Cocktail Confessions

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I remember sitting right here at an empty blog post thinking that I was going to take 2011 by storm and own it.

In fact, it’s been a year. 

A year exactly.  To the day.

Today is January 3rd, 2012 and I’ve been spending the last few days actually thinking on what I was going to say right here.  As usual, it just seems to be a mish-mash of ideas that really never solidified into something coherent….until now….and even just now, I’m just winging it.

If you’ll recall (or maybe your new here, so you won’t at all), I came up with a mantra that was to define my 2011.  Simply stated it was “Taking It Back.”  What exactly did I mean by that?  Well, I seem to remember that towards the end of 2010 I was taking stock of my last few years or months leading up to 2011 and not being overly impressed or happy with myself.  So many opportunities came and went as I stood on the sidelines like a geeky Junior High wallflower at the dance…..afraid to make a commitment or chance on anything.  In case you’re interested in all my pontificating back then, you can read that entry right here: “A new year to take it all back“.

Even stating it like that seems somewhat over dramatic.  The fact is I was 40 years old and just seemingly going through the motions of life: wakeup, go to work, pay the bills, watch a few sitcoms, go to bed….rinse and repeat….like I had for so many years prior.

Expect I was determined that 2011 was going to be different.  I wanted to take the bull by the horns if you will, and charge on, noting certain accomplishments and what-not.  Sorta like a bucket list of things I wanted to do. 

I re-read that post today, just now in fact, and realized that although I did indeed accomplish some of those tasks, others I failed miserable in, and in the end many of those cynical feelings I had back in 2010…I still have today.  One can even say that it rings true: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  Amen.

A whole year, 2011, has come and gone.  Another year lost to the annals of time, more opportunities came and went, some good, some bad.  I checked some thinsg off the list, and left some untouched.  I had my fair share of heart break, highs, lows, and everything inbetween.  Some events I never want to experience ever again, and some I hold near and dear.

So what did I get done?

• I did build a 3.5′ x 6.5′ benchwork for my dream train set, although I haven’t progressed much on the train itself.
• I did infact lose close to 20 lbs from the beginning of January through April, but sadly put most of it back on.  Sad to say, I am a net -2 lbs overall from last year.
• I did manage to plan and cooridinate a mini-vacation with 8 of my closest friends to a cabin up in Big Bear, although the planning phase and getting everyone to cooperate and get on the same page at the time was a bit more stresseful that I would have liked, and I don’ want to that again (maybe a smaller group next time).
• I did make my own sauage and brew my own beer, but sadly, not as often as I would have liked to have.
• I did start a new blog, regarding my train hobby.  Visit WilloughbyJunction.com to learn more.

And my failures?

• I did not work at an animal shelter, but did start volunteering for the Billy Graham telephone ministry.  It’s not same, obviously, and I still want to work with animals.  I think deep down, I must be scared to commit to this.  I have a very soft spot and empathetic heart towards animals, and maybe I’m just not emotionally ready to watch an animal suffer or be cast aside.
• I didn’t do any podcasting.  Although the desire was (and still is infact) there, I just didn’t.  More on this later.
• I didn’t get a highschool reunion bbq put together like I had hoped, but that’s not entirely my fault.  I did invite people on more than one occasion, but peoples schedules and their own lives didn’t always cooperate with my vision, so we just had more of the same with a few new faces.  I did have a somewhat successful ‘Oktoberfest’ in November held in my backyard, but like I mentioned…I can only invite, not demand who shows up.  For those that were invited and didn’t make, you missed a good time…and I hope you’ll make the next one…but if you can’t find a babysitter or re-arrange things for a few hours with 2 months prior notice..then suck it.
• I didn’t post here on a regular basis: my funny bone just wasn’t tickled at times, at others maybe I was angry at something, or just didn’t find the humor in things.  Other times, maybe it was just inconvenient for me to sit down or have a PC nearby.
• My outlook on work didn’t improve much either.  You can blame that on the economy….2011 didn’t show for much in the was of people getting back in the saddle.  As a matter of fact, my wife lost her job of 10 years back in April 2011 and has been unemployed since.  Then all those self-centered, entitlement brats started that whole “Occupy” movement, which just bugged the shit out of me.  Yeah, yeah, I’m part of that 99% paying for you assholes to sit in a park and whine about your shitty and poor decisions that landed you over yoru heads in credit debt and whatnot.  Screw you.  No, seriously, screw you.  With a slow economy, my employer didn’t invest much into anything, including me, so….well…..you get the point.  I came to work every morning with one hand tied behind my back to begin with.
• Finally both my wife and I has found ourselves in some ‘family’ related issues with both sides of the family.  Some of it my business, some of it not, and none of yours, so don’t ask.   Suffice it to say, “No family I have ever met, or have been a part of” is going to win and family-of-the-year awards anytime soon.

