58th Tuesday weigh-in

222.5 lb

Down 1.0 lbs last Tuesday. Now for tomorrow's Tuesday weigh-in.. I think I have bad news. I may be back up +3 lbs.. due to some over eating on Christmas Eve, and a game night. I have been good about working out, only missed on Christmas day in the past week.

57th Tuesday weigh-in

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dptr/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

No change from last week. I hit the gym all 6 days and tracked my food during the week. Sometimes the scale is just a jerk.

56th Tuesday weigh-in

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdickert/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

Down 1.5 lbs! Three weeks in a row with a loss to report. I think tracking food on the daily plate is a great way to keep me from overeating, it is really the only thing different I have been doing lately (well I have not been eating lots of candy and snacks either.)

55th Tuesday weigh-in

225.0 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb, and this over Thanksgiving! I am so proud of that. I jogged/ran 3 laps around Nathan's house in Cedar City to work off some of that pecan pie, they said one lap was 1.5 miles, on the last lap some neighbor dogs chased me down the street, it really got the blood pumping running for my life!

Tracking my daily food intake on the daily plate is working well. My personal trainer visit was this week, I was about the same as last month on body fat (23%) and weight. That is better than being 5 lbs heavier but I was hoping for a loss on body fat. On average Americans gain 8lbs over the November - December holiday season. Let's see if I can bring that average down a tick by losing that much. Negative 8 pounds by January 1st, 2010!

54th Tuesday weigh-in

225.5 lb

Oops, forgot to post this. I even eeked out a loss. Go me.

53rd Tuesday weigh-in

226.0 lb

Aargh! The numbers on the scale sucked.. but I still fit great in my new jeans. I have exercised all 6 days faithfully and tracked my food 5 of the 7 days. It was fun to see Grandpa and Candace last night, but it was a bummer that Linc and Randy punked me and didn't show up. Next up: Hannah's birthday, Thanksgiving, ward party, work party, Christmas party, New Years party... but most importantly: more weekly posts with losses!

52nd Tuesday weigh-in

http://www.flickr.com/photos/publicdomainphotos/ / CC BY 2.0

225 lb

Gain of 2lbs... but, to focus on the positives, I am wearing size 34 jeans without too much trouble which is a huge improvement over size 38's. Blue cheese dip and pretzel crisps are probably not a good thing for me to have around... but it's worth it occasionally. Rebecca's birthday party had me eating cobbler and ice cream which didn't help me either. At least I am hitting the gym consistently. I am also tracking food I eat but I slack off on tracking food I eat on the weekend. It has been a year since I started weekly weigh ins. I will keep doing them as I feel it keeps me from gaining or getting off track and helps to motivate me to lose. I have a more energy than I used to and, with two kids, I need every femto-joule I can get.

51st Tuesday weigh-in

223.0 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb, yay. Tracking food on thedailyplate again helped, Halloween candy and carmel apples did not help. Exercised as usual.

50th Tuesday weigh-in

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasap/ / CC BY 2.0

223.5 lb

Loss of 1.0 lb from last week. I still hate cold mornings.. but I am so glad to post another loss! I love thedailyplate.com it is so awesome and just the right price. Rebecca finds the coolest sites. Two more weeks will make a year of weekly weigh-ins. I think tracking my food on thedailyplate.com is a key component of losing weight because I still do not have the hang of portion control such that I know when to stop eating intuitively.

49th Tuesday weigh-in

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devious_madness/ / CC BY 2.0

224.5 lb

Down 0.5 lb. I pushed pretty hard this last week and I hate cold mornings...

Mon: Eliptical X 30min @ Golds
Tues: Weights (single sets X 12 reps) @ Golds
Wed: StairStep X 30min @ legacy center gym
Thur: Weights (6 sets on chest only) @ Golds
Fri: Treadmill X 30min @ Golds
Sat: Weights (single sets X 12 reps) @ legacy center gym
Sun: I lay in bed tired and sick
Mon: Stationary recumbent bike @ legacy center (everything else was in use)
Tues: Weights @ legacy center gym

48th Tuesday weigh-in

225.0 lb

Loss of 1.5 lb from last week. YAY! Rebecca's sticky rice and mango dessert was awesome (I had two servings of that.) She also made some cinnamon rolls which were delicious. Rebecca took me to Cafe Rio as well on Monday and I was able to try a Banbury Cross donut, and, oh my... those are good!

So with all that happening, I have still kept up on my goal to stop eating after 8 pm, drink gallon of water per day, exercise six days per week. A landscaping project on Saturday and Fast Sunday probably helped me a little as well.

47th Tuesday weigh-in

226.5 lb

This week I have been faithfully doing my ankle exercises and hit the gym all days but one, so 5 days. I missed one weight lifting day due to staying up until 2:00am gaming on Friday. Walking is so much easier with the heel lift, it was really miraculous, I walked out of the Dr. office faster than I have walked in years.. I can walk fast without pain through parking lots. Running is still sore on my ankle but it is not so painful that I limp-run. I am more a 'wince-runner' now. I have new duds on order from amazon. I would love to "buy local" but that usually means paying $40 more for the exact same pair of shoes, so 'local' can forget it! Last time I got a killer deal on overstock.com for my Brooks Beast's but this time they didn't have my size.
So I guess I am up 1.5 this week from last week. I have another weigh in with the personal trainer this month that I am preparing for. I was a little down last month and I want to be down again in October.

46th Tuesday weigh-in

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7438870@N04/ / CC BY 2.0

225.0 lb

I did all my exercises (3 cardio 3 weight lifting) and watched my food intake carefully. I have had some major pain in my ankle this last weekend, so much that walking was excruciating. So I met with a physical therapist this week. It would have been easy to just let the ankle injury pain keep me away from the gym, but instead I turned it around and made it into something I plan to beat rather than be beaten by it. I made a mistake once before of taking time off from the gym to rest a painful heel, but a week turned to a month and I was off track for a long time after. The physical therapist informed me that my left leg is 1 cm shorter than my right leg, and I am a severe over-pronator. My feet are tight and have very little flexibility and it appears my lack of flexibility is a mechanical issue from short Achilles tendons. He put a shoe insert under just my left heel and walking is much nicer for me with it in. I also need to switch out my running shoes more frequently than I have been, every 6 months, going forward. I have a set of exercises I need to do to strengthen my ankle and leg muscles as well. Things like balance on one foot for one minute three times. If I do all this, I will be broke from buying shoes, and look goofy at the gym doing the flamingo, but I will able to run/walk comfortably. So I plan to go for it.

