And curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid git!

It’s Disco Thursday. I have just determined that, as it seems to be the only music my iPod wanted to randomly play this morning, so after the first three songs pre-dated my last boyfriend (he was the heroin addict and was 21 when I dated him in 2000) I decided to go all disco, at least all morning. It’s an executive decision, and I’m sticking with it.

And to answer any questions, yes, I have enough disco on my iPod to play nothing but disco songs all morning. And probably even longer. Don't ask. I am still a gay man, disco is our music.

I ran yesterday, but not too well. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate on running. I don’t know if it was because of the movie I was watching, “Dirty Harry,” which is a good movie, but it isn’t what we would call an action film by today’s standard. So there is a lot of talking and not as much killing.

I don’t know if I was distracted by thinking of what I wanted for dinner as I was hungrier than usual when I got home from work. I was thinking of the onion, cheese and veggie steak strip omelet I was going to have with waffles. And thinking about it. And thinking of it.

I don’t know if I was thinking about the fact that I had gotten down to 218 lbs. and starting thinking of ways to reward myself, like not running. I do usually skip running on Thursdays (or Fridays if I already ran on the preceding Thursday) but it was Wednesday, and I was bored, so I was thinking of that the whole time. I promised myself if I got off the treadmill at 12 minutes that I’d run Thursday, Friday & Saturday the full 30 minutes. I slowed down twice for a quick rest before I completed 30 minutes. Only 2.6 miles completed, and not the best feeling.

Or, and here comes the quick confession buried in a post, could it be the immediate effects of smoking? Now, those who know me know that I quit smoking 11 years ago. However, recently, I’ve had a flea problem in my house (thanks to Jeb & Bert, my wonderful kittens, and Prissy, a visiting cat) and after two bug bombings and one house spray down by the bug spray, I found another live, adult flea on my leg last Monday. Well, when looking for help on the internet, someone made the comment that cigarette smoke worked as a deterrent for fleas.

My friend Chris had left a partially filled pack of cigarettes on the porch last time he was over, so I almost immediately went over and smoked one, blowing the smoke onto myself in an attempt to make any fleas that wanted to bite me sick with the nicotine. Just to make sure, I smoked 2 cigarettes. I couldn’t inhale them, as that hurt like hell and made me start coughing, but I sat on my porch smoking them.

Then I did it again on Tuesday. You know, just in case. I didn’t want those little monsters chomping on my legs & feet anymore. I’d spent a lot of money, had the house treated 3 fucking times and the cats treated and re-treated, and I didn’t want to be bitten anymore.

Then on Friday, whilst out with the softball team for Happy Hour, I had already eaten so much bad, greasy food that when one teammate lit up, I thought, “Why not?” And that is when I was first able to inhale (I assume that spending the previous 3 ½ hours in a bar helped my lungs get used to the idea of nicotine, so it didn’t hurt when it went down.) And so I had a second one.

When I got home Friday night, I felt nauseous. My head was spinning (I’d had two beers all night long as I was driving myself home, so I am always careful.) All I could smell was cigarettes, and it made me want to retch. There was a slight moment where I thought that the greasy food and cigarette combination was going to make me hurl, but I didn’t in the long run.

Even on Saturday, I was coughing up some darker colored stuff that I knew was from smoking. I have allergies as it is, and my years of smoking have messed up my lungs enough. When I quit smoking in 1995, I spent two years coughing up dark yellow phlegm that was disgusting. I didn’t like that thought again.

So on Monday, when I found ANOTHER flea, I flew into another rage. I don’t know what else I can do to control these little fuckers…so I went and smoked two more cigarettes. And on Tuesday night I smoked the final two cigarettes that were left in the pack, this time inhaling all the nicotine in the damn thing. And don’t you know that on the drive to work on Wednesday morning, I had a strange urge, one I hadn’t had in years. I wanted a smoke. During the day at work, I thought about that time at the end of the day when I’d sit on the porch and suck down the nicotine. The sick, disgusting, putrid nicotine.

And then, while running, my lungs didn’t feel so good, or I thought they didn’t. Some phlegm, but nothing too bad, but after running for about 12 minutes and being bored, I starting thinking that maybe it was the smoking. After 19 minutes, I took another break, just walking briskly. And I knew for a fact that it had to be the smoking. I told myself that I was in too much pain and having too much difficulty breathing, so I should stop after 24 minutes. Then I kept running and realized I need to finish the 30 minutes, even if it wasn’t near 3 miles.

