A Lost Month? Maybe...

Well folks, it's been a while since I wrote, and things haven't been going nearly as well as when I was writing every day.

I don't mean to suggest I've dropped off this fitness plan entirely, but I've been far from consistent over the past month, especially with the eating.

For a quick recap, on May 11 I weighed 238.2 pounds. Now, for a guy my height -- 5'10" -- with a generally medium-sized build, that's way, way, way overweight. However, it represented a 41-pound loss in just 9 weeks (well, okay, 9 weeks and 2 days). I recently went to see my doctor and she was amazed (my normal disclaimer goes here: for my family, who believe every time I mention the word "doctor" I must be suffering from a dozen different diseases and be on the list for a quadruple organ transplant, this was a regularly scheduled check-up).

Heck, the nurse kept asking me question after question after question about my eating, my exercise -- not out of professional curiosity either, she simply said whatever I was doing, she needed to do as well.

Over these past four weeks, though, I've not been eating terribly healthy, at least not with any consistency. I've fallen back into my old habits of eating badly for a few days, or eating healthy at work then eating bad at night. I went two weeks between cardio sessions at one point.

The long and short of it is I've gained back a bit of weight. I stepped on the scales this morning and was surprised at how much I'd put back on -- I weight 250.2 pounds. Yep, I've gained 12 pounds in four-and-a-half weeks.

Remember all those times I said I was the king of yo-yo dieting? THIS is what I was talking about. It's just so easy to fall back into old habits, and those old habits don't take long to wreck everything.

What frustrates me most is not just the fact that I'm 12 pounds heavier, but I'm 20 pounds heavier than I could have been at this point. Maybe more.

If I had just stayed the course, even with an off day every week, at the rate I was going I think it's safe to assume I would have continued losing 2 pounds a week or so, maybe more. It's not unreasonable to think I could be sitting here talking about being 230, 228, even 226 pounds at this point, That's still a fair bit off my goal of 199, but at that point it's within sight -- almost within reach.

Instead, I've still got 51 pounds to go. Heck, I'm closer to where I started (279 pounds) than my goal.

The news isn't all dire. I did get back in the gym last week for three full weight workouts, and two cardio sessions on Thursday and Friday. I played a little basketball yesterday and felt pretty good. Heck, I even managed a nice little acrobatic lawnmower maneuver yesterday that would put some Cirque Du Soleil performers to shame (and I discovered my mower turns a lot faster on sharp corners than I had anticipated). None of which I could have done three months ago.

So it's not as if I've fallen all the way back to where I started.

But I could, easily enough, I suppose, though that might be harder this time. I've said before one of the things that inspired me to do this blog as I make another attempt at losing weight and getting in shape was the Dude Who Ate Like The Rock for a month, Mark Webster. I thought it would be kind of fun to chronicle my successes -- and failures -- along the way.

I also thought that if I put this out there, writing most every day, it would be more difficult to fail because people would know who I am, know what I was doing, and know if I fell short. You know, it's not the failure that bothers us sometimes, but the idea that everyone knows we failed is most troublesome.

And guess what? It's kind of worked. Over the past week I think I've had about a dozen people who asked me what was up, what was happening, why haven't I been blogging. Even Mark, The Dude, sent me a tweet to check on how I was doing. The director of our gym, who follows my blog, ran into me the other day and asked. One of my sisters called me to see what was up with the missing blog. Several others, most of whom only know me from this blog, have done the same.

So, you know, if I'm not going to have to look down in shame every time I see these people, it's time to get back to it, which I started today. I've finally made it all the way through a whole day on my healthy eating plan, and I think one good, solid day will get me back on track. Now my goal is to see how fast I can get back to where I was at 238, and then charge on back toward my original goal.

Can I get back to that 238 in a week? Two?

We'll see.

But for now, here's what I did today.

Workout
(No cardio -- back's still a little sore from the lawnmower acrobatics)

Chest/shoulders/triceps

Chest
Dumbbell Bench Press
60 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
85 pounds -- 2 sets, 8 reps each

Flat Bench Barbell Bench Press
185 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
195 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps (If we'd known the bench was going to be open so soon, we wouldn't have done the dumbbells).

