How about we try this again?

Oh hey, I forgot, I have a blog. Well, I am not going to make excuses for not updating my blog for such a long time. I just was not interested in doing so. However, I would like to start back up with a weekly blog entry, partly about my life, but also, I want to write about health and fitness related topics. I see so many people that lead their life towards healthiness with a lot of misinformation, myths, and misconceptions. Sometimes it can just be innocence with not having done proper research and sometimes it can be the allure of social media postings. Nonetheless, I will try to give my honest opinions about certain things that are health/fitness related, as well as trying to provide the most accurate information possible.

Since this is my first blog post in quite a while, today's topic will be solely about me; an update on my life as well as what I am doing nowadays regarding my progress towards a healthy lifestyle.

The majority of my blog history has been about my weight loss (and weight gain...), so let me cover the change in my weight over the years. It is lengthy, but shows that I have successfully lost weight, and also gained it all back. When I first started this blog, I was able to lose about 50-60 pounds to get down to 200 lbs, the lowest I had been since early high school. This happened from the end of 2011 to the summer of 2012. I then slacked over the summer and fall after a very successful spring, and gained back 20-30 pounds. At this point, it's the beginning of 2013. My knees had always been a problem over the past few years, but they kept getting worse. With the help of a physical therapist, my knees began to recover, and with a very successful diet, I was able to drop all of my gained weight and reached 194 pounds, right around February/March of 2013. I was amazed at my progress, and I was not even running anymore, due to my knees causing me too much discomfort. This is my lowest weight of my adult life (even now).



At this point, I began working Zoo Snooze at the Oregon Zoo, and in turn, ended up travelling a lot between Corvallis and Portland. This meant less shopping for healthy food and more shopping for convenient food. On top of this, I ate a lot of pizza, so I started to gain back some weight. Probably 210-215 lbs by the beginning of summer. Bummer. Then, I worked with 6th graders at the zoo, which includes an overnight, and more pizza and other meals given to us. Less control of my food means weight gain. It's inevitable for me, as I cannot resist temptation very well when it comes to free unhealthy food. Over the course of rest of 2013 and beginning of 2014, my weight would fluctuate around 240 pounds. Very unfortunate. I would periodically try to lose some weight, and would just give up eventually. It never took long to give into temptation. Binge eating is my worst enemy, and even to this day, is hard for me to deal with. However, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. I worked an internship at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest during the summer of 2014 on a stream ecology project. This meant that I spent most of my days hiking to and from, in and around streams during the hot summer days. I burned so many calories during the work day as well as sweating a lot in waders that even while eating and drinking literally whatever I wanted and however much I wanted, I managed to get down to 220 pounds by September 2014. But rather than continuing my weight loss trend, I kept my unhealthy habit of eating and drinking, plus the football season ruined any chance for a diet, and I quickly got back to 240.

At this point, 2015 comes around and I periodically lose a bit of weight, then gain it back. Same old thing. But to make it worse, I manage to get up to about 250 before summer starts. Wonderful. I have not weighed this much in a few years. I end up working at the Oregon Zoo again during the summer and manage to maintain my weight for once! Sweet deal, but promptly after the summer, I manage to put on a bit more weight, getting me up to 260 pounds. September of 2015, I decided enough is enough, and I need to motivate myself to not only start losing weight, but keep losing weight. I start using a website called DietBet, which makes you bet money on your weight loss. If you lose enough weight over a specific period of time (1 month or 6 months), then you win and not only get your money back, but will earn extra money. If you do not lose enough, then say goodbye to that money you bet. Simple enough. Well, over the last 3 months, I have lost 17 pounds, bringing me to 243 at the moment. Not tons of weight, but I have continually lost weight, and am still doing so. It does not need to be a super fast loss of weight, but as long as I continue a trend of weight loss, then I will be happy.

Okay, that is out of the way. Oh, and an update on my knees - they still suck and hurt when I am overly active. I still cannot run consistently. Not being able to run is certainly not the reason why I have gained weight back, but it is a partial reason why it has been difficult for me to be successful with weight loss. Running was what helped me lose so much weight, so quickly, back in 2012.


Not my knee, but same brand and style of the knee brace I often wear. Maybe one day I will not have to wear it. Maybe.

So now, with the motivation of using DietBet to keep me accountable, as well as being careful about my diet (and if I binge eat, like I still do, that I at least recover from it and get back on track), I have been successful with losing some weight. I have a rowing machine so that I can do cardio without ruining my knees, and just this week, I purchased a weightlifting set. Last week on Amazon, a 300 pound olympic weight set went on sale from $260 down to $170, and the weightlifting bench I was interested in went from $160 to $90. Both were a steal in my opinion, and I jumped on that purchase. After receiving the heavy-ass packages the other day and putting together the bench, I now can lift weights in my garage. There's just enough room in there with summer deck furniture, as well as many items and boxes that belong to my brother and I that are being stored in there. But yesterday, Hannah and I started StrongLifts 5x5 and completed our first workout. SL 5x5 is a beginner weightlifting program that utilizes squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, and rows. 5x5 simply means 5 sets of 5 repetitions, and you do 3 of the lifts per workout, with alternating workouts. Workouts are every other day. If you're interested, you can check out their website, StrongLifts.





Yes, I know, the garage is messy. Tough. Just be glad you don't see the rest of it.

To wrap things up, I am currently losing weight through simple dieting and starting to lift weights again with my own weight set. Although I will periodically update my blog with posts about myself and my current progress, I want to transition my blog into weekly posts about my take on health and fitness. If I can help one person besides myself with this blog, then it's a success.

Until next time, stay fancy.

Day 9 - Surveys Galore

I went out today with one of the two Emilys to work on conducting habitat and forest surveys on one of our streams. After some confusion with Matt and Dana changing the reaches on the stream, as well as doing a little bit of unnecessary work (due to the confusion), we finally got a rhythm going and finished up the habitat survey. We left at about 9:15 in the morning and didn't finish the habitat survey until around 1:00. Doing the survey with only two people was a big burden on us and took up a lot of our time. But oh well, got the habitat surveys done with that entire site. Definitely a good thing. After our lunch break, we needed to get started on some forest surveys. We needed to do 4 plots for either the old growth or second growth section, so we decided to work on the old growth (so much prettier, plus we had been working for 3 hours in the second growth; we needed a change in environment). We ended up with some nice plots and some huge ass trees. Managed to finish the four plots in about 2 and a half hours (would have been quicker if the terrain was better on the last plot), and was quite fun. We ended up with this gigantic douglas fir in one of our plots. One of the largest trees I've ever seen. It was far more relaxing than the rest of the work we were doing prior to the forest surveys. Our last plot ended up having a hill in it that was a 60 degree incline. Damn that was tough to ascend and descend, but I got the job done. We called it a day and got back to the HJA headquarters around 5:00.

The rest of my evening has consisted of a little bit of cooking and food preperation for tomorrow, eating, and relaxing. Although the forest surveys were more relaxing, it was definitely an exhausting day. I also managed to drink through all 3 liters of water that I brought with me and I was still extremely dehydrated by the time I got back to HJA. It's intense how much sweat I lose when I'm hiking up and down these streams, but I should hopefully be losing some weight this summer which will be good.

