YEA FOR MICHELLE!!  I threw my size 10 shoe at the TV when the other "blue team schemers" came on to the stage!  Michelle out witted them with plain 'ol hard work!!!  BTW, I think they should have called out the salt trucks for the stage last night - looked like there were some icy spots out there

I've been doing informal weigh ins in December almost every day now. I was doing well mid -week last week (high 230's), but the house of cards (so it seems) came tumbling down last weekend. I had to start over again yesterday and have done ok for the most part, but I did loose a lot of ground in the past 3 days.

I really wanted to be in the mid-230's by the holiday break (24th through the 5th) so the two weeks of not working out will not be as significant of an impact, but I've got to switch to plan "b" now ... I'll have to overcome temptation and go without some of the goodies - which will be very hard.

Ok - I promise to get out a little more and visit my friend's spaces. I tried last week, but a lot of them have gone dark so the whole experience was a little disheartening. Mine did too for a while, so there's no judgment here on my part. Tomorrow morning when I do my hour of elliptical I'll be visiting spaces the entire time. Let me know if you're still out there so I can put you at the top of the list!!!

Since I started to think about these four gauges in my daily life (and I mentally visualize them a good bit of the day) 3 out of the 4 aspects have gotten a tiny bit easier to maintain and control. I've really concentrated on the stress and anxiety gauges, but the pain gauge became a little bit of an influence since last weekend. The shoulder pain and some sinus headaches kinda tore me down a bit. Temptation was off the flippin' charts, though. Between holiday parties and the Steeler - Ravens game last Sunday, this weekend was a weight loss train wreck. I took yesterday off to do some shopping, and had little time to prepare healthy options to snack on, so fast food entered my life briefly at lunch time . Pain added to the mix, but temptation unfortunately ruled the weekend - therfore bad food decisions dominated.

 

Stress	Anxiety	Pain	Temptation

Yesterday was the first day for tracking the four major influences for my weight gain. The goal is to adjust my lifestyle so all four gauges are below 50% most, if not all, the time. I’ll be looking at the contributing factors for each and making the appropriate adjustments.

Wednesday, December 10th, had a moderate level of stress due to weather conditions and the fact that the day was measured in “minutes”. A chilling evening helped diffuse higher volumes earlier in the day. Anxiety was high for various reasons and will need to be managed a little better. Pain decreased below 50% for the first time in a week in a half because my shoulder is on the mend. Temptation was very high for the second straight day due to the season and contributing Anxiety levels.

I have a lot of work to do in order to get ready for a long term weight loss program. On the positive side, I did get an hour workout in yesterday!!

Stress	Anxiety	Pain	Temptation

Today I came to the realization that there are four factors at play that get in the way of my weight loss ... Stress, Anxiety, Pain, and Temptation. The only way to track my progress effectively would be to track these values on a regular basis. This will be my first blog entry with these tracking elements.

 

 

Stress	Anxiety	Pain	Temptation

Yesterday was a tough one, and without a workout, it didn’t help my cause. A full breakfast, lunch, and dinner where I was obliged to eat incorrect foods did the trick. A complete lineup of stress, a broken car, and not enough time to workout didn’t help much. Today will have to be a complete 360 in order to get back on track again. I’m doing my hour on the elliptical as I write this and have good food intentions for the day. Stress will be a little lower today and we will be picking up the car from the shop ($$$$). At least I didn’t have to buy a new one!!!

Well, I’m back from a long hiatus. Lot’s of change has occurred since my last blog – which is why I went off the radar. Several more elements of change will occur today, but I’m ready for it. Bottom line, 2008 has been quite challenging and weight loss took a back seat to everything else because my mind and soul really wasn’t in it. I’ve turned the corner now and am starting to get back into swing of weight loss again.

I’ve re-decorated my live space and it is now just about me. Cherie has pretty much checked out of tracking weight loss via out live space, but the one thing that remains is that she still try’s to eat healthy. So I’m pretty much on my own now with this weight loss.

