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So, I realize that I’ve not blogged for a little while… it has been a few weeks at least, and admittedly, there’s a part of me that wants to only write when I feel like I have something important to say. And since my last post, I’ve accomplished one of my goals for 2010.

I am now a certified indoor cycling instructor.

Very cool. As you know, I took up indoor cycling (spinning) last fall, and found very quickly that it helped to push me through a plateau in my weight loss journey, and catalyzed a motivation in me that propelled me to my goal of dropping 200 pounds before Christmas. The experience of indoor cycling has taken me out of the gym in many ways — it has helped me move from feeling like my fitness experience is a solitary journey into one that includes being a member of a community. My fellow participants at Legacy Indoor Cycling in Toronto are motivating, inspiring, and fun to be around — and the teachers there who have helped me accomplish my goals compelled me to take the certification course and head down the path of sharing my enthusiasm for this fitness activity with others.

So last weekend, I spent 10 1/2 hours at the Legacy Studio, under the tutelage of James Gekko (a Master Trainer with Schwinn) and the watchful eye of Andy (Legacy’s patriarch), and soaked up what I needed to learn to become certified. I learned a lot about technique. I learned about how to structure a meaningful class for participants. I also learned that becoming an instructor presents me with an opportunity to do something that I think is going to be an important part of my journey from here on in: now is my time to really pay it forward.

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

An excerpt from www.RonBarker.ca

It was 2007 when it first started. I remember standing up only to have the vision in my right eye temporarily blinded. I thought it was a one off situation and thought nothing of it. Soon it happened again. Then again once more. After a while it became pretty frequent but random and thought it never hurt, it became a nuisance. Thankfully it never happened when I drove.

I don’t normally visit doctors. I try and avoid going unless it’s a major issue. For example, I had a hernia when I was a teenager. I had been experiencing random bouts of excruciating pain since about grade five or six but I never actually saw anyone for it because it always went away. Eventually it became pretty consistent in my mid-teens and I got it taken care of.

Continuing on…

Read the rest of this entry @ www.RonBarker.ca

An excerpt from www.RonBarker.ca:

It’s been a long time since I’ve done any form of exercise. Since my gym membership has disappeared, I began to walk obscene amounts for hours at a time. That was well and good until winter came around and froze my motivation. Walking for a few hours in ungodly cold just isn’t my idea of a fun time!

I’ve been trying to find something I can do in the meantime that was inexpensive (read: free) and didn’t require anything fancy. Finding a set of bodyweight exercises over at Nerd Fitness, it was just a matter of time before I kicked my ass into doing things.

You can read this post and others over at www.RonBarker.ca

An excerpt from www.RonBarker.ca:

In Local News…

My mood has been surprisingly good despite no recent changes. I haven’t gone out of my way to do anything different. So… here’s hoping that keeps up? Right now I’m partaking in one of my favourite pastimes and that’s just blasting music and singing along as badly as I can. Who says I can’t be the lead singer of Radiohead? That’s just crazy.

I’ve also decided I’m going to ramp up my blogging. I’m going to update a few times a week and keep you up to date on what’s going on with this whole workout stuff because…

So, it has been almost a month since I last posted. For some reason, I haven’t had much to say. To be honest, I think I’ve been taking it a bit easy — that is, I haven’t been in my head too much about losing weight. I’ve been spending more time trying to make a big mind-shift. Knowing that I’ve got some big goals in the year ahead, I want to kick off this year in a good frame of mind.

Easier said than done.

