Thursday, February 25, 2010

weight loss progress

These are pictures that people have been asking me about.. I've actually lost 15-20 more pounds since taking these pictures, but I still think they're unbelievable.. Warning.. no shirt.

Week 1 Profile

Week 11 Profile

Week 1 Front

Week 11 Front

As of today I'm down a total of 44 pounds.. rock rock on.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Lent

I saw this post over at whyismarko.com ( I edited his list a bit, but liked a lot of them)

I'm not trying to bash lent or those who are participating in sacrificing something that keeps them from a stronger relationship with Christ.. and I think that there's nothing that we can sacrifice that would equal the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross..

I just think that this is a good list that shows how good I am at abstaining from so many things..

THINGS I AM GIVING UP FOR LENT THIS YEAR

ferel cat adoption
miley cyrus music
michael jackson gloves
driving under the speed limit
reading chick lit
putting my tongue in fans
pogoing
watching the movie “little women”
D&D
stamp collecting
running for political office
taunting babies
launching my rap career
nude banjo playing
climbing mt everest
buying gold bullion
thong underwear
my search for the “lost” island
stove pipe hats
parachute pants
jam sessions with U2 in my basement
colonizing
phrenology
constructing a scale model of ancient jerusalem out of mike & ikes
vampire hunting
amateur brain surgery
freeing willy

Hopefully all that are participating in lent are handling their sacrifices well, and able to re-focus on their relationship with Christ.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

week 10 update with a well deserved explanation

So the two people who actually read this blog might have wondered where the regular posts have been.. I said when I began this that I would attempt to update this on a fairly regular basis. I initially did plan on this but because after my second week I decided not to because it would be broadcast to the members of my church who pledged money..not that I didn't want them to be updated, but I wanted them to be fully surprised with the actual amount of weight I've lost..

The reason that I'm writing this blog now is two-fold.. I can't fall asleep and because of what I think is the greatest physical feat I've ever achieved.. as I've written in the past i ve been working on "the couch to 5k" program to give me something to work towards during my weight loss journey, it has been going great, its been 3 weeks since I've done any interval runs and I've been running for longer periods of time at one.. last week I decided to not follow the prescribed time period for running, which happened to be 28 minutes and see if I could complete the entire 3.1 miles to see what my time would be.. I did it with some intermittent walking and my end time was 40:28 which breaks down to about a twelve and a half minute/mile pace..I thought it was good, that I was able to do it especially because I could hardly run 60 seconds without wanting to jump in front of cars to end my miserable existence 9 weeks ago.. I did this a couple of days in a row with the same results.. and I felt semi-discouraged, I wanted to be fffaster.. I think that's just my competitive nature, and I should have just been satisfied with what I've accomplished thus far.

But because of my discouragement I called my brother-in-law J who's really into running and asked what his experience and opinion were on what was going on.. he told me that I shouldn't worry about time, but just building up my endurance, which I agreed with, but he did say in passing that to improve his time he just went a little bit faster, not crazy fast.. I had never thought of it this way, and looking back on the past week or so I figured out that as I tried to increase my speed I ended up over exerting myself and ultimately ended up going much slower to compensate or had to walk for a little bit..

So..

Today I wanted to put what j had said into practice.. just go a little bit faster and it worked... I ended up completing the 3.1 miles in 35:47 which averages out to be around 11:30/mile I was so excited, I ended up shaving a whole minute off what I had previously recorded and felt absolutely great, I shouted YES so loud outside my house that corrie could hear me from inside and thought that I was injured or something.. it was overall great feeling of accomplishment.. I in now way expect to go out there on Monday and see another couple of minutes shaved off my time, but feel confident that this new perspective has changed how I will run.

So that's my greatest physical achievement.. it might not seem like much to some, but its all I can claim.. I look forward to reporting better results in the weeks to come.

Sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes as I typed this all on my phone.

Ok bye.