Tomorrow will consist of lots of forest surveys at two different sites and deploying fluorescein into one of our furthest streams. That means that in a perfect world, I'll be at our first site for three hours or a bit less (so done around noon), and then will go back out around 2:30 to do more forest surveys and then deploy fluorescein by 6. That would put me completely done for the day around 7:30, with a 2-3 hour break midday. Doable, but I'll still be exhausted (like always).

Stay fancy.

Day 8 - Ever Have the Feeling that You Didn't Actually Accomplish Anything?

Come Monday morning, I woke up and went out into the field with Matt and Kate. Our goal was to scout out sites because Matt needs one more stream which has a section of both old growth and second growth surrounding it. This consisted of hiking to and through streams, looking for both old growth and second growth, and specifically a dark second growth (just for contrast to other streams), as well as fish. We found some potential streams, but never found the right combination of everything. So we ended up empty handed after hours of work. We made our way out to place called Mack Stream, and we were going to measure out our reaches and lay out tiles, but we ran into more problems and weren't able to measure out the reaches. We literally wasted an entire day. Bummer.

Dana came back up to HJA for the evening to hang out with us all and to get an early start to the morning on Tuesday. Matt had caught a chinook salmon on Sunday morning so we decided to grill up fresh salmon, veggies, and had some roasted potatoes and watermelon. Plus beer. Can't forget the beer. We had a fantastic dinner, which concluded with some cookies made by Hannah. The highlight of the evening was a crew shotgun. Basically, every single one of us each shotgunned a beer together. Definitely a good bonding moment for all of us. This was of course a bad idea since we had just finished a huge dinner; we all survived. Afterwards, we ended up playing some Beer Frisbee. Brian and I versus Matt and Dana. Damn, Dana has a great throw. Was not expecting that. Brian and I ended up losing, but only 19-22, so it was a close game. We finished the night by just hanging out at a picnic table and drinking beer. A fantastic evening.

Stay fancy.

Day 5 through 7 - July 4th and Back in Corvallis

I decided to surprise Hannah so I came back to Corvallis for the weekend. So no time spent at HJA. Had a good weekend; watched fireworks at the waterfront, ate lots of pie and cookies, and just relaxed.

Sunday, I went back to HJA and got there around 4. Made a simple dinner, hung out with the people here for a bit, and just continued to relax. Nothing much to write about, but I want a post that includes every day.

Stay fancy.

Day 4 - Back in the Field

Dana Warren, the PI for the project, made it to HJA to help out with some of our work on Thursday. We made it out to the farthest sites to do some forest surveys, as well as measuring out a couple reaches in two streams and marking them (putting a flag every 10 meters), and laying out tiles. The tiles are going to sit in the streams for 6 weeks to grow algae, which will show the amount of primary production that takes place at those locations. The forest surveys consist of creating a 15x15 meter plot and measuring the DBH, or Diameter Breast Height, meaning the diameter of the tree at breast height, or roughly 1.3 meters up on the trunk. This also includes identifying all the trees. Fairly easy, but a long day, and there were a lot of changes in marking out the reaches with Dana around, which resulted in measuring it out, then realizing we wanted to do something else instead, and having to remeasure. Honestly, I don't remember anything else from this day; I was pretty tired. However, we got Friday off for the 4th, so it was nice to come back to HJA and relax, knowing I didn't have to wake up early to work.

Stay fancy.

Day 3 - Lab Work

Almost a week late on this one, just never got around to it.

Spent the entire day working in the lab. Emily and I just analyzed fluorescein samples for 3 or 4 hours, which includes pouring some liquid from a vial into another type of vial (blanking on the name of it...), which we then put into a machine... A fluorometer? Something along those lines. It measures the concentration of the fluorescein to determine how much photodegradation occurred. Then we just input the data into the computer. Simple stuff, just took a while. The rest of the day consisted of making up more fluorescein and filling vials with it. Simple, but tedious.

Since it ended up being a short day, I decided to try out fishing at the lake. Well, I definitely caught some fish! I had never caught anything before, and I managed to catch a total of 7 rainbow trout in 3 hours. One even bit literally the second the hook hit the water; incredible. I don't have any pictures ready at the moment, but I took a picture of my first fish. All were pretty small, and one was small enough that I had to release it, but I ended up keeping 4 of them. Had a nice dinner that night. I ended up saving the other two to bring back to Corvallis for the 4th of July. Definitely a nice relaxing day.

Stay fancy.

Day 2 - Back in the Field and Feeling Better

I woke up this morning feeling much better than last night. An early start had me well awake by the time we needed to gather. We got a late start hopping into the cars, but Brian (the crew leader helping Matt), both Emilys (one is doing her own undergraduate research, the other is an intern just like me), and I ventured out to one of the streams. We did a full habitat survey, which ended up taking close to 3 hours over the course of 140 meters. This included measuring the bankfull and wetted lengths of the stream (I explained those terms in the previous post) every 10 meters, measuring the width, length, max depth of every pool plus the depth of the outflow (self explanatory, where the water flows out of the pool), estimating the substrate every 10 meters (the % of different types of rock sizes basically, using terms such as fine/pebble/gravel/boulder) using a quadrat, as well as measuring/estimating the dense wood (defined as wood that has a 10 cm diameter or greater) within and over the stream. I measured the bankfull/wetted/pools which I thoroughly enjoyed. I basically got to spend a lot of my day just walking in a stream and measuring the water, which was refreshing to stick my hands in. After that, we didn't have enough time to do any other serious work, so we decided to head back and take a break. We got back to HJ at 3:30.

Then at 5:30 we headed back out, with the addition of Matt, to collect all the fluorescein from the streams. Much cooler than the afternoon (it got up to 94 degrees here) and very peaceful. I was alone going up and down the stream, so it was a nice 30 minutes or so to myself in the forest next to a stream. In total, it took us 2 hours 15 minutes to get back, and probably close to an hour of that was spent driving to the spots. That will definitely be a burden this summer, just the travel time to get to the sites. But with this collected fluorescein, we will be analyzing it in the lab tomorrow all day. Although, apparently, a couple people will go out into the field tomorrow. So who knows what I'll be doing. I hope to stay in the lab.

Other than that, nothing else happened today. Played a little bit of Beer Friz and have just been relaxing this evening. I'm hoping to go fishing tomorrow after work; it's all I've been waiting for since I got here on Sunday.

Oh, and today I saw two frogs (not 100% on the species, but they were different - I can't quite remember their patterns), a few fish in the streams, as well as a deer (and maybe another just a few hundred meters away, although it was difficult to tell as we were driving by). A good day for all of us!

Stay fancy.

Day 1 - First Day and Sick

Basically, I felt like I was coming down with a cold Saturday night. Sunday I felt it and new I had gotten sick, and come time to wake up for my first day of work, and I felt like shit. But it was time to get moving. I hung around for a couple hours before I actually had something to do. The crew leaders were just finishing up some lab work. After the other 2 interns arrived (I got there Sunday night, they made it there Monday morning), we got started on some mundane work. We simply had to attach 3 vials to a flag, over and over again. Took us around 90 minutes for us to finish up 200 flags. The vials have fluorescein in them; the vials (attached to flags) go into the water in the evening, and then 24 hours later we retrieve them. Doing lab work on Wednesday, we'll be able to measure how much photodegradation has occured over the last 24 hours in the streams.

