This Is The Last Stop!

This is it. This is the last time I will be stopping at Burger King, or any drive-thru fast food restaurant, for quite some time. After work tonight I did not feel like making something to eat at home. So I decided to make one last stop at my neighborhood BK Lounge. This is my last meal of 2009 (minus the onion rings and DQ Blizzard):

That's right. That's a BK Double Whopper with cheese and bacon. That is it. That is the last one for a while. Tomorrow I am having some friends come over and we are going to start working out. Then, starting Monday, I will be taking advantage of the the free trial membership at Gold's Gym.

This weight WILL be coming off in 2010. I will no longer be fat, lazy and tired. I will finally start enjoying life. This is not my second chance. This is a new beginning.

A Realization

I've come to a realization over the past few days. I've been skipping my cardio days and doubling up the next day. What I came to realize is that if I did not workout on the day I was supposed to, I feel like crap the rest of the day. And if I have to eat something I really shouldn't because I forgot my lunch at home, I feel guilty. I now know that if I am going to have any success losing weight, I need to be consistent and on a regular exercise schedule.

I recently acquired a week long free trial membership to Gold's Gym. It's a really nice facility. They have tons of machines, weights, plenty of classes, plus racquetball courts and a lap pool. I am going to take full advantage of the time. The bad thing is that I cannot fit the monthly dues into my budget. Hopefully, I will be able to take what I have learned in the classes and incorporate them into my workout at home.

The Christmas Weekend Comes To A Close

The end of week 2 is here with week 3 right around the corner. This has been a rough weekend to get any workouts done. The Christmas holiday always seems to get the best of me, and not in a good way. Being down two managers at work for a couple of unfortunate unforeseen circumstances, it really put the crunch on the rest of us. It was rough closing the store as the lone manager and a few of the booksellers felt my pain. So when I got home, I was just mentally exhausted and did not feel like doing anything. The plus side, like I said in an earlier post, I did get in a double workout on Christmas morning. This was good because I did not do anything the rest of the weekend.

I will not be able to weigh myself this coming Monday as I had hoped to. I will be working that morning and unable to get away. So to give myself a few extra days to lose some of this holiday weight, I will be going the following Monday. Hopefully I will have lost more than just six pounds.

I look back over these past couple of days and reflect on my eating habits and how that made me feel. With all the eating and festivities, I was not going to fight it anymore and just enjoy myself, but NOT over indulge. I let myself eat too much and I was paying for it in the evening. I know this feeling all too well. I'm actually feeling it right now. I went to my parents' house tonight after work for dinner and helped myself to one too many spoonfuls of my mom's great home cooking.

But everything is going to be ok. All this was expected. I knew I was going to eat and I knew I was going to enjoy it. What happens next is how I perform over the next few weeks. It's weird for me, but I actually have this urge and wanting to exercise. I know it's hard work but I remember how it made me feel afterwards. When I am done and I look in the mirror and I see the sweat all over my shirt, front and back, I know it was a good workout. I look at it and say, "You're one step closer to your goal." I want that feeling to keep coming more often.

I am really tired of being overweight and I am going to fix it. Pretty soon I will be getting new running shoes. I will be getting my bike all cleaned up so I can get out on the road. I'm trying new things to keep the motivation going. I've added the punching bag to my workouts. A close friend invited me to join her for ballroom dancing lessons. We will be going in a couple of weeks. I want to start walking around the neighborhood or at the local high school track. I want to take walks downtown along Shoreline Drive. I want to get out there and start living.

That is why I am doing all this. I don't see this as a second chance at life. I never really had "a life." This is a new beginning for me. This new year is seriously going to be my year, my year of changes. As far as my professional aspirations go, I have declared to myself and a few others that this is to be my last holiday season in retail. I will be focussing on my animation and working on getting my demoreel out there for all to see. You can follow my progress with that on my other blog: My So-called Animated Life.

Food! Glorious Food!

Why did I pick the most difficult time of the year to lose weight?! The Christmas holiday season is always full of good food and delicious treats. If there is one time of the year to go wild, it would be now.