45th Tuesday weigh-in

225.0 lb

That's more like it, down 1.5 lb. It's good to show a loss today as I have a health assessment with the trainee-trainer on Thursday. I do need to make a correction from last week, Rebecca is skinnier and looks even better now than when we were first engaged and married. So she is not as attractive as when we married, she is even more attractive to me. However, I do have to correct her from time to time, because she sometimes says, "- back when we were dating..." and I have to remind her that we haven't stopped dating by taking her out. If you have ideas for fun dates I could take her on, then please let me know. If the idea is really good, I will surprise her with it.

44th Tuesday weigh-in

226.5 lb

Strange to be up so much, I didn't overeat all week until Friday night when I had waaay more pizza than I should have. Then I took the family to the Pleasant Grove Hog's Heaven CookOff on Saturday night and enjoyed some nice ribs and pulled pork. We got leftovers so it was BBQ Sunday and Monday too. But I really don't think I am "up", just retaining water / extra food from the weekend of extra grease and salt. I don't feel heavy and did exercise the entire week consistently. If I can lose body fat and gain muscle, that is fine with me.

I am as motivated as ever to post good numbers here and at my monthly weigh-in with the "impersonal" trainer, Heather. Seriously she has been a huge let down. It has been like torture to get any kind of personalized help from her, she just wants to measure this and weigh that, then give me a pre-printed handout and a smile-see-ya-next-month-bah-bye. If anything she has demotivated more than motivated. So Heather gets zero credit from me for any progress I am making.

My plan for next week is to push myself at the gym on cardio harder than I have been. I also plan to eat midmeal snacks so I am not tempted to overeat at dinner. Finally, I like Rebecca's strategy to stop eating by 8pm, so I am stealing that one from her. Rebecca, by the way, has been rocking it in weight loss these past few months and is breaking out skinny clothes left and right. She really puts me to shame with her progress, her pants are loose and her figure is as stunning as when we got married.

43rd Tuesday weigh-in

Image: flickr owner D Sharon Pruitt

225 lb

Down 0.5 lb. I worked out all week in Austin and didn't let jet lag stop me from going on Saturday either. When I ran the neighborhood 5K earlier this year a neighbor commented to me after, "Harley, you're an animal." And they meant it, that felt good to hear; I wish I had a video of it to watch to help me stay motivated.

I asked Rebecca to look at the photo I posted last week and compare it to me now. She could not tell if I looked much different now than in the photo at Halloween in 2008, all I can say to that is: ouch.. I can tell you I lift a lot more weight now than I did in 2008. Exercises that were tough at 100 lbs, I do now at 135 lbs. I have been able to do lifts heavier than I ever recorded or can remember doing them. I do more cardio now than in Oct 2008 also. My blood pressure is lower, cholesterol is at a healthier level, I have less body fat too. But the truth is the truth, I do not look much different on the outside and have not lost much weight in almost 12 months. Some of my pants are still snug which I was hoping would be loose by now, at least I am not afraid they will tear open when bending over or the button fall off taking a deep breath. I didn't have a personal trainer in Oct 2008 or any real clear goals for my health. Yes I could have crash dieted and suffered and struggled against myself and pushed myself much harder, but I have no regrets. I am happy with the progress.

I guess I am just saying I have changed and continue to change whether is shows on the outside or not, whether the numbers on the scale are good or not, I am changing slowly and the change is from the inside out. One day the outside will catch up to the inside. The inscription on my iPod Rebecca gave me says: Be the change... which is part of a favorite quote of mine: Be the change you want to see in the world. Good motto to live by if you ask me.

42nd Tuesday weigh-in

226.5 lb

Up 1.0 lb from last Tuesday, synopsis is: travel sucks. Anyway I made some dietary u-turns and by Friday I was back to 225.5 lb despite the non-stop buffet available to me. I was hard to turn down my manager / client for dinner but I ate with him once that week and had planned on a lunch with him as well, enough's enough. I am proud that I didn't have soda or appetizers and that I worked out every day of the week of travel. Photo is me from 2008 Halloween party, probably the closest photo I have of myself back when I started my Tuesday weigh-ins in Nov 2008. I was a "farmer" for Halloween that year. It is fitting that I am eating a candy bar... that is how I got so off track, one snack at a time.

41st Tuesday weigh-in

225.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week. I have been drinking a gallon of water per day for a few weeks as well as hitting the gym all six planned days. I think drinking lots water helps me feel better and I am always well hydrated. I still have days where I am totally wiped out of all energy, usually Sunday after gaming on Saturday... Also finally had my monthly weigh-in with the personal trainer and I was down 1% body fat from last month.

As the above picture illustrates: we have an overflow of zucchini from our garden, tomatoes go as fast as they're ready. Joeseph and Sue came by our house recently and I got to serve them up some of my garden tomatoes which were promptly devoured and then gushed over. Tomatoes are so good raw with a little salt, but an open-faced tomato-mayo sandwich on homemade dutch-oven bread is fantastic. Store-bought tomatoes are painful to eat once you have had the real deal. We don't keep up with the yellow summer squash either but have some zucchini and squash two or three times a week at minimum. My mom says I should make ratatouille with all this stuff... I just need eggplant. Rebecca freezes and gives away some zucchini to try and use all that the garden is producing.

40th Tuesday weigh-in

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericmcgregor/346990046/

226.0 lb

Down 0.5 lb from last Tuesday. Yay a loss. The camping trip did not "trip" me up.

39th Tuesday weigh-in

photo courtesy of http://photodaisy.blogspot.com/

226.5 lb

I really need to post my weight on time. Same as the previous week, no change. I am not fazed by it. I had a camping trip scheduled and have planned on being extra cautious so I am not up for my personal trainer weigh-in next week.

38th Tuesday weigh-in

226.5 lb

I did really well last week on exercise (6 days, 3 cardio, 3 lifting) but... starting on Thursday with lunch at JCW's with some friends from Novell, then dinner at Chili's with Rebecca on Friday, then french fries and game night candy+soda on Saturday and finally a roast dinner on Sunday... I am lucky to be back down to only 1/2 lb up.
My percent body fat is 29% so I think I am keeping muscle while doing this which is a plus.