And then, when I went on the porch last night, the cigarette pack was empty. And I wanted one. If I weren’t so lazy, I would have been in that car driving down to the tobacconist for a pack. And if I wasn’t so cheap (or frugal), I might have actually done just that, but the whole effort of getting dressed (I was in running shorts and tank top on the porch) and driving down the road just to slap down $5 for more of those cancerous sticks of doom didn’t appeal to me. So I sat on the porch drinking a Heineken Light, wishing that I had a cigarette to go with it.

Oh, fuck me!

(p.s., just as a note, this morning I was at 217 lbs. I can’t believe that I actually got down to 217. I haven’t hit that since January 1998, when I was down to 207 following my first foray into Atkins from August 1997 and an infection from impacted wisdom teeth. So now I want to keep running and eating so that I can burn more fat…and smoking can’t be part of that, right?)

There's a fire that burns away the lies, manifesting in the spiritual eye

I should have bet someone on how quickly I could lose the weight. This morning, I was down to 218 lbs. I will say, I did eat a lot over the weekend, and, um, I did expel a lot of it on Monday and yesterday. Let’s say that I was a bit backed up on Sunday. So with that, and running and eating well, I knew that I would shed it quickly.

Now comes the problem. I need to try to pick up on this and keep going for several weeks, get my body to the point where I am burning calories 7 days a week, not 3 or 4 and then overeat for 3 or 4 (depending on when I’ve let it all start.) That seems to be my pattern the past few months.

On a positive note, I have cracked the mystery of the 3 miles in 30 minutes. The past 2 days, I’ve hit 3 miles exactly in 30 minutes. It involves less warm up and less cool down and more running at 7 mph, but it is worth it. I am very happy to have reached this goal, but it is so much tougher than I thought it would be.

And now on to the sad truth of right now (and why I am not happy about the weight loss at the moment.) I don’t know what I have done, but I can’t get rid of my gut. And before you say that it is the hardest part to lose and all that happy crap, you don’t know that I was getting rid of it by the middle of May, and then…that stopped.

I remember the night before we left for Amsterdam, I was at Carl’s, ready for bed, and he noted that you could tell that my stomach was much smaller than it had been. And I agreed. When I put on my pants the next day, I noticed that the stomach, while not flat, was a lot smaller, and when you tried to pinch the love handles, you could tell that they were mostly loose skin that remains when you lose weight.

Nowadays, even though I am technically at my pre-Amsterdam weight again, it has come from my thighs and upper chest – I can tell when I look in the mirror that my upper chest is saggy from just being skin, and my thighs have extra skin on them, but my gut is still large. I know it isn’t large like it was in 2003, but it is still larger than it was before the summer, before Amsterdam.

I am guessing that I need to start looking into doing sit-ups, and move on to the weight lifting portion of my plan. I was hoping to get down to about 210 lbs before I started weight lifting, but I don’t know if much more weight loss is going to occur. I seem to have hit a plateau at 218 lbs in the recent past, and I haven’t ever gotten below that yet.

Problem is, once you start doing weight lifting (in this case, the Bowflex that has been sitting unused at my parents house for a few years – it was given to me free, I didn’t spend any money on it, so I don’t seem to feel the same need to use it that I do my $2000 + NordicTrack treadmill) you should really start eating more protein, and more calories as a whole, and I just don’t feel like I want to give up my 1600 calorie/day diet yet. And I don’t want to give that up just yet.

I will make a deal with myself. I will give it all one year total, at least running. I started running in October 2005, so instead of freaking out about my enormous gut, I will just keep running and eating, and if nothing has changed, or I still don’t feel like I’ve lost enough of the gut, I will start the Bowflex regime. Good thing about Bowflex is I have a software program which tells me (and shows me) exactly what exercises to do to achieve what I want to achieve. No research to do, no asking anyone else, just pop in information into the software, and it will tell me which lifts to do, and even has a grid form it will print up to track progress.

Wish me luck.

Sometimes you've got to fall before you're found out

Maybe TODAY can be the first day of the rest of my life…blah blah blah.

