So instead of creating a new blog, WHO is just going to link to this blog. It'll be easier than starting over or than copying and pasting these entries to a new blog.
So fasten your seatbelts....we're not going anywhere. :-)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
My 2nd workout at Mercy and a BMI update....
So this morning was my second workout at Mercy.
I did the treadmill for about 20 minutes and a cross-trainer for about 7 minutes then went on to weights then stretching for the rest of the time.
My trainer, Deb, ended up measuring my BMI again since there was such a discrepancy between the one that they did at Mercy Capital (43%) and the one that she did on Monday (20% or so). Her new reading was about 26%.
So we had a potluck today at work for Halloween. My office is right next to the break room, and my co-workers kept coming in with great-smelling food. I started getting hunger pangs and wanted to have some of it, but I know trying one thing would lead to something else and something else and more of this and more of that, so I just chose not to eat any of it. I feel good about that choice. I didn't take my lunch to work, though, because I was broke until today (payday) and ran out of groceries last night, so I went to HyVee at lunch and bought a wrap and some tomato roughy salad from the deli (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and cilantro in an Italian dressing). I ate 1/2 the wrap and the salad. Later for a snack I ate the other 1/2 of the wrap and then I must admit I ate 1 mini Snickers today.
I did the treadmill for about 20 minutes and a cross-trainer for about 7 minutes then went on to weights then stretching for the rest of the time.
My trainer, Deb, ended up measuring my BMI again since there was such a discrepancy between the one that they did at Mercy Capital (43%) and the one that she did on Monday (20% or so). Her new reading was about 26%.
So we had a potluck today at work for Halloween. My office is right next to the break room, and my co-workers kept coming in with great-smelling food. I started getting hunger pangs and wanted to have some of it, but I know trying one thing would lead to something else and something else and more of this and more of that, so I just chose not to eat any of it. I feel good about that choice. I didn't take my lunch to work, though, because I was broke until today (payday) and ran out of groceries last night, so I went to HyVee at lunch and bought a wrap and some tomato roughy salad from the deli (tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and cilantro in an Italian dressing). I ate 1/2 the wrap and the salad. Later for a snack I ate the other 1/2 of the wrap and then I must admit I ate 1 mini Snickers today.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
My first workout at Mercy....
So Monday morning I had an appointment at Mercy's fitness center (Wellness Center) with my trainer. It was one of those appointments where they weigh you, check your resting heart rate, do the skin fold test, have you ride the bike for like 20 minutes while they measure your heart-rate, test your flexibility and also test your bicep strength.
Interestingly, the skin fold test to calculate my BMI was 20 percentage points less than the one where they had me stand on a scale the other day barefoot where it read it that way. Weird. Not sure why that was.
My bicep strength was good. My resting heart rate was pretty good. flexibility was pretty poor.
After these tests, I lifted weights on several of the weight machines. I liked pretty much every one of them. We also did some stretches. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning I'll be doing some cardio and I think maybe some weights. I'm not totally sure what my trainer will have me do.
So far so good. :) For some reason I'm really tired this week. I'm not sure why it is. I've been going to bed early and getting plenty of sleep (8-9 hours) but am just really tired and my head seems cloudy at work.
I had one of those McDonald's Asian salads last night for dinner. My nutritionist told me about it and said it's good and overall pretty healthy. I didn't feel like making dinner last night so I went there. Man was it tasty. It had edamame (young soybeans), pea pods, mandarin oranges, slivered almonds, various salad greens, and a sesame ginger dressing. Tasty!
Interestingly, the skin fold test to calculate my BMI was 20 percentage points less than the one where they had me stand on a scale the other day barefoot where it read it that way. Weird. Not sure why that was.
My bicep strength was good. My resting heart rate was pretty good. flexibility was pretty poor.
After these tests, I lifted weights on several of the weight machines. I liked pretty much every one of them. We also did some stretches. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning I'll be doing some cardio and I think maybe some weights. I'm not totally sure what my trainer will have me do.
So far so good. :) For some reason I'm really tired this week. I'm not sure why it is. I've been going to bed early and getting plenty of sleep (8-9 hours) but am just really tired and my head seems cloudy at work.
I had one of those McDonald's Asian salads last night for dinner. My nutritionist told me about it and said it's good and overall pretty healthy. I didn't feel like making dinner last night so I went there. Man was it tasty. It had edamame (young soybeans), pea pods, mandarin oranges, slivered almonds, various salad greens, and a sesame ginger dressing. Tasty!
Friday, October 26, 2007
This weekend will be nuts! Part deux!
