The Weigh-In Week 57

3 days and counting.

216.4!!! That's what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 1.8 pounds.

Let me tell you about the power of sweating it out.

I made some good food decisions yesterday. It helped that the food at my all day "lock in" was pretty bad. We also went to an impromptu 2nd 90th birthday for my Grandma last night and grabbed McDonald's on the way. This may have been the biggest miracle of all. I ordered a 5 piece chicken select and no French fries. I don't think I have ever in my life gone to McDonald's and not ordered French fries.

Despite these good decisions I still ate more than I normally would on a Thursday and I figured I was headed for a tiny loss or a gain...and then I went for my late night 3.5 mile run with Teresa and Judy.

We hit the road about 9pm thinking the heat and humidity would be less after the sun went down. We were wrong. The run was great, but by the time we got done I think I sweated out 4 pounds of water.

And that is the power of sweating it out.

Regardless of how I got here it was really nice two see a good size loss on the scale this morning after two weeks of gains.

It's just one more reason to feel confident going into the race this weekend.

And I am feeling confident. Still a little nervous, but mostly confident.

Expect a full race report first thing Monday morning.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Tony
07/18 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 57

4 days and counting!

I am in an all day meeting today so I'll make this quick.

If I were to do my official weigh-in today I would have a nice little loss. Sadly I am eating breakfast and lunch at a Country Club today so I imagine the food will be on the "wedding dinner" side vs. the "looking to lose a few pounds and run a Triathlon in 4 days" side. So there are no guarantee for tomorrow's weigh in.

There are two things working in my favor though.

1. I am extremely motivated to eat well today.

2. I am doing a late night run with Teresa and Judy tonight after the girls go to bed. It will be my final workout before race day. The exercise should help with the weigh-in too.

Good luck guessing. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

I ate poorly on Sunday and Monday.

I ate better on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I haven't weighed myself since Monday morning and that weigh in was not all that encouraging... all though it did come after a huge late night dinner.

So my guess is as good as yours. I guess we'll all be surprised tomorrow.

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.


Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!

Tony
07/17 218.2 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
10.2 lbs. to go

5 Days and Counting

I just came back from my last brick before the race and I am feeling good. I did a 6.5 mile bike ride and a 2.5 mile run. I meant to go a little slower today but ended up keeping about the same pace that I have had lately. 25 Minutes for the run and a an average of 15.8 MPH for the bike.

A few of the people I work with have done this race before so they have been giving me all kinds of advice, as has my Dad, who has also done the race before.

I have to say I am equally nervous and excited at this point.

Tony
07/16 218.2 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
10.2 lbs. to go

6 Days and Counting

Just in case anyone is keeping track.

7 Days and Counting

Just 7 more days until race day!!!!

I have set my goal. I want to finish in under 1 hour and 20 minutes. It is a totally doable goal...assuming I can figure out the transitions and the wind isn't too bad.

My secret goal is to finish in under 1 hour 10 minutes. That would be really pushing it based on my training times so far.

I had a great training weekend. My day and I did a 16 mile bike on Saturday. Dad managed to pick a course that was almost completly up hill. Tough on the legs but good for the training.

Then, on Sunday I did another brick. 10 miles on the bike and a 2.8 mile run. And I felt the best I have felt so far. I am gaining more and more confidence.

On Sunday's bike ride I ran into my Tri Training partners Teresa and Judy completly by coincidence. That was a fun surprise. We are going to try and schedule one last group run on Thursday night as a final motivational kick in the shorts.

Today is a rest day.
Tomorrow I am in the gym.
Wedensady I will do my last brick.(Probaly a short one so I don't wear out)
Thursday I will try a low intensity run with Teresa nad Judy.
Friday and Saturday are rest days.

The wind was a killer on both Saturday and Sunday. It made me realize the wind will be a huge factor in the time I put up on Sunday.

On my Sunday bike ride it took me 24 minutes to go 4.6 miles against the wind. The same distance heading home took me only 13 minutes.


Tony
07/11 218.2 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
10.2 lbs. to go

THe Weigh-In Week 56

218.2. That is what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of 1.2 pounds.

Not a good way to start my final week of Tri training.

I think it is time to start tracking calories once again. And that is just what I am going to do.

