Monday, October 02, 2006

Oh, and . . .

Oh, and my wife trounced me in the Fitness Challenge.

Thoroughly. Trounced.

Thought you ought to know.

Hmm...

I can't believe no one commented on my BRILLIANT analysis of Netwinner. That deserves a Pulitzer, man.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Online Contests: Netwinner and Math

So after doing some searching and seeing that their spyware only affects Internet Explorer users, I fire up Firefox and check out Netwinner.

It's no secret that I use Iwon for my internet searches. It's based off google, and it's part of a point I'm trying to make--I enter a bunch of contests in order to prove I accomplish way more by myself than I do off the contests I enter.

So I check out Netwinner. It's basically a Keno game, or a lotto. You pick four two digit numbers and a one digit number. You click "WIN!!" It tells you if any of your numbers came up.

You get points. 10 points for the one digit number, and 25 points for a two digit number.

Get three or more balls, and you get cash right away, from $25 up to $50,000, with a jackpot of over a million dollars.

And while you're playing, ads--full-on video commercials--are playing off to the side of the screen.

So how many points get you a prize? 25,000 points = a $25 gift certificate.

With the speed of the game, you can play about 3 times a minute. Statistically, you can hit the one digit number about ever ten tries--about once every three minutes. You can get 25 points about every 7 tries--the odds are 1 in 6.86.

The odds of hitting both go up 10x--they'd be 1 in 68.6, so you'd hit that and get 100 points on about every 69 plays--or about once every hour and ten minutes.

You'd get 500 points for matching 2 balls about once every two and a half hours--odds of 1 in 143.32.

You'd also hit the bonus ball on that and get 5,000 about once a day--if you played straight for 24 hours.

So if you put all of that together, mathematically, how long would it take to earn $25?

Man, I would never have believed you needed algebra in the real world. Okay, here goes.

Here's the algebra, if you care:

X=number of turns to win

25,000=(1/10)10x+(1/6.86)25x+(1/143.32)500x+(1/1433.2)5000x
25,000=x+3.64x+3.49x+3.49x
25,000=(1+3.64+3.49+3.49)x
25,000=11.62x
2,151.46=x

If you can play three times in one minute, it would take you 717 minutes, or 11.95 hours to win $25. That's about $2.10 an hour.

You might as well just get a second job. Your time would be better spent.

But here's the thing--I've played the game, and it seems that, despite the odds, you hit the two digit numbers less often than you hit the final 10 digit number.

Which makes me think this isn't a keno-style lottery. In other words, that the numbers can repeat in the four digit sequence. This, of course, would make you win less and make winning the $25 take even longer.

This would explain why, on their forums, most players report it takes longer than 40 hours to get to the $25. (And yet they still play.)

Oh, and how long would it take to jump straight to a $25 payout?

Well, the odds would be 1 in 10,211.52, or 56.73 hours, even in a straight Keno lotto.

And the big money? The million dollar jackpot?

The odds of hitting that would be 1 in 39,212,250.

If you had a team of 100 people playing 8 hours a day, at three tries a minute, it would take you 272.31 days.

If you paid them five dollars an hour, that would have cost you 1,089,229.17 to pay for their salaries. You'd have almost broke even.

But then there's rent on the buildings, the T1 lines for the computers, workmen's comp insurance, sick days . . . .

Friday, September 22, 2006

New Milestone!

I have reached an important milestone in the history of the blog!

That last post was the first time I've used the word "exercise" without getting flagged by blogger's spellchecker.

See, I am capable of making progress!

Sparkpeople: Better Than Fitday

If you want a good calorie/exercise website, in the past I have recommended Fitday.

I now revise this, and recommend Sparkpeople.

A completely free site, it can be whatever you want it to be.

Do you want a site that gives you diet plans? It can do that.


Do you want a site that lets you pick your own food, thank you very much? It can do that.

Do you want a site that gives you communities of people you can work together with for support and help? It can do that.

Do you want a site where you and your friends can all go together and make your own little group to monitor each other's progress? It can do that.

It's a good site. Check it out.

And if you do, say DocMagik sent you. I don't get a dime, but I get "Points."

Points are another way SparkPeople helps you track progress--you can get points for entering what you've eaten, points for reading articles, points for exercising--it's a way for you to feel like you're progressing even if you're not losing weight.

I first signed up for it months ago, but didn't realize until about the end of last month how cool and helpful it is.

