One Little Day (Revisited)

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...

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...

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...

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!

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

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

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?

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

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!

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

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!!!!

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!!

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!

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

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...

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...

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!

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...

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!

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.