37th Tuesday weigh-in

226 lb

Yuck I did not do well last week, even slacked off on posting this dismal weigh-in until a day before the 38th weigh in. Anything I write is just and excuse for too much food intake and not enough sweat output.

I tried out Lincoln's new stationary bike, it is silent, and by that I mean all you can hear while using it is your wheezing asthmatic breathing and thumping heart beats as it tries to pump blood through cholesterol clogged arteries. I did however dominate a 30 minute program giving myself a slight ego boost. The fear of losing my XBOX has kept me at the gym all the past week to stem the tide of gains. I have even downed over a gallon of water today to try and release any/all retained water.

36th Tuesday weigh-in

224.5 lb

No change. The birthday party and pizza party in Cedar City didn't help me lose. I feel good though. I love exercising and having more energy from exercise, I just don't love the sore feet and ankles.

35th Tuesday weigh-in

224.5 lb

Neglected to post the bad news of a gain, until now. The steaks and cake I had on Sunday are probably the primary cause of my gain on Tuesday but I think they were worth it. I have been much better this week (since Sunday) by eating shakes for lunch and dinner and eating much more fresh fruits and vegetables. I have a weigh in on this Friday with a personal trainer as well. I really want to show at least a fat percentage loss for that weigh-in as it will track my progress for the past month. I can establish a habit of consistent exercise and go for a long streak of consistent exercise but after a consecutive three days of slacking off, it is really hard for me to get back in the habit again.

A certain neice told me something

Shortly after I got married in 2005, this niece said to me, "Now that you're married, you're going to get fat." I took it as a challenge and complement at the same time.

While I am not thin now (..yet), what she didn't know is I certainly am not as fat as I was before marriage, BEHOLD:

The above is me on the left "living the dream" at 320 lbs. So yes I am down about 100lbs from 2002 and I did it without surgery or personal trainers/expensive diet food etc... I do owe a lot to a Nordic Track recumbent bike and a book called "Body for Life" by Bill Philips.

In your face niece! She's probably too busy and/or cool to read my blog anyway.

34th Tuesday weigh-in

223lb

Up 1 lb again. I have been having too much food on the vacation. Got my XBOX360 setup with a short network cable but need a longer cable and phone jack installed to make the setup permanent (i.e. not having wires strung up everywhere). Rebecca signed up for NetFlix and so we watched Wall-e via XBOX last night. Linc was able to setup my VMware to run OSX and the iPhone SDK and used it to finish Assignment 1A for the Stanford iPhone development class.

33rd Tuesday weigh-in

222 lb

1.0 lb loss from last week. I was hoping for more but that is almost always the case. I am sore from doing dumbbell lunges, I only did 24 reps but it was enough to cause some major tightness and soreness today.
I watched the wedding video we had done with Rebecca on our anniversary and I can't tell if I am heavier or lighter now than I was back then. I think that is a good thing because it probably means I am about the same weight as I was then. Next year I plan on mocking my former self as a wimp and a fatty by losing more weight and building more muscle. Just finished a homemade sandbox for the back yard but 10 bags of sand was not nearly enough, 20 more bags and we will have a pretty sweet play area for Eleanor. I have some pics but they are still on the camera which does you no good.

Last Sunday in June

This year has been unusually wet. I think today has been a more typical June weather day and so I got the urge to take some pictures.

Our peach tree and "baby J" honey crisp apple trees also look fantastic this year; I wish we had thought to plant a tree the year E was born as well.

I took some shots in the garden of our tomato, zucchini, and squash plants.

I started two batches of no-knead dutch oven bread last night and baked them today to go with dinner.

E helped pick carrots out of the garden. Which we peeled and put into a crock pot for a roast tonight.

Rebecca and I want to start planning our landscaping (not that we have money to invest in it yet..) We need more shade in the backyard and want to put in some shade trees.

32nd Tuesday weigh-in

223 lb

Same as last week and I have missed two of the last three workouts this week. I have just been tired and the bed is too comfortable. I think I have been doing ok on my portions and food; I just have not been exercising consistently.

Rest in Peace Layton E

He could play the guitar so well. I owe a lot to him, growing up I wanted to be like him, specifically I wanted to be smart and make good money in the computer industry. He was an inspiration to me. He loved to play music. Layton was a brilliant engineer and designed processor chips with a drafting table, pencil, and ruler! He was a math genius and could prove if a chip had been designed with flaws that would cause heat issues by doing matrix inversions of the transistors (or something way more cool and complecated). He designed chips that could run on mili-amps or even pico-amps of power. He had some niche knowledge that was in very high demand and rare to find and could work with other very smart people and hold his own. Layton wasn't perfect, none of us are. I am not perfect and have just as many flaws as Layton, if not more. Rest in Peace Layton, I hope they have rock music in heaven. I miss you.

31st Tuesday weigh-in

223 lb

Up 0.5 lb, I was sick the whole week and did not make it to the gym until this Monday when I did stairmaster for 30 mins. I am glad I am not gaining that much without exercise and now that I am recuperated, time to get back on the treadmill and drop some more pounds.

30th Tuesday weigh-in

222.5 lb

Up 1 lb from last week. I have been sick since Sunday and missed workouts Mon,Tues and Wed this week to rest and recuperate. I enjoyed weight lifting three days a week last week, I am going to continue that once I am recovered.
Rebecca has helped me to save money and eat less junk and more vegetables by making dinner at home on the weekend. Thank you Rebecca!

29th Tuesday weigh-in

221.5 lb

No change from last week. I think my indulgences at Wing Shack, Chili's (ribs), Bombay House (Chicken Makhani and Chicken Coconut Kuruma) with Naan, and Good and Plenty candies were enough to keep me from a loss, thankfully I kicked my butt on a 5K to keep from gaining.

Rebecca has been adding in vegetables to meals more and more. The problem I have with vegetables is gas... ever since I started drinking a V8 in the morning, I have been having intestinal trouble and feel bloated.

I have been tracking my weight weekly for over 200 days now but have not really lost even 20 lbs. So if you see me with a doughnut, slap my hand so I drop it.

Ran a 5K on Saturday

My feet are super sore, bruised, swollen and stiff after running a 5K. Do I need to run more often? Or only run on flat treadmills/track surfaces? Rebecca says I am banned from running on pavement.

