FatBloggers.net A little push to lose the tush.

MarkFu brings up an interesting point.

I was raised with the philosophy that the phone was there as a service to ME! I never could understand why someone would tear through their house, knocking over furniture and kicking the dog to answer a ringing phone. The same holds true with my cell phone. If the call is important and I can’t make it without endangering myself or my surroundings. The caller is free to leave a message or call back.

Generally, I leave my phone in the car when I’m at the gym. I hear a number of them ringing from inside lockers in the locker room. Just the other day Mr. To-Damn-Important had one of those beetle looking devices hanging from his ear. I was plugged into my iPod, minding my own business of sweating and he was on the elliptical next to mine. Suddenly I was hearing a blow-by-blow account of the previous nights Dancing with the Stars. I was approaching a rolling boil, so I moved. But who the hell did this guy think he was?

Have you had any bizarre cell phone experiences at the gym (or anywhere else for that matter)?

At various locations around my blog, I have posted some really spectacular tools that you could use for you own weightloss journey. Thanks to Tim at 2Big for pointing the way, I have joined another weightloss community called, Traineo.

Traineo is free and has a number of different ways you can journal the ways you are transforming your body and lifestyle. If you are looking for ways to add to your support structure, Traineo can connect you with others in your area that are making the same transformation. Usually when I search for ‘People Near Me’ on these types of sites, there is NO ONE! Because I live in an area that, when the Oregon Trail Pioneers saw it they said, “Nah, lets keep going” (Lewis & Clark did it too). Surprisingly, there were a number of people in Pendleton, Hermiston, Milton-Freewater, Walla Walla and up toward the Tri-Cities.

In the left sidebar of my blog, in the section My Other Stuff you will find this button.

Now that I am past the 1/2 point of my transformation, I chose the button that tells me (and you) how much further I need to go. Like the Pioneers, it’s nice here, but I want to keep going!

in less than 24 hours i’ll be on a carnival cruise ship. poor me, right?

i’ve decided to look at the trip as a challenge. can i do well, in the worst of places when it comes to eating right? we’ll see. i’ve got faith though.

while i’m on the trip, i will be documenting everything i eat, both by picture and words. so be looking forward to a lengthly, in-depth post when i get back.

also, for those of you interested, on my personal blog i have a special guest blogger, pete thomas, who won $100,000 on season two of nbc’s hit reality show “the biggest loser” for losing the most overall weight. he will be doing a two part series on my website that, believe me… i’ve read it already, is absolutely incredible. so please stop by and show pete some love.

see you all in a week!

A few weeks back the owner/manager of my gym, The Roundup Athletic Club, told me about this challenge between folks from the gym and staffers at the local paper, the East Oregonian.

The challenge will last for 12-weeks (Feb. 4 - Apr. 28) with weekly personal trainer time and a ‘micro-fit’ (a computerized evaluation of your body composition and overall health). The papers’ involvement in this would be a 12-week feature in the paper and online, where we all (participants and trainers) will write a blog.

When I told The Wife about this, she asked if I was ready for all of Pendleton and Umatilla County to know the details of my weight loss journey. I reminded her that I had been posting the ups and downs of that struggle and others here and on I Reject Your Reality…. She replied, “Yeah, but how many of those people actually know you?”

Good Point…

For all the locals that are looking at this for the first time… welcome.

Pictured at right are 5 of 6 Pendleton participants (L to R), Wendy DelPaz (EO General Manager), Dave Sager (EO Deputy Managing Editor), Justin Chartrey (EO Sports Writer), Yours Truly and (seated) Roberta Lavadour (Executive Dir. Pendleton Center for the Arts), not pictured Breana Anderson (BMCC Student). See how sad and grumpy we all look? This is our ‘before’ picture. 12-weeks from now we will be happy and buff!

I never asked, because I’m in this thing for the intangibles, but one of the other participants asked, is there was a prize for the winner loser? The answer was rather unclear during the meetings, until I read it in the Sunday paper. The winner loser will get a $200 dinner for 4 at the Hamley Steakhouse! How appropriate! For the record… I LOVE Hamley’s!

Cross-published on I Reject Your Reality…

Healthy You Challenge:

I wanted to put a couple tools in place to keep me motivated in the New Year. I didn’t want to make a ‘resolution’ because people seem to roll their eyes at those, myself included. But if you set a reasonable goal and put a plan into place to achieve it, good for you!

To mark the end of my first week on the Healthy You Challenge, I would like to post a follow-up to a post I made earlier in the week. I am mildly annoyed by the people that are clogging up the gym. These people that are making thier 896th ‘resolution’ to lose weight, change thier bad habits, 75% of them won’t be clogging the gym in a few weeks. They don’t have a plan. They see some info-mercial or read a magazine article that proclaims that they will lose 25 lbs by swimsuit season. Oh, and check out the 75 ways to make a decadent dessert on page 93.