Before we ditched the vials out there, we were going to get our feet wet (literally) out in the field to start us off. We went to a stream that took us 45 minutes of driving to get to, and that has pretty rough terrain to walk through. Dana Warren, Matt's (grad student) advisor and our PI, tagged along to help us out. I didn't have waders on, which proved to be a problem. I eventually slipped my feet into the stream which got my feet completely soaked. Oh well. But it was tough work still. We measured out a couple hundred meters of the stream, as well as took some measurements of the stream (called bankfull and wetted measurements), which are part of our habitat survey. This took a couple hours. Also, as I was attempting to catch up to a few people, I must have walked through a bee nest or something, because I ended up getting stung twice on my legs. If only I had my waders, then I wouldn't have gotten stung. But oh well, no problem. Tired as hell, plus with me being sick I was extremely wiped out at this point), we went back to HJA. However, an hour later, we needed to go back out to place the fluorescein. Matt ended up telling me to stay back and rest, since I was feeling pretty crappy and looked pretty crappy too. So I finished off my night by just relaxing on a couch for quite a few hours. But I was told that everything was successful, and they ended up leaving around 6:30 and got back at 10:15. Was a long work day.

Stay fancy.

Day 0 - A New Adventure

Yes I know, I was going to write in my blog. Didn't happen. Let's move on. Instead, I'm working out at the HJ Andrews Forest about an hour east of Eugene, working on a graduate student's stream ecology project. I am going to try to write about every single day, just to do some writing, keep myself busy during my relaxation time, and to let people know how things go. I'll try to post pictures as well, but no promises about what I'm working on, as I don't know if I'll many opportunities to snap pictures while working. I will have lots of free time, which will be my time to take pictures for everyone.

So Sunday, June 29th, I arrived at around 7 PM, and didn't really do anything. Just met a few people that are staying here as well, played some Beer Frisbee, and went to bed. The drive out here was amazing on Hwy 126 after Springfield. Even further down the highway I bet is better. We're basically stationed right next to the Blue River Reservoir, which is next to Blue River (I recently found out that is a town, and I assumed when I saw Blue River on the map, that it was in fact a river). It's nothing but beautiful forests here and this stellar reservoir right next to us. I'm planning on lots of fishing this summer.

Beer Frisbee - Just what it sounds like. You mix frisbee, horseshoes, beerpong, and you've got Beer Frisbee. Basically, two posts, each with a beer bottle on it. You are trying to knock over your opponent's beer bottle with the frisbee, with a drink in your hand. First to 21 points wins.

My posts will be pretty short, but frequent (trying for every day, or at least a post about every day).

Stay fancy.

My Return

Well, this is awkward. For a while, I kept telling myself, "Just write up a blog post today or tomorrow, and keep going with it." Except, I never listened to myself, and it never happened. I didn't feel as if I had much to say in a blog as well. Then, I got pretty busy with work in late March and on through September. Then school came around and I simply forgot about my blog. So, here I am. Except already it has been a year. This is quite shameful in my opinion, but then again, I really did not feel like writing very much at the time. However, let us not dwell on the past, but rather look towards the future.

During the time that I have been absent from my blog, I have managed to unfortunately gain back weight. It primarily started from working a lot and eating lots of unhealthy foods. I managed to get down to 194 pounds last March, which was amazing for me. I fell from this and gained back weight due to being careless and not managing my health well. It continued and over the course of 8 months or so, I have gotten back up to 240 pounds. It is just awful. I am ashamed of myself for letting it happen, but I do not want to dwell on that. When I work, I often am too tired and exhausted to work out. But I also eat too much food to compensate for the exhaustion. It's a bad habit of mine during the summer. So that began the process. But I also started back at Oregon State to continue school. Let me tell you, I'd rather be a little overweight and successful with my education, than a normal weight and not ever achieve a degree. Overall, I'm happy. But I could be happier.

I decided to change my major from Zoology to Fisheries and Wildlife. I decided this would be a better fit and the possible career opportunities that come from this degree interest me more than zoology would. I had to get my grades up, after a pitiful few terms of not caring about school, before I could officially transfer majors/colleges (College of Science to College of Agriculture). As of 2/13, I am officially a Fisheries and Wildlife student. I'm very interested in conservation, and I hope to be able to work with organizations to help support our wildlife, especially struggling species. I was able to do this by getting my grades up in fall term, with all As and Bs. Now, most of this came from easy classes, including a writing course. But what I liked about these classes was that they required a lot of easy work. This was able to help me transition from not being in school and having a lack of motivation, to doing a lot of work, even if it was simple. I also found an interest in writing. My brother has been doing some writing of short stories and even published a novel recently. Both of these have made me wonder about doing some writing myself. I would love to get started with short stories, but I have had trouble beginning, mainly due to a lack of ideas. This is one reason why I decided to start writing in my blog again. Hopefully I can find some inspiration. The best way to write is just to start writing.

In other words, I enjoy writing; I'm having a good experience with school again; this transition in my life is a good one. And finally, I am actually enjoying many of my classes. I am taking Animal Behavior and Sustainability for the Common Good at OSU right now, and they're both amazing classes (although A.B. has had some troubles due to the first professor being really boring. But the usual professor for the course took over and it's much better now). I am looking forward to my future classes and experiences with this new department.

I will write more about this past year in order to catch up any readers on my life. But I can do that another day. For now, I want to mention that I will be changing this blog a little bit. First, yes, I want it to focus around a healthy lifestyle and to keep my motivated with exercise and healthy eating. But I have also started to cook more frequently. So I would also like to share my meals. Sometimes I might post a recipe, or just discuss the making of a meal. But I'd also like to share some pictures, so that my blog isn't just a wall of text. I also will post my cooked meals whether they're healthy or not. Sometimes you just need a delicious unhealthy meal.

Last night, I made a wonderful meal for Valentine's Day. Cornish game hens wrapped with bacon, spinach fettuccine alfredo with bacon, BBQ pork brisket, a simple salad, and some sparking rose wine. Lots of meat, but delicious.

Don't mind the clutter in the background, the apartment can be crowded at times and it's difficult to find homes for all of our belongings.

The brisket was labeled as "pork spareribs brisket" from the store, and it was only about a dollar per pound. I thought I would try it out. They're pretty good, but nowhere as tasty as beef brisket. I just baked it in the oven with a simple bbq sauce and brown sugar.

I make most of my game hens the same way, bake it in the oven for around an hour, and rub it with some olive oil, paprika, pepper, oregano, basil, lemon pepper, a tad bit of garlic seasoning (we have some in the cupboard, I use it because I don't want to use too much garlic), and rosemary. But I also layered on 3 stripes of bacon, because we all know, bacon is delicious.