It was what can only be termed a bad weekend for healthy eating for me. And it wasn’t even really just the weekend – it started on Thursday, and went right through to yesterday. I don’t even want to try to recreate what happened, as it involved eating out each day and a lot of fried foods. Some I didn’t even enjoy, but just shoved down my cake-hole because it was there.

The only saving grace in the whole weekend fiasco is I did run on Friday & Saturday. I got up to 2.96 miles in 30 minutes. That “3 miles in 30 minutes” is not just a pipe dream, but it is harder than I thought it would be. I sped it up on Saturday a lot more, and still didn’t make 3 miles. I will try this week to do it in 30 minutes, and if I don’t, I figure I will go to 31 minutes, as the “3 miles” goal will be too great a pull to keep hitting 2.96 miles.

I think what bothers me most is that I thought I had all this resolve, some stron will. I had it in October when I started running, and it only got stronger in March when I started the low calorie diet. I went to Washington DC and for a weekend at the end of March and only had one slip up, and really, I still counted calories as much as possible on that trip. I went to many Pirates games in April & May and counted calories, all hot dogs, and kept at or below 1600 calories most every day.

And it should be even easier now cause I am allowing myself frozen dinners and eating off of low calorie menus at restaurants. I did the whole “all natural” diet for almost all of those first 6 weeks, which is so difficult. I made almost all of my meals, and it was fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. It wasn’t boxed frozen lunches and eating out. Now, I am just trying to stay around approximately 1,600 calories, and I am binging on stupid things. On Thursday at work, I was in the mood for peanut butter, so instead of either having a tablespoon of the Smart Balance PB that is available in my unit (that would have been 150 calories and 17 g fat) or waiting till I got home (my Better 'n' Peanut Butter is 100 calories and 2.5 g fat), I went to get a bag of Reese’s Pieces. And when the vending machine messed up and I got 2 of them, instead of giving one away, I ate both. That was 440 calories and 22 g of fat. And that isn’t all. Cookies. Salt & vinegar potato chips. Cheddar & sour cream potato chips. Baked Lays.

Then Friday morning, went to breakfast with a friend who was in from out of town. Pancakes & scrambled eggs, and I nearly licked the plate clean (I did get sugar free syrup.) Happy hour with softball team. Buffalo chicken wings. Hummus. Grilled Cheese with bacon. Fries. Beer. Other assorted fried treats. Saturday worse, Sunday bad. For no reason.

I get on the scale this morning. It read 224 lbs. I would bet money that by Friday morning, I will have that down to 220 lbs. And then it will start all over again, and this time for a 4 day weekend as Monday is Labor Day. I need to start clamping down on those bad weekends that end up being 4 days long. I need to stay focused.

No matter how I put it on here, I only think of myself as down about 20 pounds (I will easily get to 220, believe me.) The highest recorded weight in my adulthood was 272 lbs. I have been there twice, once while in college about 1990, and once in 2001 (I was joking and I stepped onto a scale at an airport used to measure the weight of your luggage, and after subtracting for clothes, it would have been 272 lbs. Almost ruined the rest of my trip)

It was after the 2001 weight that I started to actually exercise and lose some weight (I lost it in college as well, but that was only after getting bronchial pneumonia and spending the better part of my last college semester in bed.) I got a Gazelle (Tony Little’s Gazelle, and before you ask, it was free, so don’t make fun of me) and used it and started getting some good results. And then my grandmother died (February 2002) and I went into what can only be described as a depression/bender, where Jack Daniels and his little band of merry helpers (Lynchburg Lemonade, Tennessee Tea, Blackberry Jack, Tennessee Sunset, Red-Eyed Jack) helped me through the nights. It seems that Jack and his friends are all made with sugars, or at least a lot of sugars, so I gained the weight back.

After about 4 weeks of this, I figured it out and started using the Gazelle again, and by Spring 2003, I was down to about 242 lbs. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get down below 242 lbs on any regular basis. And I stayed that way until October 2004, when I hurt my right calf muscle playing in a tournament in DC. I got up over 250 lbs, but fought back when my leg got better and was down to about 238 lbs at the beginning of 2005.

Then, on 06/11/2005, I tore my leg calf muscle. And let me tell you, that hurt like hell. Every step I’d take would be like a shooting pain up my leg. It wasn't even stepping, most any movement caused shooting pain. Sleeping was a nightmare, and I do'nt take pain medication, so it was just brutal. I couldn’t walk anywhere without assistance (and I had refused stupid crutches). I was in the middle of moving myself from my parents into my own house when I tore it, so just when it started to heal a little bit, I was walking up steps with a box and missed a step, and reinjured – and that is when the pretty purple and red colors started to appear. Major pain.