And the good part is, between the food log and the exercise log, if you're not losing weight, you'll know exactly why.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Secret To My New Success



Yup.

It's The Fitness Challenge.

Game's simple:

Pick an opponent. A spouse, a co-worker, a friend, an enemy, whatever. Even your kid.

Pick "prizes." The game comes with suggestions, but it's up to you. (The game calls them "wagers" but you all know how I feel about gambling.)

Start on a Monday. You get a point for every day you exercise a certain amount of time that week. Third day you exercise that week gets you three points, giving each week the possibility of up to 9 points, but if you get to five points (three workouts) you technically "won" the week.

Play for eight weeks.

You win if you get to 40 points and your opponent doesn't, or if you both get past 40, but you beat your opponent by more than 8 points.

Otherwise, everybody wins and you find a prize you'd both love.

It's a great game, and it's well made--the board can be mounted on a wall or stuck to your fridge. It's quite re-usable as well, which I'm counting on.

I know what you're thinking--what if one or the other players get sick? What do you then?

We found our answer for that--when one person gets sick, the other usually gets sick right afterwards, so just keep playing. It will all balance out.

If you're competitive, and have someone else to challenge who's just as competitive, this might kick-start your exercise routine.

It's like a reality show in a box.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Call Off The Search Dogs, They're Chewing On My Fatty Legs

Due to the barrage of comments questioning as to my whereabouts--yes, I live in a world where just one is just one, and two is a barrage, at least when it comes to feeling people care where I'm at--I am making an appearance. I would say it would be the first of many, but that always curses me and I never post again.

However, I have also found that not posting causes me to lose focus on my goals.

Also, changes in my lifestyle cause me to lose focus on my goals.

Pretty Butterflies flapping by cause me to lose focus on my goals.

In fact, pretty much anything can cause me to . . . doesn't the cursor look cool when it sits there blinking?

The bad news is, I am, once again, obese.

But the good news is despite the ups and downs of certain lifestyle changes, I am back down to one pound above my last logged tale of the tape weight of 238. And I'm headed towards getting back down below the 232. In fact, I've been exercising consistently for the past few weeks? What's my new discipline secret?

Tune in tomorrow (or so), and I'll share my secret.

Not that it will matter, now that this blog's readership has probably dwindled down to four spammers and a couple of Bam-Bam fans, and none of them care.

But what the heck. There's room over the rooftops of the world for the sound of my barbaric yawp.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Vitamin D

Alright, so we've got all this conflicting data on sunlight. On the one hand, if the sun ever touches our skin, we're going to die of skin cancer. On the other hand, recent studies are linking digestive cancers in men and breast cancers in women to a lack of vitamin D.

Vitamin D. The sunshine vitamin.

So which is it? Sunshine? Suntan Lotion?

Like all things, the answer is moderation.

See, here's how vitamin D works. The vitamin is not actually carried in the sunshine. Instead, sunshine causes the "previtamin" D3 to be created in our skin, which our kidney and liver then turn into the vitamin D our Moms told us about when they wanted us to go outside and leave them alone.

It's possible to get some Vitamin D from food, but it's vitamin D2, the sloppy inferior sequel in the vitamin D trilogy, kind of like how most people feel about Back to the Future 2 compared with Back To The Future 3.

So get to the point, Erik. What's the happy compromise?

Well, according to some, the answer's about 7-8 minutes on a sunny day. And it doesn't matter really how much skin's exposed, so you don't have to take your shirt off. That's short enough that you're okay, skin-cancer and sunburn-wise. And your body doesn't produce that much extra Vitamin D if you go any longer.

So our answer is to wait until we've walked to the park or pool or wherever we're taking the kids and then put on the lotion. That's long enough to give them the Vitamin D goodness and yet still keeps them safe from those harmful UV rays in the long term.

Monday, April 10, 2006

I Am Not Obese

While I probably won't do a full tale of the tape until next Monday, I do want to proclaim from the rooftops that I am not obese.

I am still overweight, but what the heck. I take what I can get.

At 232 pounds, I would have to gain two whole pounds in order to be obese.

Yup. Two pounds and I would be headed for heart failure, various types of cancer, and who knows what all dangers of obesity. But fortunately, my two pound cushion is intact, and I am safely overweight, like most Americans.

We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

My BMI is 28.8. This is 0.2 points below the level that would make me obese.

To get an idea of how fit this makes me, check out this picture of Duane "The Rock" Johnson, whose BMI is 31.6:

So if my BMI is 1.8 points lower than The Rock's, this means, logically, that if BMI is a good indicator of health, that I am 1.8 points fitter than the Rock.