Christmas morning started with the family breakfast at my parents' house. There were potatoes, eggs, bacon, beans and tortillas. Everything I love. I did not over indulge but I did enjoy myself. This was followed off by a couple of homemade cookies and a soda. This was the first of two sodas for the day. I drank orange juice with breakfast. A couple more cookies and it was off to my aunt's house for the big family Christmas dinner. Here we had everything else I loved: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, beans, stuffing and gravy to cover it all. I'm not proud of it, but I let my old self take over. I had two large helpings of it all. I did drink water during the meal and later had the second soda. The worst part, though, was the numerous amount of cookies I had after the meal. I lost count after four, but I swear it was no more than ten. There was also cake and chocolates but I had none of that. I already knew I was crossing the line with the cookies, but I was not going to let myself go completely overboard.

As the evening drew to a close, I started to feel the effects of what I had done. That bloated, full feeling was back with a vengeance. As a small piece of irony, one of my aunts gave me a box of chocolates as a present. When I told her I was trying to lose weight, she then realized what she had done. Oh well, I guess some of the gang at work will be getting some free chocolate.

On the plus side, before the parade of food began I did manage to get in a double workout. I did the DVD, 10 minutes on the elliptical and four 3-minute rounds with the punching bag. Not a huge sweat on account of the cold weather, but a good sweat none the less. I was planning on weighing myself next Monday, but my schedule at work won't allow it. The next possible day for a weigh-in will be Wednesday. This gives me a couple of extra days to lose a few more pounds.

As week 2 comes to a close and week 3 begins, I am looking forward to getting back on track to daily workouts. I still plan on working out as much as I can. I still want to beat the two month challenge. I still want to run the Beach to Bay. I still want to lose 100 lbs. by my next birthday. This week might be a minor setback, but I will accomplish my goals.

Week 2 - Day 10

Last week was pretty rough. Working mid-shifts really puts a damper on what I am able to do at home. However, I was able to pull through and get in all my workouts. Week 2 is no different. Closing all week and having to workout before going to work has been a challenge. On the plus side, I did add something new to my workout:

Thanks to my buddy Geoff from work, he loaned me his punching bag for a while. He came by yesterday and gave me a few pointers and also loaned me a book on boxing training. It's a pretty intense workout. I'm there in my garage, wearing my sweats and a hoodie, just burning up a sweat! I have some training gloves somewhere here in my house but I cannot find them at the moment. They are probably somewhere in a box up in the attic. I'll have to go looking later. For now, I am using my work gloves that I use for yardwork and such. The bad thing about that is that I last used them this past weekend for the holiday cookout at work. Why is that bad? Because they STILL smell of smoke. Not so good.

Since I didn't workout Friday or Saturday, I doubled up on Sunday, which was supposed to be my day of rest. So on Monday I rested. Tuesday I doubled up again just get in that extra workout. It was also the first time I used the punching bag. Great sweat!

As for today, I did the DVD workout and spent a few minutes on the punching bag. I felt like giving it another shot. I took my phone out with me and set the alarm to go off after two minutes. Once I started those two minutes were over before I really got going. "That's it?!" That went by quick. So I rested for about a minute then did another two minutes straight. Geoff suggested going three minutes but I wanted to start off slow. I think next time I'll go for the three minutes. I felt pretty cool out there on the punching bag. I'm there jabbing and punching in my sweats with the hood over my head. I catch my reflection in the glass of my Jeep and I think I look pretty badass! All the while I hear "Eye of the Tiger" playing over and over in my head.

What A Way To Start The Week!

After one week of exercising and watching what I ate, it paid off. I just weighed myself at the doctor's office and I lost SIX POUNDS. I'll take it!

Week 1: Recap

This was not exactly the ideal week for me to try to begin a workout program. I worked a couple of mid-shifts which meant I had to do my workouts pretty early in my day. I am not a morning person. Also, with all the prep and cooking for our store's holiday cookout, that took a big chunk out of a couple of days. I was exhausted when it was all over. AND I reeked of smoke.

On the plus side I did eat from Subway several times this week. I took my vitamins and meds daily. I drank mostly water. I did NOT drink any sodas at all. Believe me, there were plenty to have been had during the cookout. I was the one who brought them.

I worked out just about every day. If I missed one, I doubled up the next day. For instance, I didn't workout yesterday after the cookout, so I will double up again today... on my day of rest. Then come Monday, I head to the doc's to see if I lost anything.

God, please say I did so I can have the strength and encouragement to keep this going at least one more week.