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.