Week 79- 224.5 All things considered...

Starting weight: 264.2
Weight last week: 224.1
Current weight: 224.5
Lost this week: +.4
Total lost to date: 39.3

Weight remaining to lose: 44.5 pounds

I literally have not been to the gym for three weeks as of today. It sucks, but I am having some difficulty getting out of bed to go early and I am just in no mood to go at night.

I know, I better *get* in the mood, right?

It's like 10 degrees with a wind chill of minus eleven trillion today. Poo.

What's amazing about not eating garbage all the time now...

is that even when I *do* have like, eleventy trillion cookies like I did this holiday, I didn't get sick.

The wife and I took 2 days off our diets, and I ate sandwiches and cookies and dammit all I HAD BACON.

Honest to goodness, from a pig and fried up actual BACON.

Now I'm good, and I don't need any more.

Back on the horse today, and feeling completely OK about my planned two day lapse.

over 4K!

That's a lot of hits! Thanks to everyone who's following along! Hope you're having a bitchin' yuletide season!

Keep your chin up and use a small plate! Celery and other veggies are guilt free snacks for parties, just keep the dips to a sensible level.

Week 78- 224.1 Well we hit the big four oh

Starting weight: 264.2
Weight last week: 226.2
Current weight: 224.1
Lost this week: .8
Total lost to date: 40.1

Weight remaining to lose: 44.1 pounds

pounds, that is!

Sadly, I have bad gas and an upset tummy from Trader Joe's Orange Chicken. Ugh.

Lately it's been a little tough to get to the gym...

Someone send me a bear, quick!

Week 77- 224.9 Tattoo time!

Starting weight: 264.2
Weight last week: 226.2
Current weight: 224.9
Lost this week: 1.3
Total lost to date: 39.3

Weight remaining to lose: 44.9 pounds

I made it a goal that when I hit 225 pounds I'd get a new Tattoo. Well, now I can except I am unemployed and can't afford it right now. I can get one when I can though!

This is pretty exciting because it looks like my 40 pounds by Christmas looks like a reality!

There's these things that showed up all of a sudden on my arms that have never been there before...

And no, I don't mean the footprint :)

Seriously, WTF?

Someone told me it's called "def-uh-ni-shun" or something like that.

Honestly, I'm just as surprised as any of you. Yeah, it's not perfect, and I am having a problem spot in the "bingo wing" area as shown here:




but hell, compared to the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Arms(tm) I had before, this is pretty spectacular!

Husker Du had the right idea...

ugh. Where's the "Do Over" button?

I am stressed out, I have a splitting headache and all I want to do is go eat a Lumberjack Slam. Now, knowing as I do that it's well over 1,200 calories and it's 285% of your fat content for the day compounded with the fact that I am not, in fact, Michael Phelps, means I am sitting here eating granola cereal and having some coffee.

On the plus side, I got a silver quarter in my change last night @ CVS. That's #4 this year so far. I enjoy this, because it's kind of like finding treasure, but on a really tiny scale.

Biggest Loser Finale: Season 8 HOLY CRAP!

Man, if you told me week 1 who the winner was going to be on this season I'd never have believed you. Check out the pictures for the fantastic job everyone did! Let me just tick off the highlights for you:

1) This is the first year that my picks won both the At Home and the Big Prize! Hooray for me!

2) Please break out the Barney Stinson Hot/Crazy Scale for Tracey! Sweet Guinea Pig From Winnipeg, what a difference! She's probably still waaaaay over the Mendoza Diagonal, but what can you do? (It seems the video of this particular bit was taken down from the official blog*, but here it is for your enjoyment, from another source (see what I do for you people?)-



3) Daniel looks great, and finally healthy. He's gonna need to be to keep up with...

4) Rebecca! Yep, our at home 100K winner and completely ridiculously hot transformation. Rumor has it they are going to be shacking up, erm, I mean moving in together.

5) Biggest suprise of the At-Homies? JULIO! Look at this guy! Dead Father? Not bloody likely, Jillian. I was less than convinced of his dedication, then he turns up looking like...well, one healthy son of a gun.

6) Antoine proposing! Also, Antoine looking like an Action Hero!

Everyone did a hell of a job. There were some "no suprise there" moments, like when Allen came out and looked like an action figure, or the standing ovation Shay got.

