NFL Training Camp, 60-Day Workout: Day 8

So I remembered that being at work for a full day kind of fills your schedule. Updates running a little late. This is Thursday's workout.

Why would you work out indoors in Atlanta? Do you remember Super Bowl Weekend?

Day 8, the start of week 2. We start moving up the coast, this time visiting the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Today's trainer is Michael Turner, yet another player who is similar to me only in height. I decided against working out with Matt Ryan mostly because of his nickname, which I find too dumb even to repeat here.

Torture with a smile.

This workout reminded me of one difference between a female trainer and a male trainer. If I were working out with, say, Jillian Michaels, while I was lying on the floor, unable to lift my arms or legs, as my vision dimmed, I would at least be able to look at an attractive woman, and my last thought before I died of exhaustion would be "She's smiling ... I think she likes me," while she'd probably be thinking "Srsly?" With a male trainer, my last thought would be "I wonder if he's going to tear out my liver and eat it?", and his reaction would probably be "I knew this was a bad idea. None of these guys are in shape."

I find it interesting that even a program can identify a specific workout at which you struggle and make you do it again and again. Upper-body weakness? No problem. Here are some shoulder presses. Now repeat them. Here, hold weights up while you squat. Do that again. Now pushups. Ha ha ha!

I had problems with three exercises. During the hammer curl, somehow the game was reading the sensor movement backward, so when I lifted my arms, it thought I'd lowered them, and vice versa. Basically, when this happens, I just try to figure out how long I'm supposed to hold the position, and then I do the reps on my own. If the game catches up, fine, and if not, I either go through the motions without the weights to get credit for the workout, or I just skip to the next one.

The reverse crunches failed again ... the only way it knew I'd lowered my legs is if I put my feet on the floor, which defeats the purpose of the exercise (to keep your abs working the whole time). I just did the reps on my own and skipped the exercise.

Finally, the QB Window Challenge was a disaster, possibly because I needed the Wiimote in my passing hand. Same problems as above: up was down, forward was backward. It's really disappointing because I like some of these exercises, but it just seems like too much of a pain to figure out how I'm supposed to be doing them.

Another workout tomorrow, then an off day, and then back-to-back workouts again ...

NFL Training Camp, 60-Day Workout: Day 5

Where are my back-to-back off days?

Day 5, the second of back-to-back workouts, followed by two off days. Sounds like the NHL. (I think the NBA takes four days off after back-to-back games.)

I have virtually nothing in common with this man.

Looks like the Detroit Field Trip of Dominance, otherwise known as Florida. Today's workout was in the last of three stadiums in the state, Everbank Field in Jacksonville. (Apparently it's no longer Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. Sorry, can't push those updates out to the Wii.) I stuck with Maurice Jones-Drew, partly because he's one of the few NFL players shorter than I am and partly because I wanted to ask him about not being able to play in week 16, possibly costing me a chance at the league title.[1]

New drills today: the WR Challenge and the RB Obstacle Course. The WR Challenge wasn't much of anything, actually, but maybe because I'm on Medium ... first you jog, then you're supposed to run in place or lunge toward a "cone" (imagine that you're standing in the middle of a six-foot square marked by four cones, one at each corner) depending on what the narrator says.[2] I didn't have to lunge at all, just run or squat and then stand back up.

Next was a DB test (huh? I thought we were on offense), where you lunge up, left, or right depending on what the narrator says. More jogging, then a route-running drill where you run in a straight line and raise your hands when he says to ... in theory, the speed at which you run affects how far you "run" after the catch, but either that doesn't happen in this part or the lack of a left-leg sensor meant it wasn't catching my speed effectively. Maybe I just need to raise my legs higher. Anyway, the effect was that I coasted through each route.[3] I think we ran at the end, but whatever. End of the WR Challenge.

The RB Obstacle Course started with a tire drill (left-right-left-right, slowed down of course as the WR drill was), then jogging, then running through obstacles: punch left or right to stiff-arm tackling dummies or jump to clear arm tackles. This one went pretty quickly, which makes me wonder about the WR drill.

