What Happened to Me?

Changes are Afoot

2009-12-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

So. My last post was back on June 14. One week after that, I was laid off from my consulting job, making this twice now that I have been laid off in this current recession (the first was in May, 2006). 6 months have passed, and I have had a grand total of two interviews. In short, this job market sucks ass. Money has been extreeeemly tight, and the associated depression has really sapped my motivation to go to the gym, blog, play poker, pretty much any kind of social interaction. For whatever it's worth, I've made a bit of progress on the weight loss front. At one point I managed to drop down to 269.8 lbs. I've since ballooned back up to 279.4 lbs as of this morning (12/31/09), but I'm still down from the 282 I was at in June.

That being said, I'm tired of being a slug. I'm tired of not going to the gym, I'm tired of not blogging, and I'm tired of being depressed. But because I don't quite feel like I've got enough going on to support two blogs (I am STILL unemployed), I'm going to put What Happened on hiatus and combine its subject material (my fatness) with my original blog, The Randomness of Hoff. Please feel free to follow me over there to witness the transformation of Hoff. Hey, it's a new year, why not a new approach? As things progress, I may come back to What Happened and kick it back into gear. Until such time, point your RSS feeds and Bloglines listings to The Randomness, and enjoy the show.

2009 was Teh Suck. Bring on 2010!

I iz uh slakur

2009-06-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been over a month since I posted. May 8, to be precise. A lot has gone on since then...a Mother's Day trip to the Central Valley to see DAPGF's mother, helping my father get ready to move to Nevada, land of no state income tax, several projects exploding at work, and other such assorted disasters. That, and until recently I haven't had any really worthwhile progress to take note of.

Short version, I remain the yo-yo that I have always felt I was. When last we discussed my corpulence, I rang in at 286.2 lbs. Throughout the month of May, I ranged from there up to a peak of 287.0 to a low of 283.6 lbs. The end of May saw a weigh-in of 285.6 lbs, and after a busy busy weekend, June 1 saw a weigh-in of 283.4 lbs. Yay me! It's a long story, but between work and some "family" issues, my time at the gym has been inconsistent at best, and I've barely picked up my golf clubs since the middle of May. Still, the first week of June saw me go from 283.4 to 285.4 and back to 283.4 lbs on Friday, 6/5. That entire week pretty much went in the wrong direction, partially due to my lack of physical activity, and partially due to my need for Chinese food and drive-thrus. Bad bad me. But after peaking at 286.0 during the week, Friday 6/12 saw me erase some of the damage and wind up at 284.0 lbs. Despite not hitting the gym on Saturday morning, the weigh-in dropped a bit to 283.8 lbs. And thanks to careful selection of lunch and dinner (sushi at Zenbu in La Jolla!), a night of drinking with friends was offset by the gym on Sunday morning. This morning's weigh-in? Down to 282.2 lbs! Can a brother get a w00t! Work has calmed a bit (just a bit), but it may be enough for me to get to the gym during the week, at least a couple of times. Maybe by Friday I can be back into the 270s. It's possible. Wish me luck, peeps, and I'll see ya out there!

Getting there...not quickly enough, but getting there.

2009-05-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

So last week's weigh-in was 287.0 lbs, and I'd set my goal for today to be something below 284 lbs. The weekend started off with a slight drop, which went back up on the Monday weigh-in. Tuesday was pretty good, dropping down to 285.8, but being Cinco de Drinko, I knew that Wednesday's weigh-in wasn't going to be good. It could've been worse, being back to 286.2 lbs. But I knew it was my first gym day of the week (I hate DAPGF's new schedule), and I worked it. I was also diligent about what I ate, and it freaking worked! Who knew? Thursday's weigh-in dropped fantastically down to 284.4 lbs! And Wednesday had been a road day, with a naughty BK drive-thru experience in the morning. As I packed the gym bag on Thursday morning, I knew I was going to hit my goal. In the office, controlling the diet, and another gym night. But mid-way thru the day, I remembered that I needed to go pick up the Mother's Day gift I'd selected for my baby-doggy mama. Drive time there, searching in the store, thrashed mag stripe on the debit card, and rush hour drive home unfortunately eliminated the gym. And I unfortunately felt compelled to nibble on stuff at the house, while catching up on some DVR shows. End result? This morning's weigh-in was 286.2 lbs. Dammitalltohell! All that effort, undone in one day's lameness. Still, I showed that I can drop the weight, and that I need to go to the gym and exercise greater self-control.

Next week's goal should be 283.0 or lower. The weekend isn't going to be a help, because due to Mother's Day activities I won't be hitting the gym. We shall see. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, and be sure to wish your mother a Happy Mother's Day, too. I wish I could. Miss ya, mom.

It could've been worse

2009-05-01T10:17:00.001-07:00

So. Yesterday I skyrocketed back to 288.6 lbs, due to a variety of factors, including work, DAPGF, and my own pathetic lack of willpower and self-control. But dammit, Friday is weigh-in day! I've got to make some actual progress before Friday. So, despite Thursday being an unscheduled road day, I tried. I was somewhat careful about what I ate, I made it to the gym, and because DAPGF was teaching, I was able to eat a Lean Cuisine for dinner. End result, this morning's weigh-in fell back down to 287.0 lbs. Granted, that was not quite a whole pound heavier than last Friday, given what happened this week, it's not a bad showing. But once again, I've managed to both show where my areas of fail are (willpower, portion control), and that with concerted effort I can make positive progress. So here we are at 287.0 lbs. I've got workouts planned for Saturday and Sunday mornings, driving range Tuesday and Wednesday, and a workout on Wednesday. If I can actually manage to do a good job of watching what I eat, I might actually hit my 3+ pound goal. Somewhere below 284.0 should be workable. Wish me luck, peeps.

Something's not quite right...

2009-04-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

So. Last Friday I managed to weigh in at 286.2 lbs. I was aiming for 285.6, so I was .6 lbs short. Still, not too bad. But I was taking off for an extended weekend Mancation, and the combination of beer, tequila, beer, bourbon, beer, vodka, beer, gin, beer, carne asada, beer, pizza, and you get the drift, was not expected to be kind to the weight. Ahh, but wait! Our Beer Belly Olympics actually involved reasonably large amounts of physical activity. Basketball, horseshoes (those things are actually heavy), bowling, golf, etc. And when I returned on Sunday evening, DAPGF and I went out to dinner to Indigo Grill for my flatiron chimichurri steak and all the fixins'. Monday morning weigh-in: 284.8! Holy crap! I wasn't expecting that!

Now my goal was to continue the excellent results. 2 things worked against me. First, DAPGF's teaching schedule changed. She used to teach Monday Tuesday Wednesday, and I would hit the gym and not go out on those days. Now she teaches on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I lose a gym day and have to wait until later in the week for them. The other bad thing was complications at work. So Monday I was reasonably good at lunch, but dinner just didn't quite work out that way. After trying several places only to discover that they were closed on Mondays (she's almost always taught on Mondays, so I would never go out on Mondays), we finally found a place. Stupid me, I ordered a milkshake to go with my monster deli sandwich. Then we had dessert at Baskin Robbins. Yeah, stupid. And the weight went up to 286.2 lbs. Tuesday I went to the driving range for some physical activity and was sorta good at lunch. Dinner was sushi, and by Wednesday the weight dropped down to 286.6 lbs. Wednesday was a road day, so I caved and got my Cheezy Bacon Wrapped goodness on the way to Riverside County. Lunch was the bad thing. Some of my coworkers from our LA and Sacramento offices were in town, so we went out to lunch. I had this awesome Kobe beef chili, and what was supposed to be a side salad. It turned out to be a monster blue cheese wedge salad with thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon. Definitely not conducive to weight loss. I did hit the gym on the way home, but the damage was done. This morning's weigh-in ballooned back up to 288.6 lbs! And due to an annoying project applicant, I had to go back to Riverside this morning. More BK, and more bad lunch. I'm going to the gym tonight, so hopefully I can undo some of the damage from this horrible week. Somehow, though, I don't think I'm going to get under where I was last Friday. Frankly, I'll be lucky to get back down to where I was last Friday. But I did make some surprising progress over last weekend. I think I can do it again. Wish me luck and willpower. Lord knows I need it!

Take what you can get!

2009-04-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

So. Last Friday I blobbed in at 292 lbs. By Monday I was down to 289 lbs. By Thursday, I'd managed to drop all the way down to 287.4 lbs. Frankly, I attributed my progress this week to working out and generally controlling my lunch. Until Thursday. I hadn't had a chance to get to the store, so I had no breakfast-y stuff in the house. So I hit Subway for one of their Bacon Omelet flatbread sandwiches. Not bad for 500-ish calories, but more than the Jimmy Dean 250 cal Ham and Cheese Omelet that I would've otherwise had. Likewise, I didn't have any lunch-y foods around, so I ordered out. I attempted to be good, and went to a salad place called Croutons. The food is fresh, tasty, and seems pretty quality. I had their lunch combo which consisted of a small size grilled chicken breast salad and a half panini sandwich. Mine was bbq chicken. The meal was yummy, and for the quantity was probably not too bad calorically. For the quantity. But as I've proved via Souplantation, if you eat enough of anything, you'll eventually gain weight. To top it off, DAPGF won tickets to the House of Blues to see Springsteen: The Premiere Tribute Band (their name) open up for Lights: The Ultimate Tribute to Journey (again, their name). The show was good, but it involved much drinking. We didn't eat a whole lot of food, which at the time was good but by the time we got home, we were both hungry. Pringles generally are not a wholesome food...a yummy and convenient one definitely, but not a wholesome food. And I paid for it with a weigh in this morning of 288.8 lbs. So I gained 1.4 lbs from Thursday to Friday. It's not a major concern, because from Friday to Friday I dropped 3.2 lbs! Yay me!!

3.2 lbs sounds like a decent number. For next Friday, I'm going to aim for another 3.2 lb drop, which would put me at 285.6 lbs. Wish me luck and have a great weekend.

How About That!

2009-04-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

So, umm, yeah. That wasn't exactly what I was expecting. On Friday the 10th, I weighed-in at a blob-tastic 292 lbs. And I was fully expecting to bloat up over the weekend, what with a poker night (meaning beer) on Friday, Italian for my b-day on Saturday, Easter buffet on Sunday morning, and then steak for dinner with DAPGF on Sunday night also for my b-day. Granted, I worked hard to minimize the damage. Friday night dog walk. Saturday morning dog walk. Sushi for lunch. My Italian food wasn't a very large portion and I only had one piece of bread before the meal. Dog walking Saturday night and Sunday morning. Gym and driving range after 6 a.m. Sunrise Easter Church. Knowing I was having steak for dinner, I avoided the carving stations at the buffet. Dinner I had a wicked Top Sirloin (Baseball Cut, it was phenomenal), that wasn't coated with bleu cheese or horseradish or anything weird like that, and I only had one piece of bread and minimal potatoes. Dog walk Sunday night and Monday morning. And when I jumped on the scale...289.0 lbs! 3 pounds down from Friday!

So. Having not only survived the weekend but actually made positive progress, I've got to keep the momentum going in the right direction. I've got to follow thru on the diet and exercise this week. If I can do it right, I might actually be able to make some serious progress on the weight loss. Figures it would take adding another year to the tally to make some headway. Wish me luck, peeps.

Anybody know where I can find some willpower?

2009-04-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure exactly what my deal is, but it sucks. I would love to have the willpower to go into Target (or Ralphs, or Vons, or Whole Foods, or wherever) and not buy either the naughty foods, or way too large quantities of any foods. I am just horrible at that, and my pathetic efforts at losing weight reflect this. I hit 292 lbs this morning. That is without a doubt the heaviest I have ever weighed. Period. And I'd like to say that it won't go any higher, but I cannot make that guarantee...at least for this weekend. Two bad (well, good but bad food-wise) things are happening. My birthday and Easter. My birthday is bad because my dad is taking DAPGF and I out for Italian on Saturday, to one of our favorite places, Arrivederci in Hillcrest. Then Sunday morning, the three of us are going out for a champagne buffet brunch at the Prado at Balboa Park. Then, DAPGF is taking me out for steak for dinner, probably because with my advancing age it will be easier to kill me off and take my life insurance (death by prime rib?). I have no idea how in the hell I'm not going to bloat up like a dead whale after all of this. I will be hitting the gym and walking the dog at every opportunity, and I promise (cross my cholesterol-laden heart and hope to die) to try and exert some portion control. We shall see.

But back to this week. Granted, I had some help in my naughty behavior. Monday, one of my neighbors invited me to join him and a group of UNC fans at one of our local sports bars to watch the NCAA hoops finals. That involved several (some might say many) drinks and lots of bar food (wings, fries, sliders, etc.). Then when I went to the store to buy some groceries, I picked up a jar of dry-roasted peanuts. Generally, I dislike nuts. They ruin the chocolate (brownies, fudge, etc.), but plain peanuts are a nasty habit of mine. So I bought the nuts to keep at my desk (big mistake number 2!), figuring that I could munch on a handful in the middle of the afternoon, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, not quite. I also picked up some non-Lean Cuisine type meals that were very noodle-laden and therefore not nearly as caloricly benign as the stuff I already had in the fridge. And then on Thursday DAPGF and I went out with some friends for dinner and drinks. So more drinks, appetizers (spinich dip, buffalo wings, chicken tenders, and so on), and did I mention the drinks? Not a good week, particularly after the initial progress made over last weekend.

So where does that leave me? In a word...fat. Am I happy? No. No I am not. I really have to get past this willpower thing. Let's see what happens when I make a genuine effort to not snack and to not buy extra crap at the store. I bet if I stick to my exercise regime and stick to the 1800-1900 calorie diet I laid out earlier, I can get back to losing weight. I need to. This is starting to get embarrassing.

My diet during the week will consist of (on days DAPGF teaches):

Breakfast - Bagel or breakfast omlete (Jimmy Dean) or something else similar: 250 calories
Snack - Wheat Thins or comparable: 200 calories
Lunch - Lean Cuisine/Smart Ones/Healthy Choice entree, soup, hershey's kisses: 650 calories
Snack - 100 calorie snack pack of something: 100 calories
Dinner - Lean Cuisine-type, some chips, Weight Watchers Giant Chocolate Cookies and Cream ice cream bar: 700 calories

Total: 1900 calories.

Combined with hitting the gym for an hour-ish on the weekends and on days DAPGF teaches, going to the driving range once a week, and walking the dog twice a day for approximately 60 to 90 minutes each day, I should be able to get back on track. Granted, by the beginning of July, I was hoping to be in the 230-ish range. If I can get back to my 3+ lbs per week loss, at best I'll in the 250s. Which, admittedly is better than I am now, but not anywhere near what I wanted to be. If I want to get into the 230s by the 4th of July weekend, I'll have to lose 5 lbs per week. Somehow I don't see that happening. But for now, I'm going back to a 3.3 lbs per week goal. I'm going back to the short-term goals, because it is way too easy to lose track of the goal when it is so far out there.

Happy Easter everyone!

I'm a loser, but not the right kind...

2009-04-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

Yeahhhh, so I apparently have zero willpower and self-control. Fast food? Uh huh. Extra snacking during the day? Yup. Buying extra bad junk at the store on the way home, despite the fact that I've got perfectly good Lean Cuisine-type meals waiting in the freezer? Guilty.

Two weeks ago, I rang up at 290.8 lbs, and swore that things were gonna be different. And surprisingly, over that weekend I managed to make some significant progress. I did expect that by Monday morning there would be some slippage, and I blogged about that here, but I figured that with the weekend momentum it wouldn't be a problem to stay in the groove. And that lasted all the way to Monday evening. First of all, I wasn't able to hit the gym. Second of all, I was able to hit the Chinese buffet (which I hadn't visited in several months). Not a combo designed to aid weight loss. And because of my spectacular exhibition of Fail, I stopped logging my food intake and exercise (what exercise?) in My Fitness Pal. End result? From the low point of Sunday morning, 285.4 lbs, I'd managed to rise back up to exactly 290.8 lbs! Zero loss.

Obviously I seemed to be ready to throw up the hands in defeat, and acknowledge my fatness. Ah but wait! A wrinkle occurred literally 90 minutes after said weigh-in that, while not correcting every bit of my weakness, will certainly aid my efforts. That wrinkle is this:

Meet Champ. After months of diligently trolling the interwebs, DAPGF managed to find this year-old male Dobie at a shelter north of Los Angeles. She called me at 9:15 a.m. Friday morning and said that she'd been approved to adopt him (this is a big deal, because young Dobies in good health, particularly with the ears and tails done are rare and go quickly). So I bailed on work and we drove up to get him. So Friday consisted of fast food, but with DAPGF riding shotgun I was able to keep under control. At Carls Jr, for example, I bypassed the Western Bacon Cheeseburger combo for the BBQ Chicken sandwich combo, thus saving probably 600 calories (chicken breast, no cheese, etc.). A similar story for dinner. But where this becomes helpful is that I'm back to going on regular dog walks every day! Just like with my beloved Ginger, I get about a half-hour or so walk in the morning, and then an hour or so walk before I crash out for the night. Obviously, by virtue of the fact that my weight has barely moved, it hasn't had a huge effect. Still, my weight had been hovering in the low 289s for most of the week, so it had probably helped a bit. That and dinner on Friday involved a pretty fatty helping of Gyros, so a better dinner might have kept me at least below 290. End result: this morning's weigh-in was 290.6 lbs. A net loss of .2 lbs for the week.

So. Here we are again. A rededication. Again. But the driving factor is the fact that my 38th birthday is fast approaching. When I went thru my awesome, illness-assisted weight loss, I set a goal of being down somewhere into the 230s by summer, which required a goal of 3 lbs lost per week. Had I managed to continue on that path, by my birthday I should've been under 260 lbs. 30 pounds in 2 weeks? Don't think that's gonna happen. But there's no rational reason why I can't summon up the willpower, stick to the diet plan I've put forth here, and follow through on the exercise. Frankly, I'm getting tired of this s**t, and for those of you who watched How I Met Your Mother this past week or grew up in the 80s and watched the Lethal Weapon movies, I'm getting too old for this s**t! I've got my meals for the work day planned out and logged into My Fitness Pal. Not sure how things are going to go with dining out over the weekend, but I'm going to try and control myself no matter where we go. For what it's worth, I have been doing better at not gorging myself on the bread or chips and salsa, and I've really cut back on the Diet Coke. I'm down to 1 per day (down from 2-3 cans plus several glasses at home after work per day), and trying to drink more water, iced tea, and anything else that might be healthier than Diet Coke. Here we go again...let's see if we can make this go 'round work.

Some Success! And Now We Continue The Effort!

2009-03-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

So...back on Friday I weighed in at a flab-tastic 290.8 lbs. I decided that I was going to make a strong effort to reverse the trend and get back in the groove. As a side effort, with all the news lately about the negative effects of diet sodas and my sister's decision to stop drinking soda altogether, I decided to see if I could go the weekend without Diet Coke (aka: The Nectar of the Gods). So here's what happened.

First, the dieting. I really tried to stay on top of things, although you wouldn't think that by how the day started. I did manage to get a quickie mile run in, but I hadn't gotten anything from the store for breakfast. So I had a breakfast sandwich from Subway (510 calories), which turned out to be better from the caloric perspective than the usual 2 Cheesy Bacon Wrappers from BK (750 calories, or so). But from there, it was right on the diet plan. Wheat Thins for the a.m. snack, Lean Cuisine-type meal (490 calories) plus a thing of soup (180 cal). Couple of 100 cal granola bars in the afternoon, and then it's out with DAPGF. Because we were trying to get into an early movie, we needed someplace quick and close to the theatre: Daphne's Greek. A gyros combo plate runs around 600 calories. Total, a tick under 2000 calories. Saturday morning, hit the gym for weights, abs, and cardio. Home, shower, step on the scale, and we're down to 287.0 lbs! Can a brotha get a w0000t! Granted, my weekend weigh-in times are roughly 3 hours later than the weekday weigh-in times (which I've mentioned in several previous posts), but still! Now, the question is can I survive Saturday? We started off right, at this funky organic salad and such sort of place called Tender Greens. The food is awesome! We shared an order of seared ahi tuna with grilled veggies and a chicken breast cobb salad. Total, less than 500 calories. We decided to be a little naughty for dessert, and hit one of the latest trendy things, a gourmet cupcake shop on the edge of Point Loma and O.B. in San Diego, called Cupcakes Squared. I had a S'mores Cupcake, which consisted of a graham cracker cake with chocolate chips, chocolate frosting, marshmallows, and a dusting of crushed graham cracker. Estimated at 350 calories of damage, so for just over half the day, I've got less than half the calories I'm trying to stick to (or have stick to me?). Dinner consisted of tapas at our favorite happy hour joint, Mr. Tiki Lounge in the Gaslamp District. Generally healthy stuff, sushi, calamari, tempura shrimp, and a couple of drinks, I'll estimate it all at around 1000 calories, for a daily total of less than 2000! Yay me! Gym on Sunday morning and the weigh-in...285.4 lbs! But now it's Sunday. Sundays are typically bad days for me, and I'm not sure why. Part of it likely has to do with the weigh-in time jumping back to 7:30 or so, as opposed to the 10:30-ish weekend time slot, and part of it is probably because I don't get a full gym workout in the morning (I do get my run in, though) but beyond that, I'm not sure why things usually get worse for the Monday weigh-in. Granted, this past Sunday was a bad food day. Started off with a huge egg scramble, with bacon, ham, 3 cheeses, potatoes O'Brien, etc. I didn't finish it (it was freaking huge), but I was certainly full. We went for a walk along the boardwalk in Pacific Beach for about a half hour, and then ran some errands. Dinner was the bad thing. Red Robin for the Whiskey River BBQ Chicken Wrap. I just looked it up on Calorie King, and frankly, I may have had my last one. 1526 calories! WTF?!? Granted, that includes the fries (per the Red Robin site), but losing the fries only drops it down to 1136 calories. At least we went for a 45 minute walk around Mission Bay afterwards, but the damage was done. Monday's weigh-in: 288.4 lbs. Disappointing, yes, but given the no gym this morning and the much earlier weigh-in, I'm not surprised. The thing will be to see if I can get back on the losing momentum for the rest of the week. I'm off to a good start so far, with 500 calories for breakfast (Jimmy Dean breakfast omelet), and my Wheat Thins for a snack. If I stick to the plan today, I'll consume a total of right around 2000 calories. With that, I should be dropping.

Diet Coke. I made it the whole weekend without Diet Coke (the last one I had was Friday with dinner). Granted, I didn't make it a soda-free or caffeine-free weekend. Saturday lunch I had iced tea, and dinner included a couple of mai-tais. Sunday lunch was root beer, and dinner was lemonade. I even managed to not drink a Diet Coke with my Wheat Thins snack this morning. Maybe I'll see how long I can go without. Short your stock in Diet Coke, peeps!

So things seem to be on the right track. Wish me luck and good luck to all of you.

What Happened to Me? WTF is Wrong With Me?

2009-03-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

290.8 lbs. This is the heaviest I have ever knowingly been (there was a period where I didn't have a working scale), and I'm not happy about it. I can offer up excuse after excuse, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm shoving waaaay too much food down my throat.

Wednesday was the bad day this past week. I had actually been inching my way down, and was on track to lose at least 2 lbs this week, maybe more. Instead, on Tuesday I had to stop at the grocery store to get dinner (thus breaking my rule to not shop while hungry), and I picked up one of the deli's XL Turkey sandwiches (about 18 inches of torpedo roll piled high with turkey, cheese, lettuce, etc.), with the idea that I'd have one 6 inch section for dinner with the bagel bites I had already bought, and take the other two sections to lunch on Wednesday. Now, Tuesday I hit the gym after work, so it negated the sandwich and I stayed even on the weight. I had made the oversight of not picking up bagels or something for breakfast, so on Wednesday I started off with not just two bacon wraps from BK, but I got the whole damn value meal! Carbs are baaaaad, and they seem to be the biggest contributor to my weight (tortilla chips, rice, pasta, bread, and so on), and naturally I scarfed down the hashbrowns without a thought. Then came lunch. I ate the first part of the sandwich, and actually felt somewhat satisfied. But I had another really tasty sandwich waiting for me. So of course I ate it, telling myself that when I hit the gym on the way home, it would be fine. That and of course I wasn't going to have much for dinner. Granted, I only had one lean cuisine, but I supplemented it with Pringles of course, and some chocolate cake that DAPGF brought home! Oh, and the gym? Well, the weather has been good, and this is the most convenient 24 Hour Fitness with a pool, so I thought I'd swim laps. Everybody knows that swimming is kick ass exercise, and I figured that I can knock off 20-30 minutes on the elliptical without much of a problem, I should be able to get in 15-20 minutes of swimming without dying in the pool. So to minimize the amount of stuff and changing I would have to do, I decided to forgo the normal workout entirely (cardio, abs, weight) and just do the swimming. So I got to the pool at about 3:50 pm, and had to wait for a lane. For 20 minutes. 20 minutes I could've been doing any kind of physical activity if I'd been thinking about it. Finally a lane opens up. One full lap and I realize that it has been a good 7 months since I'd done any swimming, and jeez am I having a hard time of it. So I struggle through 10 minutes of it, but hell if I can even remember how many lengths I did (12? 16? 20?). So yes, it kicked my ass but unfortunately it wasn't nearly enough to undo the damage I did.