Incline Barbell Bench Press
105 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
115 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps

Flat bench dumbbell flys
40 pounds, 1 set, 10 reps

Shoulders
Seated Barbell Shoulder Press
95 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
105 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps

Machine rear delt flyes
125 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Machine seated side raises
110 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Triceps
Tricep cable pressdown
150 pounds -- 1 set, 12 reps
140 pounds -- 1 set, 12 reps

Seated Tricep Machine Dips
255 pounds -- 1 set, 15 reps

Machine Crunches
110 pounds -- 1 set, 20 reps

Eating for the day

Breakfast
Eggs -- 1 whole jumbo, 2 regular whites
Lean ham -- 1 ounce
1/2 cup blueberries

Lunch
Boiled chicken breast -- 4.5 ounces
Rice -- 1/2 cup
Mixed Veggies -- 1/2 cup
Sesame Seed Oil -- 1 teaspoon
Reduced Sodium Soy -- 1 tablespoon
Fat Free Greek Yogurt

Snack
1 cup red grapes

First dinner
Boiled chicken breast -- 4 ounces
Rice -- 1./2 cup
Mixed Veggies -- 1/2 cup
Sesame Seed Oil -- 1 teaspoon
Reduced Sodium Soy -- 1 tablespoon

Second Dinner
Lean ground turkey -- 4 ounces
Mixed veggies -- 1 cup

Snack
Raisin Bran -- 1 cup
Almond Milk (unsweetened) -- 3/4 cup

Totals for the day
1,380 calories
40 grams fat
132 grams protein

Water -- 74 ounces
Diet soda -- 24 ounces

That's it for the day! Thanks for stopping by, and I'll be back to this every day for a while now, so come on back!

I'm Such A Slacker...

Two days without blogging...three days without cardioing (didn't know that was a verb, did you?)...yep, I'm slacking bad.

So that stops today.

I haven't fallen off the weight loss wagon, I'm still working out pretty hard with the weights, eating healthy, but I've fallen off a bit on the cardio and the blogging.

Part of that is something I've mentioned before -- planning. I cannot emphasize enough how important planning and preparation is, and doing things today with tomorrow in mind.

This may be a simplistic example, but here's what's tripped me up on my cardio this week. First, if you've been reading my blog, you know I did do some pretty long, hard cardio sessions Monday and Tuesday, so it's not as if I just stopped doing it. And Wednesday was a planned day of no cardio, so I guess missing two days isn't all that bad. Still, you can't make up for missing a workout.

Anyway, my problem was as simple as not going to bed early enough. I'm a natural night owl, and am definitely NOT a morning person. That was compounded a bit by working a lot of late-night editing shifts a few years ago, often working from 3 p.m. until 1 a.m. (which meant getting to bed around 3 a.m.) It's been a few years since I worked that shift, but I've never gotten over it entirely, in that I'm still on that internal clock that doesn't want to go to bed until 1 or so in the morning. Heck, I've always been like that. My sisters tell me stories of when I was a little tiny kid, and I would stand up in my crib and bang my head on the wall until it would bruise (and then keep banging) just to keep myself awake.

So that's what's in my genes, folks. I just don't like going to sleep until late, late, late. My problem is, I need to do cardio in the early morning, before work. Since I started this I've mostly been able to force myself to hit the sack by midnight, maybe 12:30 at the latest, and I can crawl out of bed and go to the gym the next morning. But when I go to bed at 1, 1:30, or even later, it's pretty tough to get up early and go to the gym.

I know, I know, it all comes down to discipline, something I've handled pretty well since starting this back in March. But every once in a while, those old habits sneak back in. That was the case this week, at least Wednesday night and Thursday night, so no Thursday morning or Friday morning cardio (though I did do weight training both nights).

And today, Saturday, is usually an off day, but I went ahead and did a cardio workout this morning. So all-in-all it's not like I've missed a lot.

As for the blogging? Hmmm...I just ran out of time. We've had a couple of long days at work, stories that needed a little more attention in the editing process, other things coming along. Couple that with the fact I'm doing more writing in the world of fiction, and I've just been running short on time. Those nights I stayed up late I wasn't watching Netflix -- I was working.

For now I'll try to keep up the daily blogging-- it's a great way to keep track of my workouts and eating, and I get notes from people when I don't blog, so it's a good way to keep myself accountable.

Now, for the past couple of days...I'm going in reverse order here, so I'll start with today and work back to Thursday.