I think I did it in about 35 minutes, it was a disorganized 5K... but free so I can't complain. Next time, if there ever is one, I will take a watch so I can know how long I take to run it. I did it pushing E in our mountain buggy jogging stroller, and no walking or stopping. Bad news is my weight is still high today. I hope to break even tomorrow on the scale. ...Run a 5K and still gain weight... that ain't right. We also helped clean the LDS chapel after the 5K, so it was a busy morning Saturday.

28th Tuesday weigh-in

221.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week.

I really cannot convey how fantastic weekly weigh-ins are for me. There is no escape, every Tuesday I have to face the facts. Did I exercise ? Did I track my eating? The scale doesn't lie, it just weighs my fat butt. If I let myself slip on week, I can make a correction quickly... I really would hate to dig myself out of a hole only to fall back in again because I let old habits return.

27th Tuesday weigh-in

222 lb

two steps forward and two steps back, gain of 2lb from last week. I actually am not too concerned with this because I started lifting again and that can cause water retention. To be 100% honest, I also ate more than I should have over the weekend which included soda, candy, salty chips and crackers and birthday desserts, i.e. lots of junk.

I started lifting because my new personal trainer recommended it. Also my personal trainer recommended my base calories be 2200, thedailyplate had me at ~1800... according to her, I should lose 1 lb a week from staying at 2200 calories per day. Any exercise on top would be additional loss of weight. She also said diet should not be restricted to lose more than 1 lb per week and the rest of weight loss should come from exercise rather than further calorie restrictions. She told me if I eat less calories than my basal metabolic rate, then I will lose muscle rather than fat due to my body entering starvation mode. So I really hope I have not been doing damage to myself for the past six months slowing down my metabolism and losing muscle etc... My numbers are looking scary, my bodyfat measured by the trainer was still 23.5%.. it was at that in January... when I weighed 229 lb..

I am sad to miss camping this weekend due to rainy weather but will have fun anyway and not have to sit in memorial day traffic. Rebecca and I are planning to buy a van and sell her car but the main hangup we have is gas mileage... the van only gets 18 mpg city... and we would have to get a loan on it (we both despise debt.) The homemade panini's were fabulous, what a great idea. Rebecca got a George foreman grill so we can continue having them at home.

26th Tuesday weigh-in

219 lb

2lb loss from last week. Goal I set was to lose around 19 more by July 17th. Tracking what I eat helped with the loss, also running a chainsaw for a few hours cutting firewood along with manually cutting down a few dead branches with Randy and a long rope saw contraption helped burn off the campfire smores. Rebecca has pictures of Eleanor camping, pester her to post them.

Side note: The garden is looking good I can see lots of chard and radishes, maybe a few beets and carrots too. My tomato plants are huge! I need to plant them in the garden before too long. I also need to gather up the stuff for a garden drip system, turn on my sprinklers before the free rain stops, and buy some black plastic for the tomatoes to grow over...

Busy Busy Busy

25th Tuesday weigh-in

221 lb



Up 2 lb. Too much salt and candy and too little water and vegetables I think. Oh and the homemade bread is addictive. I did stay with my daily cardio exercise.

I am really glad I do this each week. It keeps me honest with myself on what I am doing and what I am not doing. The main reasons for the gain this week is because of snacking and not being accountable on the dailyplate for what I was eating in the evenings and on the weekend. Also, I have been drinking a lot of caffine (at least two 12 oz cans per day) and so I have not been sleeping/feeling as well as I could be.

24th Tuesday weigh-in

219.0 lb

Down 0.5 lb from last week. Total loss of 8.5 lb toward goal to lose 30 by my birthday.

Found my shoes on overstock.com for $74... so at least I did not pay $120 twice... but I am still arg som en spik!

I missed one morning cardio workout this past week, I just didn't wake up in time.

Still haven't started the lunch or after work weight lifting at Gold's. Maybe if Linc were to join...

I think I overate over the weekend so I was not able to post a higher loss, but even 0.5lb is better than staying the same or gaining it back.

23rd Tuesday weigh-in

219.5lb

Down 0.5 lb from last week. Total loss of 8lb toward my new goal I set on weigh-in 18 to lose 30 lbs by my birthday.

12 weeks and 19.5lbs to go. Goal is still doable but I need more 2.5lb loss weeks to give me a comfortable buffer for any bad weigh-in weeks.

I haven't been hitting the gym at lunch which I plan to pick up again. I had two pairs of shoes before Austin but am back down to one because I left a new pair at the hotel and they didn't put them in the lost and found. So my new $120 shoes are gone and I have to shuffle my old pair around until I have time/money to re-buy some more.

22nd Tuesday weigh-in

220 lb

Easter dinner is a killer for a diet. I skipped lunch but still ended up 2000 calories over that day.
Have not missed any workouts at least.

21st Tuesday weigh-in

??? lb
(218 lb on Saturday, loss of 2.5 from the week before)

No scale to use, I will update with my weight on Saturday again.

I am really digging thedailyplate on livestrong.com, might even spring for a gold membership. I think I am on track to lose 2 lbs but we'll see. It will be good to be back on a schedule like I was before, weighing in each Tuesday, but I am not letting myself become a victim of circumstances. I haven't missed a single workout in the past three weeks and have tracked just about every bite on the calorie site and, lo and behold, I consistently lose weight doing that.

20th Tuesday weigh-in

??? lb
(I weighed in Saturday morning at 220.5 lb down 2 lb from last Saturday)

Whoa I am late with this post and don't even have a weight to report. I'm sorry, but I refuse to lug a bathroom scale up and down the airport. I will weigh in Saturday and edit this post with the number. I am proud to say: I have kept track of what I ate every day on the livestrong.com meal tracker and worked out everyday this past week except Sunday.

I hear it is snowing in Utah. I am so glad I am not driving in that junk to the gym. But now I wonder if the spring garden I worked so feverishly on to plant in March is going to be a total bust, Rebecca said nothing is sprouting up and the furrows are full of snow. I worry that maybe if I had planted it a weekend earlier, it might have had a chance to sprout during that brief warm period of about a week we had before the weather betrayed us.

Doh! Forgot something

I forgot to kidnap my wife and take her with me... But I also forgot to take the cable to transfer the pictures from my digital camera to my computer, so I can't submit my receipts for my expense report like I planned. I can at least take the pictures so they are ready to send, oh well, I blame Hillary because her laptop had a card reader built in.

