Today was my first at home weigh in, so after my shower this morning I stepped onto my scale and was kind of shocked (in a good way) at the reading; 275 pounds. This will be my starting point for my at home weigh in going forward. Now this is a big difference from the weight watcher weigh in, but this is a different scale and seeing as I am at home I can wear much lighter (less) clothing than when I was at work, so this number may actually be closer to my true weight. I think I am going to set a 10 pound target for now, so my goal is going to be 265 pounds. Wish me luck.
Category Archives: Family
Last official Weigh In
Today was my last Weight Watchers at Work meeting, i am really surprised at how fast the time went. Over the past weeks I have learned a lot about my eating habits and things that I need, nay WANT to change. I now eat more fruits and vegetables then ever before, not just quantity but variety as well. If nothing else this program opened my eyes and tastes to many new foods that I had not tried in the past, or tried and didn’t like but now do.
I mentioned last week that i would not be signing up for the next session and that still holds true. While they did lower the price because they are going to run a short special session (8 weeks for $88) I still simply do not have the extra money. I am going to take these next 8 weeks and see how I do on my own. Hopefully i can keep my motivation up to keep eating as best I can and hopefully increase the amount of exercise I get. Even if it is just getting out and going for a mile walk.
I think some of my motivation will need to be remembering how well I have done over these last weeks. According to the scale a few minutes ago I am down an additional 1.6 pounds this week bringing my total weight loss for the 15 week program to 12.2 pounds and my final weigh in weight to 282.8 pounds. I am very happy with this result and proud of what I have acomplished, while I know I still have a long way to go these results are encouraging. I really need to continue focusing on eating right and trying to get more exercise as i am still lacking in that area.
Next week I will begin weighing myself at home on my own scale. I know the numbers will be greatly different due to a number of factors. One reason is that they say each scale is true to itself. Another will be the environment and time. I am hoping to weigh myself wednesday mornings before getting dressed for work. They say you weigh the least in the morning. 🙂
Another bird encounter
So I pulled into work this morning and parked on the lower level of the parking structure. While I was backing into a spot Chuck pulled in next to me. So we walked up the stairs together talking and not really paying attention to much else. We got to the top of the enclosed stairway from the lower deck up to the upper deck and outside and started to head out into the parking lot to head to the building when we heard a bird chirp and wings flutter. I turned and looked back into the stair well to see a small brown bird flying up and down the glass trying to fly out. So I walked back in and came towards it from the side hoping to direct it out to the door so it could fly away. However when I got close it would just fly up the window and not go around the enclosure. When it would come back down the window it would land on a little ledge where I could see its breath on the window. It seemed to be breathing hard, like it had been trying to get out for a while.
So I handed Chuck my apple and badge and decided that I would try to gently grab the bird and bring it outside. I was moving very slowly to try to not frighten the poor bird and give it a heart attack. Well when I went to grab it it flew up the window again. So I slowly moved my hands up the window with it and then back down the window as the little brown bird came down. I still wasn’t touching the bird at this point. I slowly moved my hands in to pick it up and it flew up again. So this time I just left my hands in a cup shape down on the window ledge. Then when the bird came down this time it landed back on the window ledge and as I moved my hands in towards it and it jumped up on my fingers and just sat there. So I picked him up and slowly walked outside with my hands cupped, but just letting the bird sit on my hand.
When I got outside he still just sat there on my hand, so I took a few steps around the outside of the enclosure into the lot and faced towards State Street. The bird then looked up at me, chirped twice, and flew away.
It was one of the coolest experience I have ever had with a live wild animal! From what I could tell I think it was a pretty mature bird. We see these little brown birds around here a lot, I think they are called song sparrows. He didn’t try to bite me or scratch me or anything. I think he finally realized I was trying to help him. Chuck said it was pretty cool too and we were both very surprised the bird let me pick him up. Afterward we were like, man we should have gotten pictures or a video of that or something. So needless to say I have no pictures to show of this bird encounter. That being said, it looked a lot like this:
New weight
Just got back from my first weigh in since July 1st, having missed the last two weeks coupled with not having any healthy food to eat in the house due to lack of money I wasn’t really expecting this to be a good session. Knowing that I hadn’t been following the plan like I should be, however, I had been trying to increase the amount of walking that I have been doing and trying to eat small portions of what ever I had been eating. Apparently something worked becasue even though I did not lose any weight I only gained a single pound, which is a win in my book. Even with this small gain I have still managed to loss a total of 10.6 pounds. Next week is my last weigh in and, even though the program is working, I will not be signing up for another session due to lack of money. I am going to try to continue following the program on my own though, and try to make the changes I have made over the last few weeks a permenant change in my life.
