Time: 6:15 AM
Weight beforehand: 340 lbs (13 lbs between Friday evening and Monday morning? It's got to be water weight, bodily waste, and scale oddities. I'd be surprised if I've lost 1 lb of fat. Still, the number going down is nice.)
Length: 40 minutes
Program: Level 3 the whole way.
Rating: Definite improvement. I still have sore calf muscles, but I pushed through this workout a lot easier than the previous two. I still had to slow down for the last 10 minutes or so, but at least I got off to a slow, and then faster, start and middle part.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Sunday Observations
Why is the day of rest always so busy? I'm glad, especially on the day that Daylight Savings starts, that we don't have church until 1:00 PM right now. We've got to get ourselves and the kids ready, have a babysitter come so we can go to choir practice from 11:00 to 12:00, make meals, prepare lessons, and go to church. After church there are more meals, church members to visit, missionaries to feed, etc. It's a good thing that all these things help us feel uplifted.
Speaking of uplifting, I teach a Sunday School class of 8 to 9 year old kids. As you may know, kids at this age have lots to do and think and talk about, and a lot of that is unrelated to the lesson topic. One thing that I have been able to count on, though, over the two years I've been teaching this age group, is that the Spirit of the Lord always seems to cause them to be quiet and respectful when the scriptures are being read aloud in class. They may not be paying attention, as shown when we ask them about what we just read, but the class is never so quiet and peaceful as when we read from the scriptures, especially when it's one of the kids reading. It's very interesting to see in action.
My muscles hurt less today, but that might just be because I'm not working out on Sunday. We'll see how things go tomorrow.
Speaking of uplifting, I teach a Sunday School class of 8 to 9 year old kids. As you may know, kids at this age have lots to do and think and talk about, and a lot of that is unrelated to the lesson topic. One thing that I have been able to count on, though, over the two years I've been teaching this age group, is that the Spirit of the Lord always seems to cause them to be quiet and respectful when the scriptures are being read aloud in class. They may not be paying attention, as shown when we ask them about what we just read, but the class is never so quiet and peaceful as when we read from the scriptures, especially when it's one of the kids reading. It's very interesting to see in action.
My muscles hurt less today, but that might just be because I'm not working out on Sunday. We'll see how things go tomorrow.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
8 March 2008 workout
Time: 6:00 PM
Weight beforehand: 347 lbs (allow me to mention that my children have "enhanced" this scale many times over the years, and it has called the accuracy of said scale into question)
Length: 30 minutes
Program: Heart rate program that varies the incline. I didn't wear the heart rate sensor, so I had to deal with the less accurate sensors in the handle grips. It stayed mostly at level 1, but I saw as high as level 5 at times. My pace was tortoise-like to be able to finish it.
Rating: The pain killer helped me endure, but once I stopped, I didn't want to move any more. I had only taken half the maximum dose though, so the other half soon followed.
Weight beforehand: 347 lbs (allow me to mention that my children have "enhanced" this scale many times over the years, and it has called the accuracy of said scale into question)
Length: 30 minutes
Program: Heart rate program that varies the incline. I didn't wear the heart rate sensor, so I had to deal with the less accurate sensors in the handle grips. It stayed mostly at level 1, but I saw as high as level 5 at times. My pace was tortoise-like to be able to finish it.
Rating: The pain killer helped me endure, but once I stopped, I didn't want to move any more. I had only taken half the maximum dose though, so the other half soon followed.
Business Travel and House Flooding
For some inexplicable reason, the last three times I have gone on a business trip, there has been a flood in the house. Two of them were caused by my oldest son playing in a bathroom, and one was due to a faulty sprinkler system installation by the previous owners. I feel badly that my wife has to deal with these floods without me being around each time.
Guess what I have scheduled for this coming Wednesday through Friday? A business trip to Austin, TX has been graciously bestowed upon me by the manager of a different group at work. He's sending one of his guys to one of my customers so I get to tag along.
Note that appears unrelated but will tie in soon, I promise: My next door neighbor built a lovely house just over a year ago. He owned his own heating and cooling company which he has since sold for what appears to be a tidy profit based on his lengthy trips to Mexico and Germany with the family. He's a very nice guy, and I wouldn't mind someday having the success I imagine him to have.
I got a call today from a different neighbor that the next door neighbor's house had been flooded. I went over to help out and found out that he had been out for about 2.5 hours this afternoon (they need to sell the house so they can get a place with a mother-in-law apartment for one of their mothers, who is aging and in need of help. The realtor said they had a showing today so he took the family out during that time). When he came home, he found the front door slightly ajar with his own hose from the front yard sticking into the house either eighteen inches or six feet (I thought I heard him say six feet over the sound of many wet-dry vacs, but he held up his hands about eighteen inches apart). Someone had put the hose in his house and turned the water on about a quarter of the way. We were cleaning water out of the formal living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and basement, and we quickly discovered water dripping through the tile flooring into the ceiling of the basement, through the ventilation system, and throughout the basement. He's got his basement ceiling torn up in a couple of different spots, and with the 20 to 30 plus neighbors who showed up to help, we must have dumped over 50 gallons of water that we'd picked up. I feel really bad for him to be going through this, especially when it was on purpose and when he's trying to sell.