Sometimes life is just a game of hurry-up-and-wait. I hurry, hurry to the airport to be on time or early, then wait at the gate because my flight is delayed at the last minute. I hurry exercise and get to work, then wait in boring meetings for people to stop flapping their lips without saying anything new. I rush to get back from lunch but have to wait around for two hours because of unforeseen events.
I hurried all morning last Saturday to get the house ready for Christina to come and for me to be gone again, but I eventually gave up and spent some down time with Rebecca once the kids were asleep.

On a side note, I am proud that I have not turned on the TV in my hotel room yet.

Schedule controversy

Linc you are right, this is a controversial approach but can you see the advantage? It is absolutely as mathematically "fair" as possible (no more, I always get so-in-so complaining) Their is no element of chance or luck in who gives you gifts or who you give gifts to, which you say removes the fun. I think the other element of fun you experience is in keeping the secret about who you have until the big day and using stealth/espionage to find out what the person might like to receive.

I suggest random draw often results in giving to the same person year after year after year, which is not as fun. Furthermore, several people work in concert to expose the complete givee/giver list by sharing their secrets with each other. If people want to know who has them, they can always find out. Finally, with the luck of the draw approach, you could very possibly never give to some members of the group. This is especially the case when you add in the requirements for no self-gifts, no spouse gifts. It is tough to get a good random draw with this inherent tampering with the random draw.

Could we maybe combine the preplanned and random? Take these seven preplanned lists and randomly draw one out, keep the names secret, and keep the other six lists for next time? I don't see how it is much different from what we do now, except by doing this you can ensure no repeat gifting.

Regardless of random draw vs preplanned, I think we should do it now so we have 8 months to make a gift. The holidays are busy and stressful enough without having to come up with a handmade gift idea for a specific person, then create the gift from that idea before the gift deadline. What I am saying is: not all of us operate lathes, cross-stitch and solder on a regular basis. So it may take time, for me at least, to research and "learn how" to even make a certain handmade gift for someone because I am pretty sure some people do not want me to give them origami for Christmas.

Seven year gift schedule

Here is a proposed gift schedule for the next seven years, it will then cycle over on year eight back to what it was in 2009.

           2009       2010       2011      2012      2013      2014      2015
Reg        Harley     Hillary    Randy     Hannah    Lincoln   Heidi     Rebecca 
Roxane     Rebecca    Randy      Hillary   Lincoln   Heidi     Hannah    Harley  
Harley     Reg        Hannah     Lincoln   Heidi     Randy     Hillary   Roxane  
Rebecca    Roxane     Lincoln    Heidi     Hillary   Hannah    Randy     Reg     
Hillary    Hannah     Heidi      Reg       Roxane    Rebecca   Harley    Lincoln 
Randy      Lincoln    Reg        Hannah    Harley    Roxane    Rebecca   Hannah  
Hannah     Heidi      Roxane     Harley    Rebecca   Hillary   Reg       Randy   
Lincoln    Hillary    Harley     Rebecca   Randy     Reg       Roxane    Heidi   
Heidi      Randy      Rebecca    Roxane    Reg       Harley    Lincoln   Hillary 

19th Tuesday weigh-in

??? lb
(Update: I weighed in on Saturday and was at 222.5 lb!)

I owe you a scale measurement. I did not take my scale with me and their is not one at the hotel handy to use either. I have not missed cardio this past week, I did not do weights however. Once I get back from my trip I will start that up again. I did track my food all last week and posted a screen shot of what I put in the daily plate. As you can see, I am still above what I should be eating most days, today for example I ate a 10oz prime rib (900+ calories), which put over by the most all week. I thought I was saving up enough to have it, but I could have eaten half of it and would have been much better off. I still think I lost weight because the blue line is for losing 2 lb per week, so I may have lost less than that. I like that I can check on the site how many calories I have left and "spend" them strategically.

18th Tuesday weigh-in

227.5 lb

Gain of 0.5

I have a new goal now: Lose 30 lbs by my birthday. I have been floundering around for a while now and need to get back on track or else I lose the XBOX. This will require a loss average of over 1.5 lb per week, about 1.75 will work.

I made it through the holidays and feel great about it. Now that the weather is not miserable and cold in the mornings, I should be able to easily continue to make it to the gym or at least to Hannah's treadmill very consistently. Some risks/obstacles I can plan for are:

• travel can wreck my sleep schedule (result: missed workouts or overeating)
• two kids are a big burden (if they get sick, even more) and may interfere with sleep (result: missed workouts or overeating)

If I can keep from overeating, missing a workout will be a minor issue. Once thing I have not been good at is making a full accounting of my food intake each day. I would track up through lunch then try to spend or use the rest of my calories for the day before bed by estimation only. I have not been recording what I ate after lunch and this must be where the extra food is slipping in and preventing a loss on Tuesday. A can of sprite here, a handful of almonds there, bag of popcorn, another sprite, some more almonds, hey some chocolate chips, why not? Bite by bite, one way or another, I undo the calorie deficit I need to lose the fat and get a scale number like the one above.

My original plan was to track calories on livestrong.com, so I have recommitted to do that. I also plan to use bigoven to plan meals so I am not having to wing it for dinner each night.
This should also help since the baby is here and his needs will be putting extra burden on Rebecca and I.

I hope you are doing as well or better than me on whatever goals you have set for yourself, and I wish you much success.

17th Tuesday weigh-in

227.0 lb

Yikes. Gain of 3 lb.. It has been a busy few days here. But I did make time to weigh myself and exercise today at least. I didn't plan well what I was going to eat at the hospital while Rebecca was recovering so I ended up eating the food in the cafeteria which is chicken fried steak and french fries with gravy, or bacon, eggs, toast etc.. I do think most of my gain was water retention from eating too much salt (damn delicious chips). I need to drink more water this week. I did about 120 oz of water today alone. I stayed off soda for the most part, having it on Wednesday and Saturday only. I definitely ate too much candy. Maybe I am just a sugar-aholic. If I don't get soda, then I crave candy or vice versa.

Picture is Jameson taking in some simulated sun in the hopes we don't have to get a bilirubin light. He has failed the bilirubin test three times now. He has another blood test tomorrow and I want it to be the last test. I mean what is the point of tests if doctors are not going to accompany the results with some treatment options? It is the almost the equivalent of saying, "Thanks for driving your child here over the dangerous roads and spending45 minutes in the hospital waiting room full of sick/disturbed people with your infant. Here, have him take this blood test... Oh, your boy failed it, come back tomorrow to take it again. By the way, that will be $45 for:

1. wasting two hours of your life,
2. stabbing your son's foot, and
3. milking drops of blood from him for 10 minutes."

