Life is busy. Guitar lessons. Exercising. Taking on more responsibility at work. Moved desks twice. Planted a garden. I want to go to Mexico. More detailed updates as time permits.
I’ve probably said this before, but here in Portland we say that summer officially begins on July 4. By then we can be pretty sure the rainy season is over. This summer has gotten off to a great start so far.
The gaymer meet up has been fun this month. We’ve had good turnout this month and last and it’s been a lot of fun playing with new and old members. We’ve got some ideas for new events that we want to try soon.
On the 4th, my friend who recently changed his named to Xander (formerly Kysen, formerly Alex) went on a hike/photo taking adventure with his friend David. Xander and I started doing this in April I believe. It’s fun exploring the city on foot and we’ve gotten some pretty great photos.
The following week Xander and I went to see Blondie and Garbage at Edgefield Amphitheater. It’s the first time I’ve been to this venue since I saw Foster the People there in 2012. It was a great show! Both bands sounded great. Shirley Manson is a queen. I’m more of a Garbage fan than a Blondie fan, but I think I had more fun during Blondie’s set.
The next day I went to my first Hillsboro Hops game. I had bought tickets to games before, but ended up not going. I won a ticket to this game from work. Intel had it’s own tent area where we could eat and hang out. I didn’t stay in that area long because I wanted to watch some of the game. The Hops weren’t doing well and I had other things to do that night, so I ended up leaving about halfway through.
The following week I went to my first Portland Timbers game. Once again I won tickets from work. I rode the MAX into town for the game, because I didn’t want to deal with parking at the stadium. There were a lot of Timbers fans on the game. The atmosphere inside the stadium was excellent. I can see myself going to more games in the future. I left at halftime to beat the crowd back home. It was a pretty lopsided loss for the Timbers.
Spider-Man and Girls Trip were good movies. I plan to see Dunkirk and Atomic Blonde soon. It’s been nice having a movie buddy (Xander) so I don’t have to see movies alone and I have someone to talk to the movie about when it’s over.
I’ve starting exercising again on a regular basis. I’m not back up to 6 days a week like I used to do. Most of my workouts are at the gym at work, but sometimes I go to my old gym. I even went on a bike ride with Xander one day. Now I just need to start eating healthy again.
I have so much more stuff that I want to do this summer. I probably won’t get to it all this year. I remembered yesterday how bored and lonely I felt in Mississippi before I left. I’m glad to have so many options for how to spend my free time.
Back in September I entered the first ever Lose-to-Win weight loss competition at my new gym, VillaSport, which had opened the month before. It ended 3 weeks ago.
I came in 11th place out of 120-130 people in terms of percentage of weight loss. I got 1st place in participation points for going to the events and activities. I got a $50 gift card at the gym for that. I used that card to buy a larger gym bag. My team got 5th place out of around 20 teams. We each got a $25 check for that.
I’m happy with the results. I got off to a slow start because I went to Hawaii soon after the competition began. I didn’t finish as strongly as I would have liked to because of Thanksgiving. Another thing is that I added some muscle. Excuses excuses. Still, I’ve been working hard to get into shape these past few months.
I was working out before the competition began. The competition was just more motivation to get serious about losing weight again. I found out because of the competition that my membership at this gym got me 4 30-minute sessions with a trainer. I picked out my trainer, Nate, because he specialized in body fat reduction and metabolic resistance training, which I had heard of and wanted to learn about. I thought I was doing a good job working out before, but these sessions proved that I wasn’t. What he had me doing was tough. Fitness has evolved and what he taught me started showing results even after just a few weeks. Early on though I was afraid that Nate would tell me that I wasn’t cut out for MRT and that I would have to do something else.
In addition to better workouts, I got my eating back to what it needs to be. I go out of my way not to use to d word. I went crazy on Thanksgiving,but other than that I’ve been pretty good. I was already doing a lot of things right, but I got some more tips from Nate and a dietitian at the gym. I threw away everything that was unhealthy or expired in my kitchen and there was almost nothing left. It was fun to go shopping for healthier food.
At one point I lost 5% of my body fat in a month, which Nate says is hard to do and is a record among his clients. Apparently he’s been bragging about me because of that. After about 5 weeks of a “basic” workout, I bought more sessions to learn a more advanced workout. I thought what I was going before was tough, but this is even tougher. I’m getting the hang of and I’m actually enjoying it now. Nate also formulated a food plan that actually allowed for more food each day that I was previously eating.
I had my annual physical last week and unlike last year, my cholesterol was right where it needed to be. Yay for overall health improvement!
I’ve been showing off how much progress I made after 3 months. Pictures of me on this blog are pretty rare I think.
Let’s see what I can do in another 3 months.
It’s the time of year for reflection and introspection. I figured I should look back on the list of things I wanted to do in 2011.
