Challenge Accepted!

This is my official acceptance of the new fitness challenge which will henceforth be known as FitBet II.

What follows are the terms of the new FitBet II as laid out by my benevolent and apparently modest friend Rick in his response to my recent post “220.0 – what Now?”

Rick’s proposals are listed in print form, whereas my responses are in italics.

Rick: I am willing to give you one LAST opportunity. You are gonna have to show some resolve and rekindle that FIRE you had in the spring.

Andy: Appreciate the final chance.

Rick: I will give you until the FSU game (on November 30th, 2013) to lose the weight. I think the new goal should be for you to get your weight under 200 lbs.

Andy: That seems more than reasonable.

Rick: We will discuss another bet to get you to your ultimate goal if you are able to achieve this one. I want you to win one for once, so please take this opportunity. 170 ( was actually shooting for 175, but I get the point) is just too daunting and too big a number to hit, so lets take this in increments. 199 is your number.

Andy: 199 by November 30th is the goal. Accepted.

Rick: If you do not hit your goal, you will wear the FSU shirt to the FSU game and get your picture taken in front of the Steve Spurrier Statue wearing it (this is, of course, assuming we are able to get tickets). If not, I will likely be in Tallahassee for Thanksgiving and you will go down to the Bobby Bowden statue and get your picture taken in your Nole regalia doing the tomahawk chop and you must post it to your blog and on your Facebook.

Andy: I’m willing to do either of those things if my initial goal is not met.

Rick: I also would add the following conditions:

1) I am out of the bet. I lived up to my end of the bargain. You’re failure is not my responsibility, so even if you do manage to win the FitBet II, I no longer have to wear the FSU shirt.

Andy: To be honest, I was never going to make you wear that godforsaken shirt even if I had won the initial FitBet. So, you are absolved from having to wear the Chief Assahola t-shirt.

Rick: 2) You must blog your weight EVERY Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday. No excuses, miss once and you forfeit the bet.

Andy: Fair enough. Official Weigh-ins every M, W, & Saturday – beginning this upcoming Monday (9/2/13) after this weekend’s College Football extravaganza in Gainesville.

Rick: 3) You must BLOG all the JUNK FOOD you eat. If you eat clean, no need to BLOG it. You’re supposed to be eating clean. This includes sodas (any type), chips and the like, Little Debbies, cookies or desserts of any kind, any fast food, restaurants, etc….

Andy: No matter how monotonous this seems, I know it will keep me accountable, so I agree.

So there it is, the official terms to FitBet II as proposed by Rick and accepted by Andy. This new challenge begins Monday, September 2nd.

215.8 -Full Disclosure & A Promise

In the name of full disclosure, I weighed in this morning at 215.8 pounds. I have been neglecting my health (and therefore this blog) for far too long now.  A while back I made the decision to start posting my weight upon waking up every day. Rick had suggested doing it once a week to keep myself honest and accountable. But I knew if I didn’t post it every single day that it would give me way too much leeway to slack off on my diet and exercise – thinking in the back of my mind that I’ll “make it up tomorrow”.

Well lo and behold, somewhere in the past few months, I stopped doing that. And it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  For those of you who may have been keeping up with this blog, you know I had suffered a personal loss just under two months ago. As much as I tried to get my mind right, I continued to slack off. Rick saw this and gave me a freebie month on our Fitbet, extending the deadline by one month to the end of September to hit my goal weight of 170-175lbs.

Then began the zigzagging. I would do great for a couple of days, lose some pounds. Then I’d disappear from the blog for a couple of days, do poorly, gain a few pounds. Even Rick noticed the pattern. He’d text me after not seeing any posts on my blog for a couple of days and say something like “haven’t seen any posts for a few days; that’s usually a  bad sign.” – which it was. Inevitably I would be up in weight due to poor diet and half-assing the exercise – too embarrassed to post my weight gain.

But the past few days exercise has started becoming fun again. I’ve started looking forward to it like I used to. To be honest, up until this point, the past couple months, I’ve been dreading it. Knowing that I had Insanity workouts looming 6 days a week. Knowing that I really needed to hit the gym or run the neighborhood to compensate for poor food choices. But now, I’m beginning to look at this with excitement once again. I feel like I’m breaking out of the complacency that’s burdened me for over eight weeks now.

I looked back at some posts early on in this blog and I notice that I’m roughly at the same weight now as where I was in late April. That not only sucks, but could really be defeating if I let it be. But for some reason it’s not. It’s motivation for me. It shows me how well I was doing. How far I had come in such a short amount of time. It reminded me that I can actually do this!

This blog originally began as something that I was going to use to simply chronicle my journey. I didn’t think anyone but Rick and I and possibly my wife would ever look at it. But now over 90 of you guys have subscribed to this!  You’ve bought into it. You’ve actually expressed interest in seeing my progress. And I sincerely thank you all. For this reason, I make this promise to all of you – I promise to see this thing through to the end. I promise to never give up. I promise that no matter what life throws my way, no matter how many times I may get knocked down or stumble and fall, that I will always find a way to persevere and rise above it. Just seeing those “likes” on my posts let’s me know that you guys are still out there. You’re still rooting for me … a stranger … perhaps on the same path as you – to get healthy and fit!

