[2007.09.11] Weight Loss Report

So, I forgot to update last week and that may have been a sub-conscious attempt to avoid bad news as I had gained 0.8 pounds resulting in a weight of 334.2 pounds.

Well, this week has gone much better. I lost 4.8 pounds taking me down to 329.4 pounds.

Yay! I hit my first mini-goal. 29.4 pounds left to go to hit the first full goal. Given that I have already lost more weight than that, it seems less daunting now. Only the upcoming weeks can confirm my assessment...

[2007.08.28] Weight Loss Report

Well, it has been a somewhat positive week for weight loss. I'm down another 2.4 pounds or 27.2 pounds overall. This leaves me at 333.4 pounds this morning. I am just shy of the first mini-goal of 330 pounds. Maybe next week?

BTW, I also threw up the legend to explain what those little stars mean :)

[2007-08-21] Weight Loss Report

Well, another week in the plan where I made it out and met the plan's requirements. I stuck to my point totals by the thinnest of margins. Free pizza with my favorite toppings at work last Friday nearly did me in :)

So, I am now at 335.8 pounds and that is down 2.4 pounds from last week. Hopefully, by this time next week I can post a graphic showing a coveted "25 pounds lost" star. I could conceivably even hit my mini-goal of 330 pounds. The first major goal of 60+ pounds lost is looking more and more possible by the end of the year. I am concerned what havoc winter may play with my progress. Summer has already made getting out and walking difficult, but I imagine winter may be worse. I guess I will just have to wait to see...

Ben eating Jello for the first time

Dinner tonight at Sweet Tomatoes...Ben loves his Jello ;)

and now on weight watch...

So, it's now time for another weight report. With Heather & Ben out of town this past week, I assumed I wouldn't do well as I tend to eat "bad" foods when I am bach'ing it, stuff like potato skins, pizza, chinese, etc. Well, I did do that, but I guess I kept to moderation well enough to still lose weight.

I'm now down 2.8 additional pounds at 338.2 that brings my running total to -22.4 pounds. This has not been my best week, but I will gladly take a loss any week. If I can at least stay moving in the right direction, hopefully I'll get to the end goal sooner or later and I'm just a wee bit off of my first goal of 330 pounds.

To stash away for Ben

I think Heather and I may have to pre-order this for Ben. I really want him to have the opportunity to read these as he gets older and it seems like a great deal at $117 for all seven books.

Weight Watchers progress

For those of you that know, I have been getting involved with Weight Watchers in the past couple of months.

Well, I have now decided to stop attending the meetings. They simply weren't doing anything for me and to be quite honest, Weight Watchers isn't tuned at all for men (at least from the meetings I have seen). I am still doing the program and am quite happy with it so far, but that is due to the fact that they have some nice for-pay web tools that allow me to geek out over my diet tracking. Well, in an effort to remain accountable, not just to myself, but also others, I have decided to start posting some of my results here. At one point I may have been embarrassed or considered this too personal, but the reality is that I am a big guy, but I am making decent progress towards being a smaller bug guy.

So, without further ado, here is my latest weight chart...



I started at 360.6 pounds and as of my weigh-in this morning, I am at 341 pounds or a 19.6 pound loss.

The goal listed above is definitely not my end goal, but it is where I would like to be at the end of 2007. It is aggressive and I'm not fully sure it is attainable, but hey, they don't call them "stretch" goals for nothing. My next goal is to hit 330 pounds with the year end goal to be 299 pounds.

I'll update every week or two with were I am.

[UPDATE: Just for info, the stars in the chart above are milestones within the Weight Watchers system, i.e. first 5 pounds, additional 5 pounds, etc.]

Return from the Beach

So, I was really bad about blogging from the beach...

Too much relaxing to do. Let me give a quick run down now that we're back before I go to get some sleep...

• Amazing weather ... most of the week was clear and mid-80's temperature wise. We didn't get any nasty rain until late Saturday
• Ben didn't enjoy the water at all until Saturday morning ... prior to that he was afraid of the surf, but he did get into the sand ... lots of pictures to go through
  
• Ben broke a DVD player ... electronics mixed with a 1 year old is a no go
• I bought a Wii ... wandered into Wal-Mart while wasting some time and they had a single Wii box hidden at the back of the shelf. I will review it in the next few days
• Did lots of walking, 2-3 miles many days, but I still found myself back up about 5-6 pounds over 2 weeks ago. Food like the next entry explains ;)
• I love Buffalo Wild Wings ... really good wings and a good atmosphere

Now just one more day off and then back to work. Be back later with more ...