I think I did well for the most part. Soon I’ll come up with a list for 2012.
I’m not going to lie. It is nice that people are noticing that I’ve lost weight. Unlike the last time I lost a bunch of weight, this time it’s happened all the right way (I think). I’ve had a few people ask me what I’m doing and my answer has been 1) exercise and 2) eating better.
Exercise
It always takes me a while to get in a good pattern, stop making excuses, and start exercising on a regular basis. For me this happened when I was on vacation around Labor Day of last year. Since then I’ve been doing cardio for 45 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Now I’m used to going 5 days a week. It’s part of my normal routine on those days. There are times when I don’t want to go, but I do and I feel good after I finish.
Eating Better
I refuse to give up any of the foods I like or count calories. I just have to keep everything in moderation. Even after I started exercising, I noticed that I was eating enough for 2 at dinner each night and I was eating too much junk at other times. Now I’m only eating enough for 1. I still get to eat my chicken, burgers, steak, pasta, etc. I don’t snack much throughout the day. When I do, I tend to eat peanuts, apples, or a small piece of candy. I used to eat 1 or 2 packs of Reese’s Big Cups a day, but now I might have 1 a week. I don’t eat fast food often these days. I rarely eat meals prepared outside home. This has been fun because I’ve learned to cook a lot of good meals. Also, I don’t drink soda much anymore and I don’t really miss it. I drink lots of water, juice, and tea instead. Saturday tends to be my cheat day. That’s when I’ll eat fast food with a Dr. Pepper and have a Reese’s at some point during the day. Another benefit to eating better besides weight loss has been the money that I’ve saved. I estimate that I’m saving around $150 a month on food. That more than pays for my gym membership.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing. It may work for everyone, but it’s worked for me. It’s all been worth it.
P.S. – The next time someone asks me what how I’ve lost weight, I’m going to say cocaine, diet pills, and cigarettes just to see their reaction.
I came up with a list of things I want to do in 2011. I hate to use the term “resolution”. I reserve the right to change my mind of any of these without feeling guilty. I didn’t do this last year, so I can’t whether I was successful this year or not.
I think these are pretty simple and very doable. Hopefully, I won’t forget to look back at these throughout the year and at the end of the year.
Happy New Year!
Update, 1/5/2011
The title originally said 2001 instead of 2011. Thanks to Morning Toast for pointing that out.
The new TV season started a few weeks ago. I tried out a lot of new shows. It was hard to keep up with them and the old shows that I was already watching. A lot of the new shows were mediocre, so I’ve been able to drop a few and free up some time.
I’m still exercising. So far I’ve lost about 27 pounds. I’m starting to get bored at the gym, so I may need to switch it up a little bit.
Work has slowed down. The project that I was working on for the first half the year has stalled, so it’s back to the same old stuff that I’ve always done. The next month could be pretty busy though.
Some things are finally starting to fall into place. It’s time to make some of the changes I’ve wanted to make for a while. There are things that I want to do while I’m still young enough to want to do them. Maybe I’ll make a list and post it here. Hopefully, there will be raises in the New Year because I won’t feel comfortable trying to do some of these things until I have more income. I’m single, so I don’t have 2 incomes at my disposal like most of the people I work with. If there are no raises, then it might be time to move on.
I need to blog more. There are a lot of things on my mind.
What’s been happening lately?
I ended up canceling my gym membership today. There’s no use in paying when I wasn’t going anymore. I already get up around 6 every morning and I don’t want to have to get up any earlier to work out. Also, I was having trouble motivating myself to go back out to work out after I got home from work.
I did, however, buy Wii Fit about a week and a half ago and have used it almost every day. Some activity is better than nothing. I just hope it doesn’t get boring.
I got a gym membership started again. I joined at the Oktibbeha County Hospital HealthPlex. It’s very close to where I live. Once I get home from work, I don’t go back out much and I definitely don’t want to drive back to campus to use the Sanderson Center. I also don’t like making the dog wait longer to be fed and do his business outside, so I go straight home after work. I’ll probably start tomorrow and try to go at least 3 days a week.
I went by there last week to take a look and find out how much it would cost. It costs $50 to start (January special, down from $100) and $29.75 a month. The monthly fee is cheaper than the Sanderson Center rate I believe. That’s a pretty cheap rate, but I still hate how much gym memberships cost. It seems like a deterrent to working out. You would think insurance would help with the cost as long as you visit a certain number of times a month. Working out does decrease your medical costs in the long run, doesn’t it?
The facilities at the HealthPlex aren’t the best in the world, but it is only temporary until I get the hell out of Starkville has everything that I need. One thing I could see was that when I went there were so many elderly people around that I felt like I was surrounded by death. There were 2 old ladies sitting around talking about how they like to cook cornbread. Maybe it’ll be different at the time of day that I do. At least I’ll have my iPod with me when I go.
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