Could you, could you come back? Come back together

I haven’t had much free time to log here what has been going on. Too busy at work, and then when I’m not at work I don’t want to spend any time on my computer at home. Or if I do spend time on my home computer, it is for learning how to convert videos into iPod, which is how I spent the weekend, instead of typing away meaningless blog entries.

So, as a way of getting this updated, let me start by saying that I have lost most of the weight I gained in Amsterdam. I am down to 221, which is what I was at the last time I weighed myself the Friday prior to leaving for Amsterdam. At Carl’s house the following Thursday, I weighed in at 218, and that is what I used to know how much I gained on the trip.

I feel good about getting back to that weight, but what I did the rest of the weekend is then celebrate, sort of. I just ate what I wanted to eat, with yesterday being the worst day. I don’t know why I get into these fits where I eat what I want, and sometimes not even what I want just what is conveniently near me.

Now I’m not feeling too bad about eating all the food, as I did run around and sweat yesterday in the 90 degree heat playing softball for about 2 hours. I got a good workout yesterday, as I was busier on the field that usual, and we won both games, so I am in a better mood than usual about softball. It was the first games we’d won in like 4 weeks. The team has been on a Pirates-like losing streak.

My running wasn’t so good last week. I ran Monday & Tuesday, but even then it wasn’t a full run, slowing down to a brisk walk in the middle for a few minutes. Wednesday, and I think this was partially psychosomatic, I got some strange shoulder pain that did some shooting thing down my chest, and I stopped running after 15 minutes. Now, even before I started running, I wanted not to run, so I think I just talked myself into not running. And Thursday & Saturday I ran for 30 minutes fine.

I walked across an empty land, I knew the pathway like the back of my hand.

I need to recommit myself to the whole diet portion of the weight loss. I ran Friday & Saturday, almost back to where I was before I left. I got up to 2.84 miles on Saturday. And on Saturday I felt really good running, not like previous in the week when I felt like getting off the treadmill the entire time I was running. Saturday, I felt I could have run another mile without problem, but I reached the 30 minute mark, so I stopped.

However, food wise, I am doing terrible. I can do good for a while and then I’ll slip up and eat French fries or deep fried chicken fingers or pasta salad left at the desk behind me at work. I don’t know why I had more self control in April and May but not so much now.

Ironically, I am down to the weight I was thinking about when I started exercising a few years ago. I started on the Tony Little Gazelle (I got it free from a friend), and when I started using it I thought “If I can get to 225 I’d be happy.” Now that I am here, I am no longer happy. Well, that isn’t fair. I am quite happy to be 35-40 pounds less than I was 6 months ago. I am just no satisfied with this weight now that I am here.

I know Darth Vader's really got you annoyed. But remember, if you kill him, then you'll be unemployed

As I’ve mentioned before, when I run I’ve gotten into the habit of having a DVD on, and when it is a movie, I usually get 3 or 4 good runs out of it (at 20 minute intervals, as I don’t watch during the arm up or cool down period.)

So before I left for vacation, I had watched the first two Star Wars (“Star Wars: A New Hope,” and “The Empire Strikes Back.” So on Monday, I started watching “Return of the Jedi.” When the movie came out, I was like 15 years old. I was not some huge Star Wars geek. I actually don’t think I’d seen the “Empire” before I saw “Jedi” as I remember being surprised that Darth Vader was Luke’s father (this was, of course, pre-internet days, so I could read someone else’s review of the movie to get caught up on all the happenings prior to seeing the finale.) I do remember my little brother liking the movie, but he was like 6 years old. I think I enjoyed it at the time, but I don’t remember much about it other than the basics.

I think “Star Wars” and “Empire” were good movies. I am now about ¾ the way through “Jedi,” and I don’t think I ever realized what a gawd awful movie this really is! It stinks on ice. It is pathetic, the characters are so stale, the action is alright for the most part, but it is slow moving through most of the movie (try running to the talking parts of the film – it is difficult, and that is when you realize that there are way too many of them.) And so he went to Dagobah in Jedi just to watch Yoda die? Han Solo is still trying to throw out snarky comments even as the Ewoks are ready to slice and dice him? And speaking of them, EWOKS?!?!?!?! What the f**k are the these little creatures that can take on the whole Empire army and defeat them with the dozen or so rebels? Ewoks are the old version of Jar Jar Binks, and we all hated Jar Jar.

