Fitness Revolution Update #1

So a week has come and gone since I laid forth my fitness goals for the next few months. I weighed myself and came in at 239.5 lbs. This morning when I woke, I was luckily awake enough to remember to weigh myself before I ate, or anything else so I'm fairly confident it's an accurate representation of my weight loss. The number: 235 lbs. I total loss of 4.5 pounds. Though the first pounds are, so I hear, always the easiest to lose, I fear that I may have set the bar too low for my weight loss. The weight loss came with no real effort. I, more or less, ate what I wanted; I just tried to eat a little less of it. I think the biggest help is my lack of pop. I do miss the Dew, but I'll certainly survive and feel better for it.

I had fully intended to work out often, but an application into the YMCA (we decided it was our best option. It seems expensive, but they give discounts if your family makes little enough money, and we qualify!) but the process of application and financial matters takes about two weeks. In an effort to be semi-active, I've been meandering the streets of West Chester on my lunch break. It's a lovely town and the people are surprisingly friendly. There are several book shops where I could spend far too much money and the same is true of restaurants. You should visit.

All-in-all, it was a successful fitness week, despite my lack of effort. I look forward to the results when I buckle down and try harder. Thanks for all your good thoughts, encouraging words, and friendship. Come visit me in West Chester! or Media.

Happy Birthday!

Today is Jenna's birthday. If you want to sing to her (she loves the birthday song), please do so. It would make her day even better. Thanks for being our friends, blogosphere.

Jenna, lucky for her, shares her birthday with Rush Limbaugh. I really can't think of any better company.

New Look

bee tea dub--I really like my new blog colors. I was getting lost in the sea of blue and decided to go as traditional as possible, hearkening back to my boring and oft forgotten Southern roots. Black is the new brown, right?

Quick Plug: I love the Language Log. They have several interesting posts about the "x is the new y" phenomenon as well as a healthy hatred for Dan Brown. I'm publicly outing myself as a wanna-be linguist while proclaiming my disdain for The Di Vinci Code.

Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Vote

As of late, I've been talking politics with a few of my co-workers pretty frequently. Today one of them received an all-too-popular e-mail claiming that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim who wants to destroy America from the inside, hates the flag, and generally despises all that we consider Americana. I did my best to disprove all the lies contained in the e-mail, but all the while I couldn't help but be disgusted by the hate, insecurity, and bigotry on display by those the write and pass on these e-mail full of lies.

Me, I'm pretty jazzed about this upcoming presidential election. If things pan out as they should, America will be electing either a black man or a woman. Though I am currently anti-Hillary, if she gets the nod from the Democrats, she'll have my support because she'll be an amazing president; Obama will just be better. If either Obama or Clinton get elected, we'll have a president who isn't afraid to embrace change (a far too often used buzz word as of late), cares about health care, and will have a better foreign policy than our current administration.

There are some amazing political cartoons out there. Daryl Cagle keeps a nice daily index of political cartoons and I read nearly every day. Check it out, if you want to laugh and be mildly informed at the same time

Sometimes I am amazed by politicians. More often, however, I am amazed by the voters of the nation. Hillary Clinton gets teary-eyed in a New Hampshire diner and suddenly voters believe that she has a human side vote for her in New Hampshire. Though it could never be proven, I am willing to believe that Mrs. Clinton allowed herself to cry--not necessarily that she faked it--but that she allowed her emotions to show through in an effort to sway some voters, particularly those of the feminine persuasion. Listening to interviews on NPR, it appears that many voters were persuaded by the sudden onslaught of emotion by Hillary.

I guess her campaign managers realized that America (or Iowa, at the least), doesn't appreciate a stone-cold politician with gobs of experience and little personal skills. So here we stand with Obama and Clinton essentially tied and Clinton with the momentum heading into Michigan (which doesn't really count), South Carolina, etc. I anticipate (and hope) that the rest of the voters will see through the suddenly emotional facade of Hillary's campaign and vote for Mr. Obama: my candidate of choice.

Whom are you supporting and why? I'm just curious.

New Year's Revolution

Following in the footsteps of many bloggers before me, I have decided to use this blog as an accountability took to aid in my new fitness plan that starts today. So we got ourselves a scale and, though it isn't the perfect fitness measuring instrument, it'll have to do because I don't want to spend the money on BMI indicating scales and fancier equipment. I plan to weigh myself frequently, but at least every Tuesday morning and report to you, the few who read this, what it says. This morning I weighed in at 239.5 lbs. That's too much for me to consider myself healthy, so I want to change that.

Now we all know that accountability does nothing if there aren't goals, right? So I'll now set forth the goals of my new fitness program.

I want to weigh in at 215 by April 15th--tax day. I guess now that I work at an FI (financial institution) that the day now holds some significance to me, at least more than before. All in all, that's a weight loss of 24.5 lbs in a little over three months. I don't think that sounds unreasonable since I have achieved my current size because I have completely ignored any form of exercise and eat whatever and whenever I want.

Now on the how portion of my goals.

I will simply dedicate myself to a more active life coupled with better eating habits. I think the biggest sacrifice, for me, is the decision to almost completely give up pop. I plan to allow myself no more than two small Mountain Dews a week, and that's only if I feel I cannot go without one. Jenna typically eats healthily, so she'll certainly help me out with this. I am currently looking into a few different gyms/fitness centers in the area and am sizing up which is best/most affordable. WCU (West Chester University) has a fitness center that will be free, but it's 30 minutes from my house (only three from work) and I'm not sure whether or not it has free weights. (My only beef with the Harding workout facility was the complete lack of free weights, I hate the machines.) There is also a nice-looking YMCA near our apartment and an L.A. Fitness nearby. Apparently a Y membership is expensive. Who knew?

Anyway, I took this idea from Mark Elrod and I can only hope that I'm nearly as successful. Thanks in advance for all your encouragement, prayers, and nagging.

Please know that I love you.

Flurry

As I walked home from Coldstone holding my Like It filled with a mish-mash of white chocolate and cake batter ice cream, I couldn't help but be amazed at the gentle snow flurries that clouded my vision. Initially I was impressed by the beauty of the little flakes of snow lit by the glow of the Christmas wreaths hung on the street posts; then the thought that I was carrying ice cream through snow flurries momentarily bamboozled me.

Media is a nice little town. It's very old, very middle class, and very yuppieish. A trolley runs down State Street, the primary street in the town. An old stone armory serves as the home for Trader Joe's and near the end of the street sits an old, beautiful theatre across the street from an elementary school that looks like a castle. The town is rather quaint and I like it and I like snow.

I'm nearing finals week and I'm much less stressed than I should be. I need to write three papers between now and next Wednesday. It should be fun.