Finance and Fat

Sharing links I found during the past week that were useful or interesting.

Michael Jordan’s 10 Secrets to Reaching the Top - from Dumb Little Man.  My favorite quote from the article- “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

Pixar’s Tightknit Culture is Its Edge - from 37 signals. Interesting look at the work environment at Pixar. I love the focus on education for all employees.

Seven Websites That Saved Me Money in the Last Week - from The Simple Dollar. Nice collection of money saving websites.

Lessons in Productivity from Ralph Waldo Emerson - from Zen Habits. Great tips, I especially want to work on ‘writing everything down’.

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.

Warren Buffett suggests avoiding credit cards.

If I borrowed money at 18 or 20 percent, I’d be broke…. So if I had one piece of advice for young people generally it would be to just avoid credit cards.”

Read the whole article from CNBC.com.

I think it is more wise to follow the advice of the world’s richest man than it is to follow the advice of our in-debt friends and family or Visa and Mastercard commercials.

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.

The title sums up the last few weeks of my life pretty well- I’ve been eating junk food, rarely exercising, and getting a bit frivolous with my spending. I’m not sure what exactly my problem is- lack of motivation and discipline I guess.

I really hate seeing my weight in the 250s again, so this is a wake up call to get back on track right away. My thought right now is to try to simplify the process, cut down the number of goals that I’m worrying about and the different things I’m trying to do this year with my fitness, and just focus on losing some weight right now. So, my new fitness goal as of today is to lose 10 pounds in 8 weeks.

I’m going to mostly use the Body for Life exercise plan and Eating For Life plan. I do not plan to follow these plans 100% because I have learned over the years that I just can’t do that. I think 80-90% of the plans will be good enough for what I want to accomplish right now.

A quick note on my spending- I’m not getting too crazy, certainly not using credit cards or anything, I’ve just been spending a more on food and non-necessities than I have for a while. I need to try to tighten up the wallet a bit as well.

Current weight: 251.8 pounds

Weight lost since starting the blog: -14.2 pounds

Progress since starting with the new scale: -2.2 pounds, -1.4% body fat, -0.3 BMI

Last week’s diet: My diet was bad for just about the whole week. I ate a lot of junk food and didn’t make much of an effort to cut calories or make wise choices.

Last week’s exercise: I worked out once and I pulled weeds one morning- that’s it! I hate looking back on the week and seeing all of the missed opportunities to exercise- even just 20 or 30 minutes of walking thrown in for a few more days would make a big difference for me right now.

*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.