New Baby

I took these, Rebecca took better ones so bug her to post them. Our daughter Eleanor is a big sister now. She is so big when you compare to her little brother Jameson.

16th Tuesday weigh-in

224.0 lb

Loss of 2 lb. Short term goal is to lose another 2 lb to weigh 222 lb. Long term... probably another 30 lbs to lose.

I need to start recording details about my exercises and what I eat each day more consistently because I want to repeat the results of this week. I planned to stay away from soda most of the week, but did have a 32 oz Dr Pepper and 12 Sprite however.

15th Tuesday weigh-in

226.0 lb

Gain of 1.5 lb from last week.

Bah! I exercised the full week, as well as, lifted weights four of my planned five times. I drank diet shakes at lunch. It is funny how I can remember all the good choices I make in a 7 day period but forget all the bad ones. The scale can kiss it! 

Truth is I did drink waaaaaay to much Dr Pepper last weekend, so I plan to reign that back in. I snacked too much on junk food on a game night (but worth it.) I usually have a snickers bar to celebrate a weekly weight loss, so I didn't have one this time. But I still drank a single 12 oz can of pure cane Dr Pepper (real liquid gold) since I kept up on my weight training and cardio. I really have to come to terms with my eating habits and food weaknesses because it is the only thing left holding me back as far as I can tell. Rebecca tried to be supportive and say that I gained muscle, but I doubt that I have 1.5 lbs of additional muscle in one week. One positive in all this is: for the past seven weeks I have been able to report the same weight or a loss.

On another note, some of my coworkers are doing a sprint triathlon in March... they want me to do it with them. I doubt I would be ready to especially since the baby is due so soon.

14th Tuesday weigh-in

224.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week. Goal is to lose 2.5 lb to weight 222 on Feb 24th. 

My pants are STILL tight!!! Geez! I wore them day in, day out in Austin, Texas for four months and now after losing over 10 lbs, they are still really, really tight around me. I have two pair one blue one Khaki  and both are barely fitting me again. The sad truth is it takes 6+ months of steady consistent diet and exercise for me to notice any difference in my appearance, but only a month or two of indulging and slacking off to noticably bloat up. 

Since I have been losing weight I have been thinking about where the fat goes... Matter cannot be created or destroyed so it has to be converted into something else, but what? Well wikipedia to the rescue. Just ask the right question: How are fats metabolized?

1. Fats are composed of triglyceride and cholesterol and must be broken down with a process called Lipolysis.
   
2. Lipolysis produces glycerol and fatty acids.
   
3. Glycerol undergoes Glycolisis to produce acetyl-CoA and carbon dioxide gas which is exhaled when breathing
   
4. Fatty acids undergo beta oxidation to produce acetyl-CoA
   
5. Acetyl-CoA enters the Krebb-cycle to produce ATP, Hydrogen and more carbon dioxide gas which is exhaled when breathing
   
6. Hydrogen produced in Krebb-cycle is transported to the electron transport chain and is combined with oxygen to produce water and energy for the creation of additional ATP which is the utimate fuel used by cells.
   

So fat becomes carbon dioxide, water, heat (from metabolic pathway reactions) and ATP (cellular fuel). Oh the cholesterol in fat isn't converted to energy. It is used in your cell membranes, you lose excess cholesterol  in your stool. 

Gardening Spring Fertilizer

I am excited to have a garden again. I am taking a class from a very knowledgeable home gardener. He recommended fertilizing established trees and flowers while the snow is still on the ground. He also had a recommended recipe for the soil in this area. Today I went to Walmart and HomeDepot and purchased the three items (I think they are the three he mentioned.)

• Miracle Grow(Azalia feed or bloom booster)
  
• Ironite
• Amonium Sulfate

I also purchased some peat moss (sphagnum) as well as a spreader. I have now fertilized the peach tree in the back yard and hopefully the melting snow will carry the fertilizer down to the roots so we have a healthy leafy tree this year and some big sweet peaches. Rebecca and I plan to plant in March (the cold weather vegetables) so we still need to get some 18-18-6 fertilizer and sulpher to prepare the soil for our vegetable garden. I guess I will check a nursery for those items because WalMart and HomeDepot did not have them. I also need that fungi root spray. Oh and I need to get some seeds!

I would like to disc or roto till up another section of my yard for a second garden (since the watering and planting cycles are different) but with the sprinkler system, it would be a lot of work, maybe I will plan a family activity in April...

13th Tuesday weigh-in

225.0lb

Loss of 1.0 lb from last week. Goal is to lose 3 more lb by Feb 24th to weigh 222 lb.

Just picking away at the flab, bit by bit. I like that Hannah has been posting her weekly workout plans. Here is mine:

Tuesday 5:30am 25 min cardio 12:00pm 30 min upper body weights part 2

Wednesday 5:30am 25 min cardio 12:00pm 30 min lower body weights part 1

Thursday 5:30am 25 min cardio 12:00pm 30 min lower body weights part 2

Friday 5:30am 25 min cardio 12:00pm 30 min upper body weights part 3

Saturday 6:00am 30 min cardio

Sunday nothing but rest

Monday 5:30am 25 min cardio 12:00pm 30 min upper body weights part 1 

For cardio, I plan to do the following at least once per week: treadmill, stairmaster, eliptical, stationary bike, and recumbant bike and I try not to do the same type of cardio two days in a row. I also try to avoid more than two treadmill per week or my feet are tight and heels ache. I burn around 350-450 calories doing cardio and about 250-300 calories in weight lifting according to my heart rate monitor and the daily plate calorie estimations. My average heart rate in cardio today was 153 with a max of 170 and I was in the 65-85% zone of 142-162 for 20 minutes of the 25 minute workout. Which is a little higher than typical but not the highest, stairmaster puts my average at 156.

