What Would William Wallace Do? April 30, 2010
Posted by Scott in Challenges, Goals.7 comments
What would William Wallace do? He would step up to the challenge and commit to become a Weekend Warrior! That is what I am doing too. It is that time again. Time for the third edition of the Weekend Warriors Challenge . This time the theme for the challenge is Braveheart. William Wallace, err……Brandon, over at So Long, Fat Ass! is the man behind the challenge and he does a great job of keeping everyone up to date with who is taking part in the challenge and links to their posts about it.
Here is how The Weekend Warriors Challenge works.
I have had a really stressful month this April, and I really want to get off to a good start in May. The past 4 days have been better, but up to that point, April was not my greatest shining moment. With that in mind, I am looking forward to make May great, and this challenge will be step number one.
The number 3 has been popping up a lot lately for me. Earlier in the week when I was feeling down, Craig from My Life, Take Eight suggested that he and I strive to get three miles in this week. I found some motivation and decided to take it a step further. This was the week that I was going to commit to doing the C25K running program. I am hoping that the third time is the charm for this. I started this program twice before earlier in the month, but never made it past day 1. This week was different. I have completed days 1 and 2 of the program, and I am feeling ok so far. Maybe the third time will be the charm for me and I can make progress as I try to become a runner. I want to be a runner, but not yet. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Here are my goals for the Weekend Warrior Challenge.
1. Finish week one of C25K on Friday evening.
2. Drink at least 80 ounces of water each of the three days. This is an ongoing struggle for me on the weekends for some reason.
3. Stay away from the sweets this weekend. No cookies, no cakes, not even a candy bar. I have indulged my sweet tooth more than a few times during the last month, and I want to go without to start the month.
Those are my three goals for the Challenge. Now if I can just squeeze in some time to watch Braveheart…………..
All About The 3′s April 28, 2010
Posted by Scott in Challenges, Motivation.4 comments
Today is Wednesday. It is the third day of the week.
After posting my Status Report – Week 7, I received comments from Craig, Carla and Joey (who just finished a Half Marathon). If your keeping count, that was 3 comments for that post and they really helped me break through and get going again in a good direction.
Craig had commented that he too had been struggling after having a 3 day weekend, and suggested to get us both back on track we each commit to do 3 miles this week. I agreed that I could do it and I am off to a good start because of it.
I had set 3 goals for myself for the week in the Status Report – Week 7 posting, and so far things are going well.
This coming weekend will be the third Weekend Warriors Challenge: Braveheart Edition. Like last month, I will be participating again. Guess how many goals I have in mind for the challenge……………that’s right 3 goals for me.
As a preview, one of my 3 goals for the challenge will be to complete a certain something that happens 3 times a week. This is something that I know many others out there have done, and now it is my time to do it. What’s more, this is the third time I have tried to get this goal under my belt. So far I have 2 of the 3 steps done, now just one more. More details of this will follow on my official Weekend Warriors Challenge posting later this week.
Status Report – Week #7 April 25, 2010
Posted by Scott in Motivation, Weekly Weigh In.8 comments
Another weigh in, another week gone by and I really feel like I am losing my way. Things have continued to be hectic at work, and in my life in general. I feel that the good habits that I had been developing over the past few weeks, have been slipping, and I am starting to feel the effects of my inaction. This has been a busy day for me, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about what to write for this update. I came up with this: emotions, results and direction.
Emotions – After a couple of weeks of feeling like I have had day after day of failures, I am feeling pretty down. I have had 3 very crazy weeks at work, and my personal life has had its share of challenges as well. When I started this journey, one of the things that helped motivate me tremendously was reading other peoples blogs about their weight loss journeys. I have struggled to find time to even stop by a few blogs and get updates on the fine folks in the blogosphere. So the net result is many hours of work, few hours of sleep, little blog reading motivation and just a general feeling of defeat. All of this has resulted in me falling into some old patterns. The worst of which was emotional eating. Whenever I get down on myself I turn to food. Cookies, brownies, candy or anything else that my family has brought into the house that is bad for me. I need to change. I need to get back on track. How? That is the question.
Results – Now this is where it gets crazy and hard to explain. This week, somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to lose two pounds and get down to 254 when I got onto the scale this morning. I have no idea how this happened. I ate pizza twice this week, lots of pizza one day. I ate fast food three times this week because I have been too tired to fix even the simplest of meals at home, and I just didn’t care at the moment. Although the regret soon hit me, just not enough to stop me the next time I hit the drive through. Exercise this week resulted in a zero. Zero work outs, zero walks. Just a zero! I need to change that.
Direction – I need some. Small steps must be the goal for the week. Anything I do that is positive will be 100% more than what I did this past week. I will walk this week. I will prepare my meals ahead of time and not hit the drive through this week. I will set my goal to read at least three blogs per day this week so that I can get motivated to get back on track.
Status Report – Week # 6 April 18, 2010
Posted by Scott in Weekly Weigh In.3 comments
This has been another long week for me. I have not had much time for me in which to post or read the blogs that I check out for inspiration. The long hours have taken a toll on the quality of my meal choices. I have made some poor choices along the way, but tried to mix in good things too. I am not very disciplined when I get tired, and this week I was very tired because of long work days, and not getting enough sleep. I was able to get out and walk last Sunday and yesterday too, but during the week I was only able to squeeze in one mile on Thursday.