So what do I do now? I've spewed lots of words in this here corner of the interwebs, and some of them I've managed to follow through on, at least for a time, but I need more than words. I need to find the follow-through to make it work. So that's what I'm going to do. No more buying snacks in the middle of the afternoon (like I did on Thursday...don't know how I managed to not gain more than .2 lbs). No more monster meals like that damn sandwich, and no more doubling up my meals (2 lean cuisines instead of 1, etc.). Portion control...that was a key component in my father's recent weight loss, although his current significant other feeds him more that she should, and he's gaining weight again. He would sit down in a restaurant and either move half of the meal off to the side, or have the server box up half of it from the get go. That isn't really an easy option for me, because when I am out to eat, DAPGF and I are (with lunch) usually running errands of some sort or (with dinner) going to see a movie. Either way, food would have to be unrefrigerated and stinking up the car for 1 to 3 hours before I could get it home. And I really can't wrap my head around the idea of just eating half of it and letting the server take away half of a meal that I paid for. I try to be frugal (hell, cheap), and the idea of paying $10 for a BBQ chicken salad or $13 for blackened Tilapia Fish Tacos and throwing half of it away just kills me. So I eat what I order. But the horrible thing, and here DAPGF is truly my enabler, is the bread or tortilla chips that are provided prior to the meal. We tend to go to nicer restaurants, and they all tend to provide some sort of carboriffic experience while we wait for the meal. How can I not partake of freshly baked sourdough bread or tortilla chips with awesome salsa? All I can do is try to slow down and simply not eat as much of it. As to the rest of the meal...I will be even more diligent in what I order, and I will minimize the amount of food that DAPGF will shove off on me (she eats much less than I do). And when I'm not out with DAPGF, I'll stick to my single Lean Cuisine-type meal and try to do nothing else. For the most part, I'm pretty solid in my workout routine, and when I stick to the meal plan that I laid out here, I tend to experience the success that I want (I really do want to succeed and lose weight!). Now, there are two events on the horizon that lead up to the summer beach season. The first is my birthday in early April (go Aries!). DAPGF doesn't really like steak that much, so when I have an opportunity to nom on some dead cow, I take advantage of it. The second is in late April, when some of my cohorts and I will be participating in the Beer Belly Olympics. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Game of bowling, round of golf, darts, billiards, horseshoes, washers, poker, etc., and lots of drinking. I've got to make the losses happen, so that those two events don't do a lot of damage. And to top it off, in honor of my little sister, I'm going to try to go without Diet Coke (or any soda) this weekend. This will not be easy, but I'm going to try. Wish me luck, peeps.

Motivation, let's see, I know I had some around here...

2009-03-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've been a bad boy. Valentine's Day had the unfortunate (for my weight) luck to coincide with my getting my appetite back after my wicked illness. That reacquisition of the appetite has led to my rediscovering snacking at work. And when shopping at lunch for groceries, getting extra stuff besides the Lean Cuisine-type meal I already brought. Not good, Hoff. I went a week without running in the morning (bad, naughty Hoff!), and I know that is going to be a difficult proposition with the Daylight Savings Time change. Still, the weight has been going in the wrong direction (Loozin wate, I'm dooin' it rong), and that's gotta change. So here I am rededicating myself to this weight loss effort. You know, it seems I need to do this almost once a month. This idea is actually somewhat consistent with something I observed a couple of years ago. Focusing on a long-term goal is fine, but it is so easy to discount minor setbacks (ooh, I gained a pound this week, but I'll make up for it in no time), because they are relatively small in comparison to the big goal. Lately, I've let that slip and have been focusing on the larger goal. Time to get back to the basics. Weekly goals. I know that I said that to hit my big goal, I've got to lose 3-ish pounds per week. That is not going to be easy, but I'm going to make every effort. No more Pickup Stix. No more Cheesy Bacon Wraps from Burger King. No more extra snacking at work. Fixed calorie count, every day. What I bring to work is all I'm going to eat (plus dinner, duh). Now that DAPGF has started teaching a new quarter, I've lost one of my gym nights. To make up for that, in addition to the running in the morning (going to be difficult for the next week or so), I'm going to try and hit the driving range once or twice a week, depending on what my work schedule will allow. Non-golfers may not believe it, but a golf club weighs a couple of pounds, and swinging that in a full rotation 90 to 100 times in an hour will burn 500-ish calories in an hour and allow you to break a slight sweat. Wish me luck, peeps!

The one in which we suffer an anticipated setback

2009-02-20T10:10:00.000-08:00

Yep, a setback. I knew, based on what sort of activities I had planned for DAPGF and I, that the whole Valentine's Day weekend would be a veritable minefield of caloric bombs. And I stepped on a few. Last Friday's weigh-in was 281.6 lbs, a weigh-in of which I was justifiably proud. Unfortunately, by Monday morning's weigh-in I had ballooned up to 285.4 lbs. As I've noted previously when discussing such evils as Souplantation, if you eat enough of anything you're going to gain weight. Friday night was happy hour at a local Mexican restaurant (margies and flautas and cheese, oh my!). Saturday lunch was at one of our favorite restaurants overlooking the Pacific in Del Mar, Pacifica Del Mar (clever name, I know). Ahi salad and a bleu cheese steak panini (shared, of course). Dinner was at one of the best sushi joints in San Diego, Shien of Osaka (aka Akai Hana), which is where I took DAPGF on our first date, lo those many years ago. That was followed up with some sort of Death by Chocolate experience at Heaven Sent Desserts, in Normal Heights. I really worked hard to try and work it all off, and Monday and Tuesday helped erase some of the gains. By Wednesday, though, I had a road day and picked up some weight again. Thursday I committed a cardinal sin. I needed to stop at the store to pick up some dinner for myself (DAPGF was teaching), but I was unfortunately very hungry. As I walked past the deli case, I noticed these sandwiches that the deli makes. They're big, and consist of nothing more than bread, lettuce, swiss, and a literal pile of sliced turkey breast. As with the sushi and Souplantation experiences, it was apparently too big, and erased my earlier efforts entirely. End result, Friday morning weigh-in was back up to 285.4 lbs.

So what have we learned? First of all, I can at least predict when things are likely to be problematic. DAPGF's birthday is in the middle of March, so I'm likely going to suffer a similar set of events at that time, but beyond that I see nothing on the agenda that should cause any such repeats. I'm just going to have to knuckle down and get back on track. I've been pretty diligent in making it to the gym, I've been running every morning this past week, and I even made it to the driving range yesterday at lunch (if any of you think that it isn't a decent workout, go ahead and take 125 swings of a golf club and tell me if you're not feeling it and breaking a slight sweat). I just need to be that much more diligent on the eating. I've been better at the snacking thing, but I still occasionally find myself in the BK drive-thru for some cheezy bacon wrap goodness, and I eat more at dinner (even by myself) than I should. I could take the easy way out and say it's due to my getting over my cold and getting my appetite back, and there's probably some truth to that. But in all reality, I'm the one stuffing food down my neck, and I'm the one that has to put a stop to it. It ain't going to be easy, but it has to be done. 20 weeks to drop at least 45 pounds and get back down to 240. That's 2.25 pounds per week. If I want to continue the efforts of the first two weeks of February and shoot for 220 to 230, that's a little over 3 pounds per week. Neither one is going to be easy, but I still want to do it. The idea of being 220 lbs just seems way cool, and should look pretty good at the beach (not to mention my rapidly approaching 20th high school reunion). I want it, and dammit, I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen. Wish me luck!

I never thought I'd be disappointed with this kind of progress

2009-02-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am disappointed, but it's hard to be disappointed with this kind of progress. Last Friday, my weigh-in was 285.4, for a drop of 3.2 lbs since I started my revised efforts at the end of January. I knew that things were happening, not exactly according to plan, due to my illness last week, and I was looking forward to seeing how this week would shake out.

In a word (or two, I suppose), it started off en fuego! I actually managed to lose weight over the weekend, which is very much against the trend, and I was down to 281.6 lbs by Tuesday morning! Tuesday, though, I was feeling uber-hungry on the way to work, and caved in and hit the Burger King drive-thru for a couple of cheesy bacon wraps. They are yummy, only cost 2 for $3, but ring up at approximately 800 calories for the two of them. The rest of the day was according to plan, and I did hit the gym after work. Granted, "something" didn't agree with me during the day, and the accompanying biological activities probably helped things out. End result, I defied the odds and was down to 281.4 lbs on Wednesday morning. Wednesday was a road day, though, and again I succumbed to the siren call of cheesy bacon wraps (from a completely different BK, though). As before, the rest of the day went according to plan, and I did hit the gym on the way home. Again, though, I experienced digestive "issues" throughout the day. End result, Thursday's weigh-in was all the way down to 280.6 lbs! Holy IBS Batman! Now, to clarify, I've eaten the cheesy bacon wraps several times before, and never experienced any problems, so I'm not sure if they were the problem or not. In any respect, I was looking forward to Thursday. The final push before the Friday weigh-in, I knew I was going to stick to the plan. And I did. No cheesy bacon wraps, no snacking, the exact same dinner that I had Wednesday night. I figured that if I ate less than I did the day before, and still hit the gym, there should be no reason why I can't crack the 279 lb barrier. The only difference from Wednesday was that I did not experience any digestive issues. End result, Friday's weigh-in was up a pound from my low point, but it still rang in down 3.8 lbs for the week at 281.6 lbs. Disappointing when you're hoping to get into the 270s, but still a nice drop.

I'm still snacking more than I planned to (bringing two or three more 100 cal snack pack things than I should), but I can't argue with the progress. Hopefully I will be able to minimize the damage over the weekend...I'm not sure what's going on tonight, but DAPGF and I are having sushi for Valentine's Day which shouldn't be too damaging. And next week I'm going to be even more hyper vigilant on sticking to the plan. The goal I set for this round of efforts is 2.2 lbs per week. Normally, that would be a pretty tall order. But so far, I'm exceeding the goals substantially. I have no idea whether I can maintain this pace, but it sure would be nice. If I can average 3 lbs per week, by the end of June I would be down to a beach-tastic 220 lbs. At my best in college, I was decently cut and weighing around 235. 220 would freaking rawk! In any respect, I'm sticking with the 2.2 lbs per week goal, but going to make every effort I can to better that. Wish me luck, peeps!

It seems to be working!

2009-02-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

I think my plan is working. It hasn't been a perfect application of the plan...I really haven't been to the gym since February 1, but I think my illness has further suppressed my appetite. In any respect, I established the plan on 1/30, at a weight of 288.6 lbs. This morning, it was all the way down to 281.6 lbs!!!!! Can a brother get a w000t! Now, I can feel my appetite starting to come back, as the cold loosens its grip on me, but as the cold fades away, my energy and lung capacity should subsequently return. This will allow me to reestablish the gym routine and make up for any lapses in willpower I might suffer. It's not been easy, but I'm doing it! Wish me luck in keeping it up!

Progress! But not exactly as intended...

2009-02-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

So...last Friday I laid out my game plan. I was going to be super-dedicated to hitting the gym at every possible opportunity, and during the week (when I had much more editorial control), I was going to plan out my meals to a rough average of less than 1900 calories per day. Given that lately my daily intake had ranged anywhere from 400 to 1400 calories above that, I figured that effort alone would help with the drop. Last Friday's weigh-in hit at 288.6 lbs. This morning's weigh-in was down to 285.2 lbs, for a drop of 3.4 lbs! But all is not exactly what it seems...

As with most of my plans, something always comes out unintended. And this particular "unintended" happened to be the wicked cold that is currently going around San Diego (and probably has variants in other parts of the country). I think I was infected sometime on Thursday, as both one of my co-workers and my father were both suffering from it. I first noticed the throat tickle Saturday morning at the gym. By Saturday afternoon, it was a full, dry, hacking cough and an all-over body ache. I actually did go to the gym Sunday morning, but could only manage a half set of abs, no weights, and about 10 minutes on the elliptical before I had to call it quits. My joints were killing me, I was feeling the fever/chills combo, and my cough could've scared a buffalo (which was ironic, since DAPGF and I shared a Buffalo breakfast quesadilla at the Tractor Room for breakfast). I must have really seemed sick, because DAPGF let me just lay in bed and watch the SuperBowl all afternoon. We did go out for dinner to this road house bbq place in El Cajon with some friends of hers (see, the weekends are harder for me to control), but I felt awful enough that I hardly ate any of my dinner. We went home and I promptly went to sleep, deciding at that point that there was no way I was going to work on Monday. Interestingly, I did better than I planned from a meal perspective, because I did absolutely no snacking. It's hard to snack when you're asleep. Tuesday was more of the same, except I did snack a bit (ironically, there was little to no nausea associated with this particular cold). I would've preferred to stay home on Wednesday also, but there were some things that I actually had to get done at work. This was the first chance I had to try out the diet plan on the road, and aided by my diminished appetite, I stuck to it. I also went to the doctor who said I was turning the corner and gave me some wonderful drugs. Thursday was almost as successful, except for one minor issue. Or rather combination of issues. By the end of Thursday, I was feeling somewhat better and getting my appetite back. Plus, I had to go to 4 different stores, at rush hour, in the rain, to get groceries on the way home, so in a weak moment I bagged on having a Lean Cuisine-type meal and went for the guilty pleasure Red Baron deep dish frozen pizza singles. Those rang up at probably 500 calories more than what I should've eaten.

So there's the first week. Successful, but not quite as intended. I haven't really gotten my energy back yet, and I haven't cleared enough crap out of my lungs to feel comfortable doing my usual gym workout. I will probably try to go in and do a light workout on the lifecycle, just to keep the metabolism going, but it's not going to be anything substantial. That being said, when I have a chance to fully implement my plan, I think this is going to work. Wish me luck and stay warm and dry out there!

The one in which we see a smidge of progress

2009-01-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, a smidge. After 2 straight weeks of the scale numbers climbing instead of dropping, I finally had a week where I lost weight! Ahh, but what, exactly, is a smidge? In this case, a pathetic 0.2 lbs. Yes, on 1/23 my weigh-in was 288.8 lbs, and this morning it had dropped all the way down to 288.6 lbs. Granted, yesterday's weigh-in was a flab-tastic 290.0 lbs, so being somewhat careful on Thursday along with getting a quick gym workout in melted off 1.4 lbs. But all things being equal, this ain't working for me.

When I started the latest round of weight-loss efforts on January 2, the scale rung up 289.0 lbs. After the first week's loss took me down to 286.4 lbs, the scale has been going in the wrong direction. I have nobody to blame but myself. Really. I may claim torpedoes here and there, brought on by my father, DAPGF, or coworkers, but I'm the one opening my mouth and shoveling food into it. So I'm going to take the nuclear approach. Starting on Monday (because the weekends with DAPGF and others are too hard to control to the level I'm aiming for), I'm actually going to set up a meal plan ahead of time. I'm not sure where I'll find the time, but each night I'm going to attempt to blog what I actually consumed, and lay out what I'm going to consume on the following day. So each day I'm forced to not only admit to what I'm going to eat, but admit to what I ate in addition to what I said I was going to eat. Hopefully the structure alone will motivate me to comply, but the shame of admitting that I swung through the Burger King drive-through for 2 cheesy bacon wraps on my way to Wildomar will hopefully prevent a large-scale pile of fail. I don't want to be sadistic to myself, and I am a realist with how much I have a compulsion to snack. So here's a rough outline of what I expect to consume on a random weekday (calories are estimated based on data I found in My Fitness Pal and Calorie King):

Breakfast: Bagel with fat free cream cheese - 290 calories
Morning snack: reduced fat wheat thins - 130 calories
Lunch: Assorted Healthy Choice/Lean Cuisine/Smart ones - 300 calories
Lunch: Campbells Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup - 180 calories
Lunch: 6 Hershey's caramel kisses (lowest calorie ones) - 135 calories
Afternoon snack (for gym energy): assorted 100 calorie snack pouch/granola bar - 100 calories
Dinner: 2 assorted Healthy Choice, etc. meals - 600 calories
Dessert: Weight watchers Giant Chocolate Cookies & Cream ice cream bar - 140 calories

This generic meal plan rings in at 1875 calories. That may seem like a lot, and it is. However, looking over My Fitness Pal, my daily food intake has been ranging from 2300 to 3300 calories (which explains my weight!), so if I can even come down to a steady 2000 per day and get a decent workout in, I should start making some downward progress. It will be difficult...I know how much I like to snack, especially while sitting at the computer, so I'll make efforts to control things. I've got a 32 ounce sport bottle that I fill up from our water purifier (our coffee maker is pretty bitchin', including giving us a separate tap for ice cold filtered water), so I'll start there. I'll also get back to keeping gum at my desk. It's never the same, but if I can chew on something in between meals, I might be able to avoid unauthorized snacking. And as I noted previously, the weekends are hard to control. I'm out with DAPGF, and occasionally others, and we're at nice restaurants where they serve booze, crab and mushroom potstickers, and other assorted goodies. We attempt to select meals on the healthier side of things (split a salad with the vinaigrette dressing on the side, and split the ahi tuna sandwich), but portions being what they are, I'm still consuming waaay too much food. I'm going to try to minimize the damage (not eating so much bread would be a start), but I offer no guarantees on weekend food consumption.

So there we go. All in black and white (so to speak). My weigh-ins are going to remain on Friday mornings, but I'm not going to kick this off in earnest until Monday the 2nd. Granted, I may get torpedoed on the first day if I have to go to a jobsite with my boss and he treats for lunch. Last time we wound up at Rubios and had a couple of beers, so who knows what might happen. But be that as it may, I should be able to guarantee at least 3 days during the week on my program completely, with the other days at least partially complying. Combine that with a renewed effort to work out (go to sleep earlier so that I'm able to get up and run in the morning, and suck it up and go to the gym after work, regardless of how late I get out of work), and I should start seeing some major progress. Thanks to the explosion of Facebook, Hoff is approaching his 20 year high school reunion. I'm not entirely sure how much I weighed when I graduated from high school, but it was somewhere around 210. If I could get remotely close to that, I'll be happy. Beyond that, the goal is still to get down to 240, by the end of June. I want to get back to surfing regularly, and having a more beach-friendly bod wouldn't hurt. 22 weeks to drop 48 pounds. That's 2.2 pounds per week. Not sure I can pull that off, but I'm going to try. Wish me luck!

More like "what's wrong with me?"

2009-01-24T01:16:00.000-08:00

Well, this past week was a big steaming pile of poo. After last week's 3 item combo plate of fail, I followed it up with a dessert of fail a la mode! In short, I gained another pound-ish, going from 287.4 lbs last Friday to 288.8 lbs this Friday! It could've been worse, though...I actually got as high as 290.8 on Tuesday, which is pretty effin' ugly unto its own. I could've been better at the exercise thing, but mainly it was dinner that stuck to my ass. Last Friday night was restaurant week in San Diego, and DAPGF and I went out with friends for a bitchin' steak dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, so that was bad. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings I made it to the gym, but I got such a late start both days that I had to do a shorty workout. Because I'm with DAPGF all weekend, my meals are anything but minimalist. Monday I managed to go running in the morning and made it to the gym after work, but I stopped at the grocery store on the way home (before dinner), and bought a bunch of stuff that I shouldn't have, and then ate most of it in one sitting! Stupid. Tuesday I made it out in the morning to run, but had to work late and couldn't hit the gym on the way home. Wednesday I overslept and missed the run, but I did make it to the gym. Thursday it rained, so no morning run, and I worked late so no gym. And Thursday was capped with the neighbor asking if I wanted to go out for Mex food and beer. Hmm, let me think about that. So here we are.

I'm not going to the gym Saturday morning, because DAPGF and I are going up to Pomona to look at a rescue Dobie. Who knows if we'll come home with her or not, but I'm going to try to at least run in the morning. I should make the gym on Sunday, and then I should be in a good position to run every morning of next week and hit the gym at least on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. But as I said, the exercise is not as much of a problem as the need to feed the face is. Despite the obvious failure on the food intake, I at least felt good that I was making progress on the exercise angle. I can't guarantee anything this weekend, but for meals that don't involve DAPGF, I'm going to do everything I can to control myself. A 1.5 lb drop from 1/23 would bring me down to 287.3 lbs. I can do better than that, so despite the official goal of 287.3 lbs, I'm going to shoot to get under 286. It won't be easy, but I think I can. Wish me luck.

Ummm...

2009-01-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

So, umm, yeah. Hmmm. Last weigh-in was 286.4 lbs, with a goal for this morning of 284.9. In short, I didn't make it. Spectacularly! As a matter of fact, I ultimately GAINED a pound!!! WTF?!?!!? Unfortunately, I know exactly WTF. TF was that I still eat like a pig, combined with a laziness that caused me to miss out on 3 morning runs out of 5 this week and 2 of 6 gym opportunities. The laziness, what can I say? I'm lazy and find it more and more difficult to get up early in the morning. Staying up late to dink around on the computer doesn't help and certainly could be avoided, but it is what it is. Food is my kryptonite. I'm a sucker for food, and my current life obligations and activities don't do much to discourage the cravings. Growing up, I was always either reading something or watching TV. And along with that, naturally, came the nibbles. Oreos, string cheese, pseudo pizzas made with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella on english muffins, whatever. Now I spend several hours per week driving from one place to another. And magically, visible from the freeways and surface streets are signs from these places...these places that allow you to drive up and they give you food! And when I'm not sitting in the car, I'm sitting at my desk, inevitably reading some document or other. And inevitably the compulsion to nibble surfaces again. I try to distract myself or fake myself out with gum or hard candy, but that never lasts enough and never has quite the taste I'm looking for (think Oreo Cookies or French Fries, not spearmint).

Now, as bad as this is, it was worse just a few days ago. Sunday evening, DAPGF and I went out for Mexican food with some friends. Of course I picked the anti-good food and had a 3 enchilada combo plate. Yeah, not exactly slimming, and combined with not running that morning, I had hit 288.6 lbs. I did hit the gym on the way home, but I also hit the store. Shopping while hungry...not the best thing. Still, I managed to slip back down to 288.0. Things went a little better in the food department...I did a much better job of controlling what I ate. I didn't make the gym that evening, but still managed to drop back to 286.8 on Wednesday morning. Wednesday was a bad day. I ate bad and didn't run or make the gym. Thursday morning I did go for a run, and it was probably a good thing, because the evils of hump day ballooned me back up to 288 lbs. I finally made it to the gym after work, and tried to control my eating. The only place I really stumbled was after DAPGF came home. She got a half of a ring cake (Bundt-type cake) from the grocery store, and we proceeded to have several slices while watching the tube. Friday morning I did make it out for a run, and the weigh-in had me down to 287.4 lbs. It would've been a lot better without the cake, but I'm weak and my progress (or lack thereof) attests to that. Still, I noticed that the trend was generally moving in the right direction, particularly in my habits, as the week progressed. We're out to dinner with friends again tonight, but I will get to the gym Saturday and Sunday mornings, so hopefully I can build some positive momentum. My 1.5 pound goal for next Friday is 285.9 lbs. Unofficially I'm going to try and beat it. Wish me luck!

The one in which we assess our progress...

2009-01-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Greetings and salivations, party peeps! Here's hoping that you all are sticking to your New Year Resolutions, and that you haven't fallen off the wagon just yet.

Me, it's sort of a mixed bag, but I've got an excuse (don't I always?). First, the good. On January 2, 2009, for the first weigh-in post New Year's Day buffet orgy, I rang in at a blimp-tastic 289.0 lbs! Now, because I knew I was going to the buffet, I knew that the 2nd would produce a somewhat artificially higher weigh-in than would otherwise normally occur. Obviously I was right. And here we are a week down the road. Given my 1.5 pound per week goal, I was aiming for 287.5 lbs. Lo and behold, stepping on the scale this morning showed a weight of 286.4 lbs, for a loss of 2.6 lbs!

Yay me, but with an asterisk. You see, secretly I had hoped that the drop would be in the three to four pound range, because the buffet was only a short-term food condition (obviously I don't eat like that every day), and with DAPGF starting her new teaching quarter, I was going to have several evenings of gym action. Plus, as we continue through life temporarily without doggie, I have stated that I intend to use the former dog walk/dog feeding morning time to go for a run. What I didn't count on was a wicked cold to envelope my head and chest. Get up early and go for a run? Hell, I could barely breathe, so let's just stay in bed for another 45 minutes. Hit the gym after work? One night DAPGF needed me to come home and help her out with some prep work for one of her classes, one night I left work 2 hours late, and one night I just wasn't feeling in the mood.

But as the week went on, I started to feel better. Thursday morning, I managed to make it out for 10 minutes of running, just to try and get back into a rhythm. Friday morning I did it again. Saturday morning should be a gym trip, so hopefully I can build on the momentum, and keep shedding the pounds. My 1.5 pound goal for the week would get me down to 284.9 lbs. Wish me luck, and good luck out there to all of you!

I guess I should look at the bright side of things...

2009-01-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

So January 1 came and went. As expected, DAPGF and I attended a very nice, very caloric buffet at the Hotel Del Coronado. We attempted to offset this by going to the San Diego Auto Show and spending 3 hours walking around looking at things. If it was an offset, then I am afraid for what might have been.

My New Years, New Hoff weigh-in on 1/2/09 rang in at an unbelievable 289.0 lbs! 5 pounds heavier than January 1, 2008, and 5.8 pounds heavier than when I started this blog back in 2006! Yeah, losin' wayte...I'm doin' it rong. But the bright side is that the weight had some unusual help in the food consumption area, due to the buffet. That and because I've been fighting off my annual Christmas cold, I wasn't feeling motivated enough to go to the gym this morning. After that weigh-in, bet your ass I'll go tomorrow morning. So what I'm ultimately saying is that, for at least this first week, it should be pretty easy to meet my weekly goal of 1.5 lbs by 1/9. The target is 287.5 lbs. If I can't make it, I'm in pretty serious trouble. Good luck, peeps!

The one in which we bid 2008 a resounding Meh

2008-12-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

Readers? Anybody out there? Bueller? Anybody? Man, 2008 turned out to be teh suck. I looked over my post from 1/1/08 to see what horrifically unobtainable crap I actually considered attempting. 2 pounds per week, under 240 by summer, get more organized, blog more, play more poker, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, pretty much none of that was realized. There were a variety of factors in my trip on the Fail Boat, but they mainly come down to the overall fact that I'm lazy and self-indulgent. Shocking, I know, especially to those who know me, but I tend to have fun first and then cram to get whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing actually completed. Paying bills, housework, gym, whatever, I was just the master of the douchebaggery.

