A good week!

So I'm almost at the end of my first true week back on track. After Monday night's scare the rest of the week went fine. I felt good working out. I didn't push myself to much but just kept a good steady pace. I ate really well this week too with only two minor "bad" moments. Wednesday night I was hanging out with friends and had a couple of pieces of candy and then last night I really got hungry late and made a burger on two pieces of garlic toast. Not healthy, but that's ok. Today I was back at the gym and already eating healthy for today. It's funny though. the mornings after the slip ups I could tell a difference in waking up. I didn't feel as refreshed. Something to keep in mind moving forward. Anyway, I'm happy with meeting my goals this week. Yay! The weekend is the tricky part now. I'll have to be extra careful and stay on track as best as I can.

An almost deadly return to the gym

So today I returned to the gym. Finally. I decided to take my membership off hold even if it's pricey. I really needed to go. Tonight I started on a eliptical machine and wasn't even going hard and after a couple of minutes I really thought I was headed towards having a heart attack. It was actually very scary. Certainly a reminder and wake up call all at the same time to get into shape! I never felt completely right so I took it really easy tonight. I guess getting to the gym is the first step. I'll have to build myself back up and reshape my body and life. At least after when I got home I felt good. I think my body realized "Oh shit! Exercise...ok I remember now." So that was the positive. Well that and a healthy mexican lasagna for dinner. :) And by healthy I really do mean healthy. That wasn't a joke. In case you were wondering. :p

Ouch!

So this morning was more an assesment than a full on workout. Which is good since I discovered how horrible in shap I really am. My weigh in was 250 with 36.5 percent body fat and 18 on the internal fat which is what surrounds the internal organs. That number is dangerous according to the trainer and needs to come down fast. So I guess its good I'm doing this! Mid way through my session I was doing one exercise and tweaked my back so we had to stop. It sucked. It still hurts. I'm just starting and have tweaked my back. This will be harder than I thought. It's my own fault. I let myself get to this point. I'm going to sign up for personal sessions for two weeks. I think this is a smart move becasue it will re-introduce my body back to working out before going crazy with a boot camp. But this is a good move and a needed one. I told the trainer today I would feel shitty if I died because I'm out of shape and overweight because that's something I could have done something about. where as if a car hits me there's nothing I can do about that really. He said "Well you are doing something by being here." So let's hope my back was just a small tweak not a major one and that I will be ready to go next week.

Tomorrow it begins!

I'm slightly nervous. I'm sure it will be fine. I'm not sure if I'm doing this one on one the first time or with a group. The normal class is a group and I'm guessing this is too. Guess I'll find out. Going to hit the bed to get a decent amount of sleep now. Goodnite!

Are you scared?

So I've done it. I signed up for a boot camp. I'm quite terrified actually. Not of going to boot camp itself, but of the work out in store for me. I am in miserable shape. I have visions of dying right there in the park. I know these are unfounded. I'm sure it will be hard but it won't kill me. And ultimately it will make me into the person I desire to be. Fact is I need this boost. I need to feel good again. About my body, health and spirit. They are all broken. I am praying for steady success and initial speedy results to give me the boost in motivation so I'll add new exercises like rock climbing, running, etc. Next summer I want to be the first summer I am excited to go to the beach because I have nothing to hide. I am still on level one of my game, but I just bought a power up. I have orientation Thursday morning. I'll let you know how it goes.

Back On Track!

So today I started back on track to a fit version of myself. I've needed a new pair of shoes for some time now. A good pair of shoes is key for proper exercise. I love New Balance shoes so I hit the store and got myself these!

Now I'm ready to start working towards my goal. Goals are hard to achieve, but when I reach mine I will look back and be proud. No one ever has reached a goal and thought, I wish I didn't do that!

I'm following South Beach Diet for a couple of weeks. I love this diet because the weight flies off if you follow it. Something I have failed to do recently! Today I was good though. I stayed on track and followed my rules of the Skinny Pumpkin. Which btw I have updated slightly.

I'm still viewing this weight loss as a game. Even in games you get stuck sometimes. I'm going to take each day on it's own and at the end of the day ask myself:

Did you keep to your diet?

Did you exercise?

Did you follow the Skinny Pumpkin rules?

Did you feel good about yourself?

Will you promise to do you best in following these tomorrow?