Next week is going to be tough. I am fortunate to be able to work out on my lunch break at work...normally. Unfortunately next week I am in a series of all day meetings so no lunch break workouts on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday and a lot less control over my food than I would like. I will have to get in my workouts after the girls go to bed each night next week and hopefully the looming Triathlon will motivate me to be really good at the lunch buffets.

It's supposed to hit 95 today, so I think I may be running inside on the treadmill for the first time in months. Not exactly happy about it, but I'd rather be bored on the treadmill then dead of heat exhaustion on the trail.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
07/11 218.2 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
10.2 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 56

I have no clue this week.

I worked out like mad over the weekend.

I ate poorly on Sunday and Monday.

I ate better on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I haven't weighed myself since Monday morning and that weigh in was not all that encouraging... all though it did come after a huge late night dinner.

So my guess is as good as yours. I guess we'll all be surprised tomorrow.

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.


Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!

Tony
07/10 217 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9 lbs. to go

Mega Brick

Now I am starting to gain a little confidence that I will actually be able to finish this race.

I just got back from doing my brick and today I manged to ride 9 miles then get off the bike and run a full 5k. That's right I ran 3.1 miles after biking for 9 miles.

My legs hurt now.

Honestly I wasn't trying to run that far, but I didn't know exactly where the 2.5 mile mark was and by the time I figured I had to have done 2.5 miles I was feeling so good I just decided to keep on going.

I didn't set any speed records, (36 minutes on the bike and 30 minutes on the run) but I am jumping for joy that I managed to complete the whole thing for the second time.

Or I would be jumping for joy if my legs hadn't turned to jelly shortly after I got out of the shower.

Only 11 more days to go!

Tony
07/09 217 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9 lbs. to go

THe Weigh-In Week 55

I hurt....everywhere.

But first on to important business.

The Weigh-In.

217. That is what it said on the scale on Friday morning. A gain of .2 pounds.

A miracle if ever there was one. I do have to qualify this weigh-in. I used my parents scale which only measures by whole numbers. So who knows where in the range of 217 I actually ended up. Still, it was a gain of less then one pound on a week that I thought was going to be a total write off.

Now to my hurt.

We played hard this weekend as scheduled... maybe even harder than scheduled.

Every muscle in my body is aching.

We skied, we wake boarded, we swam, we biked, we ran. We did it all.

Saturday was the big day for Tri training though. I managed to get all three events in in one day.

We started the morning with a 12 mile bike ride. Then immediately did a 2 mile run (with a little walking). Then we went to a carnival. (Where my brave little girls went on their first Farris Wheel ride...which they loved.) Then my sister and I went for a 1.5 mile run and a 1.5 mile walk. Then I went for a quarter mile swim.

I also got in a 4 mile run on Friday (with just a little walking towards the end) and a .5 mile swim on Sunday.

All-in-all a great training weekend.

And don't worry, there was plenty of playing going on too! We hardly left the water all day Friday and Sunday.

Hope you all had an amazing weekend too.

Less then 2 weeks to the Tri!

Tony
07/07 217 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 55

The contest must go on!

Guess away.

If the weigh-in does not get posted tomorrow, it will get posted on Monday.

Have a happy holiday weekend everybody!

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.


Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!

Tony
07/03 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

Write Off

This week is quickly becoming a write off week. I compounded a day with no exercise yesterday by eating like a mad man. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I went to bed last night with a horrible upset stomach.

My body is no longer able to eat like that. It wasn't even that horrible, compared to the days of Old. Chipotle for lunch and a big dinner and a few snacks. But it was enough to most likely post another gain this week... well, combined with some heavy eating at the company party on Friday...You know what, lets just chalk this week up to a holiday week and recommit ourselves to the goal starting next Monday.


Actually, with the Triathlon looming, I can't afford to write off the rest of the week. So let's do it this way. Let's consider this past weekend and the early part of this week the Holiday weekend and then I can spend the Holiday weekend working hard and playing hard.

That should work.

I hope to get in some runs, bikes and swimming over the long weekend. Probably not all back to back.

Contest and weigh-in will happen as scheduled...although the weigh -in post may have to wait until Monday...unless someone brings a computer to the cabin.

Tony
07/02 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

Celebration Time

"What are we celebrating", you might ask?

"Good question", I might reply.

