All posts tagged Weekly weigh-in

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!


Apparently, there’s some law that says all bloggers must blog about certain days when they are in the current, prank on April Fools (Perhaps the Beer and Ice Cream Diet will ride again!), and blah, blah, blah (Save the Life of My Child!). Well, because I’m a wordy bastard, I will say this much about today:

“Ides” is an early label that signifies division – equal division, so that there are two halves.

Months were once built around phases of the moon, and a full moon was called the ides, because the full moon is in the middle of the lunar cycle.

In the Roman culture, two monthly days were called Ides – the 15th of some months, and the 13th of some months – interesting that one of the few days more ominous than today is Friday the 13th!

Why was the Ides so ominous? Why were there such superstitions about the day? Because it was based on the day of the full moon – when everyone goes nuts.

One probably was more likely to get murdered during a full moon than any other time, just because of the effect a full moon has on people in general (notice that the word “lunatic” is rooted in the word “lunar” – for moon).

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Today’s workout was just a stretch and warmup, with a small amount of exercise to follow. In the past week, I’ve had to deal with some issues and working out has been put on the back burner. I’ve already mentioned the reasons in the preceding blog posts (of which there were very few over the past week and a half) so I’ll spare you a repetition of the excuses. This blog is, after all, about few things – losing weight being chief among them; excuses – just the opposite.

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN

Just hopped on the scale. I’m maintaining at 456.6 lbs. Since the “shit hit the fan” (so to speak) last week, I’ve essentially put 7 pounds back on. Unimportant. The important thing is that despite the issues I had to deal with, I still ate healthy, and was as active as I could be under the circumstances. Because of that, I’m in a far better position to hop back on than I could be.

I know a lot of people hate plateaus. Not me, in fact, because of the negativity associated with the label, you generally won’t see that word used much by me. You’re welcome to use any word you like, of course, but I think the label “maintain” allows one to appreciate and respect what a plateau is and should be – welcome and healthy, as opposed to what most people view it as – not a plateau at all, but simply more of an uphill battle.

Stay tuned in the near future for a blog post about plateaus!

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Let me tell you – I have a LOT to choose from today, and really, for the next week or so. I’ll try to keep it down to three daily, and I’ll make sure at least one of them is from the current day.

In the ongoing story of SheBANGS’s weight loss, we are treated to a brief tale of motivation and discussion of two different types of events that make running fun! One includes zombies!

Natural Knowledge 24/7 shares the top ten cancer risk foods.

Also from SheBANGS come a list that ALL OF YOU SHOULD LOOK AT! This is a great reference tool for ANYONE trying to lose weight!

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

The same problem I had with the specials today I also have with today’s image. So, for the next few days or so, we’ll be putting up at least 2 different images. Hey, if I get some positive feedback about it, I may even consider keeping it that way.

I’ve been wanting to put this one up since the blog posts feel by the wayside, so I’ve been saving it for my return. Take a good look, it’s quite impressive. Especially the fish.

And now, something for our mascot, Buddha!

by gendjlee on March 15, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Diet, Exercise, Happy Crap, Health, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 15, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/15/beware-the-ides/

“Ups and Downs” by Otis and the Elevators


If you’re the first to name the reference (use the comments section, below) in the title you win… a Laurel… and Hardy handshake. And if you identify that reference too… well, I’ll just have to come up with something worthwhile.

I was just trying to put together today’s workout playlist. I had the first couple of songs written down, and this ridiculous “Rinse” tool is stuck at the top of miTunes player and driving me nuts. So I take a minute, try to get rid of it (I already deleted the rinse tool from my computer, WTF it’s still doing on the player, I have no damm idea! But it’s PISSING ME OFF.), and what happens? It shuts down miTunes! Oh lawsy, lawsy, lawsy. Is there any way to kill Steve Jobs a second time?

