Brandon Live!

• The Spring weather in Seattle
• Weighing in at 170.4 lbs this morning
• Windows Vista running on my Mac
• Going back to NY for the first time in nearly a year
• Seeing all my friends back home graduating
• Only one of them going to work for the enemy
• A girl that looks over my video collection and chooses a Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD
• then kicks my butt in Dead Or Alive
• Nobody has hit my car in like at least a week

It’s been maybe a month and a half since I started my aggressive workout schedule and began reducing my caloric intake.  The result?  15 pounds vaporized.  That’s about 8 lost since my last update.  And it means the “32 waist” section of my closet is open for business once again.

Which means I’m almost to my short-term goal of 170.  However, being the kind of person who is never satisfied, I’m moving the goal posts to 160.  I’m already close (if not already there) to benching that much weight again.  So an additional goal is to once again be able to bench my own weight, which should happen somewhere along the way down to 160 - which is where the charts say someone my height should be anyway.

My strategy has been simple.  Eat less, exercise more.  Since I hadn’t been exercising at all for a long time, “more” really means “a lot.”  Of course it helps to have motivation, and I’ve had the “really huge crush” variety for a couple months now.  Still, I think I would have done this anyway.  It was really the only facet of my life that I wasn’t happy with, and now that’s already changing.

I haven’t been using any special software, although the Calorie King application that Chris showed me is pretty sweet.  I do think that buying a scale was a smart move.  It really helps me get a sense of progress and accomplishment.  And on the days where it goes up a little bit, I’m just that much more determined to do better.  Oh, and a lesson I learned early on was:  don’t buy a cheap scale.  I went with the cheapest one I saw just because I thought “A scale is a scale, right?  I don’t need anything fancy.”  Turns out, the cheapest ones are really inconsistent and horribly impercise.  So I got a better one (I think $40 or something) from Tanita that’s far better, and shows accuracy to a tenth of a pound.  It can also estimate body fat and hydration, although I consider those kinds of analysis to be some dark form of “magic” and don’t pay them much mind.

Oh, and all those “lose weight fast!” commercials and spam mails really bug me.  I never once considered taking a pill or going on some kind of extreme diet.  Those diet drugs are either useless or dangerous.  And you can pry my fresh baked bread from my cold dead hands.  If you want to lose weight, you already know how to do it.  Exercise and eat better.  It’s not supposed to be easy.  Nothing worth doing is. 

I first saw Liz talking about it. Followed by a whole string of posts by Chris who has been keeping us up-to-date on his progress pretty regularly.  Some of my co-workers even have a blog devoted to their workouts.  And guess who is jumping on the bandwagon!

I’d actually made a lame attempt at starting a workout routine back in January.  But it didn’t stick.  Then when I saw Chris’ post about measuring “Body Mass Index” (BMI), I ended up measuring my own.  At the time I was a solid 190lbs, which put me very clearly in the “overweight” BMI category. 

Now according to the BMI people I should weigh ~160.  But the thing is, BMI isn’t really a good metric because it doesn’t take into account the weight of fat versus muscle.  And personally I want to keep some of the latter around.

So I set my first goal at 170.  I might go a little farther depending on how I look/feel when I get there.  My plan of attack has been this:

1)  Work out at least four mornings a week.  Minimum 30 minutes of cardio, then weights (alternating upper and lower body).  I’m doing this in the mornings, which has had a great effect on my energy throughout the day and my sleeping habits!
2)  Eat better.  I’ve always been a very healthy eater, so mostly this meant cutting down portions and avoiding snacks (damn you Wheat Thins and your salty addictiveness!)

So far I’m down to 183 and feeling better than I have in years.  My 33 waist jeans are already becoming too loose.  I figure once I’ve reached my goal I’ll be able to buy 30s again like back in my high school days!