So instead of going to the doctors again and again, I decided the best way to heal was to do nothing. So that is what I did. And once I reached 260 lbs, I stopped weighing myself. I was at that weight when I went to the doctors on November 4, 2005, and around that weight again at the end of December.

So even though I have technically lost 35-40 lbs, I am only thinking that 242 lbs. should be my base weight, and so I’ve lost about 20 lbs. And I have to work harder. Cause I don’t want to 272 lbs, 260 lbs, 242 lbs, or even 224 lbs. I don’t know what I want my final weight to be, but it is less than I am currently.

Boy, you gonna carry that weight, carry that weight a long time

I was doing some fun experiments with my scale yesterday. I’d step on it, weigh myself, then pick up one of my cats and step back on. My cats are about 6 pounds each.

Weighed myself…went to the bathroom and weighed myself again – about 1.5 pounds.

Weighed myself…ate dinner and weighed myself again – about 2.5 pounds.

Weighed myself…took a shower – no difference.

Really, it went on like this for a while. I got a cool new toy to play with, and I am taking full advantage of it. It is digital, and the numbers are HUGE.

This morning, I was at 220 lbs. I don’t think this is some huge weight loss over the past few days, I just think it is a natural readjustment after a long time of not running consistently and eating poorly. I’ve actually been able to stay under 1600 calories since Sunday, and I’ve run each of those days, so it is like my body is recognizing this and adjusting to be about 218 lbs., what I was at Amsterdam time.

I think once I reach 218 lbs., that is when my body is going to start fighting me again. And I will need to fight it back by running more and eating well. I haven’t really got a goal weight yet, but I am thinking 200 lbs might be a good weight. We shall see if I can get there.

One of the things I need to learn to do is make more higher amount foods with lower calories. Last night, I was very hungry, so I chopped up a good amount of green peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis, celery, onions and lettuce, mixed it with a fat free zesty italian dressing, and it was all of 150 calories for a HUGE bowl. I was completely full at the end of it. I need to make that again tonight, as someone brought in home made salsa and tortilla chips at work and I had way too much, so I am teetering close to the edge of the calorie intake for today.

(p.s. - is that not the easiest lyric for me to use? To be honest, I can't believe I haven't used it already!)

I know she told the story of those special places that she goes

I went out last night and bought a scale. I now own one and can weigh myself without making a big deal going to my parents to get that done.

I need to weigh myself at my parents one more time, then come back and weigh myself with my new scale to see where they match up. Every time I’ve gone to the doctor’s office, my parent’s scale has been exact with them, so I know it was good.

So this morning on the new scale it was 221 lbs. This doesn’t surprise me as the weekend wasn’t so good eating, not terrible but not that good. There was a party Saturday night and I had a bit of hummus and a few other fried things. All very good, but could have been better. So when I weighed myself Sunday morning, it was with all of that in my system.

I ran for 30 minutes again yesterday, getting up to 2.88 miles. I am positive that soon I will be able to run 3 miles in 30 minutes. It is just a matter of getting the timing correct. I would have probably hit it in under 30 minutes last night, but with 90 seconds to go both of my phones started ringing, and I had the strange urge to answer one of them and decided to slow down more than I originally thought I’d do.

So I turned myself to face me but I've never caught a glimpse

Part of me feels like this is “The First Day of the Rest of My Life.”

That might be the cheesiest line I‘ve written on this blog, but it really does feel like that. After all the vacations and such, I know I can get back into the running and eating properly. And know that it works. I’ve seen it work, know it will work and am living proof that it works.

At the weigh-in yesterday, I was at 225 lbs. I thought it was going to be far worse. Edmonton included a lot, and I mean, A LOT OF CALORIES! Beer, creamy Asian/African sauces on food, deep fried goodies (one day for dinner I did eat fish and chips at the british food stand, but I mean 3 inches of batter deep fried goodness, but sadly little actual fish, and undercooked chips - yuck!) and beer. A lot of beer. And not enough exercise, so I was worried about what I would find when I stepped on the scale. I am somewhat happy with 225 lbs, as it could have been so much worse.