For my upper body p1

chest, shoulders (bench press, shoulder press, dips)

For my upper body p2

bicepts, tricepts, forearms (dumbell curl, barbell curl, lying dumbell extension, cable extension)

For my upper body p3

upper/lower back, abs (assisted chinups, seated rows, lat pull, crunches)

For my lower body p1

quadricepts, hamstrings (squats, leg press, lying leg curl, lunges)

For my lower body p2

calves, inner thighs (standing calf raises, thigh machine)

I lift weights in a controlled manner very slowly and with proper form. I am trying to ease into it so I don't get injured. Which also means I am asking girls if they are done with their weights so I can use them :(

If it works out, I plan to make changes to this schedule using a personal trainer to help me get the most benefit from it. It may not work out to have a personal trainer, but that is no reason not to do it nor is it a reason for me to wait to start. I might also try adding swimming in the cardio cycle on Saturday where I have more time to change.

Anti-Support System

Waaay back when I first started trying to lose weight, this was years ago before I met Rebecca or graduated college, I bought a Nordic track recumbent bike. I bought it new from Sears and it barely fit in my car on the way home. One door was partially open as the box laid across my back seat. My Dad helped me put it together but told me I should have bought a used bike and saved some money. I just said I wanted a new bike that no one else had sweat on and one that I could get replaced if it broke.

It got out at work that I was not going out to lunch with my coworkers because I was trying to "lose weight". It was sudden, I didn't talk with my lunch grub team about my plan before hand, just one day, no Harley. Which brings me to the anti-support system. I was very surprised by the behavior of many of my coworkers/friends after I started dieting. My friends were doing everything they could to sabotage my efforts and get me to give up and quit my diet. 

Everyday team members would come by and ask me to come with, try to guilt me into coming with them to lunch. Telling me how much I was missed by the group. Telling me, "It didn't matter if I went to lunch, as long as I was exercising I could eat what I wanted." Telling me they wanted to talk to ME about important stuff. Offering to pay for my lunch, offering to drive, letting me pick the place. It was insane! When holidays or work parties came up, I would lay low to avoid the temptation but coworkers would go out of their way to bring me plates of food, or eat food in front of me, spilling it on me in one instance. It was like they were getting desperate for me to give up for me to cave in. It really made me mad and more determined to see it through.

I think part of the reason why this happened is I was doing something they wanted to do but believed they couldn't do because of some obstacles. Seeing me fail would validate their beliefs about how "hard" it is to lose weight or give up food additions and bad patterns of behavior. I was showing them their obstacles were imaginary and that they could lose weight too. They did not have an excuse for not exercising / eating healthy because I was doing it and proving it works and is possible to change. I was showing them it wasn't as hard as they believed it was. This made them uncomfortable, made them question their beliefs about exercise and diet.

Right now a lot of Republicans hope Obama fails, this for me is the same thing. They believe it is too hard to succeed or success has to be achieved through a pattern he doesn't follow and to validate this belief they need him to fail. Otherwise the barriers to their succeess are in fact imaginary; the failures in their own life are due to their choices.

Twelfth Tuesday weigh-in

226.0 lb

Loss of 1.5 lb from last week. Goal is to lose 4 more pounds to weigh 222 lb by Feb 17th. 

I really think this could have been a 2.5 lb loss this week but I ate out at Thai House in Lehi then ate me a  JCW's toffee bar shake. Plus a whole bunch of candy and junk on the Super Sunday party. Hannah's brownies were worth it. So was the layered dip and I guess my hot wings were ok... not fabulous because I was rushed.

I have a good scam going where I do cardio at Legacy Center or Golds then workout with weights at lunch at Golds M-F and Saturday do cardio in the morning only. Hopefully this exercise plan will continue to allow me to post good numbers next week and the following. It would be nice to buff up while slimming down.

Wish me luck as I push these next two weeks to hit 222! I do not plan on stopping at that point but 222 is a goal I set back in November so it would be nice to get to that point. I really think weekly weigh-ins has made this effort more successful for me. Nothing is more frustrating for me than to exercise, diet, sacrifice for 3 or 4 weeks then step on a scale and be told I didn't make a detectable dent. That I weigh the same or worse I somehow got heavier. It can really kill my motivation and make me want to quit (as well as want to damage property.) Weigh-ins every week keep me honest and are a much smaller let down when the scale tells me I didn't do as well as I thought I was doing a particular week.  Don't get me wrong, I still get mad when a weekly weigh-in sucks, the anger just doesn't last for as long and I don't get as depressed.

My Pills

Every morning at breakfast I take the following:

2 acetaminophen (tylenol) (400 mg)
2 ibuprofen (advil) (400 mg)
2 Kirkland Signature Daily Multi Vitamins

I think it has made a huge difference for me. I don't like to think I am a wimp or lazy but pain management since I started working out has been very useful to keep me exercising when I would otherwise be too sore. I have a couple of Costco size bottles of these three and just take them at breakfast everyday. If I feel sore at night, I take 1/2 of the same amount.

One reason I stopped exercising was because of heel pain (plantar fasciitis), which was causing me to limp and made it really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. I think I can remember when I injured my foot, it was in a weight room and I was doing calf exercises using a seated calf raise machine. I loaded up too much weight and bounced the weight up with my calves and then kind of caught it on the way down. This put too much strain on my heel and probably tore a tendon connection to my heel. I should have known better than to do that. I messed up my shoulder doing something similar. I think using proper form and slow controlled lifting is the best way to prevent injuries in the weight room. My ankle would be very tight, like no spring in my step, and I could only shuffle along the floor until my foot loosened up. Each time my left foot hit the ground when I was running, it hurt. I tried to rest it for a month, then two, but it didn't help. Neither did any ibuprofen or over the counter pain medications. Rebecca's cousin happened to be a podiatrist and gave me a heel injection while I was in Texas which took the pain away completely for 6 months, but by that point I had not been consistently exercising (or eating healthy) for several months. The heel pain has slowly started coming back but is not as severe as before.

I take the vitamins because when I lose weight I tend to feel sick and empty. I know I am breaking down my muscles and using up fat stores and that my body needs to have the right nutrition to rebuild itself while I am not exercising. Eating vitamins is a way to compensate for the damage done to your body with exercise. I really do believe that when you exercise, what you eat matters even more than when you don't. Eating junk because "you'll burn it off" at the gym is self-defeating because you cannot rebuild your body with unhealthy fat and sugar. That being said I think it is important also to be flexible and make small compromises over time to your meals. If I feel like I am sacrificing all the time, I will eventually quit completely; and I will be a grouch until I do.

The other day I was running on the treadmill and on TV I saw someone skiing down a slope, but they only had one leg. It reminded me of how lucky I am to have two legs that I can exercise with. I thought about how much some people wish they had what I already have. I thought about how I had taken my legs for granted most of my life and decided to work on appreciating everything I have more. The best way I can think of to appreciate my legs is to use them.

