M.I.A.

I know I have been M.I.A. recently and I apologize. I have been incredibly busy, and growing frustrated with my lack of actual weight loss.  I am bracing myself for the coming weeks because I will be picking up a fair amount of OT at our new store opening in a week.  I have been occupying myself with work around the house because I am not going to have time to do it in the coming weeks.  I have added some circuit training to my daily runs to up the ante on the body improvement!  Here are the workouts I am using.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdQzDbqMjps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvz8yckjLLo&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP8R300-no8&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_102839
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_5TX_uoagg&feature=channel

I know I could embed the videos but just check them out and try them out.  They are awesome.

Have a great week, hopefully I will have time to put something better together soon for you to read!

crazy schedule.

I have been so busy the last few days, I apologize for not keeping up with my writing.  I weighed in Sunday at 210.8, another week of losing .2lb.  That is close to 3 weeks and I haven't lost a full pound yet.  I am rather frustrated in a way because I am stuck in a barely losing plateau.  I am running more than ever at least 12 to 15 miles a week.  Constantly doing push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups ad nauseum.  Eating a very balanced very healthy diet and following the weight watchers for men program.

I need to figure something else out to stimulate the weight loss again if you have any suggestions that don't involve taking fad weight loss pills please let me know!

morning musing.

I woke up exceptionally early this morning, it probably relates to going to bed at 9pm last night with my pregnant wife.  She loves to go to bed early these days and begs me to come with her so she is not alone.  Of course she is usually asleep before I can even walk to the bedroom and get ready for bed.  So I lay there and watch television and usually doze off shortly thereafter.  Last night was no exception, there was nothing of value on so I lay there watching reruns of Family Guy.  It was a cool evening and the rain was gently tapping on the roof.  A mild breeze occasionally ruffled the blinds.  It was perfect weather for a heavy drool inducing sleep and also made for some rather interesting and freaky dreams. 

I awoke at 4:47am and peeled my face from the pillow wiping my scruffy playoff bearded face of the drool.  I know I know its a really attractive image but I always laugh to myself when I wake up like that.   I need to duct tape my mouth shut when I sleep because this is ridiculous. 

I stumbled out to the living room and put on an episode of River Monsters that I had not yet seen.  I started the coffee and patiently waited for it to finish brewing.  In the meantime I went back to the couch and laid down.  The house was painfully quiet aside from the drip coming from the gutter on the deck that has a small leak in one of the seams.  (I really need to get around to plugging that hole because it really is annoying).  I started thinking like I usually do when I have time to kill in the morning before the rest of the world wakes up.  I was thinking about going for a run in the rain.  Today was supposed to be a day off so that I could recover after 2 days of running but the appeal to run was drawing me out.  I went to the kitchen and fixed myself a cup of coffee.  I sat on the couch thinking about the run and then the overwhelming pull from the couch told me to hold steady.  That, and the temperature reading on the tv telling me that it was only 47 degrees outside.  Yesterday was in the 70's and beautiful so I guess I had it in my head that it would still be moderately warm outside.  I opted to stay in and just relax before heading off to work for my first of back to back 11 hour shifts. I cannot wait for Penguins playoff hockey on Wednesday night and am really looking forward to a long run on Thursday.  Depending on the weather (and it looks nice as of now) I should be able to strap on the Garmin and hit the trails. 

Hope you have a great week, thanks for reading.

sunday weigh in.

Sunday is weigh in day.  I hopped on the scale this morning to an even 211.0  which means since last week I have lost 0.2lb.  Woooooopity DOOO!  I think I could have lost that much just taking a dump! (sorry for the image!)...I ran alot this past week, I measured my portions, I didn't cheat and I didn't really lose much.  I am not disappointed because I still lost weight.  I guess I just wish it would have been more.  I ran again this morning before work as well.  Spent a solid 40 minutes on the treadmill at 630 in the morning.  I feel great running now and since the weather is drastically improving here in the 'burgh I will be spending more and more time running the local trails  and roads.  I also am really excited about getting out on the mountain bike again soon.  As soon as the trails dry out a bit from all this rain I plan on tearing up some singletrack in the very near future.

Have a great week all!

no time to run!