So basically, now that I’ve seen all of them, the first two, the original “Star Wars” & “Empire,” were the only good films on the Star Wars series. The four other films are terrible. Just awful films that I don’t think I could watch again. Ever. I am glad that I didn’t buy them when they came out.

On a different note, ran again yesterday, still not able to run the full time, need to job for a few minutes in the middle of the run. But I’m getting there.

Also, ate 1511 calories yesterday, so I feel like I am back on track with the food. I am a little tempted at work today as they had some food in for visiting dignitaries, or something like that, and they had some good looking wraps made up with some beef and some chicken, and one looks like turkey and bacon! Oh, and all of this is about 2 feet behind me on the table in my cubicle area. I could scarf that up in about 30 seconds right now…but I won’t. I swear I won’t.

I don't feel bad about, eating something that's dead, so why should I be sad, for cows getting hit in the head?

I feel good about getting back on track this week. Granted, we are on day 2 of eating 1600 calories or less (1563.2 yesterday) and today will be day 3 of running, but it feels good to think that I can start up again.

I got up to almost 2.5 miles yesterday on the treadmill after 30 minutes. I had to take another 3 minute break in the middle of running, just light jogging for that time, but I was able to get back to regular running, and that did feel good.

I ate good yesterday as well. I started out with some oatmeal (with a teaspoon of sugar free raspberry jelly mixed in) and then some pineapple chunks over low fat cottage cheese. Lunch was a frozen Lean Cuisine thing, which I bring only for convenience. For dinner I had a Boca meatless spicy chicken patty with some low fat cheese, some low calorie bread, asparagus, baby carrots and a pear. It was quite good.

It seems for a lot of the things I eat these days, I have almost become an accidental vegetarian. I love the taste of meats & chickens, but when you start adding up calories, it is tough to get completely full when you eat an actual angus burger, as you have to cut back on so many other things to get under the calorie count, and then you aren’t as full. So I started experimenting with some of those vegetarian substitutes. And, for the most part, they taste pretty good and allow for a few more extras to fill me up.

I have this one recipe where I chop up onions and green peppers and stir fry them with some kidney beans, then mix in some salsa and put it over brown rice. Now the original recipe called for steak strips, and when I used these, I wasn’t able to have too much else due to the calorie count. However, Morningstar Farms has meatless steak strips, and I add them to the recipe, cut down about 150-200 calories, and they taste great. And then I can have something else to eat to fill up my belly. And this makes Mike happier!

So the other day, I had to go food shopping as I was low on food. Well, the local grocery store had a lot of the meatless Boca & Morningstar Farms products on sale, so I bought a bunch of it. I figure, it’s all been good so far, and I can use some good food to fill up on now that I have expanded my stomach with all the junk I’ve eaten over the last few weeks. And the less calories per food, the more food I can have, the more full my belly is, and the less tempted I will be by junk food. Or the ½ dozen muffins I have remaining in my house from what I bought for the Amsterdam trip.

But if I had my druthers, I’d be eating meats. And a lot of it!

Back in the saddle

After two weeks off the exercise wagon, I jumped back on last night. And, boy, are my legs tired!

I ran for 30 minutes, though it ended up only being 2.25 miles. I will need to work it a bit harder for the next few days to get back to where I was prior to my stoppage.

I stopped running on the Friday prior to going on vacation, and started eating poorly. On the Thursday that I left for Amsterdam, I was at 218 lbs. I didn’t exercise while away, and ate whatever I could shovel in while drinking copious amounts of beer. So, when I came back to the States, I weighed myself last Friday and I was at 226 lbs. A nice little 8 pound gain. Not exactly undoing everything good, but still not what I really wanted to do. So now I have to work hard till I go to Rome.

I know that I said I would run while in Amsterdam, but it never materialized. Carl did run one morning, but I decided to stay in an eat muffins. And trail mix. And breakfast bars. Then we had beer for breakfast, at least once. And then beer for lunch and dinner most evenings.

And today I started counting calories again. I was going to start counting calories yesterday, but then at work they bought two cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory, and one was raspberry & chocolate, so I had to partake. At 500 calories per slice. I decided not to try and count that up.

I will weigh myself again on Friday, and hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the 5 time a week schedule of running. And then keep it up for 3 more weeks, then off to Rome, to eat, drink and gain more weight.