Weigh in time and more random for your noggin.

Friday, June 25, 2010

This morning when I woke up I decided two things, the first was that I would weigh in since its Friday and the second was that a post would have to wait until after I got a bike ride into my morning. I weighed in 318.2 this morning which is .6 lower than yesterdays weigh in and I am still not sure that I am completely over the bloat that I was in because of not eating correctly but that's what the number was so it will be the measuring stick for next Friday. Having to re-lose these pounds again pissed me off last night and I think that my focus is back because of that fact, I mean honestly it is what it is but I don't have to like it right? Yesterday was 1750 calories but that was before I stole a bite from my daughters cookie sandwich ice cream and ate a couple tiny little chocolate covered ice cream nuggets from the boss lady so just over, which is ok since my range is 1700 to 1900. I am trying to stay as close to 1700 calories as possible but on occasion I will have a "treat" like the bite of ice cream last night or a beer with my neighbor because I am not going to not have some of those things once in a while.



I mentioned a bike ride today, as soon as I woke up and saw how perfect a day we were having I decided that a bike ride was going to happen not later, not tonight, not tomorrow, it was happening right after breakfast. I hooked up the trailer and popped the little one in, got my son on his bike, my neighbor joined us as well and we took off for a playground that's about two and a half miles away but I decided to take "the scenic route" also know as "the hilly(er) route" which just adds a couple more hills to the already all hills ride making it about a three mile ride one way. We get to the top of the first biggish hill and my son has this smirk on his face as if to say "Ha! I beat you old man!" and down the other side we went, the next crest he had a little harder time with but still had the smirk because technically he hit the top first (I was going slow as our neighbor was a bit behind) and again the smirk. We didn't want the lad getting too cocky so the next hill I went up at the speed that I normally go when I ride solo and hit the top, turned around to meet him about 3/4 of the way up and then rode back to the top with him interestingly enough no smirk this time. A couple more like that where I spun around and came back down partially to meet him and he stayed in line rather than trying to pass me at every chance, I told him that he should keep trying because eventually he should be able to smoke me on the hills once he gets a little stronger given my current weight disadvantage.



The day started off good enough and I am about a gallon and a half worth of fluids so far and its only just after lunch time, I have a 6 mile ride under my belt and may just take another before the day is up. I did pick up an old habit over the last couple weeks and its kicked as of this morning once again as I skipped my am cup of coffee that I have been having so things are getting back to the way they should be. I once again feel random with my post today but hey it is what it is and what it is is a way for me to hold myself accountable for my decisions concerning my weight loss goals so there it is.

I don't want to set any "goals" just yet but the first thing on the list now that I am doing things right again is to get below 300 pounds. Second on the list is to catch up on some of my regular blogs that I follow because I have not read many at all in the past month because all of what I have been dealing with, I just haven't had the time so hopefully going through some of them will help keep me in the frame of mind that I need to stay in so that I can realize my goals. With that all said, I thank you for the support and comments that you leave me of your own free will, know that I read and appreciate every last one of them and they do me more good than you probably know so again Thanks!

Thats all this round boy got for today.

As Ever
Me

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As the fat guy turns..

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Last week I was pushing closer and closer to the 330 pound mark and I didn't like the taste that it was leaving in my mouth, tie that in with the reboot that I did the other night and this morning I am 318 pounds. That very fact is the reason that I wasn't over worrying about the up because I knew that I wasn't doing my part in the hydration department and had a feeling that it was more bloated than honest to goodness weight that was showing up, either way it was not something that I was happy about. Something that I noticed during my little hiatus was that I didn't feel as good as I do when I am doing things right, and I don't mean that I was moping around because I knew that i was fuvking up I mean physically. My feet hurt when I am not eating the right nourishment, I am sluggish, I am tired and unmotivated and I have been back on the straight and narrow for a whopping three days now and I feel like the old me, or is it the new old me? the old old me was 534 pounds, the new old me goes to the gym daily and eats properly and the...anyways, you get what I mean...I think.

Focusing on me in the middle of a $hit storm hasn't been fun but it is a necessary item to drop into the shopping bag because as always, without my health and well being what have I got? With that said I have been 100% on the ball and intend to stay there from here on out, Yesterday my calories came in at 1790 which is right in there as I am trying to stay as close to 1700 as possible. My fluid intake was just over two gallons again with one gallon being green tea and the rest was straight H20. I get a good amount of emails and or comments about my drinking and lots of people think its too much and I keep getting advice to drink less and I just want to mention that its not gonna happen. I have been drinking 1.5 to 2 gallons of fluid from day one of my better health gig and am down as of this morning 216 pounds using that plan, I am currently 318 pounds and workout (and sweat my ass off) daily, my doc is aware of what I drink and agrees that all is well and since for one its working, and two my doc is aware of how much I drink I see no need to change anything. I just wanted to mention all of that because I got a rather in depth and semi rude email from someone trying to make a case that I am hurting myself by drinking what I do so I thought I would sort of respond in today's post.

