Well – my blogging has rather expectedly, but unintentionally, fallen behind. I’m studying for the bar exam this summer, and my schedule is simply no longer my own. Time to blog, and regrettably to stay up to date on other blogs, is a luxury that I just don’t have right now.
The reconstruction is continuing, though I’m having to find a new groove with my schedule since I’m taking evening bar review classes and studying every waking hour. So rest assured I’m still on the wagon, even if I’m having to relearn how to drive it a bit for the next couple of months. I’ll pop in here from time to time, but I won’t be blogging regularly again until August. In the meantime, if you don’t already follow me on Twitter, you’re much more likely to find me there over the next couple of months. It’s a quick distraction, and I’ll try to keep you up to date, and keep up with you, there! Just click on the link on the top right of this page.
So see you on Twitter, and back here more regularly in August!
This has been an amazing weekend on the Reconstructing 30 front! And I’ve been enjoying it too much to take time out to blog until now. First of all, the weather is spectacular here in the Atlanta area this weekend. It’s hot (90+ degrees today), but it’s not yet humid, so it’s been an amazing weekend to have lunches on patios (check), and then get some work and blogging done in a glass coffee shop with views of the skyline (check).
Well – I’ve taken Reconstructing 30 on the road this weekend. I’m in my adopted hometown of Houston! I lived here for a little over three years, and I really did love it. Houston isn’t for everyone, and it’s very much a car-based city, but it really has some amazing assets, including the Texas Medical Center (the world’s largest!), some really beautiful neighborhoods with fantastic parks and museums, and wonderfully friendly people. If you’ve never visited Houston, here’s a taste of it – convention and visitors’ bureau style:
So I’m here to take care of a bit of business (if you know of anyone who wants to buy a beautiful 2BR/2BA condo near the Texas Medical Center and Rice University, send them my way!), but the nice side benefit is getting to see my wonderful friends here in Houston. Which includes visiting some of Houston’s amazing restaurants… Am I making perfect choices that would lead to consistent weight loss if I ate these things on a daily basis? No. Am I making mainly healthy choices, controlling portions, and eating better than I would have if I were here six months ago? Absolutely.
And that starts to sum up the lessons of the past week for me, which are really the lessons that are the culmination of an experience that’s been going on for three or four weeks now. » Read more: Weekly Weigh-In: Everything’s Bigger in Texas?
First, a little fun. Nearly every morning, I have cereal with either half a banana, dried cherries, or blueberries for breakfast. This morning when I had my cereal, I couldn’t get the Ba nah-nah-nah song out of my mind. (Yes – if you read last week’s weigh in post, I apparently go around on Saturday mornings with songs stuck in my head.) If you haven’t seen it – here’s the YouTube sensation you’ve been missing:
Getting down to more serious business… I apparently went bananas with my weight loss this week, too. Well, not quite, but I did post a gain for the first time in a long time. It’s fairly negligible at .8 pounds, but it’s a gain nonetheless, which is not the right direction for the scales to move. I had planned to substitute my weekly weigh in post this week with a six month retrospective. But I thought this gain deserved a post all its own so I could examine why it happened, and not spoil the celebration that will be my six month post.
So why did it happen? I could say it was fluid retention from a high sodium meal the night before, or just that inexplicable variation that sometimes happens, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it this week. As I looked back at my food records, I saw the Mexican dinner with my friend last Saturday night that included more chips than I would normally eat, a wickedly good margarita, plus my half of an order of sopapillas that the waiter sent out because it was our first time trying the restaurant. And I saw the sinfully delicious frozen mocha drink I had at Caribou Coffee later that night. And I saw the little mini-binge I had Wednesday night, when I came home exhausted after having had a sleep study the night before, and then spent 13 hours at the hospital with my dad after his knee replacement surgery. Other than those transgressions, my nutrition for the week was pretty good, but I honestly expected those two nights to add up to a little more than a .8 pound gain.
Especially given that I exercised once, yes once, all week long. My exercise motivation since finishing my 5K has been dismal. I think it’s a combination of things, including a bit of a mind-game that you play with yourself after accomplishing a goal like a race, and also a few things going on that have made my career and home life kind of bananas lately, but it’s not something I’m happy about. So today, when I saw the gain on the scale, I pulled the trigger on registering for my next 5K – the Save our Skin (SOS) 5K here in Atlanta benefiting the Skin Cancer Awareness Network on May 29! Having a race out in front of me really does give me the extra motivation to haul my fat @$$ off the couch and onto the pavement. And I’m going for a session with my trainer, Anna, on Monday where I fully expect and hope to be totally whipped.
So that’s my story this week, and as much as I wish I didn’t have to, I’m sticking to it… Here are the stats:
It’s been a full week. My dad had knee replacement surgery yesterday, and I spent 13+ hours at the hospital with him (he’s doing great – going home tomorrow), I had my own little medical test Tuesday night (a sleep study – more to come in a future post…), and a lot going on with my career right now, too. Which has left little time this week for a) exercise (ugh), and b) blogging. It’s okay – I’ve been focused on the things I needed to be focused on this week, but I’ve definitely missed checking in regularly here on the blog, and checking your blogs, too. I did make the rounds on Google Reader this afternoon, so I’m getting caught up on my blog reading, so I thought tonight I’d do a little blog writing, too. My weekend without blogging turned into almost a week, though!
