Decisions 1

10/8
Reed and Jen's wedding was a potential disaster, but I managed to limit myself pretty well. I had a beer, the dinner (chicken cordon bleu and a crab cake), and half of a mini-pie. Could've gone a lot worse. We're calling it a good decision.

10/10
Ahh, the Washington Capitals. My buddy was buying beers, so...I had several. Too many. Bad decision.

10/12
Went to fuel up at a gas station, and in a blink, I found myself inside buying a bag of Tostitos Scoops. What the hell, man? Not cool.

10/13
Another Caps game, another bad decision. This one was a road game, so I went over to my brother's house and munched down on some pizza. Bad, bad fella.

Current weight: 274.0 (even)

Psychotron/Disney Joe Update

So as you may have noticed (or not noticed, as it were), I haven't really been offering much in the way of updates on my progress as this "competition" has moved forward. I put "competition" in quotes, because I haven't really been doing my part to compete with the other participants in this contest. I have been lifting more than I have at any point in the past six months, but not so much that I'd say I'm really pushing myself to succeed.

The question of "Why?" is one I've been trying to work through in my head, and I've mostly come up empty. But I think perhaps one reason is that during this period, I haven't really been holding myself accountable by posting updates. So in an effort to stifle that weakness and see if I can't turn this ship around (despite the fact that it sounds like I'm ~20 lbs. behind already), I'm going to start posting more regularly. I haven't been counting calories since late September, and I think I'd like to find a way to be productive without having to do that. So I won't be posting my daily calories or anything like that.

What I will be posting is two things. First, I'll be posting my weight. While I do believe that I've gotten marginally more muscular over the past month, I'm still way too heavy for my lifestyle, and for my own preference/confidence. Losing weight is the end goal of all of this, and the one thing I want to hold myself accountable for more than anything else. So, I'll post my weight every time I post, including this post (at the bottom).

Second, I'm going to post decisions. My contention throughout all of this, including past attempts to lose weight, was that a person could improve their health, lose weight, and become more fit simply by altering a few decisions every day. I know when I was at my worst, I made a slew of poor decisions. I would buy bags of Doritos and Tostitos, knowing that they didn't stand a chance of lasting more than a couple days in my house. I would decline invitations to activities that required some movement on my part (walks, games of basketball, even trips downtown). And I'd order pizza every once in a while, and devour the whole pie (or pies) in a matter of hours.

These are the kinds of decisions I need to change. So what I'm going to do is start posting decisions, good or bad, that I make and remember. If I decide to pass on pizza and eat a Lean Cuisine, I'll post that. If I falter and do order Domino's, I'll post that as well. I won't post normal lifting sessions, but if I find myself debating whether or not I want to lift on a given night, I'll post my decision on that, positive or negative. The idea is that forcing myself to share my mistakes and my triumphs will help me to more frequently make good decisions. Maybe I can't win the monetary prize in this competition at this point, but the real prize is improved health, and that's still on the table.

So, as I mentioned, I've been pretty lackluster thus far, since my initial weigh-in. I've ordered pizza more than once, I've talked myself out of going for walks a number of times, and overall I've just disappointed myself with my decisions. However, when I weighed myself Thursday morning, I was surprised to see that I had actually stayed pretty much even (up 0.4 lbs). While up is worse than down, and I'm not proud of my process so far, I can't help but be a little pleased that I haven't lost much ground from where I was at the beginning of this competition.

I'm going to set a conservative goal of losing 5.4 pounds by November 1st (so 5 pounds off of my starting weight), and 10 pounds by December 1st. From the rumors I've heard, that will still leave me well behind our top competitors, but at this point, my competition is myself. Wish me luck.

Current weight: 274.4 (+ 0.4 lbs.)

Week 3

9/19

Calories: 1500 calories Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna n Chips,

Exercise: 825 Calories 7.5 mile walk

9/20

Calories: 1800 calories Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna n Chips, Greek Chicken, Salad, Pita, 2 Michelob Ultra

Exercise: 600 Calories 4.5 mile walk 2 mile run

9/21

Calories: 2200 Calories Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna n Chips, Scallops and Sweet Potato Mash, 2 beers

Exercise: 550 Calories 4 mile walk 2 mile run

9/22

Calories: 1400 Cal Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna n Chips, Chicken Sausage and Pasta, Sam Adams

Exercise: 850 Cal 6.5 mile (walking) 1.5 mile run

9/23

Calories: 1900 Calories Home made Wheat Pizza, Pot Bellies Sub, Tostitos, Sam Adams

Exercise: None

9/24

Calories: ??? Beer, Pizza, Wings, Garlic Bread, Chips

Exercise: 515 Calories 4.21 mile (walk/run)

9/25

Calories: 1600 Cal Burrito, Gatorade, Pirate Booty

Exercise: 725 Cal 7.25 mile Walk

9/26

Calories:

Exercise: 4.35 mile walk (500 calories)

Comments: Overall a pretty good week. Saturday was a bloodbath but I think that helps keep me honest rest of the week. I ended up going out to eat 4 times this week but was able to limit it to one bad meal. The exercise also has really been turned up as well.