After that, it was the usual selection of exercises and stretches, focusing mostly on the lower body. I was prepared this time and had the leg sensor strapped tightly to me.[4] I only had to "skip" one workout, so I got more credit this time.

Afterward, I found that I'd moved up into the 6th round, to pick 190 (30th pick in the round because we're ignoring supplemental picks). Hello, conference championship loser![5] Purchased the Panthers helmet, did a quick check of achievements, and then shut down the Wii for a couple of days. I'll be back on Thursday.

---

[1] I lost by quite a bit, and it wasn't MJD's fault for being unable to play through yet another injury. I blame the commissioner for requiring us to set our lineups prior to the first game of the week. (return)
[2] Yeah, the players never actually say anything. Another "drawback" to using low-density discs on the Wii rather than high-density discs on the 360 and PS3. Drawback is in quotes because really, do we need each individual player to voice the same instructions? No, we don't. (return)
[3] You may recognize this as the Randy Moss Exercise. (return)
[4] I forgot to mention that I jumped out of the sensor yesterday. Ha ha. Who says white men can't jump? (return)
[5] The rules are here. Non-playoff teams pick in reverse order of record, then teams are grouped by the round in which they lost and then reverse order of record, which means right now, 21 through 24 are KC, Indy, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. I could end up in Seattle![6] (return)
[6] Actually, I couldn't. The Seahawks would have a worse record than the other CC loser and would thus pick 29th. You may have heard something about their record somewhere.

NFL Training Camp, 60-Day Workout: Day 4

In which we learn that EA does not understand UI design in the slightest.

Yes, there is no entry for yesterday; I'm not going to write every time I sit on my couch. Off days, remember. So this is the third workout of four this week (Monday is next, then two off days).

Arrrrrr.

Today we virtually visit Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. (Not Tampa Bay. Don't be silly. Build a stadium in the middle of a body of water? It can't be done.) My suggested trainer was Barrett Ruud, but in an attempt to avoid typecasting, I chose Ronde Barber. Basically, I wanted to ask him about that issue of Cat Fancy.[1]

I got to try the QB Read and React and Punting Challenge. The idea behind Read and React is that you're shown a pass pattern and where the receivers will be, then targets pop up in green or red. Throw to the green ones, don't throw to the red ones. Not so bad. Punting consists of swinging your leg, woo. You have to do it quickly, though ... one step and kick. Not a big fan. Of course the real problem is that you don't get to decide which leg you use. I kick left-footed, so I had to move the sensor to my other leg.

There was also a QB challenge that consisted of walking, the passing part I did on day one, and jogging. (QBs don't run, I guess.) This was the game where you run in place and zing the ball to receivers between linemen, with follow-through determining distance, at least in theory; in practice, the ball did what it wanted to, sometimes literally. I found that on several occasions, I was told to raise my throwing hand when I already had it raised, and when I lowered it, the ball was thrown. Very disappointing.

Naturally, I had the problem with the game thinking I was moving on other occasions, so I had to skip those exercises ... well, I didn't skip them. I did them on my own and then "skipped".

I made it through intact, went through the cooldown exercises, and started to buy items. Fortunately, I did well enough at the Punting Challenge (mostly by kicking weakly and watching the ball roll toward the target) that I was able to purchase several items. I realized I hadn't bought the Lions helmet yet, and that there was probably an achievement for that, so I did. Two achievements there (one for buying a helmet and one for buying my team helmet) gave me more points, so I did more buying ... and I remembered how poorly EA designs interfaces.

Now, keep in mind that this is the Wii, so there's already a handicap (slower processor than the 360 and PS3). To buy items, you go to that team's shop, where it displays everything related to the team. If you want to buy something else, you have to exit to the list of teams, then click on the team you want, and then it has to load those items. Each section (shirts, socks, gloves, etc.) loads separately as
well, so you spend a lot of time waiting. Of course motion controllers aren't designed for precision in the first place, and the game isn't compatible with Wii Plus (which probably contributes to other issues as well), so you spend a lot of time trying to find the correct spot to click. sigh.

