Yep, Mondays are fun days. I got up way too early for work. I just woke up at 3:30 AM! One hour before I had planned. Did I want to? NO! It was one of those things where I woke up having to use the facilities and went back to bed and my mind would not turn off. Oh well, might as well start off shift with a sleep deficit. Mondays are such fun anyway.

Good things about this morning. There was no rush to get ready. I got an early start on scraping my windows and thawing out my little SUV. I got into work and all my power plants were running and not frozen. I had a sensible breakfast that should hold me fine until lunch. I weighed in and saw that I dropped 2 pounds over last week! This last bit of course is the best bit of the whole morning.

Daily Thanks: I am thankful that my family is healthy, that the holidays are near, and that the morning sunrise was glorious over the white snowy hills.

It’s been a good weekend. We played in the snow and spent time together which in itself doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but to me it is. I work 12 hour shifts, so any time with the family is great. Jeremy made some great Snow Men.

I got a couple of half hour workouts in shoveling snow. Saturday was the easiest. The snow was pretty dry and light. When I re-shoveled Sunday the Snow was a really wet snow and tons heavier. I was getting a good sweat in and my right arm was doing good, so I kept going and shoveled the neighbors front walk. It felt really good. I was sweating how my arm would do. It did tire, stiffen up, and give me some pain, but it was a good pain.

I am pretty happy that it is finally starting healing up to where I can use it. I pulled or tore a muscle in my right arm this summer and it has been a hell of pain and re-injury just from normal daily use. It is amazing how much you use your right arm. I took so much for granted with it till it felt like everything I did caused pain. I hope I’m not putting too much into this, but man it feels good not to be in agony after working it a bit today. I heve one of those ergonomic snow shovels, which helped A LOT with making it easier on my arm and my back.

Weigh In & Week in Review

Mondays are the days that I chose for my weigh in days, so here it is. I managed to drop a pound which is a miracle, as I was sick all of last week and didn’t exercise, log my calories, or anything. I did watch what I ate by the is it junk or is it good rule and stuck to the good side and I slept more than anything. I hate colds! It has been a good long time since I have had a whopper like this though.

This next week will be better, as I am feeling better, though I still have a persistent cough and congestion, but not even remotely as bad as before. I want to get walking a little at the gym on the treadmill, but think I will wait till I am off shift and hopefully rid of more of this cough. I don’t want to push too hard, but just enough to see where my lovely lungs can cope for now until I can get completely rid of the cough.

Ahhh Snow!

Had a fun night last night with my first night back to work at about 60% energy, getting over my cold. Temperature dropped and it snowed! The fun part about this is the facility I work at is quite large (about five miles from one end to the other) and all the power plants are out doors. Did I mention we don’t get plows in here regularly? All our trucks are 4×4 otherwise we would be in big time trouble. Not only did we get snow (over a foot here at work) but it also got dang cold! Not a good thing with power plants that are outdoors and have air controlled valves. This is our first big freeze this winter and we are learning where all the insulation and heat trace has failed over the summer. We were busy, though I have seen worse. It looks like another cold one tonight.

I got up early and figured I’d go out and shovel the walks, but my boy beat me to it. Now don’t go fooling yourselves. It wasn’t completely altruistic.  He’s a good but but not that good. He has a good memory from last year and this year his pocket was screaming for some money! He gets a ten spot when he does it. Believe me it would be a lot less if it snowed here more often. Usually, we only need to shovel walks five or six times a year. This year may be different.

I was up early and since the kid and mom units were home due to school closure for weather I asked if they had gotten to Big-O Tire to get new tires for her Sportage. I received blank stares. You can guess what I did with my early wake up time. It’s all good I was more concerned with new tires with the weather than them not getting it done.

I took these pictures this afternoon as we were leaving to get new tires on my DW’s car. You can kind of see how much snow we got from what is on my truck. Click on the images to see them full sized.

 We’ll have to pick up DW’s car tomorrow after noon, as the shop was a bit busy with the weather. Gee how could that be? At least with me working nights she can take my car to work in the morning.

