Back on Track

I hit a later cult meeting than my usual (insane for me) 8:30 morning meeting, and I have to admit I was nervous. My food tracking was spotty this week, but I was aware of all the liberties I'd taken last week (spelled out as P-I-Z-Z-A), and resolved not to do that again. I kept a good eye on portions, and didn't drink very much, either (which makes this whole thing untenable in the long run, but there ya go).

Anyway, I was rewarded with a 2.8-pound drop, my largest since my first meeting this stint in the cult. Very,very happy about this -- it brings me to 11.4 pounds lost altogether ... apparently, the same weight as the frame of this bicycle. Now to go for the tires.

After my meeting, I stopped off at the produce store and bought pears, grapes, little peppers, dried hot peppers, carrots, radishes, asparagus, cucumbers, and bean dip, so I'm off to a pretty good start. The cukes, radishes, and dried hot peppers are going to get pickled this afternoon. Which reminds me, I meant to pick up vodka, too. I've got some sorrel/hibiscus tea that I think would make a good infusion, and I'm guessing will mix well with lemon/lime soda at Crawfish Fest in a couple of weeks.

Rob

Pointy, pointy.

Went to my meeting today, and when I weighed in, I was down another 1.2 pounds. That's 6.4 pounds altogether, or the weight of this Excalibur Apex crossbow. (For a moment, at the scale, I thought I was down another three pounds, because last week's weight was never entered into the computer. But still, it's a loss, so I'll take it.)

This drop also means I have one less point to gobble up each day during the week... which will make nights like last Tuesday's soft-taco and wine guzzle a little bit tougher to pull off. But so far, so good. Three weeks in, and I've lost a deadly weapon.

Rob

An Elephant Never Forgets to Post

To keep myself honest, I ought not to skip a week of reporting from my cult. Last week at my weigh-in, I dropped another 1.8 pounds… a pretty good figure, I think. That’s 5.2 pounds altogether, which is the same weight as this majestic elephant statuette holding a wishing bell. Or, you know, a sack of potatoes, but you’ve seen that before.

Next weigh-in is tomorrow morning -- a day earlier than these last two weeks. That is, unless I forget and have to go on Saturday again.

Rob

Missing: One Fish

I had a pretty good week, cult-wise. I stayed on plan, despite all the goodies that show up to eat where I'm freelancing (this week, a major cooking magazine, super-tempting), and made some smart choices in their cafeteria for lunch -- smart enough that I even had a few beers this week, as I passed some time, for one reason or another, at bars near train stations.

And when I showed up to my meeting this morning, I had lost 3.4 pounds, the weight of this smallmouth bass caught by fisheries biologist Shawn Crouse at Round Valley Reservoir in NJ. I hope he's okay with me using his photo.

It feels great to have lost that weight, though it's a little odd, too. Somewhere during the week, I'd gotten the idea that I was only 4 pounds heavier than the last time I joined Weight Watchers; turns out the difference was 8 pounds. So while I know I lost 3.4 pounds, my weight is actually .6 pounds more than what I thought it was all week. BUT SHUT UP, BRAIN! YOU ARE TRICKSY, BUT YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS VICTORY FROM ME!

Plus, on the way back from the meeting, I stopped at this produce shop and picked up beets and sweet potatoes and wonton skins. I have an idea for some vegetarian dumplings for dinner. If it's genius, I'll tell you how I made them. If it's a disaster, we will never speak of such things again.

Rob

Once More Unto the Breach

So I’ve rejoined my cult.

I walked into Weight Watchers four pounds heavier than the last time I walked into Weight Watchers to start the plan. This’ll be my third time doing it; besides my attempt five years ago, I did it once in the 90s when I was still living in Pennsylvania, when the weight sloughed off easily, as I was, what, 24? Holy cow, I’m almost twice that now. Is there an Age Watchers meeting I can go to instead?

