Week 1 Weigh in

So here it is my week 1 weigh in... I really can't believe it's been one week.. What else I can't believe is how much I lost.

My initial weight was 295.4 lbs
And when I weighed in this morning I was 282.2 lbs
total weight loss: 13.2 lbs
total percentage of weight loss was 4.4%

It's pretty amazing.. and I can't really believe it.. but with hard work and eating right it happened.. I know that a portion of this was water weight loss and I don't look to have this kind of loss next week, but any weight loss is a good.. Well that's about it... here's the pictures

I am a Loser update 12.10.09 and Week 1 Recap

Today started off not so good. I had planned on going swimming this morning, and I didn't wake up until 5:30.. that's the exact time I need to be at the pool to be able to lift weights and swim.. so I ended up going to the weight room, lifting weights, chest, back and legs and then came home to go for a run. Today a switch was hit in me that made jogging so much easier.. Like I've said before. I've wanted to quit before I've finished my full circuit of running/walking, but today when I finished my 8th run, I felt like I could keep on going.. I did not however because I didn't want to over exert myself to quickly.. So after I finished running, I walked for about 20 minutes and decided to try another full circuit, and I completed it.. I was even able to jog for almost 2 minutes for my last two minutes of the run.. Man was I excited. so that was my day today.

Now for a recap, I'll probably post this on a weekly basis, so people have an idea of what's gone on.. I'll post my weigh in weight, and pictures tomorrow, cause that's the actually weigh in date.. so anyway on with the recap

Friday - Started, Ran/Walked for 4 miles felt like crap

Saturday - Ran/Walked for 3.5 miles felt more like crap because my muscles were sore from the day before.. After run/walking I raked leaves for 7 hours.. yea that was awesome.

Sunday - Day of Rest

Monday - Swam for 20 minutes, then lifted weights for 45 minutes.. I felt inadequate cause I still felt like crap and could hardly swim a length of the pool.

Tuesday - I believe this was my turning point of the week. I slept in and didn't make it to the pool as planned, but went to lift weights, felt kind of sore, but was able to work through it. After lifting I ran/walked, and felt like I was starting to accomplish something

Wednesday - Failure.. I was still able to eat right, but I had no motivation whatsoever to run like I had planned.

Thursday - See above post.. I feel great

So that ends week 1 of 12 of the I am a Loser Competition. How much do you think I lost. I'm anxious to find out tomorrow morning. ok bye.

A bad Day and a rant

I guess since I've had so many good updates over the past couple of days it was about time to have a bad one.. My bad day however did not have to do with my diet.. I didn't run like I wanted to, but I think that demotivation came from what occurred earlier in the day.

I had planned on having a good day off.. but at 8:30 this morning Corrie woke me up and said that there was water everywhere, I went in to the laundry room and we found that there was water pouring from the ceiling.. I didn't know exactly how to shut it off and spent about 10 minutes figuring it out.. I finally found out that it was the swamp cooler line, it had obviously busted and I had to turn off the valve.. It's my fault that it happened. I'm supposed to winterize the swamp cooler, and had put it off and put it off, and actually last night I had planned on going up on the roof to get it done, but I guess the best laid plans are destined to fail, especially when you don't fully lay out the plans.

So anyway I went over to our friends house to borrow his ladder to get up on the roof, and put it in the explorer. I was in such a rush to get back that I took the back road, which is really just a four wheeler trail and when I hit a big bump the ladder jumped up and hit the rear windshield and completely shattered it.

It was at this point that I started thinking about money that we don't have.. Corrie and I basically live paycheck to paycheck trying to pay off school and CC debt and because of that our savings is practically $0 most of the time. We had saved a little bit so that we could go to NJ this upcoming week, but that still wasn't a lot. Because it's so cold outside we have to replace the rear windshield, and the swamp cooler line is our responsibility as stated in our lease agreement..

So with that said we're probably not going to be able to make it to NJ this next week. This upsets me so much, not because of me, but because of how much Corrie was looking forward to this trip.. But who knows, maybe $350 dollars will just show up in our bank account, nothing is impossible with God.

