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Hello, blog, remember me? I cannot believe that it has been 3 weeks. Time flies when you are making changes.

Announcement #1
As mentioned in earlier posts, my wife and I have dropped Weight-Watchers. We really could not afford $80 per month at this time to attend meetings telling us how to lose weight and eat healthy then go home and do the opposite nullifying the whole point. We have both lost our motivation and we are trying very hard to find it again. In the meantime, we know how to eat healthy and have done it, so as soon as the motivation is there, the weight-loss will begin once more.

Announcement #2
As of yesterday, my work location has officially switched from Irving, TX to Flower Mound, TX. It adds some miles to the drive, but the drive is much less stressful as I never have to hit the freeways any more (if you’ve ever been in the 114/121 merge north of DFW airport during rush hour, you know exactly what I mean). This additional mileage also wipes out the pay raise I received earlier this year. This is due to having to now take separate vehicles to work instead of my wife and I carpooling together. This also played a role in the above decision.

Announcement #3
My wife and I also dropped our farmer’s co-op for organic fruits and vegetables. For financial reasons mostly, but also because we had started wasting food (you cannot eat that much fresh fruits and vegetables if you are eating out more often; refer to the motivation issue in #1). We would be better served buying organic fruits and vegetables at the grocery store when we intend to use them. The amount we were wasting meant it was no cheaper than paying grocery store prices.

Announcement #4
My running has slacked off entirely since the half-marathon in March. I’ve done less than a dozen runs since then. Again, lack of motivation here has resulted in gaining about 10 pounds since the half-marathon. Also, the weather changed (and it is never a gradual thing here in Texas) and when I did my first evening run, it was over 80 degrees and the humidity was through the roof. It was the first time I could not finish my neighborhood 5K run.

Announcement #5
After years of trying to control it with my diet, my gout is just not getting much better. I had a severe attack (worst in years) the afternoon after my half-marathon. I just had another attack last Sunday. I cannot afford for this to hold me back on my training or possibly interfere with even participating in the marathon. I had to do something and that meant doing the one thing I had hoped to avoid: taking a medication on a regular basis the rest of my life.

So I went to the doctor this past week and was put on allopurinol, one pill daily for the rest of my life. This does not eliminate gout attacks, but it does help control the purine levels in my bloodstream and can make my life much easier to live. I do not look on this as freedom to eat whatever I want, but I have had three small glasses of wine the last two days with no adverse results (alcohol was a big trigger for me).

Now I can live my life and not concern myself with possible gout attacks (I still have medication for that eventuality, but I do not foresee using it).

Announcement #6
After a few weeks of mulling over a lot of this, and getting a small financial windfall (not enough to reinstitute #1 and #3), I decided I needed a new goal. My half-marathon was great and I only spent a few weeks getting ready for it. After discussing by email with my friends Carolyn and Bob, I decided I would plan to do a marathon at the end of this year. As much as I would like to do it before my 40th birthday, doing it just a few weeks after should feel just as good.

Therefore, I plan on running the Dallas White Rock Marathon (RunTheRock.com) for my first marathon. Bob has sent me a training schedule that began this last week. For the next 6 months or so, I will be running 3 times a week. For me, this means my runs will be Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday (though I may change the first two to Wednesday and Friday). Sundays are my long runs and are best suited to that day of the week while the other two days will be “speedwork” and “tempo” (Bob and I have yet to get together in some form to discuss what all of this means, but soon).

After much peer pressure (yeah, Bob, I mean you) to get a Garmin, I found the previous “top model”, the Forerunner 305, at Best Buy for only $160. I have completed two runs so far and love the data I get back from it. I no longer have to hit a button once in a while to get my heart rate as this one came with the chest strap heart monitor.

Though I am not holding him to the percentage, Bob mentions that this type of training program to get ready for a marathon could mean up to a 20% loss of body weight. Though I know how my body works, it would be very nice to have even half those results. In my current status, that would mean losing between 28 and 56 pounds. Even if I did lose the 56 pounds, I would still weigh enough to run in the “Clydesdale” weight category (though I have not officially decided yet if I will run in that category versus my age group). Just 28 pounds would put me awfully close to my doctor’s prescription to weigh less than 250 pounds.

This is, by far, the longest post I have written in a very long time. I had procrastinated long enough, but realized that there were no other events to wait for to announce and as I had some free time while waiting on my wife to take care of her ear drops (ear infection), I had to post what I had promised some time back on Twitter and Facebook. I have to break this cycle of procrastination somehow… maybe tomorrow. ;)

Thanks for all the encouragement I have received over the years and in advance for the kind words you will give me as I get ready for this marathon (and for my wife who will have to endure all of my trials as well). This will turn out to be an exciting year before it ends.