I use google a lot. It can be quite entertaining and informative. I decided to do a search for better gas mileage. We all feel the crunch with gas prices and the economy in the dumps and all. Last year I even bought a used four banger 4×4 to commute to work. My regular ride is a Chevy Silverado. It’s a bit hard on the gas. My commute-mobile is a Suzuki Sidekick it gets about 15MPG more than my Silverado. Anyway I wanted to see if there was more I could do and to reaffirm some things I already knew and I found the following (this is somewhat gutted because I didn’t want to just post the whole article). Here is a link for the whole article http://www.docstoc.com/docs/17046026/%5Bfinance%5DTop-Ten-Tips-to-Getting-Better-Gas-Mileage%5B12490%5D :

Top Ten Tips to Getting Better Gas Mileage

        1. Drive at a speed below 60 mph
        2. Ease up on gas and brakes
        3. Use you car’s cruise control
        4. Maintain proper tire pressure
        5. Drop the excess weight
        6. Replace dirty air filter
        7. Follow octane requirements
        8. Avoid Idling
        9. Check you gas cap is on
        10. Plan trips

Now many of you my be asking yourselves, Why is he going on about gas mileage in a diet, exercise, and health blog?  Well let me tell ya. Look at number five. Now for some of you this may not make a difference, but for us bigguns with over a hundred pounds to loose think of the savings in both money and strain on the environment. Number five really hit me. Part of what I cut out were all the descriptions of each tip (if you want those go to the article) and part of the description from number five is, To get better gas mileage, drop the excess weight-unload the unnecessary things from your car. Hmmm, drop the excess WEIGHT from your car. If you think about it that extra poundage we carry is being carried by our cars and costing us more money. Seems like another great reason to drop those extra pounds.

Wow has it been a rough couple of days. I still feel like crud, but am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My plans have been somewhat on hold, but I haven’ gone crazy either. I have not been logging calories, nor have I been getting out and exercising. I have been sleeping a ton and going from hot to cold, contentiousness to passed out, but I have been drinking tons of fluids, mostly hot herbal tea (no caffeine), water, and G2 Gatorade and not eating crap.

I wanted to get a blog entry down, even if it is not saying much (I’m not doing much), because I am feeling a bit better and I wanted to keep this up as close to daily as I can.

Now I have broken out in a nice sweat it’s time for me to crash and burn again. Take care all and keep on keepin on.

I am working night shift right now. Not a problem I have gotten up earlier in the afternoon for a nice walk before. I walk around the Marina in Sparks when the weather is nice. When it is not, like now, I have a membership to a local gym and I walk on the tread mill.  It has been a long while since I last walked and since I started back on track and am feeling motivated I figured I would walk today.

I got up with a sore throat, stuffy nose, drainage into my lungs and pretty much feeling like crud. So I passed on the walking. Hacking up a lung is not my idea of fun.

This is a blow, but not one to my attitude. I am still on track as far as eating and my calories are concerned and the desire is there. I just do not want to push it.

Work on the other hand is not too enjoyable right now. At least my job is one where I can relax, try to recuperate,  and monitor the shift. The decongestant is working alright, though not completely dying out the faucet called my nose. The aches and pains I can do with out. Why am I still at work? Good question other than by the time I got a relief in my shift would be over. I work in a power plant as a plant operations supervisor and for safety and plant reliability I can’t just leave. I can still function in the minimum capacity that is required. Thank goodness I am off for the next few days.

The part that really sucks is looking back on this post it reads like I am making just another excuse like all the ones that ended me up in the position I am in right now. I know I am not, but man it really sucks.

My weigh in today was a bit of a surprise, as I didn’t do so hot on the food consumption last week. The Holidays is not an excuse but a reason, though not a good one. I dropped a couple of pounds! It’s a nice way to start getting my ass back on track. Motivation is one of the toughest ascpects of this. I would like to say I am positive all the time, but that would be lying.

To be positive requires some work and it can be hard. You would think positive would be positively easy. It can all start to go down hill a little at a time so slowly that it is hardly noticeable. Due to little stressors from work, family and life. I have to keep my schedule on my phone just so I can look at it and see what I am supposed to do at that time. Pressures can build up and positive energy can slip then motivation slips. You justify the slips with saying it’s a bad day and you can be positive and motivated later. Then later becomes later and later, and you have a new stressor. Failure to stay on track and you can slip farther and farther. Quite the slippery slope.

I believe the slope can be avoided and if started can be stopped. Part of it is a journal. Writing it out, exposing it to the light. Another part is finding like people to share with, support and get support from. Take life one day at a time doing what you can and not stressing on the things you cannot control. Vent in a journal or talk to someone when you need to or feel like the stresses build up.

