Weigh In

Post your weight loss in the comments.

Exercise for the week

here it is:

Monday: 35 min on bike and yoga
Tuesday: 30 minute walk and yoga
Wednesday: Boot camp
Thursday: nothing :(
Friday: strength training video
Saturday: nothing :(


I will do better next week!!

Late Start

I have gotten quite the late start in the winter of fitness. I have been using an app on my ipod where you enter your weight and your goal and it calculates a budget of calories for each day- been doing good with the food thing. Exercise is another story. Yesterday was my first workout day and today I am feeling it every time I sit on the floor to change a diaper! My wii game combines squats, lunges, kickboxing, and bicep curls. Anyway, I'm hoping I can keep it up!

Failure

I am failing the winter of fitness due to lame reading assignments, tests, class, and college basketball on ESPN. I will make a better effort...

One Hundred Pushups

Karen and I did the first day of the 100 push ups program today. Thanks for the tip Cat!

Weigh In

Post your weight loss in the comments.

Lots of reading!

I've been doing a lot of reading. I read The Lost Symbol and was disappointed, Chains and was amazed by the writing, and The Summoning and was underwhelmed by the plot. I also read a great historical fiction adult book called The Help.

Exciting Times

Lest Mom think that I am not doing as she asked, I will share with the group my exciting story from last week: I billed 9 hours and 45 minutes one day.

U of U Library

Last night at dinner, we all shared a story of something that happened last week that everyone is supposed to post on the blog. I went with all the other secondary librarians up to see the new renovated U of U Library. It was really neat. They have one whole floor that is devoted to "collaboration," so there are lots of tables and chairs and spaces for people to meet together. We also got to different parts of the library such as the automatic retrieval room (they have many books now stored in an automatic retrieval system), a book making machine (that can make and bind you a book from Google books or from a digitized book from their rare books) and Special Collections. One of the highlights of the tour was seeing Wallace Stegner's chair and typewriter which was on display. It was an interesting morning.

PS We walked around a lot too, so that probably helped with the Winter of Fitness.

Random Stuff

In response to Catherine's query, I exercised on the NordicTrac five days this last week. I think the Boot Camp sounds interesting so I might try that tomorrow morning.

We listened to Andrew speak in the Sandy Hills Ward today. He did a very nice job as always.

I thought this was really interesting.

It was very foggy this morning, but now it is starting to burn off. They say that starting tomorrow we will be getting rid of the inversion that has been with us seemingly forever. One can only hope.

Mom and I have been asked to speak next week in our home Ward. How fun. We have been asked to speak on Pres. Uctdorf (sp?)'s talk on Learning and Work. Mom immediately announced she would talk about learning and I would talk about work. I worked on my talk during Stake Conference today (only in my head, not anything obvious) during the boring bits. I am not sure how the talk will be since I think I am really a pretty lazy fellow, but maybe this will inspire me to new heights (think foothills not mountains) of effort.

Speaking of Stake Conference, Mom was yapping away with some folks about genealogy after the meeting, so I decided to duck out and find the bathroom. I found the men's and women's rooms down the hall by the drinking fountain. I went in and looked around and wondered why the bathroom had no urinal (I bet you can see where this is going). So, I used the stall and came out. As I was washing my hands the door opened and this woman in a wheel chair started to come in. Needless to say I was very embarrassed to realize that I was in the women's room. Which is a funny story, but not as funny or embarrassing as the time I was in Japan on the Student Exchange program and was using the urinal in a hotel bathroom when a Japanese girl from our party entered the room and proceeded to enter the stall. Very shocking. It was, it turned out, a co-ed bathroom which I was informed was not uncommon even at Western Style Hotels.

Whew, I'm glad I got all of that stuff off my chest.

Pain....

So I figure since it is friday i will post what i have done this week:

Monday: 30 minute walk with Diana
Tuesday: 30 minute walk, 30 minutes on the bike 3 sets on the ab roller
Wednesday: 30 minutes on the bike, push ups, sit ups, squats
Thursday: 45 minutes of yoga
Friday: 35 minutes of boot camp which almost killed me and i have to still do my push up sit ups and squats :(

tomorrow i am thinking i will bike again and take a day off from weights since my body is hating me right about now. The roku has been really helpful i got both the yoga and the bootcamp videos on there, so that has been nice. What have you guys been doing??

Yummy Indeed

was the Butternut Soup and the fried breaded onion thingies Catherine made last night. For my part, I was so good this morning as I got up and exercised again at 5:10. Someone told me that one loses more weight exercising before breakfast--who knows if that is true. What Catherine forgot (conveniently) to mention is that the night before (that is Wednesday Night) she made some amazing corn bread and Steak on a Stick. Now you know that I am not a steak eater, but this was delicious and consequently, I ate much more than I should have. I say consequently because the plain fact for me (completely without food self control) is that delicious=massive quantities consumed. The corn bread was amazing partly because it had bacon cooked on top of it and consequently etc...