Then again you might not ask, so how 'bout I just tell you.

Two big milestones, that is what we are celebrating.

Milestone Number 1:

My tri buddy Teresa, (Remember Teresa? She's the reason we are doing this crazy Triathlon in the first place) called on Saturday night to see if I wanted to squeeze in a workout on Sunday morning and my lovely wife was kind enough to give up our quiet Sunday at home. So first thing Sunday I hopped on my bike and headed over to Teresa's. Including my 4.5 mile bike ride to Teresa's, I did a 15 mile bike ride and then we hopped of the bikes and went for a 2.7 Mile run.

That's right. I finally got my Triathlon length back-to-back out of the way... plus a few miles.

So now we know I can finish the race. Thanks Teresa and Judy for the great workout.

Milestone Number 2:
This afternoon I stretched my run to 4.07 Miles in 37:30! That is my farthest run so far.

I'm feeling pretty good...pretty sore...but pretty good too!

Hope you all had as amazing a weekend as we did.

Tony
06/30 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

THe Weigh-In Week 54

216.8! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of .8!

Not bad considering the BBQ last night. In the end I was a lot more worried about the wine I drank last night , then the food I ate. I filled up on fruit instead of chips...it helped that there was a pretty limited supply of bad food. We were at a priests house after all.

Our winner this week would have been Teresa, had there been 10 guesses.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
06/27 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 54

If I were to post my weight today I would be posting a nice loss for the week... unfortunately I have to wait until tomorrow to post my weight, which puts everything up in the air.

I have a B.B.Q Potluck tonight and as we all know Potlucks are one of the members of the Food Axis of Evils. I will do my best to control myself, but late night eating and a big meal are not always conducive to a good weigh-in.

Plus, I am a little worried that this mornings low weigh-in was partially due to all the water weight I lost during my workout yesterday.

Holy cow was that hot. I am sad to report I didn't make my full work out. Well, I did make the full workout but I had to stop and walk for 3 minutes half way through the run...and I only did 2 miles, not 2.5... but the 2.5 is something I am working up to.

Did I mention it was really freakin' hot?

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.


Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!

Tony
06/26 217.6 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.6 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.

Mixed Bag

This has been a mixed week so far...as far as healthy living goes. Without really thinking about it I have been eating horribly this week, but I have been so active that the exercise seems to be offsetting the eating...so far.

Today is going to be another challenge. I am doing my second brick (bike and run back-to-back) over lunch today. Checking the weather this morning I noticed it is supposed to be 87 today.

Not that I am complaining. After whining for so long about not having summer I would never complain about an 87 degree day... but it is going to make todays workout challenging.

Just have to remember to hydrate.

Tony
06/25 217.6 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.6 lbs. to go

P.S.
Ellie got her stitches out yesterday and her cut looks great. I think it is going to heal up real nice.

Awesome Weekend

What a great weekend. The second one in a row by my calculations.

The weather was perfect all weekend long. We played in the water, got behind the boat and had the chance to catch up with some old high school friends. Just what a real summer weekend should be.

I spent a good part of the weekend water skiing. I now I have said it before, but I love being able to water ski again. I felt this weekend that I was really getting back into the grove behind the boat. I was able to go for some nice long sets and I even tried a few one handed turns. They may not have been pretty, but they were one handed.

It's funny how your standards change when your passion is reignited. The water was kind of choppy this weekend. A few years ago I probably would have passed and waited for calmer water, but this weekend I hopped in without a seconds hesitation and had the best runs of the summer.

I also went for a swim in the lake with my Dad and my brother-in-law in training for the triathlon. The good news is I will be able to make the distance on the day of the race. The bad news is, it's going to take me a lot longer than I thought.

Everyone has told me that swimming in a lake is way different than swimming in a pool, and I was prepared for the waves and the wind and the cold. What I wasn't prepared for was the claustrophobia. When you put your face in the water you cant see a thing and that freaked me out a little bit. I swam the first 5 minutes of our 15 minutes swim with my face out of the water the whole time.

Hopefully I'll have a few more practice swims in the lake before race day.

Tony
06/23 217.6 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.6 lbs. to go

THe Weigh-In Week 53

217.6. That's what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of 1.2 pound.

Not bad, considering. Honestly I thought it would be much worse.

Now something much more up beat.