The alfredo didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. My mistake in order to cut down on some calories was using half and half rather than heavy cream. But it was still good. Spinach fettuccine with an alfredo sauce made from half and half, butter, and parmasan cheese. Also I added in some cut up pieces of bacon because I had a lot of leftover bacon. Nonetheless, delicious.

I think I'll leave it at that. If people want recipes, I can do that. Or if pictures are desired of the cooking process. I'm open to suggestions. It's not going to be solely a food blog, but I would like to share my new found passions of cooking, writing, and trying to lead a healthier lifestyle again. Until next time, stay fancy.

Making Progress Again

Before I touch on weight loss, this is just an update on my knee.

Went to the physical therapist a little bit after my last blog post, and things are doing well. They can tell that my knees and hips are much more superior to just a month ago, and things are really improving. My hips and quads are strong enough to start supporting my femur better, and now the only thing I need to really work on is form/technique. By that, I mean that when I do a squat, for instance, I need to make sure my knee is bending in the right way and that it's aligned properly, as well as how I walk and run. I need to focus on pointing my toes forward, and keeping my knee pointing straight towards my toes, rather than inwards. Now, I'm still working on my hip/quad strength, but I'm a lot stronger than I was. My knees are feeling better, and at my last appointment, I actually got on to a treadmill and did a bit of running to see how I could improve my form in order to help my knees. I need to work on keeping my knees straight of course, but also I should increase my cadence. Meaning that I need to increase my steps per minute. I run at around 140-144 steps per minute, and if I increase to 160-180 eventually, then there's less time I spend putting pressure on my legs because there's more contact between my foot and the ground per step when I run at a slower cadence. This doesn't mean that I need to run at a faster pace, but that my legs shouldn't be taking such long strides, I guess. Anyways, as I increase my pace, it will be easier to increase my steps per minute.

I actually did go for a run on Monday, and it was tough. Not on my knees, but tough because I haven't run in a while. It also was a bit harder because as I was trying to increase my steps per minute to a bit above 150, it was hard to run even a 10 minute pace (as in I was running faster than that, and it was hard to slow down my pace but keeping up my cadence). I'll be hoping to make it out and run tomorrow, we'll see how that goes. But it felt good to finally run. My knees are a bit sore today, which is why I didn't run today, but they weren't bad yesterday. Hopefully this is just a one time deal with knee pain. I should be icing them more... Sorry, I'm just rambling now. Went for a run, went poorly, but it was great to be out again. Things are looking up for my knees.

On to losing weight. As I got back to Corvallis in early January, I decided I needed to start counting calories again in order to control what I was eating. Plus, by counting calories, it also has helped keep up my motivation to eat healthy. Well, in just the first two weeks, I lost any weight that I gained during winter break. I had gained some weight because I wasn't staying active, due to keeping off my knees. At that point, I was back to about 212 pounds, which as you might remember, is 12 more than I weight back in June. For most of the summer, I weighed 205-210 just because I was focused more on work rather than losing any weight. Nonetheless, I'm now about 205 or 206 pounds. I was hoping to hit 200 again by March, but I'm having problems getting past 205 right now. Hopefully running will help. One problem is that I've only been doing my hip exercises, and other than that, just a bit of walking. So not much cardio or intensive workouts. But I'm working on it, and it's all a work in progress. One of these days, I'll finally be at a comfortable weight, but until then, just have to keep pressing on to meet my goals.

One thing that set me back was the Super Bowl. I decided to basically go all out and eat a bunch of junk food for a few days (leftovers after Sunday) and I definitely gained a couple pounds back, plus had a lot of sodium in my body, which retained a lot of water. So this week, I've actually been doing sort of a cleanse. Essentially, I limited all sodium, and reduced consumption of fats and sugars, as well as fake sugars (minus stevia in oatmeal). For the first two days, I didn't eat any meat, and focused all my attention on fruits and vegetables, as well as beans (not canned), edamame, and almonds. After that, I incorporated a little bit of meat, but also tried some tempeh, which was interesting. I've also been drinking lots of water, having green tea daily, and making sure to not eat after a certain time of night to prevent overeating before going to bed. Just reducing the sodium made me lose at least 3 pounds, so now I'm at a solid 205/206 weight. Luckily, this cleanse is helping my transition back into watching what I eat, since Super Bowl weekend threw me off a bit.

Speaking of food, I made some steelhead trout last night that was pretty good. I marinaded it for about 3 hours prior to cooking in 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup teriyaki and soy sauce mixture (soy sauce was fine, but I wanted to use a bit of the teriyaki), 1/3 cup brown sugar, 3 minced garlic cloves, and a tad bit of honey. Also, threw in a few lemon slices as well. Then baked it with a bit of diced onion and more lemon slices, and sprinkled a bit more brown sugar on top of it. Was pretty darn good. But it was quite rich because of the brown sugar. Very tasty, and the first time I've ever cooked fish before.

And with that, I'm going to end this, because I'm not sure what else to say off the top of my head. So until next time, I'd enjoy it if you stayed fancy.

My Hips Don't Lie

Sorry for pulling a Shakira on you, but it's true, they don't lie.

I apologize for not updating my blog at all recently. I didn't really feel like posting anything throughout December, and then in January, I kept forgetting to write up anything. Well, it's time to change that.

I last left off in early December, just shortly before I had a doctor's appointment. It was simple physical/check up exam to see how everything was going. I NEEDED to raise a question about my knee, because nothing was getting better, and it's necessary to have healthy legs if I ever want to run again. Currently, I am not running, as my knee(s) just can't handle it. Now, I feel discomfort every single day. I put up with it, but when it does hurt, my knee can hurt pretty badly. So anyways, everything is good in the health department. I got a blood test to see how things have improved after losing so much weight, and things are looking really good. It was amazing to see my test results only improve. But I also asked about my knee. He said that it appeared that there was some sort of alignment issue with my femur and kneecap, and that I should go to Physical Therapy to get a better idea on what's wrong and what I should do to fix it. He also recommended to check out a chiropractor to see if that could help at all. Needless to say, I did both.

About two weeks ago, I finally made the appointments for PT and a chiropractor. I kept putting it off due to working during the break, and that I just didn't feel like calling to make an appointment. However, the day I moved back to Corvallis, I spent a lot of time walking up and down stairs, and it really got to me knee. That night was the worst pain my knee has endured. I had to get a brace the next day, and I quickly called to set up the appointments. I went to the chiropractor first, and she said that she agreed with my doctor -  there was an alignment issue with my femur and kneecap, and because of that, it was causing a lot of inflammation behind my kneecap, which prevented it from healing, even while resting for long periods of time (for example, an entire month, i.e. winter break, of doing no physical exercise). She wanted to see me a few times for some adjustments to help quicken the pace of my recovery. No complaint there, the adjustments are nice. Relieves some pressure, and just makes my legs feel a bit better in general. So I've now had 3 appointments with her, and she says that she can notice the different in how she adjusts my tibia or fibula, I forget which she said), and has noticed some looseness (that's good) in my hips. Well, the reason things have gotten a bit better is due to my PT.

