Old Habits Die Hard

It has been two weeks since the last time you heard from Mr. Lemonhead and my have things changed. Much like Paula Abdul’s great song “Opposites Attract” I seem to “take two steps forward and I “take two steps back”. What was once a promising start to 2011 has turned into a lack of effort to fight the urge to eat all that I can during the day. I failed on my promise for weekly diary entries last week and I really don’t have a good reason. With the 14” inches of snow we got during Snowmageddon it gave me ample free time to pen an entry but instead I chose to use that time to shovel the snow, play card games and watch Bones and other tv programming. As many of you know, I take great pride in my shoveling and I was looking forward to shoveling all of the snow on the driveway to the same place to create a large pile of snow. With some help from my brother-in-law and his snowblower I was able to build this work of art, Mount Larson. I know I am only 27 years old, but I feel like I have attained my life’s crowing achievement, my Mona Lisa. Although the snow plows came and took out a portion of this beauty (with jealousy as the main motive I’m sure) it will forever be a lasting memory of Snowmaggedon.

Mount Larson

Two week ago I weighed in at 231.4 lbs and through the continuation of my running program and despite my aversion from healthy eating I weighed in at 230.2 last Monday. I gave myself grades of a “C” for my running because although I met expectations with the 20 miles/week goal, I have now signed up for the Illinois Marathon and 20 mile weeks aren’t going to cut it. My eating grade was an “F” due to going out to eat for work and at some time not even caring that what I was eating was going to set me back to the 2010 Mr. Lemonhead. The overall grade for the week was a D+ (probably a generous grade on my part) which helped set the table for this week.

After a week full of eating out a couple times and being limited to the friendly confines of Larson Manor, my weight this morning responded to the punishment that I placed on my body over the past two weeks. This morning I weighed a corpulent 235.6. After a couple of weeks of feeling good and believing in the optical illusion that my body was shedding some of those unwanted lbs, the past two weeks have brought me back down to earth. I don’t think the problem is with me, I think the problem is there are too many good things to eat out there that aren’t good for you. Sure I can resist the urge to eat Taco Bell but then a DQ Blizzard swoops in and proves too much for me to overcome. The blame could also be shared with my tastebuds for finding such unhealthy things so tasty. If broccoli and peas tasted like Gobstopper Hearts (this week’s candy of choice) and peanut butter rice krispy treats then I might weigh 175. Unfortunately, this is the hand that I have been dealt and going forward I hope to see a better effort on the part of Mr. Lemonhead. With that being said, let’s take a look at this week’s grades (you may sense a common theme):

Exercise - F
There really isn’t much to write about in the section as this week I hit the road 0 times for a total of 0.00 miles. For 2 of the 7 days I do have a legitimate reason which was the previously mentioned, Snowmageddon. Every morning I set my alarm for 5:45 hoping that I will be able to get out and hit the road but it seems to me that I am challenging Go West for the title of “King of Wishful Thinking”. Thankfully, with every day we are closer to Spring and the sun rising before 7:00 in the morning. I can handle the cold but it is the darkness that kills me. The only thing that saved me this week was the fact that I had to go out and shovel the snow. 14” of snow is not that light and I burned some serious calories shoveling it into Mt. Larson. This week brings a new week and another opportunity to hit the streets of Morton in preparation with my date with death or desinty (which one has yet to be determined) on April 30, 2011.

Eating - F
This category is the exact opposite of the exercise in that there is too much to write about. If I had a week like this week for 52 weeks of the year I may have to quit my day job and join these guys on the road. If I could just get a string of 2 or 3 weeks together of healthy eating or even just eating moderate portions then life would be much better. I won’t get in to what I satisfied my endless pit of hunger with but I’ll just say at times it wasn’t very pretty. My goal for February is not to eliminate all crappy foods from my diet, but rather to enjoy those crappy foods less and enjoy the healthier foods more (sounds simple enough right?).

Overall - F
While I wouldn’t put this week in the same category as Halloweak, it was a disappointing week in that I went back to some habits that I thought I had gotten rid of (at least for a few months at least). I guess that is why they say that old habits die hard. When I’ve spent the past 11 years of my life (minus my dieting time) eating a certain way and eating certain things I guess it’s going to take more than 2 weeks of healthy eating to rid myself of those habits. I was teetering on the edge of the mysterious land of the 220’s but the 230’s decided that it was much too fun to have me around to let me leave. 230’s are the new 200’s right? For those that are paying attention to any changes to the blog, you will notice that the background is now a mountain because if the past month is any indication this is one large mountain that I have to climb.

As promised with the first diary entry at the first of every month I will put up two pictures (front and side) of my progress during this epic battle of mine. It will also serve the purpose of helping you curb your appetite much like the opossum did for me that traumatic morning when I saw him heading to our garage/shed/barn/bicycle shop/garbage dump.

February 2011

February 2011

As always thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions as I continue my jaunt towards shirtless running (now that is hilarious).

Love.

Mr. Lemonhead