The Christmas holiday break was a bit stressful. I loved seeing my family — but I realized that 24 days was not only a long time for me to be away from home, but it was also a really long time to be away from my life. I managed to have some great workouts while I was in BC — I found a rickety old spinning bike at the Rec Centre, and cranked out some of my own routines. I broke through my 5km limit on my runs, and ran a few 10km routes, which felt amazing. I spent an amazing afternoon with my Dad, niece and nephew, tubing down some runs at Mount Washington ski resort — feeling a level of joy, elation, and speed that I haven’t felt before. It was pretty spectacular, and liberating, all at the same time. But I missed my gym. I missed my spin bike. I missed my peeps. However, since I’ve been home for the past few weeks, I’ve been spending some time re-calibrating my workouts and figuring out my action plan for the year ahead. Sebastien and I have hammered out some solid goals, and 2010 is going to be a big year…

Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/ye8gywp

There it is… I’ve drawn it on the ground… I’m refusing to cross it.

As is our weekly ritual, Amy and I got on the Wii Fit and weighed ourselves. In a drastic turn of events, I gained 6.4 pounds in one week. I honestly know that it was a combination of many bad food/drink choices (hello? I had two glasses of White Sangria on Friday night, then a large glass of Sangria and a Margarita on Saturday night; just as examples of the drink choices). I am truly glad I had not experienced a gout attack. I spent all day today making mostly healthy choices (onion rings and ice cream excepted) and drinking only water or unsweet tea.

And yet, here we are (or is that Wii are?). I stood on the Wii Fit board and it told me I had gained 6.4 pounds to weigh around 283 pounds. My old starting point was 319, which means I’m down 37 pounds… I have on my keyring a small token that proves that at one point while on WeightWatchers, I was down 50 pounds.

That means I’ve gained back 13 pounds. So I’ve drawn the line. That line is sitting on 284, and I’m NOT crossing it. I refuse.

My first decision immediately after that was to go to the kitchen and prepare 4 sandwiches for my lunches for the week. I’ve been eating out WAAAAY too much. It has to stop. My breakfasts will consist of either cold cereal at home or oatmeal at work; no more stopping at Chick-Fil-A or McDonald’s or Braum’s for “wreckfast”. I’m taking sandwiches and pickled okra (found I love the stuff and, other than high-sodium, is a good snacking choice). I will drink only water, unsweet tea, and 1% milk.

I need to stop working so much overtime (though I may see that drop some anyways unless another “high-crisis” project comes up this week). That’s been forcing me to pick up dinner and eat much too late. Either it’s dinner by 7pm or not at all.

Hello, sand? Yeah, I know… I messed up your surface a little bit, but I won’t be making any footprints on the other side of that line… I’m walking the other way.

(cross posted on webcudgel.com)

Here is an excerpt from the entry “I’ve Got The Prison Blues”:

With my social life crumbling and my unemployment continuing, I often feel as if I’m stuck in an invisible prison. With no money, I can’t afford to go to the gym and as a result, I can see that I’m gaining weight. I’m a little afraid to step on the scale to see how much damage I’ve done to the weight I’ve lost in the last couple of years. There has to be a way to lose some weight on the cheap, right?

Enter the prison workout.

Read the entire entry and discuss at www.RonBarker.ca

Just a quick post here to mark Fatblogger’s 3rd birthday today.  It was exactly 3 years ago that I registered this domain name and began laying the groundwork to what would eventually become a community of guys trying to shed a few pounds.  As I write these words, we’re at 890 posts with 1600 comments. Those numbers astound me.

I’ve since handed over the keys to John, who has done an outstanding job turning what this blog into what it has become today.

Congratulations to all of the Fatbloggers, past and present, who have been able to use this site to accomplish some of their personal goals over the last three years. 

It’s that time of year again when many people reflect upon the previous year, wondering what could have been, and contemplate the year ahead, dreaming of what could possibly be. While I’ve never been a huge fan of resolutions (mainly because I’m no good at keeping them), two years ago, I promised myself I would try to make a change that would last a lifetime.

Two years ago, I was a 435-pound man.
And for the last time, I resolved to get healthy.