So here is to journaling, staying in touch with your support and keeping positive.

I got lost in myself. The easy answer is the meds I am on. Me energy level isn’t worth shit and I am in pain a lot of the time. Those two together make a recipe for depression, which leads to not giving a shit, which leads to not watching my cal intake, which leads to not losing weight at best and gaining weight at worst.

I have found that I function a lot better and have more positive energy if I get a full eight hours of sleep in per night. Now that may seem easy, but for me it isn’t. When I am on shift I work for twelve hours and am off for twelve. It takes me half an hour to get to and from work (one hour round trip), so that makes thirteen hours of no me and family time. Now if I were to add in eight hours of sleep that gets me to twenty-one hours of no me and family. I have to get up one hour before work to do the triple S before work while the family is sleeping. That gives me a whole two hours hours of family time, which most times does not work out, due to activities and other family obligations, so I end up using at least another two hours. Which puts me at six hours of sleep. I could do this as a young man, but add into this mess the rotating shifts from nights to day and days to nights and it makes for one zombie like dad.

So what do I do? I try and get eight hours when I can and get at least six when I can’t and hope that I get more eight hour times. I have to really work on this. I also need to keep watching cals, even when I am not in the best of space.

I got some good rest this weekend and weighed myself. I gained another six pounds. It is time to stop the slippery slide, so I am. As I write this I am on track and have my evening planned out to stay on track. So this is one day. It is a start. Tomorrow will be another and I will tackle it then.

Well I have had a set back this week. I gained some weight back. Five flipping pounds! I am pretty sure it is due to the new meds I am on for my blood pressure. They have knocked me for a bit of a loop. I am more tired than before. I was told to expect that initially. Also have been having a really hard time with appetite. I crave more than before! I know part of it is also water, I’ve been retaining more.

It has thrown off my sleep. I used to sleep six hours and be fine. Now I am sleeping eight and forcing myself to get up. This does not help the exercise because I work a twelve hour shift. When you throw in two hours for commute and shift turn over that leaves 10 hours. Take out the eight for sleep and you have two. Take out shower time and general slap the kid, beat the wife time (for those that don’t know me, yes I am joking) I barely make it back to work on time for my next shift. Hopefully I can get this straightened out.

One of my foods that has helped keep me in line when I just can’t stand it I’m not supposed to eat as much of, bananas. I know it is crazy and they pack more cals than many veggies, but a banana usually stops my hunger. Many of the veggies I salted with potassium salt (because sodium is the one that increases BP), but now I am not supposed to use potassium because the meds I am on cause me to retain potassium. No salt makes the veggies WAY to bland, some aren’t too bad. I love veggies, but I prefer them salted. Now what I was using to satisfy me no longer satisfies. It is very discouraging.

Whine done… time to do something about it!

When I got home the AM from work my shoulder was killing me, so I took some Vicodin and a muscle relaxant that the doc gave me an passed out hard. I was woken up by my phone at 2:30pm. I had set my alarm for 3:00 so I could get up and get a walk in before work so it was no super big deal. It was my wife asking if I would like to meet her dad and his wife. This was a total shocker for me. We have been married 14 years and I have never met her dad! He and my wife have been estranged for a very long time. I only talked to the man twice and it was on my dime. Once just before we got married, to invite him to the wedding (which he didn’t come for) and once when my son was born to let him know he was a grandpa.

They were passing through town on vacation and decided to drop in and say hi. Of course I got up and went to meet them! I have been wanting this rift between he and my wife healed at least to the point where they talked more and my son got to know his other grandfather some. They were nice people and it was a very pleasant afternoon. Most of the friction between them was left over crap from the divorce of my wife’s parents. It wasn’t pretty from what I could glean over the years.

The bad part of the afternoon was no walk, and we went out to eat. I didn’t over indulge, but I would have felt better with a lighter meal. I had an 8 oz. steak, steamed rice, streamed veggies, and corn bread. Oh well the company was good and I really did have room in my calories for the day. I just have to be extra careful for the rest of the night, which will be hard as I am at work watching computer screens and I tend to get nailed by the snack cravings. I generally handle those with veggies and some fruit. I will stick with the veggies tonight, till lunch and have a light lunch.

I really have to get up early enough to walk tomorrow. So my goal for the next 24 is drink at least 80 oz. of water, eat light, get at least six hours of sleep, and walk my two mile rout around the marina. One day at a time! I just gotta do it one day!