And that leads to my rant.. Earlier today I posted a status on facebook "I throw my hands up in the air and ask why?!" and although this may seem like it's focused to a singular comment, I know that everyone who read it probably though the same thing... and much offense was taken.. By saying to me "make sure you're asking why not? too, to the one deserves it" makes the assumption that I do not trust God, awesome. Is there somewhere in the Bible that says asking a why to God is a sin? that it's wrong to do? I've had 5 years of formal Biblical Education and I can't see a place where just asking why is a wrong things, or allows people to think that I'm not placing my trust in God. The sin comes when you ask why and then curse God when he doesn't have the answer. or are angry with God because of the situation.

So let me again state that this is focused specifically to the person that made that statement as I know this person was probably just trying to provide encouragement, and will probably read this blog as well.

Corrie and I are trusting God and who's to say that he won't provide, me asking why is me directly seeking God's will in this situation and praying that he will provide an answer.

That's all I have to say, and I apologize if my stance on seeking God's will, and being a sinful Christian human being is offensive to anyone. So that's about it.

Weigh in day is on Friday, lifting and swimming tomorrow. ok bye.

I am a Loser Update 12.08.09

So it's been a couple of days since I've updated my progress, but here it is.

On Saturday night I decided to make Sunday a complete day of rest at least from exercising. With my job as a Pastor Sunday's are always the busiest day of the week. I hardly get to spend anytime at home with Corrie and the baby. If I were to add to my day by running then it would in time become detrimental. So that's what I did on Sunday.. church and a nap. although i was able to maintain the correct amount of calories for the day.

Monday was my first day swimming.. I guess I forgot how difficult it was to swim a lot, because by the 3rd length of the pool I was absolutely exhausted.. I felt like someone was choking me, so after I struggled through the 4th length i took a good rest. after that i took it a lot slower, I mostly did freestyle(front crawl) but mixed in a couple of laps of breast and back stroke. all in all I was in the pool for about 25 minutes, and 5-7 of those minutes were spent resting.. Emily, a girl from our Old Youth Group is actually on the swim team for her college and she wrote me up a good swimming workout, which I will try on Thursday when I go back to the pool.

After Swimming, I went next store to lift some weights, a member of our church here is the Police Captain in town and is in the Army Reserves (Correct me if I'm wrong Rick), because of this he has a pretty good lifting schedule that isn't too strenuous yet difficult enough to challenge me.. On Monday we did, Chest and Back with some calf workouts, and death crunches (that's not a special type of crunch, but what I affectionately call crunches.. death. So I ended up lifting for 45 minutes, and then headed home.. Did I mention this was all before 7:00am.. That's not a time I usually see, but I've been motivated to get up and do this, and so I am.

This morning I meant to get up to go swimming, but didn't wake up until 5:30, which is the time I need to be at the pool so that I can lift weights with Rick and Madison after swimming at around 6:00am, so I decided to just go lift and run when I got back home. Today we worked Triceps, Biceps and Shoulders.. It was pretty intense.. My muscles felt like Jello afterward, but I know that's just the way it's going to be for awhile.. I definitely wasn't putting too much weight on because I was able to do every rep in each circuit, which is important, or so I'm told... The way I'll do weight training is Monday & Tuesday Lift, Wednesday rest, and Thursday & Friday Lift. I won't be working the same muscle group out two days in a row ever so it will give them a time to reccooperate from the workout.

After Lifting I went home and got bundled up to go running.. If you saw my facebook status this morning you saw that it was -1 out this morning, and I think that was without the windchill, but I was determined to get my run in. The second I started my brisk warm-up walk all the snot that was in my nose froze solid so it made it hard to breathe, but I cleared it out and kept going.. Today was the first time I felt kind of okay about my ability to complete the task at hand.. I didn't want to quit until the 6th set of running, whereas the I had wanted to quit by the 3rd set the first two times I ran.. All in all I finished the 8 sets of Run/Walking and felt real comfortable, but since I don't want to do too much to quickly I walked briskly for about 20 minutes or so, then started a new set for the last 10 minutes of the four miles..

I've tried to diet and exercise a lot of times in my life, but for some reason this time seems a lot easier and like it's accomplishing more. I hope I'm not boring you with these long posts, I'm going to post them anyway. ok bye.

I am a Loser update 12.05.09

This morning I woke up at 6:00 am, and got out of bed close to 7:00, hey don't hold it against me I'm new to this whole getting up and working out thing.. I got dressed drank some water and ate a special k bar and by 7:30 I was out the door.