So where does all this leave me now?

Why don’t you check back here in the not so far future and find out.

I know, I know…I’ve been a horrible blogger as of late.  No excuses other than sheer laziness, but here’s what’s happening lately:

• Wife still hasn’t found a job.  Been just over three months and not even a bite.  I know she’s getting stir crazy and depending on the day, a bit moody.  I understand the economy is tough, and unemployment figures are still hovering at a national average of 10%, closer to 12% in CA, so I take that into consideration.  But kids, let this be a note to you…if you hate retail, then stay in school.  The fact that my wife does not have anything beyond a H.S. diploma seems to be a major thorn in her quest to even get a call back from anybody.
• The step-daughter, after 8 month moved back in with us.  Time will tell if she’s changed, or matured, for the better.  Ohio was rough on her….couch surfing, running with a wrong crowd, having issues with her manager, etc., etc.  So she moved back last week and so far….not bad….but it’s too early for me to render any judgement thus far on positive behavioral and attitude changes.
• I started yet another new blog, Willoughby Junction, on my love for model railroading.  Go ahead, click the link to see a 41 year old dude play with trains.
• Wife did paint the kitchen a nice deep aqua blue color that real stands out in a positive way.  Everyone whose seen it so far has liked it, and I’ll have to admit, I do too.  I was a bit leary on her painting (see how she handled past painting projects), and she did fairly well….if only she would have took off the face plates off sockets first.  But we corrected that.
• My weight….Sigh….well, I put back a few pounds, but overall not so much.  Remember, I started at 237 lbs back around January 4th of this year.  And by eating more fish, jello, water, cutting back on booze and portion sizes, and finally hitting eth gym, I got down to I think around 211-212 on my best weigh in.  Well, I’ve been feeling a bit ‘thick’ again as of late.  I know I’ve been imbibing in some additional drinking (Thanks, Steve), and a few more late night snacks.  The result?  This morning I was 222.2  So I’ve gained back around 10 pounds, but overall still down 15.  So I’m back on the oatmeal as of this morning, and hitting the gym after work, and back to drinking more water and eating more fish and steamed veggies.  I’m gonna shoot for a 5 lb loss by the end of September.
• My Schnauzer, Frankie, turned 6 years old the other day, and still the love of my life.
• Celebrated my grandfather’s 93rd birthday this past weekend.
• Camping trip to Big Bear went fairly well.  I have pictures I still need to post…..eventually.
• Counting the days until I can possibly get my hands on the new Droid Bionic.  My gen 1 Droid phone is lagging as of late, and really having a tough time of things.  I don’t like the $299 rumored price point, but I’m getting so frustrated with it.  Really need to change out the phone, but do I wait for a HTC model?  Don’t know.

Well, for right now I’m holding off on getting a new Droid phone.  As much as I would like to get the Droid X, my current Motorola Droid (gen 1) is only 9 months old and I can’t justify in my mind spending the money on a new flavor just to say I have the latest and greatest.  I’d personally feel more grateful internally if I can last a whole year before I actually upgrade, and I may even get lucky and get the Droid X at a slightly cheaper price anyway.

But as these things go, I suppose as soon as I get the Droid X, a new Android phone will be announced that will even be better.  On the bright side, the long awaited update, Froyo (aka 2.2), is supposed to drop OTC this week which mean Flash is just around the corner.

And despite all those people that have the iPhone, a report was issued today stating that in North America, out of all the smart phones, that the Android OS is the most widely distributed.

Doesn’t Lady Gaga look like Marilyn Manson?  I don’t know why, but in this pick I can’t help but think that she does.  I don’t think she’s all that great looking, but she has a new spread in Vanity Fair this month, and it’s the best I’ve ever seen her (BTW: this isn’t one of the pics).  Me thinks she had plastic surgery in the past…..in the nose region.

