I’m Done Being Fat – Day Four

Alright…short and sweet. Had some rice pasta with garbanzo beans and tomato sauce last night for dinner. It was actually pretty filling and such. Woke up this morning and tried to run/jog/walk three miles, but only made it two (there are some seriously mammoth hills, though). Weighed in at a nice 212 pounds!!! A good day so far…I’ve been eating light all day and walking during every break I’ve gotten. I’ll be delivering pizzas tonight; I’ll be fighting the temptation to either eat a small pizza by myself or stop at some fast food joint to get a couple of burgers or whatever. Overall, I’m hoping I can keep my diet going and keep running every morning.

Wish me luck!

JFW

I’m Done Being Fat – Day Three

Things are looking a little better today! I actually got out of bed this morning and went for a run and I weighed in at 214 pounds!! I know, I know…many of you probably don’t think I should be weighing myself daily, but I’m doing it so there. I find that it helps me keep track of the effect certain food types and quantities have on my plan.

Anyway, I got out of bed around 5:45AM and went out and did three interval sprint thingies. For those of you who aren’t in the know, running intervals simply means alternating between fast and slow-pace running. In my case, this morning I would sprint for one minute and then walk (kind of fast) for three. I’m working my way up to be in a state of constant running when doing intervals…it’s just a matter of time.

To finish of yesterday, I ate these nice little chicken hot pocket type creations that my wife made. I’m fairly certain they were pretty healthy, what with all the broccoli and grilled chicken in them. Plus, I ate about half as much of them as I normally would. I’m confident that my diet yesterday mixed with some brisk walking throughout the day contributed to my loss of weight this morning. Maybe.

Today’s diet is looking a lot like yesterday’s. For some reason, my employer has asked me not to take a lunch today. I came back from a meeting this morning and there was a white paper bag with the words “survival kit” written on it. It was filled with assorted candy and chips. I removed a package of whole wheat break sticks from the bag and passed the rest to a co-worker. I’m pretty proud of myself because normally I’d eat it all and then ask for more. We’ll see what dinner brings…hopefully my activity level will stay up all day and night. Maybe I’ll even run again tomorrow morning!

We shall see.

JFW

I’m Done Being Fat – Day Two

Well, day one came and went, let me tell you. As mentioned in yesterdays post, I failed to get out of bed in time to go running as I had planned to do. I did, however, spend a total of one hour (my thirty minute lunch and two fifteen minute breaks) at work walking around and around and around the streets and parking garages in the vicinity of my office building. That counts for something, right?

I noticed that I didn’t mention anything about the diet I maintained yesterday either. I suppose I did a little bit better with that: I had a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk for breakfast, two servings of low-fat yogurt, two nut bar thingies, and about two cups of carrots and broccoli for lunch and snacks throughout the day. Because it was our anniversary yesterday, my wife suggested we order Thai food for dinner. We did. I overate and felt like crap. I also grabbed a couple of little Andes mint bars and ate those while I was cleaning up the kitchen. Stupid me.

So I woke up this morning with all of these failures behind me, and what did I do? Failed again. No running this morning…but the extra sleep was much needed, I think. I weighed in this morning at 218.5 pounds. I figure all the crap in the Thai food (and the amount that I ate) gave me that extra pound. Never fear! I will be sticking to my guns much better today! I’ve basically had the exact same thing to eat today as I did yesterday, but Thai food will be replaced by a fairly healthy little chicken bake that my wife prepared for dinner.

I failed to mention this in yesterday’s post, but I do have some goals I’d like to discuss. As I mentioned, I weighed in at 217.5 pounds yesterday…which is actually about twenty-one pounds lighter than what I weighed in November of 2008 (238.5). I still “feel” heavy and unhealthy. My goal weight is right around 190 pounds. I plan to hit this mark right around the end of October. Only time will tell…wish me luck. Or something.

Thanks!
JFW

I’m Done Being Fat – Day One

Here we are. My wife and I are celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary today. How, you ask? By working, of course. Besides, we’ve actually been “together” for well over eight years now; so it’s borderline depressing to pretend it’s only been two.