There were other things bad in 2008. Lots of personal stuff with DAPGF (not between us, just her own personal issues), the ending of my Santa Ana work assignment (that wasn't conducive to blogging and poker, but was great for exercise), and the commencement of an assignment in Riverside County that forced me to drive my gas pig Jeep 140 miles round trip 3 to 4 times per week. I got reimbursed for mileage, and despite the horrific gas prices (at the peak, $4.79/gal for 87 octane...it cost me around $90 per tank) I actually came out ahead on that aspect of things. Mileage cap on my lease was another story, though, and I wound up buying a piece of crap commuter box that ate up way too much money to minimize the impact on the Jeep. The absolutely worst thing about 2008, though was very personal. Ginger, the nicest Doberman on the face of the earth and all around best doggie anywhere, lost her battle with cancer just before Thanksgiving.
She's up in heaven, chasing the bunnies and such, but DAPGF and I hadn't really realized just how much our lives were structured around her until she wasn't there. I had no reason to bundle up and go for an hour long walk at 11 pm, and there was no stubby wagging tail greeting us when we'd come home. Very sad, and had the additional effect of eliminating an opportunity to exercise. We looked into getting a 7 month old puppy from a breeder, but it had behavioral issues that would likely require a several month stay at a Cesar Milan Dog Whisperer boot camp, so that was a no go. We are now waiting for a litter to be born in March, so we can get one in June, after the shots and such are all taken care of. So for the interim, no doggie.

But I'm not giving up, dammit! I'm going to fight my way out of this morass that was 2008, and I'm going to have a multi-pronged approach. Some of these mirror what was proffered a year ago, but the loss of Ginger has kind of given me an energy and opportunity to kick my ass in gear.

1. Exercise. Since I no longer have to wake up to walk and feed the dog, I've got a solid half-hour or so of free time. I'm going to go for a run in the morning...approximately a mile or so, depending on how I'm handling it. I used to do this when I lived in Orange County (pre-DAPGF), and I was a good 30 to 40 pounds lighter back then. I'm also going to get back into the gym rhythm. When DAPGF teaches, my first shot after work is to the gym. After that, then I'll go home and relax (or go to the store, Home Depot, whatever). I will also get back into the habit of logging my exercise onto MyFitnessPal.com.

2. Diet. Now that I'm back to a driving assignment, it is way too easy to swing past a drive-thru or a 7-11 for some munchies. I'm going to get back into counting up my calories for the day and logging everything I eat into MyFitnessPal.com. I need to have some accountability, and publishing my heinousness in a daily web format should accomplish that. Plus, the tracking tools for calories consumed, calories burned, weight gain/loss, etc. are very comprehensive.

3. Weight loss. As I age and my metabolism slows down that much more (groan, sigh), I need to be a little more realistic. Based on my exercise and diet goals, I'm setting a weight-loss goal of 1.5 lbs per week, measured Friday to Friday. Why then? A couple of reasons. First, the weekends are always a little screwy from a timing perspective, and I think I can be more consistent on a Friday morning. DAPGF is scheduled to teach Thursday nights, so that will help me out on the day before the weigh-in. Sometimes the weekends include much more rich and filling dining experiences. And January 2 is on Friday. Why not January 1 as a start? DAPGF and I are attending the New Year's Day champagne brunch at the Hotel Del Coronado, which is expected to be non-diet-friendly. Ultimately, I'd like to hit 240 pounds, which is approximately 45 pounds lighter than my current weight today. At an average of 1.5 lbs per week, that puts me in the middle of July. Sooner would be better, but I think 1.5 lbs is attainable so that's what I'm going to run with.

4. Personal responsibility. This is a generalized category that covers a multitude of personal characteristics. Set aside time to pay bills. Set aside time to clean out and purge my financial files. Likewise magazines. Make sure that any needs/chores from DAPGF get prioritized ahead of my playtime. Granted, I'm not going to eliminate my fun times. In fact, I'm resolving to actually blog more than I did in 2008 (shouldn't be too difficult), as well as play poker more consistently (both quantity and quality). I'm just trying to make sure that I've got my priorities properly ordered.

So there we go. 2008 can GTFO, as far as I'm concerned. Bring on 2009. So what if it means my 20 year high school reunion? I know I'm getting old, dammit! Now get off my lawn!

In which we assess the damage...

2008-09-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

Not damage by a hurricane or anything, and any of you readers (anyone out there? Sis? Anyone?) who have gone thru Gustav, Ike, or any of the other recent storms, my thoughts are with you, but this blog is about my fat, and it's been pretty damaging.

My last post on 9/3, my weigh-in was 282.2 lbs, down from a recent peak of 284.2 lbs, but way up from my most recent low of 274.6 lbs. On that Sunday (9/7), I dropped down to 279.0, setting up a 1.5 lb goal for 9/14 of 277.5 lbs. The past week was somewhat problematic, though. DAPGF started a new teaching semester, but the associated crap that goes along with it (prepping lesson plans and online shells) as well as a pile of the other usual crap (getting food and stuff for the doggie, etc.), I didn't really make it to the gym much this past week. It showed with a peak on my 9/10 weigh-in of 283.0 lbs. Still, I fought back and got down to 280.6 lbs on Saturday morning and then 280.0 lbs this morning. A net gain of 1.0 lbs for the week, but given that I was pushing 4 lbs at one point, I'm ok with that.

I'm not going to get where I want to go with a repeat of last week, so I've got to step up and head in the right direction. The week isn't going to start off on the right foot, because instead of going to the gym after work, I've got a meeting to go to in the early evening. I'm just going to have to work hard at eating right. My goal for next week is going to be 278.5 lbs. Wish me luck, peeps.

Waay overdue post

2008-09-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm a schmuck. Almost 2 months since I posted, and I've got nothing but bad news to show for it. When last I posted, my weigh-in on July 6 was 274.6 lbs, and I was showing steady progress downward. And then the wheels fell off. Or rather I started looking for new wheels. As you know, I started a new assignment at work. One which doesn't allow me to have a nice train ride and 20 minute power walk 3 days per week. Nope. I get to drive 70 miles from Casa de Hoff to the client's office 3 days per week. Gas has come down, but when I started, regular unleaded was hovering around $4.60/gal here in San Diego. My Jeep at best gets 18 mpg on the freeway, and it's a lease. I certainly didn't want to completely destroy the mileage cap on my lease, and driving something more fuel efficient made sense, so I started looking for a beater car to drive the wheels off of. Minor problem, I had a limited budget to work with, and most used cars in the $3000 price range tend to be, well there's no nice way to put it, pieces of shit. So I spent every spare moment for the next 3 weeks scouring Craigslist and Autotrader.com, looking for that elusive diamond in the rough. Well, they were rough. And Casa de Hoff is in a very nice coastal area of San Diego. Cars in that price range tended to be owned by people who lived in lower income areas of the county, all of which tended to be a 40 to 50 mile round trip each time. So I wasn't exercising much, I was eating poorly, and I was stressing myself out. Yeah, great recipe for disaster. And the end result has been a steady increase in my corpulence. As of this morning (Wednesday) I weighed in at 282.2 lbs, down from a peak of 284.2 lbs on Tuesday. Yep, that's a gain of nearly 10 pounds over the past month! Me no likey!

Ultimately, I did purchase a car...a salvage title 1997 BMW 328i. It's got some issues and needs some heavy TLC, but it is loaded, it scoots, and it gets 25 to 30 mpg on the freeway. For what I need it for, it works just fine for me. And now that I've got that taken care of (I put 3000 miles on it in the first month I owned it!), I'm trying to get back into a groove. I'm working hard at eating better, and because of the hours I need to be at the client's office, sometimes I have time after work to stop at a 24 Hour Fitness on the way home. It's not perfect, but I'm trying to reverse the momentum and get back to losing again. Wish me luck, peeps.

The One In Which We Cross a Threshold

2008-07-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been a while since I posted. Bad Hoff! Bad, naughty Hoff! I am deserving of a spanking. And then the oral sex!

But seriously folks, it has been a while, and I have positive news to report! When last we checked in, I was aiming for a weigh-in on 6/22 of 276.9 lbs. The week had been my usual up and down, peaking at 278.2 on Friday 6/20. But with DAPGF out of town, I was able to make some headway and drop down to 276.2 lbs for Saturday! Saturday did involve time with Dad and some naughty food, but I was able to use the rest of the time on Saturday for beach and gym, and made my weigh-in on Sunday at 276.2 lbs.! No gain from Saturday and I bettered my goal by more than a half pound!

With that success, my goal for 6/29 would be 274.7 lbs. That would represent my first foray under 275 lbs since I can remember. Looking way (weigh?) back at things, this weight-loss thing all got started when I realized that my scale was broken (insert fat jokes here). For whatever reason the scale (an old-school mechanical dial one) would read no higher than 260-ish pounds (the dial actually went to 300 lbs). Despite the fact that my clothes were seeming much tighter and my gut seemed larger, it hadn't dawned on me that the scale continuing to read 262 lbs wasn't indicative of a problem. I jut figured I'd only gained 10 or so pounds from the Newport Beach and Aliso Viejo days, and as I aged the weight was redistributing itself into my gut. Yeah, wishful thinking. So one morning I get on the scale and notice that as it spins up, instead of doing the typical "needle back and forth until it settles" routine, it simply stopped in the 260 neighborhood. With no idea how long it had been broken, I went and bought the new scale, and promptly realized that I was up in the 280s! Holy crap! But beyond the obvious horror, I had no idea how long I'd been that fat. So with that knowledge, that last bout of food poisoning was the last time I'd knowingly been in the 275 lb range.

So I'm starting at 276.2 lbs and aiming for 274.7 lbs on 6/29. The week was again my typical yo-yo experience, and I actually peaked at 278.8 during the week. Still, I fought and fought and managed to do a weigh-in of 276.2 lbs on 6/29. No change from the previous week, but given the 2.6 pound increase during the week, I'll take it.

So, again, I'm aiming for 274.7 lbs on 7/6. Again, the week was a typical yo-yo with an added wrinkle. I'm no longer riding the train, so I no longer get my thrice weekly bonus exercise walk to the train station. To make it worse, my new gig is with a brand new client who is still setting up their offices. So I didn't really even have a good opportunity to bring a Lean Cuisine type lunch. Nope, everybody wanted to go to the naughty Mexican joint nearby. But I didn't want to have two straight weeks with no progress, so I was careful with what I ate. DAPGF had a meeting to go to one evening, and she went out for lunch with friends on Saturday, so I had good opportunities to hit the gym and avoid restaurants. End result? Weigh-in on 7/6 was 274.6 lbs!! I beat my goal by .1 lb, and I was under 275 for the first time in well over a year!!! Can a brother get a woo hoo!!! Next Sunday, 7/13, the goal will be 273.1 lbs.

One thing that should help with meeting my next goal (and I'm sure helped out this past week) is my gym. Not that 24 Hour Fitness is really anything special, but they just got some new elliptical machines in, and boy are they difficult. The key thing about them is they have a variable stride to them, and because of that you have to work extra hard to keep up a constant stride. You get going and get yourself into a steady pace. All of a sudden, the "incline" or speed of the machine changes, and unconsciously your stride changes. God forbid you decide to reverse and go backwards. It is hella hard, and a brutal workout. With the old elliptical machines, I could bang out a half hour workout, on resistance level 11, and be sweating but hardly breathing heavily. With these new machines, I spend so much effort trying to maintain a consistent, steady pace and stride that I find myself winded after 12 minutes. I think, tbough, that the extra effort makes up the difference and probably then some. I will keep you advised as to whether I give up on them or not. Wish me luck.

And to finish off this long overdue post, instead of the last 5 songs I heard at the gym this morning, let's go with the first 5 songs...which ones served to pump me up. I added a bunch of tracks to the mp3 player, so I manually created a playlist, started with one particular song, and shuffled the rest. I was not disappointed.

Motley Crue - Kickstart My Heart
AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
Pantera - Mouth For War
Testament - Electric Crown
The Vines - Ride

FWIW, the next 5 were equally motivating:

Megadeth - High Speed Dirt
Iron Maiden - Invaders
Iced Earth - Declaration Day
W.A.S.P. - Blind in Texas
Babylon A.D. - Hammer Swings Down

See ya out there, peeps.

A bit over due, but worth the wait...

2008-06-19T21:15:00.001-07:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been busy. I'm sure everybody is busy, but I really am. Out the door super early for work, back late. And when I've actually been in my office instead of some client's office, I've been hella busy on this new project that kicks off July 1. On top of work, DAPGF just went out of town, had a birthday party for a neighbor, and my Dad is in the process of moving. It has been a bit busy.

So, last Sunday, 6/8, my weigh-in goal was 277.0 I had (obviously) been at 279.0 for the previous Sunday, and set up my usual 1.5 pound goal. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it. I did lose some weight, though, so no backsliding and I'm still under 280! 6/15, my weigh-in was 278.4 lbs, for a .6 lb loss during the week. I did my usual yo-yo thing, but it was a much smaller range of weight. Sure I didn't drop a lot off, but neither did I put on a lot, so I'm generally satisfied. And from 278.4 lbs, my goal for 6/23 is 276.9 lbs.

This is going to be an interesting weekend. I started off on fire. After a .2 lb gain after a Father's Day steak dinner with DAPGF and my Dad, I dropped down to 276.6! Holy crap! I think there was one moment a year an a half ago that I hit 275, and that was only due to a bout of food poisoning. Since Tuesday morning I've actually gained a little bit back. We had the aforementioned birthday party for the neighbor, and that involved appetizers and margaritas at a Mexican joint near Casa de Hoff, so that was expected. Wednesday I was actually on track for a pretty good showing...I was working in my capacity of Public Information Officer for a local water district, and doing a lot of door-to-door, up and down condo stairs in 95 degree heat. And that's where the problem came in. Milkshake, baby! I wanted it, I needed it, so dammit, I got it! It was gooooood. And baaaaaaad. But with DAPGF gone until Sunday morning, here's what I've got to look forward to: walking back to the train in predicted 100 degree heat on Friday afternoon; a run to the gym and/or the beach for some waves Friday evening (not sure how motivated I'm going to be, but the intent is there), followed by a (hopefully) healthy dinner of my choosing. No restaurant planned, so maybe I can avoid the large calories associated with a big dinner out. Saturday morning gym and beach, followed by a presumably healthy lunch at home (again, no restaurant). Dinner will likely be with my Dad, whom I will be helping move, so there will be exercise, but there will likely be beer as well. Must be careful. Sunday morning will be a repeat of Saturday morning, with the gym/beach/breakfast or lunch at home. DAPGF is back Sunday evening, so that will return the dinner plans to normal. Hopefully, though, I will have had the willpower to take advantage of the weekend and drop some serious weight. Wish me luck, peeps.

The one in which we achieve a major goal...

2008-06-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Well how about that! Last Sunday's weigh-in turned out to be 280.6 lbs. That would set the goal of a 1.5 pound loss at 279.1 lbs. Generally, I did fairly well during the week. I didn't really lose anything, but I also didn't really gain anything. I did get sick on Wednesday, to the point of staying home from work on Thursday. The surprising thing was the weekend, though. We ate very carefully on Friday (Thai veggie stirfry) and I hit the gym Saturday (caturday?) for a weigh-in of 279.0 lbs! Yay me, but wait! This is a pattern of mine. Sunday, being weigh-in day, usually involves some backsliding from Saturday's weigh-in, even if I do go to the gym. And Saturday night was expected to be even worse. DAPGF and I celebrated 6 years (?!?) together by going to Fleming's Steakhouse for a righteous meal of dead cow and assorted stuff. She had the petite filet, and I had a 16 oz New York Strip that was melt-in-your-mouth yummy. Bread and their House Special potatoes (told ya we lurved our carbs) made with real cream, jalapeños, and cheddar cheese, and a complementary piece of their molten lava chocolate cake, accompanied by whole whipped cream and whole vanilla bean ice cream. OMFGA was it wonderful, but I was sure that I'd pay for it Sunday morning. And to top it off, because of long doggie walk and needing to get the car washed, I didn't make it to the gym. Weigh-in result? 279.0 lbs!!!! I made my goal and had an official weigh-in of under 280! And it was 2 weigh-ins in a row under 280!!!! Yay me!

So the goal for Sunday 6/15 will be 277.5. I'd have to go back and look, but I believe that will be the lowest weight I will have knowingly had since I discovered that my scale was broken back in 2006! And I must say, I'm on an excellent start! This morning's weigh-in? 279.0 lbs! And what makes this weigh-in that much more significant is that, not only was there no physical activity involved beyond a 10 minute dog walk, but the weigh-in occurred at 7:30 a.m. The weekend weigh-ins usually occur around 11 a.m. So that tells me that I actually went against the grain on Sunday and lost more weight! DAPGF is going to be gone nearly every night this week, so I am going to have some good gym opportunities along with safer food options. This may turn out to be a really good week. Here's hoping I don't screw it up!

Better late than never, I suppose...

2008-06-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue. It's late partially because my schedule's been screwed up at work, and partially because I've been embarrassed that I finally had some backsliding. But here we go.

2 weeks ago, my hoped-for weigh-in (Memorial Day weekend) was 278.7, which would've been my first "market closing" weigh-in of under 280 in a looong time. I had done my usual yo-yo thing, but was climbing back down and approaching my goal. Saturday 5/24 actually saw me at 279.6, so I was within fingertip distance of my goal. I'm still not exactly sure what happened to me (hey! great blog title!), but Sunday's weigh-in bubbled back up to 280.6 lbs. My first bit of backsliding...a gain of .4 lbs for the week. Ahh, but the weekend is still upon us, and Monday's weigh-in dropped me back to 279.8. Not the real goal, but a weigh-in of under 280! Woo hoo!! So I figured I'd take my goal from Monday's weigh-in and simply aim for a better Sunday, so the goal for 6/1 was going to be 278.3.

278.3 lbs. Hmmm. I was off to a good start, with Monday not causing any damage, but then the wheels fell off. DAPGF was out teaching, so I caved into my evil urges and ordered Kung Pao Shrimp from PF Changs. Oh so freaking tasty, but pure evil. The weight jumps to 281. Then to 282! Then by Thursday I was back on the train thing, which got me some exercise and food control. Friday was even better, because I had to go to Riverside with my boss for a meeting at 10 a.m. No train walk, but I figured I'd get home early enough to maybe get a quickie workout in. Noon hits during the meeting, and one of the guys asked if anybody wanted lunch. My boss and I said we just wanted to work through, so we could get on the freeway headed south before traffic went to hell. So we plowed through and took off. At that point, I figured I could wait until we got back to my boss' place, and I'd hit some fast food on my way home. But the traffic gods actually helped me out. The freeway was packed, so I wound up taking Coast Highway (PCH) from Encinitas down to La Jolla. That helped me because there is no fast food located along the PCH. So I just gave in and drove home. I did have some Wheat Thins when I got home before we went out to dinner, but basically I hadn't eaten anything but a bagel all day. I made it to the gym and the beach on Saturday, and it showed. My weigh-in was back down to 279.4 lbs. Not quite to the goal, but given where I'd been the day before, it was a good sign. Saturday lunch was my downfall, though. Veggie burgers...no problem. Fries...major problem. I have come to the conclusion that potatoes, french fries in particular, are NOT my friends. And to make matters worse, DAPGF and I go to lots of places that serve them (Applebees, TGIF, Fuddruckers, Burger Lounge (a hoity-toity but uber-yummy burger joint in downtown La Jolla) and other such places. I always gain weight when fries are involved, and I really need to be better at avoiding them. I really need to be better at avoiding carbs in general, but that's difficult when the places you go to eat serve one or more of the following: bread, pasta, tortillas, tortilla chips, rice, fries, hash browns, and so on. End result, Sunday's weigh-in (despite a good workout at the gym) was back in the 280s somewhere (I don't have that day logged into My Fitness Pal yet).

So whatever the exact weigh-in was on 6/1, the goal for 6/8 will be exactly 1.5 lbs lighter than that. The week started ugly, despite a good workout on Monday evening. I once again fell victim to my baser urges and had lunch at Pizza Hut's buffet! What was I thinking?!? Still, this morning's weigh-in was back down to 280.2 lbs, so maybe I can make up the badness and get back on the downward trend. I wish you luck, peeps.

An Interesting Observation...

2008-05-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely, my weight is dropping off. I kind of yo-yo through the week, but so far, the past month-plus has had a net drop in weight each week. To the point that I've lost 5.4 pounds from 4/13 thru 5/18. Yay me!

As I've noted in previous posts, usually at the beginning of the week, when I am unable to hit the gym or avoid eating at a restaurant (or two!), my weight will jump up 2 or 3 pounds from the Sunday weigh-in. Part of that is due to the fact that the Sunday weigh-in typically takes place around 11 a.m., and the weigh-ins during the week typically occur around 7 a.m. But whatever the case, my weight jumps at the beginning of the week and then I fight to get it down as the week progresses. Thursday and Friday are two good days, because I have to do my 20 minute power walk back to the train, and it's more difficult to snack in Santa Ana, not having access to a car or the time to go somewhere to get something. Saturday morning usually allows me to go to the gym, and then likewise on Sunday, before that weigh-in. So the week starts rough, and lately has been ending on a relatively good note.

My scale is one of those fancy digital ones that, among other things, calculates BMI, or body fat. Given my size, it's going to be quite some time before my BMI is below "obese" (30% or so, if I remember correctly). But the interesting thing has been watching my body fat measurement each time I weigh myself. My BMI number has been steadily dropping as well. Typically, a gain in weight (such as what I typically experience on a Monday) results in a slightly lower BMI number, due to the "better" weight to Body Mass ratio. That being said, the range of the numbers has dropped over the past month by an average of 1 to 2 percent. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it works out to be a roughly 4.3 percent drop in body mass. Again, yay me!

So even as my weight does it's yo-yo thing, I can still see that I'm making progress by the fact that my body fat percentage is dropping off. And that is helping me keep going. Good luck out there.

Slowly, we continue the march...

2008-05-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Greetings, my peeps. I hope it isn't too hot where you are...it's somewhat thermal here in SoCal right now, but they are saying the temp is going to drop 10 to 12 degrees tomorrow, which means it will be in the high 70s instead of high 80s/low 90s. Every little bit helps, I suppose, which brings me to the topic at hand: my weight loss.

The progress has been slower than originally anticipated, but dammit, it's still progress! I continued my adherence to the "one little day" concept last week. Last Sunday (5/11), my weigh-in was 281.0 lbs, which led to my weekly loss goal for 5/18 of 279.5 lbs. Lately, Mondays have been good alternate gym days, because DAPGF has been out with friends on those evenings. I get to go to the gym, and eat a Lean Cuisine or two at home instead of going to some restaurant experience that will top 900 calories. Last week wasn't one of those days. Actually, the week wasn't that good for the exercise front in general. The only real exercise I got was my power walk on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday back to the train...the other days of the week, not so much. My daily weigh-in's reflect that pattern, with the weight that goes on from Sunday brunch (the weigh-in is obviously before eating) thru Monday dinner causing an inevitable 2 to 3 pound gain from Sunday to Monday (a weigh-in time that is 3 hours earlier doesn't help), slowly going off as I do my train walks on Thursday and Friday, followed (usually) by a trip to the gym Saturday and Sunday mornings. Same basic thing happened this week, which led to a 5/18 weigh-in of 280.2 lbs. Again, short of the goal by .7 lbs, but it still signifies a loss of .8 lbs for the week. I may not be achieving the individual goals that I set out to achieve, but I am still having positive results on the overall goal of losing weight. Since my recent rededication (my birthday), I'm down 5.2 lbs. Heck, since I started this blog, I dropped almost 11 pounds, gained more than 20 back, but I'm back to a net loss of 3.2 lbs, and actually making steady progress in the correct direction consistently for the first time in a while. And that, my friends, I will take.

Next Sunday (5/25), the goal is 278.7 lbs. See you there.

One Little Day (Revisited)

2008-05-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

So. Last week I weighed in at 281.4 lbs, and the weekly goal for today's 1.5 lb loss was 279.9 lbs. The week was pretty mellow, and followed the typical pattern. I ate more than I should've for lunch, but hit the gym when DAPGF went out with friends. Tuesday was an OC day, so I got to do my walk to the train for exercise. DAPGF was teaching, so I was able to control my dinner. Wednesday was neither train, nor gym, nor Lean Cuisine. DAPGF and I went walking for a bit after dinner, which was better than nothing, but didn't really balance out dinner. Thursday I at least had the train for exercise, which when combined with the apres dinner walking gave me some progress. Friday was an interesting day. The train got as far as Irvine, where we were stopped due to a natural gas leak. I caught a bus into Santa Ana, and made it to the office for a few hours. I called both Metrolink and Amtrak before I left to see what the status of things were. Conflicting messages led me to go ahead and walk to the train. Upon arriving there, I got a ride to Tustin and crowded onto a bus to go just down to Irvine, where they told us that the buses might take us southward. Or maybe not. Or maybe trains were running. Who knew. So I finally got to Irvine, only to see the Amtrak train I rode up on in the morning, still there with the crew. I did check, but all the alcohol on the train had been consumed. So I waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour-ish, I started to get hungry. The only non-vending machine food I found was in this little quick wok Chinese joint at the transportation center, and I had some surprisingly delicious lo mein (I <3 pasta, remember). So I waited for a few hours, climbed several flights of stairs several times going from one set of tracks to the other, based on what the non-helpful personnel were telling us. Finally, an Amtrak train came up from Oceanside to take us back into San Diego county. Once in Oceanside, I caught a ride from a very nice young lady back to my car, and made it home just after 8. Normally, I would've been home by 4:30. So no gym, but no snacking and lots of walking around from place to place. Which led to a glorious weigh-in on Saturday that was within spitting distance of my goal...280.0 lbs! Oh so close. But it was not meant to be. DAPGF wanted to go to a sushi buffet for lunch, and then deep fried dinner stuff served to torpedo my phenomenal efforts. Weigh-in on Sunday morning was 281.0. Short of my goal by a pound, but still a net loss for the week. So for the month since my 37th birthday, I've dropped just about 4.5 pounds. Not as much as I'd hoped, but I haven't backslid since then. So I'm going to keep going. Next week's goal, 279.5 lbs. See ya out there!