My exercise plan for today is going to start off with a walk with my daughter while she rides her bike followed by a seven or so mile ride with her in the trailer, I want to try and get out before the 90's and thunderstorms roll through. I can see that all of the bike riding that I do is paying off in the muscle department as my quads lately are rock solid in a way that I have never witnessed before and I think I like it. Even through my little slipping point the bike riding remained, I rode my daughter to and from school a lot even when the eating was not up to par and I guess just under 10 miles per day towing a kid and school supplies has its advantages. I am far from a distance rider when it comes to my bike, the furthest ride that I have done on a solid go has been in the 11-13 mile range and that was at a slow clip (hills and all that) but I am going to start pushing myself to go a bit further as I have discovered an old trail not far from where I live.

Going back to my regularly scheduled eating plan while exercising daily once again should get me moving in the right direction again with my weight and sooner than later I will cross that 300 pound mark....hopefully. I am feeling random with my post today but it is what it is and I am today at this very moment in time 18 pounds away from being under 300 pounds and crossing yet another century mark on this trip and somehow feel re-energized and ready to get the pounds falling off again and so it begins....again.

This is a process and will remain a process, nothing comes easy and a lot of work is still in front of me, failing is not an option and neither is anything less than hitting the goals that I have set into my direct path.

As Ever
Me

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When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Business as usual, meaning I done good yesterday on the better health front. My intake was perfect at 1720 total calories and I managed to get 5 servings of fruits and veggies into that along with some game hens that I quartered up and tossed onto the grill so a good day intake wise indeed. Two and a quarter gallons of fluid went down the hatch in the way of a gallon of green tea with the rest being H2O so hydration is there once again and the scale showed a 4 pound drop from yesterday where it went from 325 to 321, hydration...its whats for dinner! and away we go.


My handy work post wash pre thunderstorm, not too shabby.

There wasn't anything on the menu that I would consider real exercise, just normal day to day chore type stuff, washing and waxing the car which apparently pissed off the rain gods as it dumped buckets all night, a short bike ride, cleaning up the yard etc etc. Somehow I have become re-focused on the task at hand and I believe that the pause that I took the night before last with the bats, lightning bugs and the little girl let me sort of reboot the gray stuff in my skull and get back into my groove. I am what I want to be and every day I have to prove it to myself, if I stop because of bumps its me that I am letting down most, which is something that I will not allow to happen. When the $hit hits the fan it continues to spin, now its just covered in $hit and eventually all of that $hit will spin from the blades, eventually the fecal matter is thrown from the blades and once again its just a fan doing what its suppose to do. Now if that fan bogs down or stops because it is covered in $hit it then sits motionless covered in said $hit and nothing changes from that point, ultimately that $hit will end the fans existence and it is because the fan allowed itself to get bogged down.

When looking at what I am doing for myself I think about this, No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time, all you got is lifetime...Go!! (points for you if you know where that came from without a google search) This is how I felt at one point in my life, that time of my life I took it by the throat and did what I wanted to do when I wanted to and with whom I wanted to do it with and nothing got in my way. I still feel that way and I need to adjust back into a full on mind swap to get myself back to that, when life takes over we soon forget who we are sometimes and that's something that should not happen. I am never going back to that 534 pound guy sitting on a couch wishing things would be different, there is too much happening outside that tiny bubble that we get put into at that stage of the game and its just not me to be there. Making my way through life on my terms is how imma' roll and there ain't $hit anyone can do to change that so through the woods I steamroll back onto the path that I was making before the splatter flung gracefully through the air slamming violently into the blades disrupting the zen that had been created.

I do believe hes back.

As Ever
Me

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The fattest fat guy and a lawn chair, Bats, bugs and a little girl.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Here I sit typing this out because I need to get back into a groove, I have not really gained but I am not losing either and with the amount that I still need and want to lose that's not what I should be allowing to happen. I have been floating around 320 pounds for weeks now not going up but not going down and I am unsure if that means that I am maintaining a 320 pound status or if things can and will eventually start going south again for my health if I don't get back on that horse. Thinking about how when I was 500 plus pounds got me mad at myself last night, I was sitting on the couch with nothing special on my mind and there was a commercial where the woman said "I lost 12 pounds and my acid reflux is already lessening" to which I thought "wow I haven't had that feeling in years" and then my mind hopped into the time machine and started thinking about how things were.