Hawk on a Walk
Chuck and I have been trying to go for walks around the office building on our lunch break when the weather is nice. Typically we follow this path:
| Title: | Work Walk |
| Description: | 07/06/2009 |
Today when we came back around the front of the building we saw a large bird on the ground behind the pond. As we walked towards it to take a look it flew into a tree that we were walking towards. When it did this we realized it was a rather good sized hawk and it was carrying something in its talons. We decided to see how close we could get and see how big the Hawk was. Turns out it was holding a small bird in its talons and while it was sitting on the branch it was tearing it apart with its beak and eating it. I managed to get about five feet from the branch it was sitting on, which was only about head high, and take the below pictures with my phone (they didn’t come out to well) before the hawk finally started to give low volume screeches to warn me I was too close. After I took a step back it jumped down off the branch and flew off past me, I was surprised to see that it had a wing span of about five feet. That’s the closest I have ever been to a wild hawk, it was pretty cool.
I have uploaded the pictures to the gallery, and they can be found here. I salvaged what I could, but Like I said, they didn’t come out very well.
My first mile stone
Another week has gone by and I am just back from my weekly Weight Watchers meeting and I am very happy to state that I reached my goal from last week and my first mile stone. I am down another 1.8 pounds for a total loss of 11.6 pounds, a full pound over my 10 pound mark! With the coming of the nice weather I have been slowly trying to incorporate more exercise into my routine by going on walks when I can, I hope to be able to find the time to increase these. I have been thinking about trying to take up jogging too, very small distances at first of course, but once again it is a time issue. In any event I am very happy with my current results and hope to continue down this path.
A new bike
Kylie got her first big girl bike today. Mimi happened to spot one on sale and thought Kylie would enjoy it, and she does! Kylie has wanted a bike for a while now but we had not found one that we could get for her until Mimi found this one. It is a 16 inch model which at first Mommy thought was to big, but it turns out that it is just right. It looks very similar to the one in the below picture and Kylie is already very good at riding it. This was an excellent late birthday gift that we are sure Kylie is going to have lots of fun with over the summer.
A second date
Mommy got a phone call from Uncle Jason today that went something like this:
Uncle Jason: “What are you doing today?”
Mommy: “Well I am getting ready to go to work, why?”
Uncle Jason: “Well…what is Kylie doing?”
Mommy: “She is getting ready to go over to Aunt Darla’s so they can watch her.”
Uncle Jason: “Would it be ok if I watched her? I have a surprise for her.”
Mommy: “Sure.”
Uncle Jason: “Great! I now live like a mile from the Zoo and I bought a season pass that allows me to bring one person in with me so that I could take Kylie when ever she wanted to go and I was hoping to take her today.”
This makes the second surprise date that Uncle Jason has taken Kylie on and she loved it! They had a blast at the zoo, in fact Uncle Jason’s Facebook status update after the date read as follows:
Jason Berthiaume: Going to the zoo is fun, but watching how happy it made Kylie put a big smile on my face!
How awesome is that?
Playing with the band
Tonight Kylie, Melissa and I went down into Ypsilanti to listen to the music again, as we have been doing each Friday night. Tonight the music was outside again and Kylie seemed to enjoy this much more than last week when the music was inside Club Devine due to weather. Tonight we stayed through all the way to then end (just about 10:30pm) and Kylie had a blast dancing in front of the stage. After a few songs the lead singer of the band Just Jill gave Kylie her tambourine to play! It “was so awesome” according to Kylie, and Daddy thought it was pretty sweet too. I took a few pictures with my phone and a quick video too. The pictures will be added into the gallery as soon as possible, and hopefully someday the video will make it up as well.
The operation continues
Just got done with this weeks weigh in and I am happy to report that I am down another 0.8 pounds bringing my total weight loss to date to 9.8 pounds. I was hoping to hit 10 pounds this week, but I fell a little short. That just means I will have to make sure to hit it next week. I am still happy that I am down some more no matter how small, a loss is always good in this matter for me.