Had a wonderful smoked brisket this weekend.  It was a lot of work, but my friends seemed to enjoy it pretty well and gave me accolades for my efforts.  It’s definitely a social thing though, and would benefit a group of guys hanging around sharing a case of beer and stories all day than doing it solo.  I took plenty of video’s and pictures of the process, and I hope to have those up soon here and on YouTube.

Speaking of which, my friend Brian made an excellent potato salad with blue cheese, chipotle, and smoked paprika amongst other ingredients and it was delicious.  He said he’d give me the recipe and I’ll post here in the future as well.

Er, why does Lindsay Lohan get released after 14 days of her 90 day sentence?  If it were any Joe Blow or Jane Doe, we’d serve the full time.  Pisses me off, this double-standard crap that so-called spoiled celebrities get to take advantage of.  It’s crap on all levels.

Worked on a HO structure model this Sunday during my personal down time.  I love my hobby of model building for trains.  It’s fun and relaxing, although it can be a long and arduous process.  Wish I had a bit more money so I could start my benchwork for my layout.

Started a new book: “The Art of Racing in the Rain”.  It’s a novel whose story is told through the eyes and soul of a 13 year old yellow Labrador.  Very touching and moving.  Dare I say I’ve already been moved to tears after the opening chapter?  I’ve been reading more books lately based on animals and have been enjoying them immensely.  I just finished ‘Dog Town’, based on true account of the Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah.

Finally, I really need to start my diet as of yesterday.  I have approx 2.5 months to drop close to 15 lbs for a wedding in which I am the best man.  I had an excellent meal and beer fest this past Saturday, so the last two days I’m just drinking water, coffee, and ice tea.

Today is December 18th, 2009….and I’m bored out of my skull.  I stare at the clock and realize that I have just under four hours before my shift ends, and it days like this that seem like time stands still.  The four hours will feel like six and in a two hours from now it will feel like eight.

It’s Friday and I have other things on my mind right now…like finishing some last minute Christmas shopping, going to the grocery store to buy for a Christmas Eve meal I am preparing for my family, wrapping the last few presents, a load or two of laundry, and of course a final cleaning of the house before my relatives arrive.

It’s hard to look busy at work when the phone is silent and the whole staff is here and your boss sits only a few feet away.  I tap furiously here at the keyboard taking a break every few minutes to see if there is any ‘breaking’ news on CNN or FoxNews.  It’s more or less the same crap as it was an hour ago, and pretty much the same crap as this morning.  You know you’re bored when as a guy you start reading the ‘Living’ sections as I seem to muse that I am discovering some feminine side of my psyche buried deep within the recess of my mind.

As of today I haven’t had a drink in 2 weeks.  Yup, not once of alcohol in 13 days.  Oh, I haven’t stopped drinking by any means, it’s just I wanted to try a small experiment on myself.  See I went to the gym two weeks ago and I was very forlorn to learn that I gained all the weight back I had recently lost, most likely due to a few recent hop and barley induced binges.  So, I wanted to see how much weight I would actually lose naturally if I cut out all alcohol until Christmas Eve, or a total of 19 days.  Today is day 13, and while I have yet to weigh myself (most likely tomorrow), I actually do feel better and do feel ‘skinnier’.  Now since I haven’t actually weighed myself, I really don’t know if I lost anything or not, but it ‘feels’ like I did.  There have been a few days (okay, at least two that I can recall) that I really was jonseing a stiff drink or a beer, but I didn’t cave.  Hopefully I won’t cave tonight, but I have a feeling I may have at least 1 or two beers with my friend Jon.  After work we may go to a wine bar that serves craft beers and the only way I can avoid his mocking scorn and my own temptation is if I do not actually go.

Oh, last week I went to a bar with a bunch of my friends and I got a healthy dose of razzing for not imbibing in at least one drink.  I don’t blame them or am mad at all…I’m usually the first to have a drink and a decent tolerance.  It should be interesting to see how I do if I hold out until Christmas Eve.

In other things….I am loving my new Motorola Droid.  It really is a fun phone and I get a chance to Face Book and chat with a few friends throughout the day.  The Google map and GPS feature is really fun and interesting, especially since I added an account with FourSquare.com.

Lastly, as I type this, I am using my Droid to listen to LastFM.com and streaming Daft Punk radio.  This thing is awesome in that respect that I have a 24 hour, real time DJ to any type of music genre I can think of, commercial free.  Dare I say it’s even better than my Sirius satellite radio?  Yes, it is.  It’s pretty awesome that I also have this as an app on my XBox 360, so I can stream the same radio content through my home stereo that is hooked up to my game console.