What can I say? I’ve really slacked off on everything. On blogging, on weightloss, on running, on saving money. Work has been crazy busy since we lost one team member who moved to Massachusetts and another co-worker on my team who is down for four weeks due to back surgery.

Maybe that might explain why I polished off an entire container of Dreyer’s Mint Cookie Ice Cream in two nights (yeah, it’s my kryptonite; my wife has been commanded to never purchase it for me again). A ton of stress and I’m drowning.

I’m also sad that today was our last Weight-Watcher’s meeting for a while. Probably a long while depending on our financial situation. We had to cut back.

Truly makes me glad we’re doing this road trip. I need to get away for a while. I don’t think I’ll be blogging or even twittering. I’ll have my cell phone, but I’m disconnecting from the net for a week. This vacation could have been a trip to another country, but we had to scale back to eliminate airfare and such. It’ll still hurt our pocket book, but we need this.

The following sums up how I’ve been doing lately:
Three year weight-loss graph

My wife and I made some tough decisions this week. We have to truly cut expenses and anything that is not truly necessary. This meant the farmer’s co-op will make it’s last delivery next Tuesday. We had been throwing some food away because it was too much and we’ve been going out too much also.

After some further discussion, we realized that we had not been getting much out of the Weight-Watchers program, but not to fault the program, only our commitment to it. Since we have not mde any progress in the last several months, we decided that money could best be used to pay off some of our other debts. Therefore, the last Tuesday meeting before Memorial Day weekend will be our last meeting for a while.

We know that it will be very difficult to keep losing without the program, but we have the materials, the knowledge, and the experience of having lost weight. We also know that we have to cut out the restaurant trips (breakfast, lunch and dinner). This means we’ll be cooking at home, and we definitely cook healthier than we consume eating out. In this case, we may actually do better at weight loss by cutting back all of our spending.

So what does this mean for the weekly weigh-ins? Well, that’s where our Wii Fit will come in. It is the most trust-worthy scale we have in the house. Plus, it may encourage us to work out more on it.

Though it seems we’re losing so much by dropping Weight-Watchers, I think the pluses outweigh the minuses right now. We’ll really miss our friends there, but we’ll keep in touch as much as possible and get back to the meetings when we get our lives back in order.

Starting weight: 319.0 lb
Previous weight: 272.4 lb (two weeks ago)
Current weight: 275.0 lb
Current loss/gain: +2.6 lb
Total loss/gain: -44.0 lb

Cross-posted to FatBloggers.net

Yeah, so I didn’t post last week. Turns out that we got superbusy at the house. You see, we were going to be observing the Passover on Wednesday night. Since we follow the Old Testament observances such as Days of Unleavens, we had to clean out the house of all leavening and leavened products. We do a lot of vacuuming and sweeping and rummaging before it all goes out to the trash. It turned out Tuesday night last week was our last free night to finish all of this before sunset on Thursday when the Days of Unleavens started.

This meant having to skip doing the weekly update and, as you can guess, the rest of the week was way to crazy to get in time to post (I had to give the sermon on Friday, the first Day of Unleavens).

Anyways, all said and done, I’d been treating myself horribly, getting in only one run a week (this is ever since the half-marathon). I’d been eating poorly, getting little sleep and not enough exercise.

If anything, I redeemed myself somewhat. In spite of the potluck at church on Friday (yeah, my wife can make an unbelievably rich chocolate cake with no leavening), the heavier unleavened breads (I made some rye biscuits), and the other really good foods (such as Swedish pancakes, key-lime tea biscuits, butterscotch blondies,… well you get the idea), I got in one run, two walks and managed to neither gain or lose weight this week. So the numbers below are since my last post, but do not reflect the current week, only the previous.

Stress has been bad lately too since one of our team members turned in notice (making two friends I’m losing this week). It’s not been easy. I’m sticking to it though.

Weight-Watchers is having a Momentum Walk-It Challenge encouraging all members to enter a 5K before early June and is giving some pretty cool incentives to do it. It will be nothing for me, but I’m hoping I can get Amy to do one. I know she can do it and it would be fun to do it together.

Starting weight: 319.0 lb
Previous weight: 271.0 lb (two weeks ago)
Current weight: 272.4 lb
Current loss/gain: +1.4 lb
Total loss/gain: -46.6 lb

Cross-posted to FatBloggers.net

Procrastination is my closest friend and worst enemy. I’ve waited too long to make this post, but I’ve got to get it out before I completely forget the details I want to remember.

Amy and I spent the night at my brother’s house as all four of us (my brother and his wife included) were going to go to the race. The day started bright (well, cloudy actually) and early (not as early as I wanted, but we were up too late the night before) as we all got up and got dressed to leave. I consumed a Kashi Bar before leaving the house and I consumed a banana on the way there.
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