Anywho, I’ve decided to steal a good idea from (I’m sure) hundreds of thousands of bloggers out there and start to journal my health junk. In short, I want to lose weight, gain muscle, lower my cholesterol, and just be healthier overall. How do I plan on doing this? Naturally, baby…naturally. First, I will eat less. Not only less in terms of quantity, but also less in terms of crap. Fruits and vegetables will be my staples as opposed to tater-tots and pizza. Secondly, I will exercise more (hopefully MUCH more). There was a week or two about a month or so ago when I was seriously killing it in terms of working out. Running, lifting, swimming…I was all over it. Like I said, that was well over a month ago. It’s too bad, because I felt great during that two week stretch.

So that really sums it up. I will eat less and exercise more. And I will discuss it here as much as possible. This is day one…I’ve already failed a bit: I didn’t get out of bed to go running this morning as planned. I will, however, be walking as much as possible throughout the day today.

This morning I weighed in at 217.5 pounds. I feel pretty good, but I could feel better. I fear that eating bad foods, drinking a little too much from time to time, and smoking off and on over the past twelve years is catching up with me. I will win, however, and live to tell the tale!!!

I hope to post pictures soon to show some progress.

Bon voyage!

JFW

A Day Late and A Dollar Short…

Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but let me give you a little background: I just read online that the FDA has cleared a drug called “Plan B” to be sold over-the-counter (that is, without a prescription) to “women” over 17 years of age. What is this Plan B, you ask? It’s the morning after pill. Hmmm…

I don’t know why, but this pisses me off. Maybe it’s the newly crazy Catholic in me coming out, but SERIOUSLY…HORNY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!!! TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY AND EITHER DON’T HAVE SEX OR USE THE OTHER FORMS OF BIRTH CONTROL THAT ARE AVAILABLE!!!

“But, John…I don’t want to actually PLAN something. I just wanna go out there and screw and deal with the consequences later.” Don’t give me that nonsense. Not to sound like the old man I’m becoming, but when I first became sexually active I was pretty smart about it. Did I use protection all the time? Nope. Did my mate? Nope. I suppose it’s entirely possible that I have a few illegitimate children out there (not really). I don’t know what I’m trying to get at here, but let me amuse you with a little story…

…There was a girl that I dated back when I was 17 or so. We had sex. We used protection. She told her mom. Her mom put her on birth control. Big deal, right? Well, I’m thinking it is a big deal. I’m thinking that maybe the whole “kids and parents openly communicating” thing is out the window. Listen, I love the fact that we, as whatever we are, have the ability to make decisions. We have free, human will. The flip side of that is that we also must deal with the consequnces that come with the decisions we make. Silly humans.

Also…Perez Hilton. My wife loves reading the guys gossip column stuff and I enjoy it from time to time…mostly because it’s dumb. Perez didn’t fail to register on the dumb-o-meter when he asked Miss California (who I’m sure has a real name) what she thought about gay marriage. First of all, who in the world decided to make Perez Hilton a judge for the Miss America pageant? Remember back when those spots belonged to either REAL celebrities or no-name contributors to random, unread magazines? I digress. So Perez fell victim to the “if you can’t handle the answer don’t ask the question” routine. Stupid. It’s kind of like me going to my mom and asking “how do you feel about soon-to-be mothers smoking crack?” and her telling me that she did, in fact, partake in the glass wiener while I was in the womb. I guess it’s not really like that, but still…you get my point.

So now you have a bunch of no-nut people out there either praising Miss Cali for actually being honest as well as a bunch of angry people who think gay marriage is awesome. Let me assure you, I do not belong to either camp. First of all, people should be honest as it is, so Miss California doesn’t seem so special for doing so. Secondly, I’m all for people having rights…absolutely…there’s no “but” here. Essentially, when marriage is between a man and a woman, the government looks at it as a union or partnership of sorts. If a state so decides that this same recognition should be given to same-sex couples, so be it. If not…well…at least you don’t have to worry about accidentally getting pregnant and purchasing Plan B.