As I try the different workouts, I find that the inaccuracy of the sensors is a pretty big issue. At least I can still do the exercises ... it'd be interesting to see how this would work on the Kinect, but apparently it isn't going to be released for the 360. (Perhaps that says something about their motion detection.)

---

[1] Nuts. It was Warrick Dunn. Never mind. (return)

NFL Training Camp, 60-Day Workout: Day 2

In which we learn that lineman are huge, fat creatures who can run faster than cars and also step on your soul.

Today is day 2 of my back-to-back workout days. It's impossible to work out 4 days per week and avoid back-to-back days[1] ... of course you can alternate days and have your back-to-back days be the end of the week, but that doesn't seem wise to me. Of course, right now back-to-back workouts don't seem wise to me either.

Today's workout was different in many ways, some of them not so good, most of them good. I'll just tell the story and let you decide what wasn't good. (Hint: IT'S WHEN I SHOUT. Subtlety and the internets don't mix.)

I was not actually here today.

Did I mention there was an achievement for working out in all 32 NFL stadiums?[2] Oh, the practice fields count separately. So anyway, it picks a stadium for you at random. Today it was Sun Life Stadium in Miami. Brandon Marshall was going to be my trainer, but no, he scares me, so I chose Michigan's Chad Henne instead.

We started off with the normal stretching exercises, then went on to some cardio and some weights. This time I was clever: I've got a set of Bowflex SelectTech 552 dumbbells[3], which are awesome, by the way, but anyway I brought them into the room with me so I could reach back and grab the appropriate weights for each exercise. (These are the kind where you dial the weight you want and lift them out. In this case, I was progressively dialing lighter and lighter weights.) So I'd just turn back, grab weights, and continue.

This time, I got to do the Lineman Challenge. In this one, you run hard for 20 yards or so, do a ladder thing for 20 yards (where you step into one square, to either side of the next square, into the next square, and so on, so your feet are going outside/left outside/right inside/left inside/right), walk for 20 yards or so, run in place with your hands out for 20 yards, and then jog for 20 yards. That's not too hard the first time, but like each challenge, you do it twice in the session.

One exercises involved the run-in-place thing, I forget what they call it, for 15 seconds, and of course that came up twice as well. Fortunately, the cats were both taking power naps when I began. (They both woke up later to inspect my form. Josie found it displeasing and tried to offer tips for improvement, while Calle made sure to desalinate my left hand while I was trying hard not to move: details below.)

We did some more squats from hell. I'm not a fan of holding things in place. I guess that means I need to build strength, and perhaps that was the cause of the first problem. I did shoulder presses OK (after doing these squats where you hold the weights up instead of down), but when it was time to do lateral shoulder raises ... remember when you first got your Wii, and you were bowling, and you'd go up to the line, and suddenly your Mii would start to bowl, even though you weren't moving? Well, that's essentially what happened. The Wii insisted that I stop moving and keep my arms still, which of course I was. I tried doing a number of different things, none of which worked, so I skipped the drill.

It happened again when I was doing reverse crunches. (I'd link, but I can't find anything that shows what it wanted me to do.) The idea was to lie on your back with your arms on the floor, bend your knees at a 90-degree angle, and lift your legs up, hold them there, then lower until your heels almost touch but don't quite touch. The problem was that it didn't register that I was lowering my legs until my feet were flat on the floor. (Not sure if this is a sensor issue, a placement-of-the-Wii issue, or what.) So I made it through 8 of 10 reps before it decided I wasn't trying any more, so I skipped that. (Hint: give us four sensors next time, jerks.)

Fortunately, the two exercises that crapped out were near the end, when I'd pretty much exhausted myself. I didn't actually see spots, and I didn't actually throw up, but I suddenly had no problem picturing someone working out to that point, especially if he'd had a dinner from one of the four main food groups[5] just hours before. Let's just say that the stretching exercises at the end that involved lying down on the floor were very welcome.

With just two workouts, I've moved up to pick 199 in the draft, which I believe is the seventh pick in the seventh round. (Presumably supplemental picks are not included in the game.) It's interesting to see how tired you can get after a 25-minute workout, especially when about 5 minutes are stretching and another 5 are watching the new exercises to learn how to do them. Then again, I haven't done a full-body workout in a long time, probably not since Volleybash in September.