Ellie is doing great. She hardly even acknowledges her scar, so it must not be hurting much. I see Maggie looking at it every once and awhile, but she never says anything about it so I guess she's fine with it too.

We will get the stitches out early next week and hopefully by next Friday it will be a distant memory.

Here's the fun news from the week. OK, maybe not so much fun as grueling physical endurance news. I noticed yesterday that the triathlon was only 1 month and 1 day away, That makes today the month mark.

With only 1 month to go the tri seems suddenly real. So, yesterday I decide to try something new in my training. I did what they call in the triathlon world a "brick". I assume they call it that because that is how your legs feel when you are done.

A brick is two legs of the triathlon done back to back. Yesterday I biked 9 miles then hoped off the bike and ran for 1.8 miles. A little short of the 2.5 I will need for the race, but I am very proud of it for my first back to back attempt. Even better, when I got back and calculated my time, I managed to keep a pace of 8:30 minute miles as I was running. I almost never run that fast. I still can't believe that I did it after getting off a bike!

I think I will be making bricks a regular part of my work outs for these last few weeks leading up to the tri.

It's supposed to be sunny and 80 all weekend. Finally summer has officially arrived!!!!!

No winner this week. Everyone voted for a loss...as you should have. Your continued optimism gives me something to strive for next week.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
06/20 217.6 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.6 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 53

What started out as set up for a great week of weight loss has kind of falling into a bit of chaos.

My lovely wife and I had dinner out at one of the best steak houses in the city on Tues. to celebrate our 8-year anniversary. It was an amazing meal!!!! But, not exactly the kind of meal you eat when you are looking for a nice week of weight loss.

The meal wouldn't have been a problem...but then we had an interesting day on Wed.

When I was a little kid I was kind of accident prone.. At least that's how I look at it. My parents would more likely say that I was a little hellion who had the ability to find every dangerous thing in the world to climb on , jump off or run through. Need less to say, I spent my fair share of time in hospitals when I was a kid....by not fault of my excellent and highly qualified parents.

Turns out my daughter Ellie is doing a great job of following in her Dads footprints.

She fell and hit her head on our patio yesterday afternoon, requiring a trip to the emergency room and two layers of stitches to close up the extremely deep gash in her forehead.

To her credit little Ellie was amazing at the hospital, she didn't cry or scream while they stitched her up. In fact she spent most of the time entertaining the ER docs with her eclectic song stylings.

To her moms credit, Laura also did not scream or cry or faint or throw up.

Anyway, our sumptuous anniversary meal was followed by a day of stress eating and very little exercise.

Fortunately Ellie will be just fine. She will most likely end up with a small scar on her forehead, but considering how things could have gone we'll take a scar and count our blessings.

And that will be my excuse if I end up posting a gain this week.

It's also my excuse for not logging food this week.

I'll start again next week.

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.


Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!

Tony
06/19 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 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.

Biking To Work

I biked into work this morning, What a great way to start the day.

I live in the suburbs and work in the city and even now that I am "slim, trim and in shape", biking to work has always seemed like such a daunting task.

"There is now way I can bike that far, it will take me hours."

Turns out it's only 10 miles and it only took me 40 minutes. I guess there is just something mental about the feeling that the 'burbs are so far away from the city.

So now I am one of those guys who can bike to work. How cool is that?

And man did I pick the perfect morning for my first ride to work. It was gorgeous and sunny with just a slight breeze.

Now I am full of vim and vigor end ready to get things done.

Tony
06/18 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go

P.S. I don't really know what Vim and Vigor mean and I am too busy to look it up, but it's sounds like the kind of thing people who bike to work would say so I am sticking with it.

Best Weekend Ever!

What a great weekend.

I spent fathers day weekend being a good father. Laura and I spent the whole weekend finishing the girls play set.

Ta-Dah!



It was a royal pain in the hiney getting this thing built....but watching those girls rushing to get back up to that slide one more time, seeing the pure joy in their eyes when we told them it was finally ready, that made all the hassle worth it.

The hard work paid off in another way too.

This is the first weekend in months were I am ending the weekend weighing less then when I started the weekend. Only .2 pounds less, but still, it's a good starting point for a nice loss this week. Fingers crossed.

Hope you all had as great a weekend as we did.

Tony
06/16 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go