December 1st was my “official” first day back in the gym since June. My battle plan for this month is to loose about 10 lbs before the Holidays. Then when I get into the holidays I know I’m going to eat, but I’ll have a little bit of belly room to gain a few lbs. I know and understand my enemies now – snacking between meals and stress. Eating between meals can be managed through a better system of meals and patterns, but stress will be abundant his holiday season. Stress was the underlying cause of my departure from weight loss in June and I think I’m better equipped for the stress that is currently part of my life. I’ll have to plan for ambushes too. Stress will be a regular ambush in my life in addition to unexpected eating throughout the holidays. Being conscientious about this and making “good” decisions whenever possible is about all I can do and to trust that I've learned something about stress and eating since last June.

Hopefully everyone is still around an loosing weight. I’ve been really horrible in visiting sites and updating my own site. That will change now.

I got as low as 219 in June of this year – which equated to a 33 pound loss for the MPM contest. Then I exploded.  From June through November, I gained back 25 of those pounds. I feel like all the hard work was for not. But the past is the past and there is nothing left but the future.  I want to enter the 230's this week (again) and stay in the mid to low 230's throughout Decmber.  January should be a little calmer than what I'm experiencing right now.

 

Well ... I leave tomorrow for my last business trip for a while.  No gym's at the accomodations, so I'll have to try to keep a close eye on the calorie intake.  I haven't checked the scale for a while, but I've had good workouts when at home and I feel that I may have dropped a couple that I picked up last month.  On June 16th the trips will be done for a couple of months and I can finally get back into a schedule again.  I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!

I was going to visit our friends spaces, but the Adobe updater confiscated my machine and is currently consuming my internet connection with the downloads that it is performing – blogging is the only thing left to do while I work out on the elliptical. This week’s been a little more sane and our meals and workouts have returned to normal. Cherie and I have been sneaking peeks at the scale in the AM, and things are looking good in that area. We’ll reserve comment on that, though, until after our last set of travel arrangements that start next week.

 

On to the subject of the blog - are any of our friends road warriors like Cherie and I? It’s the nature and design of our jobs, but is really rough trying to maintain any semblance of a schedule and routine. If you are a road warrior where you travel for work at least 25% of each month, let us know how you keep to the routine while away.  Tips, tricks, and lessons learned would be helpful too!

 

The updater just prompted me that it was through, so I’ll just post this entry and head off to the showers. I’ll visit spaces later today or tomorrow.

It’s been a horrible month as far as weight loss. Cherie has put on two, and I have put on six. This takes us way back to where we were at the end of February, thus wiping out a month and a half of work, and neither of us are all to happy about that. Today, May 27th we are back losing weight like we did earlier in the year!

We have found that weekly progress measurement is a little much for us to keep up to date on our space. Starting in May, we are going to a monthly update of our stats and imagery. This doesn’t mean that we won’t blog, though. It will actually give us a little more time to blog and visit our friends’ spaces.

In addition to the monthly imagery rotations, we will start posting all of our recipes that we have been using over the last five months. Everyone has been asking us what we were eating when the weight was dripping off, so we will post them in a list box below.

 

That’s it for now – time to start over again with renewed vigor and emphasis.

We did our weigh-in this evening and posted our results.  Zero gain, zero loss, just a zero of a week.  Does that mean that we get to do the week over?   

Another year bites the dust (at least on Thursday it does). Cherie threw me a Capt. Morgan pirate birthday party last weekend and I just got finished updating our site pictures with some snaps from the party (I have to redesign some of the statistics displays today, so the pictures won’t be posted until tomorrow evening with our week 16 results). Great day, though – we had salmon, birthday cake, banoffe (a banana and toffee Scottish desert) and a bit of Capt. Morgan rum. And yes, diets don’t exist when it’s your birthday!

 

This week I won’t be traveling, so I’ll be able to get a full week of workouts in. I’m trying to hold the line with where I was at on Week 14 (214), but it’s been very difficult without being able to exercise. I’ve been hovering around 216 for the last several weeks and will probably struggle maintaining that number throughout May (I have 2 more trips planned this month – only one business trip, though).