UPDATES

Dr. Eeks posted a nice article on her blog recently about this new project we’re all enjoying here. I’d like to thank her for everything she said, and especially for pointing some of her readers my way. I was wondering where that odd influx of visitors was coming from. Sorry I took so long to read it, but better late than never!

Adding a new site to the blogroll (on your right – as I’m writing this, only Dr. Eeks’s blog is listed):

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ – This is what used to be the food pyramid, now turned into something MORE confusing. However, it basically boils down to constructing your meals using the 5 food groups. If I ever can’t think of an item of food I’d like to eat, I just look up its category (dairy, protein, fruit, vegetable, grain) and check out the list! I can always find something I’d like. Perhaps this will be useful to you, too.

This blog has photos! I finally got pics from my phone to the blog! Turns out there’s an option to share with WordPress! Who’da thunk it? So, be on the lookout for new pics, especially on our mascot, Buddha’s page! I’ll also reach out with any blog posts that get pics added.

From this point on (not including today) I intend to take a weight reading every Wednesday, because around here, Wednesday isn’t “Hump Day”, it’s WEIGH DAY! That’s when the official weekly weight reading will be taken, posted in the blog post. I thought of this yesterday, but when I weigh myself, I try to do so shortly after waking up, before eating, and it was mid-afternoon when I came up with the idea.

So, for now, pretend it’s Weigh Day and give me a drum-roll!

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN

456 pounds!

Hey, Lil Jon? “YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAH?” Thanks! That’s right, down another 4 pounds! This is great news because it somewhat alleviates my worry of coming to another plateau, after only 15 pounds of weight loss. I know the weight needs to be lost slowly, but you can’t blame me for being a little impatient, eh?

Reading what Dr. Eeks wrote about me and this blog got me to thinking about how far I’ve come. Right now, I weigh less than I’ve weighed in years. We’re talking a good half a decade, at the very least. Still, an old friend of mine from High School commented yesterday and told me his weight. I’m two of him! So, I’m doing good, but GEEZ, have I got a looong way to go!

Since July, my weight has dropped from a little over 550 lbs (that’s about 95 pounds!) and I am feeling SO much better. It doesn’t mean everything’s better; there is, as already identified, a ways to go. What’s worse is a number of problems have cropped up that are at least partly due to my weight loss success, some of which have been mentioned here. That said, the problems (downs) don’t seem quite as numerous as the rewards (ups).

I took a trip to my old hometown, Ocean City, this past fall, for the third year in a row. This year was a little better than the previous years. Actually, the first year, I was sick as a dog and barely got to enjoy myself or the reason I was there (Annual “all class” – means everyone that ever attended our HS is welcome – reunion). Last year, the place I stayed at had just gotten new mattresses, apparently, and they had gone with what must have been the firmest possible mattress they could find. I flopped down on the bed after checking in. I may never flop down on a bed again. I was so sore that weekend, I blew most of my money on a much-needed massage (I should write about THAT experience, sometime!) by Saturday and slept that night in my truck.

This year, I’d already been working with Eeks and had lost some of that weight, I believe I was a little over 500 pounds. I didn’t get sick and my back was fine (different lodgings). What’s more, I was able to move around a little more. I was able to walk an entire block of the boardwalk without needing to stop to rest/sit down. Of course, my back was killing me at the end of that block, and my breathing… well, it took a good five minutes to recover, in front of an old friend and a few new ones. But just the fact that I made it that far… it wasn’t even a short block! 13th St. to 12th St.

But if that trip was now? Oh my… I cannot WAIT for this coming September!

I’ve never lost this much weight before. And I’ve never kept off what weight I have lost. I owe a lot to Dr. Eeks, as well as to you readers, whether I know you or not. You help me to stay on track. I don’t know that I could have kept up with something like this a year ago. In fact, I’m sure I couldn’t have. It’s still tough, and sometimes, in addition to everything else going on in my world, it gets to be too much for me. Some days the posts will just have my workout music listed, along with the time of the workout (today’s was standard, meaning 10 min+warmup, 30 min workout, 10+min cooldown). I’m going to try to keep those bare-bones posts to a minimum. Certainly less than half the week. I’d prefer to keep it to two days a week.

