weight loss 3 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #13

Well, I guess being sick has its advantages. I stepped on the scale before this morning’s shower, and discovered that I lost three pounds this week! Holy crow. So, for those of you keeping score, I’m down to 206.5.

I can really only attribute this to eating light and not being hungry, thanks to being sick. I didn’t work out, apart from my standard daily 30-40 minute walk. I did eat a whole wheat English muffin with natural PB for breakfast every day this week. Good stuff. For the last couple of days, I’ve been eating a piece of fruit for my morning snack (banana or apple), either a salad or a low-sugar yogurt for lunch, and either another piece of fruit or a sugar-free pecan nummie from the vending machine for afternoon snackie. Dinner has been chock-full o’ carbs. Reduced-carb spaghetti with cheese sauce and salsa. Oatmeal with *real* maple syrup (purchased in Massachusetts). I did have turkey burgers one evening, and those were good. Overall, though, too little food during the day, and too carb-heavy in the evenings. I guess breakfast must have gotten my metabolism moving or something, though, because I did lose weight despite all that.

Oh, and did I mention that this cold has made food, well, go right through me? This might be TMI, but I’m sure my loose BMs haven’t just been from the sugar alcohols in the sugar-free pecan whatsits, or the one or two sugar-free Halls I’ll pop in a day. Nope, this is that special “being-sick” kind of experience. I’m guessing that might have something to do with the weight loss, too.

Don’t worry; I’ve been taking my vitamins as usual. I know that you can lose nutrients and crap (no pun intended), so I’ve been diligent as ever.

Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth here. I’m tickled that I lost three pounds this week. I just don’t think it’s anything I did specifically. Besides getting sick. 🙂

I take three-month pics and measurements tomorrow. If the swimsuit picture doesn’t make me gag, maybe I’ll post it here. I make no promises, though.

[By the way… being sick makes it a lot easier not to sleep in on Saturdays. When you wake up at 9:00, and would *like* to go back to sleep, but sleeping is just too damn uncomfortable, it makes the decision to get up a lot easier. And, yes, 9am on a Saturday is early for me. I usually sleep in until 10:30 or 11:00.]

health & fitness 1 Comment

Smacked Down By Mother Nature

Was preparing for the triumphant return of my podcast to the, er, podwaves. Was looking forward to getting my second PUSH DVD in the mail. Was geeked to weigh in for the three-month mark.

Then I got The Cold. You know, the one that everyone and their brother has been getting? Yeah, I got it.

Started with a sore throat, then some drainage. Now, three days later, it’s a full-blown monstrosity: stuffy head, stopped-up ears, sinus headache, plugged-up runny nose (isn’t that the worst?), dry eyes, sore and scratchy throat, random aches and pains, and general fatigue. I even took a short nap this evening, and I rarely do that anymore.

Podcast? Postponed until next week. PUSH? Again, I’m not working out this week. I tried to work out on Monday, before the symptoms had really set in at all, and ended up stopping the DVD before I got to my reverse ab curls because I was falling asleep from just laying on the floor. My new DVD didn’t arrive until yesterday, anyway, so I would have been doing a third week of Workout #2.

So, how about the weigh-in? Yeah, I’m still going to weigh myself tomorrow morning. I have *no* idea what the scales will say, since I’ve been eating *very* light during the day, then eating something heavier and more filling (and more carboriffic) later in the evening. If I gain a little, I won’t let myself be upset.

I’ll take some in-progress pics on Sunday evening. Amy’s coming over this weekend, so I’ll wait until she’s gone before I parade around the basement in my underwear. 😉

memories 4 Comments

For Diana’s Listening Pleasure

I found out pretty early on in our relationship that Aaron was a big music fan. We went to Ann Arbor for our third date, a triple-date with Mary/Drew and Heather/Garza. Aaron definitely tended to gravitate toward the record stores while we were there, and was bummed that he didn’t have more money to spend on records (especially since I was jobless and had made him pay for my lunch at Amer’s). So, naturally, I was curious about the music he was listening to, as I had never heard of ANY of it.

