We hit it again last night. Same workout. I’m surprised that every day my muscles ache a little less than they did the day before. It’s true that they ache a bit from the previous day’s workout when I’m getting started, but today I feel pretty good — better than yesterday. Anyway, I thought I’d share another funny quirk that I have. Really, I’ve painted myself into a corner, but here’s the scenario: One of the times I was at the doctor’s office, early in my weight-loss regimen, I had the day off. That means I was wearing shorts, tennis shoes and a tee shirt. There’s no question that the extra fabric in “business casual” adds a few pounds, and while I might not be hung up on the numbers, the doctor uses this number to make diagnostic decisions, so for him they are pretty important. Even if my weight stayed the same between appointments, I could potentially appear to have gained weight if I wore my regular work clothes. So, ever since then, I have taken early-morning appointments and wore shorts, tennis shoes, and a tee shirt — then I change into my work clothes and head into work. It’s silly, I know, but it’s something I do. Now I’m making it public, so feel free to ridicule me if you wish!

Posted on Dec 15.09 to Life | No Comments »  

Wow, that first day of “Jillian Michales 30 Day Shred” really worked me out. I thought I had decent upper-body strength, but realized I could still use some work — because I as hurting (in a good way). Now, I knew that working my abs was an area I could improve upon, but wow…

I did the first workout in the very early afternoon on Saturday. Yesterday was Sunday and that was day 2. The wife and I did it together and it was fun to share that experience. I’m sitting at the low 230s right now. Later this week I will be around 60 lbs lost in around 11 months. Not bad — and this tape is doing exactly what I hoped it would do, which is to break the rut of the same old workout.

One thing that I found to be surprising is that I am actually less sore today — the day after workout number 2 — than I was after workout number 1. I’m also noticing that sharing this publicly is also motivating. It keeps you quite honest.

Posted on Dec 14.09 to Life | No Comments »  

About a year ago, I went to the doctor’s office for a check up. I had avoided it for quite a while — At that point, I was about 27 and I don’t think I had a full physical since I entered college at 18. Maybe I had, but I doubt it. At 27, my twin girls were about nearly 3 years old, and while they were the light of my life, the preceding years of minimal sleep had caused a domino effect. The tiredness caused lethargy, the lethargy caused laziness, the laziness caused me to become quite unhealthy. I could quote countless excuses — my favorite was the caring husband’s sympathy weight — but the bottom line was my lack of effort.

I have since become increasingly fascinated by the human mind’s ability to challenge even itself. There was no question that it was a mental block keeping me from devoting the necessary effort to the cause of getting healthy. Maybe it was the youngest sibling syndrome, maybe it was my own genetic make up, maybe it was my type A personality, but I decided that nobody was going to tell me what I could (or in this case, couldn’t, do)…even my own brain.

As I stepped up on the scale at that check up and saw the numbers 289 flash back at me, I knew I needed to make a change then and there.

So, I committed to getting fit, and have since lost over 50 lbs by hitting the gym a few times a week. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what my actual weight is — that’s not my primary focus. At first, it was simple; to not be embarrassed to take my shirt off. The number itself did serve to quantify how out of control my unhealthiness had become. It also helped remind me that my health isn’t just about me — I have a family that relies on me and they deserve me to not only be around for as long as I can, but also be more than just a lumpy space on the couch.

My gym membership ends today. I know Mom and Dad are renewing my membership for Christmas, but until I get the card in my hand, I’m not allowed in the door. In an effort to have no down-time, I’ve started doing this workout tape. I can’t believe I just said I do a workout tape. That’s more embarrassing than saying I used to weigh 289! Anyway, the goal is to do it every day for 30 days. I’m aware that I have Christmas and New Years in the mix, but I’m going to aim high and do my best. My previous success is my motivation — I know I can do it.

The tape says I may lose up to 20 lbs in 30 days, which would put me in the 220s which should look ok on my bodyframe. I hope to build some muscle, too, so I won’t get too hung up on the numbers, but that would be nice.

I have to admit, that I’ve also liked seeing how it has motivated my beautiful wife to join me in getting healthy — for ourselves and for each other. Everybody is a winner!

Posted on Dec 13.09 to Life | No Comments »  

I plan on re-writing this in PerlTK so it has a bit of user interface, but for now I thought this app was pretty cool:
To use this, you’ll need sox installed. While I linked to the sourceforge site, you’ll probably want to get the “sox”, “libsox0″, and “libsox-fmt-all” packages from your package manager.

Anyway, here is my linux command line guitar tuner called ptune.

Posted on Dec 10.09 to Technology | No Comments »