So this Saturday night is my birthday party at Billy Joe's Pitcher Show for some karaoke and beer (9pm if ya wanna come!). Me and my fellow theatre nerds will be partying it up the way only we can.
I'm no alcoholic, mind you, but I do enjoy a drink or 10 every now and then. Keep in mind, this is my 30th birthday so I'm going to overdo it a bit. And you know what? I'm pretty ok with that. I don't drive afterward. Billy Joe's offers a free sober ride home to every patron in the Des Moines area. I think every bar should do that. It increases their business because a patron will drink more knowing that they don't have to worry about driving. And the public is safe because you don't have some jerk out there driving drunk.
My girlfriend and I are going to dinner Saturday night at Mama Lacona's with another couple. I don't plan on overeating by any means (just overdrinking). Then we're meeting everyone out at the bar.
Hopefully Shannon's back will be ok.
Wow. I just remembered, this is the weekend that we set the clocks back! That means an extra hour of celebrating my birthday! W00t!
Maybe I'll see ya at the bar! Buy me a drink! I'm poor!
I'm no alcoholic, mind you, but I do enjoy a drink or 10 every now and then. Keep in mind, this is my 30th birthday so I'm going to overdo it a bit. And you know what? I'm pretty ok with that. I don't drive afterward. Billy Joe's offers a free sober ride home to every patron in the Des Moines area. I think every bar should do that. It increases their business because a patron will drink more knowing that they don't have to worry about driving. And the public is safe because you don't have some jerk out there driving drunk.
My girlfriend and I are going to dinner Saturday night at Mama Lacona's with another couple. I don't plan on overeating by any means (just overdrinking). Then we're meeting everyone out at the bar.
Hopefully Shannon's back will be ok.
Wow. I just remembered, this is the weekend that we set the clocks back! That means an extra hour of celebrating my birthday! W00t!
Maybe I'll see ya at the bar! Buy me a drink! I'm poor!
My weight and my BMI!!!
Ok, so what's my weight and what's my Body Mass Index?
Well, I must preface this:
She said that the BMI doesn't figure in my lean muscle mass (pretty sure that's what she said). So, she said that could throw it off just a bit depending how much there is. I do still have some muscle under this lard! I know I do! I can still knock out 25 push-ups at once just like that!
Keep in mind that my starting weight when I started on my own 30 days ago was an all-time high of 315! I have no idea what my BMI was because I'd never had it checked before.
Weight: 286
BMI: 43.5
I think that means I'm like 43.5% lard! Ouch!
On a positive note, I lost 30 (ok 29) pounds on my own in one month! Wow. I'm proud of myself.
I've lost 30 pounds in one month before (two times to be exact), but never in a healthy way. I mentioned the other times in previous posts, but I'll touch on them briefly again:
Once was from eating one meal a day and throwing that up. I was 18 or 19 or so.
The other was just a couple of years ago. I would walk an hour every day after work but would only eat every third or fourth day.
I'm excited to do it with the support of this amazing staff and this time to keep it off by changing my lifestyle!
Wanna work out w/ me sometime?? I can bring a guest for $5 each visit!
Well, I must preface this:
She said that the BMI doesn't figure in my lean muscle mass (pretty sure that's what she said). So, she said that could throw it off just a bit depending how much there is. I do still have some muscle under this lard! I know I do! I can still knock out 25 push-ups at once just like that!
Keep in mind that my starting weight when I started on my own 30 days ago was an all-time high of 315! I have no idea what my BMI was because I'd never had it checked before.
Weight: 286
BMI: 43.5
I think that means I'm like 43.5% lard! Ouch!
On a positive note, I lost 30 (ok 29) pounds on my own in one month! Wow. I'm proud of myself.
I've lost 30 pounds in one month before (two times to be exact), but never in a healthy way. I mentioned the other times in previous posts, but I'll touch on them briefly again:
Once was from eating one meal a day and throwing that up. I was 18 or 19 or so.
The other was just a couple of years ago. I would walk an hour every day after work but would only eat every third or fourth day.
I'm excited to do it with the support of this amazing staff and this time to keep it off by changing my lifestyle!
Wanna work out w/ me sometime?? I can bring a guest for $5 each visit!
I had my appointment at Mercy today!
So I went to Mercy Capital (formerly Des Moines General) for my appointment today at 8am. Marsha weighed me and did my BMI (Body Mass Index) and measured me. She said they'll re-calculate everything at about each 25 pound mark. Hopefully that means just under once a month!
