Glass

So I've got a piece of glass embedded in the bottom of my foot.  Not fun.  I was cooking dinner and a can of soup fell out of the cupboard directly onto a glass on the counter.  It cracked, fell on the floor, and shattered.  I, of course, was barefoot.  I'm trying not to let it hamper my exercise.  I still managed to bike to work today with relative ease.  The glass is in my heel so pedaling is fairly unimpaired. 

I still don't want it in my foot.  I've tried a tweezers but it's really stuck in there.  Any suggestions?

Weigh-in Results

Happy Monday!  Sorry for the overall lack of post quantity last week.  I spent the weekend camping with my parents in Duluth.  The trip involved a nice, leisurely 14 mile bike ride and a little too much eating.  I wasn't capable of controlling myself the way I'd like to, but at one point, my brother said, "Do you need that?" 

Let's get down to business.

Three pounds!  Alright!  I'm keeping the train moving.  Good job, Liza, with a guess of 246.9.  I'm happy to say I came in way under the lowest guess.  This was also a huge milestone: I'm half way to my goal!  I've lost 50.4 pounds in 9 months.  I'm not quite on track for 100 pounds in a year, but I'm not going to let that stand in the way of getting what I want.

I think the biking to work is paying off.  If you haven't tried it, I'd suggest biking for exercise.  I've added 20 minutes to my commute (both ways) but added 80 minutes of cardio to my day.  

It is tricky though.  Since I started biking, I've felt bullet proof.  I feel like I can eat anything I want and be just fine.  I know that's not true and a very dangerous mentality to have, so I've got to be vigilant.  I'll be focusing on putting more fruits and vegetables into my diet.  I'm eating salads for lunch this week.

The other thing that's been happening since I started biking to work is I'm hungry all the time.  Seriously, all the time.  I'm trying to resist, but it doesn't always work out. 

I'm not always going to do this perfectly, but I'm going to do more good than harm.  100 pounds lost, here I come.

Success and Failure

Sometimes I feel like I never succeed.  I've had a lot of failures in my life and my self-esteem has suffered because of them.  I try to stay positive and hold my head high, but there are times that the voice inside my head that says "you're no good at anything" gets too loud to ignore.

Don't get me wrong, I've succeeded in a lot of ways.  I managed to marry an incredible woman (my wife, Claire), I have a job teaching music with the greatest kids in the world, I've co-written a musical, been the music director of the Music Man, graduated college, made the dean's list, gotten my Eagle Scout award way back in boy scouts, qualified for Mensa, played lead trombone in my college's top jazz band for 3 years, etc.  I've had my fair share of successes, but I still can't shake this feeling that I'm a screw-up.

I'm tremendously disorganized and that has hurt me quite a bit in my life.  I was diagnosed with ADD at the age of 10 and if you know me personally, you probably aren't surprised (if you didn't know already).  I'm very easily distracted, disorganized, and manage time terribly.  Seriously, I'm very good at procrastinating.  I'm often unprepared (shame on me, especially after all of that boy scout training).  I often feel as though I'm not good enough or not capable of accomplishing great things.

That's why I get so frustrated when things don't go the way I want them to go in my weight loss.  I want to be doing something without screwing it up for once.  When I stall or backtrack, my inner critic gets very loud.  I want to show it who's boss.  I want to make huge leaps in my weight-loss.  I want to be successful.  I want to have one thing in my life that I don't fumble.  One big thing that I can really be proud of.

After reading through what I just wrote, I realize that I probably put too much pressure on myself to succeed.  Losing the weight probably won't change how much pressure I put on myself, but hopefully it will be one more thing I can really be proud of.

Weigh-in Results

Hey everyone, it's Monday.  That means one thing, I hop on the scale and expose my fatness to the world.  That's coming up in a bit.

First, I want to tell you how my bicycle commute went today.  I sat on my bike seat and instantly pondered taking my car into work today.  Not because I was afraid of the ride ahead, but because I instantly realized that a certain part of me was very tender.  Holy crap that bike seat was not very friendly.  I love going through downtown Minneapolis.  Minneapolis in the morning is quite beautiful.  I got to work 20 minutes early.  I was hungry all day and when I got home I snacked quite a bit.  I should have just started making dinner earlier, but I got drawn in.  All-in-all, I feel pretty good about today.  This is the start of something awesome!

Now, on with the show.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been working so hard to break the 250 barrier.  I'd consider this smashing it!  Kudos to Jo at Weight on Me at 50+ for guessing 248.2.  only off by .2 pounds.  Pretty good.

I'm back on track.  All I need to do is repeat this week's progress every week until I weigh 196 pounds.  Wow, I can't believe I'm looking at that number and actually believing it's possible.  I'm 2.4 pounds away from the halfway mark!  I'm stoked!

Bicycle!

I decided if I'm going to move the scale, I need to think of ways to get more exercise.  My workplace moved to a new location about six miles away (across Minneapolis) and it takes me 25-30 minutes to drive there.  It turns out biking takes 35-45 minutes.  I tested it out tonight and provided I'm capable of using my legs tomorrow (I haven't biked in a while) I'll be bicycling to work tomorrow and every day after (weather permitting).  That means by adding an extra 10 minutes or so to my commute (each way) I'll be adding 70-90 minutes of cardio every day.  I feel that's a wise use of my time.  Plus I'm being green and saving money on gas and car maintenance. 



Awesome!

So, I'd like you to guess what my weight will be this Monday.  If you want more to go on, check out my cheat sheet by searching #cheatsheettweet on twitter.  You can guess via comment here, on twitter (@100_Pounds), or on facebook. 

Good luck guessing.  And wish me luck tomorrow on my weigh-in.

Just Say "Nein"

So I think I have this shin problem in the bag.  It seems to respond the best to heat.  I've also been exercising more and I think that's actually improving the situation.   My legs did not like it when I stopped exercising for a week and a half. 

One thing I've been doing that seems to have served me pretty well on my weight-loss journey is cutting out alcohol almost completely.  For me, it's not worth it to have just one beer.  While I do miss the delicious taste of a nice, snobby microbrew, I don't feel any effects of alcoholic beverages until beer number 2 or 3.  Every now and then, I'll have a beer just to have a beer, but it seems to be the easiest thing for me to turn down out of my own volition.  Food on the other hand, is just about impossible to say no to if someone is offering.  I wish I could do the same thing I do when my father-in-law offers me a beer that I do when a coworker offers me a brownie, say "no thanks" and feel absolutely no remorse. 

Alcohol is very bad for your body when you are trying to lose weight.  I read a while back that when you exercise after consuming alcohol, your body is dehydrated and metabolizes muscle instead of fat.  So not only is your caloric intake absolutely ludicrous (yes, alcohol has calories, and lots of 'em), but you can't burn fat nearly as efficiently the next day.

So the next time someone asks me if I want an Oktoberfest or Maibock, I think I'll just say "nein."

The Cheat Sheet

So I've had a good day today.  I logged my indulgences using the tag #cheatsheettweet on twitter.  Someone suggested I use #cheattweet but it seems that it's already being used.  I'm thinking of maybe #delicioustransgressions or #treattweet.  What do you think?

Today I ate a lot of almonds, had an extra helping with dinner, had a few baked scoop chips, and a weight-watchers ice cream bar.

I was hoping that logging all my sins (so to speak) would keep me from eating them.  I do feel like I may have munched more if I hadn't tweeted them.  I was very hungry today so I'm thinking that I need to make sure I'm taking in the right number of calories.

I'm exhausted and have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, so I'm going to have to end things here.  I'll talk about something much more interesting tomorrow.