As of this writing, it was 15 days ago that I had gone to the gym and weighed myself on the Doughboy 2000 weight-o-matic scale and was appalled at the numbers staring back in my face.

By no means am I ‘obese’ by layman’s standards, although I know my doctor has mentioned he’s like me to drop a few pounds as high blood pressure tends to run in my family.  I’m 5’11″, 39 years old, and on that day weighed in at around 238.5 lbs.  That is by far the heaviest I have ever recall myself weighing, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I had felt my waistline in my pants feeling a bit more snug lately.

But I don’t eat that horribly bad.  I rarely eat candy, may have a soda on a rare occasion, and generally watch what I eat.  Okay, I do like my Buffalo wings (but I’ve cut waaayyy back on Dr.’s orders), enjoy my cheeses and breads and I like my beer and whisky.  But even on the alcohol front, I generally only drink on weekends, drink my whisky straight, and don’t do too many mixers.

The one thing that I do feel that has altered a lot in my life is my frequency in the gym.  Before my shoulder surgeries (yes, plural…rotator cuff, left shoulder, twice), the blown out knee and injured back.  I was in the gym 4-5 times a week at about 45 minutes at a time.  On my best days I was bench pressing over 300 lbs., doing roughly 14-16 sets distributed over usually two body parts a session.  Today, I may make it the gym once a week for 30 to 45 minutes at most.  I cannot lift the amount of weight I used to and thus my cardio has gone down as has the gravity of my muscle structure.  Where once people both admired and feared my size, I now have begun taking on the appearance of a Caucasian Grimace.

I’m also 39 years old, work different hours, have increased chores at home and thus find I have have less free time than ever before.  And when I do have free time now, I don’t necessarily want to go to the gym.  My body feels tired and sore….and I’m sure my increased age and weight has also contributed to this.  Anyway, I sense I’m going off on a tangent here, so I’ll bring it back in.

For almost two weeks now I have been much more aware of what I have been eating…cutting back on portion size, eating earlier in the evenings, drinking much more water (no alcohol until the weekends) and have only managed to drop 2.5 lbs.  Well, I guess that’s a start, but I was hoping for somewhat better results.

My biggest disappointment is in myself for not getting in extra exercise as plannced at home.  Last year I bought a Wii Fit balance board and haven’t touched it in months.  Why?  My wife recently went on a business trip and I swore to myself that every day for the past week I was going to jump on it when I got home from work and do 20-30 minutes of cardio.  I had 6 days of freedom to do this without interruption, and 6 days I failed to do anything.  6 days I seemed to have come up with one excuse or another not to do anything.  I was hoping that after these two weeks, I would have at least dropped 5 lbs.

I’m so depressed about this, I wanna drink.

Before I get to the site updates, here’s a but that’s going on:

The step-daughter has moved into our house.  At 17 years of age it has been somewhat of an adjustment to undertake and a lot of people are giving us advice.  However, all the advice in the world cannot change the attitude of someone who doesn’t care about school.  Overall, she’s a good kid: she’s polite to neighbors and friends, she doesn’t drink or smoke or do any drugs that we are aware of, no tattoo’s, no errant piercings, no foul mouth.  She just doesn’t do her school work and likes to ditch which has caused her to slip behind….far behind everyone else her age.  And in California where our state is ranked pretty low to begin with in education…..well, as the guidance counselor recently told us….she’s setting herself up for a long life of retail employment.  Sigh.

As far as my diet goes that I self imposed on myself last Sunday, it’s been going ‘okay’.  So far, I only broke down last night when I got home from work and had one Bud Light, otherwise I’ve been drinking water.  I’ve had a few cookies here and there, but overall, my portion sizes have been reduced (although I am a bit hungry and have a mild headache…more so due to my allergies I figure than not enough food), and I’ve been eating a bit healthier.  I could and should even alter my diet a bit more and eat healthier foods (salads, veggies, etc) and need to start some additional exercise.  I had planned on doing some exercise this past week when I get home, but I just haven’t.  No real excuse. I just haven’t.

Halloween is tomorrow, and quite honestly I just don’t care.  I have a costume…more so because my wife wants us to go to a party…but I have no real desire to dress up.  I’m sure I’ll have fun at the party, but I know the temptation of too much drinking may be a factor.  I went to the same party last year, drank a lot, and fell on my ass where I believe I fractures my tail bone.  No joke.  I also had a mild hangover as well…something I’d like to avoid this year.