I then met with the dietitian, Amy. Amy was awesome! We're planning on getting together soon to have her go thru my cupboards and fridge with me and look at my food choices (most of the food is my roommate's). She's also talking about coming over to cook a meal with me. I love to cook! She's also talking about going grocery shopping with me to see what I buy then to show me some tips and alternatives and whatnot. She was a blast. We had an immediate rapport. She's going on maternity leave in like 8 weeks and she said she's going to ask her boss if she can still come in to meet with me while on leave because she wants to see me succeed and because of our good rapport. That's awesome! That's support!
She gave me options:
I can go on the Opti-fast program (I think that's the one where they replace all of your meals with shakes and bars). Or I could do the Opti-trim program (I think that's the one where they replace like 2 of your meals with shakes and bars but you get to have one self-prepared meal). The other option was to continue to do prepare meals myself like I've been doing the last month but this time to have the support of Amy, the dietitian.
I'm totally leaning to doing it on my own. The Opti-fast program (again, I could be switching the two names around) where they replace all meals seems like a step back for me since I've lost so much on my own in 30 days by cooking for myself just with healthy food.
The Opti-trim option sounded ok because it would still allow me to have some 'real' food.
I think the option where I continue to prepare my own food is best as long as I learn about nutrition from Amy.
I then went on to meet with the doctor. He gave me a good once-over. Checked some things out, etc. I normally hate going to the doctor, but Doctor Sutcliffe was cool. He was a bit camera shy, but cool. I think he was a bit surprised at my being as healthy as I am for being overweight my whole life and eating as bad as I was.
I then went to a behavior class. See, Mercy has a great thing going here....they're helping you in all aspects: body AND mind. You have to learn why you got to the point that you're at and how to not go back to that point. There were 4 ladies in the class. I think that they were a bit put off by me initially (well me and the camera). I dunno, I just felt a vibe. I probably would have been as well. Maybe they weren't and it was all just my feeling being out of whack. Anyway, 3 of the 4 women chose to not be recorded audio or video-wise. They seemed to warm up to me a bit, I think. I imagine that it's hard to have a guy in the room let alone a brand new guy and a camera. I think that they warmed up to me, though when they saw that I was genuine and doing this to actually lose weight and not on a lark (What am I 60? Did I just say 'on a lark'??).
I then went to Mercy Hospital to meet with the personal trainer, Debbie. She took me on a tour of the facilities. She wanted to do the stress test thing where they have you ride a bike for so long, and check your bicep strength, and check your reach, but nobody had told me to bring clothes to work out in, so she didn't want me doing it in jeans. I'm going to go in on Monday morning at 7am to do that. We're then going to meet on Wednesday morning bright and early to begin my regimen followed up with Friday morning! Yowza! I might even walk Tuesday and Thursday on the bike trail or go to 24/7 Xpress by my house to walk. We'll see.
Oh yeah, Debbie let me know that the Mercy Wellness Center is open 6am-1am so there's no excuse for not working out! She's going to start meeting with me 3 days a week, then eventually 2 days a week, then eventually 1 day a week. We're going to be doing a mix of cardio and strength training. I can't wait to hit the weights again! I used to lift a lot on my own back when I was in school. I had a weight bench in the basement.
I didn't leave there until 1:30 or 2 pm! Then back to work! It was a great day! It was cool because Mercy's press guy had been Sonya Heitshusen's news director in the past! Apparently, as Sonya put it, there's life after TV. You go on to do press relations stuff like Gregg is doing. Gregg was a great guy and really made me feel welcome and let me know many times that they're there to help me and for me to take advantage of it all.
I'm excited to get it started!
So, how much do I weigh now after a month of doing it on my own?! What's my BMI?! That gets its own blog!
I then met with the dietitian, Amy. Amy was awesome! We're planning on getting together soon to have her go thru my cupboards and fridge with me and look at my food choices (most of the food is my roommate's). She's also talking about coming over to cook a meal with me. I love to cook! She's also talking about going grocery shopping with me to see what I buy then to show me some tips and alternatives and whatnot. She was a blast. We had an immediate rapport. She's going on maternity leave in like 8 weeks and she said she's going to ask her boss if she can still come in to meet with me while on leave because she wants to see me succeed and because of our good rapport. That's awesome! That's support!
She gave me options:
I can go on the Opti-fast program (I think that's the one where they replace all of your meals with shakes and bars). Or I could do the Opti-trim program (I think that's the one where they replace like 2 of your meals with shakes and bars but you get to have one self-prepared meal). The other option was to continue to do prepare meals myself like I've been doing the last month but this time to have the support of Amy, the dietitian.
