FatBloggers.net

Had a good run tonight.  Well, there was this one part that wasn’t so good.  It was hot today, and the cooling air along the river brought the bugs out in droves.  I was in the middle of my 3-minute-run segment when this bug the size of a small twin-engine aircraft flew into my mouth and lodged in the back of my throat.  As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I heard it radioing for help as it entered my mouth:  “Mayday, mayday tower, we’re on a collision course and are about to get sucked into the vortex of a really big guy who seems to be doing a lot of huffing and puffing.  Initiating counter-attack measures immediately.”  When it hit the back of my throat, I couldn’t very well stop my run and interrupt the fabric of civilization, so I just kept going.  I managed to get it unlodged after very many paces, and luckily didn’t have to swallow it.  I wonder how many WW points that thing would have been?

It’s Weigh-In Day!

Anton… A drum roll if you please…

• Starting Weight (Dec. 22, 2006) – 392 lbs.
• Weight Today (May 31, 2007) – 354.2 lbs.

• Weight Lost This Week – 2.4 lbs.
• Total Loss – 37.8 lbs.
• 10% Goal – 39.2 lbs. (1.4 lbs to go!)

Cross-Published on Rejected Reality

I went to the back doctor today, and I got some mixed news:

The bad: 

• I have several disks that are worn down beyond what would be considered normal for a guy of 40.  He even went so far as to ask what kind of trauma I’d had to my back.  Answer:  None.

The good: 

• He gave me the go ahead to run 3x per week. He even liked the Couch-to-5k program I’m doing.
• My hips are fine, which was a concern going into this thing.
• I have an official target weight:  245.  I got him to sign a paper saying as much, so WW will accept that as my goal. 

I even had a session of some hydro-therapy tonight.  It’s like a water bed, roughly the size of a twin bed.  Get on, lay on your back.  The nurse pushes some buttons, and in a few seconds you’ve got these jets of water running up and down your back.  (See picture)  It felt heavenly.  I have GOT to get one of these for my house.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, fitness, therapy,

Drum roll please, Anton…I’m down 2.6 pounds for a total of 41.8 pounds lost.  I’ve also broken the 260 weight barrier and I’m sitting at 259.8 pounds.  This is the lowest I’ve been in probably 5 years or so.  And just as another milestone, I’ve now been on Weight Watchers for longer than I was on Prism 9 years ago. 

Time to go run.  I’m on week 3 of the Couch-to-5k plan.  I’m starting to get some aches and pains from that, which I think is probably normal for a guy like me trying to turn the clock back a little bit. 

Have a great evening. 

I’m a lot more interested in the numbers of pounds we’re all losing than the numbers of people visiting this site, but it’s fun to stop sometimes and take a look at the traffic we’re getting here at FatBloggers.net.  I fired up this site in January and got it going in earnest in March, and it’s been amazing to see our regular visitors grow.  I love reading the posts and comments you all bring here. 

Since starting up in January, we have had over 6,000 distinct hosts served.  If there’s about one person per host,  and if you take away the usual number of Google bots and other spiders crawling us for indexing purposes, you still have a lot of people checking us out.  I hope you’ve been able to find something on here that helps you on your weight loss journey. 

Here’s a chart I put together using OpenOffice.org that shows our weekly growth since January:

My other blog had a similar spike the week ending April 29, so I wonder if there were a high number of search engine spiders out and about that week. 

And we’re not done yet.  We all still have some weight to lose, and we’re always on the lookout for some good contributors here.  Thanks for a great first three months!

Now more than ever, men are on the dieting industry’s radar screen, according to this AP article I found in a news search this morning.  John pointed out to us earlier that Weight Watchers is targeting their services and articles to the male demographic, and it looks like South Beach and NutriSystem are doing the same. 

This article notes several male celebrities who have recently dropped some weight, including former N’Syncer Joey Fatone (Fat-one?), and former pro athletes Ron Darling and Dan Marino.  The article also gives a startling statistics about men and weight gain:  About 71% of us have a BMI index of 25 or more.  Worse, three-quarters of us are either not dieting or are using our own weight-loss plan (as opposed to an established one.)

As my own motivation ebbs and flows, I need to see articles like this reminding me WHY I’m doing this and why it’s so important to be on an established weight loss program.  I use Weight Watchers, and am willing to disciple other guys to do the same.  There are, however, other successful programs out there.  What’s important is that you find and stick with a good program and find some camaraderie to help you through the low points along the way.

Link to Gut be gone: Men sign up to shed pounds – Living – The Olympian – Olympia, Washington

I’m supposed to run again tonight or tomorrow, but allergy season (my allergies, anyway) has hit pretty hard the last couple of days.  My running spot right along the river, with all of the cottonwood trees, seems to be especially bad.  I drove to the store at 11pm last night to get the 24-hour Claritin, which alleviates some of it, but running is definitely out of the question right now. 

This might be a solution:  Try a different running spot, boost my allergy medication with a different antihistamine, and hope I don’t lay down by the side of the track and take a nap in the middle of my run.   We’ll see how it goes.  I am going to run a 5k this July, and I refuse to let something stupid like seasonal allergies sidetrack me. 

Technorati Tags: exercise, fitness, running, jogging, seasonal allergies, medication

It’s perfectly possible to lose fat simply by exercising, but it takes quite a bit of time and effort. Remember, one pound of body fat is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories.

To burn sufficient calories to lose one pound of body fat, you might:

• Briskly walk a total of 35 miles
• Swim moderately fast for 6 hours
• Dance for 12 hours
• Play about 12.5 hours of golf, carrying your own clubs
• Jog for about 29 miles

Somehow I think that you have to make this kind of investment ONLY if you are downing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night.

It’s Weigh-In Day!

Anton… A drum roll if you please…

Starting Weight (Dec. 22, 2006) – 392 lbs.
Weight Today (May 24, 2007) – 356.6 lbs.

Weight Lost This Week – 2.4 lbs.
Total Loss – 35.4 lbs.
10% Goal – 39.2 lbs.

Cross-Published on Rejecting Your Reality
** I ran across this photo on the internets…. I think it suits me nicely.

+2…

this is kind of surprising.  i thought I would have, at the very least, be -2 if not more.

tsk, tsk, tsk…

i think I can guess why… but certainly no excuse.  i should go run.