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Rachel

Wow! I'm Back!

Hey nobody,
We've gone to a plant based diet, that means nearly vegan as far as I'm concerned, but we do cheat a bit so I'm reluctant to call it "Vegan".  Those folks seem like such diet and lifestyle Nazis to me. I'm down to 235lbs. without any workout, but I'm stuck here for a couple weeks now so could use some tweaking or some activity overhaul.  The Vitamix is on the way so I'll have some decent breakfasts in the coming weeks.  I've given up meat and most dairy, and am feeling much better for it.

Happy New Year to Me!

So hey, here I am again. it's the end of January and I'm back to write a little. Obviously this is written mostly for my own catharsis but hey if you stumble upon this blog and like any of it or don't like it drop me a note saying you stopped by, it'd be fun to know.

A bit fun to look back at some of the stuff i had written last year. Looks like I tried to turn it into my personal fitness journal for a while. Blogging all that didn't workout so well, but just an update there. I now weigh 243 at last chec,k thast 7 lbs. less than last year at this time so I have that going for me right? Anyway I sold most of my weights and an am now doing body weight circuits. It is very quick which is nice since i'm still really busy with the boys and work and the house and oh ya, another baby on the way in August I think. So ya, lots to do. I'm following several trainers online to help keep me motivated and get advise and news from when needed its been going great.

Did I mention a new baby on the way? Ya, number 3 on deck! Super excited/nervous. Not really nervous about the baby, at least not the way you are with the first but just life in general wise.

Seems I have Ideas about doing my own thing. Rachel, my wife, really wants to get out of dodge. Would like to move back up to her hometown to be near her best friend and family. That will mean a job change for me and i'd like to make it something I can sustain. Not just another job that I will end up hating after a few years. I've thought about doing my own small weld shop with emphasis on bike and trike frames. But I'm really stalled we can't afford to do the things we need to do to this house let alone buy a lot of expensive equipment for a business Idea that may never take off.

One Idea to help solve some of the money/dept issues we have would be to pool resources with family. IE: my family is really close and the fact is either of our houses is big enough to house all of us temporarily anyway. I think it would go along way toward getting everyone out of debt if we just sold one house and lived together for a year of two pooling money to pay of the other house and save up money to pay cash for major purchases (house, car). I'm all about being debt free. We haven't done too bad our van is paid for and Rachel's student loan is paid off that leaves us with just the house and my student loans. Like I said we aren't doing bad but still, we bought this house right before the real estate crash and even though we negotiated a good price, we were both laid off and our income is now less that half of what it was, and we've added 2+ members to the family. So ya we're lucky to have our asses. It is an old house and the costs for major repairs are just not possible without going further into debt. Something that is just more than we are able to stomach.

So really now it just seems like its a matter of buttoning up all the little projects that have been started and getting it on the market to see what will happen.

The list of what needs to be done on the house:
Finish painting the exterior.
Roof.
Gutters.
Remodel upstairs bedroom.
basement ceiling.
New front entry (without tearing into what is already there too much, no sense in opening another can of worms).
Kitchen island and counter tops.
pantry shelving.
New linoleum for the kitchen and baths.
Dinning room floor. what the hell am I going to do about the dinning room floor?

Pretty daunting list if you ask me. But I have to start whittling away at that list and it has to start with the easiest indoor stuff for now since I think we might have some winter left in this very unwintery winter. So since next weekend is a traveling weekend up to the in-laws, my challenge is to do the pantry shelves after work this week.

That is on top of 3 early morning workouts and overtime at work so wish me luck and extra motivation. And like I said leave me a note if you happen to see this. Thanks for stopping by.

Fittness

Ok so I haven't done so well writing on this lately, but I am making progress. To fill in. I've moved, thanks to my wife's wonderful cooking, to what I'd call a mostly vegetarian diet. We'll say about 98% no meat. Still eating dairy and eggs and while we don't eat chicken much, I'd still find it acceptable. But between the diet and walking to work at least 3 days a weak I'm down to about 24lbs. I was sick last week so I expect to gain a pound or so back but even before that I was down to 242lbs. Going well here but looking to get a bit more of a workout here in the coming weeks.

Workouts

Last I wrote I was in quite a lot of pain even considering a visit to a chiropractor, something I don't do. But Friday morning I changed up the workout opting to do some nice stretching yoga poses and then just one set of unweighted squats before taking a long walk to work. Then Saturday it was still nice so we all went for a walk with our dog Tank. Between the walks and the yoga I got my back issues sorted out I'm considering doing yoga every morning and then another workout card and strength at night before bed. That's difficult though because I often drift off to sleep on the chair before the kids do at night. By y the way I weighed in sat morning at 248.8

Workout

30 minutes on the bike this AM. God my back is hurting.

Two sets of squats, two sets of push-ups, mule kicks, two sets of rows, one arm get-up off backs, two sets of lunges, two sets of curls at 25# and 30#, two set of standing tricep raiders at 40#, arm circles for shoulders.

So it appears that I have caught the lifting bug again. I really like the way it feels. It's the way I worked out when I was a kid. Feels good!

Squats, pushups, arm circles (for shoulders), lunges, rows with bands, sit ups, mule kicks, Out if time going to church

Ok so I had a bad workout weekend and I misses a couple of blog entries. So here goes, no weekend workouts but warm weather on Monday allowed me to walk to work and I broke a sweat scooping the very wet snow when I got off work. This AM I was up early for quick 20 min on the elliptical.