Tomorrow is an off day. Woo! Then back to the Wii on Sunday.[6]

P.S. I want you to know that I spent somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes trying to figure out how I had my pictures and captions set up before. Apparently when I upgraded to the new layout, I forgot I'd had some custom styles that I wanted to keep. Anyway, it still bothers me, and I'll fix it properly, but for now it's barely tolerable, so appreciate my hard work. lolz.

P.P.S. Fixed now. Stupid spans. Not what I wanted.

---

[1] Dear visitors from other planets, certainly you have better things to do than quibble about our system of tracking days. I know your scheme. (return)
[2] I know there are 31 unique stadiums. I'm not entirely sure that EA knows, and even if they do, I'm sure they count it separately when you work out with Jets and with Giants. Now quiet down so we can continue. kthx. (return)
[3] Yes, that's an Amazon Associates link. Yes, I will make money if you buy that equipment after clicking through my site. If you love your country[4], you'll do it. (return)
[4] Your country doesn't have to be my country. It's a free-trade thing. We have a reciprocal agreement in place.
[5] Pizza, hamburgers, Chinese food, and Mexican food. In this case, it was breadsticks, which are obviously members of the Pizza family. (return)
[6] Yes, I know I didn't actually rant. Maybe I'm too tired, or maybe my expectations are too low. Maybe next time. (return)

NFL Training Camp, 60-Day Workout: Day 1

This is my deep, dark secret. All my life, I've wanted to be an NFL player.[1] One day I realized that the number of old, out-of-shape players in the league was 0[3], so I decided to do something about it: buy a video game.

Because I don't own a Kinect[4], the obvious answer was Wii Fit, except I already own it, and I don't use it that often. OK, the obvious answer was watching Chad Eight-Five's commercial for it. He may be a jerk on the field, but he's a hell of a salesman, and the NFL would do well to have more players like him. Besides, it was a neat idea: work out like the pros do[5] and track your progress.

Plus, they do the tracking by giving you two additional sensors, one for your upper arm that also measures your pulse and one for your upper thigh. These probably stay on better if you have an athlete's physique. (Why wouldn't they do two for your arms so that you don't hold the Wiimote so often? Don't know. For that matter, why not do both legs?)

I created my "person", synced it to my EA Sports account (more on this later), set my favorite team (Lions, duh) and trainer, which is really your workout leader (Calvin Johnson), and intensity level (medium, because really, I need to push myself). Off I went ...

So you do some stretches, then some weights and cardio, then cool-down stretches. Easy enough. Each exercise works kind of like Wii Fit: first an example, then you do it for real with the leader showing you what to do. The weight workouts want you to use this stupid resistance "band", which in my case was a silly piece of stretchy plastic/rubber, no loops on the end or anything. Fortunately, I'd read the reviews on Amazon, and several suggested that you use free weights instead. (As it turns out, you don't need to hold the Wiimote for those exercises.)

For one exercise, side plank, the Wii had trouble detecting my movement, probably because I wasn't holding the Wiimote. Other than that, things went pretty well. The passing exercise was interesting: you move your feet in the pocket and step into your throw for force ... so if you are dumb like me and don't rotate your hips, you get a lot of three-yard completions. Hello, Charlie Batch. No kicking, punting, OL, LB, or DB drills this time.

You get points after each workout, based on the duration and effort, plus bonus points for achievements, and those are what you might expect: achievements for overall time spent and calories burned, distance running, yards throwing, workouts done in each facility (practice fields plus NFL stadiums), etc. You then use points to buy things like workout gear for your player (you start off with just a T-shirt, shorts, and shoes), stadiums, helmets, stickers ... more little things to keep you going. It then can upload your info to the EA Sports Active server where it can tell the world how little they're doing in comparison to you.