Today (Saturday)

Workout
Cardio -- stationary bike
46 minutes (25 on level 6, rest on level 5)
16.5 miles
600 calories

Eating -- well, I am taking today off on the eating, which doesn't actually mean I'm overeating. As of 1 p.m. I actually hadn't eaten anything yet, though as I write this I have two pieces of pizza next to me, so that's changing...

Friday
Workout
Back and biceps, minus the biceps because I've still been having more issues with the forearm.

Seated row -- regular grip
130 pounds -- 10 reps
200 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Wide-grip
160 pounds -- 3 sets, 10 reps each

Lat pulldowns
100 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Seated machine crunch
125 pounds -- 1 set, 20 reps

Eating for Friday
Breakfast
Coffee
Eggs -- 1 whole, 2 whites
Lean ham -- 1 ounc

Lunch
Low-fat ground beef -- 3 ounces
Frozen veggies -- 1/2 cup
Fat free Greek yogurt

Snack
Boiled chicken breast -- 4 ounces
Frozen veggies -- 1/2 cup

Dinner
Fish -- 4 ounces (I have had Salmon or Talipia every day this week, twice one day. I don't want any more fish!)
Rice -- 1/2 cup
Veggies -- 1/2 cup

Totals for the day
Calories -- 1,100
31 grams fat
118 grams protein
60 ounces of water
32 ounces diet soda

Thursday
Workout -- legs
Well, okay, it was an abbreviated leg workout, between the two main Sunday leg workouts.

Squats
135 pounds -- 10 reps
185 pounds -- 10 reps
225 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Supersquat machine
180 pounds -- 10 reps
270 pounds -- 8 reps
360 pounds -- 8 reps

Standing calf press
450 pounds
2 sets, 12 reps each

Abs
Seated machine crunch
125 pounds -- 2 sets, 20 reps each

Food for Thursday
Breakfast
Coffee
Eggs -- 1 whole, 1 white
Lean ham -- 1 ounc

Lunch
Lean ground turkey -- 2 ounces
Veggies -- 1/2 cup
Rice -- 3/4 cup
Mozzarella cheese -- 1/4 cup

Snack
Chicken breast -- 3 ounces
Mixed lettuce and spinach -- 1 1/4 cup
Fat free Thousand Island dressing

First Dinner
Chicken breast -- 4 ounces
Veggies -- 1/2 cup
Rice -- 3/4 cup
Teriyaki Sauce -- 1 tablespoon
Sesame Seed Oil -- teaspoon

Second Dinner
Tilapia -- 4 ounces
Veggies -- 1/2 cup
Teriyaki Sauce -- 1 tablespoon
Sesame Seed Oil -- teaspoon

Totals
1,245 calories
35 grams fat
109 grams protein

Water -- 65 ounces
Diet soda -- 20 ounces

Okay, that's it for the Long, SuperDuper Thursday-Friday-Saturday blog! I'll have more tomorrow, including (if I get the time) some thoughts on a recent study that suggests fatness is...well, it's inevitable for some of us (though I refuse to accept that).

More on that tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by.

Day 28 of Clean Eating!

That's right, four weeks ago today is when I started my own self-challenge to eat clean for 30 days. While I've had a couple of days where I had to really watch what I was doing, but overall it's been easier than I anticipated.

More on that later this week, after I've actually crossed day 30.

For now, let me just dive into today's workout and eating, and then I'm hitting the hay -- that clock rings awful early for these morning cardio routines! I will say the gym was extremely busy tonight -- 19 people all in the weight area, and not a soul on the cardio equipment and only one person using the nautilus machines. After my son and I finished our chest workout in the weight section of the gym, we ended up doing shoulders on the machines because all of the free weight shoulder stations were in constant use. No complaints, though, because every one of those people were working tonight, no playing around or talking.

Workout
Cardio
Stationary bike
48 minutes -- all on level 5
17 miles
630 calories

Weight training -- chest, shoulders and triceps day.
Bench Press
135 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
185 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps
215 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps
205 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps
195 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps

Incline Bench Press
135 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
135 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps

Seated Chest Flyes with machine
125 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Shoulders
Nautilus seated shoulder press
110 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Seated side raises on the machine
110 pounds -- 1 set, 10 reps
110 pounds -- 1 set, 8 reps

Rear delt flyes on the machine
135 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Triceps
Cable press down
150 pounds -- 2 sets, 10 reps each