I got the complete news at my first PT appointment. My femur is malaligned with my kneecap, meaning that when it bends, my femur is bending inwards. It's not something I have ever noticed, but when I do a squat, my knees bend inwards very slightly. But the fact that I've always been a heavy guy, and that slight alignment issue has caused some serious pain issues. The reason why my femur is doing that? My hips. That is why my hips, in fact, do not lie. Apparently, I have, well, in proportion to my body size and the rest of my leg muscles, week hips. In reality, they're about average for someone smaller than me. But this means that my hips aren't able to support my femur properly, thus, causing me knee issues. This isn't an uncommon problem, and in fact the common name for it is runner's knee. It's exactly what I thought the problem was prior to seeing the doctor, so it was nice to know that I was at least correct on my self-diagnosis.

A part of me almost wished that I needed surgery or something, just for a quick fix, some recovery time, and voila. The main reasoning was because of the fact that I could rest for an entire month and my knee would get worse. But, I'm on the right track. I need to strengthen my hips. I started off with a few basic exercises for my hips/upper legs and after two weeks, felt no difference. I had another PT appointment yesterday for a check up. Firstly, they didn't expect much of an improvement after two weeks, considering that it should take 4-6 weeks before I could think about running again. Secondly, I found out that I wasn't really working my muscles as well as I should have been. I needed to really emphasize a few muscles while holding a certain exercise. So now I'm doing those properly, and they added two more exercises to my repertoire -  two different kinds of squats. I hadn't realized that when I was doing squats previously, that my knees were bending in slightly, and now I'm supposed to make sure that when my legs bend, that my knee is pointed straight. So in order to do that, I have to purposefully feel as if I'm pointing them outwards. It feels slightly abnormal, since it's just slightly different than what I'm used to. But I can notice the difference. It's working my muscles differently, and it puts less strain on my knees, WHICH IS SO NICE. I can still feel the slight discomfort in my knees today that I always feel, but everytime my knees bend, I'm conscious about keeping them aligned properly (straight, to my middle toe or so) and I can tell that there isn't as much pressure on my bad knees. Also, the grinding noise that I've had for over a year now, is diminished when I bend my knees properly. So it looks like I should be seeing some real improvement over the next two weeks. I'm sure hopeful to see improvement. I need it.

That's all I will talk about for now. Basically, my knees are still screwed up, and it's all because of my stupid hips. Strengthening them should fix the problem, but it'll take some time and a lot of effort. Each workout takes around 45-60 minutes, just for my hips. But it's all for the better. I hope to be running by March. It should really help with weight loss. Speaking of which, I have gotten back into losing weight successfully, and I'll touch on that topic in my next post. But until then, stay fancy.

Lack of Motivation

I'd have to say the main reason why I haven't been updating my blog is due to my motivation. I keep telling myself that I'll continue a good eating pattern and that I'll increase my workouts in order to lose more weight, but it just never happens. I'm not sure why, but something has been hindering me.

I decided to write this blog because I've had a really tough day, and just want to write about things (not to do with my day, just life in general). So, my knee hasn't gotten better, and in fact, it may have gotten worse. I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for next week, and I really hope that we can figure out something in order to make my knee better. My left knee is starting to get kind of bad, I assume due to having to compensate for my hurt right knee. It's not horrible, but it definitely gets uncomfortable sometimes when I exercise. Nonetheless, my right knee has been bad, and I'm really starting to worry at this point, since it's been over a year and has only gotten worse. Hopefully we'll learn something next week.

Other than that, I was running some, then decided to take some time off again. Instead, after Thanksgiving, I spent some time workin stength training at my apartment with resistance bands, which was a nice change of things. Also was going to Dixon recently to be able to do some cardio without ending up running on pavement. Running on a treadmill has been nice. It's been much easier on my knees, and I really do prefer running for my cardio. I feel as if it gives me the best cardio workout.

However, no weight has been lost. I've just been maintaining. But now I'm home for the holidays, and I'm hoping that will help control my snacking, which has been my biggest flaw in my eating habits. Grabbing a bag of chips or some candy while in Corvallis, and quite frequently, has been a big problem. So like I said, being home might change that. Definitely have some healthier snacks around the house, and at least so far, I haven't been eating tons while here. But, I'll need to make sure to keep exercising, otherwise, what's the point of trying if I'm not working on both a healthy diet and regular exercise? But, I think I will keep things fairly mild until I see the doctor. Maybe after that, I'll have a better idea of what I can and should be doing.

Other than that, not much is going on. I'll be working in  camp again this winter (Tiger Camp, or 1st graders), and I'm excited for that. I'm also glad it's the holidays. As I mentioned earlier, I've had a really rough day, but I'm hoping it won't be like this for most of the break. I really just want to be able to enjoy myself during the break. Not to mention things can be a bit tough for me around this time. It's great to have a lot of family now around this time, but knowing everyone I've lost can make things hard.

I feel like I'm rambling. I'm not really myself today, and I've just been needing to keep myself busy today to keep my mind preoccupied. I really should get some sleep, as I will be needing to wake up fairly early tomorrow morning. So until next time, stay fancy.

Back in Action

I keep telling myself that I'll update my blog more frequently. The problem as of recently is that I haven't had much to talk about. I haven't been as active as I'd like due to my knee, and I've found myself making occasional mistakes with my snacking habits which set me back a bit. In reality, I haven't done much to lose weight - it's been primarily to maintain my weight. Luckily, that has been the case, and my weight has been fluctuating between 205 and 209 pounds, which is fine by me. But, I'd like to change that.

The last week or two, I have found myself making it to Dixon more often - the only times that I ended up flaking out on going, was just because I decided to rest my knee rather than putting stress on it. I've been spending a lot of time on the ellipticals, because really, it's the only thing that I can do without making my knee uncomfortable. I can ride a bike, but for a maximum of 20 minutes, maybe 30 if I'm taking it easy. I shot hoops one day for 20 minutes and the jumping really got to my knee and I had a lot of knee pain for an hour or so. And of course, running is out of the question at the moment. Even more than 30 minutes on an elliptical can be stressful on my knee. But usually it's just uncomfortable during the exercise, and doesn't really affect me by the time I'm back home from the gym.

So, I'm trying to be more proactive about making it to the gym, even for half an hour. I need to be more active, and one problem is when I rest, I end up doing nothing during the day. Just getting to the gym for a bit will really improve my activity. But I'm also working on eating a bit better.

I've had a problem with snacking. One example is buying a bag of chips, and eating nearly all of it in one sitting. It's disgusting, but I've just been getting cravings lately. Because of that, I'm focusing on redirecting my attention towards healthy snacks, that I can just continuously chew on, that way, I'm not ingesting tons of calories. Part of my snacking is late at night, I just want to eat, even if I'm not hungry. So finding healthy and low calorie alternatives will be a good move for me. That will be a big focus for me, is just watching what I snack on, and making better choices.