The One In Which Reality Catches Up...

2008-05-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, I'm only human. I only had one full gym day this week...both Saturday and Sunday were shortened workouts to deal with assorted tasks (hair cut, car wash, etc.). Combine that with a fast food lunch on Monday (hadn't gotten to the store), going out for a wicked large burrito in Santa Ana's ghetto (training a co-worker), and going to DAPGF's favorite tapas buffet on Saturday, and I didn't make my goal weight. For the record, my goal for the Sunday weigh-in was 280.6 lbs, for a 1.5 lb drop from last Sunday. And despite the above, I tried. I ate as conservatively as possible...not always easy with DAPGF wanting to go out for our meals, and we walked after eating as much as DAPGF's flu or whatever would allow. In the end, Sunday's weigh-in was 281.4 lbs., less than 1 pound down from last week.

Now, that was disappointing, but still useful. I did lose .7 lbs for the week, which is still something. More importantly, I was able to identify the specific shortcomings I encountered and can hopefully either avoid them or devise more effective ways to accommodate them while minimizing the damage. I am trying to change my eating habits permanently, and being able to recognize some of the bad habits that I have should help me in being able to devise ways to change them for the better. That being said, my goal for Sunday 5/11 is 279.9 lbs. If I am successful, that will be my first foray below 280 in quite some time. If I were still on schedule, the goal would be 279.1 lbs. And to evoke the margin of error discussed previously, somehwere in the 278 lbs range would be a slick idea. So my official goal is to crack 279 lbs, with the minimum set for 279.9 lbs. Unofficially, I'm going to work extra hard to actually drop below 279 lbs and get somewhere into the 278 lbs range. Despite not achieving my goal, I'm still dropping the weight. I'm going to do my damndest to keep it up.

Good luck, peeps.

Since it's political season, go with the margin of error...

2008-04-27T15:20:00.001-07:00

So. Freaking. Close. My goal for this morning was 282.1 lbs, for a 1.5 lb drop from last Sunday. The week actually started ugly, and at one point I was up 4 pounds from last Sunday's weigh-in. Late night snacking, and a Chinese buffet were the culprits. Or rather my will power (or lack thereof) was the culprit and the snacking and buffet were the tools of my downfall. But I battled back. I did my power train walk, I had 2 extra gym days in there, and had an hour-plus of walking around at the Encinitas Street Fair on Saturday. End result, 282.2 lbs. So close, but within that "margin of error" that the politicians so love, so I'm going to claim the victory! Given that 1.5 lbs down from what today's goal was would be 280.6 lbs (as opposed to 1.5 lbs down from today's actual weigh-in for 280.7 lbs), I'm making 280.6 lbs as my goal for next Sunday. Wish me luck!

And wonders never cease...

2008-04-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

So. My goal for the 4/20 weigh-in was 283.9 lbs, for a 1.5 lb drop from the day after my birthday. Lo and behold that when I stepped on the scale this morning, the digital numbers stopped spinning at 283.6 lbs! w00t!!! I actually bettered my goal, and I really made it happen over just 3 days. Monday and Tuesday weren't good days. Monday was a working lunch and dinner with DAPGF. Tuesday, normally a train/walking day, didn't happen that way. I missed the train, so I drove to Santa Ana, thus eliminating my 20 minute power walk at the end of the day. I also didn't bring a lunch on Tuesday, so the day was more snack-laden than it should've been. Wednesday was ok until dinner. There was a 40th birthday party for the wife of one of my best friends, and it was being held at Cafe Sevilla, a local Spanish (not Mexican) restaurant known for both its tapas as well as its sangria. Topped off with dessert from Ghiradelli's Chocolate, Thursday morning's weigh-in saw me with a .6 lb gain over the 4/13 weigh-in. But I'd brought a lunch and caught the train, so the walking happened. DAPGF agreed to walk some more after dinner, and that helped immensely. Friday's weigh-in was down a pound from Thursday. More will power and train walking combined with after dinner walking knocked another .6 lbs off. Will power, a morning walk while the Jeep was getting the oil changed, a post-lunch walk, post-dinner walk, and then gym Sunday morning resulted in an additional drop of .2 lbs, for a total of 1.8 lbs loss for the week. Yay me! Next goal, 1.5 lbs down from this morning, for a weigh-in on 4/27 of 282.1 lbs. Wish me luck, peeps.

Happy Freaking Birthday!

2008-04-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

To give an indicator as to how screwy my life has become, my birthday was actually last Saturday. Sigh. That is probably one of the things that I miss most about no longer working in real estate development and now working as a consultant...hourly billing. As a consultant, I have to track my time in 15 minute increments and for a solid majority of the time have a project to bill my time against. I haven't figured out which billing code I can put "blogging" into and get away with it. I am working on it, so when I figure it out I will let you know. Back in the formerly superheated San Diego real estate market, a lot of my time was wasted in the "hurry up and wait" game. I had plenty of work to do, but much of what I did was dependent on work that my consultants (architects, structural engineers, landscape architects, etc.) would prepare. It left me plenty of time to blog (see the 2005-2006 archives for What Happened and The Randomness). Now, not so much. But enough of that.

I am now 37. I. am. getting. old. As my sweet little sister so kindly pointed out, no matter how old I get, I'll always be older than her. Pbtpbtbpt! With said increase in age comes a corresponding decrease in my metabolic rate. Combine that with DAPGF not teaching as often, and Hoff has fewer opportunities for a workout at the gym (yeah, I'm really getting my $32/month out of the deal...not!!). And to top that off, one of the nights that would theoretically be a gym opportunity is one of the days that I work late in Santa Ana...a day that if I'm lucky I get home by 7. The last thing I want to do at that point is change clothes and head to the gym. One minor thing that is helping a bit, is that DAPGF is also getting older, and she claims (not that I can see it) that she's gaining weight. So I've convinced her to start walking after we have dinner (which is another issue entirely). So we do a half-hour stroll through some random San Diego neighborhood after dinner, to try and minimize the inevitable damage from dinner. Ah, yes, dinner. When DAPGF taught several nights per week, those were nights that I could hit the gym after work, and then come home to a simple Lean Cuisine meal (or two...some of those things are pretty damn small), and play some poker. Now, 3 or 4 nights during the week we go out to various restaurants (cheap ones...can't afford to do it up richly every night) where she tries to get us ordering healthy foods, but she's at least as much of a carbaholic as I am. Breads, tortillas, french fries, pasta, rice, bring 'em on. I'm trying to keep a lid on that behavior, but I love 'em too. Meh.

Which brings me to the moral of the story: a birthday is a perfect time to set some new goals. To set the stage, I decided that my birthday would be a blowout of sorts. Friday night was a poker night with a bunch of friends ($20 buy-in, by the end of the evening I'd pretty much tripled my money), so that was a beer laden evening. Saturday started off at me and DAPGF's favorite tapas buffet, Azul La Jolla. I really tried to maintain some semblance of portion control, but if you saw the spread they laid out, you'd understand. The day was gorgeous, so we walked around La Jolla for a bit, and then dinner. Steak at Lou & Mickey's in the Gaslamp District. The meat is so flavorful there, it's almost painful. And their scalloped potatoes (more carbs) are a cheese-laden delight. And it was topped off with a piece of layered chocolate cake so moist and rich that you'd think it wasn't cooked all the way through. Oh so freaking good. So Sunday morning, I weighed myself before hitting the gym. 285.4 lbs. Yikes! But there's my starting point. 285.4 lbs. I want to get down to 240 lbs by Thanksgiving (just in time to put it all back on!). That's 45.4 lbs to lose over the next 7 months. Approximately 6.3 lbs per month, or just about 1.5 lbs per week. I think I can make that work, so dammit, I'm going to do it! Admittedly, I'm not off to a great start. No gym on Monday, and I drove to Santa Ana today so no walk back to the train depot, but I've got plenty of week left to get through. My goal for next Sunday morning will be 283.9 lbs. Fat and stupid is no way to go through life. Not sure what I can do about the stupid, but maybe I can at least work on the fat. Wish me luck, peeps!

The one in which we continue to yo-yo

2008-04-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

So. My last post on 3/19 saw a weigh-in of 284.4 lbs. Over the past two weeks, it was slightly up, then slightly down, until last weekend. Knowing that DAPGF and I were going to this fine establishment for the champagne brunch to celebrate her birthday, I worked extra hard to try and drop a few pounds...just to prepare. It doesn't matter how good the food is (and holy crap was it good!), buffet is still an evil word. Sunday morning, I was down to 281.2 lbs. But the 12:30 hour was fast approaching, and it was bringing crab claws. And omelettes. And prime rib. And seared ahi tuna. And 15 different types of cheeses. And 5 chili mole chicken breasts. And several different types of caviar. And smoked salmon. And porcini mushroom tortellinis. And you get the idea. End result? Monday's weigh-in was 285.8 lbs! Holy porcini mushrooms! Monday saw a slight drop off, as did Tuesday, but neither as much as I would've hoped. I still eat too much, and the only physical activity I got on Monday was 45 minutes at the driving range. Side note, as I noted, work had been crazy busy and it had been at least a month since I'd been to the range. My swing, which was far from perfect, went from a solid meh to a screaming WTF!. Tuesday helped somewhat, because I had to do my 20 minute walk back to the train at the end of the day. End result, this morning's weigh-in was 284.4 lbs...right where I was two weeks ago!

Normally, today would be a gym day, because DAPGF sometimes goes out with friends on Wednesdays. Hoff likes those days because I can go to the gym and eat a Lean Cuisine for dinner instead of going to a restaurant. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going to happen...so no gym and restaurant food. Not a good recipe for weight loss. At least I made it to the driving range at lunch. If I can minimize the damage today and make progress tomorrow with my walking, I might be in good condition to enter the weekend making some progress. My recent goal of losing 10 pounds in the month of March has obviously gone out the window. I've got 10 days until my birthday. My goal is to be under 280 lbs by the morning of my birthday (4/12), which is basically 5 pounds. So, .5 lbs per day. Theoretically, that should be an easy one. However, if it really was easy, I'd already be down to 240 lbs, so take from that what you will. Wish me luck, peeps.

Pathetic Efforts, and other excuses

2008-03-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

The dog ate my homework (well, tried to eat both an opossum and a raccoon, long freaking stories), work is hella busy (actually that has been true), I haven't had time to get to the gym (also sadly true, see "work" above). The short version is that it's been almost three weeks since my last post, and I've got pretty much nothing to show for it. Let's review the sadly unrealized goals:

1. Get caught up on emails. As I noted, I have far too many email addys. I've actually done almost adequate work on this front. I haven't been checking them as often as I should, but it's been often enough, for the most part. For the past 3 weeks, though, I've had the project from hell that I was working on. I was working on the train, I was working on the weekends, and I was working at night. I was NOT taking time first thing in the morning (which is my usual M.O.) to do a quick blast thru the emails whilst noshing on a bagel before starting the day. Nope. Too much stuff to do and not enough time.

2. Blogging more regularly. Well, it's been since 3/1 since I'd posted here at What Happened, I hadn't posted at Teh Randomness since 2/17, and 2/25 was the last post at How I Would Do It (too many blogs, I know). Hell, I went almost 3 weeks without a Tweet...it's been that kind of month. I've also been really bad at staying caught up on Bloglines. I probably have more feeds than I should (at least given the time constraints I've been under), but I'm working on that and made some progress this morning. With a little more free time in the office, I think I can keep a better handle on things. Time will tell, I suppose.

3. The big one (no pun intended), weight. I guess I should be satisfied that since March 1, I haven't gained any weight. The down side is that since March 1, I've only lost 2 pounds as of this morning. Granted, 2 pounds is better than nothing, but 2 pounds in almost 3 weeks is not enough. My goal had been 10 pounds for the month of March, but time and other issues are piling up against me. I'm about to partake in an Easter buffet with DAPGF at one of San Diego's institutions of fine dining, The Marine Room at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. Yes, just feel the snootiness oozing out of that sentence. Already I can see the line of Bentleys and Lamborghini's waiting to be valet parked. Also, DAPGF had a birthday last week. We were supposed to go to the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel this past Sunday for brunch, but DAPGF was hella sick all weekend. Not sure when that's going to be rescheduled, but it will happen. Maybe I can shove that into April sometime. Plus, I'm still snacking too damn much. Combine that with zero golfing and maybe 1 day per week at the gym, and the exercise factor has been non-existent as well. Plus, this train schedule doesn't give me the time to try and do the good old Exercise TV on-demand thing that I used to do. Meh.

So. With only 12 days left in the month, can I fashion a loss of 8 pounds? Theoretically, sure. .67 pound per day isn't completely out of reach. Difficult, but not completely out of reach. So I'm going to take a swing at hitting my goal. My birthday is next month, and I still want to start building some momentum in the correct direction. That my birthday will begin the progression to summer and time at teh beach is added motivayshun, because I don't want to still look like a freaking beached whale out there. So here we go. 2 pounds down, 8 more to go. Goal, 275.4 lbs or lower. Game on!

Mowtivayshun - I can has pleez?

2008-03-01T00:55:00.000-08:00

With apologies to the lolfans out there, March equals motivation. I have decided that I am motivated to actually accomplish a few things.

1. Stay caught up on emails. This is more difficult than one might think. 3 days per week, I work in Santa Ana in an office where I am blocked from accessing hotmail, yahoo mail, and Gmail. Between those three services, I have 10 or so email addys, 3 of which require regular attention. Before I leave in the mornings and before I crash out at night (DAPGF is asleep by this point), I'm going to make an effort to catch up on things.

2. Blogging. I am not only going to post more regularly at all of my blogs, but I'm also going to do a better job of keeping my Bloglines feed under control. Currently, I've got 582 unread posts. That is unacceptable. On nights DAPGF teaches, I will take an hour or so to run thru my Bloglines feeds, and maybe do a post or two. Some of this I can do at work, and will try to make circumspect use of that time.

3. Get back on the diet. Just to confirm how serious I am about this, I weighed myself at just after midnight, on the morning of March 1. 285.4 lbs. My goal is to lose at least 10 pounds over the course of March. The diet was the first "motivation" element I thought of, and I thought of it for one main reason. I turn 37 years old in April (when in the hell did I get old?). I really don't want my weight increasing with the years of my age, so I'm getting back on track. More consistent workouts, and more willpower when it comes to my food intake. Earlier in the week I succumbed to the siren call of a Chinese buffet. It was hawesome, but bad all at the same time. No more. No more vending machines, none of that. No more purchasing snacks to keep at the office. Nothing.

So there's my motivational goals. Wish me luck.

Here's What Happened to Me

2008-02-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

I got stuck with a really fugly work schedule. And for the past two weeks, when I haven't been ~~In The Ghetto~~ in Santa Ana, I've been working on a major proposal that is sucking up the rest of my free time. Trips to the driving range have been minimal, as have gym trips. Basically, the only exercise until recently that I've been getting has been my walking to the train station. Anyway...

My last post weigh-in was 283.0. In the ensuing 2 weeks, I've dropped down to approximately 282, exploded up to 284.6 lbs, and as of this morning dropped back to 283.4 lbs. They call me The Yo Yo. On the plus side, DAPGF is complaining that she's gaining weight. IMO, she's skinny and I can't tell if she's gaining weight, but I'm a dude so my opinions are obviously suspect. The upside of this is that she has started us walking after dinner again. Over the summer we walked for a half hour or more every evening after dinner. As it got darker and the weather got cooler, the walking faded away. Now, it seems, we're back into it. More exercise is always a good thing. Good luck out there.

I'm Still Here Dammit!

2008-02-12T15:32:00.001-08:00

I suck. I know. This work schedule is really not very blogger-friendly. I have GOT to talk to somebody about this! Anyway...

Jericho returns tonight!! 10 pm ET/PT, 9 in flyover country on your local CBS affiliate. Watch it and don't make me have to send more nuts to CBS again. Climb out of the malaise that is Dance Wars, The Biggest Loser, and Wife Swap. Watch a real show!

Not a helluva lot to report on the weight loss. The train/walking thing is somewhat beneficial, but my snacking habits are not. Curse the vending machines! New tweak to things. Instead of Tuesday mornings, my weekly goal dates are now Wednesday mornings. I'm doing this for two reasons. First, on Tuesday mornings I'm always in a rush to get out of Casa de Hoff in time to get to the train, and second, Monday evening is usually an evening with DAPGF going out to dinner and no real exercise. By moving it to Wednesdays, I'm less rushed in the mornings and might actually be able to write a post before heading off to my typical Wednesday staff meeting, and I have had the benefit of (hopefully) less to eat during the day because I don't bring a cooler bag with lunch in it, as well as the nearly 2 mile jaunt from the office to the Santa Ana train depot. As stated earlier, though, there's not a lot to report. This morning I weighed in at 283.0, a far cry from the 279.6 lbs that I managed to hit on the date of my last post (1/23, what kind of a loser am I?), but as is usually the case with me, it's been a yo-yo experience. I've spent several days from then to now in the 279s, actually 4 times hitting 279.6, and I've ranged up as high as 283.6. You have no idea what I would give for a consistent schedule, where I know I can get a solid amount of exercise every day. No gym tonight, but I did manage to make it to the driving range. Broke the head off of my 5 wood, but that gives me an excuse to look at replacements. This would be acceptable:
Let's see. Brakes for the Jeep? Taxes? Credit Card payments? Nah. I think this is a better idea.

A Taxi Cab Company of Orange County (yes, that's the official name) sucks at dispatching cabs on time. Tuesday and Friday I called for a cab 20 minutes or so ahead of when I wanted it, and 35 minutes ahead of when I NEEDED it, so I could catch my train back to San Diego. The first time the dude was just way too late, and picked me up at the time the train was scheduled to leave. No way to make it. The Friday one, the guy picked me up with what would've been enough time had he known where he was going. Unfortunately, I get the only white cab driver in Santa Ana, and he's apparently the only one who doesn't know where the damn train depot is! We pulled into the bus drop off area because it was closer to the train platform, just in time to see my Amtrak Pacific Surfliner pulling out of the station. Yeah. This was the wrong time of the month to explain to DAPGF (who was being neither D nor P at that point) why we were going to be late going out to dinner and so on. She teaches on Thursday night (Valentine's Day, for those who need the reminder) so we're celebrating on Friday. I think I'm going to leave work early enough to walk to the train depot (which is what I normally do), so that the only way I'll miss the train is if I get run over in a crosswalk or shot in a drive-by.

Last night at the gym, the last 5 songs to come up in the shuffle whilst on the elliptical hamster machine:

Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight
Bad Religion - Los Angeles is Burning
Dream Theater - Pull Me Under
LA Guns - Rip and Tear
Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.) - Speak English or Die

Had an interesting revelation at the gym over the weekend. Was doing my hamster impression on the elliptical, when Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden shuffled it's way into my bluetooth headphones. Interesting thing about that song. It is far from the "fastest" song that I listen to. That honor would likely go to something by Stormtroopers of Death (probably "Milk" or "Speak English or Die"), or something by Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, Megadeth, or Slayer. But the song is very fast paced. And the problem I had was it was just fast paced enough that I was pushing probably 85 rpm or so, when I normally run at around 70 rpm (a steady 70-ish rpm will get you 2.13 miles over 20 minutes). But it was just at that right speed where I couldn't slow it down and catch a double beat on the stride for some of the superfast songs, so I had to just sprint like a fiend. When I finished, the dude next to me asked what song came on my player, because after 15 minutes of steady I just opened up into a sick sprint. Just something to keep in mind.

Have fun out there, and Stay Classy.

Busy busy busy

2008-01-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

Weird observation of the day. Jello Pudding Pops. I love's me some pudding, and I loves me some ice cream. Combine the two, and Hoff is a happy camper. Conveniently, Jello Pudding Pops only have 80 cal each, so it's a frozen, yummy, not too evil treat. I recently purchased a box that contained Vanilla, Chocolate, and Swirl. I must say, the flavors were really accurate pudding flavors, particularly the vanilla (you can definitely tell the difference between vanilla ice cream and vanilla pudding, much more so than the difference between chocolate pudding and chocolate ice cream). But the weird observation is this: after 3 days in the freezer, they've all assumed the same temperature. The chocolate ones were nicely frozen, as you would expect. The swirl ones seemed softer, and the vanilla ones were very soft. I had no idea that different pudding flavors had different freeze characteristics. Sounds like something NASA or the Department of Homeland Security should be studying. Anyway...

This work schedule of mine makes it really difficult to keep up on my blogging. Tuesdays are the days that I have my weekly goals scheduled for, and in the past I would usually post on those days to give an update to my status. Unfortunately, Tuesdays have me jumping on a train first thing in the morning and going up to Santa Ana. And the office there is laden with IT nazis who don't want me to be able to do anything fun. I cannot access Blogger, hell, I can't even access Yahoo Mail or Gmail! So suffice to say, blogging doesn't happen up there. So now I'm going to provide a much needed and deserved update.

When last we blogged on January 8, we were at 282.2 lbs, aiming for 280.2 lbs. Well, we didn't exactly make it. I was making a little bit of progress through the week, but a Chinese buffet got in my way on Monday, and instead of 280.2 lbs on 1/15, I hit 283.6 lbs! Oops! So this past week was going to be a solid effort. Careful on food, working out whenever possible. Friday's weigh-in on 1/18 was actually down to 280.0, but I was afraid that the weekend would nuke me, as it usually does. I did gain a bit over the weekend, but just small amounts. 280.2 lbs. 280.6 lbs, and then the weigh in on Tuesday 1/22: 280.8 lbs. Yes I'd come back up from the low point, but I was nearly a full pound below my goal of 281.6 lbs, so I'm proud of myself. And to top it off, this morning's weigh-in was all the way down to 279.6!!! Below 280 for the first time in quite a while!!! Woo hoo!!! All this walking up several flights of stairs for the train, plus the 3x per week brisk 1.6 mile walk from the Santa Ana office to the train depot seems to be paying off. Yay me!! Wish me luck in keeping it going.

Aaaaand we're off!!!!

2008-01-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened on the way through the first week of 2008. I LOST SOME WEIGHT!!!! Now, I didn't make my goal, but I got close enough that I'm going to claim victory. The morning of January 1, my weigh in was 284.0 lbs, and my 2 lb per week goal would've put my weigh in for the morning of Jan 8 at 282.0 lbs. Over the weekend I had actually gotten all the way down to 281.6 lbs, but following my usual pattern, Sunday nuked me. It was my Dad's birthday, and DAPGF and I took him out for lunch. Which was followed by Mud Pie. Which was evil but in a good way, and my weight had subsequently spiked back to 283.4 lbs for Monday's weigh in. But because my weigh in is now on Tuesday, I had the opportunity to attempt to atone for my naughtiness. End result, the weigh in on Jan 8 was 282.2 lbs!! Can a brother get a w00t!!! So for Tuesday Jan 15, the goal is 280.2 lbs. I'm actually going to aim lower, and see if I can hit 280 even, which is where I should be. But the official goal is 282.2 lbs. Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you.

Happy Freaking New Year!!

2008-01-01T11:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year all you freaks and such. Hope you had a fun and safe New Year's Eve, and that you are now ready for some heavy duty resolutions and weight loss efforts. Personally, I had a great NYE. Me and DAPGF went to an 80s party in a converted church. GF commented on how interesting people's different takes on the 80s were, especially those who missed them the first time. Me, I was there in all my headbanging glory. There were those dressed as hair metalers, or wearing concert Ts (some even appeared to have gone to the shows...damn my fatness that made all of those t-shirts unwearable). There were the New Wavers, with their Depeche Mode or Cure wigs and makeup on, Boy George was there, as were several Madonnas and Flavor Flav (pre Flavor of Love, natch). A couple of Molly Ringwalds (no Long Duk Dong, sadly) and one Marty McFly. Good times. On to bidness.

NYE morning, my weigh-in was 284.6, a decidedly bad weight, a good 7 pounds higher than my lowest point of 2007, but at least 6 pounds down from my highest point of 2007. January 1, 2008. Weigh in at 284.0 lbs. There is a small qualifier here, in that this weigh-in happened much later in the morning than normal, and as such likely would've been higher had I weighed myself early as is my normal practice. Still, it was my first weigh-in of 2008, so that's where I start. I'm also going to take advantage of the calendar and see if I can address a recurring problem from last year. I usually did alright during the week and fell apart on Sunday, erasing much if not all of my progress from the week. So given that January 1 is on a Tuesday, my weekly goals are now going to be from Tuesday to Tuesday. It just seems logical. Besides, DAPGF's teaching schedule is all screwed up, so I'm not sure how often I'm going to get to hit the gym during the week, so I may as well make it Tuesday to Tuesday and just run with it.

To formalize all of this, I'm sticking with the goal of 2 pounds loss per week, and I'm going to try and get back into tracking things regularly on My Fitness Pal. My work schedule makes it very difficult to get any kind of meaningful time on the internet, so it should present a whole new batch of challenges. In any respect, I don't see myself getting below 200 lbs, or at least in a healthy fashion, so my resolution is to lose enough weight to get below 240 lbs. I'm sitting at 284 lbs, so 44 pounds. Assuming I make my goals each week (nobody's THAT optimistic), by summer I should be ready to hit the beach. I'm going to try like hell to hit that, and in that regard, my current work assignments may actually help. Because of my limited time in my assignment in Santa Ana, I expect to take the train from San Diego to Santa Ana, work from 9:15 to 2:15 each day without taking a lunch (there's the key), at most eating a small snack from the lounge. If I can hold to that, that should cut out 200-500 calories per day.