Progress: As of Friday I was down 6.5 lbs. I'm hoping to get to 8 by the end of the month. (Next week)

Week 2

9/13

Calories: 1,400 cal Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Shrimp Bisque, Pirate Booty Whiskey

Exercise: 700 cal (5 mile walk 1 mile run) Lifting - Shoulders

9/14

Calories: 1150 cal Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna Chips, Guacamole Soup, Pirate Booty, Pita

Exercise: 470 cal (3 mile walk, 1 mile run)

9/15

Calories: 1,100 cal Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Sausage + Pasta

Exercise: 450 cal (2 mile walk, 2 mile run)

9/16

Calories: 1,150 cal Cheerios 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Sausage + Pasta

Exercise: 600 cal (5 mile walk)

9/17

Calories: 2,800+ (Chips, BLT, Pizza, Cookies, Rum + coke)

Exercise: Softball 2 games

9/18

Calories: 2,000 cal (Steak + cheese, 2 beers, tuna sandwich chips.)

Exercise: None

I was really good during the week but Saturday was again an issue. I also did not make time to get exercise in over the weekend.

Goal for next week: Keep up the exercise and try to keep to one bad meal a week.

Start off

Since high school I have seen my weight sky rocket to over 215lbs and drop to 155. This seems to coincide with crash dieting and exercise followed by months of eating out, no exercise and more drinking. (after 21 of course) In the recent months I have noticed that I seem to be slipping into bad habits again. This can be reflected in my opening weight. While this number was more than likely distorted because it occurred right after a food and beer filled trip to Boston, it is still a red flag.

Starting weight 183.4 lbs.

Week 1:

9/6

Calories: 1450: V8 Green Tea and Juice, Cheddar Biscuit, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Oven Fried Cod, Low cal Potato Salad

Exercise: 330 cal (Elliptical, Run) + Lifting (Chest)

9/7

Calories: 1300 Cal: Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Tilapia Tacos, Snack: Pretzels and Cheese

Exercise: 325 cal (Elliptical, Run) + Lifting (Arms)

9/8

Calories: 1200 Cal Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Tuna Burgers Potato Salad Snack: Pretzels

Exercise: 310 (Ellip, Run) + Lifting (Shoulders)

9/9

Calories: 1500 Cal: Cheerios, 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Chicken Sausage and low cal Pasta, Pretzels

Exercise: 350 (Ellip, Run) + Lifting (Abs, Chest)

9/10

Calories: ??: Cheerios, Homemade Pretzels, Beer, Vodka RB, Homemade Pizza

Exercise: 472 cal (Walk 4.40 miles)

9/11

Calories: 2000 Cheerios, Small slice of homemade pizza, Country Ribs, Baked Potato, Blondie bar, Beer, Whiskey

Exercise: 478 cal (Walk 4.40 miles)

9/12

Calories: 950 Cal Cheerios 1/2 Tuna, Chips, Scallops + Shrimp, Asparagus, Dumpling

Exercise: 917 cal (Walk 4.26 miles, Run 1.25 miles) Lifting (Chest) Walk (2.5 more mile)

Comments:

Overall it was a pretty good week. I had hoped for Sunday to be better but with the long morning walk it was still a positive day. Overall not to bad. Probably should add a little bit to my caloric intake.

Goal:

My plan for the month is to burn at least 6600 calories. That' s about 220 a day. At the moment I'm at 3187 after 7 days so it looks to be an easy goal but I always find the start of an exercise plan easy to stick to. Hopefully I can really smash that goal and end somewhere closer to 10,000 for the month.

Overall goal: 160-165 lbs (I'll start updating next week. And continue for every 2 weeks)

Good Luck,

Pixar Pete

Yea that name stuff is not working.

Eddie

More Competition

On Friday evening, we added four more competitors to the contest. Here's our current list of combatants (sorted alphabetically by last name, of course):

Lanae Bradley
Ruby Edmonds
Joe Mattingly
Mike Mattingly
Mark Sabina
Marcus Walker

I didn't get final confirmation from any of the new participants regarding posting their starting weights, so in the interest of discretion, I've elected to not disclose them. New folks, if you want me to post them, let me know and I will. For me, I found posting my weight to be a good way to force myself to be accountable. But that was a different style of competition; who knows if it'll work the same in this instance.

If you haven't joined, you've still got a week to decide. I'm available most of the time through next Sunday (September 11) to provide the official scale for weigh-ins. Just let me know if you want to swing by. Once again, the wager is $25 from each participant. Right now, with an estimated 8-9 competitors, we'll be paying out the top two spots, but if we get a few more, we'll expand the prizes.

Happy dieting!

-Disney Joey