Seated machine press down
245 pounds -- 1 set, 15 reps

Abs
Seated crunch
125 pounds -- 1 set, 15 reps

Eating for the day
Breakfast
Coffee
Eggs (1 whole, 2 whites)
Lean ham -- 1 ounce

Lunch
Lean ground beef -- 4 ounces
Baked potato -- 4.5 ounces
Veggies -- 2/3 cup

First dinner
Lean pork -- 4 ounces
Veggies -- 2/3 cup

Second dinner
Eggs -- 1 whole, 1 white
Homemade southwestern hashbrowns (spicy!) -- 1 cup
Lean bacon -- 3 slices

Total for the day

1,000 calories
39 fat grams
104 protein grams

Yes, that wasn't enough calories or protein, but there was a point in the day when I was a little afraid I was getting the stomach virus my wife had -- I was feeling kinda queasy around lunch time, so I skipped the Greek yogurt, and skipped the afternoon snack. Whatever it was passed by the end of the day, though, and I'm feeling pretty good right now.

Water -- 70 ounces
Diet soda -- 12 ounces

Remember How I Complained About Being Too Full? No Longer

Okay, most of you reading this blog know I started a new plan on Monday that included two major points of emphasis: 1) Eating clean for 30 straight days, no off days or off meals; 2) Increasing how much I've been eating to include a lean protein source and a complex carb with each meal, along with veggies two or three times a day.

The first three days of the plan were difficult mostly because it was hard to eat that much at each meal. In fact, I missed a meal each of the past two days.

Well, I can happily report I seem to have gotten over that. I've been starving all day long! I guess I've adjusted to the new eating, because downing each meal has been no problem today, and I find myself ready to eat again before the next meal time rolls around. Which is making life a little difficult with some leftover pizza sitting out there on the stove top as I write this. But nope, not touching the stuff!

Yesterday I told you guys that I'm now down to the third hole on my belt, and my shirts are a lot looser. Today I stepped on the scales and I've dropped about 24 pounds now, so even with being a little hungry, things are going quite well.

My day went like this, in terms of working out and eating.

Workout
Cardio
Stationary Bike
60 minutes (20 at level 6, 30 at level 5, 10 at level 4)
20 miles

Eating for the day

Breakfast
Eggs (1 whole, 2 white)
Fresh pineapple -- 1/2 cup

Lunch
Lean pork -- 4 ounces
Brown rice -- 1/2 cup cooked
Veggies -- 1/2 cup

Snack
Homemade taco salad -- 3 ounces of taco-flavored ground chicken, 1/4 cup mozzarella, lettuce
Fat free Greek yogurt

First dinner
Boiled chicken breast -- 6 ounces
Brown Rice -- 2/3 cup cooked
Veggies -- 1/2 cup

Second dinner
Ground chicken meat -- 3 ounces
Mozzarella -- 1/4 cup
Salsa -- 2 tablespoons
Flatbread -- 2 pieces

Total for day
1,580 calories
46 grams fat
167 grams of protein

That's about it for the day -- short and sweet and HUNGRY.

Thanks for stopping by.

Can I Be A Fanboy For Just A Minute?

Theoretically, when you post a blog or tweet a little bit, anyone in the world can read it.

The reality is, though, that most blogs attract a readership of about 17 people -- relatives, close friends, and your boss the one day you say something bad about work.

So I was really, really surprised last night when I logged on and discovered a comment from Mark Webster.

Who is Mark Webster?

He is, in the words of FiveThirtyEight.com's Walt Hickey (or at least his headline writer) "Some Dude (Who) Ate Like The Rock For A Month." The Rock, of course, is movie star, professional wrestler, and former Miami Hurricane Dwayne Johnson.

Why's that impressive? Well, just check out this Muscle and Fitness article on what The Rock eats. Really, click on the link and read it -- what he eats is astounding. I won't go through the whole thing, because you can just click on the little link and see for yourself, but it includes THREE POUNDS of cod, a half-pound of steak, a half-pound of chicken, and loads of other food every single day -- ten pounds of food in all.

If you've read some of my earlier blogs, you know I'm a big eater. A dozen tacos? Not a problem. Two-and-a-half pounds of hot wings? Hey, that's a good appetizer, but where's the real food? Krispy Kreme doughnuts? Do I really have to share my dozen?

But those kinds of foods are packed with fat, empty carbs, and sugar. You can get loaded on calories without actually eating much.

