit. Portion control was anything but. Probably more like "outta control." One of the problems is that I sit at a desk. Four days a week. 10 hours during those days. Work is interesting, if not repetitive. And I ALWAYS feel like eating something. I bring my breakfast and lunch to work. But always feel like there needs to be more. Juice and soda is free here. Talk about a fight every day. We do have coke zero, diet, etc. But you know how it is. Why get those when there's a cherry coke RIGHT THERE!?

So the transition needs to happen, instead of spooning out three tablespoons of cottage cheese, I need to measure it. Turns out I can easily get a full serving (half of a cup) from a heaping teaspoon. I made sure I came with just ONE serving of cottage cheese today. A couple of clementine oranges. Leftovers from dinner the other night (homemade beef-a-roni), and we'll see how it goes from there.

Spent about a 33 minutes on the elliptical machine this morning. Weight loss mode.

Inspiration comes in many forms. My inspiration is my wife and her toughness, consistency, and determination. Inspiration is knocking on the door where motivation is hiding and inviting it to come out to play.