Monday - April 6th Update

Well, after a very promising start - as of last Thursday, things went downhill over the weekend - same old story...  I went out for a few beers on Friday night, went for a decent run on Saturday, then weighed-in, and I was up 3.1lbs! Huh?  That was a shocker!  

Weighed-in again this morning, was down 0.4lbs, but still up from last Monday which blows me away...  Ah well, I have to just focus on doing the right things, the scale will take care of itself...

Daily Update - Wed, April 1st

- Tried my first Belly Off workout last night, WOW, who said you can't get some good strength training in purely with bodyweight exercises!  whoo!  Unfortunately I don't have a pull-up bar (any ideas?), but I was still able to do the rest exercises - Check out the Workouts here - Excellent stuff.  I'm looking forward to getting familiar with the various exercises and then establishing my own little workout routine(s) that I can do whenever, wherever.

- Weighed in via Wii Fit this morning, was down 0.7lbs, which was good

- Had some bean salad and edameme for dinner last night.

- Breakfast this morning, tried the PB & Berries Oatmeal recipe:

1 cup Quaker Quick Oats

1 cup Water

1 tbsp Peanut Butter

1/2 cup of Frozen Berries (I had Raspberries)

- It was pretty good, a little on the pasty side, and TOO much, I only ate about 60% of it, so I'd ease up on the oats next time... 

Attempt #2 - BELLY OFF

Ok, so I wasn't able to take off the last 15... But I'm not giving up yet! I still want to see myself shed these last few pounds, and I'm taking another crack at it.

This time, to help with some ideas and tips - I'm turning to Men's Health Magazine's BELLY OFF Program - http://www.menshealth.com/bellyoff/index.php

The site offers some great tools:

Food - Full meal plan including recipies, shopping lists, etc
Work-outs - Several options include a Body Weight regime for those who don't go to the Gym or have specialized workout equipment.

Basically I've got 6 weeks til my 1/2 Marathon, so I'll be doing a lot of running as well.

I weighed in at 179 on the Wii this morning, so I really only have about 9 or 10 pounds to lose and I'll be happy... If I can stick (mostly) to this plan, keep running, keep working out and cut out the stupid food, I'll get there!

Encouragement / Comments are Welcome... What do you think? Can I do it?

January Update

Well, I stopped posting and the desire and the fire just drizzled out. I was hoping to keep posting daily, and perhaps get a bit of commentary going on the blog, get the sense that friends and family were following along, and that would help to keep me motivated, that didn't really materialize - not that I'm looking for excuses here, just mentioning that.

I weighed in this morning on my upstairs scale at 174, so maybe a pound or two off of where I left off at the end of November.

So I made it about 1/2 way to my goal.

An interesting point about this is how does one reflect on the results of the 'project'

If the goal was to lose 15 lbs, and I only lost 7.5, then you could say I failed. However if I'd never attempted it, I'd not have lost that 7.5 lbs, so in that sense it was a success.

The way I look at it, is I plan to be in this body for a long, long, time, and ever run I take, every good choice I make with the food I eat, this is progress.

I'm going to keep working to get this last 7 lbs off, I've been running over the holidays and haven't done too badly food wise. I'm going to sign up for the Mississauga Marathon and I'll be training for that. I'll also be getting an extra run in every week, I'll be running for 30 minutes with George's soccer team on Wednesday night, so assuming I keep my food intake at a reasonable level, I should be able to shed the extra fat within another month or so, and be lean and mean, ready to take on my next goal - to finish the Mississauga 1/2 Marathon in under 2 hours.

More Progress!

Had a decent day food-wise yesterday, clocked in around 1500 calories, no exercise (aside from my walks in the morning to the train and back), but my Wii Fit weight-in this morning came up as 172.8, so down almost another pound in two days which is good.

So I've now dropped almost 10 lbs since I started, which is a decent acheivement, now let's see if I can keep on cranking, get these last 5 off!

It's funny, in the Wii fit initial weigh-in screen, my line is still practically wedged up against the 'overweight' section of the BMI scale, it'd be nice to create a bit of breathing room there! :)

Had a Good Day

I just need to take it one day at a time...

Yesterday was a good day.  Kept my intake to around 1,500 calories, logged it in SparkPeople, and did 30 minutes of Wii Fit last night, a mix of Aerobics, Balance Games, Yoga and Strength Training.

I didn't have time for a weigh-in this morning, so I'll have another good day today and we'll see if I'm down again tomorrow morning.

Progress, not Perfection

I've been using SparkPeople on and off for a couple of years now, interesting to see the graph of my weight... Interesting to see the increase from July through to the end of 2007, In hindsight, I think that would of had to do with not being as active going into the winter months and working a lot of hours, thus not getting to the gym... and then I got things back under control... from Jan-March, that was really the last time, previous to this time that I decided to knock a few pounds off, my intention then was to get down to 175 by the kick-off of the TFC season... I think I came within 3 or 4 lbs of that goal... then stayed fairly consistent until this time around...