At 534 pounds I struggled to do almost everything and compared to now I am living a different life from then on more levels than I think that I allow myself to realize on a daily. I had heart burn on a nightly basis and slept with a bottle of tums next to me munching all night, taking a shower was frustrating because of a small shower...um it was a full sized shower by the way, my back hurt me literally twenty four hours a day seven days a week, walking to the car was as far as I would/could go and I rationalized that I just needed to make it to the car and then to a store so distances past that were unnecessary and wondering if today would be the day that the grenade in my chest went off was more than stressful. Those things listed are not even scratching the surface of what I was dealing with physically and mentally on a daily basis at 500 plus pounds but alas! I am not here to depress you on this fine day as last night I basically told myself to suck it up and do what I have been doing for the past two and a half years and finish what I have started.

The life that I live today is not even in the same galaxy as what I was doing back then and I know that I am more active now a days just on any given day whether I exercised or not. I did not exercise yesterday at all but that doesn't mean that I was sedentary either, I tuned my bike up and gave it a once over cleaning and scrubbing it down for about an hour, I worked on my neighbors 1951 Concord, I took a 15 minute bike ride slow and easy just checking out my handy work and making sure the bike worked as it should and my day pretty much keeps that pace throughout and I really did not relax a single minute all day. I did not exercise though, I consider exercise to be cardio and or weight lifting in some measure or another and none of what I did was that, The summer is here and the kids make it extremely difficult to get to the gym so my exercise is suffering for it.

Getting a little off track from where I was going with this post here so where was I? Getting pissed at myself..that's right. Thinking about where I was and where I am I realized that mister 97% may have a part in this stall..yeah we will call it a stall because I haven't fallen off the wagon per se, I am just not in "losing" mode, its more of a maintenance feeling because though I did pop up slightly in weight its not going any higher and I am pretty much floating around in a 4 pound bubble right now. I ended up walking outside in my front yard and just sitting there thinking about how far I have come with the weight loss and health thing and I know that I am a changed person mentally even more so than physically from this process and even though I am not "doing what I need to" right now to drop more weight in these past few weeks I have held onto the habits that I created in the last couple years. Am I weighing my food? nah BUT I am not really over eating either, I think that my extra calories are coming from things like enjoying an ice cream with the kids after dinner or having a beer with wify here and there and when you tie that into the missing out on the gym I think its equating to more of a maintenance type lifestyle at the moment.

So My intake yesterday was exactly where I wanted it coming in at 1875 total calories but in light of needing to boost myself back down in weight I am going to drop it back down to 1700 calories per day for a while and will be trying to make time to get to the gym. Hectic is not even close enough to whats happening around here lately and I won't really get into it but how does the saying go? "when it rains it pours"? yeah that's the one so getting even an hour to myself is far and between. While I was sitting outside in the yard in the plastic lawn chair (which I would have collapsed 2 years ago) I was watching bats pluck insects out of the air and just thinking about how far I have come with my health and realized that I am already "there" because I am not limited in what I can do any more, I can enjoy some of the small things and still feel good about the decision to eat that ice cream cone with my daughter and not beat myself up over it and that IS the point of being healthy, so that those little things can be enjoyed.

The bottom line is that focusing on getting the last chub from my bones has to be a part of what I do in my daily because its what I want, its what I need and its what I owe myself. My night ended with my daughter coming out and sitting on my lap while we watched lightning bugs or Fire flies depending on who you ask because we debated the subject for a good 20 minutes last night and again it dawned on me that this is not something that would have been possible if I was still 500 plus. Getting aggravated with myself (probably more the stress hanging around as well) ended by completely being turned around on me and I have a feeling of being re-focused on the task at hand, who wouldda thunk that watching bats and chasing lightning bugs around the yard with a little girl would have that effect, doesn't matter I suppose I'm just glad to be back.