 

That's all for now.  We will blog again on Wednesday evening…

It’s travel season again – arrrrgh. Last week I was in Bethpage and Cherie was in Chicago, this week West Virginia, then a week break for Annie’s operation, then the following week I’ll be in Florida, then it’s off to Delaware for the week after that. I’m doing a lot better with the meal choices, but finding time to workout appears to be the problem now. I find it very hard to make headway when I don’t expend the 5,000 to 6,000 calories a week. But you know what I find to be the most difficult… it’s updating our pictures on our space! I’m going to get better, I promise, I just have to get past several of the situations that are consuming my time and getting in the way. Like last weekend, I was ready to update our space while exercising and watching CBS’s Sunday Morning, but I turned on my laptop and it had no battery power – arrrrgh – seems as though I left it on hibernate a couple of days earlier and it slowly drained it’s little life away.

We did our weigh in last week, and both of us were up a couple of pounds – arrrrgh! I was up two pounds to 216 and Cherie was up a pound. I did have a couple of bad meal selections in week 15, but not too many and I’m sure if I was able to work out things would have turned out a lot better for the week. The thing is is that I’m usually sequestered in a meeting room for 10-12 hours each day and they cart in lunch and snacks and your at the mercy of the person ordering for the group most of the time! Last Wednesday’s lunch was limited only to NY style pizza – arrrrgh! It’s great stuff, but when it's not your first choice for a meal (and starving) you don't have a choice but to cave in.

I leave for West Virginia tomorrow morning at o’dark thirty (arrrrgh), so I won’t be able to workout or post our results for week 16 until this weekend. I’ll try to post week 15 pics this evening, but things could get hectic and this may be the activity that falls off the edge. Last resort will be to keep the blog up to date – still keeping weekly activity here at least.

That’s it for now – take care!  Arrrrgh! 

Hey everyone – yesterday was the week 15 weigh-in. Cherie and I both lost 1 pound each this week!! That’s pretty good for us. We both will be traveling a good bit over the next several weeks, so staying even through the second week of May might be the most realistic near-term goal to make.

Isn’t it funny that traveling can be so upsetting to us? We almost dread it because of the effect that it will have on our weight! It seems as though you are always at the mercy of the hotel exercise machines and the luck of the draw with healthy choices on restaurant menus. And then the meetings – when will somebody get it that hi-caloric hi-carb snacks are not what most of the people want! A bowl full of 100 calorie packet snacks would be a surprise, wouldn’t. I started packing my own snacks in my backpack and usually pull them out during the breaks.   We hope we can keep our team's weight loss at 47 pounds during the next several weigh-ins.

I started the renovations on our site last week, but had to pull back on some of the concepts because maintaining them would be a chore. I did settle on a banner, though. Very simple and not too different from the banner that we used during the contest. As I sit in hotels over the next several weeks I’ll have a little more bandwidth to tend to our space. That’s all for now – see you on your space!

Life itself is very uneventful for the most part. Sometimes you have to make your own events. Typically the events we make for ourselves perpetuate our own bad habits – although sometimes we perpetuate good habits. This whole weight loss thing is about perpetuating the good (or less harmful habits) and staying away from the bad habits. Over the weekend one of the hardest habits to break confronted us. Katie’s Soft Serve shack  is a little soft serve ice cream shack that popped up in an open lot several years ago. It’s on way to and from our trek to our little country cabin. Last weekend we went to the cabin to start the demolition of our bathroom in preparation for a major re-modeling effort.  Katie's closes for the winter, but from April to November it is open and a favorite for the locals. Their  staple is very cheap soft serve cone with weekly specials. It was easy to pass by for the last several months because they were closed, but it was open last weekend. We passed by on the way up with no problem, but after a weekend of work and dust, it was too hard to pass without getting a taste.

Traditionally, Cherie would get a hot fudge sundae and I would get a large twist soft serve cone - total cost would be about 3 dollars - not a bad deal! This weekend, as we got closer to the shack on our way home, Cherie and I decided to stop for a “treat”. Instead of the sundae and the large twist, we both decided to get small twist cones – and it was soooooo goooooooooood! Our indiscretion probably had a little to do with Cherie’s weigh in, but I expend enough cals during the week to compensate for the additional 300 cals that were in the cone. Cherie, once again, had zero weight loss for the week and I had a 2 pound loss for the week. We were both expecting a pound or two more, but I guess our temptations got the best of us and sabotaged any additional progress to our goals. Annie’s soft serve ice cream, just like McDonald’s bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuits and Starbucks mocha’s, is now an entry in our list of “forbidden fruits” for our weight loss journey. It’s a lifestyle that we’ve enjoyed for years, but it’s time to take control of these temptations and weed them out one-by-one.


