4 posts tagged “my plan is”

I'm still alive, and in moderately good health. 

I'm taking a little time to put down some goals for the new year.  Some are goals everyone does - exercise, better employment. And write a novel. I think everyone puts that down as a New Year's Resolution at least once. 

But this year, I'm trying to be a bit more organized about it, so I'm putting the goals down on paper (well, in an Open Office Document that I will be printing out once each goal is finished).  Also, this year I've got what I think is a good support group behind me, which is important. 

Anyway, just a quick note to let you know I'm still out here.

No, it's not just one of my favorite songs by Asian Kung-Fu Generation. (Final opening theme to Full Metal Alchemist). 
Nope.  I'm re-starting the Body for Life run.  Took a picture today (which I won't post, thank you very much).  Lost a little ground - my scale said 249 this morning, which puts me just shy of 260 actual.  Here goes nothing.

I'm a day or two late this week, but here's the report.

I seem to have hit a plateau on the weight loss.  Part of that may be due to Thanksgiving.  Part of that may be due to my not exactly following the diet exactly.  Part of that may be due to the demons currently possessing my old spring-type scale.  Seriously thinking about replacing that with a nice electronic one with big numbers - no muss, no fuss, just a big, easy to read, no-fudging the numbers display.  (UPDATE: reviewing your last update is a good idea before reporting.  Apparently last week I was at 252-253, and my scale this morning had me at 250 even, so add ten for the nature of the scale, and that puts me at 260, for a loss of ten pounds in three weeks - not too bad, and I'll probably see more this week). Having said that, there are some things that have happened within the last few weeks that are encouraging as far as progress. 

First, we went clothes shopping.  Now, I'm not optimistic about being anything less than a XXL as far as the shirt size goes for at least two reasons.  First of all, I'm about 6'3'', depending on what convenience store I'm leaving at the time.  (Yes, not my joke.  Everyone around me somehow seems to insist that I'm 6'4'').  Second, I'm not a fan of tight clothing.  So, it's got to have some room, and it's got to be pretty big in the first place.  But my pants haven't been fitting well lately, so we bought some new ones.  At which point I discovered that I've dropped two inches on my waist size.  1 new pair of pants, and 1 new belt, just in case I lose more inches around there.

Second, my wife is noticing a difference in my muscle tone and she says my gut (henceforth referred to as "Junior") is getting smaller.  That's very encouraging for a variety of reasons. 

Third, this morning I carried my seven-year-old daughter from her room to my room, something that has been difficult in the past, but which I was able to do pretty easily today. 

Finally, it's been getting easier and easier to work out.  I'm able to go longer on the Nordic Track, and I'm going to start adding an extra "round" to that every day.  As of today, I'm upping the weight I use when working with dumbbells.  In particular, my shoulders (which I have noticed have historically been the weakest part of my body) seemed to be able to handle the extra weight without too much strain. 

So, depending on my scale, as of right now I'm right at 250 (which is probably closer to 260, because my scale weighs me low), and I'm anticipating a good loss this week.  At least, I hope so.  I've got family coming down at the end of the month, and I want to impress them.  I keep reminding myself that it's a matter of taking baby steps - that all of the change isn't going to happen at once, and that's a good thing to remember for all kinds of changes you want to make in life.  And it's a little more encouraging than "You won't get Bruce Lee results without Bruce Lee effort."

A lot of new things, actually.  I had considered dropping my typepad blog, in favor of this, because it's so quick and easy.  Then I found Performancing's extension for Firefox, which makes the posting quick and easy, and the Republicans lost the House and Senate.  So now I'm thinking that maybe I'll be posting there more regularly.  We'll keep the slice of life stuff over here, and the pissed-off conservative thought over there.  Here we'll have the Friday Anime Primer and the Provisional Weekly Get To Know You Question (Or maybe just more qotd's), and over there I'll be discussing why Rumsfeld's resignation looks to me a lot like the Death Star frying up that first rebel cruiser in Return of the Jedi. 

So that's one and two - performancing, and more active typepad blogging.  Three is that I'm going to make a new run at Body for Life.  Last time I made it six weeks before moving to Oregon screwed everything up.  According to my scale, I'm at about 258 lbs.  I am hoping to lose thirty pounds over the next twelve weeks.  Considering that the last time I did this, I averaged about five pounds a week, that should be eminently do-able.  After a nice, long talk with the doctor today about my weight and my blood pressure, and my abysmally low good cholesterol levels, I knew it was time to get serious about it.  So, I'll probably be doing some updates for that over here also, and I plan on setting up a Google spreadsheet to track my weekly weight, and whether or not I exercised that day.  Saturday will be my day off, when I will get to visit the Rockin' Tomato, and their All You Can Eat Pizza-Calzone-PepperoniRolls-Buffet.  Yum!  I can't hardly wait!  So now I'm off to the Nordic Track for a quick round tonight, and tomorrow I get to break into the Myoplex I got at the mall tonight. 

Meanwhile, let me say that as a Republican, I'm really looking forward to the next two years.  Honest.