weight loss

Diet & Fitness Update, Week Ending 8/12/06

It’s true, what Erin told me: anime conventions are not conducive to dieting. Even so, in the past two weeks (I didn’t weigh last weekend, due to Otakon), I managed to keep my weight gain to only one pound. I weigh 207.5 lbs as of yesterday morning.

I didn’t walk every day during my vacation. I didn’t use the fitness center at the Marriott. I haven’t done my PUSH workout for the past two weeks. I did, however, walk a shitload at Otakon. I wish my pedometer hadn’t busted its beltclip the day before, and that the battery on Aaron’s pedometer hadn’t been dead, so I could have counted my steps while I was there.

So, considering that I’ve been eating out much more than usual and exercising much less than usual over the past two weeks, I’m… well, I’m never *pleased* about gaining weight, but I’m glad it wasn’t any more than a pound.

Start: 210 | Current: 207 | Goal: 190

I got out of the habit of making myself a weekly menu, after only two weeks of menu-ing. I’m not making myself one for this week, either, but I’m planning the return of the Palm IIIc and DietOrganizer. I need to do a reality check and make sure my “normal” diet isn’t going crazy with too many calories. I haven’t been tracking anything, carbs or calories, and have instead just been watching portion sizes and eating frequently and yadda yadda yadda.

This week is also going to see the return of cardio. I know, you’re scoffing at me. Or shaking your head. Or rolling your eyes. But give me a chance here. I’m planning to go out and jog for just ONE day this week. Just to remind myself that it won’t kill me. And because it’s fucking nice outside.

This week is just basically the get-back-on-the-wagon week. I’m pretty pleased with the way I looked in Erin’s Otakon photos, surprisingly enough, but I’ve been *feeling* jiggly and unfit. Nasty upper arm jiggle, nasty thigh fat, nasty spare tire, just nasty in general. I know it has a lot to do with my level of activity, and I’m going to fix that this week. That’s the goal, anyway.

*deep breath*

I’m tired of being all talk and no action. WTF. This is seriously annoying. I am GOING to do this, and I am NOT going to lose heart halfway through the week and get distracted and opt not to exercise in favor of websurfing or designing or podcasting or whatever. My health comes FIRST, goddammit. I owe it to myself.

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New ‘Do

Ladies and gentlemen: my new hairdo.

Once again, I donated my hair to Locks of Love; however, this time, I went to Aaron’s usual stylist, Great Clips. I didn’t have great expectations for Great Clips, but they did give me a free cut for donating my hair, and they’re only a few minutes from our house. They didn’t do fancy poofy hair-drying like Hair E. Canary in BG did, and didn’t make my hair look all fresh-from-the-stylist or anything, but they cut it for free, and will be mailing it in themselves, thus saving me postage.

It ended up a little longer than last time, too, since Great Clips took exactly ten inches off my hair. Last time, I had the stylist at Hair E. Canary just cut it *short*, which ended up being 14″ of hair. Whee! Anyway, I’m glad this is just short enough to swing above my shoulders, but long enough to pull back if I need to (albeit with a few wispies at the nape of my neck).

So… whaddaya think?

the ongoing saga of my job

Back To Work

Been back from vacation for a day and a half now. Having trouble concentrating this morning. Good excuse to blog.

Lots of weirdness happened at work while I was gone. Our supervisor had already told us that he was leaving the department, so that was no surprise. His replacement was announced in my absence, though, and was met with lukewarm enthusiasm at best. His successor is a supervisor from another department, which left that department with a supervisory vacancy. In turn, yet another supervisor from another department — the department for which James and I are currently developing a new tracking database — is moving to fill *that* vacancy. Which leaves the department with which we’ve been working currently in limbo. So, the supervisors are having a nice little Chinese Fire Drill, people are leaving their respective departments like rats from a sinking ship, and James and I are a bit dazed.

The timing of the announcement was impeccable, too, being that I was on vacation last week and James is on vacation this week. So, he was pretty much flying solo last week, apart from us trading a few update emails, and I’m flying solo this week. These two weeks are enough to confirm our suspicion that this job really does require two people. It could be that we’ve just grown used to bouncing ideas off of one another, or it could be a function of my struggling confidence level, but I hesitate to make any drastic changes or embark on any new projects without confirming with James first.

That said, I should probably try to focus and make some headway on something.

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The Vacation Thus Far

Monday: Bought the newest Civ IV expansion at Best Buy. Ran some random errands with Aaron. Maxxed and relaxed at home in the AC and played my new game.

Tuesday: Lunch with Aaron and Mark at Ruby Tuesday. Spent the rest of the day at home in the AC. Paid a bunch of bills. Got all funky-depressed from not exercising (or was it PMS?). Thenl we watched the Henry Rollins Show DVDs from his show on the Independent Film Channel, and I ate some oatmeal (with real maple syrup), and that made it all better.

Today: Went to the bank with Aaron and withdrew spending money for Otakon. Got a bunch of low-carb goodness and a cheap set of iPod speakers at Big Lots. Packed for the trip — and, again, maxxed and relaxed in the AC.

Tomorrow morning, we head out for Baltimore. It’s about an eight-hour trip from here, so we’re starting out around 8am. We’ll get to our hotel around rush hour, park and check in, walk to the Convention Center to get our badges, then meet the Ninja Consultants for dinner.

After that, it’s a wild ride of otaku conventioning and anime craziness until Sunday, a day of rest on Monday, then back to the grind on Tuesday. But that’s not for a while yet. I’ve still got half my vacation to go!