Can someone who won a trip in the MPMU contest please tell Mark to quit crying when they get to the post-show gathering next week! It’s becoming a little laughable as well as nauseating lately. MAN-UP! I really want one of the girls to win because they are two pretty tough cookies! Ali is our hero. She didn’t have much to lose this week, but she pulled double digits! And Kelly is a true fighter.   Having to have fought her way back on the show makes Ali the best role model for this season and she really deserves to win. The guys have been pulling great numbers too, but the the boo hoo crying and "Pride" thing seems gimmicky and is a turn-off for both of us.

Congrats to the winners of the MPMU!! All 5 were great sites and all five are very deserving. It was great to see that all of ‘em were in our friends list!!! Here’s a shout out to the winners…

 

The winner ... Marcus & Amber

and...

 
Don’t forget to tell Mark to MAN UP!!!

I’ll be updating our stats tomorrow morning and the post-contest renovation of our site will begin! I’ve been experimenting with some ideas and designs that will be posted shortly. Some of them are pretty original stuff – make sure and stop by to get some design ideas!

Week 13 (lucky 13) was, well, let’s just say *something*. We started off the week (last Wednesday) both having headcolds and feeling like slugs. The weather has been rainy and cold - except for Monday when it reached the 70’s (yea). Annie (our dog) is protesting the fact that we can’t take outdoor walks by ignoring me in the morning and hasn’t exercised on the treadmill since last Thursday. Lot’s of drama this week on the spaces surrounding the contest – but still not a word identifying a single winner yet. Lot’s of drama at work too, but there are not enough descriptive words in the English language to accurately describe what’s been going on there. Lot’s of drama with … well just lot’s of drama overall this week. Bottom line, though, is that everyone is healthy and working out regularly again and generally life is good!!

This week’s weigh-in was a mixed bag. I (Jim) lost another 2 pounds, but Cherie remained even for the week. I’ve lost a total of 35 pounds now, Cherie a total of 8 pounds lost, giving us a grand total of 43 pounds lost in 2008!! We still have a good way to go, though, so we’ll be hanging around and blogging for as long as our friends do – cause without you, what’s the point!!

We’ve been scaling back on some of the more “marginal” foods (particularly in the starch and sugar food groups) and replacing them with healthier alternatives (whole wheat and fruits) and that seems to help in the loss. We’ve learned so much about ourselves, the food we eat, and the lifestyle that we live due to this contest and we are eternally grateful for the kick in the butt that our space and friends gave us!

I didn’t realize it – but we haven’t updated our full length shots since March 10th! I promise to update them with some pics from the weekend. But until then, I’ll be updating our stats and info with Week 13 results. Also, I’ve got a little “post contest” re-decorating to do, but that will probably have to wait until May so we can pay attention to life's little “drama’s”!

I wasn’t going to blog until after our weigh-in, but it was very special to see that a couple of our friends’ videos were on BL tonight (we tivo’d the show, so we’re a little behind on the airing) and had to post a word or two. I haven’t heard of any of our friends making it to the finale yet – but I hope some are just being hush-hush ‘cause there are some very deserving couples in our friends list! This is a pretty fun show to watch ‘cause our next door neighbors work at the Australian embassy and we meet visiting Aussie’s all the time – very fun people!!

Kelly – get past the oyster, they're good !!!!

Typically we write our Sunday morning entry while working out and watching “Sunday Morning” – but Cherie and I have been struggling with pretty bad head colds throughout the week and we decided to get a little rest this weekend and get back to our workout schedule on Monday. It’s tough to do much of anything when you can’t breath ... and it makes you feel real sluggish. The temperature should peek out at about 50 degrees this afternoon, so we’ll probably take Annie on a long walk so all of us can get some fresh air.

I came across a pretty good quote that I would like to share with everyone…

“You try, You fail, You try, You fail,
But the real failure is when you stop trying!”