Yesterday I woke up with grand plans, I needed to go to the AAA to get my drivers license photo taken.  I needed to go to home depot to get paints and supplies and I needed to squeeze in a run.  I went to home depot first because it was the furthest away, bought paint, new brushes, pan liners, trip cups, roller pads, and looked at tools because...I love tools.  Then I headed over to the AAA branch near my house in hopes to get my drivers license picture taken.  I didn't check the time they opened before I got there, I arrived at 10 minutes to 10am.  They didn't open until 10 for photos.  I saw that there was about 8 people in line by the door.  (I don't understand why people line up at doors before stores open...but thats another gripe for another blog).  I sat in my car listening to the 'DVE morning show and laughing to myself.  10 o'clock came and went but they didn't open the doors and the line continued to grow.  By the time they unlocked the doors and turned on the "Open" sign in the window there were over 25 people waiting in line like lemmings to get inside.  I debated waiting through that disaster then opted to pull out and speed away from the store in disgust.  I got home unloaded the paint and headed upstairs. 

I have been telling Christine for weeks that I would paint the nursery.  We finally got around to picking colors last weekend.  I told her I would paint it in the next three weeks on my days off.  I had planned all along to do it yesterday because I wanted her to come home and be surprised that it was already done.  I started painting by 11am after taping and masking off the room and spreading out my drop cloths.  I had to work with two colors and alternate walls.  We chose a tan color called "Country Club" and a green that matches the rest of the bedspread etc called "Grape Leaves."  If you ask me that are just green and brown...but I am a crayola 10pack kinda guy you can have the fancy names!

I painted the green walls first because they had the most doors/window/vents to paint around so I knew they would take the longest.  I rocked out two coats on the walls by 230pm.  I needed some lunch so I quickly made a turkey burger  (not a recalled one) a homemade one with all the fixins.  I also had a banana and a handful of trail mix.  The plan was to then go back to the room and paint the first coat of brown "Country Club" then head downstairs and do a 3 mile run.  I finished the first coat and was allowing it to dry and sat down on the couch and decided I just didn't have it in my to hit the dreadmill.  I finished the second coat with about an hour and a half until Christine got home.  I ran around like an idiot putting the room back together, stashing things in closets running up and down the steps to the basement and the removed the masking tape and marveled at my handiwork.  Took a shower and started dinner.  Wife came home and said "whats that smell" as she rounded the corner she saw the nursery and almost died! She loved it!!  I was excited because as you can see I busted my @$$ getting it ready for her to see when she walked in the door. 

I woke up this morning at my normal 6am to go for a run and when I tried to get out of bed I was shocked to the incredible soreness in my buttcheeks and hammy's.  So I turned off my alarm climbed back in bed, snuggled with the wife for 5 minutes until she got up to shower and fell back asleep. 

I can always run tomorrow ;)

M.I.A.

I owe my whopping 5 followers, (Mom, T, Susan, Cindy, and Ashley) an apology.  I have been M.I.A for the past few days.  My weight loss has been M.I.A as well.  I had a weigh in on Sunday and didn't gain or lose any weight in the last week.  Actually I am quite relieved.  I had a terrible week last week in relation to eating.  I went out to eat numerous times.  I had multiple large meals, I tried to make good choices but how do you say no to cookies and milk with your nephew?  How do you say no to drinks with your boss because he's having a rough night and needs a guys night out to put back a few and talk about everything but work.  How do you say no to Christine's brother Stephen in town with his girlfriend from Miami who offer to cook us dinner.  How do you say no to Vince and Samantha who want to feed me lots of wine and lots of seafood in the comfort of their home and don't take no for an answer?  (Shrimp/bloody mary shooters, at least a bottle of wine or more each, homemade crab cakes, brie, crab, and shrimp stuffed salmon, grappa, moonshine and cherry bombs...it was an amazing night).   How do you say no to Christine's mom taking us out for brunch to celebrate her dad's birthday at Bistro 19.  How do you say no?  You don't.  It's one week that you just can't plan for.  It's one week where you get up and run 4 out of 5 days that week.  It's one week where you put in more than 15 miles running because you know you can't say no.

The food was fantastic.  The time spent with great friends and family is not replaceable by anything else.  I would take one bad week occasionally to continue to have great times like this.  I got back on the program this week and got back into my routine.  This week's forecast involves alot less calories.

How can I say no?  I didn't.

warmer please.

I have been able to get into quite a rhythm running on the treadmill at home before work during the week.  There is nothing like being able to run 30-40 minutes in the morning before work to get your day started off right.   I ran this morning for about 40 minutes at varying and increasing speeds.  I topped off at around 7.3mph for about a mile towards the end of the run and felt really good. 

But I have a proposition for mother nature if she is listening.  Please please please warm up just a bit and make this odd rain/snow weather go away.  I need to run outside to feel reconnected again!  I will make a deal with you mother nature, you give me 1 or 2 days a week with sun (on my days off).  In return I will allow you to make it rain, snow, hail, or frogs and locusts every single day I work.  I feel this is a very fair trade off.  I get what I want and nature gets what she wants. 

If anyone has any pull with her please put a good word in for me.