But now I need to start it all back up. Running and writing down exactly what I eat. I was good last week once I returned, but I know I went too far some days since I didn’t write down what I was eating. I want to be very strict, and see where I am on October 8, 2006, 6 weeks down the road.

I also might buy a scale. If only to be able to follow weight without having to get dressed and going up to my mother’s house.

Alright, that is all for now. I wanted to write more and more and more, but I think I need to keep this simple so that I don’t have to think too much. Just eat, run and record all food I eat into a notebook.

Think I'll go out to Alberta, weather's good there in the fall.

I ran yesterday, ate pretty good and feel better about it now.

After reading yesterdays post, I realized I made it seem I didn’t have a good time in Edmonton. On the contrary, I had a fantastic time in Edmonton. I used the phrase “Not very good news to report from Edmonton” only in the context of the eating/exercising. The music was wonderful and entertaining, and the company I was in was enlightening with spirited discussions on just about every topic on an almost hourly basis (when we weren’t soaking in the great music.)

I was sitting at one of the side stages on Sunday, which was the only rain free day of the whole music festival, listening to Gabriel y Rodrigo, these two guitar virtuosos from Mexico, and realized how amazing it was; not just the music I was currently listening to (which was amazing and almost unrealistic in how these two knew how to play together so perfectly), but the whole festival and how I came to visit that place 8 times in the past 9 years. What set of events had to fall into place so perfectly for me to be able to enjoy that moment.

In 1989, I met Brad in college. He was really nice, very smart and, unlike me, he seemed to be shy – have problems meeting people. But I did notice that he was in several classes with me and seemed to keep to himself. So, one Sunday when I needed some information from one class, I sought him out and we talked. For hours. And then days. And then it seemed like we were inseparable for months.

I’d had some problems being out at school. I went to a Christian college in a time when being gay meant having AIDS and dying. My freshman year (1987-1988), I told a few people…and it didn’t go over so well. Not that they shouted it from the rooftops, but they were cautious around me. And I lost a few friends (oddly enough, one friend turned on me on a school trip to Florida, and later ended up being gay and we sort of dated for a few weeks. He is now living out the dream in California.)

Come my sophomore year, I decided not to be completely out to anyone else. Let the rumors fly about me and not say more. I become friends with Brad, and all is well. I won’t go into anything now that might have happened to hurt the friendship, but it was all the basic things that any long term friendship weathers, and when we graduated, we kept in contact. I went to graduate school in PA, he went to graduate school in OH (he finished his English as a Second Language degree, I am a graduate school drop-out.)

In 1995, Brad went to South Korea to teach. While in South Korea, I tried to keep him up on what was going on at home, big & small. Most of it was through snail mail as the internet was still running slow and was not as easy to get a good connection at that time. One of the things I remember telling him about was my new favorite music group, the Barenaked Ladies. I had bought their first major label album the day it came out in 1992, and kept him abreast of them as I thought I’d stumbled across an excellent group (still believe that and eagerly await the release of their next album next month.)

Well, I made one comment to Brad that the Barenaked Ladies were playing at a music festival in Edmonton in like 1995 or 1996, I don’t remember which one. He writes back that he worked in Korea with a man from Edmonton who talked to him about the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. I thought that was interesting as until I’d learned about BNL playing there, I’d never once thought of Edmonton since Gretzky left the Oilers in 1988, and here was Brad, on the other side of the world, working with someone who was not only from Edmonton but was a regular attendee of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. This was Eltee.

In 1997, Brad attending the festival on a break from work in Korea, to see Sinead O’Connor. Brad spoke so highly of the event, and he told me Eltee had invited me to come up, that in 1998 I went and had a wonderful time. Brad moved back to the USA in 1999, and started working at our alma mater as a teacher and coordinator of the international students.

Brad is one of those friends I mentioned earlier in the blog that has disappeared from my life for no reason. Well, not exactly disappeared, as I know where he works and what his address is, but he just…stopped e-mailing me, and from our few mutual friends, I have learned that he stopped communicating with all of them. It actually started several years ago. Brad, Holly & I went to Edmonton together in 1999 & again in 2000. Then in 2001, it was just Holly & I that visited Eltee for the Folk Music Festival. And Brad just didn’t e-mail with any regularity.