Since I've been just maintaining my weight, and not really losing any, I've decided I need to set another goal. My goal last year, to hit 200 (which of course I'm now just barely above) by my birthday, really motivated me to work harder, especially when I saw the number on the scale dropping every week. Because of that, I figured it would be a smart decision to start up another numerical goal for my weight. And for that, I've decided to set a goal to weigh 183, by my birthday again. That would put my BMI at 24.8, or just in the range of Normal Weight according to BMI standards. Easy, right? I'm keeping this goal much simpler, for two big reasons. One, I weigh less than I did a year ago, and as I lose more and more weight, it obviously becomes harder to lose a pound. Second, I'm not running anymore. That was the ignition behind my massive weight loss last spring, was just running. It helped so much, motivation to become a better runner, and also that it was giving me amazing results. But that's not a viable option for now, and I've found that I lose weight slower when I'm working out at the gym, instead of running. 25 pounds is still a lot of weight, especially at my current weight and height, and it will still be a tough challenge. I am also creating an optimistic goal to weigh 175 by my birthday. Similar to last year, I had both a realistic goal, and an optimistic goal. One I knew I could reach as long as I kept up the effort, and another that I was hoping I'd reach, but knew it'd be tough to accomplish. 175 seems like a nice number for me, and I would be pleasantly happy weighing that much for the rest of my life. I also chose my birthday for my goal mainly because I have no idea how long this will take me.

So there you have it. Trying to crack down on my snacking habits, and still making it to the gym a little bit more frequently. And also having another numerical goal for my weight - 183 to be considered Normal Weight by BMI standards, and 175 as an optimistic goal, by my birthday in June.

I plan to post more often, I just need to make sure I have something to talk about. Until then, stay fancy.

Better Off Than I Thought

A week and a half later, I've been resting my knee quite a bit. Since I last posted, I think I didn't do any sort of strenuous exercise - the closest thing has been biking to and from campus - until yesterday. Finally, I made it to Dixon, and I really didn't do much there, but I needed to start. I wanted to stick to a bike, mainly because I shouldn't be doing any running, and the elipticals (which would probably be the best on my knee) were full. So I hopped on a bike, started at a fairly hard pace for 10 minutes, slowed down just a bit for another 10 minutes, and finished with a very intense 5 minutes (my maximum heart beat was just over 200 BPM at the end, which is the highest I've seen while on a cardio machine), and of course a 5 minute cool down. The whole purpose of it was to test out my knee on some strenuous exercise and see how it would handle. I iced it afterwards, and I really didn't notice much of a problem, so I know that as long as I'm not biking too much or too hard, I should be fine. I was thinking of going back to Dixon today, but I tweaked my other knee (left) and it was difficult to walk on. It's better now, so I'll probably be going back tomorrow after classes.

So regarding my knee, I will not be running unless I can't make it to the gym, in which case I'll be very careful about it. Nonetheless, I'll be turning most of my attention towards the gym, to keep to low impact exercises. I've been reading about what could be the problem, and some solutions to help. So far it just looks like icing regularly, taking things such as ibuprofen to help with any inflammation when it's acting up, and also exercising the muscles around my knee. But that last part can be tough considering that my knee hurts whenever I do things such as lunges and squats. So instead, I need to modify exercises, and work on things like 1/2 squats and such. After a little while working on some cardio, I'll probably transition into some leg exercises to strengthen those muscles a bit.

Oh, the reason behind the title? I weighed myself while at Dixon, and I weighed in at 205, which means that I'm only 5 pounds behind my absolute lightest. So with just a little bit of work, I'll be back at the point soon enough, and should continue to drop. I've been eating pretty well, not perfectly, but a lot better than when I'm back home in Lake Oswego. Mainly because of the control that I have over what I eat. And when I do end up eating a lot, I try to stick to healthier, or lower calories foods so I'm not over-endulging. I thoroughly look forward to weighing under 200 pounds.

I think that's all I will say for now, this post has taken me about two hours now, just because I've been distracted from the television in front of me. I don't have much else to say, so I'll end it. Until next time, stay fancy.

Where to Start...

If it's not already obvious, I haven't been putting any effort into updating my blog. Is it a huge deal? Not really, however, I'm really disappointed in the lack of updates. Yeah, I had a busy summer, typical. But even then, I should have been updating over the last few weeks. The main reason is that I haven't had much to talk about, health wise. Well, nothing good at least. But let's move on.

Currently, I'm back in Corvegas, and I just had my first day of classes today. So far, all I've had is Ecology, which seems like an okay class, nothing too special, but better than a lot of other classes I've taken, and then Vertebrate Biology, which seems like a really fun class. I like the course material, and it's my kind of area when it comes to Zoology - I enjoyed Invertebrate Biology last year quite a bit, so this looks promising. Plus the professors seem really good/friendly/humorous, so that's good in my book. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to Insect Physiology, which sounds really interesting. I'm excited for that. I also have a Geography class and choir. It should be an easy enough schedule, but I've had so much trouble last year to get motivation to go to class and do the work, that I can't be risking a super difficult course load. I have to get my head back in the game.

But I'm here with my two roommates, Ryan and Nick, and it'll be a good year. We're all 21 now, which enables things to be a bit more enjoyable - no more age restrictions. Hell, we bought a 24 pack of Rogue Dead Guy Ales for $25, and that's considering that a 6 pack goes for about $11. Moving on, I ended up buying a 40" LED Samsung HDTV for the apartment, for $500 at the end of summer, so we've got a good television to play games and watch tv on. And now we have the Xbox, PS3, and Wii for the apartment, plus a SNES and NES for the nostalgia. It's a great set up. We ended up getting cable on top of our internet, at least for the 6 months (while it's cheaper), since the price split three ways isn't that much more than what Ryan and I paid last year, split two ways.

On the topic of big purchases, about two months ago, I decided to start buying computer components to build my own desktop computer. So ~$1500 later, I ended up successfully building a great computer, with a very fast processor and terrific graphics card (yes, for video games mainly), with a 24" LED monitor and wonderful THX certified Logitech speakers that I got for $115 (which was on sale). The subwoofer on it is MASSIVE. The motto of my summer was go big or go home, so that's what I did. I went big on my computer and tv. Spent a lot of money, but it was worth it in my opinion.

Basically my summer consisted of just Zoo Camp, my exhausting Wednesdays (run + ultimate frisbee after work), and building a computer. Well, and then on Labor Day weekend, I went to PAX Prime, which is basically a video game convention. It was so amazing. Went with my friend Jake, and his friend Alex, and it was up in Seattle. One of the best things I've ever done to be honest. Played and watched demos, and got to see exclusive content, plus got a lot of free stuff and met a lot of really cool people. Met some people that run big Youtube channels, such as FPS Russia, who has a big channel dedicated to showing off guns. Best free stuff I got was for completing a challenge (was easy to me) on Modern Warfare 3 and got $45 worth of free desktop RAM. Coincidently, it was the same exact RAM that was in my computer that I built, so I ended up adding it to go from 8 Gb to 16 Gb. Not a huge difference in performance, but I wanted it, rather than selling it.