Oh, and speaking of Shay, "Our Friends at Subway" want to help her on her journey and invited her back to the Season 9 Finale. For every pound more she loses, she'll get one thousand dollars!

HOLY CRAP ON A HOTPLATE!

She's got like well over 100 pounds to go, and Subway is also giving her free food. I just wished Jared had come out with the blank check. Just because.

And now to our winner. I'd have taken any of the three, but let's face it Amanda was there as an "also ran" and that's OK, because she ran with the winners. She also looked great.

Rudy came out looking like a basketball player or something. Holy Smokes, what a difference. He managed some insanely impressive numbers, but Danny managed to lose ove 52% of his body weight, and took home the prize.

Danny was humble, and now he looks like a movie star. If he wanted a future in entertainment, I bet he could do it easily. He looks a little like a young Mel Gibson now.

Joy Behar asked him what he was gonna do withthe money and he said "Well, first I need new clothes!" That is the one hazard of losing a lot of weight, you need all new clothes.

I'll take it though.

I could probably get an entire new wardrobe for about $1,000, shoes and all. Ok, maybe not shoes too...they get expensive.

Anyway I can't wait until next season, starting in, believe it or not, JANUARY!

*Yeah, the official blog, and the video was removed for copywrite violations. Go figure.

Week 76- 226.2 a somewhat weak week

Starting weight: 264.2
Weight last week: 226.4
Current weight: 226.2
Lost this week: .2
Total lost to date: 38

Weight remaining to lose: 46.2 pounds

Point two?!?!?!?!! Sheesh.

Feeling Tso-Tso or Exactly how am I still walking around?

I was discussing food I miss and still crave to this day with Gilbert the other day. Most fast food, not so much.

French Fries-

I eat French Fries every once in a while these days and I really don't crave them. In fact, most of the time I don't enjoy them anymore.
FAT FACT: I have eaten a lot of fries in my day. Like, for me, the movie title "My Own Private Idaho" refers to how many taters had to die to be sent down my gaping maw. There were many a day from college and beyond where I'd have fries twice in one day, sure.

White Castles-

Man, I love me some White Castle hamburgers. I only think of them really when I see the frozen ones. Even then my brain goes "well you know they are not as good as the real ones..." and my belly goes "yup" and off we go, safe again. ...but for how long?!?!?!?!
FAT FACT(s):
1) The first time I had the castle I was 11 years old, and was visiting my Grandma in Edison NJ. I put down 10 of them. TEN OF THEM!
2) My uncle Jim and I want to The Castle at 10AM once because there were none in Florida at the time and he was up for a visit.
3) I have, while 100% sober and not hungover, eaten White Castle before 10 AM
4) In college, any less than 12 was a snack.


Cookies (specifically chocolate chip cookies)
FAT FACT: I used to eat an entire sleeve of Chips Ahoy! in one sitting. Every. Goddamn. Day.

For years.

Seriously, I used to just sit down after school and bang out a sleeve while I was watching Star Blazers or reading a comic book. Jesus, if I could go back and change something I'd tell 11 year old me "listen, knock this shit off now, or things are gonna be really bad for you in your thirties!"

I know me, though and, as I was convinced that the world was going to end in 2000 when I was 11, what the hell would it matter?*

Again, how exactly am I still walking around? I'm 90% sure I was still drinking whole milk at this point as well. When I cut myself it should be like brie.

Bagels-
oddly enough, I don't miss them very much at all, and I used to eat them ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!

Chinese Food-

Now, I'll tell my story one day of how I got introduced to and summarily addicted to the heroin-like charms of Chinese Food.

As it stands now, I fight the eternal battle with General Tso. Tso and I have met on the culinary battlefield numerous times. Sometimes he wins and I am sent to the infirmary, sometimes I win and he is destroyed. However, he's winning the war. I get slower and fatter and he remains tasty and inviting.

Damn you, Tso!

FAT FACT:
I have eaten an inordinate amount of this, but the General Tso's at the Dragon Palace in Newtown PA is absolutely awful.



* when I was about 12 I saw a documentary on Nostrodamus claiming World War Three would start in 1986. "Well, that settles it," I thought, "I'm totally going to die a virgin!"

Guerrilla Motvational Speaker available for impromptu "atta girls" at local shoppes

I was at Quick Chek* this AM when that done "Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode came on and everyone of a certain age (I'm gonna go with 36-45ish) started bopping their heads and whatnot. It was pretty funny. A girl behind me in line said "Oh remember this song? I miss the 80's!"