Poor fat guy.

Now I really don't want to make anybody feel bad, but tubby over here on the left has a BMI of 41.3. Sure, he's Ronnie Coleman, eight time Mr. Olympia, and he can bench press my apartment, but my BMI is more than 10 points lower than his.

Look, let's get real here. BMI might sound like some fancy super-advanced way of measuring your health, but it's not.

BMI is your weight averaged out for your height. That's all.

So ultimately, it tells you exactly the same thing as the scale. And so that's why all the other measurements are so important. Because you can have a BMI over 40 and look like Ronnie over there, but you could also look like Bam Bam Bigelow.

So by all means, learn your BMI. Track it. Use it. But don't worry--it's not magical.

Unfortunately, your health and life insurance companies do not read this blog (Yet!) so they still rely heavily on this number. It may save you in the pocketbook to know this number and get it somewhere reasonable, if for no other reason than that.

And really, let's be honest. Since I'm not going to be winning Mr. Olympia anytime soon, having my BMI under 30 probably is a good thing.

Dave Ramsey On Car Loans

Like the title says.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Nutrition Labels Will Soon Bug You

At least, they will according to this.

(Nod to Dave Barry's Blog.)

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

New Tale Of the Tape



New tale of the tape for tonight, which I have mixed feelings about.

Excited feelings: Come from the fact that I lost six pounds this week. Whee! That's as much as I lost the whole rest of the month put together.

Worried feelings: My waist still came down by the same amount, which has me worried that it didn't come from fat. Also, it looks like my biceps went down. Am I losing muscle instead of fat?

I was shooting for four pounds of weight loss last week--double what I normally did. To do this, I was adding cardio on my strength days. In the evening, I would do a kickboxing video--pop it in the laptop and put it by the TV while a movie or show was on. I was tickled when I saw my weight--but got worried when I saw the measurements. It might mean I need to eat a little bit more each day to keep muscle loss down. We'll see if the results continue this week or not before we mess too much with something that's working.

Later this week in finance: The envelope system!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Post 200! New Tale Of The Tape!

Here, with post number 200, I post my new Tale of the Tape.

Not much to say about the weight numbers. They have continued to stay consistent--half an inch of my waist again, quarter inch on my biceps again, two pounds down, which is the average I've lost each week so far, yadda yadda yadda. Good progress, and I'm pleased.

I'm going to focus on the finances, since I haven't said much about that this year.

Last year, I started that turnaround with just shy of $20,000 in debt. It was $19,689.22. By the end of the year, I paid off about a third of it--32.78%. I started off this year with $13,235.64 in debt. That consists of what's left of my car, a student loan, and the debt consolidation with the four credit cards I blogged about at the start of last year. At the start of the year, over $10,000 of my debt was still wrapped up in those four little cards.

Unfortunately, we had to pay the minimums on everything this month. However, the circumstances surrounding it are something I'm proud of.

My work decided to do one of those crazy things that employers sometimes do--mess with your pay schedule. I've never understood that--we work the entire month for an employer in exchange for those handful of magical days we call paydays. When an employer messes with those, it makes us question everything we're doing for them the other days.

In this case, not only did they move us from a twice-a-month schedule to a every-two-weeks schedule, which really messes with my ability to budget for the month, but they also took the opportunity to move us from being paid in "real time"--meaning the paycheck I get today represents the work I did up to yesterday--to having a one week delay in our pay--meaning the check I get today represents the work I did up to one week ago.

In other words, one two-week paycheck was only half the size of a normal paycheck. Which means a 25% drop in income for one month. Which isn't counting the additional drop in salary that comes from having your annual income divided up into 26 paychecks instead of 24.

But we got through it. Paying minimums on all our cards and using that ever-important emergency fund, an event that would have broke us a year ago was a minor event, a bump on the way to financial freedom, but not a complete financial crisis. When I think of what that would have done to me a year ago, it makes me glad I've been doing what I've been doing.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Tale Of The Tape

Well, the story so far:

Four pounds in two weeks. That's nearly 1/10 of the way to my end of year goal of reaching 200 pounds, and around 13% of the way to my July goal of reaching 220 pounds.

The progress on the measurements was surprisingly consistent for both weeks. A half an inch of my waist each week and a quarter of an inch on my biceps each week.