The Rock's diet is something entirely different. It's a clean diet -- lean protein, loads of complex carbs, and a relatively small amount of fat. It's a huge volume of food, more than I think I could eat.

Then there's The Rock's workouts. If I tried one of those workouts...well, go ahead and have the ambulance waiting at the door, because I suspect I'll be keeling over about 20 minutes into it.

Here's a look at that workout regimen, as published by Mark Webster on his blog.

So Mark decided he was going to do The Rock's eating and workout plan for 30 days (I think he actually went 33 days). As FiveThirtyEight said, just "some dude" who decided he wanted to challenge himself. Check out his account of the 30 days at Rock'ing For 30 Days.

Anyone who reads through the eating and workout plan has to come away impressed. It's easy to say someone like Dwayne Johnson could do that because he's a big-time movie star with people to do his cooking, no concern about the cost of food or gym memberships, no worry about office hours or having to build his schedule around a 50-hour-a-week job.

But that's not really true. It still takes an almost inhuman level of commitment and discipline to do that sort of eating and workout plan. There are plenty of multi-gabillionaires in the entertainment industry, yet how many look like Johnson? How many are willing to pay the price for staying in that level of physical condition? Not just getting in shape for a movie role, but doing that every day as a lifestyle. Sylvester Stallone, maybe Brad Pitt, Mark Wahlberg, and then...well, I can't think of a single big-time star who keeps a physique like these guys all the time.

So, while The Rock has the advantage of money, a cook, and a less-then-demanding schedule when compared to many of us, it still comes down to individual discipline.

And that brings us to Mark Webster. He's not some big superstar (at least as far as I can tell), nor a multimillionaire, just a regular guy who decided to take on a rather extreme fitness challenge.Thirty Days on The Rock's Fitness and Workout Routine.

Reading through his blog, it's clear doing this really became the central focus of his life for a month, from planning and preparing meals, spending hours in the gym every week, hours cooking every week...it's really impressive. The discipline and focus needed to do this, even for a month, with a "regular guy" job, a family, and all the other stuff most of us deal with was quite amazing. So much so, he even managed to attract the attention of a few websites who wrote about him,which in turn got him a few personal tweets from none other than The Rock Himself,

Reading Mark's blog isn't the reason I started this fitness plan. As I've written before, I've done the up-and-down weight loss before, working out, dieting. My family's used to it, and saying I'm going to loss weight -- and even losing weight -- is generally greeted by yawns and "yeah, okay, that's great" kinds of statements because...well...it's really more of the same old same old.

But, reading through Mark's blog gave me the idea to start MY blog...to publicly chronicle what I'm doing. And I have to say, when you start blogging about this stuff, whether it's 17 people or 17,000 people reading your daily success and failure, that tends to keep the motivation a teeny bit higher.

So yeah, I was really excited when I found that Mark had read through some of my posts and left a comment. Kinda made my day. And also made me a little more determined to stick with this, because now The Dude (Who) Ate Like The Rock For A Month might be checking in from time to time. If he can down three pounds of cod every day for a month, I can shed a few dozen pounds, right?

Anyway, that's all for my Fanboy post. I'll be on later to write about today's diet and workout.

Thanks for stopping by.

.

Ack! The LATE Day 10 Report (Okay, This Is Day 11, But I Won't Tell If You Don't)

Well, I missed getting my daily report out yesterday -- though it was NOT because I had a bad day. Just really, really long. Watching basketball really takes it out of you!

Seriously, I just didn't get the blog done until really late, and I figured all of my fans would be long-gone to bed, so I thought maybe I should wait until today to post Friday's news.

Anyway, Friday was a good day -- at home on a basketball-watching vacation day again, so the routine was a little off, but all was good. Since I'm posting a day late, I'll just give you a quick rundown,

Workout -- weight training
Chest, shoulders and triceps

Chest
Barbell bench press
135 pounds, 1 set of 10 reps
185 pounds, 4 sets of 8 reps each

Incline barbell bench press
115 pounds, 1 set of 10 reps

Machine seated chest flyes
115 pounds, 2 sets 12 reps each

Shoulders
Seats Barbell Press
65 pounds, 1 set 10 reps
105 pounds, 1 set 8 reps

Seated Side Raise (machine)
95 pounds
2 sets, 10 reps each

Triceps
Tricep pressodwn
150 pounds, 2 sets 12 reps each
150 pounds, 1 set 10 reps