COMING SOON

My Goals! – there will be a page specifically for them, accessible from the menu above, but there will also be an initial blog post to announce them and the reasons behind them. Whenever I hit a goal, it will be mentioned in a post, and if it’s significant enough, may end up being what the entire post is about. If I miss a deadline, don’t expect an entire post about it, but it will be mentioned.

Irish Cut Oats! – I pretty much know what I want to say, I just need some photos.

Wheatberries! – I have some work to do on this yet, but it should be a very interesting and tasty post.

TODAY’S SPECIAL

The good folks at MedHelp have put up an article (actually a side-show!) about how you can fight depression.                                                  Among them, I strongly recommend:

Illuminating your surroundings – Ever try to tidy up a poorly lit room, and just weren’t feeling it? But the second you flip that light switch… HELLO ENERGY! It works and it’s been working for me since I was a teenager.

Have a cup of coffee (This one’s not very Word of Wisdom friendly) – For those of you who avoid coffee for non-religious reasons, if you’re really worried about the caffeine, try decaf!

The next article requires a parental advisory – the title puts a twist on a crude, but tongue-in-cheek cliché, but instead of using a euphemism for the penis, she uses one for the vagina (instead of “Rock out with your…”, she uses “Jam out…”). The article itself is fine.

She BANGS’s thoughts on workout music – See, I’m not the only one!

Also, SB puts up a pretty entertaining piece of writing, so if you’d like to read something of her’s, but don’t want to read an article with a title that offends you, may I suggest this, more recent post of hers, which warns against a serious gym faux pas. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl!

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

– So far, I’ve only linked to one photoblog, with reason, but today I found a really pleasant picture from a different blogger, and I believe it’s worth checking out (of course I do! Why else would I put it here?).

by gendjlee on February 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Exercise, Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 23, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/23/ups-and-downs-by-otis-and-the-elevators/

Ready to begin a new week!


With the weekend over there’s plenty to cover, so here goes.

Best way to start the week is with a nice weigh-in. And this week’s magic number is 465. Yes, still. Been maintaining that number for half a week. If I’m going to have another 2 month long plateau, I would like that happen after I’ve lost another 10-15 pounds. That way, I can put the bariatric surgery off for a while. It’s funny to think that this started as a means to lose weight before having the surgery, and instead, because of the success I’m experiencing, could end up being a way out of the procedure.

 

Now to get into this week’s topic. First, I’ll be honest, exercise has never really come easy for me. When I was 14, I thought I was on top of the world, because FINALLY, I could run an 8 minute mile. And then I let a doctor talk me into two, count ‘em, TWO elective surgeries (bunionectomy and a hammer toe fix) that took me off my feet for half a year. And of course, at the time, they didn’t talk to you about diet! They didn’t even bother to warn you that you’d need to change your eating habits.

So, by the next year, I couldn’t run a mile, period. Hell, I could barely walk one. I took karate, but even that didn’t help me get back on track. So, now, I’m trying to drop this weight, all of this weight, and I’m still focusing on the diet when I should be focusing on the exercise. And why? Because I always felt like I could control my diet, much more than I could control my exercise.

Working out was a matter of forcing myself to do it. Even recently. I made a discovery this week, because I forced myself to work out. It was a decent day out but things weren’t exactly looking up for me. I’d been going through a plateau for 2 months. Now, don’t get me wrong, A PLATEAU IS A GOOD THING. It is. No, really, it is. I know, we all want to get down to our target weight as quickly as possible, but I feel that enjoying a nice plateau will help you to avoid the yo-yo effect. I’d lost 70 pounds. Some people would do that, stop dieting, and watch the weight slowly creep back up. But if you can MAINTAIN THAT WEIGHT for a while, that’s good practice for what you’ll be doing once you’ve reached your goal! It’s practice FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!

