The Lesser Man Project: Week 3-4

This is just a quick update about this week and last week’s progress. With the holiday falling near the middle of the week I was swamped with other work in preparation for being off for a few days and had to miss posting. Apologies to all of you who are hanging on my every word concerning my quest to lose weight. Sarcasm is intended there.

This is going to be the toughest part of the experiment. We are heading into the winter which means lessened outdoor activity, unless you count putting up Christmas lights which should be considered an Olympic Sport at my house. It also means that we are heading full force into the holidays which means lots of bad influences like carbs from Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, cookies and leftover Halloween candy, and Egg Nog. Egg Nog, alone, could negate any progress I’ve made over the last couple of weeks.

I will say it has become so much easier to pass up the snacks. Because we are heading into December, people are bringing more and more goodies to work. I’ve passed up a few things but I hate to insult someone by not accepting their offer of food. One of my biggest problems is that I am, like my namesake, Mikey from the LIFE cereal ads. When I first met my wife back in 1998 I went to dinner at her house and met her parents. They like to cook and they don’t skimp on portions. Whenever I would finish my plate they would continually say, “Have some more.” Soon, one serving of pasta became two large plates. Trust me, I like food and I like to eat but I have to begin turning down such hospitality if I plan on losing the extra weight I’ve gained in the last ten years. So, here’s the progress report.

Here’s the good news.
I did not gain any weight after the Thanksgiving weekend, in fact, as of today, I'm down an additional pound. My wife made her first Thanksgiving dinner with a 14 pound fresh turkey, sweet potato casserole, homemade stuffing, corn casserole, and Pillsbury iced cinnamon rolls. All in all, I had two helpings of stuffing, turkey, sweet potatoes and rolls and managed to come back to work on Monday with no extra weight. And, it’s not like I did a damn thing but veg out on the couch watching movies and playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Free-For-All Deathmatch. That is a new addiction of mine and I really suck at it, which makes for a lot of frustration and continual attempts to get better. Let’s just say that I cannot wait until I unlock the perk of dropping a grenade when I get killed because I die more from grenade drops than I do from anything else.

Here’s the bad news.
I might be reaching that first plateau. I was kind of hoping I could get back to my earlier weight of 255-265 before having to add additional steps. I can explain the additional 20 pounds very easily. My mother-in-law passed away in April and that’s when I started gaining the extra weight. It would be normal for us to eat at my in-laws, maybe three to four times a week. Sure, the extra portions are a problem but at least the food is home cooked and not full of bad stuff. Since April, we have been going out more and eating quicker, more carb heavy and fatty foods. While my wife is becoming an awesome cook, especially with that turkey that I am still eating sandwiches from for lunch, she teaches piano almost every afternoon into the evening and doesn’t have a lot of time to prepare a meal.

Next Steps
Hopefully, with the brief lull in festive eating, I can knock off a few more pounds the way I have been. Last night I caught myself, after work, wanting to break into the sweet rolls before they have to be pitched. Luckily, they looked kind of nasty and we pitched them. The apple on my way home from work is still enough to hold me until dinner. Although, after the New Year, I am sure I will have to ramp up my efforts. Don’t expect any resolutions from me because they are trap and a great way to fail. In fact, I advise any of you, looking to lose weight, to follow my example. Don’t make a New Year’s Resolution because you are betting against yourself. Resolutions tend to be unrealistic, pie in the sky goals. Instead just start taking those small steps that create results and stick to them.

Breakfasts for the last week
Weekdays – 1 cup Lucky Charms and skim milk
Holiday weekend – no breakfast or Pillsbury cinnamon roll

Lunches for the last week
Leftover turkey sandwich
Light Yogurt
Diet Pepsi

Snacks for the last week
Apple
Pumpkin pie with Cool Whip (Late at night – VERY BAD)

Dinners for last week
Thanksgiving dinner
Leftover Thanksgiving dinner
More Leftover Thanksgiving dinner
McDonald’s club sandwich meal with Diet Coke, small
Wendy’s Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, small fry, small Diet Coke, no Frosty

Childhood Movie Madness

I blame Ginny, over at That’s Church, for this post. She opened up the floodgates by mentioning Pete’s Dragon in a recent post.

In my 35 years of being on this Earth, I have seen a lot of movies. I mean a lot of movies. And even though there are movies I have not seen, I could probably hold a conversation about or figure out what movie you were talking about if you were all staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the answers to fall from the sky into your head. My own sister regularly uses me to settle arguments or jog her memory about movies, even if I haven’t seen them. It’s just something I pay attention to.

So, when Ginny went on for a few paragraphs about tattoos and Pittsburgh and being old, the one thing I latched onto and ran with was the comment about having the song, “We Got a Bill of Sale Right Here” from Pete’s Dragon, stuck in her head. That immediately sent me reeling into my subconscious iPod playlist to retrieve “Every Little Piece.” Now, I’ve been going, “Money, Money, Money by the pound” every few minutes until my brain explodes in a pop culture mess all over my cube.

That mess sent me on another hunt, this one went further into my brain, past the cobwebs and skeletons and thoughts of Susanna Hoffs in the “Walk Like An Egyptian” costume and the poster of Alyssa Milano in a New Jersey Devils’ sweater on my bedroom wall when I was a kid.  Um… excuse me for a minute.

Ok, where was I?

Oh yeah, going past all that I return to my early childhood, in grade school. It’s just about this time of year and with the impending holiday season the lack of structured instruction taking place, we’d all assemble in the cafeteria/gymnasium/auditorium in my school and watch movies. They were usually Disney flicks or other kid friendly fare. One of those movies was, in fact, Pete’s Dragon. That conjured the list of other movies I had seen during these days.

Pete’s Dragon
Hot Lead, Cold Feet
The Apple Dumpling Gang
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again
No Deposit, No Return
Any number of Herbie movies, minus Lindsay Lohan
Condorman
The Black Hole
Freaky Friday (Again, minus Lindsay Lohan.  This was the Jodie Foster version)
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Candleshoe
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (Kurt Russell version)
The World’s Greatest Athlete
Escape To Witch Mountain
Return To Witch Mountain
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines

The only other movie I can recall being shown at our school was that super secret sixth grade film that was shown to all the girls. They taped paper on the windows so that we couldn’t see what was going on in there. Conspiracy, I tell ya! It’s all a plot to take down Y chromosome!

That’s all I got folks. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be somewhere in the recesses of my mind with Alyssa Milano, Susanna Hoffs, and a Disney movie marathon.

Uncrate.com Makes My Afternoon Disappear

I have been spending an ungodly amount of time surfing through this site. One of the folks I follow on Twitter made reference to their effervescent bacon tablets and that just got me spiraling into a wasted day of wishful thinking.

Uncrate.com appears to be a site that advertises products for men… who have exorbitant amounts of disposable cash. But I love it. It ranks up there with ThinkGeek.com.

Here are some highlights of products I would definitely want. Note, I can probably afford the cereal marshmallows and that’s it. LOL.

Mint Robo Cleaner

1959 Land Rover Series II Model 109

HP Slate 500

Cereal Marshmallows

Mac Book Air 2

Where was I?  What's work?  What's my pin number?