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Sunday, February 12, 2012

200.2 and shrinking

200.2 is the number on the scale today. That is progress. I've been at 199.5 for much of the week, but yesterday's choices didn't help. Let me tell you what's been happening...

Nutrition update: If you recall last week I had failed miserably at a goal of adding 5 fruits a day to my diet. I'd realized that I just wasn't there and made the simpler pledge to have a daily salad over the next two weeks. Today is day 7 and the previous 6 have all included a salad:). I'll be enjoying today's salad later. It seems I've found an achievable goal and it's more veggies than I've had in ages.

It seems to have had a minor but positive impact on my weight as well. In fact, my diet has improved this week although with clear ups and downs. As an example I bought donuts for my office this week. Now, what could be positive about donuts? Well it's all relative because in past times I would have eaten 2-3 of the 2 dozen I'd brought in and that day I only had 1. And in fact, my weight held steady below 200 most of the week.

I held under 200 until today and I know why. My wife worked yesterday which puts me in charge of the kids and I used that as an excuse to get no exercise. It's not a good excuse, there was time and opportunity. I also bought bagels for us from Panera and wasn't as disciplined as I was with the donuts, even though bagels are carb and calorie laden. I managed to eat 2 1/2 of them over the course of the day. I also used the chaos of the weekend activity schedule to justify buzzing through a drive thru for lunch. Even though I threw away half of my french fries, my day obviously added up to a tougher day on the scale. The trick now is to make sure it was an isolated day and not a streak.

Exercise update: So if you've read this blog you know that I've always been a better fitness guy than diet guy. This week that wasn't true. I had good workouts on Tuesday and Friday and plan on one today. I can add running basketball practice on Wednesday and lots of walking at work early in the week to my list, but overall it was an average to average plus week for activity. I'm working on that, but I think it's ok for now since I know my area of emphasis has to be diet and sometimes too much exercise has hindered that. I am disappointed that I totally let yesterday go, but on to today.

I am starting to dream of summer triathlons and I think that Olympic Tri can happen this year. But I need to keep trimming up first. Hopefully I'll weigh in successfully at class tomorrow. Let's leave 200 lbs. behind forever.

Random Musings: I'm still not fully engaged in the A New Me program. They want a lot of food tracking and I seem to be reluctant to do that. I also haven't been reviewing the materials as thoroughly as I could. The act of attending the classes themselves seems to matter though. I'll try to engage a little more this week.

The big eye opener last week was our discussion of something called Metabolic syndrome. Essentially it is a combination of what seem like fairly inconsequential health risks that statistically double your odds of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. It can be having poor cholesterol numbers (check), borderline glucose measurements (check), slightly high blood pressure (riding the line), and a large waist (getting there).

It shook me up a little bit because even though I know I'm overweight, I don't always feel real unhealthy because I can will myself to be active. For heaven's sake I did a sprint triathlon last summer, but the cold hard fact is that my health indicators say I am doubling my odds of the things listed above if I don't get some changes made. Very motivating. Here's a link it you want to learn more.

More on Metabolic Syndrome

On the job front, I am pondering trying to work my way back to classroom in a few years. I recently found out that the odds of retiring anytime before Medicare are pretty low. If I'm going to work that long, I wouldn't mind getting a schedule with a larger block of time off. I'm also a little disillusioned with administration as a profession. I thought part of it would be leading new and innovative practices, but the budget has turned it into just trying to protect what we have and lose as little as possible. What's fun about that?

Of course, I also see a VP position at another college I think I'd be pretty competitive for and am intrigued. So I remain as indecisive as ever. And I am enjoying coaching my daughter's basketball team more than I have in years. The coaching bug lives strong in me and I'd love to get my hands on a college team again. Here's a photo of Hannah preparing a homework lesson where she taught her class how to shoot a basketball. I did the same lesson for a class in High School, but I never mentioned it to her.


Oh well as Van Morrison said, " It doesn't matter to which god you pray; precious time is slipping away." So in the words of Red from Shawshank "Get busy Livin' or get busy dyin'..."

Apparently today was quote day:)

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