But two months… frankly, I wouldn’t have been upset with three. But I have people around me, who, whether they know it or not, put pressure on me if I’m not losing weight. I can’t tell them that, because they’ll just sit there and deny it, instead of just keeping it in mind and trying to make sure they don’t do it in the future. But they’re here.

So, I had all of this on my mind, and had very little else on my hands. Except that beautiful day, of course. So, I decided that I’d force myself to get a little exercise done, and since it was so nice out, I’d do it outside. I wasn’t sure what to do, exactly. I don’t really have any weights outside, and yeah, I could walk, but not for very long. In the end, I decided to do the stretching a warmup that we used to do before karate and go from there.

It wasn’t long before I realized I was HAVING A GOOD TIME! The stretching made a difference, and after the warmup was over, I wasn’t ready to stop! I ended up going for a walk, and while walking, thought to myself – “If I feel this good, and can do this much, after that, I should try starting EVERY DAY with ten minutes of that, just stretching and warming up.

I think Eeks was a little concerned when I told her. After all, she was trying to encourage me to commit to doing 30-40 minutes of exercise a day, broken up into 10 or more minute blocks, but I’m saying, no, I just want to commit to ten minutes of extremely light exercise in the morning. It was a stretch, but I promised it would only be a week, we’d make a small increase for the next week, and build our way up from there.

Talk about a payout. The next day I felt amazing. I got up, a little groggy, and yes, I kind of had to push myself to get up and turn the music on for a workout, instead of going back to sleep, eating, or any other normal morning activity that I usually take. I told myself “Come on, you came up with this. Pretty sad state of affairs if you can’t make your own goals… “. I really had to goad myself into it.

But I got up, and the rest of the day went juuuuuust fine. I realized hours later how good I felt and went out for another walk. The next day I did forget for a little bit and watched a movie before I remembered. But as soon as I remembered, I was up and warming up. But I didn’t limit myself to ten minutes. Instead, I let myself go for 15 minutes, then went for the walk outside for another 15 minutes. (You can see the details in my exercise log, just click the tab in the menu above)

For three days I felt like a million bucks. And that’s saying something. I’ve only this year come to understand that I am, and probably have been, for a long time, suffering from depression. It wasn’t easy to accept. My Doc prescribed me an anti-depressant, but it hasn’t done anything. Then again, it’s only 60 mg, so maybe it’s not going to at that dose. I don’t know.

But since I started doing the warm up, every day (except for one) has felt great! I have energy, I’m upbeat. Before Saturday afternoon, I thought I’d found the definitive cure for depression and anxiety. Then Saturday I managed to trigger my depression (long story; not germane to the matter at hand) and it was a bad one, too. I walked around a parking lot for about an hour and couldn’t manage to bring myself down. I may as well come out and say it, emotionally, I can be a real mess. When it gets seriously triggered, it doesn’t go away for days, sometimes. I never understood that “being in a funk” and being depressed are basically the same thing. I saw depressed people as whiners. When someone started talking about depression, I thought about Denis Leary’s rant on dysfunctional families (include link here). And I thought this while I, myself, was suffering!

The only thing that put it away was a good night’s sleep, part of which was spent in the pickup truck, and the other part kneeling on the couch (these are my preferred ways to sleep). Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I felt a little better. And after my warmup, do you know how I felt? Like I was back on top. Maybe not the top of the world, but on top.

I really feel like this simple act of stretching and warming up can help anyone to improve their quality of life. It won’t solve all of your problems, and yeah, if you’ve been suffering depression and anxiety for years, even half your life, without realizing it… Well, it might be less effective than for those who haven’t, and my depression may never really go away on its own, as much as I want it to, but I feel like I’ve improved my quality of life. Before this, every day I was depressed. Every day, I ached. My back hurt, every day. Lower, especially. Some days, my back did nothing but hurt. In fact, this week, the only time my back bothered me was after I’d removed the bed from my bedroom (don’t use it anyway) carried it all downstairs, outside, and put all but the mattress in the back of the truck. I’d say that’s pretty good.