We’ll see how this goes. So far, I’ve been making pretty good choices...aside from a day of gaming where I blew through any leeway I had left in my week. So much… delicious… cheese. It was like Superman walking into a room of Kryptonite, back in the 70s when he lost his vulnerability to it and he could eat it.

Since then, I’ve been pretty good about my choices: veggie burgers, egg whites, lots of fruit. Lunch yesterday was some vegetable korma, some lentil daal, a little rice, and some stuff from the cafeteria’s raw food display -- a cucumber salad with yogurt, some fennel & arugula, and some pickled red onion. Plus fruit. Always fruit.

I weigh in again on Saturday morning. We’ll see how it goes.

Rob

War an' Peace an' Sushi an' Udon

So I went to my meeting this morning, and as I suspected, I dropped a bit: lost 3.8 pounds, or as photoblogger Drew McDermott put it when he posted this photo back in 2008: "3.8 pounds of Russian Literature. Fuckin' thick book."

I think he was actually reading it, not dropping proportionate bits of it from his body. But both are to be celebrated, and hopefully I'll get around to reading it one day, too.

Anyway, 3.8 pounds is nearly two puppies that have found a good home away from my belly. So that's somethin'. Altogether, I'm 6.2 pounds down since I started this fistfight with my own mortality. Lunches were the key this week, I think, choosing udon and sushi over sandwiches, for the most part.

Plus: I'll be riding my bike in the Five Boro Tour on May 6... which means I'll have to be riding it for long distances a lot sooner than that, because that damn ride is 40 miles long and part of it is going up the Verrazanno Bridge. Never mind that part of it is riding down the bridge, part of it is riding up that big ol' hump. But hey, that's what the Humpty Dance is all about, huh? It's your chance to do the hump.

And with that horrible moment of word-association, I bid you a fond adieu.

Rob

Thursday's Meeting

So: Went to a meeting in the city (where I'm working this week), and was up two pounds.

Which is, apparently, one Chihuahua/Westie hybrid puppy.

Which means simple math tells me that if I weigh myself in puppies, I weigh half as much!

I weigh 120 puppies! Which is terrifying, if you think about how much poop I'd produce.

Anyway, I'm not gonna stress about the gain. I was wearing heavier clothes than I do at my home meeting, and had already eaten breakfast (including a couple of bananas), rather than just ingesting a couple sips of coffee on my way out the door. So 2 pounds is a rounding error. In that I am rounder than I want to be, and would like to correct it. Hopefully this week will turn out better.

But in the meantime, puppies!

Rob

More Success.

Even after a Mardi Gras party that I think has to be characterized as a blowout, I managed to shave another 1.4 pounds off my enormous frame. Hopefully, I will look less and less like a giant king cake baby as time goes on.

Anyway, the way I handled things this year was I completely ignored my weekly allotment of special points all week -- knowing that they'd all be used up in food and drink on Saturday. Plus, I added more points into the mix by going to the gym a few times, and exercising at home a bit, too. (Also, Sunday was a pretty light eating day, for understandable reasons.)

In honor of this particular Mardi Gras party--and its terrifying guest of honor, a crystal skull that so many of us were drinking god knows what from--here's that 1.4 pounds, represented in a hand-crafted tiger-eye skull.

Ghost Rider, eat your heart out.

And in profile!

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

And it can be yours for $3,000 bucks or so!

Rob

Lost Three Pounds!

That's a backpack. (No butter included.)

It's kind of nice thinking I stopped carrying a backpack this week. Now if I could just get rid of this baby kangaroo...

Rob

Square One

I found out the last time I tried this that if I don't do this publicly, I won't have any success at all. So I went back to Weight Watchers today, after who knows how long flailing about without it, which followed several half-hearted attempts to return. I've been exercising a bit these past few weeks, and now it's time to work on the intake. Got in, weighed myself (in clothing): 248.2 pounds. Which means that, after all the time I spent since I first tried this, I've lost .6 pounds.

