The One Piece of Exercise Equipment I Use

I don't like gyms. They make me feel self-conscious. My house doesn't. I'm comfortable here. I want to work out here, not there. When I made the decision to start eating better and doing a little exercise here and there, I knew that would be a problem. Running and walking can be an issue as I have a fear of dogs and no one in Tennessee knows how to keep theirs on a leash. I needed something inexpensive that would help me get in shape at home, inside.

I went to the mecca of health and fitness supplies, Wal-Mart. Knowing absolutely nothing about anything, I stared at the fitness equipment aisle, eying some dumbbells but not making a move toward the 10-pound set until the other guys in the aisle left. I bought those along with a set of ankle weights, while my wonderful girlfriend purchased a set that included resistance bands and a jump rope.

I quickly found out that the ankle weights didn't fit and the dumbbells did practically nothing. I liked the resistance bands, though. I used the hell out of those things. And because I used the hell out of them, I started noticing that they weren't exactly made of extremely high quality. So I looked around for another solution.

Enter Bodylastics. I've had my Bodylastics set for a few weeks now and love them to death. You can use them to recreate practically any cable machine exercise in the gym, they are easier on your joints than free weights, and if you drop them on your foot, your foot doesn't explode (I imagine foot explosions are common in gyms. Like I said, I don't go.), and they take up about as much space as a couch pillow. Oh, and did I mention that it's inexpensive, too?

My set was about $50, and allows for anywhere from 5 pounds to 134 pounds resistance for exercises. The Bodylastics people also run liveexercise.com, where they have live workout shows that are also recorded and stored online for you to view, completely free of charge.

If you're looking for a way to get a complete body exercise in your own home without shelling out hundreds or thousands for a home gym (and a new room to store the machine in), check out Bodylastics. You can pick up resistance bands from a lot of stores, but believe me, spend a few extra dollars for the quality.

I would like to caution those interested: if you use all the bands at once, it can look like you're exercising in Nyan Cat's wake. Seriously though, check out Bodylastics' webpage -- the FAQ, the exercises, everything. I like them so much I'm considering getting a set just to keep at my job to use on breaks.

Man, I hope my boss doesn't read this...

March Burpee Madness

Got one extra in yesterday! Woo!

As promised, here is our outlook for the month:

Date	March
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Day / Burpees	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
Total Burpees	78	91	105	120	136	153	171	190	210	231	253

Date	March
	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21
Day / Burpees	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32
Total Burpees	276	300	325	351	378	406	435	465	496	528

Date	March
	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
Day / Burpees	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42
Total Burpees	561	595	630	666	703	741	780	820	861	903

Told ya. By the looks of it, this is about the time the whole thing becomes really 'real' and you realize you've no idea what you're in for. That's okay, though. I'm not giving up, and dammit, neither are you.

What Facebook Thinks I Want to Do

Since I've started exercising and eating a little healthier, Facebook has really been supportive. It even showed me ads for the Spartan Race every day, because I think it wants me to enter.

Either that, or it wants to kill me.

Burpees, Day 11

As previously mentioned, I missed day 9. Following the rules, that means day 10 had to see a total of 19 burpees, which were done throughout the day -- I don't think I'm anywhere doing so many in a row, although I was able to get through nine consecutively without throwing up and/or passing out.

Heading into the teens, I can start to see why this challenge is so difficult. On paper, it doesn't look bad at all: one burpee a day, plus one more for each day. They don't even have to be done in a row! I've already noticed a change in arm definition, and there's been a noticeable change in the amount of fat sitting on top of the bicep.

It's funny. I read about the 100 day challenge and started that day, then I made a spreadsheet to track progress and keep up with the days and totals I'd done. Day 100 will actually land on my father's birthday, May 28th.

Want to celebrate the completion with me? You can still jump in! If you're starting today, though, you'll need to do a total of 66 burpees before midnight. Wondering how it breaks down? This takes us from the start date last Sunday to the end of February:

Date	February
	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
Day / Burpees	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Total Burpees	1	3	6	10	15	21	28	36	45	55	66

So if you've been keeping up, you've done at least 66 so far! Great job keeping up and squeezing in these awful bastards along with everything else you have to do. You don't want to know what March looks like. But I'll post it tomorrow anyway!

Lose It!: The Best Weight Loss App Ever

I mentioned in my first post a great smartphone app you can get to assist you in losing weight. Available for both Android and iOS, Lose It! is a calorie and exercise tracker.

You don't need a smartphone to use the service, though. You can create an account on the website (did I mention the website and the application are both free?) and have access to the same features there.

All you need to do is enter your gender, birthdate, current height, and current weight, and Lose It! will give you a daily caloric budget based on how fast you want to lose weight and what your goal weight is. It allows for anywhere from 1/2 a pound to 2 pounds a week, but fair warning,, you will probably not have much success if you go 2 pounds a week starting out - this will put you down to about 1,500 calories a day. It's too much of a jump.

Start with 1 pound a week. With exercise, believe me, you will lose weight faster than that. Just be consistent. The occasional cheat day where you go over by 400 calories won't kill you, but you can't eat an entire pizza by yourself every week an expect to drop weight.