And that ties this ridiculous rant up rather nicely. Please direct your comments and questions to that brick wall over there.

I check cheddar like a food inspector…

I suppose I might be desperate for hits. Or maybe a few comments. If you’ve read my post concerning the iPod I received for Christmas, then you probably understand the fact that I’ve been going through tons of music to throw on iTunes and sync with the iPod. Do you like how I’m throwing around all the iLingo? For sure. Anywho, sometimes when I’m bored and online, I’ll google myself. Generally speaking, a few different links will pop up…most of them linked to bands I’ve played in and that sort of thing. Well, today I was bored and decided to also look up some friends names and then bands that old friends have played in. Why?…nostalgia? Whatever. Boredom? Absolutely.

So I looked up a band called Saved By Grace. SBG was a group of dudes that I was mostly friends with; maybe just friends by association. I mean, we knew each other based on the fact that we all played in bands. Anyway, whilst googling the band name, I noticed one of the links directed to a wikipedia entry for Jason Shrout. Jason was the drummer of SBG and is pretty much the only member of the band I still communicate with at all. What’s the point? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to do a few things: 1) I’m going to create a wiki for yours truly, and 2) I may or may not start myspace pages for some of the lesser known bands I’ve played in (I guess that would be ALL of the bands I’ve played in!).

So, yes, this is my second post in one day…depending on how bored I am, I may go for three or more. Rest assured that there will be more posts regarding the band stuff I mentioned above. Stay tuned…

He told me his dreams, I counted the sparrows…

So I received an iPod for Christmas. I sort of knew I was getting one. To make a long story short, my mother-in-law isn’t the best at keeping secrets; she actually asked what color of iPod I prefer maybe a week or so before Christmas day. While many people (or the one person) reading this might scoff at my being one of the last people on the planet to own an iPod, it doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m pretty stoked to finally have one.

I’ll be honest here: I’ve always wanted one of the iPod’s that has, like, gazillions of gigabytes worth of storage, but I’m rather content with the 8GB I’m working with. I’m currently rolling with a little over fifty albums which are only taking up about 30% of the available space. As previously stated, I really wanted an iPod with, say, 120GB or so of storage capacity. See, I have sooooo many CD’s and a whole bunch of vinly that I wanted to convert to MP3 format and throw onto an iPod, if not for my personal enjoyment, then for archival purposes. I’ve spent the last few nights, just before bedtime, going through boxes of CD’s…I’m talking BOXES. I never realized how many CD’s I actually have. Combine those with Sally’s CD’s and I’m pretty sure we are well over 1,000…maybe pushing 1,500 or so. Granted, a lot of them are CD’s that people have burnt for us and such, but still: Stacks and stacks of (in)destructible plastic.

I now realize how much money and time I’ve wasted on music that I never really cared for. At the same time, I also realize how fortunate I am to have such a huge variety of music to listen to. Now comes the daunting task of determining what albums will be lucky enough to make it onto the iPod. Maybe I should just go through every CD and pick 2-4 songs that I really like. Hmmm…

Not only has this entire experience, up to this point, helped me realize the abundance of recorded music I own, it’s also made me realize how much I used to (and sort of still do)  love Satan-worshiping metal bands.

So this is December…

Well…it’s been quite some time since I last posted. I could very easily sit here and make up excuse after excuse, but in reality this blog just doesn’t mean that much to me. Sure, I’ve had the urge to vent about things that piss me off or profess my love for things that make me happy, but I haven’t had the desire to do either in blog form. Oh well…

The last several weeks have been pretty entertaining. The Dude (my oldest son) started taking piano lessons and has his first recital coming up this weekend. Mr. Shortbread (my youngest son) has been rockin’ and rollin’ all over the place, crawling and what-not. The fam  and I made the short journey to and from St. Louis for Thanksgiving. It was nice to take a break from the norm and even nicer to visit with family that we don’t see often enough.