The Fit Gator Journey continues….

SDV.

FitBet Side Bet – 1 Week Update

Ok. So as of yesterday I weighed in at 208.8 – down a pound and a half.

Rick weighed in at 188.8 – down three and a half pounds.

The FitBet Side Bet was to see who could lose 13 pounds the fastest. So far Rick has me by 2 pounds.

Rick’s advantages are that he has more time available to him to workout/train and prepare meals. My advantage over him is that I have more weight to lose and should be able to lose weight at a faster click. So I look at it as a fair bet.

I’ve decided to set and track my macronutrients (“macros”) in addition to simply tracking calories. So I will be watching my protein, fat, and carb intake as well. I would also like to add some additional workouts to my daily Insanity workouts – maybe hit the gym at night more often like I was doing early on.
Think these small changes can slingshot me past Rick by next week’s update.

210.4 – FitBet Side Bet

Fatty Fatty 2 x 4

So in an effort to knock me out of this “comfort” zone of 205- 211 lbs, Rick has proposed a side bet. Apparently he’s a few pounds heavier than he’d like to be, so he’d like to lose ~13 pounds to get back down to about 180. As of today he weighed in at 192.4 and I weighed in at 210.4 (a substantial 18 lbs heavier than Rick).

The side bet is to see who can lose 13 pounds the fastest. Who get’s there first. For those of  you who don’t like to do math, Rick must hit 179.4 or less, and I have to finally break through this plateau and finally get under 200 lbs to land on 197.4 lbs.

The loser buys the winner’s beer all weekend long when I go down to Gainesville for the Florida/Vandy Matchup the weekend of November 8-10.  I will be going to a couple of games before then (Toledo and Tennessee (shhh… don’t tell Rick about that one, it’s a surprise)) but I don’t want to take advantage of all the beer Rick is going to have to buy me, because FitBet will still be going on (since it was extended through Sept 28th). Some of you may remember that I lost a similar bet not too long ago when I didn’t quite hit my target weight before going down there earlier this year.

http://wp.me/p2U3tb-85

So it’s on like Donkey Kong! Unfortunately for Rico, he accidentally gave away the secret to truly losing weight when he posted this on my Facebook page! Now I can’t lose!

The Truth

*** FitBet Deadline Extended! ***

I have decided to relent. I have finally conceded to extend my fitbet deadline one additional month from August 30th  to September 28th. This benevolent offer was put on the table by Rick after seeing me flounder for about a month due to personal reasons. I didn’t feel good about the offer at the time he made it because I thought I could overcome it and that it wasn’t being fair to him. But as the weeks passed by, the weight remained stagnant and my focus was shaky at best.  It was looking like I would be a Nole Fan come August 31st.

But now I’m working hard on cleaning up my diet. I’m beginning to get back into the routine of exercising regularly again. I’ve even started doing Insanity at the same time as Rick. To top it off, my buddy Will just moved back to town this past weekend and joined my gym so that he could workout with me.

So now I really feel like I’m getting that focus back. That feeling that I can actually do this. But the initial deadline is creeping up quickly. Just over 9 weeks away. I am at a point that I don’t think that there is any way I could hit my target weight of 170-175 by August 30th. Knowing this will likely cause me to say “F*@# it!” and slowly give up – go back to my old ways. But with the extended four weeks, the FitBet goal weight is definitely still doable. I know I can reach it.

I’ve been stuck in this Ping-Pong weight range of 205-211 for far too long now.  The cobwebs are finally dissipating and the skies are beginning to turn blue again. I feel like I can once again attack this full force like I had been. I can overcome it.  I can be victorious.

SDV.

Happy National Running Day!

The Fit Gator ran today! Distance: 3.20mi, time: 36:07, pace: 11:17min/mi, speed: 5.32mi/h.
http://mapmyrun.com/workout/295752395

So the past few days haven’t been exceptionally stellar in my pursuit of better health and fitness. My mind has been clouded and I really just lacked motivation. I have been eating poorly and have skipped some workouts. I missed a few days of weigh-ins (some by accident, some on purpose – for fear of seeing the weight I’ve crept back up to.)

I told Rachel and Rick that I just wasn’t feeling it anymore – at least not recently. Guess I was in another funk. Rach was good at reminding me to workout – no excuses! And Rick had a bunch of people send me words of encouragement either in this blog in the comments section or on my Facebook page. Guess that did the trick because I felt inspired again!

I wanted to go running this afternoon but it was raining…

So I planned to hit the gym and hop on the elliptical. But that’s when I saw on my Twitter page that today was National Running Day! If there was ever a day that I HAD to run, today was it; rain or shine.