Now for the tie-in. A certain part of me is hoping and wondering if his flood, which I helped clean up for about an hour, will count as the flood for my business trip this week. I'm not superstitious, but I feel bad for even entertaining the thought in the first place. I've told my boss, in jest, that if my house floods again while I'm gone, I won't go on any more business trips because they are too expensive to recover from. I have never had anything like what he had happen though.
I reduced my workout length appropriately to compensate for the work I did helping to clean up and due to the fact that I was dreading my workout all day. My muscles hurt, as expected when one first starts an exercise program. Luckily, my marvelous wife reminded me that I should take a pain killer to kill the pain this afternoon, and I'm doing better for taking that advice.
Guess what I have scheduled for this coming Wednesday through Friday? A business trip to Austin, TX has been graciously bestowed upon me by the manager of a different group at work. He's sending one of his guys to one of my customers so I get to tag along.
Note that appears unrelated but will tie in soon, I promise: My next door neighbor built a lovely house just over a year ago. He owned his own heating and cooling company which he has since sold for what appears to be a tidy profit based on his lengthy trips to Mexico and Germany with the family. He's a very nice guy, and I wouldn't mind someday having the success I imagine him to have.
I got a call today from a different neighbor that the next door neighbor's house had been flooded. I went over to help out and found out that he had been out for about 2.5 hours this afternoon (they need to sell the house so they can get a place with a mother-in-law apartment for one of their mothers, who is aging and in need of help. The realtor said they had a showing today so he took the family out during that time). When he came home, he found the front door slightly ajar with his own hose from the front yard sticking into the house either eighteen inches or six feet (I thought I heard him say six feet over the sound of many wet-dry vacs, but he held up his hands about eighteen inches apart). Someone had put the hose in his house and turned the water on about a quarter of the way. We were cleaning water out of the formal living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and basement, and we quickly discovered water dripping through the tile flooring into the ceiling of the basement, through the ventilation system, and throughout the basement. He's got his basement ceiling torn up in a couple of different spots, and with the 20 to 30 plus neighbors who showed up to help, we must have dumped over 50 gallons of water that we'd picked up. I feel really bad for him to be going through this, especially when it was on purpose and when he's trying to sell.
Now for the tie-in. A certain part of me is hoping and wondering if his flood, which I helped clean up for about an hour, will count as the flood for my business trip this week. I'm not superstitious, but I feel bad for even entertaining the thought in the first place. I've told my boss, in jest, that if my house floods again while I'm gone, I won't go on any more business trips because they are too expensive to recover from. I have never had anything like what he had happen though.
I reduced my workout length appropriately to compensate for the work I did helping to clean up and due to the fact that I was dreading my workout all day. My muscles hurt, as expected when one first starts an exercise program. Luckily, my marvelous wife reminded me that I should take a pain killer to kill the pain this afternoon, and I'm doing better for taking that advice.
7 March 2008 workout
Time: 6:00 PM
Weight beforehand: 353 lbs
Length: Approximately 40 minutes (I kept changing programs on the elliptical machine)
Program: Mainly level 1 due to my heart rate being higher than the settings want it to be
Rating: I made it through the full time, barely. No tears, yet, but lots of groaning and soreness.
Weight beforehand: 353 lbs
Length: Approximately 40 minutes (I kept changing programs on the elliptical machine)
Program: Mainly level 1 due to my heart rate being higher than the settings want it to be
Rating: I made it through the full time, barely. No tears, yet, but lots of groaning and soreness.
Starting Today
I've been pondering doing a blog for sometime. I find myself so busy that I thought I'd hardly ever update it. Then I went to the doctor yesterday.
As background, I like to describe myself as large in stature and wide in girth. I have known for quite a while that I needed to do something about my weight, but I always found an excuse for not focusing on it terribly hard. My life has now settled down about as much as it's going to, and my excuses have run out.
The doctor said I need to diet and exercise. Which diet and what exercise really don't matter, but I need to really cut back on my caloric intake and exercise 40 or so minutes 5 times a week. This is slightly more than my previous regime of not drinking pop to save calories and working out for 20 minutes when I wasn't too tired.
A big part of this blog, at least at the beginning, is to help motivate me to keep up with my lifestyle changes. I can't give up in a short amount of time - this has to last forever, ideally. Wish me luck!
As background, I like to describe myself as large in stature and wide in girth. I have known for quite a while that I needed to do something about my weight, but I always found an excuse for not focusing on it terribly hard. My life has now settled down about as much as it's going to, and my excuses have run out.
The doctor said I need to diet and exercise. Which diet and what exercise really don't matter, but I need to really cut back on my caloric intake and exercise 40 or so minutes 5 times a week. This is slightly more than my previous regime of not drinking pop to save calories and working out for 20 minutes when I wasn't too tired.
A big part of this blog, at least at the beginning, is to help motivate me to keep up with my lifestyle changes. I can't give up in a short amount of time - this has to last forever, ideally. Wish me luck!
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