Related to the assignment is my resolution to be more organized in my entire life. Tall order I know, but so many of my shortfallings, both professional and personal, can be traced to this one aspect of yours truly. I plan to hit this in several different ways, some of which I've already started. Blogging. Because of my limited internet time during the work day combined with my uncertain amount of free time in the evenings (depending on DAPGF's teaching schedule), finding time to both post and read other blogs is difficult at best. The first step I've taken is to setup a Bloglines reader. Most of the bloggers I know from the poker blogging world use them, and it's high time I do likewise. The great thing is that I can see at a glance who has new posts and how many. Reading them is little more than clicking on a link in the reader. No redirect, no having to "back page" or anything like that. I also plan to set aside periods of time at least twice per week (depending on DAPGF's schedule) to post on my blogs. I'm trying to use the Google empire more and more to keep things in my life accessible and organized. Google calendar is pretty slick and the email reminders are priceless. Google docs allows me to post something to an internet folder that I can access from anywhere. Having access to excel sheets that I use for budgeting or tracking my timesheets from home, my office, or my client's office is a real help. Right now the other key thing I'm trying to organize is my bill paying process. It used to be that I simply kept everything in my briefcase and paid them during a slow period at work. I've managed to get most of them able to be paid online, and a few are automatic debit. Still, I need to remember to pay the online ones, and there are a few that I actually have to mail a payment in for. My plan for this is to pay the mail ones while on the train. Dead time with no internet access, it should be a good way to work. The electronic ones I've been setting Google Calendar reminders, and hopefully I'll be better about minding those than I have been through November and December. I am also working hard at organizing my desk/computer area to make it easier to actually do some of these activities here at Casa de Hoff. Finally, every night before I crash out I'm going to take a half hour and log in my daily activities. Meals, exercise, and calories will go onto My Fitness Pal at that time, and any spending I've done will go onto my budget and expense worksheets. So I've got exercise, finance, and blogging planned out. Whether I can stick with them is anybody's guess, but I'm for damn sure going to try. Wish me luck, peeps, and good luck to all of you.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-26T10:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't speak for everybody, but it has been hella busy for me. I started two new work assignments that keep me out of the office a lot, and when I'm in the office I'm usually working on three different things at once. Combine all of that with going out of town for Christmas, and Hoff has been sorely behind in his blogging. So, on to the fat.

This morning (Wednesday, 12/26), I weighed in at 283.6 lbs. The last time I weighed myself on a known scale was Sunday, 12/23, and I weighed in at 284.2 lbs. I had been in the 282's, so that was an unwelcome bump. But given the holidays and being on the road, I'll take a drop in weight. New Year's Eve notwithstanding, I'm working hard to get back into a groove. These new assignments are time-killers...several times in the past few weeks I've not made it into the gym because I've worked late. Combine that with DAPGF's shortened teaching schedule (nothing between now and New Years, then 1 day a week thru February) and I'm sensing potential disaster. There are a few upsides to the new assignments. One of them involves field work, specifically meeting with several homeowners to talk about a construction project going on in and around their townhomes. This necessitates climbing up a lot of stairs, and walking around condo communities looking for units that may be impacted by this construction project. The other one is a remote assignment. Basically, 3 days each week I'll take the train from San Diego to Santa Ana, so that I can do planning work in this office from 9 to 2 each of those days. To maximize the amount of work I'm able to do, I'll be avoiding lunch. My plan is to have some sort of minimal calorie snack like a granola bar to keep me going. I don't know if there's snack opportunities on the train, but I will try to avoid them. The other upside to this is that in Santa Ana I'll have a walk of a little over a mile to and from the train. So there's 15 minutes morning and afternoon of light cardio. Every little bit, I suppose.

So we shall see if there's any positive effects that come out of these new assignments. New year, new assignments, maybe I can build some new momentum. I wish all of you luck and happy holidays!

Let us commence the week with a resounding meh

2007-12-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

Meh. That about sums it up. This past month-ish has witnessed a whole lot of no progress. I certainly could've worked harder, but work and weather have to shoulder some of the blame. It has actually been cold (for San Diego), so the dog has not wanted to go on long walks at 11:30 at night or 6:20 in the morning. Secretly, neither did I. That got worse when it started raining for two weekends in a row. Plus, the rain screwed up the two chances I'd had recently to hit the driving range. Combine that with a workload that was surprisingly packed and dictated that I work thru lunch on the days that weather would've permitted a trip to the range. Not exactly the way I wanted to enter the holiday season, but there ya go.

So, last Monday my weigh-in was 283.6 (wasn't I back in the 270s at one point?), and my theoretical 2 pound goal would've been a weigh-in this morning of 281.6. Well, that didn't happen. Rain was the big factor. A week ago, the rains were substantial enough to flood the parking lot of the driving range, and it was closed for half the week. And Wednesday I had a lunch meeting away from the office. Thursday I worked thru lunch and then couldn't hit the gym because I had a holiday party to attend. Beer and party munchies. Not the best diet plan out there. Another Christmas party on Friday for one of DAPGF's friends (more beer, yay!). I did make it to the gym on Saturday and Sunday, but I was getting sick (have a full blown cold now, dammit), so my workouts were less than enthusiastic.

But a strange thing happened. For the first time in recorded history (or at least that I can remember), I actually lost weight from a Sunday morning to a Monday morning. DAPGF and I had a decently light lunch on Sunday, and thanks to a Thai restaurant with surprisingly small portions (and apparently no heater inside the building!), my weight actually went down to 283.0 for this morning, which is a drop of 1.6 pounds from Sunday (itself an increase from last Monday) and a net loss for the week of .6 lbs! So it wasn't the net two pound loss I'm trying for, but it was a welcome bit of progress. And with the weather being nicer (at least drier but still on the nippy side), I hit the driving range at lunch. And I get the gym tonight. And to top it off, I'm playing a round of golf at Torrey Pines on Wednesday! One of the Top 50 courses in the country, and it is literally a 5 minute drive from Casa de Hoff! So because I hadn't been to the range for probably more than a month, I'm somewhat rusty. So even though I normally wouldn't have hit the range today, and likely not tomorrow, I'm doing it. So even more exercise! So long as next weekend doesn't cause a major implosion (and my boss is having his Christmas party on Saturday - more drinking!), I might actually make it back towards the 270s by next Monday! Stay classy, Planet Earth!

So about that weight loss thing...

2007-12-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

So. Gonna lose 2 whole pounds this week. Yeah, that didn't exactly go as planned. I was actually doing alright, I was down a pound by Thursday when disaster struck. San Diego got deluged with rain, so much so that I got a flat tire driving thru a flooded roadway heading back to the office. So no golf. DAPGF and I were house and pet-sitting, so my gym time Saturday and Sunday mornings was cut short. And when all was said and done, I was up by a pound on Monday's weigh-in. Tuesday had me down .6 lbs from Monday, so maybe I can make some progress. I made it to the gym Monday night, but I've got a meeting on Wednesday at lunch and I've got a Holiday Drinks and Drinks (we like to drink) party Thursday evening. So not only will I not be working out, I'll be eating bar food and drinking. I can has recipe for disaster? We shall see...

Well, I didn't expect THAT to happen...

2007-11-26T09:30:00.001-08:00

So happy post-Thanksgiving! I hope you all feasted (but not too much) and made it to and from wherever you may have gone safely. As for me, it was a quiet Thanksgiving with DAPGF. Being the first Thanksgiving without my mother, my father was graciously invited to spend Thanksgiving with my sister's in-laws who are absolutely wonderful people. These are the people who make you want to believe in the goodness of humanity. But with Dad off to the hinterlands of the midwest, DAPGF and I went to the Hotel Del Coronado for their outrageously outrageous buffet. I failed to bring my camera (and the lighting wasn't sufficient for camera phone work), so I was unable to show you just what sort of hellish nirvana was spread before us. To quote John Pinette "Pork chops and spare ribs and scampi, oh my!" There was a bit of everything. Oh who am I kidding? There was a LOT of everything! And an entire separate room of desserts! And the setting? A sunny, slightly breezy day in Coronado right on the beach. Yeah, just another crappy day in paradise! I tried to upload some pics from the Hotel's website, but Blogger seems to be having issues. Meh. Just know that it was a phenomenal meal at a phenomenal place on a phenomenal day. Life is good.

Ahhh, but this is a diet blog. And I would be remiss were I to fail to discuss matters of corpulence. So here's the "skinny" (another joke coming at ya! I got a million of 'em!). On Monday 11/19, my weigh-in was 284.6. I knew the buffet would be outrageous, and you few regular readers know my struggles with anything containing the word "buffet," so I had been working diligently to prepare for the feast. By Thanksgiving morning (pre-feast), I was at 282.0. I had planned to make it to the gym on Friday, but I had to take my POS Jeep into the dealer for some warranty work. So no working out, but no outrageous snacking. By the time I got home, showered and weighed myself, I was at 282.6 lbs. So after one of the more outrageous buffets this side of the Bellagio in Vegas, I had only gained .6 lbs! Can a brother get a w00000t! But wait! There's more! DAPGF had some friends in town for the weekend, and she went out with them on Friday. So Hoff doesn't have to go out to eat. By Saturday's weigh-in, (post gym) I was down to 281.0! Woo hoo!!! Saturday we had a very sensible lunch (back on Coronado for some reason) and some of the best raw, dead fish you'll ever come across at Sushi on the Rock in downtown La Jolla. Absolutely righteous. And the Sunday weigh-in was 281.4 lbs. So after all of that sushi goodness, I'll accept a .4 lb gain. Oh, and I did NOT make it to the gym on Sunday, so the gain was even more acceptable.

Sunday wound up being somewhat less successful from a food intake perspective, unfortunately. I was helping DAPGF get her lesson plans together for her classes this week, so she decided to make lunch, instead of losing an hour and a half away from the computer. Vegetarian burritos. They were very good, but I had more of them than I should. And then came dinner. A nice Italian place down in the Bird Rock neighborhood of La Jolla. Carpaccio, a wonderful caesar salad, and some outrageous mushroom and four cheese ravioli. Topped off by my second-favorite ice cream, Baskin Robbins Chocolate Oreo ice cream. And that was probably the final tipping point. Weigh-in for Monday...282.8 lbs. So I gained 1.4 lbs from Sunday to Monday, but I wound up down 1.8 lbs for the week of Thanksgiving. Ya know, I'll freaking take it! So if I'm managing to get my fat ass back into a loss mode, my goal for next Monday should be 280.8 lbs. Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you in the quest to undo the holidays!

The Fog is Getting Thicker. And Leon (Hoff) is Getting Larger!

2007-11-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dammit! It's not supposed to happen like this! Considering that I had just about no gym time last week, I was actually making a bit of progress towards my goal for today of 281.8 lbs. And I even made it to the gym both Saturday and Sunday mornings, and DAPGF and I even went on a walk along La Jolla cove for about an hour on Saturday, but once again my progress was thwarted by great restaurants and my lack of willpower. Friday night actually wasn't too bad. Small salad and a grill sampler plate consisting of a steak quesadilla, grilled shrimp, and something else that I forget. Not outrageous by any means, and with the gym on Saturday morning, my weigh-in showed no increase from Friday morning. Woo hoo! Then came lunch. One word. Buffet. Show me the buffet!! Granted, the food tended to be on the healthy side of things, but if you eat enough you will eventually gain weight. Combine that with going out for dinner and many drinks with friends, and I've got the recipe for a 1.5 pound weight gain on Sunday morning. This despite another trip to the gym. Sunday I was on my own for lunch, but dinner consisted of Thai (pad thai, stir-fry shrimp, lots of rice and noodles, and some Baskin Robbins Chocolate Oreo Cookie ice cream (second in my world only to Ben and Jerry's Brownie Batter ice cream). And Monday's weigh-in: 284.8 lbs. Yep. Not only didn't I lose anything from last week, but I gained a pound! Holy fatness!

Still, somehow I remain optimistic. DAPGF teaches tonight and Thursday, so there's two gym nights when I can limit my meals to Lean Cuisine-esq meals. She might have something going on for Tuesday (which would be another gym/eat at home night), and she's getting her hair done after work on Wednesday, which might mean I get another gym/home evening. I can't let these opportunities slip by. I will make some progress, some hard core progress. If nothing else, I need to make progress to offset what next weekend will inevitably bring. Wish me luck, peeps.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

2007-11-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

Well it was nice to see that I could guess exactly what would happen after my last post. After my shocking jump to 284.8 last week, I guessed that by Tuesday's weigh-in I'd be down to around 282. Sure as hell, I weighed in at 282.0. Unfortunately, that was the end of the goodness. DAPGF has gone from teaching on the evenings of Tues, Wed, and Thurs to teaching on Monday and Thursday. So my potential gym times have dropped and they're less "strategically" located. I've now got a long period in the middle of the week where, not only am I not going to the gym, but I'm going out to eat evil good restaurant food instead of eating my Lean Cuisines and such. It is most certainly not conducive to steady weight loss. Admittedly it is my own fault...DAPGF isn't forcing food down my throat, but so much better to be able to avoid the temptation.

Anyway, back to my fat. Because of the way the week is now structured, each day I gained a little weight back. I went from 282.0 to 282.4 to 282.6 and so on. Probably the only reason I didn't completely blimp back up was the dog walks. Now that the doggie is healing up nicely, we go on longer walks, particularly in the evening. Every little bit helps. But traffic was a nightmare on Thursday and I didn't come close to even trying to go to the gym. And Saturday went beyond the normal evil meals and included getting together with some of DAPGF's friends for Chinese food (yum but evil) and drinky-drinks at their place afterwards. And I also didn't make it to the gym on both Saturday and Sunday (vet visit on Saturday and assorted chores on Sunday), so I missed out on two opportunities to try and offset the naughtiness that I had wrought. End result, this morning's weigh-in: 283.8. Yes I gained back 1.8 pounds during the course of the week, but I was still down a pound overall for the week. I'm going to take it.

The time change has been a huge benefit so far. I was able to get up early enough to walk the doggie a decent distance, and also get my gym bag together for after work. I also got to work early and motivated, and even took the stairs up to the 3rd floor. I'm going to kick ass this week. My 2 pound goal is 281.8 lbs, but I want to do better. With the time change I'm going to either try to do longer doggie walks in the morning, or (and I think this is the more effective option) do decent dog walks and do a 10-15 minute Exercise TV workout afterwards. Being back in the 280s sucks, or as it might be stated here, Do Not Want! Dammit, I'm going to beat this. That first 10-12 pounds came off really easily and quickly. I really plateaued and made zero progress in August and September, and started to backslide in October. November is going to resume progress. I'm obviously not going to make my goal of 240 by Christmas, unless I amputate my leg or something, but if I can get below 270 I'll feel pretty good. Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you.

Umm, this "one little day" crap has got to stop!

2007-10-29T09:32:00.001-07:00

So. The past two posts have lamented the damage that one little day can bring to a fairly successful week of weight loss efforts. In short, what progress I'd made throughout the week was undone by one day's worth of evil food. This past week was by far the worst. Granted, it wasn't really a good week by any stretch. With the fires here in San Diego, it was smoky enough that I thought it prudent to avoid extended physical exertion outside, so the dog walks were cut short. Combine that with the fires canceling school for practically everybody in San Diego County, and DAPGF's week of teaching was out the window. With that, my gym nights were eliminated along with my eating Lean Cuisine-esque meals on those days she normally teaches. So the stage is set for little to no progress. Saturday morning, though, I managed to make it to the gym. I only got a shorty workout in, because DAPGF was scrambling to get her final exams prepped for 3 classes all on one day. Sunday was more of the same, with one exception. We met my father for lunch at a brewpub near Casa de Hoff. I know I did not make the wisest of choices, but I figured that with the gym I might survive with minimal damage. Until dinner. As with Saturday ( caturday?), I was helping DAPGF with her schoolwork (it sounds so sweet and innocent!). She decided to reward me with dinner at my favorite Chinese joint in San Diego, Mandarin House. Me and some friends order from this place (it does sit down and to go) as often as possible, to the extent that at one point several years ago, I could call up, tell them I wanted to place an order to go, they would reply "is this hoff?" I'd reply "yes," to which they would simply ask if I wanted egg rolls or not. We ordered that often that they knew our order. Anyway, I don't go there much anymore, because the food is simply too evil from a diet perspective. Tasty as all hell, but all kinds of wrong from the diet perspective. But DAPGF suggested it as a reward for all the help I gave her over the weekend. So I went. I did have the egg rolls, along with Kung Pao Shrimp and the Mandarin 3 Flavor Pan Fried Noodles (told ya I was a pastafarian). Oh sweet flavor! But I knew it was going to be a baaaaad thing on Monday. And sure enough it was. Last Monday (10/22) my weigh-in was 281.4 lbs, and my goal was 279.4. I don't like being back in the 280s...I want to get through the 270s and work back into the 260s at least. My ultimate goal is 240, but that's way off in the distance at this point. Because this morning's weigh-in was 284.8! WITHF (What In The Holy F**k)?!?!?!?

Fortunately, I know that was a one-off experience and should only be a temporary spike. Unless I do something utterly stupid food-wise today, my weigh-in tomorrow should be 282 or under. DAPGF is starting a new teaching schedule, and my gym nights are dropping from 3 to 2 per week, but I'm going to try and make the most of them. That and on the days that I don't make it to the gym, I'm going to do something physical during the day. Most likely the driving range at lunch, but even walking at lunch. The business park where my office is has lots of hills, so I should be able to get a decent 15 minute walk in that actually has an effect on things. Wish me luck, peeps.

One Little Day...Revisited

2007-10-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

When last we posted, we observed how one little day can undo a whole bunch of good efforts. In that example, my Monday 10/8 weigh-in zoomed up to 281.4 lbs, due to some Mexican Food and Margarita indiscretions. By mid week, I'd dropped back to 279.6, almost to my revised goal of 279.4 lbs. And then work blew up in my face. Gym time? Out the window due to late hours. Golf time? Yeah, right. Still, I was managing to hover within spitting distance of my goal weight, and even made it to the gym that Sunday (10/14). But Sunday was not a good day. Breakfast was huge, and then I played in a poker tournament. I only had a few drinks and no real snacking, so yay me. Unfortunately that was the last good effort on my part. Dinner consisted of Italian. Those of you who read What Happened with any regularity know that I'm a pastafarian. It can be in the form of Lo Mein (Chinese), Pad Thai (Thai), Lasagna (Italian), Udon (Japanese), or even SpaghettiOs. I lurves me some pasta. Hell, carbs in general (rice, breads, french fries, tortilla chips, etc.), but pasta kicks ass. So dinner consisted of fresh bread, fried calamari, a nice salad, and 4 cheese tortellini. I was baaaaad. And the Monday weigh-in reflected this by hitting 281.4! Again!

So this week's goal is 279.4 lbs. Again. So far it hasn't been great, but I'm making bits of progress. Work has been slamming me, so the gym hasn't happened at all. The dog had a good vet appointment last week, and the doctors have said that we can start increasing the physical activity levels, so I'm starting to increase the duration of the walks. Beyond that, there's not much happening. As of today (10/18), I was down to 280.6 lbs, and hopefully I can get back into the groove by the weekend. Wish me luck, peeps.

The one in which we see what damage one little day can do...

2007-10-10T13:57:00.001-07:00

It's amazing how a week's worth of progress can be erased by one day's worth of "indiscretions". My goal for this past Monday had been 276.8 lbs. By Saturday morning I was down to 277.8, and getting closer to the goal. But the entire week had been nothing but frustration for DAPGF, due to a variety of things work-related. But on Sunday we managed to address some of the items and figure out an action plan to deal with the issues she's been facing. I won't go into details, but think "jerk-off boss" and go from there. Anyway, after our success in getting thru the weekend, DAPGF wanted to celebrate. Here in San Diego, we gots us some wicked-tasty Mexican grub, and I'm not talking about El Pollo Loco or El Torito. In particular, there's a California State Park that is called Old Town San Diego, and it reflects San Diego's Mexican and Native American heritage. Think Williamsburg, VA, but with modern amenities and you won't be too far off. So we went to our favorite Mexi joint there, had a couple of freshly made tortillas while we waited for them to call us for a seat, and then sat down. Service was unfortunately a little slow, so we consumed a lot of chips and salsa, which weren't the best things for us (but oh were they tasty!), but what can you do? Then the meal came. Caesar salad, fajitas, beans, rice, and Margaritas galore!! Oh and they were potent. Any time you can smell the tequila as the waitress simply sets the glass down on the table, you know you're in for a good time. End result, though, my weigh-in on Monday 10/8 was 281.4!!! Holy crap! I haven't been north of 280 in quite some time! I guess my goal for 10/15 is going to be 279.4 lbs.

But as I've said many times, I'm still optimistic. I know I can lose the weight, so I'm just going to go ahead and lose it! Despite not being able to hit the gym yet this week, and having a 22 oz Breakwater Pale Ale with my lunch at the Rock Bottom Brewery on Tuesday (had to go to a meeting for work downtown, and it was from 11:30 to 1:30, so I earned a lunch…and I'm expensing it! I looove being a consultant!), my weight this morning was down to 279.6. Progress my friends, progress. Just wish me luck in keeping it going.

(Hopefully) A Return to Progress

2007-10-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

Greetings and Salivations! New month, new efforts! September wasn't a bad month, it just was a kind of screwy and ineffective month. Those few of you still stopping by here at What Happened know that my dear doggie has been of ill health. Specifically, she was diagnosed as having an "exploded" disc in her lower lumbar region. Simple version, one of the discs in her back had broken up into bits, and the bits were putting pressure on her spinal cord. This (logically) was the source of her pain, lack of energy, etc. She had surgery to clean things up on 9/25, and it was a resounding (if not expensive) success! She is already getting her energy and appetite back, and even though she's on a restricted physical regimen, she would rather be back to doing the usual stuff, like 45 minute walks through the canyons adjacent to Casa de Hoff. For pretty much the entire month of September, though, she's been on restricted activity, either by choice via the pain or after we got her on steroids, by doctor's orders. I think it was this that was one of two major contributions to my lack of progress in losing weight throughout September. Every day, I would have two 40-60 minute walks at a reasonably moderate pace (varying 3.0-3.5 on a treadmill). With the pain and restrictions, those walks got cut down to 5-10 minutes each at a slower pace, thus removing two major calorie-burning activities every single day. The other contributor to my lack of progress was also dog-related. Most nights that DAPGF taught, I had to head straight home to keep an eye on the dog, or take her to a doctor's appointment. As such, of the 20 or so gym opportunities I had during September, I probably made it only 4 or 5 times.

Still, it could have been worse. As it happens, my weight on 9/1 was 278.6, and the weigh-in yesterday on 10/1 was 278.8. And yesterday was screwy unto itself. Because doggie came home late last week from her surgery, DAPGF worked from home on Friday to keep an eye on her, and I stayed home on 10/1 to keep an eye on her. Interestingly, I managed to do a better job of not snacking than I do at work. Despite a dinner that consisted of Jack Daniels Shrimp, potato skins, fries (they came with the shrimp), and a piece of Oreo chocolate cake from TGI Fridays, I managed to drop .2 lbs and weigh-in at 278.6 on Tuesday morning. So far I've been really good at not eating anything extra, and I made it to the driving range to try out my new driver. My slice is still fugly, but I'm getting pretty good power out of the new club. I'm planning to hit the gym tonight, and with DAPGF teaching I get to stay home and eat a Lean Cuisine for dinner. Tomorrow should be a pretty good day. My goal for 10/8 is 276.8 lbs. I've obviously had a problem breaking past the 275 barrier, but I think I've got the start of some momentum. Wish me luck! Keep it up out there!

Public Service Announcement

2007-09-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

***Warning, graphic content ahead. SFW, but graphic***

So I ended my weekend on a really rough note. I went to take the dog for a walk at 5, before DAPGF and I went to get dinner. As I was walking past our condo's pool, I glanced in and saw what appeared to be a person floating face down in the water, and nobody else around. I got out my keys and got into the pool area, clipped the dog leash to the fence, and whipped out the cell phone to call 911. While it's ringing, I take off my shoes, keys, wallet, etc., and jump into the shallow end where the guy is floating. 911 answers and PUTS ME ON HOLD!!! I close the phone and chuck it up on the pool deck, scream for somebody to call 911 (several times), and grab this guy who is about 6 feet tall and probably weighs 200 pounds and hurl him up onto the pool deck. Boy Scouts 20 years ago comes rushing back and I get him on his side to try and clear his airway. Beer starts coming out his nose and mouth. While I'm checking for a pulse, my cell phone starts ringing. I don't know why, but I knew it was 911 calling me back (since I hung up on them) and I answered it. The 911 operator tells me that paramedics are on the way, and starts talking me through mouth to mouth and CPR. Side note, compression/breathing patterns have changed since I was last certified in the 1980s. People start to gather around the pool deck, but only one dude is helping me out at this point, mainly wiping the beer, water, and whatever off of this guy's face while I'm doing chest compressions. After about 10 minutes of that, I realized that the other dude had left. No idea why, no idea where he went. A few minutes after that, the San Diego Fire paramedics showed up and took over. I called DAPGF to come down and get the dog, to finish her walk. A San Diego Police officer took my statement (what happened, when did I find the guy, yadda yadda yadda). After about another 20 minutes of working on the guy, the paramedics stopped, saying that he was gone. After talking with a bunch of my neighbors who were hanging around with DAPGF, I went home and showered. We decided to go get something to eat, not that I had much of an appetite at that point. We decided to walk by the pool one last time, to see if the coroner had shown up so I could give her my statement and not have to have her call me during dinner or something. Fortunately she was there and that business was taken care of. I still feel queasy.