Bye, Bye Wildman look

BEFORE:

AFTER:

MID-WAY SNACK:


So, Ben had his very first haircut today. I was glad. Heather was a bit torn up, but kept it together :) He still has curls, just shorter hair overall. He handled it quite well, but did get a bit fussy towards the end, but never really cried. We ended up using Snip-its and I was pretty well satisfied with the job and with the environment of the place. There were lots of colors, lots of multimedia clips, and quite a number of toys for sale. All in all, a good choice.

You can see a few more photos here.

The Deathly Hallows

So, my hardback book copy of "Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows" arrived today from Amazon and I picked up the audiobook version at Target while we were out. Looks like I've got some great reading during my vacation.

Can't get it out of my head

I am wandering B.J.s with the song "Jinglebell Rock" stuck in my head. I keep humming it and I don't know why. To make things worse ... I can't stop!

Workin' for the weekend

Oh, did I mention my vacation started today at 5PM?

YES!!!! :)

To a crisp I say...

I must say, I am very tired lately ... of work, of everything. I am just burned out to some extent and I really need my upcoming vacation to recharge. Right now, I have my first "me" time of the day and I am sitting on hold with NetFlix to fix something with my account ... not really relaxing ;)

Well, we hit the beach in a matter of days and really, hitting the beach for me means sleeping and relaxing. Wow! I just can't wait. I have a huge stack of comic book TPB (Trade Paperbacks) and I will have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for some enjoyable reading time. I am truly looking forward to book 7 of the series. I had wanted to listen to it on Audiobook, but I must have missed the pre-order guarantee deadline for that edition. If I find it, I will likely pick it up as well.

I'm also going to be working on pulling in all the video I have of Ben that has not been imported into iMovie yet. Probably going on to encode for Apple TV and YouTube from there.

Anywho, I am REALLY looking forward to getting away for a bit. I should still be posting as I can now do it from my Samsung Blackjack via SMS/MMS.

They grow up so fast...

Ben walked today and I didn't get to see it!

Heather and Ben went to a nearby daylilly farm to pick up some flowers for the backyard while I stayed at home and worked on cleaning up our office (which had become quite a wreck). While they were there, Ben took 10 steps in a row by himself. I definitely think that is counting as walking, but I just wish I had gotten to see it :(

It was nice he picked a date like 777 to walk on... :)

[UPDATE 7/9/07] I have since gotten to see Ben take a number of steps on his own...yeah! He still is more comfortable with crawling, but I'm sure that will change in time!

I've fallen and I can't get up!

Actually in all seriousness, I have been in a lot of pain today. My back has been sore since Wednesday when we finished putting a patio in, but sometime on Friday, the pain seriously kicked in. I stayed home from work and tried to rest and stretch myself back into some sort of useful shape, but I'm still only part of the way there...

How Bill can be convinced to lower his standards...

I really wish I didn't like getting a good deal sometimes...

I have been using Netflix for the past couple of years if not longer. Well, my brother talked me into trying Blockbuster's online service. Well, long story short, I like it. I like it a lot, but I really dislike Blockbuster as I believe they represent much of what is wrong with the movie industry today (i.e. profit emphasis rather than artistic quality, "exclusives", Wal-Mart like elimination of all competition, caused the death of the local video store, etc.)

All that being said, I love getting movies in the mail, watching them, returning them to the store, getting free in-store rentals, getting my next batch in the mail. It is simply VERY convenient. Guess I have to just accept that I am going to compromise my personal stance for a few more movies a month and a bit of convenience :(

Long trip for 8 TPBs

Took a nice, long walk to the Holly Springs farmer's market and library this morning with the fam. The farmer's market is rather small, like 8 booths, but luckily that wasn't the main reason for the walk. The library, while small, is perfectly acceptable. I was much happier there after I figured out that they have a "Graphic Novels" section. I picked up 8 TPBs (Trade Paperbacks) ranging from Hellblazer to the Hulk to Batman and the Fantastic Four. A nice haul if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow, I need to spend more time on the outdoor patio I've been working on and Monday night, I'm going to get to catch the Transformers opening night show over at Beaver Creek. Everything I've heard or read makes this movie sound amazing. 88% freshness rating over at Rotten Tomatoes.

The new blog of Bill

So, I have decided to try using Blogger for a while. I will probably be getting Heather on it as well as she now wants to try blogging. We'll see if I stay here or go back to WordPress. I'm just not sure I want to mess around with true web-hosting or not any more. I am just so busy and we're talking $120/year for what I have right now. That's almost a new iPod ;)