Eleventh Tuesday weigh-in

227.5 lb

Loss of 0.5 lb from last week. My goal is to lose 5.5 additional pounds to weigh 222 lb by February 17th.

Eleanor's birthday cake, oh I mean cakes, were my doom this week, but I still managed to eek out a loss. I was shooting for a 2 lb loss and missed by 1.5 lb. I did work out all 6 days. I tracked meals on my daily plate web page during the week. The graph above is from the site and shows my progress since the first Tuesday weigh-in back in November 2008.

In other news, right after I renewed my legacy center membership, my company announced it has negotiated a deal with Gold's Gym, the employee memberships are super cheap. I love Gold's but it is not as close to home as the Lehi Legacy Center. I really don't need two gym memberships... but it is so cheap, it is really tempting me. It would cost half as much as the legacy membership was (and that is including the one day only 20% discount and Lehi resident discount.)

Throw It Away Part Two

Think about this, if you learn to make the right amounts for meals so their is no leftovers, you will save money on groceries. How many leftovers have been thrown out because you didn't eat them in time? That was wasted money. Also, how many times have you bought perishable food like salad ingredients that went bad before you ate it? Was it because you were still eating on some leftovers and weren't able to eat the fresh food you bought? Was it because your fresh ingredients got hidden behind tubs and bags and boxes of leftovers? I'm just saying, sometimes it is an illusion to think you're saving money buying bulk or making extra or saving leftovers. Parties will almost always have extra food, just toss it! Go in to the party knowing you are throwing out half of the food you made. It is just part of having a party to waste some food, to throw away some napkins and paper plates. If you don't end up wasting any, great, but if you do, at least you knew that was possibly going to happen before you have to make the choice to toss it.

• How much money will you save not using cling film and foil and plastic bags to keep leftover food?
  
• How much money will you save by using perishable ingredients rather than losing them or letting them go bad because of leftovers?
• How much will you save by avoiding health problems like diabetes and heart disease?
• How much food in your pantry will be used that otherwise would have expired because you make almost every meal, rather than reheat and re-reheat meals while that pasta sauce in the cupboard gets older and older.

President Obama

I too am glad for the inauguration of this man, more for the rise of a no-more-excuses generation of racial minorities in this country. It is about time racial minorities expect more of themselves and their children. President Obama is and should be the final nail in the coffin of failed affirmative action programs and other policies around government dependency and so called fairness through special treatment of minorities.

They haven't worked. They'll never work. I love Bill Cosby's comments at the NAACP's celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider what you’ve heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It’s not what’s he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing."

Ladies and gentlemen, these people set -- they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.

Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to do things for you. You can’t keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you. God was there when they won all those cases -- fifty in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it -- I’m making this up. But it sounds like what God would do.

We cannot blame white people. White people -- White people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well -- they stay open 24 hours.

I’m looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark, he and his wife Mamie. Kenneth’s still alive. I have to apologize to him for these people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to strengthen yourselves, and we’ve got to have that black doll. And everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All these lawyers said it. And you wouldn’t know that anybody had done a damned thing. 

Fifty percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid -- $500 sneakers -- for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.

Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York -- just looking ahead. Thank God he doesn’t know what’s going on. Thank God. But these people -- the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: “The cops shouldn’t have shot him.” What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother." Not, "You’re going to get your butt kicked." No. "You’re going to embarrass your mother." "You’re going to embarrass your family." If you knock that girl up, you’re going to have to run away because it’s going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had the baby. The girl didn’t have a baby. The mother had the baby in two weeks. We are not parenting.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack -- and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: “Why you ain’t where you is go, ra.” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with, “Why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not; they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousin’s house.

They sit there and the cousin says, “What are you doing here?”

“I just killed somebody, man.”

“What?”

“I just killed somebody; I’ve got to stay here.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Well, give me some money, I’ll go….”

 “Where are you going?”

“North Carolina.”

Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina. But the police know where you’re going because your cousin has a record.

Five or six different children -- same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t who this is. It might be your grandmother. I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time you’re twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I’m just predicting.

I’m saying Brown versus the Board of Education. We’ve got to hit the streets, ladies and gentlemen. I’m winding up, now -- no more applause. I’m saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so on, and we’re laughing at them because they have bean pies and all that, but you don’t read, “Black Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.” You don’t read that. They don’t shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all. And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can’t do it.

I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time. And I’ve got good news for you. It’s not about money. It’s about you doing something ordinarily that we do -- get in somebody else’s business. It’s time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown V. Board of Education if nobody wants it? 

What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven’t they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where “you are nobody....” This is a sickness, ladies and gentlemen, and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees: “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on, too.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award -- and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done -- they’ve got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of Education -- these people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these knuckleheads walking around who don’t want to learn English. I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuff’s not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And that‘s not my brother. And that’s not my sister. They’re faking and they’re dragging me way down because the state, the city, and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they don’t want to accept that they have to study to get an education.

We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please, Dorothy Height, where ever she’s sitting, she didn’t do all that stuff so that she could hear somebody say “I can’t stand algebra, I can’t stand…" and “what you is.” It’s horrible.

Basketball players -- multimillionaires can’t write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, can’t read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown v. Board of Education, where are we today? It’s there. They paved the way. What did we do with it? The White Man, he’s laughing -- got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out -- rest of them in prison.

You got to tell me that if there was parenting -- help me -- if there was parenting, he wouldn’t have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldn’t have. Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if the father would come home. Not if the boy hadn’t dropped the sperm cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, “No, you have to come back here and be the father of this child.” Not ..“I don’t have to.”

Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature -- raised by no one. Give them presents. You’re raising pimps. That’s what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he or she hugs you. And that’s why pimp is so famous. They’ve got a drink called the “Pimp-something.” You all wonder what that’s about, don’t you? Well, you’re probably going to let Jesus figure it out for you. Well, I’ve got something to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends. Let’s try to do something. Let’s try to make Jesus smile. Let’s start parenting. Thank you, thank you. [http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm ]

Mr. Cosby continues to get flack for his comments at the NAACP, he's a comedian by trade but a better leader and inspirational speaker than all of the minority leaders I have read about or heard from. I don't consider Obama a minority leader, he's our nations leader and a great example of what it takes to succeed.