I've also added another measure: BMI. I have mixed feelings about BMI as an actual measure of health. I'll probably blog about that at some point. But for right now--what the heck. Since I'm only 1.7 points away from being "overweight" instead of "obese," that's as good a motivator as any.

(Actually, do you want to know the frustrating part? Do you want to know the weight that is the lightest someone my height can be and still be obese? 234 pounds. Those of you who read this blog last year know that's the number that sat on this blog's tale of the tape the whole last half of the year--234 pounds. I got down to that on my birthday, and that's when things kind of fell apart. Just one extra pound would have dropped me out of the "obese" category.)

Also, this year I'm actually tracking my numbers week by week in an Excel spreadsheet, so I'll be able to post all kinds of fun graphs in a few weeks each time I do the tale of the tape, since blogger supports pictures now.

Graphs that show a marked downward trend.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Healthy and Energized! -- The Final Answers!

T - F If you're active and exercise, it matters less what you eat.

False! It matters more what you eat. That's like saying if you drive your car a lot it matters less that you take care of it.

It's easier for an active person to create nutritional deficiencies than a sedentary person. The more you do, the more you need.

T - F Having more muscle gives you more energy.

True! Muscles are where your body stores the sugars it uses for short-term energy. The more muscle you have, the better the short-term reserves of energy you have to draw on.

T - F When making healthy eating choices, seeing the word "salad" is always a plus.

False! I blogged about this before here.

T - F If you have more energy, it means you don't need as much sleep.

False! It always matters how much sleep you get. The right amount of sleep maximizes your energy throughout the day, not vice versa.

However, the "right" amount of sleep means a specific amount--not too much, and not too little. Both can be a problem, and both are different for different people.

I encourage you to experiment to try to find your sleep "zone." I know you won't--you're a human being, and how much sleep you get is determined by when people finally leave you alone--but I still encourage it, because I want to sound smart and responsible, and I still hold to the belief that the blogs of smart, responsible people get more hits. Or should. Or something.

I'm going to go get some sleep.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Healthy And Energized! -- More Answers

T - F Eating right means not eating bad foods.

False! Eating right means avoiding bad foods and eating good foods.

The two modifications to that answer that make it true are:

First, as they've come to rap and sing on Sesame Street, rather than calling them bad foods, it might be better to call them sometimes foods. Most foods are fine in moderation, and infrequently.

Second, it's just as important to get good foods as it is to avoid the bad foods. Are you getting nutrients from the foods you're eating? Energy boosting B vitamins? Cancer-preventing antioxidants? Fiber?

Third, although this isn't mentioned, it's important to know which is which, and many people don't. Check out this short article on diet food impostors from Prevention magazine.

T - F To avoid retaining water, only drink water when you're thirsty.

False! You're body's not going to feel free to let that retained water go until it knows water is flowing in.

Not soda, not juice, but water.

Now while it is possible to overhydrate, it is difficult. The benchmark minimum has long been 8 glasses a day, but if you're active, feel free to pass that.

But do get your water.

T - F To lose weight and get healthier, skip meals.

False! In fact, I would say if you want to gain weight and lose health, skip meals.

Here's how it would help you gain weight and lose health:

First, to balance the fact you hadn't eaten, your body would lower your metabolism. Hence, less energy. And isn't energy the reason you want to lose weight? Plus, less energy means less movement. Less movement, less calories burned. Less calories burned, less weight lost.

Second, you'd be losing energy because you didn't have food in you, which would have all the same effects.

Third, this would help convince your body you were starving. And the more your body thinks you're starving, the more inclined it is to sack away the calories from the food you finally do eat as fat, since it doesn't know when the next famine's going to hit.

Fourth, when you finally do eat, your body's going to do what it can to get you to eat all you can, so that it can have more to store up for the next famine. Meaning you're going to be inclined to eat the most at the time when your body is most prepared to convert everything you eat into fat.

Instead, eat less, but it eat it more often. The more you spread out small meals (emphasis on small--you're not going for six four-course feasts here) throughout the day, the less inclined your body will be to store fat, and the more it will be inclined to give up the fat it already has.

T - F The longer you exercise, the better.

False! As Bill Phillips points out in Body For Life, and as research shows, too much training can actually prevent results.

You do not actually get stronger or healthier while you're exercising. You get stronger and healthier while you're recovering. Your muscles get broken down while you exercise, but it's while you're recovering that more grow back. During aerobic exercise, you push your heart, and during recovery your body makes your heart stronger.