Abs
Seated Crunches in the ab machine
95 pounds, 2 sets, 15 reps each

Now, for my food

Breakfast
Greek Yogurt

Lunch
Lean Pork Chop -- 6.25 ounces
Bake potato -- 7 ounces
Diet Butter

Snack
Boiled chicken breast -- 4 ounces
Mozz cheese -- 1/4 cup

Dinner
Chili Verde (I told you there was a lot left over!)
Mozz Cheese -- 1/3 cup
Corn torilla wraps --2 of them

Snack
Granola Cereal - 3/4 cup
Almond Milk -- 1 cup

Total for the Day
1,445 calories
48 grams fat
139 grams protein

First Week Weigh-In...

Well, I'm guessing the little graphic there is a clue that it was a good weigh-in. I wasn't sure, especially after coming off of no exercise yesterday and eating that popcorn last night, but still, when I stepped onto the scale this morning the little digital numbers came up at 266.8 pounds -- that's exactly 11 pounds lost in one week!

Needless to say, I was happy with that result. I'm not getting too excited, though -- I've done this before. Remember, I'm the KING of of yo-yo weight loss. I've dropped 10, 15, 20 pounds many many times, only to gain that back, and then some.

But this might be the first time I've lost 11 in a single week, so I'm off to a pretty good start, I'd say.

Now, for my workout and food for the day. I had initially had a weight training workout planned for today, but I workout with my son often, and he wasn't able to go to the gym today, so I switched and tonight did the cardio I would have done Thursday, and tomorrow I'll do the weight lifting workout I was going to do tonight.

Make sense?

It's just as well, because I've been dragging all day. Long, long day yesterday (it was primary day in North Carolina, where I work), and I'd already been running way short on sleep all week, so I've been really tired. As much as I dislike cardio, it's easier than going down to the gym and lifting weights when you're dead tired.

So, here are the stats for the day:

Workout -- Cardio
Stationary Bike
33 minutes (13 minutes at lvl 5, 20 minutes at lvl 4)
11 miles
355 calories burned

Food for the day

Breakfast
2 whole eggs
1 ounce lean ham
Coffee

Lunch
Chicken breast -- 5 ounces
Homemade BBQ sauce
Rice -- 3/4 cup
Veggie -- 1/2 cup

Snack
Lowfat Greek Yogurt

Dinner
Chili verde

Second Dinner
Lean ham -- 6 ounces
Bake potato -- 5 ounces
Diet butter -- 1 tablespoon

Water -- 60 ounces (though I'll probably have some more before bed)
Diet soda -- 36 ounces (caffeine!)

Totals for the day
1,300 calories
35 grams fat
123 grams protein

Overall, low on protein, low on carbs, probably a tad low on calories.

Thanks for stopping by!

My LATE Day 5 Report

Well, I'm running way behind with this end-of-day report. Kinda busy for a Sunday, so I'll be short and sweet and to the point.

Workout for the Day
Cardio -- Stationary Bike
40 minutes
12.5 miles
401 calories burned (because the first 400 are nothing, it's that extra one that counts!)

I was going to just go until I hit 12 miles, but I was close to the 400-calorie mark, and, well, I couldn't just stop at that point.

Diet for the day.
Way low on overall calories, but I guess if I'm going to be off one way or other, being too low is best.

Breakfast
Coffee
Yep, that's it.

Lunch
Lean pork chops -- 6.15 ounces
Baked Potato -- 7 ounches
Diet Butter

Dinner
Fried pollock -- 4 ounces (coated with a batter made up off corn meal and egg-white)
Pinto Beans -- 1 cup

Snack
Salmon Patty -- 4 ounces

Total for the day
776 calories
22 grams of fat
105 grams of protein

70 ounces of water
30 ounces of diet soda

Day 5 -- A Lost Hour and a High Blood Pressure Day

Well folks, I woke up this morning feeling pretty good -- the soreness has mostly gone, I'm already sleeping better with my diet changes, but I just keep feeling like something's missing, something is gone, something...Hey, I lost an hour!

Guess everyone else did as well. Most people complain about losing an hour of sleep. Me? I forgot to set my alarm, so I lost an hour of the day by sleeping later. Well, actually, I didn't sleep later, it's just that the clock changed to make it seem like I slept an hour later.

Oh well.