Hopefully the answer to those will always be Yes until I reach my goal. Even if they aren't, that's ok. I just need to keep trying and not give up when I do get off track.

What the heck Happened?

I've been MIA, I know. I have felt guilty because just as I started I failed and didn't want to write about failure. It's easy to post successes. It's the failures that make you want to hide. Today at lunch with my friend(who follows this blog), she mentioned she hadn't seen any updates in awhile.When I told her why I hadn't wrote she said not writing is the same thing as saying I'm not on track. She's totally right. I need to get back on track.

I'm looking right now to try and join a month boot camp to kick start my fitness. I feel like I need a boost to get going. trying it just on my own has been harder than I thought.

I'm going to try to start writing again. It might not be every day. That's reallly a hard discipline! But it will be a few times a week to check in.

Thanks Eva for your support and the kick in the butt to keep trying!

Day 10

Back on track, but finding it challenging. I think with the current heat wave it's messing with my desire to exercise. But I'm pushing forward. I was looking into a bootcamp class today. I take walks along the beach sometimes in the morning and saw this class. I looked them up, but its $900 for 3 months! That's just crazy. Especially when its a full class of people. Thing is if I had that money I'd pay. I will have to keep pushing on my own for now. Maybe save up for when I hit the middle levels of this game and it gets really tough.

Day 8

So today was weigh in day. I'm not going to be posting a pic or measurements because nothing changed. I expected this though with the way the end of hte week went. My diet just wasn't on track and I fully admit I let it get off track. I am glad I did my workouts last week.

So this week I will be trying to focus on the diet side. One thing I realized is sometimes I eat things because its if my mind believes I will never have them again. I need to realize that the foods I crave and love can be a part of my diet again eventually, but for now they need to be cut out so I can beat this game.

So tomorrow I will be be fully back on track. I do have to say I wish it was cooler right now. LA is having a horrible heat wave. Hottest day on record since tempature has been recorded! That's just crazy! It makes doing home workout a little more challenging. I don't have AC. But I will look at it as i will sweat more bad stuff out of me right?

Day 6

Today was super hot! I mean I worked out at 9 and it was like 80 here. That is just crazy! Didn't do too good on food today. I didn't eat much, but I had McDonald's for dinner. Not good at all. My wife craves McDonald's and Nachos being pregnant. So I need to find alternates to eat when she requests those for dinner. Weekends certainly the most challenging for my diet. I will need to be better prepared as I head into Week 2.

I am going to begin tracking my food intake via http://www.livestrong.com/. I've used it before and it is great. It has almost every food you might eat in or out and best of all its free. A friend recommends
www.myfooddiary.com, but they charge per day after the free trial, so for now I'll stick to the free one. Lance Armstrong started Livestrong.com and he certainly believes in living fit and trim!

My weigh in is Monday. I'm not sure how much I lost this week if any. If I didn't lose i know where I failed the game this week. It was diet. I certainly stuck to my exercise even though I had missed a day. It would be nice to see a 2 pound loss. That's a healthy drop in weight and certainly a move in the right direction. Stay tuned!

Day 5 - Barrel to the face!

If I was Mario traversing steel platforms while a giant ape threw barrels at me, I would be smacked in the face right now by one of those barrels and be lying on the floor. Today...today was not a good day on any level. Wait let me rephrase that. Today was a good day in general, but when it comes to staying on target for the game, I totally lose.

I ate everything wrong and I didn't exercise.

It all started last night. You see, I sing karaoke every Thursday with friends. Usually we snack on foods at some point during the night. Well come midnight there was a suggestion for a Del Taco run. I went along knowing I shouldn't and ended up eating a burger, fries and a King Taco. I washed that all down with a soda. I broke a bunch of my rules! Sad part is Del Taco really sucks. If you're going to cheat why cheat with crappy foods.

As a result though I woke up this morning and felt icky. I had to take my wife to the doctor for a couple of test related to the baby. So that initially threw things and then it just spiraled. Here's the menu rundown for today.

Breakfast - Tomato and cheese melt on wheat
Snack - Prosciutto and Gruyere Croissant
Lunch - BLT and avocado sub from Ralph's with a handful of Buffalo pretzel chips
Snack - More buffalo pretzel chips
Per dinner(oh yes there was that) - Assorted cheeses(cheddar, white truffles and triple cream brie) with olive and crackers
Dinner - Assorted sushi - One plate full
Dessert - samples of Yummy cupcakes which probably equaled one whole one

I also didn't exercise due to my wife's appointment and then after that spending the day at her mom;s house with our nephew. We followed that with a party at a friends. So there just wasn't time. Still regardless it stinks. I'm hoping I didn't totally screw myself for my weight in. At least I'll know if I do it came from another side of another family.