The app is how I started. Virtually no exercise at all. Ease into that part. Don't think you're going to wake up tomorrow and eat nothing but salad and tofu and never touch another soda or french fry. It's not realistic. Don't cut out the foods you love, but you will need to scale them back. Hell, I still drink soda. I just drink a lot less of it, and drink a lot more water than before. If you have any questions on getting started or the app, feel free to comment and I'll do my best to give you an answer.

Burpees, Day 10

Didn't get any done at all yesterday, so that makes a full nineteen I need to do today.

If you do this, please don't miss a day!

Day 9 and Weigh-In

In addition to watching what I am eating and some exercise, I am attempting the 100-day burpee challenge. Basically, it asks for you to do one burpee on day 1, two on day two, and so on until the final day pushes 100 burpees out of you. "What the hell is a burpee," you ask?

Like any exercise, there are four hundred variations. I am doing the pushup burpee variation, which I think is about the standard right now for the challenge:



But there are, like I said, many other versions you can do if the pushup burpee is too hard:



As I said above, today is day 9. Now, If you miss any from a day, you have to make them up, and the burpees don't have to be consecutive! So far, I haven't missed any. We'll see what happens today.

As it is Monday, the start of my weight-loss week, I should report in. My weight hasn't changed from yesterday, when I was down to my lowest thus far, nor has my tummy shrunk since Saturday. This is fine, you usually aren't going to see an inch off your waistline every five hours. Unless you have, like, malaria. But that's not a very good exercise.

Current: 244.7 lbs, 42.5" tummy

Fun fact: thus far, I've done 44 burpees total over the course of the challenge (I did some extras in the earlier days), but by day 100, the total number is 5,050.

Side-by-Side Comparison

< Before

Current >

Some may wonder what a 5'9", 260 pound man looks like. This is one example. In other specimens of the same height/weight setup, the beard may not be quite as pronounced.

I've no idea made me make that face. To your left is a picture I took roughly two years ago. To your right is one I just took, frumpy comfy hoodie and all. This is actually the first time I've looked at the difference side-by-side.

Introduction

For those of you that don't know me from the rest of the faceless internet, let me start by saying that I am unhealthy. Unhealthy and fat. Everyone knows someone who has a few extra pounds on them and constantly complains how 'fat' they are. I want to assure you that is not me. Not at all. No, dear reader, I want you to understand that I have become very familiar with the term 'fat.'

I say all this because I had made a few tenth-hearted attempts at weight loss or even eating healthy before. These usually lasted less than a full 24 hours before dropping back to my normal habits. Every year, I would make a New Year's Resolution to eat healthy and lose weight, because I was fed up with the way I looked. They would sometimes go great for about two days or so. One year, I just made the resolution to work out every day. It happened for a few weeks and then abruptly stopped. Knowing me, I probably missed a day and said, "I'll try again next year."

Now, I want to make it clear that I am not setting up to sell you something. I am not going to share a tear-filled success story, because I haven't succeeded yet. I'm nowhere near my goal, but I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people out there that think that they cannot lose weight or make any sort of change. I'm starting this blog partly because I want to show people what is working for me, and to show people that there is always hope, partly because I know that this will force accountability on me, partly because I haven't fallen off this yet, and partly because I'm sure many of my friends are getting tired of my Facebook statuses about it.

So, some important things to share: I am not any sort of nutritionist or diet expert or exercise technician or anything. I AM a fat guy who has found some exercises that can be done his kneecap breaking in half and some options for food that allow me to stay within limits without wanting to kill myself (most of the time).

Right, so the weight loss stuff. I guess that's why you're reading this. I think it's working this time because I DIDN'T make a New Year's resolution to lose weight. I had a few days off from work, and when I came back in on a Thursday, the team I work with, who are pretty awesome, had apparently decided they were all going to be accountable with each other and lose weight and eat right and exercise and all that jazz. I told them good luck with that and promptly ham-fisted six or seven hamburgers into my mouth. Friday, I had the same attitude. Saturday, too.

That Sunday night, I had a dinner that stuck with me (but not for very long): four Taco Bell crunchy tacos, followed by two or three chocolate glazed donuts. Afterward, I felt about like you might imagine I did. The next day at work was January 7th, and a co-worker pointed out a smartphone app named 'Lose It!' And so, I began watching what I was putting into my body. And being more and more horrified.

I am a white American male that stands 5 feet, 9 inches tall. When I started, I was 260 pounds and had a stomach that measured 49 inches at the gut. It has been six weeks so far - as I type this, I'm heading into the start of the seventh - and while I'm nowhere near to my goal weight, I am down 15.3 pounds and 6.5 inches in my gut. No, there's no miracle diet food or low-carb or fad diet or secret exercise or drug or supplements involved. There's no expensive exercise equipment - in fact, I really only own one thing, which like the smartphone app mentioned above, will be covered in more detail in a later post.

I'm not going to say "If I can do it, YOU can do it," or the more popular, "If I can do it, ANYONE can do it!" I can't say that because I haven't done it. It's still happening. But dammit, I'm a quarter of the way to my first weight loss goal, and if I am doing it, YOU can am doing... wait, YOU can do it with me!"

No, that didn't sound right either. Hell, you know what I mean.