I learned a couple of things today. One is that I am out of shape. Another is that, for one day at least, I can work out just like an NFL player.[6]

Actually, I learned three things. The other is that EA sucks. I was able to link this game to my existing EA account, but when I went to log in to EA Sports Active, it accepted my login, and then it wanted me to choose a display name, which isn't necessarily my profile name. WTF? I'm logged in, you dumbass. Obviously my display name is taken because I ALREADY SIGNED UP. Jesus. Either work with the EA Sports people or don't link the databases. The only thing worse than work not done is work done in a half-ass fashion.

After one day, I'd certainly recommend it. I did work up a nice sweat, utterly confusing one of the cats (the other one's seen everything before and was too busy napping to comment) and forcing me to wear actual workout clothes instead of that nice sweatshirt and sweatpants combo that hides the possibility that I may actually have eaten footballs for breakfast.

I'm to work out four days each week and take three days off: Thursday, Friday[7], Sunday, and Monday are workout days, I think. Monday or Tuesday, one of those. I promise nothing in the way of posting.

---

[1] until I counted the number of short, slow players in the league and combined that with my parents' (well-earned) fear of me breaking my glasses.[2] (return)
[2] like that time with the Nerf ball. Yes. A Nerf ball. They don't make glasses like they used to, thankfully.
[3] assuming that #4 stays retired. (return)
[4] it's a nice idea, but really, what am I going to do with it? Work out ... and ... (return)
[5] if they could only work out in a 4x6 area in front of their TVs. (return)
[6] and by that I mean an NFL player who retired five years ago and does sideline commentary now. Why hello, Mr. Siragusa. No, nothing at all. You must have heard me incorrectly. (return)
[7] obviously I'm not dating. This may or may not have anything to do with the footballs I ate. (return)

Weigh-in: Week 36 through Week 40, +0.6 pounds

So I fell behind a little bit, as I tend to do on long-term projects, and rather than making up five weeks of paragraphs, here we are:

Week 36: +1.2 pounds
Week 37: +2.2 pounds
Week 38: -1.4 pounds (actually this was on Thursday, I forgot to weigh myself Wednesday)
Week 39: +0.2 pounds
Week 40: -1.6 pounds

Basically, in early November I fell into a trap of eating potato chips and stuff like that with lunch. Caught that, turned it around, and then later in the month as work slowed down, my weight began to stabilize. It was neutral the first week in December and has been dropping since then; as you can see, yesterday's weight was almost where I was back in late October.

With the slowdown in contract work, I may not be ready to purchase my reward if I do earn it; then again, I'm also eating more carefully in part because I'm at home, so there are good parts and bad parts to it.

I feel like I'm focused again, so we'll see how the next couple of weeks go.

Weigh-in: Week 35, -2.4 pounds

Back on track. One week of behaving myself and I've undone the October damage. Now I just need to stay focused and get down to where I need to be. 160 is definitely possible by the end of the year.

I'm resetting my goal. 160 by December 31. Obviously August is well past. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Granted, 5.4 pounds in roughly 8 weeks should be easy enough, but the pounds at the end aren't always as easy as the pounds at the beginning.

Weigh-in: Week 34, +1 pound

This week was less acceptable. I should have done better. A gain of 2.4 pounds for the month ... take out the Virginia trip and it's a loss of 0.6 pounds, but if I did things correctly this week, I'd have balanced that out.

Time to refocus.

Weigh-in: Week 33, +3 pounds

Falling behind, so I'll make these quick. This week was understandable, somewhat: it was my four-day Virginia visit. Granted, two days were spent on the road, but still, I could have eaten quite a bit less. (Far too much sugar, quite a bit too much meat, not much in the way of vegetables.)

It's acceptable for a once or twice a year thing, but even with that, it's work I have to redo. However, it can still be done if you're careful the rest of the year. I'm not there yet.

Weigh-in: Week 32, -1 pound

Not sure how to explain this one, except maybe that I've been adding too much salt to my diet and I've been retaining more water than I normally would, up until today, that is. The last week or so I was moving back and forth between 165 and 166, and then this morning it was 163.8, the lowest I've been to date and down a full pound from last week.