Now for the high blood-pressure day: I'm doing our taxes today. I least I promised my wife I would, so I suspect the next week will be rather unpleasant for me of I renege on that one. There's nothing inherently stressful in the information -- I know how much we made, how much we paid in taxes, and so forth, so there will be no surprises. I just hate doing them. Dread doing them. I hate having to go from one form to another, from one instruction book to another, back and forth. I think when the tax code was written, the instructions given to those who did the drafting went something like this: We want you to make this as confusing, as non-nonsensical, as inefficient as possible.

And if that's true, the people who drafted, and continually update, the tax code have been wildly successful.

Anyway, that's what's up for today. I'll be back later to update you on eating and cardio and all that good stuff for the day.

Day 2...just one word to describe today.....

Well, I'll be on later to give more details about how it's gone today, what I ate, and the workout.

But for now, I have that one word I promised:

SORE.

Okay, it's not THAT bad. It's certainly not as bad as I expected. Last night on about the fourth set of dumbbell bench presses and my chest muscles felt like they about to explode, I was already dreading today and how sore I'd be. I'm tight, and a little sore, and that seems to be getting worse as the day goes along, but overall not too bad.

A Fat Boy Decides It's Time To Change...

I woke up a couple of days ago -- a Monday no less -- and discovered I was fat.

Really, really fat.

Okay, I didn't wake up and suddenly find I was trapped in some morbidly obese body, it was a slow process, taking years of mistreating myself to get to this point. But Monday was kind of a tipping point. Well, that and a recent picture someone took of me.

That picture -- I'll share it, but not today (That picture to your right, the little head shot of me in a blue shirt and tie -- that picture is nearly eight years old, and shows me about 64 pounds ago) -- was of a gathering with some of my wife's family, and I was absolutely astounded when I saw myself. I don't mean to suggest I didn't understand already I was fat, I mean really big, but I simply didn't quite have that imagine of myself in my head.

That was a week and a half ago. Then this week, on Monday, I stepped on the scales.

279 pounds.

I'm not a tall guy, coming in at barely 5'10".

To put a little perspective on that, when I graduated from high school I weighed 150 pounds. I'll be the first to say I was a little too light then (though I was blazing fast -- always the fastest guy on the basketball court or soccer field), but I was probably too thin. I went off to college, got fat (gained all the way up to 197 pounds), then started working out, running, eating better, and settled in at about 180 pounds. That was a good, healthy weight for me, given how much I was working out.

So, you could say I'm about 100 pounds overweight.

100 FREAKING POUNDS OVERWEIGHT!

Maybe, I don't know. I haven't a clue what 180 would look like on me now, or 190, or even 200. I've had a lifelong struggle with weight, at least during my adult life (no problems in high school when I was playing sports, working out, running...just generally always active). My weight has gone up and done, up and down, up and down, constantly. Unfortunately, each time it goes back down, it never gets as low as last time, and when it goes up, it's always a little more than the time before.

Just last summer, in 2015, I dropped from 265 to 242 in about six weeks. Since August 1, about seven months ago, I've been in a continual climb all the way up to Monday's 279 pounds. That's more than 5 pounds a month I've been gaining. My doctor's even concerned now, though maybe I'll get into all of that later.

For now, I'll just say I'm tired of being fat, tired of being unhealthy, tired of getting out of breath doing the simplest things, tired of not sleeping well because I've eaten a ton of bad stuff just before going to bed...tired of it all.

So beginning today, I'm setting out to change a few things, mostly how I eat, how I treat myself (better sleep, more exercise). I've done this before -- I'm the KING of yo-yo dieting -- but maybe it'll be different this time. I certainly should have some better motivation (again, more on that later).

Over the coming weeks, and maybe months, I'll post here regularly on how it's going -- my weight loss, exercise gains, struggles, successes, and the like. I'll post interesting articles and information I come across regarding fitness and health. I may share blogs of other people doing something similar to what I'm doing. I'll share more of my story, how I got here, how hard it is to change, and so forth. I'll lay out what I'm eating, my workouts, what I learn along the way.

And most of all, maybe I'll encourage someone else to make some positive changes along the way.

I don't know, maybe 50 people will see this, maybe 50,000, then again maybe just me, myself, and I will be the only ones to lay eyes on this blog. Either way, I hope whoever visits finds the blog enjoyable, fun, and maybe, just maybe, helpful in their own lives.

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to leave comments or questions in the comment section of the blog.

More later....