Did not pop out of bed today. But I did get 30 minutes in on the elliptical right before supper tonight. Included intervals at :30 to 2:00. It's nice having the readout on the machine if just to see my rpm's at high vs. low intervals. My motion is getting smoother and my endurance is building. Weighed 250.2 lbs this am.

Got a great workout on the elliptical this morning. I did almost 25 minutes of :30-2:00 intervals. The elliptical seems to be more comfortable at higher speeds with more resistance. So during the rest cycles I run at 50 to 60 rpm with 4 to 6 clicks of resistance. Then during the sprint cycle kick it up to to ten or eleven clicks at 80 or more rpm's. Anyway I really got a good sweat so I plan to do more for the next couple days. Also, I've been weighing myself every day so I'll add that I was at 250 this am.

Tuesday's workout consisted of walking to and from work and some snow removal, as planned. This morning I made it out of bed early and hit the elliptical trainer for 35 minutes. I managed to keep it at 6 clicks of resistance for most of the workout felt pretty. Can't wait for more tomorrow. Will likely throw in some sort of exercise such as push-ups or the like at the end.

Missed my workout today, bummer. My son woke up little after three am. So I spent the rest of the night trying to put him back down before I had to head to work. Anyway running low on sleep and frustrated so will likely skip tomorrows workout too in favor of walking the two miles to work and then it looks like I'll have plenty of snow to scoop when I get off work.

Today's workout was five thirty second sprints on the bike with a 90 second active rest period between each, so 10 minutes on the bike. Then 20 min on the elliptical trainer. About ten minutes into the elliptical I was feeling a little awkward like I was just kind of flailing at it so I bumped up the resistance witch allowed my stride to feel more purposeful. I was at about six clicks of resistance so I'll try to start out around there tomorow.

I'm scheduling my weeks workouts for four AM so that I can be done and cleaned up and on my walk to work by five thirty. To pull this off I have to have every thing lined up the night before. So I'm going to set alarms to remind me to set out my clothes and lunch for the next day the night before. And have alarms to keep me on track for what I need to be doing. The times may have to be adjusted but at least I have a plan.

I also need to get batteries for the elliptical display and would like to get a computer hooked up to the spinner so that I have some idea or intensity or speed.

Today is a Saturday and I got up early anyway to get a workout in. I snuck out of bed where my two boys and wife were still sleeping and headed for the basement and the elliptical machine. I just want to get back into the habit of setting aside some time every day so I did away with the intervals so that I could log a solid 30 min or so. I made it to 30 min without any big deal but I'll tell I had to laugh when around 20 min I was feeling a little spent and wanted to dial down the resistance but it was already as low as it would go for my hole whole workout. I've felt pretty hungry and have been grazing and snacking all day.

So I actually had my first workout in a long time just before the new year. I programed some intervals on my phone and headed to my spinning bike to try it out. I made thirteen minutes ding aak all out sprint for 30 seconds every 2 minutes. So i got like 5 good sprints in before I was too winded to continue.

Fitness blog

Well it's a new year and I'm sliding into my 37th year late this summer so my perceived need to be in good health and shape is unusually acute. And I'd like to document my journey back into fitness in this blog. The point of blogging it is mostly to hold myself accountable, but also to document the challenges and successes of how a not grossly obese ( although the gov. calls my bMI obese) mid thirties working class dad of two young boys gets his mojo back.

So here we go : first of the new year I'm 6'1" tall that won't change and tipping the scales at 252 lbs. My xl t-shirts are getting snug and seem shorter and I've grown out of all my size 36 jeans. My 38's are snug and I have stooped as low as to buy some 40 for work.

Where I want to be: Ten years ago I was a regular jogger and had worked my way down under 220 lbs. I felt pretty fit then I'd like to at least return to that point and likely surpass that. Also I just really want break into that box of smaller clothes that I have packed away and feel good wearing them again.

I plan to do this mainly by upping my activity level. And being more structured with my diet and time management

Laborday weekend

So I had a big list of things I wanted to do this weekend and I took Friday off to take my wife to DES Moines for her orthodontist appt. But I didn't get a lot of the other stuff done. I did get the large picnic table painted, which looks very nice. And I'll probably get the other one painted too. We found new shoes for Dex and Rach and I. I got some nice addidas trail runners, need to start running next. I did get one sort of work out in about 20 min in the spinning bike and a few yoga stretches. Now I just need to get to where it about a 4 or 5 day a week habit. I also got the blades off of the chipper shredder to be sharpened, that will be nice for our garden composting efforts. For now the walk that I just took with my family and now the relaxation of laying in the hammock with Eli watching the clouds roll over are more fullfilling.

Changes

So I have some changes on a couple of fronts in my life. First my wife has been reading about how all the fake stuff we eat is having adverse effects on our lives so we are slowly shifting our diet over to a more natural, organic, whole food diet. Not that we were eating total crap before but we are making more of an effort now and putting out money more into organic stuff. As well as enlarging our own garden and trying to get better at growing and storing our own goodies. Second I'm getting some help for my depression issues, it seems to be helping I'm a bit more able to focus and more motivated to just do the things that i need to do. Enough of the constant irrational battle in my mind over my self worth and ability to do things right. Thirdly, with the oil spill in the gulf and BP's lack of a serious response to protect the environment, and the total corruption in the middle east with oil money being used to buy weapons and terrorize their own people and try to kill us. I think it's silly not to reexamine our relationship with the internal combustion engine. I have decided to Leave my van in the garage as much as possible. I'm walking to work form now on and will only be driving it for trips that require us too haul everyone or lots of stuff.