Last thing I will touch on is my injuries. During the summer, I sprained my left ankle twice, in two different spots (a lower sprain and then a higher sprain, the latter was worse, and the day before my last day of camp). It hasn't affected me much, but it ocasionally bugged me at camp (in which case a simple ankle wrap fixed that), but it has meant that it's been difficult to go out running, especially during a tiring week of camp. And then after camp ended, I realized that my knee, which had bugged me last year, seems to have gotten worse. Basically, at this point, every time I put stress on my knee by running, leg exercises, or strenuous biking, it gets uncomfortable and can really bug me sometimes. The first time I ran back in Corvegas, it was bugging me the next day, still. So I'm icing it every day, whether I'm active or not, and I refuse to exercise two days in a row, just to be safe. I'll be cautious like this for a couple weeks and see how things go. If it gets worse, I'll see someone about it right away, otherwise, I'll be waiting until Winter break to see my doctor. But at least for now, since I'm back in Corvegas, it's easier to manage my eating. So even if I'm not exercising quite as much as last year, I'm still eating less. And I'll be commuting via walking or biking to and from campus, which means I'm not completely stationary throughout the day.

That should be it for now, I'll make sure to put more effort into updating this blog. I want to continue it, as it really helps me, and people have really enjoyed reading it. I can't let you guys down! So on that note, stay fancy.

Never Late Than Never

For those of you who have been a pretty consistent reader of my blog, well, obviously, I haven't posted recently. In fact, it's been about 10 weeks, sadly. The reason? I started up with Zoo Camp, and let me tell you, it's exhausting. I just haven't gotten around to taking care of a blog post, even though I have had plenty to talk about. In terms of the main parts of this blog (exercise and health), I haven't been doing quite so well, so regarding that department, there hasn't been much going on unfortunately. But oh well, let's get started. I'll probably have two blog posts to cover this summer, one more about my health, and another to talk about how the summer has gone in general. This one will be about my health, and my next blog post (which will be soon) will be about non-health things like camp, my new computer, etc.

So I left off two days prior to my 21st birthday back in mid-June, so I've got a fair amount to cover. At first, I was running a bit consistently, not necessarily long runs, but at least getting outside and getting some exercise. But then camp started. I love camp, but it's so damn exhausting. My time to run is always right after work, before I eat dinner, at about 5:30. Unfortunately by that time, I'm done for. I've used up all my energy at camp, and all my body wants to do it rest in order to prepare for the next day. So the frequency of my runs quickly diminished, so that I was only getting a couple runs in a week. Bummer.

The good news is that Wednesdays (Frisbee day) is when I'm most active. Not only am I running around at frisbee, being the fact that we have 10-16 people playing ultimate (and I can actually run with some stamina during the game, considering that I've gotten into considerably better shape in the last half year), but I'm also running down to the field, which is about 2 miles. It's a pretty easy run along the road, but I generally push the pace for some of the runners, making it quicker than it normally would be for some of us. So it's quite an intensive hour of running and playing ultimate. Let's just say that by the end of the night on Wednesdays, I am WIPED. My first week, I literally came home and crashed by about 9:00, which is so crazy for me.

But like I mentioned, my running has become less frequent, and when I do go out for a run, it's usually just a quick mile run to get moving and my heart pumping. And because of it, I've put some weight back on. I really hate that I've let myself go some, but it's just the way it is. It also doesn't help that I don't eat all that well when I'm back home, partially because I don't have 100% control over all the food that is in the house, but also because I use up so much energy at the zoo with the campers, that I need more food to bring my energy levels up. The problem with that is that I'm burning less calories than I'm ingesting, just because I'm not really burning that many while working (definitely staying active by doing lots of walking), however, it's hard to keep your energy levels high while working with 5-6 year old campers all day. I hope that makes sense. Nonetheless, I'm eating more than I should, and I'm not exercising nearly as much as I should be, or as much as I was prior to camp.

So this is where I hope to change things up. Starting today, I'll be running more, and getting out for exercise more, to focus on losing back this weight that I've gained this summer. Oh, and within the first week of summer, I went back up to 205 just because of lots of eating and drinking due to birthday celebrations and what not. And since then, I'm probably between 210-215. It's hard to guess, since my scale is not even remotely accurate. I'd love to be back to 205 by my doctor's appointment (it's not set up, but I will be setting it up, to see how I'm doing, get a blood test, etc. in a few weeks). I don't know if that's too optimistic or not, since I'm not 100% on my current weight. But I'd like to lose 5 pounds before then at least. The idea behind having my appointment at the end of the summer was that I was hoping to lose more weight during the summer, thinking that I'd continue a good eating pattern, and be working out more as well, plus lots of walking at the zoo. Obviously that kind of backfired on me, which is something I was worried about.

Today, I did go for a run. It was short, just one mile. My time was 7:05 which is pretty quick for me. I had a PR a few weeks ago that was 6:58 which is nice to get a sub seven minute mile. The first 1/2 mile was great, but due to my energy levels this week (haven't been sleeping much) I wasn't able to finish strong. Otherwise I probably could have gone for a 6:45 or so mile if I could have finished strong. My plan to continue running is to keep doing mile runs, and every so often add in a longer run, until I've built up my stamina. Plus camp is done next Friday, so after that, I should be able to run much more often and for longer periods of time due to not being fatigued as much from camp. But tomorrow is frisbee day, so that's 2 miles (downhill mostly). Thursday I'll do another 1 mile (and when I say 1 mile, it's always going for a PR, so it's quick), Friday a break since we often eat food right after work. Then on Saturday 2 miles, and I'm unsure about Sunday - just depends on how I'm doing. But that's my tentative schedule for this week.

That's all for now. I'm hoping to write my next blog post this weekend. Not sure when, maybe Friday just because it's Fancy Friday after all, but more likely Saturday or Sunday would be my guess. Until then, I'd appreciate it if you stayed fancy.

YOLO

You Only Live Once.

Commence the eye rolling. So for anyone that isn't aware, a recent phrase - YOLO - has become quite popular. It's typically used by people who are about to do something stupid and defend their next action by saying that you only live once; so you should enjoy yourself while it lasts. However, I view it differently. You only live once, which means you better damn well take care of your body, or else your one life is going to last a hell of a lot shorter than it could. You only live once, so you should take the best care possible of yourself. And you know what? I've been doing that. And for a matter of fact, I've drastically changed my life during this school year. The day that started it all? October 15, 2011. This was the day of my very first blog post, and let me tell you, being able to put all my thoughts down in this blog, plus being able to communicate to many of my friends and family has been a great way to get motivation. I constantly get questsions and comments about how my weight loss is going, and how I look so great now. Just yesterday, my dad said to me, "Hey Skinny" as he was going to ask me a question. Skinny? Not yet, but it I am significantly thinner than October.

I can't thank those who have supported me this whole time enough. Do you know what it feels like to hear the words, "Wow you look so great! How much weight have you lost?!" I just feel so much better, not just physically, but emotionally and socially as well. And to top it off, it's now my summer break, which is my favorite time of the year. AND my birthday is on Friday. This week is awesome.

But there's more to it than just that. As of Tuesday afternoon, I weighed in at 199.5 pounds!

I reached my goal by my birthday, in less than 4 months!

October 15, 2011 Starting weight: 255
February 19, 2012 Weight: 250
June 12, 2012 Weight: 199.5

Want to know the last time I weighed under 200 pounds? Well, 5 years ago, I was 5'9" and weighed ~228 (medical record). The previous year I was probably around 200, but was a bit shorter, and I also played a fair amount of Soccer so I stayed active. So basically, the last time I weighed this much, I was probably about 5 or 6 inches shorter. I'd say that's a big difference.