Woo. hoo.

You know what weighs 248.2 pounds?

This 92-cubic-foot Rubbermaid shed, that's what.

They will bury me in this someday.

It's 10 by 10 -- I weigh essentially as much as a small room in Dungeons and Dragons. Too small to fit the whole party in it, but big enough to fit eight kobolds.

Holy crap, I've got a long way to go.

Rob

The Last Two Weeks In Weight

Two weeks ago I stopped by for a meeting at my cult, and learned that after my 4 pound drop the week before, I'd loaded up 2.6 pounds back. Of course, I'd gone for barbecue for lunch that day, so I knew there'd be some consequences. But 2.6 pounds seemed like an awful lot. To help you visualize, it's like this hatchet.

Anyway, the number depressed me.And I can't say I had a particularly diligent week because of it.

But this week, there was no barbecue for lunch. (Actually, there was just a late breakfast, no lunch at all.) I didn't do any outrageous cheating, and, I think, it was well within my bonus point limit. And it was also over and done with by Saturday, giving me a few days to get back on track before the weekend. And the result?

4 more pounds, baby! That's a net loss of 1.4 pounds over the past two weeks, and 7.2 pounds, total. This calls for a button accordion solo. (This one sells for more than $1,700!)

So long story short, here's my continuing progress on the treasure trail to trim. (Okay, that sounds wrong.)

Rob

A Big Week for Getting Smaller

When I weighed in on Tuesday, I was feeling pretty confident, and rightfully so. Turns out I had lost 4 pounds – the same weight as this kid's bass.

So that brings me nearly 6 pounds into my 42 by 42 project, which is might good progress. Having been down this road before, I know I’m unlikely to see this kind of dramatic loss again. But this week really showed me what a difference a day makes. Last week I was just as careful as this week, with one exception – a party where I ate a bunch of little meatball sandwiches, drank a lot of beer (and some rum) and had plenty of chocolate peanut butter monster eyeballs and pannacotta brain in cranberry sauce. Plus chips and dip, and some candy, mostly Nerds and SweetTarts. A bad, bad day for getting things done metabolically – though a terrific night, overall.

But it’s a good reminder that I can’t just step off this thing if I’m at a party.

It was a good week for the other aspects of the plan, too. Only two meals with beef this week, and (I think) only one with pork. Plus, we went to the Indian restaurant near us and each ordered a vegetarian dish, and with the leftovers, that made two meatless meals for the week. And they were delicious, if a little too similar in look so that we kept mixing up which was which.

Anyway, here’s my progress so far, as the lightning bolt lurches closer to the treasure chest.





Rob

All gut, no brains.

Didn't take me long to fall off the wagon. This week's meeting (on Tuesday) showed I was up 0.6 pounds, or as much as the weight of this little contraption.

My problem was definitely all that I drank and ate during Jay & Nicole's Zombie party. In retrospect, I shouldn't have gone there without eating anything first. Big mistake, which I paid for in meatball sandwiches.

Plus, rum and beer. And candy and brains.

On the plus side, the bunch of us had a great time, killed plenty of zombie & played zombie tag.

Anyway, here's the ticker. Only took me 20 minutes to remember the PIN number to let me update this thing.





Rob

Drop Gun

Crooked cops know to always carry a gun to drop, in case you have to justify a shooting. In my case, I dropped this awesome air rifle, weighing 2.4 pounds.

Which gets me off to a good start on my 42 by 42 campaign. All weeks won't be this easy, I know... but I'm glad this one was.




Rob

Week One

Before the weigh-in, I figured I’d write a few paragraphs about how this first week has gone.