I have a podcast with my grandfather that I need to complete editing so I can post, and I hope I can do a few recordings this next week as well and supply a bit more content here.

Feedburner: I noticed the other day my regular Feedburner was no longer updating itself correctly and I’m not 100% sure why.  I haven’t made any changes at all to the FeedBurner settings, and after spending quite sometime looking at the various settings pages, account, and some basic troubleshooting it appears it all boils down to possibly a missin “/meta” tag somwhere.  After pinging and validating my pages and getting the “congratulations” response, some further digging revealed that FeedBurner is conflicting with itself somewhere else.  A search of the FAQ stated that this can indeed happen when you copy and paste from MS Office applications like Word or Excel.  Well, I do know I had done some recent cut and paste work from Word and unless I scan line by line the HTML code for the last few posts for a possible errant tag (which I may or may not find), it may or may not fix the issue.  Bums me out since I think WordPress should be smart and compliant enough with Word to not insert additional XML tags, but apparantly not.  Hopefully this will eventually correct itself in the future when I post enough new content to bury the old stuff way down.  So let this be a little knoweldge to you: WordPress, FeedBurner, and MS Word don’t play well with each other.

Site notes:

• BluBerry Power Press updated to v1.0.3.  I think I may try the full service soon as my podcasts aren’t showing up yet on Zune Marketplace and I don’t know why.
• Sociable upgraded to v3.5.2.  No real change for me as I didn’t change my options.
• The Hacker’s Diet – installed v0.9.8b.  This is a plugin behind the scenes in which I should be updating my weight.  You won’t see anything unless I take a snapshot and post it as a picture in a regular post.
• Count Per Day – Updated to v2.4.2 and I use this again behind the scenes.  Traffic monitor.
• WordPress – Still using v2.7.1 although v2.8.5 is available.  I’m a little hesitant to upgrade.  I’m sure it’ll be fine for the most part, but there is always some hidden thing that gets screwed up.

I’ve been saying that for wee…..I mean months now.

The fact is, despite dropping some weight a few months back and being relatively proud of it, I’ve been feeling a little heavy as of late and kinda new something was up by the feel of my work pants and blue jeans as of late.

Also, the fact that I almost don’t recognize the profile of the guy walking past the windows at work (my reflection) due to the slight protruding bulge located directly above the waist yet just below the chest has been somewhat….disheartening.

My friend Brian was a ‘heavy’ individual the last few years, tipping the scales at over 300 lbs although I would never have labeled him morbidly ‘obese’.  But through the determination of a friendly competition he had with a few friends and his modified take on the Atkins diet, he has lost over 80 lbs to date.

I, on the other hand, seemed to have gained weight.  Granted I did have a little ‘bender’ this past Friday night (I recall 2 pints of Bud Light, 1 bottle of Racer 5, 1 Stella Artois, 3 Jack & diet cokes, some Jim Beam & Pepsi, and a little rum) where I am sure the calorie count was pretty much up there for the evening.  The following day, I went to the gym and weighed myself and was personally embarrassed and ashamed I was clocking in at 238lbs!  Even though I did have breakfast only a few hours before, and it was smack in the middle of the day, I have never weighed that much before.

The last few years I had been hovering around 225 lbs and at my weeding six years ago I had managed to get down to 216lbs.  Oh, and I guess I should mention I’m 5’11″.  Needless to say, this recent revelation hit me hard and I’m placing myself on a self imposed diet.  Does that mean drinking is out?  Kinda hard to have Cocktail Confessions when yours truly stops imbibing in libations.  Rest assured, I have not stopped drinking, but need to alter my habits:

1) No drinking during the week while at home watching television….Save it for the weekends..and even then save it for social gatherings (i.e. not by myself).  Instead, drink much more water or zero calorie drinks in the evenings at home.

2) Mix alcohol with diet drinks where applicable, and/or switch to light liquors (vodka, clear rums) and avoid sugar mixers for the time being.

3) Try not to binge…At 39 years old, it’s a bit tougher to shake off that dull headache/hangover than when I was 19 or even 29 for that matter.

4) Eat more portion controlled dinners and slightly earlier.  I have a bad habit of eating around 8pm, and then hitting seconds as well.  Nope, need to eat earlier, smaller, and more veggies as well.

