Finance and Fat

I created a new page with charts tracking my weight, BMI, and body fat percentage. The charts make a nice way to track my progress over the long term and I actually find the chart view to be a little extra inspiration- it feels really good to see the lines trend down (and it hurts more to see them climb). Visit the page to see how I’m doing and maybe find a little inspiration for your own health and fitness efforts.

I also added comments at certain points on the charts where significant events occurred that may affect my fitness progress. For example, my weight seemed to start trending down nicely when I quit playing World of Warcraft in October ‘07.  Sadly, my fitness seemed to level off and start moving in the other direction after I started playing again in January ‘08 (I knew that would be a mistake).

Of course I’m (mostly) joking about World of Warcraft being evil. It is entirely possible to play the game and still make time for fitness. The only problem is, the game demands huge amounts of time to make any decent progress and it can be highly addictive. Quitting again would likely be a wise move. I have a pre-paid subscription until October, so I’ll have the game on my computer, but I need to do my best to avoid it and make sure I never play before I have done some exercise.

Anyway, take a look at the charts and let me know what you think. At the very least, I think this will be a nice long term view of my fitness progress and the comments will make for some interesting analysis as I look back at how I’m doing.

I’m skipping the  scale this week because my wife and I took a long weekend vacation to Northern Arizona.  Here is a picture from the center of town in Sedona.

Sedona is probably best known for its ‘red rocks’ but I didn’t get any good pictures of those. I guess we’ve been there too many times to take notice.  :)  You can see some more pictures at the Visit Sedona website.

Last week was a good one for me and my exercise goals. I did 3 days of cardio, 30 minutes per day and I started day 1 of the 100 pushups challenge. I didn’t make the best food choices on vacation, but I did do a decent amount of walking so I hope that made up for it. I need to get back on track now and get some cardio and pushups done with only about half a week left, but I think I can make it. I will be back on the scale next Monday.

This challenge has really been catching on lately and I am finally going to jump in. Check out the initial test and how to get started if you think you might be interested.

I took the test and completed 10 proper-form push ups. I was very careful to use proper form- so be sure you don’t cheat, go slowly and nearly touch the floor with your face on the way down. You want to start off with good form to get the most out of the exercise.

The idea of the program is to get fit of course and I really like the small time commitment required, yet with good results (hopefully). After the initial test, you only have to commit to 3 days a week for about 15 minutes or less. The total program is 6 weeks, but there is no need to feel like you need to rush through it. You may even want to repeat a week if you feel like you couldn’t quite keep up. I’m a little worried, since I could only do 10 and the first day of the workout will have me doing a total of 28. I’ll see how that goes and update you on my progress.

You should give it a try too! Visit one hundred push ups to get started.

I started off last week by realizing I had gained 5 pounds. That motivated me to eat better last week and exercise, but now that I look back I only exercised one day- not good! I did a lot better with my diet…until the weekend. Fortunately, my weight did go down, but only by .08 pounds.

I need to do better this week. I’m putting my exercise schedule here and on my calendar. I need to schedule the time and plan ahead and make sure I don’t have another week like last week. My plan is 3 days of cardio and 1 day of weightlifting.

The plan- Tue, Wed, Sat will be 30 minutes of cardio exercise. Friday will be a weightlifting workout.  This is on my calendar and I have email reminders set up. I’m going to treat this just like I schedule my job or anything else important. I hope this works better than last week!

*Note about this weight loss chart. When I started this blog I weighed 266 pounds and I was only tracking my pounds lost each week. On November 28, 2007 I started using a new scale that tracks body fat and more (the numbers you see above). I report the figures from that scale in these weekly posts and I still track my total pounds lost in the Weight Loss Goals section in the sidebar on my site.

I can’t believe it has been more than a month since I posted anything on this site. I knew I was slowing down, but I never thought it would get this bad.

I can see that neglecting the blog isn’t helping me stay on track with my weight loss either. Since my last post I’ve gained 5.2 pounds. What makes that even more sad is that in my last post I wrote about wanting to lose 10 pounds in 8 weeks. Well, it’s been almost 6 weeks and I’ve gained 5 pounds so I think I can throw that goal out the window. Apparently those were just words anyway since I put no effort into actually losing weight.

Enough with the sad story though, seeing the scale this morning woke me up (I hope for good). I went back to tracking my diet and exercise on Fit Day and I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill, of which 9 minutes were spent jogging (5 minutes straight and 4 minutes straight with walking in between). The crazy thing is, that is probably the most I have jogged in years. I can’t recall jogging for more than 5 minutes in one treadmill session since starting this blog. It’s a great start, but I have a long way to go.

I realize now that I really need to track my diet and exercise on a weekly basis if I want to make any progress. I have been able to put my finances on cruise control a little bit and still make solid progress, but that is not the case at all with my weight loss. I can do well for a little while, but it doesn’t take long for me to fall back into bad habits. Given my recent posting schedule, I’m afraid to say it, but expect to see more regular updates from me again.

*Note about this weight loss chart. When I started this blog I weighed 266 pounds and I was only tracking my pounds lost each week. On November 28, 2007 I started using a new scale that tracks body fat and more (the numbers you see above). I report the figures from that scale in these weekly posts and I still track my total pounds lost in the Weight Loss Goals section in the sidebar on my site.