Last weekend, that’s right, last weekend, I had set some goals for myself to support Craig at My Life, Take Eight who was repeating the Weekend Warriors challenge from a couple of weeks back. Craig didn’t like the results he had that first weekend of the month and wanted a do over. I, along with some others, decided to join him in repeating the challenge again last weekend. I wanted to drink my 80 ounces of water each day, walk at least 5 miles during the weekend and the third goal was to have a really good day of eating on Saturday before last weekends weigh in. I was able to accomplish all three goals, although the walking all got done in two sessions on Sunday. That is more than I usually try on one day, but it got done.
Overall the choices I made didn’t have a negative effect on my weight as I stayed even at 256 for no loss/no gain for the week. I am hopeful that this week will not be quite as hectic and I will be able to get back on track. I want to lose at least one pound for the week to get to my second “Minus 5 Goal”.
Status Report – Week # 5 April 11, 2010
Posted by Scott in Motivation, Weekly Weigh In.4 comments
It is almost hard for me to believe that I have completed 5 weeks on this journey. I am making progress, ever so slowly, and changing many things about my life. Overall, I think it feels good, but it is difficult dealing with the time it takes to move mountains. I didn’t put all my weight on in 5 weeks, so not sure why I should be disappointed when it comes down so slowly. I know that there are still things that I can improve upon. Are my eating habits better than they were when I started? Yes. Still lots of room for improvement though. Am I moving more now than I did before? I am. If I could do this even one or two more times a week though, how much faster could I get to where I want to go?
The moments of self-doubt are difficult to deal with. I made progress this week. I really did. But I don’t feel like I have accomplished enough. Sounds crazy I know, but I am doubting that I can keep losing by having more weeks like the one I just had. I know that I have more weeks like this coming too. My work schedule is going to be crazy for the next 4 or 5 weeks at least, and I am worried that I won’t be able to maintain the losses.
Here are the numbers for the week. I am down another 2 pounds. I should be proud of this, but I just have this feeling that it wasn’t real, or maybe isn’t lasting. I don’t know, but I’m just not that excited by it. Maybe the only way I will feel more ”accomplishment” is to do more work to earn it.
Time Goes By……….. April 10, 2010
Posted by Scott in Uncategorized.2 comments
This past week has been another whirlwind for me. Up for work at 2:30 AM each day so I can just make it into work for the the 4:00 AM start time we had all week. Work about 12 hours (13 on Friday) and then get to savor the long drive home through rush hour traffic. OH BOY! It makes trying to lose weight and improve my health very difficult. Now I have 2 days to enjoy. Wait, I have 2 days to try to squeeze a life in for the week. Many things that have to be done and a few fun things that I want to do. It leads to very difficult decisions for me on this beautiful Saturday morning. One decision I have made is to support Craig over at My Life, Take Eight by repeating last weekends Weekend Warriors Challenge again this weekend. Craig didn’t feel like he had a very successful outcome to last weeks challenge, so he is repeating it again for himself. A number of others have agreed to join him this weekend and I too will do the same. I wasn’t really thinking about what my goals would be for another weekend challenge, but I realized that I need to have some sort of plan if I want to have any chance of salvaging this week. With that in mind, I am going to repeat one of my goals from last weeks challenge, one that has typically been tough for me on the weekends, but pretty good during the work week. This week was the opposite, so to get back on track I will repeat the 80 oz of water for both Saturday and Sunday as goal number 1. For my second goal, I want to walk at least 5 miles before Monday rolls back around. My third goal is to have a really good day of eating on Saturday. Sunday morning is my weekly weigh in, and so a really good Saturday should help to lessen the pain I feel when my eyes focus on the scale next.
Hope everyone enjoys a great weekend!
Weekend Warriors – I Know, It’s Already Tuesday Edition April 6, 2010
Posted by Scott in Accomplishments, Challenges, Exercise, Food, Goals, Motivation.2 comments
I think I am finally starting to come out of the fog of my never-ending head cold. The last 8 days have been pretty rough for me, and I have not yet updated the results of the past weekends challenge. I took part in the Weekend Warriors Challenge put on by Brandon at So Long, Fat Ass! This was my first Weekend Warriors Challenge and I am glad that I participated. Everyone who took the challenge set a few goals for themselves to help get them through the weekend and remain on plan as far as their health and fitness goals go.
Here is a list of everyone who participated. Feel free to check out their posts on the challenge and see if it is something you might like to join in the next time Brandon sets a challenge in motion.
- Carla from The Right Fit
- Lauren from Less Lauren
- Scott from Minus 5 Times 10
- Marissa from Fatty Slims Down
- Sean from Learn Fitness
- Joey from Joey’s Health
- Joe from Joe the Runner
- Jeremy from Stellar Path
- Lynne from Losing Lynne
- Steve from 265 and Falling
- Erin from Erin Takes Control
- Frank from Male Weight Loss Now
- Dana from Eat Sleep Get Fit
- Jess from Half of Jess
- Craig from My Life, Take Eight
- CiCi from Too Flabby Dames.