So instead of having super-long workouts, it's better to scatter a couple of short (say, twenty minute) intense workouts throughout the day. Or one twenty-minute intense session in the morning, and another lower intensity session (say, a brisk walk) for longer in the evening.

If you absolutely have to be doing something athletic for longer than an hour (say, while playing a sport), don't try to do it without eating something. This is when gatorade or something similar is useful--to replenish those sugars in your blood and your muscles that have been depleted by all the exercise. This will help prevent injury, fatigue, and other stuff that you don't need to have going on during the fourth-quarter crunch.

More to come!

Friday, January 13, 2006

Healthy and Energized Quiz--Answers!

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First off, I wanted to take a moment to thank the fine folks at Beachbody. Not only are they a sponsor of this blog, but they granted us permission to use one of their "Walk Away Pounds" DVDs at this activity. Check them out--they've got lots of great programs.

On to the answers!

T - F Your body gets energy from the protein you eat.

True! Your body's a machine, and like any other machine, it needs fuel for energy.

Your body gets energy from the protein, carbohydrates, and fat that you eat. The stuff your body doesn't get energy from is called fiber. Having a little fiber in your meal means your body has to work around it to get to the good stuff. That's good--because it means the energy you get from what you eat will last longer.

How much energy does your body get from these? Well, when we talk about calories in food, we're actually talking about kilogram calories, the energy it takes to increase the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree C.

For every gram of carbs, there are 4 of this type of calories. Ditto for protein--4 calories in a gram. Fat's got more than double that--9 calories in one gram.

Now, the other nice thing is that your body processes each of these at a different speed. Carbs, for example, are the easiest for your body to convert into energy. Proteins can take a while. So if you eat a meal balanced with carbs, fats, and proteins, you'll create a "time release" of energy, as each of them gets processed at their different rates and your body starts using them.

T - F Sugar drains your energy.

True! And False! Mark yourself right whatever you put.

Here's the deal with sugar--sugar gives you energy. It's a carb, so it gives you 4 calories of energy per gram.

However, it's a carb that your body can process super fast, since it's already so close to being in the state your body uses it to carry it through your bloodstream. So it gets into your bloodstream quick, and your blood becomes full of sugars. If you eat or drink a whole lot of sugar, then it's going to be a whole lot of sugar in your blood.

This is like all-you-can-eat night at the Sizzler for your cells, and you'll probably see a big spike in energy. Your cells are getting more energy than they probably need, and they're trying to find something to do with it.

Your body, worried that more sugar may be coming and figuring it's a good idea to get things back to normal anyway, decides to get some of that sugar out of there. It sends a message out to all the cells--"Stop using that sugar, and start turning it into fat for storage!" Of course, it speaks by way of chemicals instead of English of course, and the chemical that means "Store the Sugar!" is insulin.

At least, that's what insulin says to the cells. Insulin says something different to the brain--it says, "Hey, let's calm down up there, big guy."

So if you've had a moderate amount of sugar, the body will release a moderate amount of insulin, and you'll probably feel pretty okay.

But the more sugar you've had, the more insulin will be unleashed, and the more insulin is unleashed, the stronger your brain's going to pull back on those reins. In other words, the bigger the energy dip will be.

So sugar gives you energy, but too much can cause you lose energy.

T - F Fruit juices are a delicious, healthy energy source.

False! Four words: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Remember how I said sugar is so fast processing? Well, of the main types of sugar, Fructose is the fastest processing of them all. Fructose gets into your blood stream faster than shoppers into a department store after Thanksgiving. Which means it's one of the easiest ways to spike your insulin levels.

Of course, there is a way to do it faster--if you carbonate the sugar water, the carbonation accelerates the rate your body absorbs nutrients. Which of course would give you soda.

But I hear your thoughts, even through the computer. "I only drink diet soda!"

Okay, here's the deal with diet soda:

First, most of them have sodium--salt, which dehydrates you and only makes you need more water.

Second, they're still carbonated, which means that they're acting like an anti-fiber, speeding up the pace your body absorbs the other things you're eating (like those fatty fries).

Third, they usually contain phosphates, which coat your fat cells. Your body ends up having to burn them off before it can start burning the fat. In other words, rather than protecting your fat, you're building up a protective layer around them. (Believe it or not, there are actually products sold to drug users to help them pass drug tests. By sealing up all the bad cells with the chemicals in them days before hand, they try to increase their chances of passing the test.)

So don't bother with the diet soda. It's still working against you.

