The Wife Weighs In...Week 14

Happy New Year, GHMIW fans!

What a great holiday! Lots of family, lots of friends, and lots of fun. All that good stuff made it a little difficult to come back to work.

I will admit there was some general food-related debauchery over the holidays. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted:

Birthday cake (celebrating the 2nd anniversary of our daughters' births), cheesy potatoes, my mom's homemade caramel rolls, Tony's mom's egg souffle, lots and lots of salty ham, pizza from a favorite take-out place in Duluth with my family, Christmas cookies, pasta bar for dinner at a favorite local restaurant with a big group of old friends, a gigantic sushi feast with a close friend from far away, buffalo chicken dip on New Year's Eve, and so many other yummy things.

I drank what I wanted, when I wanted:

Beer, wine, Colorado Bulldogs, champagne, martinis...even a Tom and Jerry, one gigantic mojito (some might have called it a small pitcher), and one Chocolate Cake shot (celebrating the 30th anniversary of my sister-in-law's birth).

I also got to the gym a few times, which felt really good. (Thanks for being my workout buddy, Katie!)

I gave myself full license to enjoy the food and drink of the holiday without limitation. I actually sort of wanted to see what would happen. In my past, if I’ve been tracking my weight, I’ve been “dieting.” If I’m not “dieting,” I’m not tracking my weight. I usually de-rail when I know I haven’t been eating like I should and then I’m afraid to step on the scale. Thus begins the ugly downward spiral.

So, I decided to tempt fate and see what would happen if I let myself off the hook. I wanted to see just what the damage would be. The actual number wasn’t that bad. I will admit that getting back into the swing of healthy eating is a little tougher than I thought it would be, but I’m ready to kick it back into gear.

I can’t imagine going back to where I was. In fact, I refuse to do so. I mean, really…I’ve already unsubscribed from the Lane Bryant e-mail list.

Have a great week, everyone!
Laura

My update:
12/21/2007: 189.4 pounds
01/04/2008: 191.6 (a gain of 2.2 pounds)
Total loss: 36.8 pounds
Next goal: 182.0 pounds

The Weigh-In Week 30

220.4! That's what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 3.2 pounds.

I'd call that a great start to the New Year. I still have 4 pounds to go to get down to my pre-holiday low and 6 pounds to reach overweight status, but that will come quickly enough. I'll be hitting the gym good and hard all week next week and getting my eating back on track has not been tough at all.

This has been an amazing year for me, and again all I can ask myself is why did it take so long to do this. Sure it has been some work, but not nearly as much as I expected. In fact once I got into the groove of things I would say the whole thing has come pretty easy. I guess you just have to be at the right place in your life to make the change.

So lets look back at who I was a year ago.


One year ago I weighed 288 pounds.
I regularly consumed over 3500 calories a day.
I couldn't run more than 1 minute at a time.
I wore a XXL shirt.
I wore size 46 pants.




Today I weigh 220 pounds.
I eat less than 2000 calories a day on average.
I work out 5 days a week for 45 minutes.
I can run more than 34 minutes at a time.
I can run a 5k on a treadmill.
I wear a L shirt.
I wear size 36 pants.
I feel great.

I am really proud of what I have accomplished .and I am really excited to see what new accomplishments I will be able to achieve this year.

As always I thank all of you for the help and support and encouragement.


Only 5 votes this week. Had we had 10 our winner would have been Cousin Angie. Nice voting Angie.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
1/4: 220.4lbs
NEW GOAL: 214
6.4 pounds to go.

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 30

The first contest of the New Year.

So the gluttony. Well there was gluttony and a lot of it. The week between Christmas and New Years kind of turned into a food free for all. Somehow I convinced myself that I had a free pass to be as bad as I wanted and I was bad.... but not nearly as bad as I was on a daily basis 30 weeks ago. I guess that is the silver lining. Even in my worst pig-out moments last week, I was still more restrained than I would have been on any given day prior to starting this Journey. Hopefully next Holiday season I will be at a place where the word gluttony is long forgotten.

The good news is after just one day of eating better and hitting the gym the pounds are already starting to come off. I think we are for sure looking at a loss from last Friday's weigh-in.

I had a little extra motivation on the treadmill yesterday. Towards the end of my run a guy got on the treadmill next to me and started up a conversation. Turns out he is a triathlete who competed in this year Iron Man Championships in Kona, Hawaii and he knows my friend Anthony who also competed at Kona this year. This guy was cruising away at 9 or 10 miles an hour on the treadmill carrying on a conversation like we were sitting on a bench in the park. I on the other hand was huffing and puffing away. But I did run an extra 4 minutes because I was to embarrassed to stop running in front of him. It was a nice little kick in the pants to get me back in the swing of things.

Step right up, step right up.
Guess how much I weigh and win a fabulous prize.

To Recap:
Every Thursday I give you my stats for the week and you guess what you think the scale will say on Friday morning. The winner is the first person who guesses my weight / weight loss for the week without going over or the person who is closest without going over. Go ahead and click on comments at the bottom of this post and leave your guess.

I will post the winner when I post my weight on Fri. morning. If we get ten or more guesses I will have a prize for the winner.

I started tracking calories yesterday...but one day of stats won't do you much good. So, stats will return next week.

Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!


Tony
1/3: 223.6lbs
NEW GOAL: 214
lots of lbs. to go

p.s. Don't forget you can subscribe to the e-mail edition of Guess How Much I Weigh . Simply enter your e-mail address in the space to the right.

Living For The Moment

I had a sort of epiphany on my way in to work today. I think it is the exact same epiphany I had on January 2nd last year.

I spend way to much of my life waiting for things to happen. I have not been living in the moment much lately.

The last few days were spent hanging around the house with my three girls with no real plan or purpose... something I used to love to do. But this time I was going stir crazy. I wanted to do things, to get out of the house and play. Go to the pool, go to a movie, do something.

What I realized on the my drive in this morning is what a wonderful day we ended up having just hanging around the house doing nothing. If I had been living in the moment I would have recognized it at the time.

My healthy journey is the one area of my life where I feel like I have really been living in the moment. Keeping this daily journal has forced me to appreciate the journey as much as the destination. Sure I have been pushing towards a goal, but along the way I have really enjoyed myself.

I've never been one for New Years resolutions, but if I were going to make one this year it would be to live life in the moment. To appreciate these golden times as they are happening. We'll see how I do.

As for the gluttony that was the last two weeks. We'll talk about that tomorrow. I can't wait to get back on the treadmill today... although I will take my time and enjoy these precious hours before then.

Tony
1/2: 223.6lbs
Goal: 220 lbs. ACCOMPLISHED
NEW GOAL: 214
lots of lbs. to go

Happy New Year

It seems almost criminal to weigh in the day after New Years Eve, but I promised I would. So the unofficial start to the New Year weight is 224.2!

Not a bad gain considering what I ate and drank last night. Buffalo Chicken Cheese Dip...Yum,Yum,Yum!!!!

The first official weigh-in of the New Year will be Friday. I'll be back tomorrow.

Tony
12/28: 223.6lbs
Goal: 220 lbs. ACCOMPLISHED
NEW GOAL: 214
lots of lbs. to go