And then I realized in 2002 that Brad had written me like once in the prior year, and Holly & Eltee had stopped e-mailing him altogether as he hadn’t communicated with them at all. And nowadays, I get like 1 e-mail a year from him, at random times.

But, beside the sad fate of Brad & my friendship, Eltee & I have remained friends and grown as friends. He even met me in Bangkok in 2004 and acted as a wonderful tour guide, as he is retired and winters in Thailand, and he will do the same next February with my nephew & I when we go to Thailand.

So next year, at the second weekend of August, I fully expect that I will be on the hill at Gallagher Park in Edmonton, swaying to the music and having a wonderful time (and hopefully biking more), despite the unlikelihood that I would ever have such a good friend in Edmonton.

I'm at the time these days where I'm easy

I’m back!!

I know, it seems like I’ve been gone forever, but really, it’s only been about 9 days. And really, I have so few readers, my absence isn’t missed at all.

There are a few blogs I read where people need to have guest bloggers when they are going to be gone for any amount of time. For my 3 readers, they usually know anyway when I am going to be out of town and so no need to have someone update them while I am gone.

Not very good news to report from Edmonton. I didn’t ride the bike as much due to the weather, and I spent most of the week eating and drinking while sitting on the side of a hill listening to music. I am feeling really fat right now, and actually some clothes I tried on this morning prior to work didn’t fit as well. A little tighter than they have been.

Now that all of my trips are out of the way, I feel like I can really start back up the running and eating on a regular basis. And I need to. I think I have come up with a specific goal in mind, and I will mull over it for a few days and decide if I can actually reach this goal.

Until then, I will eat good this week without being anal retentive about it. I will weigh-in on Saturday morning, and then, starting on Sunday, I will be writing down everything I eat for another 6 weeks (September 8th will be an off day as I am throwing a non-house warming party at my place.) And I can check out how I do running 3 miles a day regularly and find out if I can actually run further in a 30-ish minute time period. It will all be good.

It is like a new beginning for me. And it will be one where I start off at a lower weight than the last time I began this in earnest. I am truly excited about what I can accomplish. And unlike the last time I started this, I am not dreading failure. I know I can’t fail if I do what I know now is the right way to lose weight.

No time for losers, cause we are the champions...

3 things to talk about in my 100th post before I leave on vacation.

Yes, I can’t believe I’ve made it to post # 100. I was certain I’d give up long ago, not just on posting here but on actual running. I have surprised myself in keeping up with both, and I am happy. And healthier.

Secondly, I ate horribly over the weekend but exercised well. I mean the worst kind of binge eating possible. I don’t know if it was due to the upcoming trip or if I was feeling especially invulnerable because I have been regularly hitting 3 miles on the treadmill.

Either way, starting tomorrow, I will be in Edmonton and riding a bike everywhere, so that should be helpful. The only thing that might slow me down is if it rains too much in Edmonton, which is a possibility. If it rains, I won’t be riding the bike too much. I’ll take a cab, and there is rain in the forecast. Let’s just all hope it isn’t too much.

But the big news – My softball team won the league championship yesterday afternoon! We took down our opponent easily enough, considering all things. Our league has a mercy rule, 15 runs after 5 innings. In the bottom of the 6th, I scored the 18th & final run, making it an 18-3 victory. This is the second week in a row that I scored the winning run in the playoff game, as last week I scored the winning run in the bottom of the last inning.

I went 2 for 4, scoring two runs, 3 RBI’s (one of my outs was a nice sacrifice fly) and I had 5 put outs in left center field, including one real deep fly ball I caught while the cleat of my back leg didn’t catch and I slowly slipped into an almost split, which was quite painful. Of course, I also am responsible for 2 of the other teams three runs when I bent over to scoop up a grounder into the outfield in the first inning…and didn’t put my glove to the ground and it scooted right by me.

I know it isn’t a big deal as we have a small league, but it is about time I was on a winning team. I started playing in the league 10 years ago, and the first two years I was on the championship team. And now I’ve gone 8 years since the last one. It just seems that chances are I would have been in one sooner. Well, It just makes me appreciate it more now, right?

So there you have it. My 100th post, 7 ½ months after I started, 40-some pounds lost, and one of my stated goals for losing weight and running, being a better softball player, has worked out. Yeah me.

Posting will be light if at all while I am gone. Full report next week when I return from the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.

