A weeks worth
2006-03-03, 4:45 p.m.

Day 556 Has it been a week?!?

Well, I guess it has. Not much has been going on � I have no events by which to gauge the passing of time. Unless the rut of get up, go to the gym, go to work, go home for dinner then zombie out to evening TV crap counts as events. Good thing there�s aerobics on Tuesday and bowling Thursday or I�d get lost!

Still successful in the not smoking department. No nasty urges to light up to speak of, no funky phantom smells of smoke lately either. Now, I don�t know whether to blame this on not smoking, or maybe it was just the particular virus I ran across, but I think I may have just had the worlds shortest cold. Two days of feeling kind of just blah, probably went through only 8 zillion Kleenex. But seriously � only 2 days where I needed Afrin for Flonase to avoid being a mouth breather. Never missed a day at the gym or work � kinda powered (stumbled) right through it. Even my times on the crosstrainer didn�t seem to suffer.

They didn�t suffer until yesterday at least. Holy crap � what a poor day for elliptical work. Don�t know if it was the machine or me. Felt like I was trying to move my legs through water even on the lower resistance settings. When the machine finally allowed the resistance to increase to where I normally run, it felt like I was climbing a mountain. Worst part was I was going slower than normal even. I tend to look at speed and calorie burn rate to gauge what kind of work out I got. Yesterday was the lowest I�ve had at both speed and burn rate in quite a while. I�m blaming the lingering effects of the worlds shortest cold. At least it didn�t bother my aerobics last night. Wednesdays are a normal rest day for me too, so I can go out and really kick some butt tomorrow.

Bowling last week was weird. Started out like a house on fire. Got the first 6 strikes, broke for an 8 and a spare, got the next 3 strikes, then broke for a nasty split. Ended up with a 265, right on the heels of that 266 last week. Second and third games were a quick trip back to reality. Ended up beating my average for the night, but it was the first game that made the difference.

That curly line stuff was time passing by. Really.

Now we�re up to day 558

Bowling last night started out just like last week. Kinda lost in warm ups, have an idea of an adjustment to make, then commence to throw the first 6 strikes again. Only ended up with a 234 though. Added 200 and 214 in games 2 & 3. Nice night overall. 4 open frames all night, 3 of them splits. Beat my average by 65ish pins for the night, now have it up to 196. Team took 6 of 8 points, guaranteed to be no worse than second place with 2 weeks to go.

Diet wise, I have really been behaving myself this week. Helps that Cindy is getting serious about her own diet (and showing progress too!!) I had a point here . . . oh � I cheated a bit and weighed myself this morning after my work out. This is with breakfast in my belly, and about 24 ounces of water (offset somewhat by copious amounts of sweat). Regardless, I came in at a new record low weight!! Finally. Now tomorrow, when I �officially� weigh myself, before breakfast, before my work out even, I might be a wee bit less. I hope. Otherwise, I�ll just claim this mornings weight and call it a day.

Things getting tense at work, but they always are. We�re just under more and more pressure to do designs more efficiently, and our designs must also be efficient in cost and materials, be easy to use and produce the best image quality on the market. Every time management reduces cycle time, or lowers cost targets, we make it, no matter how much complaining we do. One of these days we�re going to come up short and all our work will go off shore to the lowest bidder. Bye � bye image quality. If anybody is really interested, I can mention what it is we do. But if you tell our competitors, I might have to have you taken care of. (wink, wink)

Not much else to report really.

Was planning some grilled salmon for dinner tonight, but Cindy had a hectic afternoon scheduled. Multiple doctor visits, mostly to see if the blood clot in her calf has cleared up, plus a little extra specialized blood testing to see if more clots are in her future. Of course, she works in the south west corner of our county, the ultrasound clinic is in the south central region and the blood testing must be done in the north east corner of the county. Whole lotta driving & waiting rooms. So it looks like dinner out tonight. But NO FISH FRY. Maybe a nice broiled salmon steak, or swordfish, but nothing fried. Lordy, the fat. The fat will kill you. Plus, it puts a real hamper on the diet progress. So NOTHING FRIED. Hear me? Good.

Updated stats:

Weight start: 206.5 on 1/1/06 (265.0 on 1/15/05)
Current weight 201.25 on 3/3/06 (Finally, progress!!)
Target: 180 by 7/1/06
Next weigh in: 3/11/06

The Keep on Truckin goal: (idea stolen shamelessly from Marn�s Big Adventure)
Miles at speed 2/9/06: 169.20
Miles with cooldown: 186.49
Target for 2006: 1000 miles

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