I'm totally leaning to doing it on my own. The Opti-fast program (again, I could be switching the two names around) where they replace all meals seems like a step back for me since I've lost so much on my own in 30 days by cooking for myself just with healthy food.
The Opti-trim option sounded ok because it would still allow me to have some 'real' food.
I think the option where I continue to prepare my own food is best as long as I learn about nutrition from Amy.
I then went on to meet with the doctor. He gave me a good once-over. Checked some things out, etc. I normally hate going to the doctor, but Doctor Sutcliffe was cool. He was a bit camera shy, but cool. I think he was a bit surprised at my being as healthy as I am for being overweight my whole life and eating as bad as I was.
I then went to a behavior class. See, Mercy has a great thing going here....they're helping you in all aspects: body AND mind. You have to learn why you got to the point that you're at and how to not go back to that point. There were 4 ladies in the class. I think that they were a bit put off by me initially (well me and the camera). I dunno, I just felt a vibe. I probably would have been as well. Maybe they weren't and it was all just my feeling being out of whack. Anyway, 3 of the 4 women chose to not be recorded audio or video-wise. They seemed to warm up to me a bit, I think. I imagine that it's hard to have a guy in the room let alone a brand new guy and a camera. I think that they warmed up to me, though when they saw that I was genuine and doing this to actually lose weight and not on a lark (What am I 60? Did I just say 'on a lark'??).
I then went to Mercy Hospital to meet with the personal trainer, Debbie. She took me on a tour of the facilities. She wanted to do the stress test thing where they have you ride a bike for so long, and check your bicep strength, and check your reach, but nobody had told me to bring clothes to work out in, so she didn't want me doing it in jeans. I'm going to go in on Monday morning at 7am to do that. We're then going to meet on Wednesday morning bright and early to begin my regimen followed up with Friday morning! Yowza! I might even walk Tuesday and Thursday on the bike trail or go to 24/7 Xpress by my house to walk. We'll see.
Oh yeah, Debbie let me know that the Mercy Wellness Center is open 6am-1am so there's no excuse for not working out! She's going to start meeting with me 3 days a week, then eventually 2 days a week, then eventually 1 day a week. We're going to be doing a mix of cardio and strength training. I can't wait to hit the weights again! I used to lift a lot on my own back when I was in school. I had a weight bench in the basement.
I didn't leave there until 1:30 or 2 pm! Then back to work! It was a great day! It was cool because Mercy's press guy had been Sonya Heitshusen's news director in the past! Apparently, as Sonya put it, there's life after TV. You go on to do press relations stuff like Gregg is doing. Gregg was a great guy and really made me feel welcome and let me know many times that they're there to help me and for me to take advantage of it all.
I'm excited to get it started!
So, how much do I weigh now after a month of doing it on my own?! What's my BMI?! That gets its own blog!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
My physical at Mercy is tomorrow (Friday) morning...
So I'm finally going in for my physical Friday morning. Sonya Heitshusen will be there to interview me as well. Hopefully they won't show my fine 'mohair sweater' on the news anymore. They have the picture....video would just drive all of WHO's viewership away. I imagine if there were children up when they showed that picture on the 10 o'clock news a while back, those kids are still having nightmares! Yikes!
Stay tuned for a post probably Friday afternoon along with an official weigh-in weight.
Also, stay tuned for the address to my new blog when I find it out.
By the way, we're doing a 'Secret Spook' thing at work (like Secret Santa). I put on my slip to please not give me sweets. My Spook got me a sack of apples and oranges (YUM! My favorite fruits, well next to Richard Simmons!) and an AWESOME tall black and white Halloween mug from Starbucks! It's black inside so it won't show stains! It's funny because I totally meant to bring a mug to work today to drink tea out of because my throat was bothering me this morning (I need to give in and turn the furnace on because the cold in my room is causing it).
Stay tuned for a post probably Friday afternoon along with an official weigh-in weight.
Also, stay tuned for the address to my new blog when I find it out.
By the way, we're doing a 'Secret Spook' thing at work (like Secret Santa). I put on my slip to please not give me sweets. My Spook got me a sack of apples and oranges (YUM! My favorite fruits, well next to Richard Simmons!) and an AWESOME tall black and white Halloween mug from Starbucks! It's black inside so it won't show stains! It's funny because I totally meant to bring a mug to work today to drink tea out of because my throat was bothering me this morning (I need to give in and turn the furnace on because the cold in my room is causing it).
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