As Ever
Me

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Shifting focus, A tale of a clyde and his 1988 Rockhopper.....er something like that.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Though I have not been on game lately with my calories and exercise I have been staying on my bike and I am starting to realize that I enjoy riding my bike as much as I enjoy anything. Now I know this is not really a bike kind of blog but biking plays a HUGE role in why I am where I am with my health and weight loss today so veering into a project that I picked up isn't really that off the beaten path. A while back I picked up a bike on Craigslist for a great price, the title of the post was "Specialized Rockhopper comp FREE" and when I saw that there was no way I could let an old Rockhopper not be mine for that price. When I got to the owners house I then saw how much worse the bike looked in person than in the picture that was posted but she was mine at that point and off we went home with the dirty ol girl and into the shed it went. Yesterday I had an hour and a half to myself and decided to wash it up and check out where we stood on the real condition of the bike and after a good bath it actually looks pretty good.

The bike is a 1988 Specialized Rockhopper comp which is a fact that I found out with some research and it is adorned with all Shimano Deore components that are all in good working condition. I will need to replace the shifter cables and possibly the brake cables though the brake cables look like they were recently replaced so I may leave those alone, it will need tires, tubes and possibly a chain though I am going to try and rehab the chain that is on there now. I snapped a few pictures of the bike post scrubbing and was actually considering making a blog for the project to chronicle in detail how its coming along but I might just do it here instead, anyways here are a couple of the photos.

Full sized clickable images are on my Blogspot page here zeusmeatball.blogspot.com/2010/06/sh
ifting-focus-tale-of-clyde-and-his.html


This is the day that I brought it home, check out that rear cassette in this image and then the next one, I wish that I had taken more close ups before washing it.


A side shot post wash, the pictures do not do justice to the difference from before to after, I think when I get new tires on it that it will look awesome.


Front shot, You can see the difference in the wheels in this one, they look almost new close up after the scrubbing they got.


Here is a shot of the biopace crank which looks a lot better than it did, I am planning on doing a more in depth cleaning but even with just a wash there is a big difference.


Finally a look at the Cassette and you can see part of the rear derailleur and how clean it came out.

After washing it up I noticed that a lot of the chrome bits had some surface rust on them and I started researching how to remove said rust, I found lots of different methods posted by lots of different people but I found one that I had all of the stuff on hand so I tried it. It was said that using some crumpled up aluminum foil with some automotive polish/rubbing compound should take the rust off but leave the chrome alone as the foil is softer than the chrome, I was skeptical that this would work but to my amazement it had incredible results! The seat post had a section at the top where it was pretty rusty (more so than the images above show) and the clamp to hold the seat post was also rusty and now they both look great.


This clamp looks like new after polishing with the compound and aluminum foil and I am planning on doing some more of the small parts this afternoon.


This is the polished seat post and you can see the damage to the upper part where the rust was, it shows up in the photo much more than with the naked eye because it looks almost perfect in person, either way I am pleased with how it came out.

I did adjust the seat and filled the tires with air to see how everything functioned but the bike will need two tubes as they leaked out pretty fast but I did get to ride a short distance which was long enough to find out that it shifts and brakes as it should. I am trying to refurbish this bike as cheap as possible but am willing to drop a few bucks into making it function and look good, New tires and tubes will probably be next on the list. I may just swap the Kenda Klaws that are currently on my K2 onto this bike as I was planning on changing to a more road friendly tread on that bike anyways so tubes will really be the only thing that will be bought to complete that part of the project. Hopefully I can save the chain that is on there now, it moves freely except in one spot where it binds slightly but I am hoping that some elbow grease and oil can work that out for me, a new chain is only about $15 so its not too bad even if it does end up needing to be replaced.

The paint has a lot of small chips in it pretty much everywhere, I do like the paint scheme and there is something cool to me in keeping the original paint job on an older bike like this but I haven't decided whether I will repaint it or just touch up the chips. The decals are in ok shape though they could use some love and ultimately decal condition may determine the bikes future in the looks department. I was thinking of an olive drab paint job on the entire frame with a flat white star somewhere and maybe "no step" in a pseudo military theme leaving all of the chrome and aluminum parts alone besides polishing them up a bit while the black parts stay black but like I mentioned I am not sure just yet, opinions would be great.

With everything that's happening right now in the stress department taking on this little project that I had hanging in the basement is taking my mind off of things and well, I'll take it. I am back to counting the calories and am heading out shortly for a bike ride with the kids as school is over so getting to the gym will be a tad harder and the bike will be my go to for exercise for at least a while until I figure out a compromise with a sitter. I will keep updating the status of this bike in this blog and may still create a specific blog for that project but that's to be found out I mean if I am finding it hard to update here lately imagine if I had two to update.

Keep on keepin on and all that and I'll do the same, that's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

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