Day 11

Weight: 252.6

So today's weigh in was a little disappointing but its to early in the morning for me to be upset about it. Just another movement toward the goal, even if it was a little step backward I have had a pretty successful week, and after last weekend it isn't unexpected. I'm off to work. I'll see all of you in the New Year. Happy 2010 everyone, hope 2011 starts off with a bang.

Day 10

It's before seven and today the plan is to get out the door early and get the run in with enough time to hit my back before 9:30. We'll see how that goes.
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Post workout update:
So I have been maintaining this weird mental block about lifting over the past week. I'm not sure why but it has been really hard for me to get motivated to go lift. While I definitely need to get over that, today it bore some unexpected fruit. My weeks running goal for Friday is twelve miles. With eight under my belt so far, I got to the gym ready to knock out my last four and get up stairs to work my back into shape. As I rounded the last mental turn with just a quarter mile left I felt like I simply hadn't done enough. So I kept going at pace and made it through mile number five. Though my legs gave some protest for the last mile, my mind, heart, and lungs seemed ready to keep going if I wanted to.
While this extra mile definitely let me write off lifting today, with the tentative promise of hopping on the spin bike after work, it feels like a worthy milestone. Trying to stay focused on the little victories, I am also realizing that I'm going to need to start shaving seconds off my mile, because as much as running for an hour and a half a  day appeals, I need to get back to lifting seriously and sadly the gym is not a time warp where hours pass in just minutes (but wouldn't that be great?).

Day 9

So we are back from the holiday weekend. After a lot of good fat filled food and days of not doing very much I put in a nice long run yesterday and am off to the gym today. Not all that much to post but getting ready for a fun filled new year and a week of finishing off leftovers.

Day 4

Rest day
Weight: 251 lbs.

Today's first semi-official weigh in puts me at 251, roughly where I want to start myself off a week from today at the end of the year.

In other news I am exhausted. I've been up since 6 this morning and just got home from work. Retail is a rough place to be this time of year.
I'm headed off to dine with the father (that would be my father) and some family friends. Again, wishing everyone a Happy Christmas, see you all in the weekend.

Day 3

Lifting Goals: Legs
Distance/Endurance: Running 4 miles

Today just kind of sucked. On the plus side, the girlfriend and I went or the gym together, which was fun and a good way to start the day together. On the minus, I have decided that riding the bike or the elliptical a the gym really aren't working for me at the moment so I decided to hop to and run another four miles. My body had other plans. I'm sore from lifting the last two days and by the fist half-mile my chest and legs were aching from the impact. As well my right foot seems to have got a bruise in there some where making it hard to run evenly and not favor my left. Everything seemed to be out of whack. I made it through a mile and had to walk a bit to get it together. After two, I was done. So I hopped off and did some serious stretching. Feeling better I cantered on to lift. My legs cooperated at first, but again, by the time I got to Gluts and Calves I was feeling burnt out. My foot kept me from pushing my Calves the way I wanted to, and for some reason I just couldn't get my Ass to work the way I wanted it to. So, feeling a little dejected, but still good and sweaty I called it a day at an hour-plus of gym time.

I'm sure glad that I went today, but I am also pretty glad tomorrow is to busy for me to make it in to the gym, forcing a day off, and that Saturday will just be Spin and around the house aerobics. Lots of sit-ups and push-ups in my future.

There might be a post tomorrow about the general feasting and festivities. If I don't invisible audience I wanted to wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Day 2

Lifting Goals: Arms and Shoulders
Distance/Endurance Goals: Bike 20 miles/ 60 minutes

It's 7:30 in the morning and for all intensive purposes I've been up for an hour now. I'm not sure if I'm tired or just getting over sleep but this morning has not been as hard as I thought it would be. Eating breakfast and thinking about the workout ahead, I need to be careful lifting today. I have a tendency to over work my arms and kind of put them out of commission for too long a recovery. I'm doing something wrong there so for now take it easy. Also not sure if i want to bike today, I really fee like running.
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Post workout update:
So, I decided to push through four more miles on the tread mill today. I hit Arms and Shoulders today so I'll give my Ass and Legs a break tomorrow and bike before I lift with my legs. It feels good to get through day two and to be done with the gym by 9:30 a.m. I will admit that the run today was a lot harder then yesterday, but wrestling taught me how to push body and mind through even when you feel like falling down and just laying there for a while.
With just a few days left until X-mas and a week past that for New Years Eve I'm feeling confident that I'm building enough momentum. Here's to hoping I can keep up.
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One more quick thing. Interesting article via the NYTimes on exercising before breakfast, looks like my schedule is gonna change a little bit

Day 1

Lifting Goals: Chest, Back
Distance/Endurance Goals: Run 4 Miles/ 60 minutes

Here we are, day one and a little late heading off to the gym.
Weird thing of the day; I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale. The verdict, 254 lbs. Miraculously over night I seem to have lost 6 pounds. My starting weight for the 31st remains 260, as I would rather put myself further down the hill then further up it.