Unfortunately I was also that low about a month ago (but midweek so it doesn't count toward a weigh-in), so in essence I've held steady the last 30 days or so. You can tell I'm falling back because I'm down "only" 28.2 pounds in 32 weeks, and for a while I was right at one pound per week. So basically the good days (walking to lunch, etc.) canceled out the bad days (Shrimpfest 2009, Rock Band, and so on).

And now I'm going back to Virginia for a few days. The last time I did that, it took me a few days to get back on track. I'll have to be careful this time. And then there is another Rock Band night the following week, Halloween after that (yeah, no extra candy in this house ... kids are getting handfuls, I think).

Don't know how much longer I'll be working downtown. The contract is technically through the end of the month, we'll see after that ... I'm not saying I'll walk to lunch no matter what the weather is like, but I can certainly walk in the cold.

Weigh-in: Week 31, -0.6 pounds

Pretty remarkable, considering that a) on Saturday we went to Red Lobster for my birthday dinner, and I had two Cheddar Bay biscuits (or three, honestly I forget), about 50 shrimp, mashed potatoes, rice, and most of a piece of key lime pie; b) on Sunday we went to the Ale for football (I had a burger with bacon and cheese, but chips with that), although I didn't eat too much the rest of the day; and c) with work I have not been spending a lot of time at home awake. Then again I've been walking to lunch almost every day, so that's probably a mile each day (about half a mile each way or thereabouts, at least on average).

Next week is the Virginia trip, well, next weekend, so it'll hit Week 33 and not Week 32. But this kind of thing happens every year. Part of maintaining a healthy weight is doing so no matter what time of the year it is. I think I'll be all right this time.

I like weeks where I think I've done poorly and I haven't. Usually it's because I'm worried about my habits (a good thing) and have been careful despite my fears (also a good thing). Occasionally it's an anomaly.

One of my friends suggested getting a bike trainer for the winter months. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I want to spend the money. I can't yet say that I would use it that much. I would probably get more long-term use out of some kind of lifting equipment ...

I'm just rambling now. Fini.

Weigh-in: Week 30, no change

ha. Every 15 weeks I've had no change from the previous week.

So it was nice to see this morning that Tuesday's weight was due to other circumstances and that presumably this is closer to my actual weight trend. (Of course it's still high considering previous progress, but at least it wasn't higher.)

My goal is to focus on better eating and exercise habits in October. I'm not too far from my goal, but it's not that close either (by which I mean there's more than a week's worth of work left).

focusing ...

Weigh-in: Week 29, +1.6 pounds

Not such a good week last week. Okay, maybe a little of it was having people over to play The Beatles: Rock Band and eating some of the food they brought, but it was also not having the right foods around the house.

With Week 30's weigh-in right around the corner, I suspect I'll likely gain rather than lose this week too. Potentially I could still break even for September, but it's really just been one (or two) bad weeks. So I'll have to focus more on eating better and exercising more. (Bonus: my current contract is with a company downtown, so as long as the weather isn't terrible, I can walk to lunch.)

I need to restock my food here so that I'm eating better foods. I know that is part of it. I can feel myself hungry for the wrong things because I don't have enough good choices here.

Still, I've made a lot of good progress, and I need to keep focused on that. I just put a bunch of slacks in the Goodwill pile: basically everything that I bought when I was getting bigger is now big enough that I can't even keep them up well with a belt. And I saved the old ones, so really I just swapped the two piles. If I can put in a little bit more work each week, it won't be long until I can switch into maintenance mode ... and maybe go shopping!

Weigh-in: Week 28, -1.4 pounds

This was an interesting week because over the weekend, it looked like I might be gaining this week. It wouldn't have been a surprise, considering that this was the opening weekend of the NFL season, I was going out on Saturday to watch college football, and I do like my football, except that with all this in mind I was still eating carefully. (Remember, daily weighing means that you'll see temporary fluctuations in either direction.)

But then the weekdays arrived and normalcy returned. Either that or ... never mind. Anyway, yesterday was kind of funny. I noticed two things: in the evening, I was really, really hungry, and around 10 or so, I felt a migraine approaching. I thought about the combination of hunger and migraine and wondered if perhaps something was amiss.