Exercise has been (almost) nil, but that will change. I managed to ride my bike to the coffee shop one day – with the proper amount of air in my tires, for once! Which meant they were round even when I got on the bike -- which is an essential shape for locomotion. Kathy won a bicycle pump at a raffle a couple weeks ago, when she got back from her 30 mile ride. The pump had a pressure gauge on it, so I was able to see that my tires, rated for 45-65 pounds of pressure, had about 15-20. I knew they were leaky, and was going to pump them anyway, but was able to pump much more air into them with confidence, being able to read the number on the gauge. Plus, it’s considerably taller, so it’s easier to get more air into the tires and I don’t have to bend as far. Because there’s nothing I like so much as getting on a bike when my spine feels like a question mark.

On staying on points, I did pretty well. I ate well, but cut most snacks out of my repertoire, and when I did snack, it was on an apple or yogurt. Sunday was a 70th birthday party for my mother-in-law (hi Mom!), and I went a little overboard on all the delicious food there (mmm… deep-fried turkey), but I had the bonus points to spare, and the day wasn’t a total disaster.

As for limiting pork & beef, I’ve had no beef this week, and the only pig I’ve had has been some lunchmeats at the party. I’ve consciously made choices for chicken or fish several times this week when I normally would have had pork. I’ve also made sure there’s been some low-calorie Tom Yum soup with shrimp around for me to reheat.

So tonight, we’ll see what the week has wrought. Assuming the Phillies game is over by the time my cult meeting starts. Otherwise, weigh-in might wait until tomorrow afternoon.

Rob

Today's the First Day of the End of My Life

...and considering I'm not done living it yet, that's problematic.

So, in honor of my 41st birthday last week, I've begun a "42 by 42" plan -- that is, I'm going to try to lose 42 pounds by the time I turn 42, approximately 360 days from now. Because while I'm not sick, I'm sure not living healthy. And I'd like to make the end of my life last for a long time, culminating in a brief, hilarious fall off a cliff into a tank of robot piranha, which will have been invented (and perfected) by then.

Essentially, I'll be doing a modified Weight Watchers plan (hereafter referred to as "my cult"), with a few other limits I'm imposing on myself, such as the number of times I can eat beef and pork in a give week (I'm thinking two each), and my intention to have at least one vegetarian dinner a week... without using pizza as a crutch too often, since that defeats the purpose.

I weighted in last night at 237.2 pounds (with clothes and all, but damn!), so it means I need to hit 195.2 pounds by October next.

Luckily, I just ate a delicious bowl of seaweed, so I think I'm ready.

Rob

Getting Rid of the Weight

From here on out, my weight-loss updates will have their own blog. It's a matter of daily motivation, it's a matter of me not wanting to overwhelm this blog with a daily update, and it's a matter of me learning Wordpress. So unless something crazy spectacular happens (like I lose an arm, and probably like 10 pounds!), you can find my weight updates at my new side blog, Weight That Can't Be Carried.

Rob

Intimidator!

Went to my meeting a day early (Kathy & I have plans for tomorrow) and found I'd lost 1.6 pounds -- the weight of this Infamous Intimidator paintball marker (without regulator or barrel).

Intimidator!

Rob

Play Ball!

Kathy & I had a great time at the Somerset Patriots game tonight. The team won, and we sat right behind a pair of cut-ups we fell right in line with. Before the night was over, we were joking about shaming the poor kid who lost the between-innings sack race, had invented Taser Night (first 300 screaming kids get tasered), and also Dick Cheney Appreciation Night, where the seventh-inning stretch would be replaced by waterboarding* and a naked pyramid. Good times...


Plus, I went to my cult today and lost two pounds, represented here in bars of foreign chocolate.

So overall, a good day.

Rob

*Or, if they needed a sponsor, QuickCheck coffeeboarding.

Easy go...

Easy come.

I weighed in the other day at the cult, and found I'd regained 1.6 pounds over the week. (Much like this carved pyrite skull.) It wasn't a banner week, and I *did* chow down on way to many apple slices with peanut butter the night before. But it was a D&D game, and nothing gets me to chow down like D&D. At least it wasn't carrots.

Rob