Weekend Musings and NutriSystem Update
September 25, 2006
Wow! What a busy weekend. It was even a three day weekend for me as it was my Friday off week. Some of the activities though were self-inflicted.
I put myself in a hole sleepwise early as I stayed up until 3:30 AM on Thursday night playing America’ Army. That game can be quite addictive for me and has cost me much sleep. When I get to playing it at night, time just flies. Version 2.7 was recently released and I got hung up trying out some of the new stuff.
I probably wouldnt have even noticed the short sleep except I forgot that the Ryder Cup started on Friday morning from Ireland and I wanted to get up early and watch it. So, on Friday I got up at 6:00 am (yes, thats only 2.5 hours of sleep) to watch the opening better ball rounds. I also got up early at 6:00 on Saturday and Sunday to watch the Ryder Cup too. What a waste! The US team managed to get dusted once again by the Europeans by a whopping score of 18.5 to 9.5. That’s the same lopsided score as last year. The Americans pretty much stunk on Friday and Saturday. They couldnt make a putt to save their skins. The Europeans were on fire and bombing in putts from all over. At least on Sunday, the Americans made a respectable showing, though they were still bettered by the Europeans. If you area golf fan, Sunday had to be fun to watch. The highlight reel is incredibly long. Both teams were making chips and putts from a long ways away. The emotional side stories and the celebration at the end made good TV. Even though the US lost, Sunday was just plain good golf and fun to watch.
I spent a good portion of Friday and Saturday cooking. I made several batches of Italian Foccacia bread, German Butter Cake and Chips and Salsa. Our church was having a special Mass, during which, we would bless the newly acquired land that we would build our church on. Normally, we conduct our Sunday Mass in the local firestation. After the mass, we were having a celebration and fiesta. I was asked to cook some food for the party. No problem – I like to cook. I had also been asked to be the photographer for the mass and festivities. The mass, dedication and party came off without a hitch. Savannah, Sean, Suzanne and their Dance Studio from Sierra Vista provided entertainment during the party. It was a long, fun day. From about 9:15 until about 3:00 pm, I didnt get a single chance to sit down. The only down side was that I didnt get to indulge in my usually Sunday NFL watching. The Lions got beat by Green Bay, so I guess it just saved me some anguish.
Sean’s football team had a bye this week, so nothing new to report there.
On the NutriSystem front, I was really skeptical of getting on the scale this week. I would not classify last week as a good week. The treadmill was down for part of the week and then I had the busy week, so I only worked out once last week – not a good second week of the new exercise program. We went out to dinner one night and I ate way too much. A second night, I threw caution to the wind and ate some chicken nuggets and french fries that I fixed for the kids. Add in some wine on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday for Suzanne and I, and I was a bit worried about the weigh in this morning. Luckily, the scale only showed a 1 pound weight gain for the week. So, I am still down 17 pounds. I feel prety good about that, though a bit guilty about my pleasures last week. I have a renewed vigor this week. Back to basics and the workout program. There is still about 8 weeks to the Celebrity Mercury Mexico Cruise.
Going to Try New Diet
August 4, 2006
Suzanne has convinced me to try a new diet. I have never been one to fare well with diets that limit have you eat specific foods at certain times or severely limit your caloric intake. Unfortunately, I have been overweight most of my life.
About two years ago, I lost about 50 pounds when I did an Atkins like low carb diet. It was perfect for me. I never went hungry and got to eat lots of meat. I really thought giving up the bread, pasta, potatoes and such would be hard, but after the first couple of weeks it just became second nature. After losing the 50 lbs, I went into a maintenance mode and was able to keep that weight off for about 18 months until one of our cruises. I have tended to not gain weight on cruises, but I put 10 lbs back on during that cruise and have pretty much stayed the same since.
The issue is that the low carb diet has had me plateaued for about those two years and I dont seem to be able to go any farther. I really want to get those 10 lbs off and then lose the rest of the weight that I still had wanted to drop when I started a couple years back.
Suzanne knows several and has read about lots of folks that have lost weight with this NutriSystem program. I am kind of leary of it because most of its prepared food that you buy and only eat certain types at certain times. One has to worry about being hungry often. The cost of pre-packaged food also tends to be on the high side. On the plus side, it is somewhat related to low carb in that it uses some glycemic index trying to control the sugars and bad carbs. I will also probably miss my time in the kitchen as I wont get to cook as often.
Two big boxes of food arrived today that she has ordered. I am afraid to look at the cost, but the new effort is about to begin. I will post updates as we go through the ordeal here.
On top of this new diet, I need to really make an effort to work out more. With kids and work, the time constraints are hard though. Its not much of a life to spend any free time working out. The key is going to be finding a happy medium. We have set up a pretty good workout setup in the garage. We moved the old 36″ TV out there with one of the old Xbox systems so we can have music or watch DVDs. It also works well for the Maya Youself Fitness program on the Xbox. I have moved the treadmill out there and the bowflex is set up and raring to go. All this fits into the far end of the garage in the single car entrace part. That still leaves us a two car garage for us to park the Volvo and Mercedes in.
Oh well, time to go unpack those boxes and see what I am going to be eating for the next four weeks. Suzanne will also be doing the diet.
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