Here are my goals that I set for the Weekend Warrior Challenge.
1. Walk at least 6.2 miles from Friday through Sunday. I only put in about 5.4 miles. I was on target to get it all in, until the call from my daughter with a cut hand brought me back from the walk early. The cut turned out to be pretty minor, but the quick pace I set for myself over the last 3/4 of a mile was just fast enough to break my desire down to the point where it was easy to not go back out to finish my miles. FAIL!
2. Drink at least 80 ounces of water each of the three days. Like most weekends, I did struggle to get this done, but I did it. PASS!
3. Enjoy Easter dinner without having either huge servings or second helpings. This was a big win for me! I enjoyed the dinner that my wife and I prepared, and I exercised good judgement with regard to portion size and I can report that I had no second helpings. That was only part of my successful day as far as eating goes. For probably the first time in my life, I did not have any candy on Easter. This gets a PASS!
Those were my three goals for the Challenge. My aim was to get to Monday and be able to say, Pass, Pass, and Pass! I came in with 2 out of 3, but I can’t say that I am really that disappointed. I stayed focussed throughout the weekend on many things that will help me on my quest to improve my health. The successful weekend has set me up to have a great start to the week, and hopefully can serve as a reminder to me to set some goals to help cope with the weekends as I keep moving forward in this journey.
Status Report – Week #4 April 4, 2010
Posted by Scott in Accomplishments, Exercise, Food, Goals, Weekly Weigh In.5 comments
This has been a tough week for me. I have been feeling under the weather since Monday evening. Some days have been better than others, but I wouldn’t say that I have felt good any day this week. Head cold, sinus pressure, no energy. That has summed up my week, that and not really following my healthy eating plan. Additionally, I didn’t really get as much movement in as I wanted. Unlike last week, I haven’t felt like I was making progress this week.
All that being said, imagine my surprise when I got onto the scale this morning and saw 258. That is a 3 pound loss for the week. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t eat that great all week, had less movement overall, and yet I lost 3 pounds!
Here is how I think this happened. The night before last week’s weigh in, we had gone to our friends home for dinner. I ate a lot of food that night. Second helpings of everything, including desert. I was stuffed! Later in the evening when we got home, I still felt stuffed. It was by far the most food I had eaten in a while. I think that it still affected me on Sunday morning when I did my weigh in. I felt great leading up to last weeks weigh in, but only saw a 1 pound loss for that week. This week, I didn’t do that great, but had a 3 pound loss. I think both numbers are probably skewed by the huge dinner I ate last Saturday.
Last week, for the second week in a row, I set the same four goals for the week. Here is how they went this week.
Drink 80 ounces of water each day – 4 of 7 days again.
Complete week two of Two Hundred Squats Challenge – well, about that……….not done at all. Still need to do week 2.
Prepare lunches for work and plan healthy breakfast for the next day before going to bed. Worst results here again – only 1 of 5 days.
Start looking for a 5k to enter. I looked a bit, found some possibilities, but they are all in May, and I don’t think I am going to be ready for it by then. The search continues.
With today being Easter, I have some challenges ahead of me, but I am energized to get through today and not over indulge in the great food that will be on hand. I have avoided the kids candy this morning, and plan on doing so for the day. I wish everyone a Happy Easter!
The last thing I will include in this post is that I have reached one of my mini goals. I have passed my first Minus 5! I have officially passed the Minus 5 Times 1 level, and now I have nine more to go. Boo-yah!
sniffle sniffle April 3, 2010
Posted by Scott in Accomplishments, Challenges, Exercise, Food, Updates.1 comment so far
What a week it has been for me. The entire family has had some sort of head cold at various times this week. My daughters were feeling bad over last weekend and into Monday and Tuesday. My son was feeling bad on Tuesday and Wednesday. My wife has been sick for over one week now, and as for me, I came home from work early on Monday to take care of my youngest daughter who was staying home from school. By Monday evening, I was not feeling very good myself. As the week has gone on, I have felt worse each day.
I didn’t do very well this week with my eating or exercise goals. Ate way too many carbs, and not enough salads. Check that, I have not had any salad at all this week. I had been trying to eat about 5 to 7 salads a week as either lunch or dinners, but just didn’t get it done over the past seven days. And believe me, I didn’t skip most of those 5 to 7 meals either. I have been trying to keep my water intake at the 80 ounces per day level. Usually during the week, at work, I have no problem. But those days at home always seem to be tough on me. I don’t really replace the water with anything else either, just don’t drink as much fluids for some reason. Since I have so much trouble in this area, this is one of my areas of focus for this weekends Weekend Warriors Challenge. I am participating, and am hopeful that I can reach all three goals that I have set.
I also need to get back on track exercise wise. I haven’t went out since Monday to walk, so my mileage is pretty low this week. I haven’t done the second week of the Two Hundred Squats challenge either. Pretty pitiful, I know.
Saturday is a new day, and I will somehow find my way back on track.
