Hello there again. It may seem like you just finished entry #5 due to my inability to stick to the established guidelines for getting Mr. Lemonhead’s material out to you, but as promised #6 (almost the half-way point, can you believe it?) is published for your enjoyment. This past week brought signs of encouragement as I was able to battle the urge to fill my body with carbonated products and I was even able to curb my appetite (don’t worry, it is all relative) for a little while. For those that can’t remember (it was 4 days ago) I vowed last week to run 2 consecutive weeks of 30+ miles and by Thanksgiving I would be tipping the scales at a tiny 229.9 lbs or less. After one week, I can tell you proudly that I have made progress towards both of those goals and am right on track to be able to show myself come the Day of Giving Thanks and all the festivities that surround that holiday. It seems that my insightful thoughts/ideas are running dry so you may be in luck as this week the entry could possibly be read in less than 10 minutes (but I wouldn’t hold your breath). With the excitement brewing and I am sure the anticipation killing you as to what this past week had in store for me I’ll get things rolling.
For those of you keeping track at home, last week I weighed in at a gi-normous 233.2 lbs (which was celebrated as a small victory at the Larson Manor because it could have been much worse). This week after some hard work and dedication I was able to slim down to a petite 231.2 lbs (sans clothes). The key to this week was diversity. For the first time since I started penning these diaries I was able to do more than just run. I actually played a little basketball on Sunday night and threw in a walk as well. It doesn’t seem like much but just like those fountain sodas, every little bit counts. Two years ago for my birthday (yes we are indeed in the month of my birth already – and it’s half over) I received a Wii as well as the Wii Fit. Last night I stepped on it for the first time since March of 2009 and you will be happy to know that I have lost 3.3 lbs since then (it’s the small victories). Wii was also able to confirm what I have been saying all along in that I am indeed obese. I know I pass the eye test of an obese individual but it was nice to see it confirmed via a videogame. That led me to a great idea, now included in my weight loss chart will be my weekly BMI (the true indicator of my fatness) brought to you via Nintendo Wii Fit. This allows for a great opportunity to make another promise that will keep pushing me more towards the overweight side of the fatness spectrum rather than the obese. The vow is this my good friends: Come December 25th, 2010 you will not be able to look at Mr. Lemonhead and see an obese individual and in his place you will see someone who is merely overweight (once again it is the small victories). Now that I have got your interest peaked with yet another guarantee let’s take a look at the breakdown of my week.
Exercise – A
I bet you never thought that you would be seeing that magical letter up there. I can honestly tell you that I wasn’t so sure that I would either. This week I was able to go out and hit the pavement 5 days out of 7 (71.4% of the days) for a total of 34.66 miles. You got it, that is not a typo, I exceeded my stated goal by 13.4%. There was a time during one of my runs where I could have sworn that my pants were going to start on fire. When you thighs are tree trunks like mine there is often a large amount of friction that occurs while moving my legs back and forth quickly. I don't know if it is because normally I am breathing so hard that I can't hear the sound of the friction but on this particular run I must have been feeling pretty good because that wish wash was definitely audible. I thought it was only a matter of time before smoke started coming up and where there is smoke there is fire. Thankfully for all parties involved, the cold dampness of the air must have kept it from combusting and I was able to continue on without incident. Last week I rehashed my running of the Canal Connection, well here it is in a photo: My running of the canal connection last week (don't look at the face, they must have photoshopped somebody else's onto my body). My runs this week were 6 miles on Monday, 6 miles on Wednesday, 10 miles on Thursday (I love being a banker and getting Veterans' Day off), 6 miles on Saturday and 6 miles on Sunday. I even got up at 6:00 am on Saturday morning so that I could get that run in. As mentioned earlier, on Sunday night I participated in about 2 hours of basketball activities. For the most part I was able to run up and down the court but I am definitely not in basketball shape, so for about the last 45 minutes it was more of a job/walk up and down the court. Exercise is still exercise and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Now that we are on a high from that "A" seen above let's get to the real struggle.
For those of you keeping track at home, last week I weighed in at a gi-normous 233.2 lbs (which was celebrated as a small victory at the Larson Manor because it could have been much worse). This week after some hard work and dedication I was able to slim down to a petite 231.2 lbs (sans clothes). The key to this week was diversity. For the first time since I started penning these diaries I was able to do more than just run. I actually played a little basketball on Sunday night and threw in a walk as well. It doesn’t seem like much but just like those fountain sodas, every little bit counts. Two years ago for my birthday (yes we are indeed in the month of my birth already – and it’s half over) I received a Wii as well as the Wii Fit. Last night I stepped on it for the first time since March of 2009 and you will be happy to know that I have lost 3.3 lbs since then (it’s the small victories). Wii was also able to confirm what I have been saying all along in that I am indeed obese. I know I pass the eye test of an obese individual but it was nice to see it confirmed via a videogame. That led me to a great idea, now included in my weight loss chart will be my weekly BMI (the true indicator of my fatness) brought to you via Nintendo Wii Fit. This allows for a great opportunity to make another promise that will keep pushing me more towards the overweight side of the fatness spectrum rather than the obese. The vow is this my good friends: Come December 25th, 2010 you will not be able to look at Mr. Lemonhead and see an obese individual and in his place you will see someone who is merely overweight (once again it is the small victories). Now that I have got your interest peaked with yet another guarantee let’s take a look at the breakdown of my week.