It turns out that Barack Obama won the election and will take office in about 45 days or so. It’s very refreshing to see so many people interested in their government all at once. I mean, everyone seems to always have an opinion on governmental matters, but they’re not usually educated opinions.

On a whim, or perhaps in celebration of Obama’s victory, some friends from work and I made a three hour trek to Wentzville, MO to eat lunch at White Castle. I’m confident that our travels boosted the economy, as the market went up considerably the following week. If you’re worried about the economy, take my advice: Travel at least 2.5 hours to some fast food restaurant, eat, and immediately drive back home. Then watch your IRA grow.

The legendary “Black Friday” took place a couple of days ago. People died. Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit ridiculous. Am I the only one the slightest bit ashamed to be an American right now? I’m curious to know if anyone has ever done a study to see how much someone saves if they go to a store (like Wal-Mart) right when they open as opposed to going, say, five days later. I wonder…oh well, YAY CAPITALISM!

BREAKING NEWS: I just threw up in my mouth a little…

If for some odd reason you took the time to view my blog on its premier yesterday, you’ll notice I changed the layout a bit. Aside from all of the obvious “theme” changes, I also added a “blogroll” which contains (so far) links to my friends Kevin, Zach, and Clutch blogs/websites, respectively.

I’ve determined that one of the hardest things about creating a blog entry is deciding what attitude it contains. I believe it’s possible for a blog entry to contain a wide range of “feeling”, so to speak, but at the same time I don’t want to always come off as preachy, ultra-cheery, super-sad, or indifferent. With that being said, today’s entry will just be a synopsis of various news headlines combined with a possibly overpowering amount of venting.

So I go to cnn.com and see “BREAKING NEWS” that John McCain decided he’s going to actually attend the debate tonight. What a slime-ball. Listen, I’m not going to sit here and say I’m an ultra-Obama supporter, but John McCain is really beginning to make me ill all while making Barack Obama appear more presidential. All the “hero” POW talk, picking Sarah Palin as a running mate, and now this? Let me put it simply: John McCain was NOT putting his country first when he decided to halt his campaign and “focus” on economic issues. On the contrary, he was attempting to further his campaign by appearing more concerned than his Democratic rival. McCain clearly said that it was his intention to concentrate on the economic crisis, and he also said that he would suspend the campaign (as well as the debate) until after a bailout deal was COMPLETE. Well, it’s not complete, folks! What does this tell you about John McCain’s character? I’ll answer for you: It goes to show that he doesn’t even fulfill the commitments that he creates for himself. It means that all the blubbery sludge that he’s been spewing all over his supporters (as well as independents he’s courting) is all nonsensical drivel.

Of course all of this can easily be filed under politicking, but isn’t now a good time to cut the BS? Yes, I am saying that politicking is equal to BS. Unfortunately, BS is sort of the name of the game at this point. I’m looking forward to watching the debate, although I’ll probably miss most of it as I’ll be working the part-time job after the full-time one today. There’s also something I heard the other day that has me looking forward to the aftermath of the debate. While driving home from work, a gentleman called in to the local conservative radio talk show and said that he didn’t like Obama because he always calculates his responses to peoples questions. He went on to say how much he approves McCain’s style of being blunt and to the point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s nothing bad about thinking things through. Look what irrational behavior has done for our country over the past eight years for a comparison. I’m begining to think I’m the only person who realizes that the President of the United States is supposed to consider everyone’s position on any subject in order to create his own vision. Maybe I’m wrong about that one, too.

First and foremost…

This is the first of what I hope will be several blog postings in the days/weeks/months/years to come. I’ll be sincere and say that I don’t expect much feedback from what I write here. However, I do look forward to releasing thoughts and ideas from the prison that is my (over-sized) head and losing them in this crazy place they call the blogosphere. I’m sure those thoughts and ideas may come back to visit me every now and again, but I look forward to the possibility of them being chewed up, spit out, and ridiculed over and over by the masses.