Before Spring Break, he made me a mixtape. The spine of the insert read: “For Diana’s Listening Pleasure: selections from Aaron’s CD collection.” On the tape were the following songs:

Side A:

  1. Wally Pleasant – Stupid Day Job
  2. Sugar – Your Favorite Thing
  3. Frank Black – Fazer Eyes
  4. Catherine Wheel – I Want To Touch You
  5. Pure – Lemonade
  6. Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Someday I Suppose
  7. Ash – Jack Names The Planets
  8. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Blue X Man
  9. Pixies – All Over The World
  10. Man or Astro-Man? – Sferic Waves
  11. Sebadoh – Magnet’s Coil

Side B:

  1. Dirty Three – Better Go Home Now
  2. Folk Implosion – Lo-Fi Suicide
  3. Pavement – Give It A Day
  4. Clutch – Big News I
  5. Henry Rollins – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
  6. Rollins Band – Right Here Too Much
  7. The Amps – Tipp City
  8. Afghan Whigs – Debonair
  9. Sentridoh – Perfect Excuse
  10. 24 Gone – Girl Of Colours
  11. Sugar – Explode And Make Up

I listened to this tape nonstop during my week of Spring Break in Parma, so much so that my step-Gary would often get up without saying a word and just hit the stop button on my boom box, then quietly sit back down again.

Over the years, I continued to listen to this tape. This tape was so much a staple of my listening repertoire that I frantically performed cassette tape surgery with scotch tape when it got caught in my aging boom box. After that, I hesitated to play it very often, just in case the Afghan Whigs would get caught in the heads of my tape player again. I eventually stored the tape away with my other tapes, listening instead to the follow-up tapes of Rollins spoken word and Sugar and 24 Gone and Afghan Whigs and Catherine Wheel.

A few weeks ago, I unearthed the tape from a box in the bottom of a closet, and spent a couple of days hunting down digital versions of the mixtape songs. And now, I’m sharing all 100MB of 90’s goodness with you:

[music_sampler.zip – 103MB]

I didn’t include the Rollins spoken word, but everything else is there, in the exact version I have on tape. (Note: Three files are in iTunes .m4a format; the rest are mp3s.)

I now have this set up as a playlist on my iPod. Funny how things change. Funny how all things old are new again.

college 5 Comments

You Asked For It…

…And here it is. A sampling of photos taken during the Spring of 1996, hosted on Flickr as a photoset. These photos feature myself, Mary, Liz, Heather, Garza, Drew, Steve, and Aaron. Last names have been omitted to protect the innocent and those currently in the teaching profession. 🙂

Feel free to comment either here or on Flickr. Feel free to sign up for your own free Flickr account and upload your own photos of our craziness! The more, the merrier.

Update, 9:45pm: As for a Where Are They Now sort of thing, I just wanted to mention that Steve appears to be an instructor at Ohio Technical College (as revealed by a Google search). This was as of June 2005.

Update: 10:00pm: Further Googling reveals that Liz was a grad student in theater design at the University of Louisiana at Monroe in the Fall of 1999. I believe I already knew that at some point, though, as I once found her e-mail address and contacted her, only to be smacked down with a “I hate that all my old friends are happy” e-mail. I haven’t been able to find any more recent information about Liz.

weight loss 1 Comment

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #12

Holding steady at 209.5 pounds. This is good, really, considering that we went all ballistic on sushi and BW3 and yummy Irish food and beer during Anime Punch over the weekend of March 31st – April 2nd. I had mentioned that I would be pleasantly surprised if my weight held steady — and so I am.

Continuing to do my PUSH workouts. Still not doing cardio like I should. Walking briskly for half an hour a day.

Continuing to eat five small meals a day. Breakfast has been cold cereal or a protein shake or one of our few remaining Slim-Fast low-carb shakes. Morning snackie has usually been an apple. Lunch has usually been lettuce salad with dressing. Afternoon snackie has been almonds. Dinner has been a little evil: Dreamfields macaroni and cheese, or wraps, or something quicker than baking chicken and steaming veggies.

So, not much to report this week. No big weight losses, but no gains, either. I’m counting that as a positive thing.

Next week: Weigh and Measure for the end of Month #3. Maybe I’ll share a swimsuit photo with the internets. Who knows?