Day 4

Today was hard when it came to exercising. I'm not sure if it was becasue I missed yesterday or not , but everything just felt a bit harder. This morning I spent 4 hours at the dealership getting my car fixed! I had been qouted 2 hours. I think that threw my day off. Eating wise I've not done that great, but at least I exercised and that's the balance.

I should probably start updating with the things I eat to keep track for myself.  So Here's what I hate today.

TODAY'S MENU
Breakfast - Whole wheat toast with two, small melted slices of Mozzarella.

Lunch - 2 Rubio's Crispy Shrimp Tacos

Snack  -  Whole wheat toast with two, small melted slices of Mozzarella, half a banana and a handful of blueberries

Dinner - 3 Spinach and cheese Tamales

Water throughout the day.

Day 3 - LEVEL 1

Today was not a great day for the game progress. I missed my workout due to making cupcakes for a friend's birthday and then ate two of them. :( Granted it was pretty hard to pass up Smore's cupcakes. But still...sugar breaks one of the 5 rules. Sugar, for now is a enemy in this game.

Just need to be good tomorrow and make up the exercise on Saturday.

Here's a pic of today's enemy.

Stupid cupcakes! Why did I have to make you taste so good?

As promised here's my workout routine. So far its been really great. It's challenging but not totally kicking my ass. It's right where it needs to be to get me back to a  point I can increase things. The dancing is fun! :) I will be following this for 2 weeks then adjust the numbers and perhaps add something new.

Week 1 & 2
Exercise	Weight	Reps	Duration	Sets
Walking			30-40min
Dance Warm up			2 Songs
Push Ups		5		3
Chest Presses		5		3
Back Row		5		3
Lunge Squats		5		3
Jump Rope			30 count	3
Bicep Curls		5		3
Tricep Extenison		5		3
Calf Raise		5		3
Shoulder Press		5		3
Floor Climb		5		3
Chest Flies		5		3
Crunches		5		3
Side Crunches		5		3
Single Leg Lifts		5		3
Stretching			15/min

Day 2 - LEVEL 1

I almost didn't work out today! I went to lunch with a friend and got this sudden bout of nasty stomach. But by 3pm things had passed, *ahem* so to speak. So I decided to got for it and I'm glad I did!. I feel fine and happy I didn't miss a work out.

Today my muscles are feeling sore so I know I had a good workout on Monday. I also have one follower of this blog! Yay! Even though she knows me, I know shes supportive. She's on her own weight loss journey. During lunch I was telling her my philosphy on approaching weight loss like a game. If every 10 pounds lost is equal to a level she's on level 4. 2 more level and she wins the game! GO GO! You can do it Eva!

I wanted to post my workout routine, but I don't have a lot of time today. I will post tomorrow for sure!

Day 1 - GAME START!

This blog is for personal accountability in my mission to lose weight.  I’ve realized recently that I’ve been too lazy. I desire to be healthy and in shape yet I do nothing. I false start all the time then fail somewhere along the journey.  So this time I’m going to track my progress online via this blog. Why call it the Skinny Pumpkin? Well I love Halloween and certainly pumpkins. But i don't want to be round like one! So I need to transform this plump pumpkin into a skinny one!

Being a game developer I love playing games. So to make this more fun I will track my progress like a video game. Every 10 pounds will be a milestone or the equivalent of a game level. I have 70 pounds to lose so I need to beat all 7 levels to win this game!

Follow me on my journey. Get inspired and start your own game! Check back each Monday for a new video and pics. I’ll update daily with written progress.

CHARACTER STATS
John - Artist
Neck - 18.5 in
Chest - 48 in
Bicep - 14 in
Waist - 51 in
Thigh - 26 in

Today was a good day. The first usually is. I have eaten healthy today except for dinner where I had some mac n cheese. I need to do my shopping for the week so I have the food I need. I had nothing else to go with my chicken breast! I did my work out routine around 3pm. It was challenging having not exercised in a while, but I feel good. Day 1 down. Tomorrow I'll post my workout routine and meal plan for week 1 & 2.