Things learned from this whole experience. You shouldn't swim alone, and you really shouldn't swim when you've been drinking. I only saw one can of beer on a table by the chaise lounge where the guy's wallet, flip flops, etc. were, but I bet he spent the day drinking while watching football. You should also carry your keys (all of them, storage rooms, pool areas, club houses) with you at all times. Damn near all of my neighbors said that they were amazed that I had my pool key on my key ring. Apparently they all keep theirs on separate rings. That, and keep a cell phone with you at all times. I walk the dog early in the morning and late at night. I am 6'3" and weigh in the range of 277-280, and I'm walking a Doberman Pinscher. It's not that likely that anybody is really going to hassle me while I'm walking, but why take the chance. So take these experiences and use them to better protect yourselves. I'm also going to find a CPR course and get re-certified, and I suggest that you all do it, too. Again, better to be prepared than find yourself in a bad situation and not know what to do. I feel bad that I wasn't able to get the guy revived, but I know I did everything that I could, and I did it as right as possible. I hope you never find yourself in such a position, but if you do, I hope you have read this post and are better prepared for it.

***Cross-posted at The Randomness***

How Stupid Can You Be?

2007-09-21T12:56:00.001-07:00

And for the stupid is as stupid does award…

We bring you the story of MIT student, Star Simpson. She's attending MIT, so she's brainy and likely somewhat techy and geeky (not that there's anything wrong with that). She has to go to Logan International Airport in Boston to meet her boyfriend. She decides to wear a sweatshirt upon which she's attached a lighted computer circuit board with visible wiring, and she's holding a wad of play doh in her hand. After having the authorities level machine guns at her and arrest her, she's actually protesting what happened, and pleading "not guilty" to a charge of disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device.

OK. Was what she did a harmless statement (as she said)? Technically, yes. She was not wearing a bomb. Did she exercise judgment that goes beyond stupid? Hell yes. Let's examine this. Post 9/11 USA. "Let me dress like a suicide bomber, but it will just be a joke. Nobody should misunderstand what I'm doing. And to add to the excitement, maybe I'll do it at the airport where two of the four highjacked 9/11 planes took off from. And just to extract maximum irony, I'll do it in the city that went apeshit over the Aqua Teen Hunger Force goofy fake bomb thing. I should really be able to make a statement that way." And you wonder why the men with the big guns told you to get face down on the pavement. And you wonder why you were placed under arrest. Did the authorities overreact? To the ATHF thing, probably. To her, nope. I'd say they did their jobs correctly, and I'm glad for it. Besides, every single airport I've ever been in has always had a sign (several, actually) that had words to the effect of, "We take all comments regarding bombs and guns seriously." Meaning even if you're joking, we're going to react as though your comment was meant seriously. So if you go to an airport, any airport much less the one which was pretty much the epicenter of the 9/11 tragedy, and basically say that you've got a bomb strapped to your body, you should expect to be treated as a terrorist threat. The moron is lucky to still be alive. Major Scott Pare of the Mass. State Police was quoted as saying, "She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device. Had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force."

I understand the idea of making a statement, really I do. Unfortunately the statement that came across was, "I'm a f**king moron. Shoot me." Mr. Darwin, we likely have a future candidate for your award.

Dogs, steroids, and any excuse to not work out...

2007-09-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Wassup party peeps! I apologize for the lack of posts, but my dear doggie has been having some severe health issues, and I’ve been shuttling back and forth to vets, hand feeding her, and other assorted sick doggie activities. Right now the preliminary diagnosis is a slipped or herniated disc that has been causing lethargy, pain, lack of appetite, and a desire to not move her hind legs. The neurologist vet (yes, we’ve gotten to that stage) put her on steroids (my own little Dobie Bonds!) to see if they can reduce any inflammation in her spine. If they work, great. Still, on Tuesday she goes back to the neurologist for an MRI to specifically identify the injury. Even if the steroids reduce the inflammation, and the combo of ‘roids and doggie pain pills have given her her energy and appetite back, it’s likely that without surgery the problem would crop up again. So any good thoughts you can send towards Ginger and improvement to her health are much appreciated. And with that, on to my fat.

It’s a little frustrating. On August 27, my weigh-in was 279.2 lbs. At the time, it was the first real progress I’d seen in the month of August, and my next goal for 9/3 was to be 277.2 lbs. Ginger’s problems first cropped up that Thursday, August 30, and kind of screwed up my exercise over the weekend. I did get some weight-lifting in, hoisting 75 pounds of Dobie in and out of the Jeep, but with her lack of energy and pain, our 45 minute dog walks were reduced down to at most a lap around our condo building. I actually did pretty well on the eating end of things, especially impressive given the holiday, and wound up with a 9/3 weigh-in of 277.6 lbs, just .4 lbs shy of my goal. All things being equal, not bad.

Since I got so close, I set today’s goal at 2 pounds less than where I had planned to be last Monday, 275.2 lbs. Tuesday and Wednesday were both vet visit days where I ate no breakfast and didn’t go into the office, and thus didn’t really snack much. Wednesday’s weigh-in was actually 275.8 lbs, so I was actually pretty excited about making my goal. Unfortunately, Wednesday and Thursday’s gym opportunities were shot when I had to head home and take care of the dog, because DAPGF’s boss kept her late and she lost her window of time between work and teaching on both nights. And the weight had crept back up into the 279 range by Friday morning. I went to the driving range Friday at lunch, and I made it to the gym Saturday morning and was rewarded with a weigh-in of 278.2 lbs. Yes this was above where I started the week, but given the peak of the week (hey! That rhymed!) of 279.4, I was pretty pleased. Sunday I made it to the gym and managed to post a weigh-in of 277.8. Yay me! Fighting back! Sunday we went to Mimi’s Café for brunch. I had this stuffed BBQ chicken quesadilla. Now, I’ve had this thing a couple of times and it is just the perfect amount of food, IMO. It is tasty, satisfying, and just filling enough (it’s an appetizer, not an entrée) without making me feel stuffed. Sunday, though, I’m not sure what happened. I ate it and it just sat in my belly like a lead weight, and all I could think is that this was totally going to screw my Monday weigh-in. DAPGF went out with some friends, so I just had some Uncle Ben’s instant rice (about 400 cal. worth) and some baked Lays potato chips. End result, today’s weigh-in hit an ungodly 279.2 lbs. I gained almost 2 pounds this week, and wound up 4 pounds north of what my goal had been! I think they snuck some lead weights or something into my quesadilla.

You know, though, I’m disappointed but I remain optimistic. This recent effort that began in earnest on July 3, when I discovered My Fitness Pal (still the greatest weight-loss tool I’ve come across), and although the majority of August was lacking in progress, I didn’t backslide either. I’ve come to realize that I actually can control my weight. Logically (duh) all it takes is portion control and exercise. It sounds simple, but it ain’t the easiest thing to do. Especially when you are constantly bombarded by restaurants that have ever-increasing portion sizes, and fast food joints who charge $3.29 for a southwestern chicken pita sandwich that rings up at 254 calories (and is really tasty, btw – Jack in the Box) and $1.49 for a medium diet coke, but only charges 30 cents more to make it a combo with fries and a soda, or charging $2.29 for one sausage mcmuffin and $2.69 for 2 of them. Despite not needing a full combo, or 2 mcmuffins, I have such a mental block when it comes to trying to get my money’s worth, and I have such a hard time justifying to myself the idea of not getting the combo or not getting the two-fer deal. That being said, I’ve been really good at not hitting the drive-thru’s, and avoiding the Chinese buffets. I know I can do this. I’ve been doing it, and there’s no reason why I can’t. Given today’s weigh-in, my goal for 9/17 will be 277.2 lbs. I’m going to actually aim for where I should’ve been today, 275.2 lbs, but I’m trying to stick with the two pound drop per week. Wish me luck, and thank you in advance for any good vibes for Ginger.

After a small (unintentional) break, back to business

2007-08-27T11:33:00.001-07:00

Hello blog world! I must say that after a smashing success of losing 10 pounds during the month of July, August has been decidedly meh. I've been doing some hovering in the 278 to 281-ish range the entire month. I fully am to blame. Mainly I've been snacking more at the office than I should. Not a lot, but just enough to erase any progress made by exercising and eating decent meals. At the tail end of July (Monday 7/30), my weight was sitting at 280.6 lbs. The following Monday, 280.6 lbs. The Monday after that, 280.6 lbs.

Monday 8/20 was another story. I had a slight Chinese buffet meltdown, and the weigh-in was 281.4 lbs. So that put the week's 2 pound goal at 279.4 lbs. The original goal of 278.6 would be the "X-Ring" bonus weight. Monday and Tuesday brought large drops to 280.2 and 278.8 respectively. Wednesday saw a rise to 279.2, Thursday to 279.6, and Friday to 280.8. I made it to the gym on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'm not exactly sure why those days had increases. Thursday I had lunch with some co-workers at a local brewpub. I had a relatively healthy chicken sandwich, but caved in and had fries with it. Meh. Saturday, despite not getting to the gym I managed to drop back down to 280.0. Sunday I didn't make the gym again, but still had an additional drop to 279.0. Both days I didn't starve myself, but I ate relatively healthy. Saturday was sushi for dinner and Sunday was mushroom ravioli, avoiding the alfredo sauce in favor of a much healthier tomato and veggie sauce. End result, this morning's weigh-in, 279.2 lbs. Yes I gained .2 lbs, but considering I didn't have much of a workout last night or this morning (both dogwalks were 15 minutes or less), I'll take it. Besides, I beat my goal of 279.4, so good on me.

The goal for 9/3 is 277.2 lbs. Given that the 3^rd is a holiday, I'll likely go to the gym that morning. Hopefully that will allow me to get a good start to September and get back into the groove that I had going thru July. Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you.

The one in which we admit some shortcomings, and still see progress

2007-08-21T10:39:00.001-07:00

Whassup party people? Sorry for the delay in posting, but there's two reasons. First, I've been hella busy at work for the past two weeks. Second, I haven't had much to report.

My last post was on August 6, and at that point I was at 280.6 lbs, precisely where I'd been the week before. As I said, I've been quite busy at work. I did make it to the gym a bit during the week, but I didn't get any of my midday exercise in. End result, Monday 8/13 my weigh-in was again 280.6 lbs.

I actually started to make some progress this past week. I made it to the gym several times during the week, including Saturday and Sunday mornings, I hit the driving range once, and I got a bodysurfing session in on Sunday morning. Water temps were in the low 70s and it was fan-dam-tastic. My weight had been trending down, and as of Sunday's weigh-in (8/19) I'd beaten my goal of 278.6 by .4 lbs. And then the wheels fell off. If you either know me, or you've been reading What Happened for any length of time then you know I'm a sucker for Chinese food. I. Freaking. Love. It. Sunday, after the gym, the beach, and the bitchin' weigh-in, I took my car to be detailed. DAPGF was going shopping with a friend, so I was on my own for a rare Sunday. There happens to be a Chinese buffet in the same shopping center as the car wash. I haven't been to a Chinese buffet in close to a year, and I was jonesing. So I went. I really tried hard to not gorge myself like I've done in the past, and I think I succeeded. That being said, I knew it wasn't a good thing. And to top it off, DAPGF and I had to run errands after dinner, so no après-eating walk. Monday's weigh-in, 281.4 lbs.

Yes, I know I torpedoed my progress and I've got nobody to blame but myself. That being said, I'm not worried. I know I'm not backsliding or anything, and I know that this mini plateau I've hit is only temporary, aided somewhat my conditions at work (which aren't bad, just busy). So I'm ok with myself, because I've proven that it isn't that difficult to lose the weight. I lost the first 10 pounds pretty easily, and, I know the first pounds are the easiest, but I'm so much heavier than I was 3 years ago that I know this is all excess weight that should come off fairly easily. Besides, the odd Chinese buffet notwithstanding, I'm consistently eating much healthier than I have in years, and I'm exercising much more consistently as well. As an example, Monday I started off on the road to go to a meeting with staff from the City of San Diego and one of our smaller airports (my company is looking at doing some work at the airport). I ate my bagel on the road for breakfast, had just one quesadilla from Taco Bell for lunch, and a Lean Cuisine Bistro Brick Oven Pizza (they're surprisingly good, roughly 350 calories and 3 and a half minutes in the microwave) for dinner. End result: Tuesday morning's weigh-in was down to 280.2 lbs. See? I can do it! Now back to losing weight. Gym tonight!

Still going...

2007-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

So this week really got off on a bad start. Monday morning, after a stellar weekend of avoiding pitfalls all over the place, I had a weigh-in of 280.6 lbs. That not only beat my stated goal of 282.4, but also beat what had been my original goal of 281.0 lbs. And then I got to work. The day started off benignly enough, with my usual bagel and a couple glasses of water. Then two of my coworkers grabbed me for a marketing meeting with a firm we're looking to collaborate with on a couple of projects. So you've got 3 guys all in their mid 30s, with no authority figures around anywhere (aren't WE supposed to be the authority figures?), so do we go somewhere healthy to eat? NO!!! We go to the Pizza Port Brewpub for some doughy, cheesy, beer-y goodness. One big cheesy chicken and artichoke heart pizza and 2 pitchers of beer down there. And now hopefully we can go back to the office and get to work. Nope. One of the guys gets an email on his Treo stating that we just won a contract to prepare an Environmental Impact Report somewhere, and that is a six figure contract so it was time to celebrate. Margaritas! When all was said and done, Tuesday's weigh-in was almost 3 lbs higher. Noooooo!

But lately I've been feeling pretty good about this weight-loss thing. I've actually lost 10 pounds over the last month, and I'm feeling good about my ability to keep losing. So I buckled down and really worked. I had a bonus gym night and took advantage of it. I hit the driving range several times. I was hyper diligent about what I ate. By Sunday's weigh-in I'd gotten to within a half pound of my goal of 278.6. And with DAPGF going out with some friends in town from NorCal, I'm thinking I can actually pull it off. But I shot myself in the foot. Dad is heading out on a vacation, his first real trip since my Mother passed away, and I figured I'd go spend some time with him before he took off. Some snacking and such later, and I'm back home. Monday's weigh-in, 280.6 lbs. Exactly what it was last Monday. On one hand I should be disappointed that I didn't lose anything. But, I'm actually pleased that I managed to lose the 3 pounds I gained at the beginning of the week, and I'm liking my chances at continued weight-loss this week. Tonight DAPGF is out for drinks again with her friend, so I get a bonus night at the gym. And there shouldn't be anything at work that could cause a meltdown like last week, so I should be pretty safe there. Finally, I've managed to get up a little earlier the past several mornings, which allows me to get my ExerciseTV mini workouts in the morning. My goal for this week should've been 276.6 lbs, but the actual 2 pound loss would put me at 278.6 lbs. So 278.6 is the goal. If I can do better, and I think I can, then yay me!

Quite The Weekend!!

2007-07-30T09:59:00.001-07:00

It was a pretty good weekend. Saw the Lindsay Lohan movie, "I Know Who Killed Me" on Friday. I'll give her this, she did a solid job of acting. It's just that the movie was lame. Especially given her recent meltdowns, the only way I can see this as being remotely beneficial to her career is that you get to see lots of her half-naked and either having raucous sex with some guy or grinding off of a stripper pole. Beyond that…not so much. On the other hand, I also saw Live Free or Die Hard (thank you DAPGF for caving in, and I told you it would be good!). It absolutely freaking rocked! As much as I loved the original (and I still do), I think I have to rank this one higher. It was insanely good. Was it a violent buddy action flick? Yup. Did it kick ass all over the place? Hell yeah it did! Probably my favorite movie of this year, and I see almost 2 movies per week, so that should say something.

Managed to get lots of exercise over the weekend, including time at the driving range and a dawn patrol session at the beach. Combine that with the fact that DAPGF now thinks that walking after our meals is a good thing, plus some honeydew stuff around the house and I was working it hard. Which worked out to be a good thing, and a perfect complement to my food intake. Normally the weekends are dangerous, particularly Sundays. I'm not eating my Lean Cuisine meals, but instead going to restaurants for notoriously large potions of food. This weekend, though, I just managed to do a great job of controlling what I ate. Shrimp fajitas where I avoided most of the beans and rice. A chicken quesadilla with almost no sides. Chicken and Shrimp veggie Thai stir fry. And then the evil day, Sunday. It started with a pretty gnarly omelet and hashbrowns, but we followed that up with an hour-long walk by the beach. But here's what saved me. DAPGF was having dinner with some friends, so I got to stay home and stay in control of what I ate. A frozen pizza and one of those micro-servings of Ben and Jerry's Fudge Brownie ice cream.

All of which leads to this. Last Monday's weigh-in was 284.4 lbs. I'd been aiming for 283.0 but faltered a bit, so the goal for this morning's weigh-in was 282.4 lbs, instead of the 281.0 that I should've been shooting for. So I get out of the shower, towel off and step on the scale. 280.6 lbs.!!!!! Holy crap!! Not only did I better my specific goal, but I even bettered my original goal! Yay me!!! When I started this latest round of effort back on July 2, my goal was to lose 2 lbs per week. With this morning's weigh-in, I'm running ahead of that! DAPGF deserves recognition for the after-meal walks. I'm so glad she has gotten into this, because it really helps undo any damage done by eating. I deserve a bunch of credit for my incredible exercise efforts and my ever-growing will-power and self-control. And again, MyFitnessPal.com has proven time and time again to be an excellent tracking and motivation tool. My new goal for next Monday will now be 278.6 lbs. I think it's been nearly a year since I've been this low, but with the progress I've been having I am hyper-motivated! Wish me luck and all of you keep up your efforts. I am proof that the average schmuck who loves to eat can actually lose weight.

Hey! Progress!

2007-07-26T10:59:00.001-07:00

So Monday's weigh-in was 284.2 lbs. Dinner wasn't too bad. Chinese food and frozen yogurt. Combined with the golfing at lunch, I only gained .2 lbs for the Tuesday weigh-in. On a side note, my dog is kind of acting like a whack-job. Or at least a dog with ADDD (Attention Deficit Doggie Disorder). In the past, our walks have been "destination" walks, where we leave our little condo complex and go walk thru the neighborhood, up through a park and so on, taking a roughly 45 minute to an hour journey spread out over 3-4 miles. Lately she's been obsessed with kitties that she's seen on some of the walks, and is constantly going back to those particular condos and just pacing back and forth, or around the building. 2 things wrong with that. First of all, it isn't consistent walking. She'll stop and spend a couple of minutes sniffing, and then she'll go to one side of the stairs and then back to the other. 5 minutes of that and I've taken maybe 20 steps. The other thing is I'm just waiting for somebody to call the cops on me because I'm loitering or casing the place. I mean, I'm outside of these people's houses at 6:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. What would you think? So lately it's been after 20 minutes of this I just drag the dog away and we go home. I've tried dragging her away with the intention of going on a destination walk, but she knows exactly how to walk anywhere in the complex and still find her way back to Kittie-Land (yes, DAPGF and I have named the place, for the two kitties who live on one side of the sidewalk (Kittie-Fabulous and Kittie-Wonderful – don't know the real names), and Burrito who lives on the other side of the sidewalk). Crazy.

Anyway, I was bound and determined to make up for the Chinese food on Tuesday. I didn't go to the range at lunch, but went to the gym after work and then went and shot 9 holes at this little executive course near Casa de Hoff. I got home late enough that I only had time to eat a single, 250 calorie Lean Cuisine and some Wheat Thins. End result, Wednesday's weigh-in was down to 283.6 lbs. I lathered, rinsed, and repeated the process for Wednesday. Gym and then 9 holes of flog, and then a small dinner. Thursday's weigh-in, 282.6 lbs.!! w0000t!!

Again, I'm not perfect (far from it), but I am continuing to prove (mainly to myself) that I actually can control what I consume and make efforts at losing weight. Wish me continued luck, and may you all find continued success in your efforts to do whatever it is that you all are attempting to do (unless it's make me fatter!).

Yeah, I saw this coming...

2007-07-23T10:27:00.001-07:00

I was a naughty boy. So when we last discussed my corpulence, I was making some progress. But, dear readers, if you recall I purchased a box of Little Debbie Snack Cakes. I mauled those on Tuesday and Wednesday, and failed to make it to the gym on both evenings. Then came Thursday. I had to be on the road very early, so I could be about 150 miles away by 8 a.m. So no time for a proper breakfast, so we hit the Mickey Dees drive-thru for some McMuffin-y goodness. Besides that, I haven't been thru the drive-thru for a meal in some time, so I was tempted at all turns. I finally caved in and made my lunch a mix of Arbys and Wienerschnitzel (mmm, chili cheese dogs). And to top it off, when I got back to the office that afternoon, we had people in from our corporate office. And of course we like to show our visitors a good time, so someone had gone over to the nearby Karl Strauss brewery and procured a jug of their finest Amber Lager (one of my Top 5 desert island beers) which we proceeded to drain. Not exactly a light beer. So Friday's weigh-in actually hit 286.4 lbs, more than 2 pounds higher than the last good weigh-in on Tuesday.

With my goal of 283 for the Monday weigh-in fading quickly, I stepped it up. I took some extra time at the driving range on Friday (comp time from getting going so early on Thursday), and I made it to the gym on both Saturday and Sunday. End result, this morning's weigh-in was 284.4 lbs. 1.4 lbs shy of my goal, but given my meltdown I'll accept it.

I'd love to continue the pattern I'd been on, which would've made this week's goal to get down to 281 lbs. I'm not sure how realistic that is, so I'm making my 2 pound loss goal 282.4, which is 2 pounds from today. If I can do better, then Yay Me!!! If I make my goal, then good on me again. If I don't, well, I'll keep trying. I'm off to a good start today. Just my bagel and some string cheese and several glasses of water. The driving range will be visited (as it usually is on Mondays) which will help matters, and hopefully the doggie will want long walks. As long as DAPGF doesn't torpedo me with dinner tonight, I should be in pretty good shape to get thru the week. Wish me luck, and as always, shouts to MyFitnessPal.com for having such a great tool for a great (big) tool.

I think I'm liking this...

2007-07-17T10:58:00.001-07:00

So at my last post, I was expressing amazement that I'd dropped all the way down to 283.6 lbs, and was hoping that I wouldn't implode over the weekend. And the weekend was a little of both.

Friday dinner was kind of doomed for us. We got a late start, and wound up at a very good sushi place in La Jolla village. They actually had an all you can eat special for $25 per person. Danger! Danger! What made it worse was that, unlike some of the mega buffets like Onami or Todai, you actually submitted your order form to the sushi chef and he made your order fresh. Jeezus did we eat a bunch, but damn was it good. DAPGF and I did go for a short walk after dinner, and I did walk the dog later, but I knew I'd been a baaaaad Hoff. To top it off, I wasn't able to hit the gym Saturday morning.

Saturday's weigh-in: 285.6 lbs. Yep, gained 2 pounds. But once again, I knew that this was a temporary setback, and that I did have the ability to lose the weight again. So lunch was actually pretty light…a lean, bbq pulled pork sandwich (no breakfast) and then a "smaller" amount of Mexican for dinner. All told, I only took in 1500 calories or so, which is about the smallest amount I've ever consumed over one 24 hour period (without the assistance of Montezuma's Revenge). DAPGF and I took a walk and then I had a pretty long dog walk. I was hoping that I'd been good enough to maybe get below 285.0, which was my goal for the week.

And Sunday's weigh-in: 283.2 lbs!!! w00000t!! How about that! My only fear was that I'd gone to the gym and then weighed myself fairly late in the morning, so I knew the much earlier Monday morning weigh-in would probably be higher if only because of that. Anyway, no breakfast but lunch consisted of some calamari, some veggie spring rolls, and a shrimp cobb salad at a restaurant with one of the finest views in Del Mar. That all seemed to work out relatively healthily. Dinner consisted of some tasty evil Thai food and frozen yogurt for dessert. We actually have a "boutique" yogurt place here (it's just how we roll in San Diego), and I couldn't resist a layer of cookie dough, followed by cookies and cream yogurt (it really tastes like a freaking oreo cookie, not just vanilla with oreo bits), followed by chocolate custard yogurt topped with actual crushed oreo. Mmmm. Sweet fattening goodness. I took the dog out for her walk and prepared to face the Monday morning music.

Monday's weigh in: 285.4 lbs. Yep. I knew that Sunday torpedoed my progress. My goal from the previous week had been 287.0, and I hit 287.4. Since I was so close, I made my 2 pound goal for this week 285.0, instead of 285.4. I didn't hit the actual target weight, but I did hit the 2 pound loss goal. So again, because I got so close, this week's goal will be a weigh-in on Monday 7/23 of 283.0 or lower. So I set out to work hard on that goal. I was careful in my eating. I did my bagel/cream cheese for breakfast. Snacks consisted of wheat thins and string cheese, and I did go to the store at lunch and got some beef jerky. All that protein, low in calories, and very low in fat. Great nibble food to have around. I did munch a bit more than I intended, and there was one other bad thing I did. Sunday night, DAPGF and I were watching something on Discovery or Food TV or one of those channels, and they did a teaser on Twinkies. GF asked when the last time I had a twinkie was. Honestly it's been over 10 years, but it got me kinda jonesing. When I was at the store, I looked at a box of twinkes. Back in the day, Ho Hos were my guilty pleasure, but there's nothing wrong with twinkies. So I look at a $3.99 box of twinkies, and right next to it I see a box of the Little Debbies Ho Hos knock-off's for only $1.29. Well how can I pass up that bargoon? So I had a few snack cakes on Monday afternoon. Meh. Dinner was Red Robin for the righteous BBQ Chicken Wrap. It did come with "never-ending" fries, but I tried not go gorge myself on them. I had a nice long walk that evening with the dog, and then another good one this morning, hoping that I'd not gained anything more than I already was.