If you want the nutrients of fruit, check your labels carefully. Look for "fructose," and look to see whether or not there are any vitamins in the juice.

Ultimately, if you want the benefits of fruit, eat fruit. You get all the vitamins, all the minerals, plus all that helpful fiber.

More answers to come!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Quiz!

I'm doing a talk tonight for the teenaged girls at the church we attend about healthy living and having more energy. Here are the True/False questions from the handout I'm passing out. Answers tomorrow!

(Although, if you've read this blog at all, you know the answers.)

T - F Your body gets energy from the protein you eat.

T - F Sugar drains your energy.

T - F Fruit juices are a delicious, healthy energy source.

T - F Eating right means not eating bad foods.

T - F To avoid retaining water, only drink water when you're thirsty.

T - F To lose weight and get healthier, skip meals.

T - F The longer you exercise, the better.

T - F If you're active and exercise, it matters less what you eat.

T - F Having more muscle gives you more energy.

T - F When making healthy eating choices, seeing the word "salad" is always a plus.

T - F If you have more energy, it means you don't need as much sleep.

(Why is it that even though we know some of the more obvious false ones are false, we still act as if they were true?)

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Review: 10 Best Fitness, The Biggest Loser DVD, and The Abs Diet DVD



If you've been in the fitness DVD section of your local mega-mart, you've no doubt seen both of those DVDs that I've got up there, and wondered what's inside.

Let's do the second one first. Looks tempting, doesn't it? TEN big fitness DVDs in one box. And for the same price as any other one DVD. Boy--that's got to be a winner, right? Even if there's just two winners in there, it's like getting two DVDs for the price of one.

Here's my verdict: Don't do it. Don't even bother being tempted.

Here's what you're getting: 10 videos from the 1980s.

First off, by videos, I do mean videos. While this is a DVD, it's a DVD of transfers from videos. Videos from the 1980s. With all the subsequent loss of quality, picture problems, and even tape hiss that accompanies an old VHS tape. This is sort of the fitness DVD equivalent of those dollar movies and cartoons you can buy of old movies that have entered the public domain.

As for the content--if the idea of a guy with a perm in neon spandex and a smoky room going, "Let's blast this workout to a whole new dimension--with weights" sounds like your idea of a serious fitness video, and if Shirley Jones and Jerry Hall are people you want to take fitness advice from, then you're in luck! This is your series!

Otherwise, just look for deals on newer stuff. Because the other problem you've got is that many of the videos on here are designed for different audiences. For instance, "Back in Action," is designed for people who are having back problems but trying to work on building back strength. But "Lite Aerobic Workout" is designed for active elderly people. And "Yogacize" is, apparently, designed for the clinically insane. (The box says that one was a "Bestseller in Europe.")

The kickboxing workouts probably aren't that bad, and I'm sure the aerobics, if you squint to block out the brightness of the day-glo outfits (or maybe just wear sunglasses?) are probably fine, but if you're the kind of person who buys exercise videos anyway, it's not going to add much to your routine. I say don't bother.

I do, however, say to bother with the Biggest Loser DVD. My wife picked it up because the description sounded similar to the Abs Diet DVD, which I'm fond of and have been using for my weightlifting so far this year, and for a good part of last year.

The Abs Diet DVD is not an aerobics DVD. It's a weightlifting DVD, a circuit training routine designed for dumbbells. I like it a lot, and have had good results with it. It leaves you free to do some other cardio routine--maybe another DVD, or maybe running or jogging--whatever you want.

But unfortunately, the DVD I've been losing is not actually mine, and I probably should return it someday. So when my wife went to go pick us up a copy and couldn't find it, she picked up the Biggest Loser DVD instead.

The Biggest Loser DVD looks like it may be the bargain we expected the 10 pack to be. Because it contains both a beginning and advanced circuit training routine, like the Abs Diet video, as well as a beginning and advanced cardio routine. So you're getting your weightlifting and your cardio on one DVD--and alternating days between weightlifting and cardio really is the smart way to go.

Now, for safety's sake, both of these videos contain a ton of stretching. On the Abs Diet DVD, the stretching is spaced in the rest time between exercises, meaning that during your workout, you spend as much time stretching as you do lifting. On the Biggest Loser DVD, they move all the stretches to the cool-down, meaning there's 20 minutes of cool-down. I personally can't abide stretching. But that probably explains why I'm so inflexible, and probably need every minute of it.

