FatBloggers.net

It’s POURING rain outside, and I’m grinning ear to ear.

I lost SEVEN pounds this week for a grand total of 40 pounds in 10 weeks. That’s as much as this big assed rat carved out of cheese! SWEET IRONY!
(photo redacted)

Anyways, after my gain last week, I’ve decided on a new weigh-in routine! I’ll go over the good, bad, and room for improvement.

The good:

• Lifted 3 times
• Planned on the camping trip and had food ready in advance
• New delicious birthday cake was sitting at home, and planned diet accordingly
• At very good lunches and breakfasts all week

The bad:

• Didn’t walk 2 miles every off day, and could have. I always walked at least 0.5 miles though
• Ate way more cake than I needed to
• Annihilated a bag of cheetos at uriahs

Going to improve:

• Walk 2 miles on my non-lift days
• Plan for 6 hour car rides this weekend, have healthy food ready
• Keep snacking to a minimum
• Don’t devour snacks at Erik’s wedding

See the rest and a photo of a giant rat carved out of cheese after the jump

The day finally arrived. I’ve been talking about running the 5km race of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon for some time now, and my friends Alison, Lisa and I have been training for it. Last night the three of us got together with Lisa’s sister Kim, who was also running with us, for a pre-run dinner. No, we didn’t dine on mounds of pasta — we dined on a scrumptious sushi dinner. A couple of spicy tuna rolls, some veggies, and a tasty rainbow roll later, I felt well loaded with protein and carbs to fuel the next day’s run.

Alison drove in yesterday from out of town for today’s run, so she stayed at my place. We work early today, had our coffee, tea and breakfast of champions (steel cut oatmeal with raisins, walnuts, and some peanut butter), and watched the start of the marathon on the news while we contemplated what awaited us. As the newscaster spoke of the 20,000 participants (marathon, half-marathon, and 5k), and the approximately 30,000 spectators, we both started to get a bit anxious. You see, we’ve been training in the peaceful seclusion of a trail system running along a river by our office, so cranking through a run in front of a crowd wasn’t something either of us were quite prepared for. But there was no turning back. A few final adjustments to our attire (the weather was pretty great, about 16 degrees Celcius, overcast), we headed out to catch the shuttle bus to the start line.

The race was to begin at 10:20am, and we arrived at around 8:15 or so with plenty of time to spare. As we walked past the finish line towards the shuttle, the announcer proclaimed the fact that the leaders of the marathon (who had started just over an hour earlier) were now at their 19th kilometre, and were well on track to set a Canadian record. In fact, the winner did set a record today, coming in at 2 hours and 8 minutes — the fastest marathon ever run on Canadian soil. Incredible. As we strolled along the last kilometer of the course, the magnitude of it all began to settle in. And that’s when I started a long-line of what was to become a series of ‘nervous pees’ over the next hour or so.

Read the rest and see pictures at http://tinyurl.com/y88qrpy

So the final preparations have begun for my first road race this coming Sunday. It’s a 5km run — the first I’ve ever done, and I’m starting to get psyched for what Sunday might bring. In true Virgo style, I’m taking care of the details — checking the weather report, making sure I’ve got meals appropriately planned, having my gear all in place, creating the 5km playlist on my iPod, and basically, I’m relaxing…. as much as you can when you’re about to do something you never thought you ever would ever do.

Rewind 19 months… remember, I was 435 pounds and could barely crank out a 10-minute walk on a treadmill at the gym. I never thought I’d get to a point where I was preparing for a 5k run, and thinking that this is but the first step in may more runs to come. What I once thought was unimaginable is now close to being very real, and I’m pretty excited by the possibility.

Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/ye2uc4y

I gained weight, a half pound. Ugh.

I saw the number, had my tizzie, and I’m over it. Here are things I can, and will do better this week:

-Get 2 miles every day I don’t lift (only been doing 0.5 miles, a stroll, not an exercise)
-Drink more water on the weekends
-NO MORE than 1 piece of bread when I eat out
-Use less creamer\sugar in coffee
-Make better choices eating out
-Learn to say no

However, some positives:
-I went 4 days without my meds, and water retention is a side affect, possibly affecting my loss
-Every time I lift my body recovers and bounces back in hours, not days.
-I can feel definition around my neck, shoulders, and hips already
-I can do 25 squats now, without my legs falling off
-I’m feeling better about myself

What dissapointed me about the week is I thought it would be a huge loss based on my escapades with the scale at the Rec Center (max 440) fighting really hard to give me a reading.

Live and learn I guess
G.

greggorob64.blogspot.com

Be sure to check out today’s Motivation for Monday post – it contains the introduction to a contest.  The Hot 100 – Going Out With a Bang! officially kicks off on Wednesday, but all the details are in the Motivation for Monday post.

Now, for the past few months, I’ve been getting a bit bored with my cardio workouts. Even though I’ve taken up running, and am officially one week away from my first ever road race (the ScotiaBank Toronto Waterfront Marathon… I’m running the 5-k), I have found lately that my cardio sessions, which are about an hour a day, have been mundane. I know this not only from the fact that my mind begins to wander, and I am not fully ‘present’ in the workout, but also from the fact that my calorie burn and heart rate output hasn’t been as high as I would like. So for a while, I tried to vary my cardio sessions, by doing a circuit of 10 minutes of running, elliptical, and stationary bike work, but it was still a bit dull. That said, I had started to disengage a bit with what I was doing.