Drink to me: drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore.

I hate so much food yesterday, and it was almost good for me, except it was all dipped in chocolate fondue. Bananas, cherries, apples…peanut butter cookies, pretzels, marshmallows. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And that was after the salad bar we had at work where I ate everything possible. 3 times.

So after a day like that, I got home at made a concerted effort to actually hit the 3 mile mark running. It was a bit tougher than you’d think, considering I regularly go 2.6 – 2.8 miles, but that last .2 of a mile was very tough.

Every time I thought of slowing down or stopping at my regular time, I thought of that peanut butter cup dipped in melting chocolate, and I just kept running. I know, written down, it doesn’t seem like that much, .2 miles, but it was a good milestone for two reasons. One, it is the first time I’ve run over 30 minutes. It only took my 31:04 to run that far, but usually I’ve had a mental thing about reaching 30 minutes.

I don’t know if I want to keep running 3 miles just yet, but it was good to get there once. Now I keep up the good work and try to pay attention more to eating, and I can get back on track.

On Sunday, my softball team will play for the championship of the league. I know it isn’t a big deal, but it will be fun. The playoffs are double elimination, which means you have to lose twice to be out of it. We have won all of our games, and the two teams left with one loss play each other Sunday morning, and the winner of that has to beat us twice to win the championship. We only have to win one more game. I can believe any team can be beaten on any given day, but I don’t think either of the two teams left can beat us twice.

In the semi-final game on Sunday, we were losing by 3 runs in the bottom of the last inning, when we scored 4 times to win the game. I scored the 12 and deciding run on a hit from Kyle, rounded home and expected to be mobbed by my team. Instead, the team all ran out to mob Kyle. I guess that is OK. I just wanted mobbed, I think.

Wheels that we used for grinding

The plan works. I’ve proven that. It is the implementation of the plan that might not work too well.

After all that hullabaloo on Monday, I didn’t run. I went home and worked in my yard (a small tree had fallen and was blocking my view onto my (very busy) road at the end of my downhill driveway.) Then I had to clean the house to make sure all fleas are out (the vet told me my cats had fleas, so they got treated over the weekend) and needed to buy vacuum bags. Had I known that the vacuum I have uses very rare bags, I would have just borrowed my mothers vacuum at 6:30 pm, instead of finally stopping there at 8:45 pm after I’d gone to 6 stores. And then I had to actually use the damn thing to clean.

Monday, I ate well (less than 1500 calories, mostly fruits), but didn’t run. And then yesterday, I didn’t eat as well (probably a bit over 2100 calories by my estimation), but I did run, up to 2.8 miles. I went out for lunch and had ½ a hoagie and French fries with a friend.

It’s all a give and take, and I am hoping that once my trip to Edmonton is done, I can settle back down into a specific routine and finally get more seriously into losing the weight instead of being semi-happy with the fact I can easily lose weight after I gain 7-10 pounds on some binge.

Funny thing happened last night. I was going through pictures from my Amsterdam trip and my Rome trip. These trips were about a month apart from each other. I left for Amsterdam on 05/25/06, and left for Rome on 06/26/06. However, pictures from my later trip to Rome show a clear gut pushing my shirt out. Pictures from Amsterdam do not show this: my belly looks much flatter. However, I weighed about exactly the same when I left on each trip.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am happier about these pictures than I am from my original trip to Europe in November 2001. I have a picture of me at the Tower of London where I am so fat. I did weight over 270 lbs on that earlier trip, and was down below 220 lbs on the most recent trips, but it seems like there is a difference in the weight.

So in that regard, I am now looking into Body Mass Index to see if that will help me understand what I need to do. I started with a BMI of 34.77. This is in the obese range. A BMI of 40 would have been morbidly obese. My highest BMI has been 36.25, so I have never been morbidly obese based on the BMI structure.

My current BMI is 27.86, just under obese classification of 30-39.99, and clearly in the overweight classification, 25-29.99. Based on the BMI ideal and my height, I should weight 210 pounds to be considered healthy.

I checked with Body Fat Percentage, and mine should be about 26.44, which, depending where you look, seems to fall into the high “acceptable” to low “obese” level. And again on the online calculator I used, I would need to be 210 pounds to be considered “Normal weight.”

Notice how none of them consider me to be “under height?” Fuckers!