Tuesday's weigh-in: 284.2 lbs. Down 1.2 lbs!! I think I may be getting a handle on this. I know that I've got a loooong way to go to get below 240 lbs, but I'm starting to feel as though I'm understanding how to actually eat in a way that will help me lose weight. And again, I must give props to My Fitness Pal. Whether it's legitimate or I'm just psyching myself into increasing my metabolism, being able to track my caloric intake directly against what I burn, and more importantly being able to track all activities that burn calories, is really helping me see what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, how to correct that, and what progress I'm actually making. If you haven't tried it, check it out. I think you'll be pleased.

So, umm, wow!

2007-07-13T09:19:00.001-07:00

So. My Monday weigh-in to start this week was 287.4 lbs. This was .4 lbs heavier than my goal, and almost 2.5 lbs heavier than my low point of the week, one day previous. Despite that setback, I was still feeling good. I had proven that I can lose the weight if I am just careful about how much crap I shove down my neck. Anyway, Monday was not the best day. I had to run home at lunch and get some stuff I'd forgotten in the morning, which meant that I ate a lot more than I intended to. I did hit the gym on the way over to Mom and Dad's house, but I counteracted that with chips, salsa, a quesadilla, and two huge margaritas at Chevy's, with my sister. End result, Tuesday's weigh-in was about 1 pound heavier than Mondays. Still, I was optimistic because I had proof that I could lose the weight. And in this I must give DAPGF full credit. She is getting older (like the rest of us losers), and she's finally noticing that her metabolism is slowing and the weight isn't staying off like she would prefer. So we go walking after dinner, usually for about a half hour or so. In addition, I did go to the driving range at lunch on Tuesday, and had some nice, long doggie walks. Wednesday's weigh-in was down to 286.8! Progress! Wednesday I hit the gym after work and was really tight on what I ate. Thursday's weigh-in, 285.4 lbs.!! Thursday, I went to a work luncheon but lucked out with the food. Salad, and penne pasta in tomato sauce with chicken breast. And I went and played this tiny little 9 hole executive golf course near Casa de Hoff after work. DAPGF was out, so I was very careful with what I ate (Lean Cuisine BBQ Chicken Pizza, yummy). When she came home, we went for another 30 minute walk, and then I had a 45 minute dog walk. Friday morning's weigh-in. 283.6 lbs.!!!!!!! Outside of the few days surrounding my mother's death, I haven't been near 283 in several months at least. I do have the weekend to worry about, but I'm doing too well. You can bet your collective asses that I'm going to do everything in my power to not backslide. And I've said it before and I'll keep saying it…My Fitness Pal is a phenomenal tool. Honestly I couldn't tell you whether it truly is keeping me on track, or whether the idea of using it is making my body process stuff better I couldn't tell you. I do think that it is keeping me on track. My sister isn't a fan of food journals or exercise logs, but I say Nay Nay. Because of how My Fitness Pal is set up, it really lets you see your progress. One look and I can tell whether the physical activity I've done (again, it lets you track just about anything) has "made up" for whatever I've eaten, or whether I need to put in extra time at the gym to burn off something naughty I've eaten. I think that's the key…having calories in and calories out integrated.

So good luck out there. Have a great weekend.

Cancer still sucks

2007-07-12T09:19:00.001-07:00

Someday, hopefully sooner than later, we will find a cure for this shitty disease known as cancer. But for now, here's a person who could use some kind words and thoughts.

Cross-posted at The Randomness and What Happened

The one in which we foresee both the good and the bad...

2007-07-09T14:30:00.001-07:00

And the weekend was a mixed bag. I had been making stellar progress this past week. In fact, the Sunday weigh-in was all the way down to 285.0 lbs.!!!! I haven't been that low in months! I know the golfing was a major contributor, but I'd actually gotten down to 285.4 lbs for Saturday morning, so the golf counteracted the many beers consumed. I proved to myself that I can actually lose weight, IF I DON'T GO OVERBOARD WITH STUFFING FOOD DOWN MY NECK!!!

That last part is the key, obviously, and I aptly demonstrated it on Sunday. After a fantabulous weigh-in Sunday morning, it was time to let the games begin. I didn't hit the gym because my back was a bit sore, so I soaked in the steam room. I sweated out a few calories, so I'm ok with that. Lunch was a chicken taco salad thing that isn't too dangerous (no sour cream), but probably still fairly fattening. Dinner was a BBQ Chicken Pizza at California Pizza Kitchen with DAPGF, and the cheese and carb-y goodness I'm sure did some damage. Still, we went for about a 45 minute walk afterwards and made up for some of that. The killer was what happened late that evening. I pretty much hadn't been on the computer all weekend, and I wanted to check email, look at some of my favorite websites, and generally screw around. So after DAPGF crashed out and I walked the dog, I jumped on the computer. This is just shy of midnight, mind you. Now, I know that you're not supposed to eat right before you go to bed, that it screws up your metabolism, etc. etc. But the stomach started growling and I was needing just a little something salty. So I went to the kitchen to grab something. Did I grab a 60 calorie string cheese? No. Did I grab a few Wheat Thins? No. I grabbed the whole bag of Wheat Thins Toasted Veggie Crackers, using the rationale of "I don't want to make noise crinkling the bag getting out just a few chips, so I'll just bring the whole bag to the computer. I'm not going to be on very long." And next thing I know, 2/3 of the bag is gone! End result, Monday's weigh-in was 287.4 lbs.

Major bummer. Not only did I gain 2.4 pounds from Sunday morning, but I also missed my goal. Still, I'm trying to look at the positive. I demonstrated that I can lose weight. Now I just need to stop the little snacking problem. Because the goal for this morning was to be 287.0 or below, the goal for next Monday (7/16) is 285.0 lbs or below. I've got a couple of things working in my favor. First, I get a bonus night at the gym tonight. Little Sister is in town, and we've got to go thru some things that Dad has sorted out. So DAPGF is on her own tonight and I'm hitting the gym on the way to Dad's (so weird to not say Mom and Dad's, btw, yesterday was their 40^th Wedding Anniversary. Mom may not be here physically, but they're still married and Dad's still in love. Cancer still sucks) house. In addition to tonight, DAPGF starts teaching her new quarter this week, so instead of just one normal night of gym and online poker, I get two nights. If the weather holds, I'm hitting the beach for some of it to catch the evening glass-off . I also discovered a tiny little 9 hole executive golf course near Casa de Hoff. It doesn't look like anything spectacular, but it will be good to work on the short game, pre-twilight fees are only $8, and the walking will be great exercise. I had a good feeling about last week, and by and large I was right (except for the very end, which technically was part of the next week), and I've got another good feeling about this week, too. Good luck!

Are the numbers really going down?

2007-07-06T10:58:00.001-07:00

So yesterday's weigh-in was 286.8 lbs, and I was generally pleased that I'd only gained .4 lbs. Yesterday was not a good food day. DAPGF and I were house sitting over the 4^th, which necessitated my driving past (meaning thru) the drive thru on my way to work, and succumbing to the egg-y, cheesy goodness that is fast food breakfast sandwiches. But dammit, I'm bound and determined to make up for it. I walk the stairs all day. I go to the driving range. I know that DAPGF and I are going walking after dinner, and I know that I'm walking the dog later in the evening, but I'm pretty sure that it's not going to work. When lo and behold, the email of emails comes down. Our corporate office in Sacramento, where all of our network servers, internet servers, and email servers are located, is relocating and all of the servers were going to be shut down at 3 pm! Well, hell! If I can't even get on the internet, what's the point in staying. So I left early and hit the gym on the way home! Dinner consisted of mainly sushi, and the aforementioned walks.

And the Friday weigh-in? 286.2 lbs! Dropped .6 lbs! As long as I don't completely fall apart over the weekend (and I'm golfing on Saturday which will definitely help the exercise side of things), I'll be ahead of my goal for the week.

I have to say, My Fitness Pal is my new favorite thing. I've kept the food diaries before, and I've tried to track my exercise, but this just works better. First of all, it has a database of both food and exercise entries, and they run the spectrum. Canoeing. Golfing. Playing a musical instrument. Mowing the lawn (push or riding). Walking the dog. Walking up stairs. I think this is it's greatest feature. Not only can you track the obvious (20 minutes on the elliptical trainer burns 400 calories), but all of these things you wouldn't necessarily think twice about are listed. It makes it much easier to see just how physically active you are, and it takes the calories burned and applies it to the calories consumed to give you your net figure. It makes it so easy to see where you're doing things right, where you're doing things wrong, and what you need to do to make up for a poor decision (like going out to lunch with coworkers and having all fried appetizers and several beers, not that I would ever do anything like that!). If you haven't gone over there to check it out, I highly recommend it.

Wherever you are, I hope you had a great 4^th of July, and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Progress!

2007-07-05T11:08:00.001-07:00

As I said, I think it's going to be a good week. I started off on the Monday weigh-in at 289.0. Tuesday I spiked up to 290.4. Monday's dinner was just wrong on so many levels, and it just illustrates how weak I can be at times. After fighting pretty hard to limit what I ate, I went to dinner with DAPGF at this local curry place. We go here fairly often, because the quality is good and the prices are very reasonable. That being said, our "frequent diner" card has the requisite number of punches in it to qualify for a free entrée. Woo hoo! So instead of ordering the regular size, I ordered the large portion of their Teriyaki Chicken. And I ate the whole bloody thing, including using my jasmine rice to soak up the rest of the (admittedly yummy) teriyaki sauce. End result, despite an hour at the driving range in temps approaching 90 degrees, a half hour walk with DAPGF, and a 45 minute dog walk that evening, I gained almost a pound and a half for the Tuesday morning weigh-in. But instead of getting down on myself, I resolved that I would be better on Tuesday. I worked diligently to control my intake (using my new favorite tool, MyFitnessPal.com) and track my physical activities. So on the 4^th, I woke up, walked the dog, and instead of hitting the gym I went to the beach (I <3 San Diego!) and got about an hour's worth of bodysurfing in. Weigh-in when I got home, 286.0!!! Cha-ching!! Food and adult beverages are part of every 4^th of July celebration, and mine was no exception. Weigh-in on Thursday morning, 286.4 lbs. Considering the beer and pizza, I'm pretty satisfied with only gaining .4 lbs. That gives me hope that my recent switch in the breakfast department, combined with a renewed effort at physical activity (more walking, more golf) will really get me on the downward trend. I've actually met (and exceeded) my goal for this week…I just need to make sure I don't backslide. Good luck with everything you're doing out there.

Well this is pretty nifty...

2007-07-03T10:08:00.001-07:00

So courtesy of my fellow fat poker player, Big Slick Nuts, I present you with a pretty slick new toy. Myfitnesspal.com. I've kept the food diaries (Microsoft actually has a pretty nifty Excel template that does this), I've used the food databases, and I've done the exercise. Myfitnesspal.com actually combines all of this in one place. Enter some basic data (age, gender, height, weight, desired weight, basic daily lifestyle) and it will spit out a formula for how much net calories you can consume each day. And here's where the integration pays off. You enter your daily food intake. Pick stuff off of their existing database, or if your particular item isn't listed, you can enter the nutritional information yourself and add it to their database. The database isn't nearly as comprehensive as Calorie King , but by being able to enter your own foods it helps everybody out. One other cool feature about the meal logs is that you can save a meal. If you eat the same basic meal several times a week (packet of instant oatmeal and a banana, for example), you can save that meal combo and then it becomes a one-click process to log your breakfast. Based on your nutrition plan that it created for you, it keeps a running track of how many calories you still have left for the day. It also tracks your hydration, so you can make sure you're drinking enough water (unless you live in Tijuana!). The final portion of this that makes it such a useful tool is the exercise log. Did you walk the dog? Log it and it calculates how many calories you burned. Going to the driving range, walking up stairs, mowing the lawn, pushing a stroller, log it. Based on the log, it calculates how many calories you burned, and then adds/subtracts that from your total calories consumed to give you your net calories for the day. And the final capper? It's free. Go ahead and sign up. I know that I can always use another tool to keep me accountable…you probably could too.

It's going to be a good week...

2007-07-02T09:50:00.001-07:00

Sez me…

This past 2 weeks has been brutally hectic. Working late several nights, over the weekend, all to get a proposal together for a potentially $1.8 million contract. We got it done, and now it's a waiting game to see if my company is going to be called for an interview. I've got more projects to work on this week, but I'm hella relieved to be done with that proposal. Of course, if we get the project I'm looking at 2 solid years of being busy, but it beats being unemployed.

A side effect of the work situation was that I played practically no poker at all for almost 2 weeks. My first game of any substance, hell the only game I played recently was a 9 player $11 turbo on Tilt that I got into at about 12:30 in the morning, because I finally had a moment and was itching to play. I played solid ABC poker and managed to take 2^nd place…that was my first cash in a while so I'll take it.

Last week had some rough spots on the weight loss front, which I partially attribute to how busy I was with work. No gym last weekend, no gym on Wednesday, and after working late on Wednesday I succumbed to the siren call of Pickup Stix' House Special Chicken. And I added 2 pounds that evening. I fought back during the remainder of the week, and made it to the gym on both Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Sunday's weigh-in gave me a fighting chance at hitting my 2 pound loss goal for the final week of June, but Sunday's eating did me in. I'm not sure exactly what it is about Sundays (meaning why DAPGF and I eat what we do on Sundays), but my Monday morning weigh-ins are never good. Case in point. Sunday lunch was this killer restaurant in Solana Beach , where everything is organic, lean, and home-made. So of course we order some of the least healthy things on the menu. Calamari as a (very tasty) appetizer. A Caesar salad to split, and a spiced turkey meatloaf (it tastes amazing) sandwich with home-cut Kennebec fries. Then dinner. Rubios Fish Tacos for a shrimp burrito. And the weigh-in this morning was almost 2.5 pounds heavier than Sunday's. So I'm starting (again) at 289.0 lbs, which is just about the heaviest I've ever (knowingly) been. But the difference is, I've got a good feeling about this week.

I can't point to any one specific thing, but I feel good about this week (and everything else to come). Over the weekend I managed to get some good housekeeping stuff done. I made it to the gym twice. DAPGF's new semester of teaching starts, and she's teaching twice a week which means two days plus the two weekend days of gym (or beach) opportunities. On the beach note, the weather here in San Diego has been fantastic (eat your hearts out), and I'm dragging my fat to the beach for some good wave action. I've gotten current on all my bills that piled up when I was out of work last year. My checkbook register is all up to date, I've planned out my budget for the next 6 months, and it actually looks good, and my car insurance is going down because a speeding ticket expired and goes off of my record.

I'm also trying something new on the diet. I'm giving up on the oatmeal (for now) because one packet just doesn't do enough to keep me satisfied until lunch. So I would then munch on my planned morning snack, and then my planned afternoon snack! If I was lucky, that would hold me thru lunch, but then I'd have to go buy some sort of afternoon snack which seemed to never be low fat or healthy. So I'm trying out a bagel with fat free cream cheese. All told, about 260 calories and so far it's managed to fill me up better than a single packet of oatmeal. Maybe if this one thing shows any kind of success, I can build some willpower off of that and do a better overall job of controlling my eating.

In addition to the gym and the diet changes, I'm going to the driving range. The budgeting has allowed me money for time at the range once or twice a week, so I figure Mondays and Thursdays or Fridays (gym/beach on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) will give me some more exercise opportunities during the week, with the added benefit of keeping me occupied and not stuffing food in my face. And for those of you who don't think swinging a golf club is exercise, go hit a hundred balls in 45 minutes to an hour. I think you'll be surprised.

Finally, just having gotten some cleaning done around the house, buying a 2^nd hard drive cable for the new computer, getting the bills and budget current, I'm making a more concerted effort to plan my time wisely. I suffer from poor time management skills, and it's been a problem both in my personal life as well as my professional life. Having gotten caught up on my "chores" is giving me the opportunity to organize my overall life a little more efficiently. Everything from planning out specific work tasks and checking email to playing poker and blogging, I'm trying to do a better job of time allocation and prioritizing. Hopefully this will build on itself and I can apply it to all aspects of my life.

Self-control and will power. This blog was started as a weight loss blog, and those two characteristics are key to any successful weight loss. Maybe the expansion of the focus of the blog will help me control the expansion of my waist and gut!

The one in which we begin anew

2007-06-25T08:20:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to get off a quick post before diving back into work. Last week was pretty busy, and I wanted to see how my first full week of the mini-me goals went. In short, we're starting over again this week. My weigh-in this morning was exactly the same as last Monday. Actually it was a little different…my body fat content dropped about 1.5%. I don't know if that actually means anything useful, because that number fluctuates as much as my weight. I know that I did a lot to torpedo my efforts…but I had help. Happy Hour one night, and we all know how kind beer is to the diet. No gym this weekend because DAPGF had me helping her house and dog sit, so the mornings this weekend got all screwed up, and while I tried to be careful with what I ate, I'm sure I could've done better. We did spend the better part of Saturday afternoon walking around the Ocean Beach Street Fair (and I've got the sunburn to prove it), and a couple of nights DAPGF and I went for a walk through this big community park in the San Diego neighborhood we live in. But 288.0. Way too heavy. Hopefully work will calm down by Wednesday and I can start thinking about going to the driving range and gym during the week. We shall see…

And let the weight loss commence!

2007-06-14T10:24:00.001-07:00

So. Yesterday's post presented my new plan. Instead of this lofty goal of getting down to 240 lbs, which as of yesterday morning's weigh-in would be a total loss of 48.2 lbs, I've got a new goal of losing 2 lbs per week. I figure if I can keep this going consistently, I should hit the goal of 240 lbs by Christmas (just in time to put it all back on!). IMO, it seems to be more effective and workable to set much smaller goals…the typical .5 lbs per day loss that someone putting forth mild effort looks so much more prominent when it is fully 25% of your goal, versus only being (in this case) 0.24% of the goal. And the same is true on gains…a 25% gain can serve as a much greater wakeup call than a 0.24% gain. And with that…

The weigh-in on 6/13 was 288.2 lbs. I brought a typical meal spread to work…oatmeal, reduced fat wheat thins, Healthy Choice lasagna, chicken noodle soup, etc. Between strategically scheduling snacks (wow! I sound like some defense contractor or something!), drinking lots of water, and writing down my affirmations during times of snack-wanting, I managed to control my food intake. And because DAPGF was teaching, I got to play online poker. That meant that I didn't eat too much, because I didn't want to take unnecessary breaks from my tournaments. So dinner consisted of one of the Vons (Safeway) "Eating Right" meals with some tortilla chips. All told, not too bad food-wise. And in addition to the 3 flights of stairs at work that I walked several times, I made it to the gym and then had a several mile walk with the dog last night. It all paid off with a weigh-in this morning of 287.4…a drop of .8 lbs! Considering I started this on Wednesday and I'm already almost half-way thru my first goal, I'm pretty pleased. Let's see if I can keep it up.

The one in which we try something new...

2007-06-13T15:34:00.001-07:00

As you readers may recall, the original intention of this here tube in the internets was to document my efforts to drop 40 pounds. Well, I've only got 45 pounds to go! WTF?!? I was reading my buddy Big Slick Nuts' new blog, Hundred Day Head Start, and I had a minor revelation. Large goals are great from a "showy" perspective. Oooh, I'm going to drop 40 pounds, and then I'm going to run a marathon, and then I'm going to make a million dollars, and then… The problem is that with a goal that is so far off, making the little steps that you obviously need to doesn't show that much of an immediate return. So I'm going to apply the baby steps method and set much smaller interim goals. A little bit every day, and eventually it will add up. And it presumably (hopefully) will be easier to stick to, because small gains and losses will be that much more obvious when measured against the goal. For example: Woo hoo (extreme sarcasm dripping from voice). I lost a half pound, only 39.5 pounds to go. And the opposite side of that is true. Oh. I gained a half pound. Well, that's not too bad. No worries. No need to alter my behavior. Now look at the same scenarios under the baby steps method. Hey! I lost a half pound! I've only got 1.5 more pounds to lose this week! And, oh crap. I gained a half pound. Ok, if I avoid having chips in the afternoon and make sure to make the dog walk tonight at least 45 minutes I should be able to undo that damage. I'm so close to my goal this week, I don't want to backslide. See, it all sounds so much more urgent and serious.

So my goal is to get my weight below 240 lbs this year, which I've been dutifully writing down in my affirmations. That means I've got 48 pounds to lose. So my baby steps goal is going to be 2 pounds per week. As I've documented here, I'm quite the yoyo-er, and a half-pound drop in a day is nothing new. By starting to measure myself against that particular yardstick, I'm hoping that I'll be more motivated to keep on it. When you weigh 288 and you're trying to get to 240, a weigh-in of 288.5 doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. When you weigh 288 and you're trying to get to 286 by Monday morning, that half pound becomes a pretty big farking deal. Hopefully I will be able to mainly get on track with eating and take better advantage of exercise opportunities. So wish me luck. Maybe this will be the method that allows me to avoid backsliding. Wish me luck.

Well let me tell you what has happened to me...

2007-06-08T10:26:00.001-07:00

Ok. So what has happened to me? In short, I'm lame and I've been busy. Quick recap? That's all I've got time for, so for those of you who read The Randomness also, I apologize for regurgitating some of that post here.

Weight. I wish I could say I've been a loser, but sadly that's not the case. This past two weeks have seen lots of naughty food eaten, and pounds put on. For the most part they've come back off, but overall, I'm up about a pound and a half from my weigh-in at the last post. I have managed to get back on track in doing my affirmations, but they don't help much when we have a staff meeting at our branch location. Yes, I had the Seared Ahi for lunch, which was probably the best option, but I'm sure that wasn't enough to counteract the effects of spinach/artichoke dip, deep fried calamari, and four pints of Stargazer IPA. Hey. We're consultants, and we can expense that stuff. If they're gonna force me to get out of the office on a sunny San Diego afternoon, to go sit on the patio overlooking a huge koi pond while eating righteous seared ahi and drinking killer microbrews, well I guess I'll take one for the team. Besides the dog walking, just about the only physical activity I'm getting is at work. Our new office is on the third floor, so I do the stairs, up and down, several times per day. This past weekend, I did make it to the gym both on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but Wednesday night's gym opportunity fell by the wayside in a minor traffic accident. Not me, but some idiot on a bicycle trying to snake through stop and go street traffic got clipped by somebody who was making what seemed to be a legal turn into an apartment complex. The rider looked to be generally ok (he was talking to the responding police officers), but the whole thing (3 cop cars, 1 fire truck, 1 ambulance) completely screwed up my commute and cost me almost an hour in getting home. By the time I got thru it, the last thing I wanted to do was go to the gym. Meh.

Poker. Poker has been a cold cold world lately. My once-growing bankroll has dramatically shrunk over the past few weeks. There have been one or two instances where I made plays that were stupid, but by and large I've been playing well. I'm just getting raped on the river, and I don't even live in the South (better?)! Seriously, it's been almost funny, how predictable it's been. An example, I follow 2 limpers and limp with my 66 from before the CO (cutoff for you non poker players, the seat before the dealer position, the small blind and the big blind). 5 of us see a flop of Ace-King-6. Couple of bets and 3 of us see a K fall on the turn. Schweet. I've likely got the nuts unless somebody is slowplaying aces, kings, or big slick (AK). First player to act ("Under the gun" or UTG) bets and a player in middle position (MP) calls. I call, which puts me all in. The river is a 7, and UTG shoves and MP calls. Cards are flipped and UTG was playing A6 for two pairs. Fine. MP flips over 77 for his rivered 7s full of Ks, sinking my 6s full. It's been that kind of run. Suffice to say I'm taking a minor break to see if I can get out of this funk. I'm doing pointless things like playing billiards and rummy online (and kicking the computer's ass) to see if I can get back into a winning groove.

Movie Review. Knocked Up was very funny. Biggest complaint, not getting to see Katherine Heigl's breasticles. Second biggest complaint, having to see a fake version of her koochie (hey, it's the only word DAPGF finds acceptable, pick your own), in all it's crowning glory in mid birth. It was even shaved, which I presume is just how she rolls. The movie was very well done, and hugely humorous (although not quite up to the 40 Year Old Virgin). It gets a little crude at times (duh) and some of the poopy references get a little old. But the scene in Vegas with Seth and Paul Rudd taking mushrooms at a Cirque du Soleil performance was farking hysterical! It is longer than 2 hours, so be sure to go potty before going in, if you're getting the Exxon-Valdez sized Dr. Pepper. And for a completely different review, I also saw Once recently. It's a story set in Ireland about a struggling musician, and how he falls in love with a Czech immigrant girl who gives him the motivation to actually write and record his songs (which tell the story of their almost-romance), and ultimately chase his dream of fame. I know it sounds cheesy, but it was actually very well done and a great story. The acting is great, and the music was excellent…typical folksy-rock coffeehouse fare, but better than most. Obviously it isn't going to be as fast-paced as something like Live Free or Die Hard (can. not. freaking. wait!), but overall it was an excellent movie.

Last 5 songs I heard on Hair Nation: Poison – Look What the Cat Dragged In, Sammy Hagar – One Way to Rock, Motley Crue – Wild Side, Kiss – I Just Wanna Forget You, Ozzy Osbourne – Shot in the Dark.

Now that I've got my new computer, and can safely install my own software on it (Firefox, etc.), I'm starting to channel my inner geek. I download Firefox, get the Google toolbar, and then start looking at all the ways to improve Firefox . So I add buttons for Digg and Del.icio.us, which gets me into joining a bunch of these "social community" sites. And then I read blogs like Wheatie's, and read about some of the cool stuff he's playing with ( Netscape, Buzznet, Last.FM, etc.), so I check them out. So now I found the equivalent of an RSS reader for all of the social community sites, Mashable. So when I get home tonight, I get to try and consolidate all of my online crap down into one simple site account. Or theoretically that's how it will work. Time will tell. And when it does, I'll tell you. Are any of you on any of these sites? Let me know and I'll add you. Or don't. I've got lots of new online friends to play with.