I was pretty excited that I was able to complete a full 20 minute circuit of walking/running. It took me close to two miles.. after that, I walked for 30 minutes, and then did a couple run/walk cycles and went home... I didn't end up doing the whole 4 miles, cause I had to do a rake attack with the Zambia Team, and I didn't mind raking cause it would mean more physical activity. We ended up raking from 9:00am-4:00pm. I didn't rake the whole time, cause I had to leave and go get Subway for everyone.

So after two days of walk/running I'm pretty sore.. My Hamstrings, and quads are aching, and my shins are doing a lot better then expected.. I just need to push through and it'll get easier, at least that's what I keep telling myself.

ok bye.

I'm a Loser Update 12.04.09

Well day one is over. I woke up this morning at 8:00am geared up to go running in the 12 degree weather outside. It was so cold.. I'm glad I bought some underarmer knock offs at Wal-Mart or else my clothes would have been frozen, from all the sweat I tend to produce.

A lot of people have asked me what my plan for dieting is so here it is. As far as running goes I got it from Corrie that got it from a friend. It's called Couch to 5k basically it's a program that has me alternate running and walking for a specific amount of time. For example, for the first week, after I do a 5 minute warm up walk, I will run for 60 seconds then run for 90 seconds, and for each subsequent week the amount of time I run will be greater.. It's just a matter of doing it habitually.

I'm supposed to do this for 20 minutes, but I'm also coupling this with Dr. Huizenga's, from the Biggest Losers, Where did all the Fat Go diet and exercise book. In his book he recommends at 4 mile calorie burn whether it be walking, running, jogging or some combination of them, along with the correct, healthy daily calorie intake, for weight loss. Which I am keeping track of with the www.livestrong.com 'daily plate'. On this website I enter my personal information i.e. height weight age, and goal for weight loss and it calculates my daily caloric intake. I am able to enter each food item I eat, I haven't come across anything that hasn't been in their database so it's been really good. I also enter what kind of exercising I'm doing and it tells me a number of different stats, Like the daily value % of the Protein, Carbs, Fat, Sodium, Potassium etc. that I'm eating. My goal is to eat 50%Carbs, 40%Protein, 10%Fat while keeping the Sodium level as low as possible.

I consider today to be a perfect first day of the weight loss challenge. Everything I wanted to accomplish, I did. I was just barely under my caloric goal, which is awesome, and I was able to burn a lot of calories on my walk/run. which happened to be 4.0 miles exactly.. and I didn't even plan it that way.

Well that's it for now, thanks for reading, which is a great source of unspoken encouragement.

ok bye.

Silence Broken and a new initiative

So here we've been in Winnemucca for almost 9 months and I haven't updated this thing once since getting here. So consider the silence broken. So for the new initiative. 'Pastor Josh is a Big Loser'

I've listened to the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast since episode 00. It has inspired me and helped shape my personal philosophy of Youth Ministry. So with that being said, two of the hosts are rather rotund and a couple of weeks ago someone e-mailed a question about having a weight loss challenge with them. They accepted and opened it up to the whole podcast listening community. Of course I wanted in. I don't even know what the prize is and I still wanted in.

As I was thinking about how I was going to lose weight I also thought of a great idea to help keep me motivated and accountable. So I created the 'Pastor Josh is a Big Loser' weight loss pledge with my church congregation. Our Youth Ministry is taking a group of teenagers to Lusaka, Zambia this summer and there is a need to raise over $4,000 a person to participate. I thought that I would ask the church to pledge per pound of weight they think I will lose. For example if they pledged $5.00 per pound and I lost 5 pounds they would in turn donate $25.00 to our trip to Zambia. It's pretty exciting and seems like it's a creative way to earn funds, instead of just having bake sales and car washes.

So with that said, I will be attempting to keep you all updated as to my progress on a daily basis. The Contest for the podcast lasts for 12 weeks, and the pledge program at church lasts an additional 3 weeks. I'd love for anyone who feels lead to participate. If you're interested, send me and e-mail at joshmaxwellyp@gmail.com or just a message on facebook.

And to prove what my starting weight is, I had Corrie take some pictures of me, and I'll be updating that picture on a weekly basis so you can see the progress. Don't worry I'm fully clothed in the pictures. ok bye.