Both of these DVDs take full advantage of the DVD format. The Abs Diet DVD, for example, allows you to choose between three levels of ab workouts and three levels of full-body circuits for those portions of the workout. The Biggest Loser DVD not only lets you chose between two levels of both cardio and circuit training, but it lets you pre-program what elements you want to do, so you don't have to reach for the remote during your workout.

And while I'm sure the fashions in both of them will be eye-crushingly hard to look at 20 years from now, for now they won't be all you can think about when you watch them.

Monday, January 09, 2006

1 down, 49 to go

You know, I preach that you shouldn't shoot for more than a pound a week in your weight loss, but that doesn't mean I don't hope for more than a pound a week.

Still, it's a start. It's the step that begins the proverbial 1,000 mile journey, and I'll take it.

In related news, I got three free months of NBC's "Biggest Loser Club" by telling Verizon they could send me e-bills. It's normally $19.95 a month.

I'll tell you what--I'm glad I didn't pay for it. While the daily eating suggestions are fairly interesting, and the shopping lists are convenient, the daily exercise suggestions are remarkably vague, and there's not a way to track planned vs. actual performance. The strength training is just a full-body circuit training routine that's the same every day, and the cardio is just an interval cardio routine that's the same every day. It's moderately useful, but probably just pulled from the pages of the book, which probably isn't that much more than 19.95 anyway, and then I wouldn't have to access the website every day just to read it online.

While you can't post, you are free to peruse the message boards as a non-member if you want to get some idea of what's going on in there.

And the articles, while helpful, are nothing you can't find elsewhere. Lots of the articles come straight from Prevention magazine, in fact.

If you're looking for a way to track your calories eaten and calories burned, check out FitDay.com's free one. If you want the information from the Biggest Loser, maybe get the book and the DVD--I don't know; I haven't seen them yet. But I can't recommend the website, really.

Sorry, guys.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Changing The Budget

Yet another change that we're facing in 2006 is with the household budget. My company is switching from paying us twice a month from paying us every two weeks.

Most of the employees are excited about it. The way they see it, it means they're getting paid more often, which, in their minds, equates with being paid more. Plus, the faster they get their money, the faster they can pay those bills.

Only when you stop and think about it, it really isn't so hot. Because if you're not careful, and you get really excited about that paycheck you get on the 20th, and go buy stuff with it, you're forgetting that you won't be paid again until the 4th--the day your landlord considers your rent late.

So we've had to mark the calendar for the entire year--what days we're getting paid, and whether that paycheck needs to go to rent or bills.

Of course, getting paid more frequently also doesn't really mean getting paid more. It actually means getting paid less. This is because you're getting 26 paychecks a year instead of 24--in other words, your paycheck is being spread thinner.

So it's great the two months you get three paychecks, but in the meantime, it's like getting a monthly pay cut, because the two paychecks you get are smaller in order to pay for the two extra checks on the bonus months.

It's like what your mom had to do to your dinner when those unexpected guests go up to get the food to go around.

This means we get to change the budget to get by on less. And it means we get to change the budget to get by differently because of the different way the paychecks fall.

Not only that, but as I mentioned before, a lot of the difficulties we had the last half of the year came from our having been a bit overzealous in our budget. In our anxiousness to pay down debt, we (well, mainly I) failed to adequately budget for those oh-so-slightly important things like car repairs and clothes and such.

The take-home lesson from that: When you make your budget, keep it real.

At least if you want to be able to stick with it.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Biggest Loser

So when I was talking with my doctor about the whole Viral Meningitis thing, we got talking about weight loss. My other doctor, who went into private practice just a couple of days after he saw me, mentioned that the doctor who he was referring me to did physical therapy and sports medicine stuff.

So I took advantage of the appointment to see if this guy and I were on the same page. I didn't tell him anything, I just asked questions, as if I didn't know boo, to see if I liked his answers. I did.

At one point, he talked about the TV show The Biggest Loser. He said his favorite thing about it was the way it showed that losing weight is hard. You don't just skip lunch every day and wind up skinny. You get determined. You work. You don't just do a little bit of stuff and hope it happens. You decide you're going to do it and then you make it happen.

The tale of the tape is now updated. I weigh 250. That's 12 pounds lighter than my starting weight last year, but it's up almost 20 pounds from my lowest point last year.

The measurements are updated, too. They're opposite last year--last year, my chest was 47.5 and my waist was 48.5.

I also added biceps--not because I think it has any significance, but because I'm a guy, and we guys just have some weird obsession with biceps.