Work has been extremely busy, with projects and proposals all coming due at the same time. I cranked out a proposal last week, in the middle of working on an Air Quality statement for a project in the desert east of San Diego, then over the weekend I finished up a second proposal, which went out earlier this week, and now I've got two more proposals I'm trying to get done next week (both of them, both potential million dollar plus contracts – no pressure), while helping out on a third proposal, which is also due within the next week and a half! Crazy.

So there. We're updated. See ya out there when I get a chance.

And now we return, to the saga of Hoff

2007-05-31T10:44:00.001-07:00

Hello blog world! Sorry I've been away, but I've been busy. Combination of holiday weekend, with friends in from out of town, and FINALLY BUYING A NEW COMPUTER, I've been a bit busy. Also, things have been hectic at work, so what can you do? Obviously based on the time stamp I'm posting from work, so I'll keep this short and sweet. And sweet starts us off with…

Weight. Again, I'm still yoyo-ing. I'm actually really disappointed in myself for a couple of reasons. First of all, last week DAPGF went out one evening with some friends, giving me an opportunity to go to the gym after work. Didn't happen. Also didn't happen on my normal gym day. And then the holiday weekend, with an extra gym-friendly day. Nope. Not once. Combine that with a couple of days where I completely lacked self-control (mmm, kung pao shrimp), and you've got a recipe (recipe, food, ha ha ha ha ha! Ok, that was lame. I'm sorry) for disaster, and it never really happened. Yes, there was one day where my weight got over 287 lbs, but as of Wednesday's weigh-in I was at 285.6, only .2 lbs over my yoyo weight. Of course I'd like to be lower than that, but I'll take what I can get (and not just the food! Ha! Comedy, comin' at ya!). One other thing I've noticed is that I haven't been doing my affirmations for the past week and a half. I will be remedying that starting today. Believe it or not, it really seemed to help me focus, especially by writing them down at times of the day when I would normally be thinking about feeding my face. And I can't think of a great segue, so we'll just go now to…

Poker. Been getting my ass handed to me. Doesn't seem to matter which site, or what game. PokerStars or Full Tilt. No Limit Hold 'Em or Pot Limit Omaha/8. I'm just getting no love from the decks. At least I can watch myself get destroyed on a 19 inch LCD again, instead of a dinky 14 inch laptop. Which brings me to…

My new computer! HP, AMD Athelon 64x2 Dual Core 4800, 2 gb ram, 320 gb hard drive, Vista, yadda yadda yadda. The only downside I've discovered is that both my new wifi usb receiver and my wireless keyboard/mouse both are 2.4 ghz. I don't know if it's a signal conflict or if the keyboard/mouse signal is just weak, but every now and then the keyboard won't respond or the mouse clicks won't register. Hasn't been a problem (yet), just mildly annoying. By and large, though, it's good to have my own machine back. I finished copying my 15 gigs of mp3s over, so I can get back to listening to music again, reload the mp3 player for the gym, etc. I can also freely install stuff like Open Office, games, Stumble, etc., without worrying about the IT Nazis at work. Which brings me to…

Work. Last week I was busy working on an Environmental Impact Report for the City of El Centro, and focusing on responding to Air Quality concerns (side note, this shows the power of the agricultural industry in this region. As a very windy desert area, air quality is consistently not in compliance with the standards established by the State of California. Yet they readily allow the use of crop dusters for pesticide application, as well as allowing the farmers to burn their fields every so often to recharge the soil. Crazy.). So I was finishing that up and my boss dropped a Request for Proposals on me, on Wednesday afternoon. And it was due by the end of the day on Tuesday, after the holiday! It took some work over the weekend, but I got it done. Some days it is dull as hell, some days I forget to look out the window to see if it's dark out there yet. Still, it beats the hell out of being unemployed.

And friends, where would we be without friends? My buddy Zippy, Mrs. Zippy, and the little zipper are in town from the smallest state in the Union. Time with them, eating, drinking, hanging out. Nice and relaxing, which I definitely need.

But now I've got another two proposals to work on, so back to work. That's where I am right now. How about you?

The One In Which We Find Ourselves In A Familiar Spot

2007-05-15T10:42:00.001-07:00

I swear to God I didn't plan this, but I'm exactly back to where I was with the last post. In several aspects, actually. First, I'm still yo-yoing. Back on 5/8, my weigh-in was 285.4 lbs. Since then, my weight has done the following:

DAPGF and I went to Sizzler on 5/8 for their salad buffet (there's that word again) for dinner, and that was probably the major contributor to my gain.

5/9 – 287.0 lbs.

I ate a reasonable lunch on 5/9 (Healthy Choice entrée and some soup), and despite working late and missing the gym (and subsequently getting my ass handed to me at the online poker tables), I didn't eat much for dinner. Every little bit, I guess.

5/10 – 285.6 lbs.

On 5/10 I had to run some errands for Mother's Day (getting things for DAPGF, who is my doggie co-parent (yes, we're lame…so what), and despite what our father has wished since our mother died, my sister and I decided that we wanted to celebrate Mother's Day in honor of our mother. Mom's favorite candy, which she faithfully requested from each and every family member at Mother's Day and Christmas, is Almond Roca. So I bought a package of it and mailed it off to my sister, figuring that she'd get the symbolism and that it would bring back good memories. She, on the other hand, completely devastated me. After the memorial service and before she left to return to the land of Deliverance, she took one of Mom's favorite T-shirts. When she got home, she cut it up and made a pillow and sent it to me, so that I could have something of her to hold on to! It was all I could do to not break down bawling in the Post Office. Anyway, I needed some comfort food and went thru the McDonalds drive thru for some fries and a shake (bad, evil Hoff!). DAPGF and I went to this rotisserie place for dinner that was reasonably healthy (although the 5 cheese gourmet mac and cheese was pure evil goodness…if Darth Vader had some of this handy, Luke Skywalker would've crossed over to the Dark Side in a heartbeat).

5/11 – 286.4 lbs.

On 5/11 I knew I had to work hard to redeem myself from Thursday. I was very strict about my snacking (no vending machine) and my meals (Lean Cuisine, no drive thru). Dinner was at Applebees (near a movie theatre – movie review coming shortly), and DAPGF and I split a salad and the coconut shrimp. Not bad all things being equal. And Saturday morning I managed to make it to the gym before weigh-in.

5/12 – 284.6 lbs.

Something I've discussed before is that on the weekends I do my weigh-in a few hours later than I do during the week. As such, I think any weight loss may seem exaggerated, due to having a few hours of activity with no food intake prior to the weigh-in. Anyway, 5/12 was shaping up to be a pretty good day. Hit the gym, and DAPGF and I went to the Health and Beauty Expo at the San Diego Convention Center. Walking around, all health supplements and health foods, should be great, right? Well the walking around was fine, but sampling all of the health munchies and power bars that were available probably added several hundred calories to the mix. Lunch was at our local ghetto vegetarian Mexi-joint, Pokez. It was righteous as always, but I was baaaad. I had a carne asada quesadilla (they're not just vegetarian), so not just a huge flour tortilla, not just a bunch of excellent carne asada, I had about 5 pounds of cheese in this beast! But that wasn't as bad as dinner. We went to one of my favorite places in San Diego, Rockin' Baja Lobster. DAPGF had the most excellent shrimp fajitas, and I had the lobster lover's combo, which included lobster bisque, lobster enchiladas, and a lobster taco. Mmmmmm, evil on a plate. Which of course brought me to Sunday's weigh-in.

5/13 – 286.0 lbs.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there. As I noted earlier, DAPGF is the mother of my 4 legged child. As such, I took her to one of the many Mother's Day brunch buffets (there's that word again) here in San Diego. A ton of food (omelet bar, pasta bar, ribs, sushi, taco bar, ice cream sundae bar, peel-n-eat shrimp, crab legs, and on and on) was waiting to be consumed. So consume we did. Eventually we finished, went home, and promptly passed out. Now, I hadn't made it to the gym Sunday morning, because DAPGF and I washed the dog. Granted, it was a workout unto its own, but seemingly not a substitute for the gym. Anyway, after arising from our food comas, we went out to dinner (do we ever stop eating?!?). Boston Market seemed to be acceptable, because the one thing that we didn't see at the buffet was a turkey carving station. Prime rib and leg of lamb, but no turkey breast. So a nice roasted turkey sandwich covers dinner, and home we go. After a decently long dog walk, sleep. Monday morning was a short walk, 15 minutes of Exercise TV, and a magical weigh-in of…

5/14 – 285.4 lbs.

Yep. Right back where I was. Who knows what tomorrow will bring…

Who here likes to play with Yo Yos?

2007-05-08T09:24:00.001-07:00

And I see we're back to where we were before…both figuratively and literally. The figurative: I've been a compulsive yoyo-er regarding my weight. I'll drop a few pounds only to gain them back within a few days. I haven't figured out if it's because I lost the weight that I feel I can slack off, or if it just happens to be some weird life rhythm (I eat at restaurants with DAPGF for a day or two, I eat Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice meals by myself for a few days, and then I'm back to eating with DAPGF), or if I'm just weird. If you ask my sister, she'll probably tell you I'm weird. The literal: on my last post 5 days ago, my weight was 285.4 lbs. In the time from then to now, I gained one pound, dropped it followed by dropping 2 more pounds, and then gaining those two back and winding up where we are today:

5/8 – 285.4 lbs.

I can definitely say that the weight gain during this was a combo of DAPGF's and my fault. I went out for lunch on 5/3 for some righteous Kung Pao Chicken, which naturally came with egg drop soup, an egg roll, a cream cheese wonton, and fried rice. Not the healthiest combo. And then that gets topped off with dinner at Souplantation! Frankly I'm surprised that I only gained a pound off of all of that. And the 2 pound loss registered on Sunday morning was a little optimistic. Saturday DAPGF and I had a pretty light lunch at Pickup Stix (Chinese again…sensing a trend), and then I went and played in a poker tournament that afternoon. I had several beers during the tournament, but most of them were of the "light" variety. Dinner was both late and light, Rubios for some fish taco goodness in honor of Cinco de Mayo. The optimistic part came with the fact that I did go to the gym, but more importantly I weighed myself roughly 3 hours later than I normally do. That extra 3 hours with nothing but water really does make a difference. I try to be consistent in the conditions of when I weigh myself…minimal clothing, no food intake, relatively early in the morning. Sometimes when I go to the gym on the weekends, I get a later start which translates into a weigh-in time several hours past the usual. Either way, the Monday weigh-in (which happened to be 285.4 lbs) was likely a more accurate measurement. Bonus, I got my ExerciseTV workout in this morning after the dog walk. And that was probably the deciding factor in helping me to keep from gaining anything over yesterday's weigh-in. Maybe today I can get back on the downward trend. Wish me luck.

The one in which we almost dodge a bullet, or It's merely a flesh wound

2007-05-03T10:03:00.001-07:00

Well I didn't hold up to lunch as well as I'd hoped. I went to a freaking buffet! A Pizza Hut buffet! Fortunately the slices there tend to be small, so the damage was not as bad as it could've been. Also because I'm a sucker for chocolate, I had several of those Lindt chocolate truffles for dessert. Very good and very bad. I had a very small snack (about 65 cal worth of baked chips) and went to the gym. For dinner I was on my own, because DAPGF was teaching. So naturally (because I'm stupid and like pizza), I had one of those Celeste frozen pizzas. 410 cal worth, and then some Budget Gourmet little snack things (kind of like mini egg rolls) and that was another 410 cal. So to recap:

Breakfast:

Banana Bread Oatmeal – 150 cal

Snack:

½ oz baked chips – 65 cal

Lunch:

Pizza Hut Buffet – 1000 cal (est)

Truffles – 440 cal

Snack:

½ oz baked chips – 65 cal

More truffles – 440 cal

Dinner:

Celeste Pizza – 410 cal

Budget Gourmet Snacks – 410 cal

Total: 2840 est.

Now my snacking was amazingly under control, I drank a boatload of water, and I did my affirmations. So I did several things right, but I was still expecting an ugly weigh-in today. So I climb onto the scale and it reads:

285.4 lbs

From yesterday, I only gained .2 lbs. Now I know that any upward movement isn't a good thing, but given how ugly things were, I'm beyond pleased that 2/10 of a pound is all I gained. And I think this helps confirm that the snacking is really a strong contributor to my weight issues. Something to think about.

Who Knew

2007-05-02T11:02:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was interesting. As I mentioned, we were finishing up our office relocation, and not everything was completed (some things still aren't). My normal meal "activities" at work include a packet of instant oatmeal for breakfast, a frozen Lean Cuisine-type meal at lunch, and a variety of snacks throughout the day to counteract any positive benefits from the oatmeal and lunches. Unfortunately, we have no microwave so I was unable to heat water for the oatmeal or nuke my lunch. Fortunately, our corporate overlords who were "helping" with the move were kind enough to supply us with healthy alternatives. For breakfast I had two donuts, and for lunch I had three slices of pizza and some diet coke. I managed to not snack all day, because we were busy enough that I didn't have enough time to reflect on whether I really needed to eat something. As bad as those "meals" were, I thought that my moderation on quantity combined with my lack of snacking might actually work out for me weight-wise.

And then there was dinner with DAPGF. We actually went to a little Italian place in La Jolla, where we split a cobb salad and then split a plate of angel hair pasta with marinara sauce…nothing exciting but very good and probably not too damaging. But wait! There's more! The Italian joint was unfortunately mere blocks away from Marble Slab ice cream…a less corporate and (at least to DAPGF) better tasting alternative to places like Cold Stone Creamery. Ok. Maybe I can get away with a single scoop and minimize the damage. Nope. DAPGF whips out this coupon for a buy one get one free 2 scoop waffle cone. So I "suffer" through this horrible combination of Swiss Chocolate and Birthday Cake (yes it actually does taste like birthday cake) ice creams, mixed together with cookie dough. The things I put up with. So we head home to watch some tube and then I go walk the dog. The dog actually wants a long walk, so I get just about an hour's worth of walking exercise in at the end of the evening. The extra lightness of dinner combined with the long doggie walk must have done the trick.

5/2 Weigh-in: 285.2 lbs, down .4 lbs from 5/1

After the donuts, pizza, and ice cream, there was no way I thought I'd actually drop a bit of weight this morning, so I am jazzed. And things are off to a positive start today. No microwave yet, so lunch will be a crap shoot. But we did get our uber-bitchin' coffee maker set up. I don't drink coffee, but it does have a direct hot water line so I was able to make my oatmeal this morning. I did have a small snack in the middle of the morning, about a half an ounce of Lays Toasted Ranch Chips, which totals roughly 70 calories. I'm not too worried about that. Besides, I've been drinking water like it's going out of style to try and keep feeling filled up. We shall see. I am heading to the gym this afternoon, and if I can keep things under control at lunch and manage to avoid too much snacking in the afternoon, I should be in pretty good shape tomorrow morning.

An attempt to return to normalcy

2007-05-01T15:14:00.001-07:00

Again, I want to express my extreme gratitude to everyone who stopped by and offered condolences regarding my mother's death. It hasn't been easy, but it certainly has lightened the burden, knowing that so many of you have offered your prayers and warm thoughts.

But there has to be a return to a semblance of normalcy, and in this case it would be my weight. Interestingly, from the morning before Mom's surgery (Wed 4/18) to the Friday after the memorial service (4/27), I dropped 5 pounds. I actually was back below 283 pounds, for the first time since The Troubles hit me last summer. There may have been some factor of depression there, but I attribute it to one main thing…I was busy and therefore not snacking. And as a side note, I hadn't even made it to the gym since the day before surgery…no unusual physical activity beyond the dog walking. I noticed a slight rise on last Monday and Tuesday (4/23-4/24), when I was back in the office. I had to sit at the computer reading things, and naturally I felt compelled to snack. But when Wednesday hit and I was off work and dealing with family and getting ready for the memorial service, I wasn't snacking. It wasn't until Saturday morning that I noticed an increase of 2 pounds. To thank DAPGF for going above and beyond in being supportive through all of this, I took her out to a swanky restaurant in La Jolla for their tapas buffet lunch. It is very tasty and the menu items tend to be on the healthy side (calamari salad, chipotle pepper hummus dip, sushi, etc.), but anytime you factor the word "buffet" into it, any health benefits tend to go out the window. And that was followed up by a nice dinner (huge chicken sandwich) and several beers with little sister and her hubby at a brewpub just blocks from Casa de Hoff. End result after everybody went home and it was back to just DAPGF and I at our place, Monday morning on 4/30 I weighed in at 286.2 lbs. Granted, that was still down more than a pound from the day before Mom's surgery, and was identical to what I weighed on 4/1. And roughly 3 pounds below my all time (knowingly) heaviest.

Now we enter a new month, one with some promise of being better than April. One example: the last day I'd done my affirmations was the morning before Mom's surgery. During the following week, I obviously had some other things on my mind and didn't do them. For the most part, without the affirmations my weight did alright, but I did notice that I seemed to have a little more control when I was doing the affirmations. And at around 9:45 a.m. this morning, when the snack bug seems to strike me the hardest, I wrote them out. Granted, we're doing our office relocation today, and I figured that while I waited for the intranet and phones to get reactivated, it would be as good a time as any to do the affirmations. And I haven't snacked today. Granted, because of said relocation, our corporate masters saw fit to ply us with doughnuts this morning (no microwave for my oatmeal) and pizza for lunch (again, no microwave for the Lean Cuisine). Still, I think I managed to control my intake reasonably well, so unless dinner with DAPGF turns into a disaster, I should come thru today in good shape.

5/1 Weigh-in: 285.6 lbs, down .6 lbs from 4/30.

I attribute this drop to the aforementioned office relocation. When last my coworkers and I spoke of the move, it was determined that we'd go into the office Monday morning, and when the phones and computers were shut off and the movers showed up around noon, we'd scatter and work from home. I showed up Monday morning just after 8 only to find that the phones were already off and nobody was there. So I checked on a few things and left. After getting home, I played a little poker and looked at computer prices online. Side note, I played a few random games of poker during the past week (once the day of surgery while in the hospital waiting room, before the complications hit, and a couple of times over that following weekend as a mental break from everything else), and I was tearing it up. I won 3 of the 4 tournaments I entered, and on a total investment of roughly 35 dollars I won about $150. Not bad all things being equal. Anyway, being mentally focused on the poker and researching computer prices distracted me from the need to graze during the day on Monday. DAPGF and I even went to Sizzler for the salad buffet for dinner, and my weigh-in this morning was still down from Monday morning's.

So to recap, the family is slowly returning to a normal level of function (just to reassure you, we'll never be back to "normal" ever again, but you understand), I'm back on a roll for losing weight, I've been on a roll in poker, and I even managed to pay off one of my credit cards just before the end of the month. And now we've moved my company from their original, tiny suite of crappy offices to a much swankier, 5 times larger suite in a much nicer area. So family, weight, poker, finances, and work all seem to be heading in the right direction. As a start to the month, I'll take it. Keep checking in, and I'll keep you updated.

As a side note, Google in their attempt to take over the online world as Microsoft has done with the OS world has created a way to store, modify, share, etc. documents and spreadsheets online. It also means that it becomes much easier (for those of us who aren't Alpha Geeks and don't know how to program Java or whatever) to embed those docs into blog posts. I've been tracking my food intake on an MS Excel template that I downloaded from Microsoft specifically for that purpose. If I can get that all figured out, maybe I can add that feature to future posts here. We shall see.

Thanks, and I need your help again.

2007-04-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

I can't begin to thank all of you for your support during this time of grief. We had the memorial service this past Thursday, and the most telling comment came from our Senior Pastor (who has been our family pastor for the past 24 years), "People are lined up outside the doors. I don't think we're going to start on time." I thought I knew how special my mom was. As it turns out, I seriously underestimated it. Not just the quantity of people who came, but the personal stories that just about everybody shared about her. Family members are returning to their own homes, and now it's going to be just me and dad ( little sister lives in the Memphis area) (and DAPGF, obviously). Seeing the outpouring of support here in the blogosphere, I know that we'll be able to make it.

And I wish that this was the end of the grief, but a blog friend of Shane Nickerson (and if I dare, myself) needs prayers of support and comfort far more than I do. Please click here.

(cross-posted at The Randomness and What Happened)

Cancer sucks

2007-04-21T13:40:00.001-07:00

Some of you may be aware that my mother has been battling cancer. I may have mentioned it in a post or two, but I've also mentioned it in comments to others' posts when they've lost a family member, including Pauly, Falstaff , and Wil Wheaton's friend, Annie.

Anyway, my mother underwent a radical, experimental surgical procedure (hyperthermic chemo perfusion) back in April 2004, where after the cancer is surgically removed, heated liquid chemo is basically poured into the body cavity and all internal surfaces are "washed" to directly kill any remaining cancer. When she was diagnosed in January 2004, they told her she had 6 months without that surgery. With the surgery, they gave her a 50% chance to last another 2 to 3 years. So she had the surgery. Just over a month in the hospital to recover, 2 rounds of follow up chemotherapy, and not quite a full year to get her strength back. After that, she went back to work…as a hospice nurse! My mother, who spent the last several years of her career working with the terminally ill, decided that since she'd beaten cancer back that she'd go back to working with the terminally ill. She was that kind of a strong and caring person. So after a year of working, she and my father retired. Her regular tests were showing some recurrence of the cancer, so they decided to take the time to enjoy life for themselves. They did some traveling, they saw relatives, they had fun. During this time, the cancer was reestablishing itself. According to the doctors who would read her MRI scans, the cancer was "slow-growing" but it apparently WAS growing. Finally, her last scan showed that it was spreading from her abdomen up to her chest, including starting to compress the main aorta coming out of her heart. So a second round of surgery, similar to the first one was scheduled for Thursday, April 19.

It was going to be a 10 hour or so procedure, and I took the day off and my sister flew in from Memphis. Everything kicked off around 7 a.m. She had been tired, in pain, but seemed in good spirits, so we weren't too worried. I mean, she came thru the first surgery just fine…why should this be any different? So my dad gets a call at 3:30 in the afternoon. The surgeon said that there had been some complications, that when they were removing the cancer from around her liver, some of the cancer had gotten into the main artery that fed blood to the liver and that the artery had torn. They worked into the night to stabilize her, and finally at 8 p.m. the doctor came down and told us that they had the bleeding under control, she was on a respirator, and that they'd go back in first thing in the morning on Friday to try and repair the damage and finish removal of the cancer. So we all show up at 7 a.m. again, and the oncology surgeon and the vascular specialist he'd called in Thursday afternoon met us and told us how extensive things were, and told us that her chances were slim, but it was possible that they could repair the damage. We unanimously said to go for it, and the doctors headed up to the SICU. Around 9:30 a.m. we got the call. They couldn't control the bleeding, and she'd gone into cardiac arrest. They did open heart massage for about 10 minutes, but couldn't revive her. My mother died at 9:20 a.m. on April 20, 2007.

We had 3 years that we hadn't expected to have, she's in a much better place, and no longer in pain. Don't tell me that the cancer won. She fucking beat cancer! It can't get her anymore! We all miss her terribly, but to know that she's in heaven and no longer in pain is worth the pain that we all feel. I wanted to include a picture, but all my digital pics are on my computer's hard drive and it is still a non-functional pile of electronic crap. Sorry for the downer nature of this post, but I had to get this off my chest. Tell your parents that you love them. Tell your loved ones that you love them. And watch out for cancer. It fucking sucks.

A new tool...

2007-04-16T11:22:00.001-07:00

So, I started a new "program" for lack of a better term. Simply put, it's a program of affirmations. Similar to Oprah's latest book pimp, The Secret (I know about this from DAPGF, not because I watch Oprah), the premise behind it is that the future isn't strictly set, but can change based on our perception of what the future will be. Power of positive thinking, whatever you'd like, the idea is that you pick a fairly specific goal (but not one so specific that it doesn't allow flexibility in approaching the goal), and once a day write the goal down 15 times. My source (and I might divulge it later, but as funny as it may be, it is NOT Stuart Smalley from old school Saturday Night Live) cited several fairly specific goals that he set (one at a time, not all at once), and that they all came to be after following the daily process for several months. He did say that there was no consistent, "do this for 90 days" timeframe for it, but that his experiences ranged from several weeks to 6 months for realization of the goal. He also stated that it's ok if you are skeptical, just so long as you consistently write the goal down. It is his argument that the daily affirming of his goal helped him achieve his goal by allowing the future to perceive a path from his present to the successful goal. I don't have the book in front of me (here at work, planning my stealth post by mail), but I'll try to clarify some of the details in a later post.

I started back on Friday the 13^th, with my goal (naturally) being to lose weight. Specifically:

"I, iamhoff (use your real name), will get my weight below 240 lbs this year."

Now the interesting thing is that this doesn't set daily progression targets, or spell out a specific method or activity I must undertake to achieve it. Given that I started the day after my 36^th birthday, "this year" could mean either Calendar Year 2007 or my 36^th year, with the deadline being April 12, 2008. Those details aren't really the concern. What I seem to be noticing is the positive reinforcement from constantly writing my goal down. I've got a big wire-bound notebook that I keep in my laptop bag, and I write a few lines at a time. Constantly having to look at my own words stating that I intend to drop some serious poundage (just shy of 50 lbs), seems to help keep me mentally in the game and helps me avoid the urge to constantly stuff my face. Again, I'm not setting goals of only consuming 1200 calories per day, or getting a solid hour of cardio work in each day. Rather, I'm just constantly reminding myself that I'm trying to lose weight and hoping that being constantly aware of that will help me fight the urges to eat everything within reach. It hasn't been completely perfect, but I have noticed a small downward trend in my weight over the weekend. And since I didn't make it to the gym at all this weekend, it has to be because my reinforcement helped me to control my eating urges.

If I continue to make positive strides, I'll go a little more into what I read, what the background is, etc, etc. For the meanwhile, I'm hanging tough and trying to fill my need to munch with gum and lots of water. As a side bonus, drinking as much water as I seem to be should help clear out any toxins or other impurities in my body, thus helping to make me even healthier! Wish me luck…