Now for today's important lessons;
Number one, Make sure to eat with enough time to go to the gym. I left my girlfriends apartment a little later then I was hoping this morning and got home around ten. With an appointment at two this afternoon I was hard pressed to get to the gym by eleven so I would have enough time to workout, so I settled on a meager cup of oatmeal and half a power bar and ran out the door at ten-thirty. About 2 miles and 24 minutes into my run, I realized that my blood sugar was plummeting felt myself hitting a wall. I ran through it, with a finish time for the 4 miles at 50 minutes, but still not a pleasant thing.
Number two, Alternate lifting with opposing muscles. Back and Chest for example. I did three sets of chest in a row, three different machines in a row, for a grand total of 200 reps and by the last one I could hardly feel my chest. Then did the same for my back. Now, this wasn't all that much lifting but for getting back into it its not that bad. The thing is that I know better then to just plow through like that. Better to alternate and give the opposing muscles a better chance to help each other and to rest alternately.
Number three, the gym is fun. There is something fantastic and meditative about plugging in to some good music and breaking a hard sweat for an hour or two. Enjoying time at the gym makes it a lot easier to go in.
Final note, Negative calories. My net calories for today are currently at -1140. This means that I have 3697 calories to take in to hit a zero sum total (numbers via personal tracking and LiveStrong.com).

So far a good first day. While right now is about building momentum, it feels good to know that I am still capable of getting up and running four miles because I feel like it.

Day 0

12/20/10 260lbs.

So it begins. Get down to 175 by the end of the year. Simple math, 75 lbs. in 52 weeks. The math puts it to 1.44 lbs. a week, a weird number to be sure. So rounding up to 2 lbs. a week would put me at my goal by late September with plenty of wiggle room. After stepping on the scale to double check my guess, I realized that between Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holiday festivities, I have gained 10 lbs. So with five more weeks tacked on to the game I'll hit my goal by late October of 2011.
This whole project is about more then just getting thinner, it's about getting stronger, faster, and generally better at being a human. I know what it takes, exercise and dieting are not something I am incapable of but now is the time to put my money where my mouth is and challenge myself to greatness. I opened my calendar's and plugged in a weekly weight goal, and began planning the next two weeks of workouts. The whole program breaks down into 4 categories for reaching my goals:

Lifting Goals
Getting stronger, and losing weight doing it. Breaking down my workouts into Abs, Back, Chest, Shoulders, Arms, and Legs. Rest days involve Sit-ups, Push-ups, Pull-ups, and stretching.

Distance and Endurance Goals
Running, Biking, and Swimming. The end result here, I hope, is to run a Marathon and a Triathlon in the second half of 2011, and the first half of 2011. There won't be many off days here, just regulation of how long I'm going, and how hard I'm pushing.

Nutritional Goals
Dieting and Calorie regulation. This is gonna involve Calorie tracking and diet mapping. The goal here is to keep food diverse and spread through the day making sure to balance input with output.

Activities Goals
Trying to keep activities diverse and varied. Doing Aikido, Yoga, picking up some Boxing, and the occasional spin class. Keep it diverse and keep it interesting.

So here it is, a plan to change my life for the better. So why start a blog? Partially to keep people I know informed, and give them a space to comment. But mostly, to keep myself honest, and to make sure I am being balanced, and critical of my progress and success along with any failures that might come along the way.

Starting Back at the Bottom

It all started with a trip to Philly for a weekend of binging. The plan was simple; go to see some old friends, celebrate a birthday, a graduation, and watch all six Star Wars Movies in one sitting. My driving companion was a good friend and resident karate master, we'll call him A-team. A-team is planning on going for his next degree black-belt in the next two years, and as we talked about his upcoming dive into full time training I began to feel a growing need for a change. I began to think about what I was doing with my life and decided, "Next year it's all gonna change". It seemed like nothing more then a passing thought, something I had told myself a hundred times before. But I got up the next day and felt it stronger then ever. The pressing need to do something to better my life. Get back to the fitness I have always needed to be happy and healthy. After seven years of saying it was time for a change, after four years of really needing to, it's time to get my life back on track.