Watching The Biggest Loser tonight, watching those two families work off between 50 and 90 pounds per person in five months, I was reassured that such weight loss is possible and advisable. I was also reminded that it takes, like my doctor said, dedication and hard work.

Last year, I had it. I was on track. I'd lost four inches off my waist. I was headed there. Then, life happened.

This year, I'm happening to life.

I have two milestones I'm shooting for this year. The first is, like last year, to be down to 220 by my birthday at mid-year. This year, I have a 12 pound head start. Then, the next goal is under 200 by the end of the year.

50 pounds in 50 weeks.

This year, it's happening.

Stay tuned.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Turnaround Man: Year Two

So among the things I'm doing differently this year:

In addition to tracking things online, I'm using an exercise/food journal. Basically, I picked up a small weekly calendar at a dollar store and am tracking my exercise and eating each day in it. Also, since I only weigh myself and measure myself once a week, it becomes the perfect place to store that weekly number.

There are places online that will track that kind of stuff for you--Fitday.com is one, and nearly every weight loss website has some kind of cool graphical representation of the blogger's weight loss. If you see one of those you like you can just click on it. I do like fitday's, though, because of how thorough you can be in tracking even the percentage of your nutritional requirements.

Also, I'm using checklists. I really like checklists. There's a great feeling that comes from checking this off on a list. Even better is crossing things off.

Actually, you know what's best of all? When I used to manage my own store, I made my to-do list a .txt file on the computer. Each morning I would open the file and leave it on my desktop all day. As I would finish each thing, I would delete it. By the end of the day, the window was clean and I knew I was done. Then I'd close it without saving it and it would be ready for the next day.

Since I'm using a written list, I don't get to do that. But I do block out the squares completely instead of just putting a wimpy little check. It just feels more "done" to me when I do it that way.

Alright, I've got to go block out the "blog" square now.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

365 Concluded. 365 Begins!

One year ago, I started this little blog because I had some stuff I wanted to do. Get out of debt, lose some weight. You know. The typical New Year's resolutions everyone makes every year.

Only this blog kept me honest, and I did them. I really lost weight. I really started building muscle. My waist got smaller and I started getting shoulders. And by taking control of my money, making a budget, and paying off my debt instead of adding to it, I actually started ending the month with money still in the bank, and could do extravagant things--like go to the doctors when I needed to--with impunity.

Of course, life happened. And about halfway through the year I got a church assignment that messed up a lot of what I was trying to do. It stopped the exercising cold. Since the assignment was for early in the morning, I was too tired at night to blog. Plus, a couple of financial things came up that, while we were able to afford them, slowed some of the debt reduction.

But that's life, right? That stuff happened.

So even though I gained back some of the weight, the point is I'm still twenty pounds lighter right now than I was a year ago. And even though the debt's not all paid off, the point is I now have all my medical bills paid off and can afford to pay them as they come, and have almost half the debt I started the year with.

In other words, things have really turned around.

But now that I have my new schedule, and I've figured out the ins and outs of this new assignment, the trick is getting back on track with the new assignment. In other words, how do I still lose weight?

Also, they're switching me to a pay schedule that's every two weeks instead of twice a month. The old schedule made budgeting a breeze--One paycheck went to rent, and one went to bills. An every two weeks pay schedule is going to complicate things more.

Plus, there were problems with my original budget. It was as aggressive as I could make it, and consequently, it didn't leave room for things it should have. You know, things you need all the time. Like clothes and car repairs.

So the new pay schedule will bring a new budget. And the new daily schedule will bring, well, a new daily schedule. One that still allows time for exercise and fiction writing.

Fiction writing, in the new year, will happen every night. What may not happen is blogging.

But it is going to happen. Because I've learned that this blog is the best way to keep me on track that I have--when I lay off of it, I've laid off of everything.

But I also got a lot of the nuts-and-bolts posts out of my system last year. Hopefully, this year will be more practical stuff. You know--how all this stuff plays out in the real world.

How do you lose weight when you're on a food budget? How do you pay off the debt and keep a hectic schedule and still have fun?

Hopefully, this year we'll find out together.

I'm not going to be posting daily. Tuesdays, for example, probably aren't going to happen. And, though today's an exception, Sundays will always be out. Don't even bother checking.

But I'm going to be here. I hope some of you I lost during my absence find their way back. And I hope I find a lot of new readers this year.

But mostly, I'm excited to see what we can accomplish this year. The last year was a great foundation. Now let's see how we can build on it.