Then, a few weeks ago, my very dear friend Liza asked me if I wanted to try a spinning class. Spinning (or indoor cycling) is a low-intensity cardio workout done on a high-end stationary bike. I figured this would be great training, because I have set another goal of joining my friend Jonathan on the Friends for Life ride — a 5-day 600-km bike ride between Toronto and Montreal in July 2010 to raise money for people living with HIV/AIDS. The difference between a spinning class (which lasts about 50 minutes) and simply doing a ride on the bike at the gym however, is that the instructor takes you through a multi-terrain workout of sprinting, hill climbs, all-terrain rides, and interval power rides that push your body through a wide range of work and recovery periods that provide for a pretty incredible workout. As the rider, you control the intensity of your workout, but cranking up your dial — adding pace, resistance and intensity to your ride, that allows you to be fully in control of where you take your body on any given day. It’s a pretty cool experience that really forces you to be connected to what you’re doing with you body; to know your strength, your weakness, and most importantly where you can capitalize on the opportunity to push your body that little bit further and burn lots of calories. Now, add into the mix a group of about 10 or so other riders (all of whom have differing skill levels) who are all committed to challenging themselves to take their workout to the next level, and a leader who is part night club DJ, part coach, part instructor, and part beneficiary of the benefits of spinning, and you end up with a pretty cool workout.

Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/nb7j6t

I have a goal board.  It rocks.  I’ll post it and ’splain it later.   This post isn’t about that, it’s about my second goal board I’m going to make, and I’m just gonna drop some ideas down to come back to later.
-Enjoy a bike ride
-Ride a roller coaster
-Zip up winter jacket comfortably
-Zip up red ecko hoodie comfortably
-Zip up red GAP comfortably
-Jog a 1\4, 1\2, 3\4, 1
-Jog 1k,5k
-Do a pull up
-Do a chin up

See the rest on my blog, but I need suggestions!  I have to fill this board up its the best reminder I can give my self.

I used to mopey, really mopey. And entirely pissed off.

When I was a young(er) lad in High School (I still am a young lad), I was annoyed, and I never even knew it.

It all stemmed from my hatred of (most of) school. I’m a smart guy, and never minded the work, but studying and schoolwork is probably the most insignificant part of school. As most every fat kid in existence, the teasing started at a young age. Of course I could fight back both physically and verbally, and I did. It didn’t help, and I resigned to the existence of the tormentors. Don’t feel sorry, I could have did something about it, but didn’t.

Enter high school: I generally had a lot of friends, and should have been happy. My classes were great and I prepping myself for a career. I was just ticked off.

* The ‘ruling class’ of preppies was fierce growing up in P-town. I don’t know why I couldn’t ignore them. Other people’s elitism drove me insane.
* I hated anything to do with gym, for obvious reasons, gym classes is best opportunity for torment.
* I would worry about random shit, and usually carry the whole world on my shoulders.
* I worked my ass off. Like 30 hours a week (legal limit in MI is 19 when you’re a student). I felt like I was doing something good, something tangible. Even though I was just a gas station clerk, I was f’ing good at it, I could run numbers in my head like no ones business and had the run of the place in a year.
* Not to sound cocky, I just felt like there were a bunch of people tried so much less hard as me and were rewarded so much more. I think this cause myself (and my friends to an extent) to get a sense of something owed, a sense of entitlement.

“I KNOW the whole world isn’t like this, it has to get better”

This thought, my mantra, doesn’t make things better. The sense of anticipation just made me despise my current position in life even more.

The world would get better in college, of course! But it didn’t. It actually got better before college, in the end of high school .

See what this has to do with weight loss after the jump…

Crossposted at Antimattr

I’ve found a few podcasts I like about weight loss, and I’m listing them below. What are your favorites?

No Excuses Weight Loss by Jonathan Roche
Weight Watchers Blogger
Logical Weight Loss

It’s official. As of tonight, I have now dropped 170 pounds. In just about 19 months, I have lost the equivalent of a grown man. After Sebastien weighed me in at the gym tonight, he started to giggle a bit. He giggles every now and again, and I just pass it off as him enjoying what we’re doing. But tonight the giggle meant a little bit more than I thought.

You see, last week, I recorded my first ‘gain’ since Seb and I actually started tracking my progress in weights and measures. I had two pretty nutty weeks at work prior to our session last week, and was just happy to still be standing at the end of it all. I worked 17 days straight with no days off, and managed to squeeze in some training here and there. My diet was crap — I didn’t load up on fast food, but I didn’t necessarily try to eat well either. Let’s just say that my daily dose of raw broccoli wasn’t happening. So last week when I weighed in, I had gained just over a pound. I had been regretting that moment for quite some time. I told Seb time and time again that if my weight remains the same, I’m cool with that. But I’d simply lose it if I gained.

Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/oo8ryr