5) Dust of that Wii Fitness I spent $90 bucks on last year and now haven’t touched in a few months.  Although you would be surprised on how much I walk on a weekly basis.  I walk a lot both at work (between buildings) and when I get home to walk my dog.

6) I need to chart my weight on a semi-regular basis.  To measure my progress every other day or so as opposed to once today, and then recheck…say 4 weeks from now to never.  Maybe I’ll look for a little WordPress Plug-in widget that allows for charting/graphs that I can update and let you all give me shit if I begin to slip.

It’s not just a name for a recent Simon Pegg comedy flick, it’s how I feel lately.

I realize that people are different, have different lifestyles, different habits, and unique metabolisms and maybe ever perhaps a specific gene inherited from their parents that will dictate how skinny or husky one naturally is. 

Some people are prone to be more athletic than others always striving to shave a second off their personal best times, or jump a little higher, lift a bit more.  Then there are plenty of people who enjoy life, enjoy a nice meal not worrying whether the saturated fat count is 5g or 6g, but they enjoy the taste and experience of a meal with family and friends.  There’s another segment of society out there that eats out of some type of internal manifestation “issue” such as stress, boredom, low self-image, anxiety, and even depression.

I think personally I am subject to a mix of all of these factors above.  From a genetic standpoint, I’m a bit huskier than average.  I’ve always been slightly larger than ‘average’, but would never consider myself obese.  As a young child I recall struggling a bit with weight gain and no matter how much I played outside, I have always had a difficult time shedding weight.  A couple of weight milestones stick out in my mind for whatever reason:.  When I was 16 year old I remember weighing about 167lbs and pretty much weighed that most of my high school tenure until I took gymnastics and became a male cheerleader my senior year.  I’m pretty sure I graduated high school at 178lbs. 

As I entered college I took up two new hobbies: weight lifting and beer drinking.  While the weight lifting transformed my muscularity into something my friends soon began to notice, I’m sure the beer drinking didn’t help matters in other areas of my body that weren’t getting defined by muscle.  By the end of my freshman year in college, I not only had gained the ’freshmen 15′, I also had the beginnings of arms and a chest and recall weighing 197lbs.  When I got married I was able to shed a few pounds and at the age of 33, I weight 216lbs but I could also bench press 300+ lbs.  By the way, I’m 5’10″.

Fast forward a few years and here I am welcoming more and more gray hair into my temples and goatee, have had rotator cuff surgery twice on the same shoulder, and thus my involvement at the gym has gone down considerably.  I still go to the gym, but not as regularly as I once did.  While I still eat relatively healthy, I do have some bad eating habits, such as skipping breakfast most of the time, and eating dinner too late in the day (often 7pm or later), where I then just sit on the couch until I go to bed.  And let’s not even talk about dairy…I love my cheese (as most Italians do).  It doesn’t matter that I walk a lot at work, or walk my dog daily when I get home, or even only go to the gym on weekends now…..I’ve noticed my weight ballooning to a current 234lbs! 

I recently saw some pictures of myself  that my friend had snapped when I was shirtless afew weeks back in Palm Springs, I was a little disappointed with myself.  While my chest has shrunk a bit from the inability to lift heavily any longer, it appears that my once established pecs have somewhat migrated around my gut.  I’ve even noticed that my 36″ pants are starting to feel snug, and I’d really like to get down to a 34″ or better yet a 32″ waist again.

I doubt unless I get very sick or embrace some radical new diet and have the willpower to control myself everyday, I don’t think I’ll ever get under 200lbs again.  I think a nice comfortable weight for me would be 210-215.  I feel that is realistic and attainable, and I know when I am very stressed out about things I can easily drop 5-7 lbs in a matter of days….but that’s the unhealthy way.

So despite the fact that I talk about different libations (I’m not quitting that outright), I’ll have to be much more mindful of the amount of libations I consume, eat earlier in the day, exercise a bit of portion control, and try and step up my aerobic activity a bit more.

Perhaps I will start my own personal weight challenge and update it weekly here for the time being and track my progress.  Seeing that this past Saturday (July 18th) I weighed 234 lbs at the gym, that’s a good place to start.  By making some simple changes, I’m going to try and drop 5lbs in the next 2 weeks.  I’m setting a target of 229 by August 3rd.  I’ll keep you posted.