I counted through the day's food (I don't log any more): protein bar, toast, hamburgers, corn and peas ... um ... um ... fiber bar ... and I came up with 1400 calories, rounding up. When your daily allotment is 2000, that's a pretty significant difference, especially considering I had about 400 at "dinner". So I figure my body was panicking, knocking stuff off shelves and jumping up and down on the bed trying to get me to feed it. I ate another protein bar, took some Advil, and that seemed to fix the situation. It did serve as a reminder that I do need to plan my eating better ... it's great that I have all these 200-calorie pieces that I can assemble for meals, but I still need 10 of them a day.

So anyway, it looks like I need to go to Kohl's and hit their sale. (Hopefully my card is for an additional 30% off. I always seem to get the low discounts.) As much as I like the loose-clothing look, the vast majority of jeans that I have just aren't going to cut it any more. My goal is in sight, less than 4 pounds away.

Weigh-in: Week 27, -0.4 pounds

Yeah, this is a week late. oops. I'll keep it short and sweet and catch up today. The weight loss itself is a little troubling, as that makes two weeks with a total of less than a pound, but I also lost half an inch on my waist in that time, so it may be a little bit of muscle rather than fat (but only a little, I'm not doing that much regularly) or maybe it's just how things are working out right now.

I'm going through another light work period, so again I don't have any external cues for eating. We'll see how next week turns out. (Well, it's actually this week, so I'm not exactly using foreshadowing, am I?)

Weigh-in: Week 26, -0.4 pounds

Not a bad week, considering that for the first time in months, I was actually working on-site rather than remotely. True, it was only for two days, but that meant two days of planning my eating before I left the house. It didn't go too poorly (I did lose a bit), but I was actually lighter than that earlier in the week.

Candace and ems and a few other are doing a health challenge among themselves this month: points for tracking what you eat, staying within your calorie limit, drinking water, losing pounds, etc. Working as part of a group is a good idea, but I wonder about competition sometimes (before you accuse me of hypocrisy, I'd like to point out that I chose a sustainable weight-loss pattern rather than one that would be more likely to keep me in contention). It works for some people, but I think there is a chance that with others, struggling in the contest may cause them to think about giving up entirely. With a mentor, though, you could probably overcome those obstacles, and then the competition might provide you with the kick you need to really start making progress on your own.

Hopefully they all see good results. It's a month-long contest, which means I'll be older when they are finished. ha ha. Hopefully I will be lighter too.

Weigh-in: Week 25, -1.8 pounds

SO ... here we are. August 26 (not today, silly, obviously I rarely end up posting on weigh-in day; I blame volleyball), the "target date" for the original plan. If there is wiggle room, it's this: in the contest, there are two sets of prizes (for which I'm no longer eligible), one for percentage of body weight through the 26th, and one for percentage of body weight through the incentive meeting in February. (Also possibly auxiliary prizes for anyone hitting their goal and maintaining through the February meeting.)

On the other hand, I'm very good at aiming high and shooting low, so perhaps I should get less credit. Anyway, for this "final" weigh-in, I weighed 166. Total weight loss: 26 pounds. Not bad for 25 weeks. Goal to lose: 38 pounds. (Remember, the 160 was "work weight", roughly translating to 154 at home.)

I chose the "safer" route, using a plan that would be sustainable long-term; other people chose to hit it hard, lose the weight first, and then go back to maintenance mode. Either way is cool, mine just worked better for me, I think, based on what I've tried in the past (and obviously failed to maintain).

To hit my reward goal, I need to lose 6 pounds. To hit my numeric goal, 12 pounds. (Compromise, my friends. Compromise. As a famous tiger philosopher once said "Hold fast when you can and compromise when you have to.") That will probably be around Thanksgiving, although I do seem to eat less when I'm working at home. I may very well hit 160 by my birthday, so maybe a Kindle will be a good "birthday" present for me, we'll see, but I am going to keep working. Honestly, 160/154 was an arbitrary number. Realistically, I'd like to reach a point where I'm carrying a healthy weight and can sustain it with a reasonable lifestyle. Whether that's 155, 150, or what, I don't know ... in part because I haven't been this light since ... well ... I don't know. Probably college. I'm fairly sure I dropped to the high 160s during the Discovery Health Challenge we did a few years back, and the other weight loss times were in college and just after.