As I mentioned, I'm back at the Zoo as of today for Zoo Camp training, and camp begins on Monday. I finished my finals on Monday and Tuesday and my summer break has begun. I'll be working with 1st graders (Tiger Camp) and I'm stoked, as usual. Our camp crew will be amazing as well, to top it off. But something truly amazing happened today. On top of the numerous people mentioned that I looked great from my weight loss, I decided to try on a Large camp shirt (rather than XL) to see how it would fit. And let me tell you, it fit. That was honestly one of the best feelings of my life, right there. I have XXL shirts in my dresser (that I barely wear). I wore XL for quite a while, but some shirts that were of lesser quality, I would prefer XXL to make it a bit baggier (on purpose) as well as in case it shrunk. But now? Large. This weekend I need to go clothes shopping, because basically everything I own is too big for me now. I'd say that one day, maybe I could wear a medium, but I doubt it would have the length due to my height. Nonetheless - Large. So amazing. Maybe I can start to wear shirts that have always been too small for me now!

I think that's all I will say for now. It will be a busy weekend with my birthday on Friday, and celebrating it with different people throughout the weekend. Plus with camp starting up on Monday. Stay fancy everyone. I expect it on my birthday.

It's Been a Little While - One Week to Go!

I had totally meant to post an update before now, but I never felt like I had much to say. Oh well, now I have a lot to talk about!

So, unfortunately, my running hit a roadblock. I just couldn't seem to get the energy and stamina to last any longer than 2 miles. Who knows why, but that's just the way it was. So I decided to cross train for a while, and basically, I've only run a few times since my last post. I can say I won't be hitting 5 miles by my birthday, but that's okay. My main goal is my weight right now. I'd rather hit my weight goal, than my running goal if I had to choose one. I will be focusing more on running this Summer, as I won't have a gym to go to, and I won't have my bike with me either. So no worries in that department. However, since I've had a problem with my running progress, I decided I won't be running the July 4th 5k. I'll get to a 5k when I'm ready for it.

Well, last I mentioned, I weighed in at 210. And with 7 days before my birthday, I am now 202 pounds. Whew, so close! And being only 2 pounds off my goal, I can easily achieve this in a week. However, a problem that has arisen: I leave Corvallis on Tuesday to go back home, which means my last chance to weigh myself is Tuesday, and that only leaves me 4 days until my last official weigh in. But, I'm going to see if I can acquire an accurate scale on the 15th, so I can do a last weigh in, in case I don't hit 200 by Tuesday. Even if I don't quite hit 200, that will still be 53 pounds that I've lost since the beginning of this blog; 48 of which in the last 4 months. I'm pretty damn proud of myself. And I still have more weight to lose!

Now because I haven't been running, I've been spending a lot of time at the gym. And typically, I've spent my time on stationary bikes, a bit of time on elipticals and treadmills, as well as shooting hoops. But I generally do at least 45 minutes of fairly intense cardio, unless I'm lacking energy that day. I've also done a few short runs, 2 miles or less, and walking a bit on days when I have very little energy, or on rest days. Also, one day last week, I ran sprints. Wow, that was tough. It was basically 15 seconds of a maximum sprint, followed by 45 seconds of walking. After 15 minutes of that, I was DONE. I can see the benefit of sprints though, and will definitely incorporate them into my running this summer. I've also tried to do a bit more work on my core, but I can't say I've done that much. Just more than usual.

I've also been very strict with my diet. Usually I've been keeping to less than 1500 calories a day, and my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) for a day is about 2,100 calories I believe. So that's a deficit of about 600 calories just from diet. Add in an extra 500 calories burned just from working out (on average), then that's about a 1,00 calorie deficit each day - 7,700 each week.That's at least a rough estimate. It might be a bit more, especially considering that often I'm losing 3 pounds in a week and that only accounts for about 2.2 pounds. Nonetheless, I cracked down on my diet a bit more in the last couple of weeks, in order to be able to reach 200 by my birthday. It'll be a close call, but well deserved if I reach it.

And not much else has been happening lately. I got sick on Saturday, the same day I went to the Prefontaine Classic (track and field meet in Eugene) with my brother Adam and Hannah. So I didn't do much in terms of exercise from Saturday to Tuesday, which is a big reason why I included walking as part of my exercise, since that's about all I could do for a few days.

I have finals on Monday and Tuesday, and then I'll be doing my final weigh in at the gym, and then head home basically. Wednesday-Friday I have training for Zoo Camp (I'll be working in Giraffe B Camp! Which is 2nd grade for those who don't know). Technically it's Monday-Friday, but I can't get out of taking finals those first two days. And of course, on Friday, I'll be 21. What a great week this will be!

I plan up writing up a post either Friday or Saturday (preferably Friday) about how the week went, my birthday, and of course, what my final weight is. I look forward to our next meeting, and until then, stay fancy.

Twenty Six Days Left

Most people would just assume I'm counting down the days until I can legally drink, but I really don't care much about that. But I'd have to say I care a hell of a lot more about reaching my goals. Twenty six days, that's 3 weeks and 5 days, or approximately 4 weeks. I can do this... Not much time left, but I can do this.

Friday, I had planned on attempting a 3.5 mile run, again. My previous attempt only got me to 2 miles, so after a late night workout at Dixon, Thursday night, I didn't have much confidence that day. However, some how, I managed to finish 3.5 miles. Phew, that was tough. And I felt great that I finished, albeit really sore legs for the next 24 hours. I ran it in 40 minutes, which isn't great, but once again, I really don't care about my pace. I just want to complete the distances that I set for myself for now. Once I hit 5 miles, I'll start working on pace more. Anyways, the first 15 minutes were fine, and then I started feeling like I wouldn't hit my goal for the day. But I kept pressing on, and tried to keep my mind preoccupied, so that I didn't think about how exhausted I was getting. By 25 minutes, I doubted I would make it, but once I hit 30, I knew I was so close, there wasn't a reason to stop. Then finished it, and now my next step is 4 miles. I might attempt 4 miles tomorrow, as I kept today's workout pretty light, but no promises. I will definitely be doing no less than 2.5 miles.

Saturday, saw The Avengers, and then went to a BBQ. Ended up being busy all day, so never got a chance to go to Dixon as I had hoped to in the evening. I was, however, able to go to Dixon today. So I kept it light, as I had mentioned, and just shot hoops for a bit, and then did 30 minutes on a bike. Still some good cardio, but wasn't much strain on my body. The great news though, is I weighed in at 210 pounds. Whew!

Remember, I originally weighed 255 pounds back in October, and was at 250 back in February when I started losing weight quickly. My original goal that I set back in February, was 220 pounds, and I easily crushed that. So I decided to set 210 as my realistic goal, and 200 as the ultimate challenge for myself, by June 15th. Well, with 26 days to go still, I hit my realistic goal of 210. Just 10 pounds in 26 days to go! It should be tough still, but it's nice knowing that it's a bit more realistic than say, two weeks ago when I was losing 2 pounds per week.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Stay fancy.