I feel so strongly about this, I’m encouraging EVERY ONE of you to do it too! Stretch and warm up, every morning. All I’m asking for is ten minutes and a week. If you don’t feel it’s worthwhile at the end of the week, never mind!

I’m also hanging up my shingle as a warmup coach. I’ll be starting a new Youtube channel for the blog, by the way; that will help me to get started. I already did the first video this morning. There will be more, and hopefully they’ll look a little better too. What’s more, I have a webcam, and I have skype, so if you want something on more catered basis, I can help you there too. If you need more help than that, let me know, I’ll see what I can do! You can also ask Dr. Eeks, if you feel that she would be better qualified to answer your question (she probably would).

 

Next, let me welcome a new member to the exercisedammit family, our mascot, Buddha! You can read more about her by clicking her About tab, on the menu, above. Of course, Buddha is our puppy, and she’s my exercise buddy. She sits nearby and watches as I stretch and do my warmup, then when I walk laps around the inside of the house, she’s right there by my side. Then, she comes outside with me for the walk that will end my morning warmup.

I’ll have to put some pics up some you can see her pretty eyelashes (I’ve never noticed eyelashes on a dog!). I’m thinking the number that I have to lose (350 lbs) will draw people in, her sweet lashes will keep them around!

 

I’d also like to talk about what we’re doing with this blog. It’s a young blog, but already it looks like we’re going to have to separate it from its parent, WordPress. If I do, no worries, we’ll be keeping the website and name. Also, it may not happen. If I go with another hosting service, I’ll have to pay them, and I’ll have to find someone that offers a good balance of services offered to amount charged. Or, I can pay WordPress.

Why would I need to pay them? Well, there’s so much I want to DO with this blog, but I can’t. For example, music. I would honestly love for you to hear an upbeat song as you read this blog. Something that could inspire you to exercise, dammit! But if I want to post a song here, I have to pay an annual fee (I’ll also get extra storage with that). I’d like to post videos, but if I do… I have to pay them. Anyone familiar with Goodfellas? F-you, pay me; F-you, pay me. Want to put a nice looking graph up on your weight tracker? F-you, pay me! Want to use the custom style sheet for features that we don’t commonly offer? F-you! Pay me! It’s getting old.

The good news is that putting pictures up is free, up to a certain amount, of course, so there will be plenty more of those. (BTW, I’m writing this last night, and there’s an infomercial on for the Brazil Butt Lift. Basically, you do this program, and it makes your butt firmer, rounder and of course, the lift. And of course, the guy has a thick accent {Brazilian, I assume} and listening to him say “de butta” is hilarious. Of course, it is 2 in the morning)

Also, there will be a graph on the weight tracker, I just have to sit down and plot the information in excel and I should be able to use that graph. Which will look like crap, but… it’s something, eh?

Lastly, updates on the main page. I’m sure it will be awkward, but I’m going to include recent updates on the splash page (the section you see when you first access the site). This way you don’t have to search around to find it. I may look into that post calendar. Hopefully, this change will be in place by the end of the week.

 

And, before I close, I want to give a shoutout to three of our readers who were kind enough to volunteer some GREAT feedback about this site! I am speaking of course of Shawn Crowley and my cousins, Kaitlyn and Shannon Whiton. Thanks a lot guys, and to those that weren’t mentioned I got a lot of good feedback from many that visited this site. Thanks to you to. And some have visited without giving me the feedback. That’s good too! (But you’re not going to get mentioned that way!)

by gendjlee on February 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Exercise, Medical Care, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 13, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/13/ready-to-begin-a-new-week/