Then there was high school, but when I weighed 145 I could barely lift 40 pounds and carrying it was obvious effort. We don't need to go back to those days. (Thus more uncertainty about a good weight. I'd like to add a reasonable amount of muscle, in part to help with metabolism, and of course that may add a few pounds back on.)

We shall see. I'll keep logging until I hit 154. After that, who knows?

But enough about me. Can I tell you about my soccer team? You see, I manage Cambridge City, and they've just been promoted to Conference South, and ... hello? hello?

Weigh-in: Week 24, +0.8 pounds

Sorry, busy week, plus I had to get the right amount of gaming in, and honestly I'm still not a big fan of talking about myself (which makes the idea of a blog somewhat ironic until you realize I really don't post that much about myself). So anyway, up only a little bit, which actually is a major accomplishment considering that on one of the days in question I went to an all-you-can-eat churrascaria, although honestly it was more accurately all-they-care-to-bring-us, because we were served much more slowly in the past. (Fine with me, I wasn't overly full when we left.) Now, I did walk quite a bit, but then I also sat a lot, and I ate food that wasn't always that good for me.

So a little weight gain is understandable, although less than desirable when you realize that the six-month weigh-in is the 26th (which, of course, is "tomorrow" as I am writing this). Then again, I deliberately chose a long-term, maintainable plan rather than a short-term, high-weight-loss plan. I have to say I like the results so far, even if I'm not going to lose 7.8 pounds by tomorrow.

Weigh-in: Week 23, -2.0 pounds

So, another successful week. Yes, the first few days I had a cold or the flu or something, and I dropped weight right away, but then my appetite came back on Friday, and I fed it, and I did not regain the weight. (And we played volleyball for two hours on Sunday. That helped a lot. My monitor estimated 1800 calories burned.)

I think I misinterpreted something that ems mentioned this week ... anyway, she pointed out that being unemployed is actually a good thing when it comes to weight loss, and she's right. The biggest thing that changes is that you no longer have false cues for meals: it doesn't matter that it's 11:30, or noon, or whenever "lunch hour" is. You're hungry, you eat lunch.

Plus you don't have people always saying "let's go out and eat" (and to be honest, I am one of those, although at least now I eat more sensibly), so you can save some cash too.

My corporate membership at the Y is gone, which is just as well because it never really was something that worked well for me. As much as I like working out (sometimes), it just doesn't seem to integrate easily. I'll have to add some muscle, I think, so I'll have to clean up my weight room or do some smaller exercises in the living room. Maybe I need to revisit Wii Fit. (My "deadline" on it passed without me reaching my goal, but I am getting down toward that nice little 25 BMI.)

I may actually end up pretty close to 160 in a couple of weeks. Of course my target should be 154 (the "work weight" thing, you know), but I think it's just as reasonable to celebrate losing 32 pounds. I'll keep working at it until I reach a stable weight, so we'll see if that's something with a 5 or a 6. I haven't been this light in a long time, so I'm not sure exactly how much lower I can go.

Weigh-in: Week 22, -1.2 pounds

A decent week, although I am wondering if perhaps some of this is coming from whatever I may be coming down with ... nonetheless, I'll take it. Weight under 170 for the first time in a long time. My waist is shrinking reasonably well, and my clothes are fitting better (well, some of them are going in the other direction and will be replaced by smaller clothes).

I'm really not doing much weight training, though, so I need to start on some of that. It'll be easier to maintain a lower weight if I can get my metabolism up in part by adding muscle. Not much, just a reasonable amount ... I don't care to look like a weightlifter, but I would like to have reasonable upper-body strength.

Weight training would slow the weight-loss process and perhaps raise the "floor" (the lowest reasonable weight I could maintain), but that's fine. 154 was a number I picked out of thin air. If I can maintain a healthy weight at 164, that's fine too.