Changes are Afoot

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

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.

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

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...

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!

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!

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.