          - Walt Disney

He must have came up this one when he was trying to lose weight

You know what I’ve found to be one of the toughest things to do lately – going to the supermarket w/Cherie. Not that it’s hard to do or anything, but there is just so much psychology in how they present the foods that it just leads to temptation. It’s like a casino for food. In all of the casino’s they design the floorplan so you “have to” go through the casino to get anywhere hoping that you plunk a couple of dollars into the one-armed-bandits or a 10 spot on a blackjack hand. The same is true at the supermarket. Did you ever notice that milk and bread are in one of the 3 far corners of the store (typically opposite of where you entered)? Candy and bakery is always up front - low cal meals next to the Hungry Man meals. The one healthy part of the design is that the entry is usually smack dab in front of the perishables (fruit’s and veggies). The temptation will always be there - and we’re doing a whole lot better with the impulse buying with each trip.  We typically read the nutritional info label on everything that goes in the cart now!!!

That’s all for now – our next blog entry should be after our weigh-in on Wednesday.

Hi everyone… we did it! We stopped the stagnant weight loss weeks and started moving forward again - Cherie lost one pound and I lost two pounds this week! Several goals were achieved this week too. The first was breaking the 40 pound mark for the team – we are now at 41 pounds lost and going strong. The other achievement was the goal of breaking though the 220 mark. I’m now at 218 … the weight I was at in 1994!! The bottom line for this week is that the scale is once again moving to the left. Yeah!!!

I’m pretty sure that keeping my BPM at, or above, 160 for the cardio portion of my workouts has made a difference. I could also really feel it for the remainder of the day and even had to take a couple advil on Monday to help the soreness. I plan on keeping this cardio philosophy as long as the pounds keep dripping off!!

I’m really glad that I started back with the one-a-day multi-vitamins! Both Cherie and I picked up a flu-bug last weekend and although I feel a little stuffed up, I still have enough energy to continue with my workouts. Cherie, on the other hand, got it a little worse and has been pretty miserable lately.

I haven’t written about her in a while, but now a word or two about our trainer – Annie dog. She’s been a little lazy over the last several weeks, but still manages two to three hours on the treadmill per week! She’s trotting right next to me as I write this (if you remember, I blog while using the elliptical). She’s 6 years old next month, so for a boxer that’s getting up there. She, too, was a little “portly” at the beginning of the Million Pound Match-up and has been working along side Cherie and I for the entire journey. Although we haven’t taken her to the vet to get weighed in 2008, next month is her checkup and I can bet she’s lost a good 5 pounds or so from all the exercise. As the weather gets warmer, we’ll start our afternoon walks and that usually does us all good.

Well, that’s all for now – see you on your space!!

Tomorrw is our weigh-in - I think the changes that we did in our diet and exercise program last week may have made the difference!

Yesterday’s Week 11 weigh-in was pretty sad… Cherie gained a pound and I came in with a goose-egg. It’s not that we didn’t workout and eat right, it’s just that the scale was having a bad day and didn’t recognize our efforts . So it’s time to reflect and adjust because we think that our metabolisms are getting accustomed to our schedule.

I did notice last week that it is becoming increasing harder to get my heart rate into the 160s during my workouts. I was hovering around the high 140s to the low to mid 150s when going at my max levels, but I don’t think my BPM ever went over 157 for the week. It seems that I loose weight when I hit the 160s for a good part of my workout. Since I typically have focused on the levels vs. the quality of the cardio I think this is the first area of change. For the next week I’m going to focus on the BPM and keeping it at a higher BPM to see if that makes a difference.  160 may seem high for some, but it seems to be the number where I have my most productive workouts.

Next, the portions have been a little larger than normal (not much, though) because we’ve been really flippin’ hungry lately! Also, I’ve been going a little overboard with the un-salted shelled nuts for the last week. Shelled nuts are banned in favor of the 100 calorie packs of Almonds and portions will return to smaller level this week.

And lastly, I am going to stop by the store on the way home today to pick up a bottle of multi-vitamins. Bob’s pitch for multi-vitamins on the show on Tuesday kinda hit home and I think an imbalance may exist that is affecting us in a negative way. It’s been a while since we’ve taken vitamins (we used to all the time), but it’s been years since we took our last vitamin. We’ve been relying on our food intake to provide all the vitamins that we needed for the day, but since we’ve been controlling our portions I don’t think that we’re getting what we need.

That’s all for now!!