Here is an excerpt from my latest entry at I Quit Again titled “How to Recover from a Bad Food Choice“:

This wasn’t a random accident; this didn’t happen to me, this was done by me.  I had a pastor once that said people don’t fall into sin, they “dig the swimming pool with a spoon, fill it using a thimble, build the diving board out of toothpicks and jump in”.  I planned to get skittles when I headed to the movie.  I skipped dinner knowing I would need the calories and could use that as justification.  I am guilty as charged.  I went to the movies and for me the movies are a place to eat skittles (for you it might be popcorn, but not me).

My December goal is an extremely aggressive 30lbs.  My current plan is to cut my intake to no more than 2000 calories a day and burn 500 to 1000 calories each day in the gym.  In order to stay on top of it, I plan to post everyday my food intake, my exercise, my sleep pattern, and my daily weight.  I will adjust as needed.

I want to get no less than 6 hours a day in sleep, so I have to be in bed each day no later than 11:30 or I will be late to my 6 am workout.  Its almost 2am now… No excusses, I’m up too late and I know this is a habit I will have to break.  I look forward to your encouragement, your prayers, and your support.

I am going to cycle commute to work… Again… No, really this time! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here on the blog, but I recently changed teams at work and I changed building that I report to – so now, instead of almost 19 miles to work each way, I have a mere 8.3 miles to work each way! The new building does have a shower and lockers and the bike route is mostly on-street bike lanes just as my old commute was. So, now I can get to work in about 45 mins instead of an hour and 40 mins.

I rode my bike to work yesterday, but I did not ride it home. I got caught up in the new job functions and worked until after 7:30 so I had Stephanie drive up and join me for dinner. The bike’s night lights (required for street riding) don’t have good batteries. Anyway, I also rode my bike to work today, this time both ways, and I was still able to get home in time to get to church! Stephanie and I have felt the pressure of being a one car family and my being able to ride my bike to work again should be a big help.

Plus, I’m training for the next D-Tour which is going to be riding along the Katy Trail in Missouri. Its a short 225 mile trail and I will be joined by my brother-in-law in Sedalai. It should be a lot of fun and we plan to finish in about five days. I think we might even be able to finish three days – since there are no mountains to climb. It all depends on how in shape the two of us are. Both of the scenic pictures in this post are from the Katy trail.

Back on point – My goal is to ride my bike several days a week. I even purchased a bluetooth headset to allow me to listen to music from my phone while riding without having to have the cable draped across the handle bars. I’m not excited about its performance so far… I’ll save that for a possible future post.

P.S. – I still owe Aaron Delong (http://tru-magic.com) a D-Tour AZ-TX, 2007 T-Shirt – which I am going to send him, as soon as I design them, have them made, and pay for them…

Results not typical. What if you saw a car commercial with ‘actual customers’ saying “This is a great car, very affordable, reliable, sporty, and fun to drive!” but the small print said “Results not typical”? Would you buy that car? It’s sad to think that while the rest of the world is starving, we are spending billions of dollars to take off the pounds – but its tragic to think that despite that the results are… not typical. Television shows like “The Biggest Loser” tell us that you can lose 30 lbs in a week, while doctor’s tell us that anything over 2 lbs a week is unhealthy weight loss.

My goal this year is to loose 50 lbs, considering that I am about 120 lbs overweight. I pray that at the end of 2008, I can say ‘Results Not Typical’, but for the last several years I keep getting typical results…

Anyway, at the end of the summer I weighted in at 291.5 lbs with 169 lbs of lean weight and 122.4 pounds of fat. After my 10 year high school reunion, the riding season was over, it started to get too cold for me to ride to work and the holiday seasons activities began to pick up. At one point I weighted 311.9 lbs! Just before I left for the D-Tour 2007, I weighted 302.8 lbs with 166.5 lbs of lean weight and 136.3 lbs of fat – that’s 45.03% fat!!!

Today I found that 735 miles in two weeks seem to be worth about as much as 1500 miles over three months! Here are the results:

Lean Weight: 166.4 lbs
Fat Weight: 124.6 lbs
Total Weight: 291 lbs

That’s right – I lost almost 12 pounds of pure FAT!!!  WoooHoooo!!!!

“I had a big bash last weekend. I went off the diet, and I thought, “All right, this is going to be cool,” and it wasn’t that big a deal. … I didn’t have all that much, but what I did taste, it did not have the sense of nirvana to it that I thought it would.”  — Rush Limbaugh

I was reading Rush Limbaugh’s website and came across this quote regarding his weight loss program. I believe my weight loss issues are because of my diet. I have to get ahead of this – I have to get the weight off. The idea that “nothing tastes as good as been thin feels” is one I haven’t been able to commit to yet… I’m leaving on a cruise today – all you can eat, all day, everyday for the next seven days… doh!

On the weightloss front, I told myself that if I went two weeks without training after my personal training sessions were over, I would renew. Looks like I’m going to have to renew… maybe. I say maybe, not because I still have time left in my two weeks to pull through, but because I’m giving myself another chance. I didn’t work out for the two weeks after my training, but I was sick one week and my work out buddy was out the other. This week (week 3 since professional training) I have worked out twice. I’m putting myself on a short lease – as long as I am working out three days a week, I will not spend the money on additional training, but as soon as I miss another session, I’m headed down to the gym to meet the trainer….

Anyway, I hope to get on here again this weekend and share some of the past month with you guys… thanks for reading.

I paid for a personal trainer mid-way through January.  I got 12 one hour sessions scheduled at twice a week for six weeks.  Today was the last day of those sessions.  I have to say that I have seen a difference in my arms and chest.  I can feel my shoulders have developed too.  I have even seen some weight loss.  BUT…

I went to the BodPod testing center (its body composition – I.E. body fat verse lean muscle mass) at the end of last year and I was at 45% body fat.  I weighted about 305 lbs.  Two weeks ago I was tested again and I had lose over 5 lbs, but the great part was I had actually lost 13 lbs of fat and gained almost 8 lbs of muscle.  I was feeling pretty good about it.  BUT…

Yesterday I went to test again now that I am at the end of my personal training.  I expected to see another few pounds lost and maybe even see some gain in lean muscle mass.  I weighted in at 294 lbs – great!  Then the body composition testing…drum roll…..

I GAINED A POUND OF FAT AND LOST 7 POUNDS OF LEAN MUSCLE MASS!!!  Needless to say, I am discouraged and I am again fustrated.  I will continue the fight, but I do feel like I’ve just lost a battle…

Now that my home gym is together, lets see if I can get my act together…