And while I had tried almost every diet, gimmick and trick out there, I was not thoroughly convinced that surgically wrapping an elastic band around my stomach was going to be the solution to my problems. Why? Well, it wasn’t modern medicine’s fault that I was a morbidly obese. Over the twenty previous years prior, I made a series of bad choices in terms of my eating habits and my inability to manage my emotions. So while I didn’t resolve to go on a diet, or read yet another self-help book in search of the secret to happiness and weight-loss success, I did resolve to do one thing very differently. I made a resolution to hold myself accountable to my own choices.

Finally.

I chose to live my life differently. Quite simply, I chose to live.

Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/yj2q9p8

Status Report: Did I succeed in being in the 230’s by New Years?

Progress Report: Week 12
Weight: 245 lbs
BMI: 35.7
Weight loss so far: 3.4 lbs gained since last week, 20 lbs lost total

Hell to the NO!  But this is still okay I guess.  I’ve been in the 240’s for WWWAAAYYY too long, but the weekend after Christmas had my scale reading as high as being back in the 250’s, so I’m glad I was able to knock that number down some.  In hindsight I shouldn’t have waited (and cheated, basically) and moved my weigh in to Friday this week, but all future weigh ins will continue to be on Tuesdays.  No more funny business.

 I also took a few quick measurements this morning, all as part of giving myself a base for 2010.

 Waist (at navel-level): 49 inches
Chest (at nipple-level): 45.5inches
Neck: 16.5 inches

 UGH.  I’d like to keep up with doing measurements, maybe bi-weekly or monthly (what do you think?), and maybe add more once I figure out what I am doing.

New Year Challenges: I want 2010 to be the year that I own it, basically, and I am starting things off by participating in three challenges.

The first two are of my own creation, and they are sure to kick my ass:

• New Year 100 Mile Running Challenge.  You have the entire month of January to run/walk/jog 100 miles.  This can be done on a treadmill, outside, however you’d like.
• New Year 500 Mile Biking Challenge. Same concept, except you have to bike 500 miles in January.  Actual bike, exercise bike, indoors, outdoors, it don’t matter.

It’s only the first day of the month, so there is still PLENTY OF TIME for you to sign up, just click on the links above and you’ll be taken to the dailyburn page.  You can sign up for one or the other, or both, it’s all up to you.

The third challenge is the Perfect 10 Challenge by Steve over at logmyloss.  I joined this challenge as a way to create short term goals for myself, and of course, to see what I am capable of.  It lasts 10 weeks, and what you do is create a set of goals for yourself and update your progress towards reaching those goals weekly.  Here are mine:

• Lose at least 15 pounds (starting weight 245 pounds)
• Run/walk/jog 200 miles
• Strength train at least twice a week
• Run a 5k road race
• Finish at least one of this semesters college courses
• Beat Super Mario Brothers Wii

The first four goals, as they should be, are health and fitness related.  I think 200 miles in 10 weeks is attainable since half of that should be knocked out in the first month alone with my challenge, and running an actual road race will help me down the path to the Ocean City Half Marathon I want to run in April and the Baltimore Marathon in October. I also put the Strength Training goal in there because that is still something I’ll sideline b/c I think cardio will give me results faster (spoiler alert, it doesn’t work that way). 

The college related goal is important, because I really need to try to focus this semester and now wait until the last minute to try to get everything done.  It almost got me in trouble last semester, so I’d like to avoid that this time around. 

The Mario Brothers goal? HAHA. If you’ve read the comments for the my few posts, you will know that I think that game is one of the hardest games I have ever played, and is evil.  But if I’m not going to let my weight and other factors keep me down, there is no way in hell I’m going to give some asshole plumber the satisfaction of doing so. 

 F*ck you, douchebag!

Besides, all work and no play makes Steve a dull boy (and kind of a prick to those around me), so I gotta have some fun too.

Hope everyone had fun last night.  It’s a new year, what are you going to make of it? 

reposted from http://www.265andfalling.com.  Go there to catch up and to follow my journey from the beginning!  Thanks!!