Exercise – A
I bet you never thought that you would be seeing that magical letter up there. I can honestly tell you that I wasn’t so sure that I would either. This week I was able to go out and hit the pavement 5 days out of 7 (71.4% of the days) for a total of 34.66 miles. You got it, that is not a typo, I exceeded my stated goal by 13.4%. There was a time during one of my runs where I could have sworn that my pants were going to start on fire. When you thighs are tree trunks like mine there is often a large amount of friction that occurs while moving my legs back and forth quickly. I don't know if it is because normally I am breathing so hard that I can't hear the sound of the friction but on this particular run I must have been feeling pretty good because that wish wash was definitely audible. I thought it was only a matter of time before smoke started coming up and where there is smoke there is fire. Thankfully for all parties involved, the cold dampness of the air must have kept it from combusting and I was able to continue on without incident. Last week I rehashed my running of the Canal Connection, well here it is in a photo: My running of the canal connection last week (don't look at the face, they must have photoshopped somebody else's onto my body). My runs this week were 6 miles on Monday, 6 miles on Wednesday, 10 miles on Thursday (I love being a banker and getting Veterans' Day off), 6 miles on Saturday and 6 miles on Sunday. I even got up at 6:00 am on Saturday morning so that I could get that run in. As mentioned earlier, on Sunday night I participated in about 2 hours of basketball activities. For the most part I was able to run up and down the court but I am definitely not in basketball shape, so for about the last 45 minutes it was more of a job/walk up and down the court. Exercise is still exercise and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Now that we are on a high from that "A" seen above let's get to the real struggle.
Eating – C
Monday started off a little rough as I was able to eat my lunch at work but the evenings festivities took me to my first Illinois basketball game of the year. I left work at 4:40 to allow for enough time to get to the Assembly Hall, which meant there was no time for a Larson Family dinner. In it's place was a small 4" round pizza (of the Domino's variety) and a jalapeño cheese pretzel. This is where the real will power came into effect as I was not allowed the necessary carbonated beverages to wash down that delicious meal but instead was forced to drink water from the water fountain. Not quite as satisfying as one might think and definitely not the topper that one might look for after such a meal. Thankfully that was all the damage that was done on Monday. On Tuesday I was once again able to limit myself to eating my lunch at work and when I got home I was on my own for dinner. Normally this means that I am stopping by QDoba or Dominos but you are reading about a new me. Instead of the filth that I would normally partake in, I instead went with a partial box of pasta with spaghetti sauce topped with mozzarella and cheddar sprinkle cheese (no I didn't eat the whole box of pasta even though I came close...remember its the small victories). Dessert was two sugar cookies that Jamie brought home for me to enjoy. Wednesday was a different story as someone once again had the nerve to bring in a box of Trefzger's turnovers and I had to indulge in two of them. This was followed with the #2 lunch special at Buffalo Wild Wings (8 boneless wings with potato wedges and a lemonade - remember no C3). Dinner at Larson Manor was a fine slice of lasagna from Michael's Italian Eatery and some excellent bread. Thursday was a solid day as I was able to enjoy my day off by working outside and staying out the kitchen. Friday was once again PNC breakfast day and yet another person brought in Trefzger's turnovers and I was forced yet again to eat 1 turnover and a decent size of one large turnover. All-in-all it was a pretty solid week of eating at the workplace though. Friday night I and the Bethel family went to Davis Brothers Pizza for some fine dining and I had a decent amount of thin crust pizza (pizza was cut in small pieces so there were too many to count). Saturday was tailgating again prior to and after the Illini's loss to the lowly Minnesota Gophers and during that time I had two doughnuts, chips and salsa/queso and dinner was the Bobo Burger (hamburger with BBQ brisket on top) with some wings and fries. Sunday brought about healthier eating and a relief from the fast food. There were definitely some moments were I could have eased off the gas a little bit on my mowing down of food, but you win some and you lose some.
Overall – B
Overall – B
Simple math tells you what the overall grade should be for the week. An "A" plus a "C" average out to a "B", right? By far I think this was my best performance of the time that we have been together. There was definitely a plus with the running and the eating was controlled with a few slip ups here and there. For the first time in a while, I am actually starting to believe that I can do this thing. Of course, usually when I start feeling like this I pull a muscle (I'm sorry I mean I outgrow my muscle as discussed in an earlier entry) or struggle with a bout of the lazies. With a solid week of exercise and not as unhealthy eating this coming week I can not wait to journal the excitement of seeing that scale read things that it has not been able to read in quite some time.
Now if you taking scrupulous notes on my progress, that is three weeks of weight loss and two weeks of gains. At least for one week positive strides are being taken and before you know it you won't even be able to recognize me and my new lean figure. If this week was this exciting I can't even imagine what next week is going to bring. I promised to keep it short and I can't tell if I did, so hopefully you didn't hold your breath (I told you so).
As always readers, thanks for your time and reading (or skimming probably at this point) and please feel free to make any comments or suggestions as I continue my campaign towards a visible rib cage.
Love.
Mr. Lemonhead
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