For this first post, I’ll keep it fairly simple. There have been a few things on my mind lately that I’d like to discuss. Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you will give a little bit of feedback and leave a comment. Here we go…

1) Several weeks ago, a man from Iowa was visiting his family in the Kansas City, MO metropolitan area. While he was visiting, he and a member of his family decided to go to a well known country and western bar in Grain Valley, MO called Whiskey Tango’s.  To make a long and tragic story short, the man ended up being shot and killed by a man that he had an altercation with. If one were to do a bit of searching on the marvelous interweb, one would find some very basic news reporting of the incident as well as some debate as to whether or not this mans death was somehow justified. I encourage you to search for information regarding the circumstances behind the death of Jesse Saldivar of Cedar Rapids, IA and read some of the comments posted by friends/family of the deceased and the man who shot him.

Here are my thoughts:

I’ll be the first to admit that I do not know the gun laws in Missouri in their entirety. I do “own” guns that have been handed down to me by dearly departed family members, but I’ve never even held them, let alone firedthem. They are all stored away at my parents house and will be kept that way as far as I’m concerned. I mention guns and gun laws here simply because they seem to be overshadowing the true meat of this story. There are essentially two facts in this case: 1) Mr. Saldivar was shot three times and died, and 2) No one has been charged with the shooting. Of course the friends and family of Jesse Saldivar are outraged at this point. It’s being said that the shooter was justified in using deadly force against their kin. It’s being said that it was self defense. It’s being said that Mr. Saldivar “had it coming”, not only because of an altercation he had with the shooter, but because of the supposed numerous misdeeds he had in his past. I call infinite bullshit on all of these.

I grew up in Grain Valley, MO. I lived there for twenty-something years. My parents, grandma, and eleven year old nephew still live there. It’s ridiculous to me how much “bad press” Grain Valley has received throughout the years. All sorts of deplorable things seem to happen there: I can recall a few different kidnapping and murder cases involving young girls, multiple drug trafficking rings busted, prostitutes at the highway truck stops, a teenager killing his friends mother, and now this…a shooting at a nightclub. It’s astonishing that more people aren’t talking about this, especially in Grain Valley. SOMEONE WAS SHOT AND KILLED IN YOUR TOWN. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL? Sure, here in the ‘burbs we sit in our homes and hear about people being robbed, raped, and murdered a mere twenty-five minutes away in Kansas City and are thankful that these things don’t happen outside our door. Well, guess what? It’s happening now. Do I know what the answer is? Probably not, but I would start by saying that maybe, just maybe, people should be asking questions. Why haven’t there been any charges brought against the shooter? If it was self-defense, why isn’t anyone saying that? Why aren’t people holding Whiskey Tango’s accountable for allowing something like this to happen on their premises? It seems as though there’s been a meltdown of morals in a community that has been punctuated by the DEATH OF A TOURIST. Does anyone out there have an opinion on this situation?

2) This whole “economic crisis” is sort of cracking me up a bit. Yes, it sucks to see that my measley little 401(k) is dropping in value, but I’m still buying into it (at lower prices) and waiting for the market to turn around. I find the entire economic circumstance very odd to say the least. I am not an economist, nor is every citizen in the USA, but we’re suddenly supposed to understand the shady credit business and agree to save the corporations that take part in said business? President Bush had a sweet little hoe-down of a televised speech last night in which he tried (and failed) to explain the economic situation. Members of Congress are busy explaining the situation to each other as well as to their constituents as they see fit. NOTE TO PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS: MAYBE YOU SHOULD EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CORPORATIONS THAT DID IT AND THEN EXPLAIN THAT THEY NEED TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

So I ask you, dear reader…how do you feel about all of this?

3) Finally, I’d like to step away from the ultra-serious thoughts for a moment and say how relieved I am that the Kansas City Royals will NOT lose 90 games this season. I know this may not seem special for any fans of winning ball clubs, but progress is progress for this team and I’ll take whatever I can get.