Take it from me, if you have more than 20 lbs to lose, you need to have a plan to get you through the boring gray days of March and the gorgeous days of June & July when you would rather be sitting someplace air conditioned than sweating it out on the stationary bike. Make a plan… slow and steady wins the race.

• HYC Starting Weight - 317 lbs (1/3/08)
• Week 1 Weigh-In - 315.4 lbs (1/10/08)
• Weight Change - 1.6 lbs lost

Now, back to my regular weigh in…

Anton… a drum roll please…

Starting Weight (Dec. 22, 2006): 392 lbs.
Starting BMI: 51.7
Weight Today (Jan. 10, 2008): 315.4 lbs.
Current BMI: 41.6

Weight Change This Week: -1.6 lbs.
Total Weight Lost: -76.6 lbs.
NEXT GOAL: 311 lbs. Halfway to GOAL! (4.4 lbs. to go)

AND…

I am wearing new smaller sized pants!
Thanks WebCudgel!

This post is cross-published on Rejecting Your Reality

For every 50 or so posts by women over on The Weigh We Were there is a guy. Such is the world of weightloss. It is so very difficult to find blogs & websites that are beefed up with MORE POWER!

I could really relate with today’s post, a 300+ lb guy who had always been fat and has a ‘come to Jesus’ moment when he has to walk into a cardiac ward to visit his mother. The weight of the stares was the impetus to shed the excess poundage.

You may have missed it, but this last Saturday (Sept. 22), marked the beginning of the final 100 days of 2007.� I stumbled upon a blog called, Hundred Day Head Start. The author goes on the premise that we shouldn’t wait until 01/01/08 to make a change in your life, do it now and get a 100 day head start!

264 down… 100 to go… are you better off today than you were 9 months ago? One year ago? Or will you be ’surviving’ the holidays, hoping that you keep your weight gain UNDER 15 lbs? Only to be one of the many that clog up the gym and WeightWatchers meetings in January?

Start today and get a 96 day head start! The gym is remarkably uncrowded.

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome a new FatBlogger to the fold. John from John Is Fit. He is just beginning to trod the road we have been traveling, lo these last 8 months. I told him that this was a good place for support, confession and the occasional swift kick in the pants.

He already exists in the Blogrolls of many of our contributers, now he is here to bring his uniqueness to our collective.

�PS - He will be designated John C. on this blog and I will be John T.

Barry Hughes has ten great tips for losing weight, probably the most comprehensive list like this that I’ve seen in quite a while.  These are things you can do with a minimum of effort or expense, but they will make all the difference in the world when you want to drop some weight.  Simple but profound things like eating natural foods instead of processed.  Drink less soda.  And my favorite, blog or keep a journal of some kind.  How many of these are you doing?

And Brian, over at Lose Weight With Me, has six summer time weight loss foods:

1. Chilled soups
2. Watermelon
3. Grilled vegetables
4. Salads
5. Low and no calorie beverages
6. Fruit-based desserts

Mmm-mmm.  Just in time for the Fourth. 

I’m down 1.6 pounds this week, for a grand total of 54.4 pounds lost since March 6.  I’m just 2.2 pounds away from my goal weight, so we’ll see if we get there next week.

Couch to 5k:  I’ve got some tendons in my 40-year-old ankle screaming out in protest from the beating that I’m giving them every other day.  They’re pretty tight for the first mile or so of my run, then loosen up reasonably for the rest of my run.  After I cool down, though, they’re hurting more than before.  I could go to the doctor, but I KNOW what he’s going to say about that one.  I’m considering whether or not I should even try this 5k in three weeks.  It’s a mountain I’d definitely like to get over.

Unrelated to this blog, but worth reporting anyway:  You probably know by now that the Oregon State Beavers claimed their second College World Series crown in a row on Sunday night, defeating the North Carolina Tarheels 9-3.  They trailed just one half of one inning the entire series.  If you’re not a Beaver fan by now, you sure need to be.  Somehow I don’t think Darwin Barney is going to need FatBloggers.net anytime soon, but just in case, it’s nice to know we’re standing by.  Ok, that’s the FatBloggers tie-in that justifies the mention.

Other news:  I was in WalMart today, and saw a display of Alli, which is the latest over-the-counter weight loss drug to hit the market.  Apparently, it’s quite popular right now.  I’ll just quote from Greg Todd to describe this stuff to you:

Have you heard about Alli, the latest craze in weight loss fads?  It’s pronounced like “ally”, and it’s apparently flying off the shelves all over America.  And that’s despite the side effects, which include powerful, loose stools.  And gas with “an oily discharge.”  The manufacturer even recommends that users wear dark pants and bring a change of clothes to work with them.  That’s nice.  Ewww - what’s that smell?  Did Jane just lose another pound?

Uh…no thanks.  I’ll just stick with my three pounds a week average at Weight Watchers.  I like to make it through the day with just one pair of pants.