This all reminded me of a time, maybe a month into writing this blog, when I got totally out of balance with blogging, though. I was spending almost all of my down time working on the blog. First it was the layout, then it was migrating from Wordpress.com to a self-hosted site, then it was getting myself setup with AdSense and as an Amazon affiliate, then it was checking my stats, and checking my stats, and checking my stats. I was a little obsessed. I was enjoying it, and I wasn’t sacrificing time with family and friends, but I was sacrificing time to exercise, and I felt like I was running out of material to write about, because my free time was spent, well, blogging.
I realized I had gotten totally out of balance with blogging. Reconstructingthirty.com had become my focus, to the detriment of » Read more: Blogging and Balance
I mentioned yesterday that I would be posting a special six month post today. I will be doing a six month post this week, but it’s way too nice outside today, and I’m enjoying my weekend way too much to take a blogging break right now… So enjoy your weekend, too, and check back tomorrow for Nutrition Monday and for a six month post later this week!
First, a video to put a smile on your face and brighten up your weekend. The Pink Glove Dance from the good folks at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon (more below on why I’m sharing this):
This morning was my first weekly weigh-in after my first 5K, and I was a little worried earlier in the week that I may actually post a gain! I gave myself Saturday (the day of the race) off with my eating plan. That Saturday started with the free pizza they had after the race, and devolved from there into a Mexican dinner that included queso, chalupas, and cake (it was a party for a charity organization I volunteer with, and I wanted to enjoy it). I indulged without guilt, but the day after the 5K, my scales were up 4 pounds!!! I’ve done well with eating since, but since my exercise this week has also been half of what I strive for (my goal is 4 days cardio / 2 days strength training per week, and this week I only got in 2 days cardio / 1 day strength training), I was afraid I wouldn’t post a net loss this week. But I did! Here are the stats: » Read more: Weekly Weigh-In: Are you Down, Down, Down, Down, Down?
Okay, so I know all the experts in my life, whom I respect hugely, tell me I should only weigh once a week, but I just can’t do that. Weighing every morning is just part of my makeup. And this morning, I had a great surprise… I left the 250’s behind and hit the 240’s!!!!!! 249.3 this morning – hell to the yeah!!!! After my weekend at MaMa’s, I wasn’t expecting the loss to come this early in the week, but I’ll certainly take it. Alright – that’s it – just a short post tonight. I’m getting nervous about my first 5K on Saturday because I have a ton going on both at work and personally, and I have plenty to do tonight in addition to trying to get in a run. Ugh. But 240’s – that feels good regardless!!!
This past weekend was a bit of a nutritional challenge for me, but man was it good. I went to visit my Grandmother – and being a good Southern family, we call her MaMa instead of Grandma or whatever other more generic grandmotherly names you might imagine. Though in the South, MaMa is a pretty common term for grandmother. It’s a little more casual and down home than the more formal “Grandmother” (though my other Grandmother, was always, well, “Grandmother,” and she was the warmest, most casual person you’d ever meet – a far cry from the steely soap opera “Grandmother”), but not straight up country like Mee-Maw. Please. We do have a little class. ;-)
Anyhow, MaMa is an AMAZING Southern cook. She measures nothing, even when baking cornbread and biscuits, but everything comes out perfectly. This woman’s cornbread is to die for. I actually imagine that when I do die, I’ll pass through the Pearly Gates and someone will hand me a pan of MaMa’s cornbread and tell me the calories no longer matter! When we used to go visit when I was a kid, MaMa always had a huge meal waiting for us on the kitchen table of the farmhouse she and my PaPa lived in until I was a teenager. They weren’t actually on a farm, but their property backed up to one, and my summers consisted of feeding the cows next door, helping PaPa in the garden, and helping MaMa shuck peas. This was quite the adventure for the city kid, and I still long for it every now and then, even though I’m a dyed in the wool East Coast city type. Anyway, the meal on that farmhouse kitchen table usually had anywhere from 5-7 vegetables, cooked with bacon fat, and always including fried okra, mashed potatoes, biscuits, cornbread, fresh sliced tomatoes, and 1-2 meats (either fried chicken, ham, or roast beef). Did I mention the woman weighs all of maybe 120 pounds? Further proof that life is not fair. » Read more: Nutrition Monday: Grandmother’s Goodies
A while back, I was celebrating being out of the 250’s and into the 240’s. Then my scales broke, and I had to buy new ones – new scales that weigh about 7.5 pounds heavier than my old ones. So, my 240’s became 256.5 when I got the new scales a few weeks ago, and I’ve been battling to get out of the 250’s again ever since.
Yeah – I know. My total loss hasn’t changed, but that doesn’t make my desire any less to see the 240’s on the scale again. Last week, when I weighed in at 251.8, I thought this week may be the week to leave the dreaded Two-Five-Oh’s once again. But this morning, I was at » Read more: Weekly Weigh In: Eff You, 250’s…
I'm Chad, and I really am reconstructing my life at 30. I'm taking charge and creating what my life will be as I plow into my 30's at breakneck speed! The main focus of my transformation is losing weight and getting healthy by changing my lifestyle with nutrition and exercise. But I'm also pursuing my passions, looking for love, and trying to have some fun along the way.
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