Meat

My father in law came into town this week to visit.  It's always great fun to spend some time with family.  He happens to live in a town with a large meat packing facility, and on occasion, brings the best steaks.

This week I ate a lot of meat.

I had two steaks this week.

I ate at a barbeque joint twice.

A Cupcake.

A Snickers ice cream bar.

Jelly-filled doughnut holes (my coworkers are jerks!).

Cheesy chicken enchiladas at Red Burrito.

Mountain Dew.

Cheerwine (a very delicious soda pop found in the Carolinas)

It's amazing how different I felt. 

I felt terrible.

I don't feel guilty.  I'm not the type to feel guilty for eating delicious food. 

I did feel lackadaisical, sleepy.  I felt heavy.  I took the kids to the pool on a totally different, less convenient schedule.


On Monday, I weighed in at 212 pounds.  Down from 220 when I started this.

Today I'm at 214. 

Now, there is naturally a certain amount of weight swing that you have to expect being human.  The fact is that my pants are fitting better, which is a much better standard by which to measure one's weight.  But after feeling so sluggish all week, I have to say seeing that those two additional pounds today really felt backwards.  I've been steadily losing weight since we started.  It's not a massive, fast weight loss, but I've gained a belt hole and pants that I bought a month ago that fit me comfortably but snugly are now fitting me loosely.  I have to keep moving forward. Fight the fat!

Overall the last four weeks has been really awesome.  I've learned about all kinds of new foods and new ways to cook food I'm used to eating that removes all added fats, cholesterol, and increases the fiber exponentially (well, maybe by a factor of 3 or 4).  I've eaten delicious Chile, pizza, lasagna, pita sandwiches, and stuffed bell peppers.  Before this week, I'd had only 3-4 soda pops in the last 21 days.

I have to finish up this week doing well (birthday cake tomorrow, no choice there!), and then next week my wife, our friends, and I will do our fit test and before photos of our flubby selves.  The following week, we start P90X.

Most of the people I know who have done P90X have only made it through 30 days or so.  I hope to make it the entire 90.  It's not going to be easy.  I'm going to have to get up at 6am Monday-Friday, and exercise before work.  I'll also have to work out on Saturday, plus any other side jobs I pick up.

I honestly don't know if I will be able to make it through.  It's not an easy program by any standard.  On top of that, I'm not the most self disciplined person I know, but I'm going to try.

To me the most important thing is that I am doing something for my health.  I'm not just sitting around thinking about how I should change things.  I'm actively changing them.  It's not easy, especially at first, but when you begin to see results, when you feel the additional energy you have, it's very motivating.

I took off yesterday and today from work.  Just a month ago, these days would be spent doing a lot of sitting around.  May be working for an hour or two on the house or yard.  But yesterday I mowed my lawn, raked and bagged 10 garbage bags of leaves from the side yard, reseeded the yard, raked the seed into the soil, and watered the yard.  I was at it for about 8 hours.  And I still wanted to work on my wife's car in the evening. 

Today, it's front sidewalk garden attack day.

And with that, I'm off to play in the dirt.