Fortunately the rain stopped long enough for me to hit the streets of my neighborhood. You would have thought that the rain might have cooled things down outside, but quite the opposite… It was so humid! Felt like I was running through a sauna. Ugh!

It was tough but I was determined to run the full 5K distance with no walking. By the end of my run my shirt was drenched and my legs felt like wet spaghetti noodles, but at least I did it! My diet has also been on point today, so just maybe I’ve turned the corner on that funk and can now continue on my way too losing this 65 pounds and winning the FitBet.

207.4

One day left before this week’s official weigh-in. My target weight is 204.6 lbs to remain on schedule to reach my goal weight of 175 or below by August 30th.

Not sure I can hit that by tomorrow but I believe I will get back to my weekly target weights by next Saturday.

There are only 91 short days left until the FitBet deadline, so now the reality of it is really starting to hit me. I know these next three months will go by very quickly so I don’t have as much room for error and taking steps back like I’ve been prone to do.

I’m now down 31 lbs and almost half way to my overall weight loss goal of 65 lbs!

It was a nice morning today so I decided to go for a run. Figured I would burn more fat by running on an empty stomach before eating breakfast. It sucked. Took all the energy I had just to finish my 5K distance without walking. Maybe next time I’ll just eat a banana or something before running.

I ran with MapMyRun! Distance: 3.10mi, time: 35:04, pace: 11:19min/mi, speed: 5.30mi/h.
http://mapmyrun.com/workout/291318521

211.4 – WTH?!

Ok… so I’m a little confused by my weigh-in this a.m. Although I did go over my daily alloted calories by about 600 yesterday, the 2300 overall cals that I did have were still less than what I actually burned throughout the day, therefore I should not have had this kind of weight gain.

But after thinking about it for a little while, trying to make sense of this, I think I may have figured out the problem.

On Saturday, my official weigh-in was 210.4 lbs. I needed and was shooting for 209.8 but just missed it. That day we traveled to see Rachel’s sister compete in a Tough Mudder in Palatka (near Gainesville) FL. So nutrition wasn’t the greatest on that day although I did what I could to keep my calories down.

The next morning I weighed in upon waking up like I always do and the scale said 209.0! I quickly took a picture and was stoked as well as surprised to see my weight under the 210 mark, especially after eating on the road all day Saturday. But what I usually do each morning is weigh myself about three times in a row – each about a minute apart because my scale will sometimes fluctuate. Usually the weights that come back are generally very close to each other and I take the lowest one. But on Sunday, after my first weigh-in at 209.0, my next two weigh-ins (just minutes apart) were both 210.4. So maybe the 209.0 was the anomaly. And my weight really did hold steady at 210.4 from the day before. In retrospect, it makes more sense.

Admittedly, I was running late for work and did not weigh in yesterday (Monday) so I’m not sure what my weight was going into today’s weigh-in. Either way, I somehow came up one pound over the 210.4 that I likely was on Sunday. So two things are at play here. Either my nutrition on Sunday was shit, which I don’t think it was – although I didn’t track calories that day – but did try to eat clean for the most part. Or it was my dinner last night that may have added to the weight. Last night, I made tilapia, fried shrimp, brown rice, a vegetable medley and a salad. I meticulously added up all my calories from that meal just to make sure I wasn’t going overboard and I finished very close to 2300 total. Perhaps the sodium in the fried shrimp or cocktail sauce was enough to retain some water and put me up a pound? Not sure. I did run 3 miles afterward in an attempt to sweat it out. But apparently it was not enough.

Rick and I have been conversing about trying to get my weight low enough where I’m a couple of weeks ahead of where my target weights should be. To give myself a cushion. I need to be at 207.2 or less on this Saturday’s official weigh-in. That’s 4.2 lbs from today! Now, I’m not panicking, I’m fairly certain I can do this. But to get ahead of the game may take me a few more weeks to do. For now, all my focus will go into hitting this week’s target weight. I’ll worry about getting ahead after that.

212.8

Well after a few bad days nutritionally speaking, I decided to get finally face the music and see how much weight I’ve gained since Saturday’s original weigh-in. Up a pound and a half.

To remain on target to win FitBet and be within my goal weight range of 170-175 by August 30th, I have to be at 209.8 lbs or less on this upcoming Saturday’s weigh in. So I need to lose 3 more pounds. Very doable if I stay the course… Which after the past few days I know I will do.

214.4

Good exercise and proper nutrition = weight loss. Almost back down to the 213.8 I was on Sunday morning before I had my food bender.

The only problem was that my calf muscle seized up on me a little at the end of my workout last night. Doesn’t seem to be bothering me too much this morning. Guess we’ll know for sure when I go to exercise again.

Currently under the 215.0 lbs I need to officially weigh this Saturday to remain on target to win the FitBet. Need to put some more distance between my actual and my target weight though. I have today and tomorrow to do so.