"I smiled back, "Well, i don't miss High School or my horrible acne, but I like the music."

"The 80s were great," she said. "I was skinny and cute and had good hair back then..." she gave a wistful sigh. Now this woman wasn't a hot mess by any means but she just looked kind of miserable at that moment.

So, naturally I opened up my trap.

"Look," I said very seriously, "if you have stuff about your life you want to change, it's not too late to do it. You just have to make the choice and do it. Look at me, I'm 39 and I've lost 37 pounds so far!"

She asked how I told her how and that the gym I was going to was offering no sign up and all that.

"I've been waiting for that deal tp come back" she said.

"There's you sign, then. If you want to change you have to make the choice. It's not easy, but it worth it to make your life better. I'm doing it and my wife lost over 50 pounds so far."

I don't know if I helped or not, but I'd like to think so.


* You know I didn't realize there was no second "c" in their name until I was like 34? Johnny Observant.

Take it away!

Yeah. I teared up.



Also, all you Jillian haters can go pound salt. She's a softie when something gets her. Please note this does not make me fear her any less :)

It's a thintervention!

I see people on Facebook all the time talking about how unrealistic the Biggest Loser is because "well, all they do is work out and sleep. I could do that too if all I did was work out and sleep!*" and "us Regular People" can't do that.

You may not be able to do what they do on the show exactly, but I didn't and I'm almost at 40 pounds. My wife didn't and she's well past fifty pounds. However, the "Regular People" stick to their tired excuses that it's "too extreme" to be realistic.

Of course they have to do extreme measures to get the weight off. These people are killing themselves and need to be shocked into shape. It's like going into a drug treatment. It's food rehab. It's life rehab.

These people are extreme cases. you don't get to 450 pounds by having McDonald's once in a while. You get to that by eating it every day. It's a lifestyle that is being altered. It's either you... get your crap together, work out for the 8 hours a day you need to in order to drop this weight, or, quite simply, you *die.*

That's the reality I was faced with and sure as shootin', if you change your eating habits and you get up and sweat, things change. My Mom dying lit a fire under me and I swore I was not going to remain a fat and unhealthy man for the rest of my life. I know you can't turn back the clock, but you can not set it so far ahead, you know?

The "Regular People" brigade all poo-poo the idea of doing it easily at home, but damn it all, Danny lost an additional FIFTY NINE pounds in two months at home. I don't even have that much more to go, so that's inspiring.

Which brings me to our BL update.

We're in the Final Four with Danny, Rudy, Amanda and Liz. there's a few things I wanted to say at this point:
- Danny is starting to turn into like, Rock Hudson or something.
- Rudy's wife is smokin' hot.
- I feel a little bad for Liz due to her situation.
- I'm staring to think Amanda has it in her
- Kudos to Jillian for calling Rudy out last week for sending my girl (or, more specifically Danny's girl) Rebecca home because she was a bigger threat.

So, we saw how the contestants dealt with being home. Before they got to run what has become the OMFG moment of their lives, the 26.2 mile Marathon, Bob and Jillian showed up and checked up on them and beat em up for a little while, and that's always fun!

They all finished the Marathon with Liz and Danny coming in last, at about 7 hours. Seriously though? You have to hand it to all 4 of these folks and Rudy ran the whole damn way.

Then the weigh in. Liz and Amanda banged out a very respectable 16 pounds each while Rudy did something insane in the 40s and Danny just Godzilla-ed* his way through the competition with 59 pounds, losing almost a pound a freaking day while he was home.

Thus, Amanda and Liz are below the yellow line. OK. Look, I like Liz just fine, but how can you deny America's Choice? Vote Amanda!

You have until 3PM.


Vote


* Yes, I just made it a verb. So what?

Week 75, not bad, considering...

Starting weight: 264.2
Weight last week: 227.4
Current weight: 226.4
Lost this week: 1
Total lost to date: 37.8

Weight remaining to lose: 46.4 pounds

AND I WILL TAKE THAT POUND!

Seriously, considering it was Thanksgiving this week and I didn't work out nearly as much as usual, I'm OK with this!

I had Runnus Interruptus at the gym yesterday when my kid's school called about a minor incident and I had to leave the gym. When I went back later and scanned my badge the computer was like "WARNING: ALREADY ON PREMISES" and I thought that's inconvenient for people who go twice a day.