I have concluded that you all are pooling your funds to bribe Catherine to sabotage me. I am consoled by the fact that if I fail, I will fail a fulfilled man.

Speaking of fitness, Brent passed along an article from the WSJ which essentially says if you sit around too much (even if you exercise 30 minutes or more a day) you will die much sooner (I will try to figure out how to post it) which is very discouraging. You feel like saying to these people, fine why don't you pay me to walk around all day so I can be fit. Like I say if I can figure out how, I will post it.

Yummy Butternut Squash Soup!

i found a pretty awesome healthy recipe blog check it out:

Gina's Weight Watchers Recipes


I made the Butternut Squash Soup recipe which was delicious I also justified making The Pioneer Woman's onion straws I figure since the soup was basically vegetables and low sodium chicken broth we could handle them as a garnish. The pairing was fabulous! The soup is quite sweet and thick (excellent for baby food before adding the liquids :) ) and the onions were crunchy and spicy! A nice dinner for a nasty looking day. Here is my tweaked recipe:

4 Butternut squash (mine were small, but this still made a TON of soup I would probably halve it in the future)
4 cans low sodium chicken broth
1 cup milk
1 shallot minced
dash of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste


I boiled then peeled the squash then put them back in the pot with the shallot and the broth. I let them boil for 40 minutes until soft and then blended them just with a hand mixer and added the milk and spices.


here are the results!

FYI

Diana and I did the first day of the 100 pushups as mentioned below as well as:

200 situps

http://twohundredsitups.com/index.html

and the 200 squats

http://www.twohundredsquats.com/

it seems like a quick and easy way to get in some strength training we did it in about 15 minutes and diana didn't even have to change out of her jeans...

Good Luck Siblings!

Winter of FItness Woes

As dad cataloged i started the week off right by tempting the fam with amazingly soft and buttery giant pretzels (oops i just couldn't help myself...) my evil plan would have worked had i not devoured some myself :(. Although I did have a little bread slip up yesterday i rectified it with riding the bike for 35 minutes and using the ab roller (ouch). I think i am going to start the 100 push up program, (http://hundredpushups.com) I have heard it is a great way to increase arm and stomach strength. Diana and I are going to go running tomorrow, I think I might drag her to the stairs by the park as well :)

I am going to go look for some healthy recipe blogs.....

What a Disaster!

For the last twenty minutes I put together a long witty wonderful post about my day. I finished it and thought I would look around at some of the options before I posted it. It disappeared! I do not have the heart to attempt a recreation, so I will summarize. I weighed in yesterday morning at 200 lbs. I suspect based on the day's events that I will not win our little contest, but perhaps I can gain (no pun intended) some benefit from it. Ciao.

P.S. Nevermind I found and posted my lost article.

I Am Not Ashamed

Well, that may be overstating it, but I will now post my weight as of Monday January 11 at 6:10 a.m.: 200 pounds. Yes, that's right. I can't believe I am the only one who has the courage to post his (her) weight! I weigh about the same as I did in August which I believe is a minor miracle. Since I am so entranced by my own writing maybe I will treat you all to a day by day account of how the WINTER OF FITNESS is proceeding. Today, for example I was very proud of myself arising as I did at 5:05 a.m. and exercising until I was good and sweaty. I continued my triumphal start by having a banana for breakfast in addition to the usual Instant Breakfast (and Metamucil, but since that is without nutritional value maybe I shouldn't mention it). Lunch was another victory (V8 Juice, a Fiber One Bar and an apple for a mid afternoon snack) But disaster awaited in the strip mall on the corner of State Street and 90th South. Mari and I had to go down to our Inner City Ward after our computer class so I decided that I had to eat something before class; after all I couldn't wait until we got home at 9:00 p.m. to eat could I? I went to Schlotsky's (a more nutritious alternative to Burger King I reasoned) but instead of ordering a salad or cup (even a bowl) of soup I was seduced by the pictures of bread and meat and ended up eating a whole ham and cheese sandwich. Curses. I didn't need all of that food. I almost stopped at half a sandwich, but was overcome by the temptation. My downward spiral continued as at our Inner City Ward the Relief Society had an activity with refreshments. Okay, one cookie. I hit rock bottom at home where Catherine had made wonderful soft pretzels. All in all not a banner day for the contest.

By the way, thank you James for allowing us posting rights, even if it is only for this limited purpose. I am sure you all will thrill and delight to a detailed account of my eating habits over the next five months. Ciao!

The Aged Parents Get a Voice

I had to write something since it the first time in the history of the sibling blog that the Aged Parents have been able to post. Thanks! Love, Your loving mother

Biggest Loser

Ok team, sorry I have not been as on top of this as I should. I have been kind of busy getting back into the swing of things. I seem to remember we decided Monday was going to be the weigh in day, but if you want to do it today I am sure that is ok too. You don't have to post your initial starting weight if you do not want to. Then every Monday you can post how much weight you have lost in absolute terms or in percentage of weight loss or both. I am thinking I will just create a post called "weigh in" and you can add your weight loss in the comments.