T - 74 - Surviving the Buffet

After a week of going on and off the routine, Saturday was probably the first day where I actually stayed on routine.  Like every other Saturday since I started this diet, Saturday's have been a day of getting things done.  Be it celebrating a birthday, doing house chores, planning my cheat meal or even playing video games, its always been a productive day and this one was no different.

Since I was so busy with work last weekend, I had completely forgotten about my cheat meal.  So I've been looking forward to it this time around.  The plan was to go to The Cheesecake Factory or a buffet at an India restaurant.  That's right.  When I say cheat meal, I mean it.  I really wanted to go to both places.  Get a dessert from the factory and the spicy chicken from the Indian place, but in the end decided to just choose one.

T - 75 - Finding Balance

What a week.  This week has been probably the busiest I can remember in a long while, and yet at the same time, the least productive since I started the weight loss journey.  Doesn't make sense?  It will in a second.  The busy part, is due to me being overloaded at work and the least productive part, is pretty much everything else.  As I got busier at work, my diet, workouts, the blog and pretty much everything else in my routine has suffered.

I'm not used to dealing with a busy after work schedule, so making sure I get my daily tasks done has been challenging.  I'm finally starting to understand what people mean when they say work life balance.  Until now, I thought it meant, you shouldn't overwork yourself like hog forever.  You should take a vacation every now and then to unwind, etc.  So in the past, I would work a crazy amount of hours week after week.  When it finally came time to take a breath, I'll schedule some vacation time and completely go off grid.  I'm now coming to the realization, that even though I thought I had a good work life balance, I didn't.

T - 76 - The Guilty Parts

If you read my previous post, you know already know that my Thursday was a total blur.  So I'm going to skip the details here and not bore you to death.  Though the day was a blur, I do remember some parts very clearly.  The guilty parts.  I don't know about you, but when I'm on diet, the guilt is amplified.  Eat an extra French fry at lunch, feel guilty for 2 hours.  Go above my calorie amount for the day, starve the rest of the day. Skip a workout, stay up all night feeling guilty.

I'm sure you have an idea by now, how my day went.  I kinda knew that I was off my routine right from the beginning.  First of all, I just could not get out of bed in the morning.  I felt like there was a 500 pound bear sleeping on top of me.  My whole body was so heavy.  No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't move it.  By the time I was up, I was already running late to work.

T - 77 - Confused

Wow, I missed Wednesday's update and didn't even know it.  Yesterday was a total blur.  I had no idea that I missed the daily blog update until it was time to go to bed.  Work has been crazy lately, so unless I set myself reminders to do something, it does not get done.  I usually write the blog post at lunch time, and yesterday I forgot to do that because I didn't have time for lunch.  Anyways, I know its a day late, but hey, better late than never.

Since work was so busy, I didn't get time to make notes of about how the day went.  That means by now (Friday) I'm all confused about what happened Wednesday.  So once again, you'll have to forgive me for the lame quality of this post.  Thankfully, I did enter my meals into My Fitness Pal, so I have some reference.

T - 78 - The Couch Devil

Yesterday was a pretty good day for me.  After that lazy Sunday and a crazy Monday I had, I was ready to get back to normal.  I started the day off with a bad taste though.  I had that crappy fiber cereal for breakfast.  You know I've been wanting to get more breakfast ideas.  Though I found some good options, most of them require some prep work, and I was really not in the mood to prepare anything.  So cereal was the easiest healthy option available.  I'm planning on doing some prep work for tomorrows breakfast tonight, I'll let you know how that goes.

Once at work, I had my cup of joe and was ready to go.  It was an uneventful day, so that gave me the chance to pretty much do most of what I had on my things to do list.  I got most of the office work done.  I had to make up for missing my update on Sunday, so I posted that and Monday's update yesterday.  So overall I was pretty happy how it had turned out.  I had a healthy breakfast, a salad for lunch, some soup for a snack, drank plenty of water.  I even took the stairs through the day.  I was all geared up and ready to go the gym after work.  When I got out of work, however, the couch devil came out. 

T - 79 - Case of the Mondays

"Someone's got a case of the Mondays".  For those of you who don't know, its from the movie Office Space.  It is a must see movie for those of you who work in a cubicle environment.  I hate Mondays.  They are some how cosmically aligned to be the crappiest day of the week.  As if going back to work after a weekend isn't hard enough, something all goes wrong on Mondays.  Be it a flat tire, spilling coffee on your shirt, work related disasters, they all aim for Mondays. 

I had been working all weekend long trying to get things done, so I won't be swamped when I get in the office on Monday.  Its a good thing I did because, when I came into the office Monday morning, we were having all sorts of issues.  Our entire office network was being affected with god knows what, but anything that could fail, had failed and needed immediate attention.  So I spent all day putting fires out.  I should have know that it wasn't going to be a good day when it started with me spending an hour and half stuck in traffic

T - 80 - Lazy Sunday

I know, I missed my update for Sunday.  I was super busy with work yesterday that I barely had anytime.  My appolgies for the delay.  Here it is.

Like the title says, it was a lazy Sunday.  That doesn't mean I didn't do anything the whole day.  Its just that I didn't workout.  As you know I had been working mostly over the weekend, and Sunday was no exception.  I woke up early morning and worked all the way through till about 3PM.  I took a break in between to have some coffee, but that was about it.  I was working from home again, so I didn't even realize how fast time flew by.

Since I had been working almost the whole weekend, I decided to skip the workout, get some rest, and enjoy whatever was left of the weekend.  From a diet perspective, I don't feel too bad about skipping the workout though.  That's because I didn't eat breakfast, lunch or dinner.  You may think that I didn't eat because I was so involved in work but that was not the case.  It was a planned decision.  Why?  Because I lost only 1 freaking pound the whole week.  That's right 1lb.  The same as the week before.  I was not a happy camper. 

T - 81 - The Distracted Diet

 I've found the my best method for avoiding cravings.  Distraction.  Its amazing how little cravings you get when you are busy or per-occupied.  Be it doing something fun with your loved ones, playing video games, watching great movies, or in yesterday's case, just plain working.  As you know, my Friday routine was blown to smithereens, and I ended up working from home partially.  I need to work over the weekend to catch up, so that's how I spent most of my day yesterday.  Exciting, I know.

While it wasn't my favorite pass time, work did keep me so busy that I forgot it was my cheat meal day.  Amazing, right?  I mean, the prior weekends, I was looking forward to my cheat meal for the whole week.  I knew where I wanted to cheat.  I knew what I wanted to eat, and I knew exactly how much I was going to eat, and how many calories that would add up to etc.  This week however, I barely even thought about it.  See, I wasn't kidding when I said time is flying by.  I think I'm going to write about it.  The Distracted Diet.  Look for it in a bookstore near you shortly. Haha!

T - 82 - Saved by Sashimi

I had a nice little routine planned for yesterday.  Wake up early and have breakfast, get a cup of coffee, have a nice soup and salad for lunch and snack, head to the gym in the evening after work, and meet some friends for dinner and a movie.  Nice, right?  Well, things didn't go quite as well as I had planned it.

I did wake up early as planned, but right after I got out of the shower, I got a call from my wife that her car broke down on her way to work.  That kind of threw a monkey wrench into the routine right from the get go.  No time to eat breakfast.  I just got dressed and went to pick her up.  I had to then drop her off at work, and get her car towed.  All this wouldn't have been a big deal, if I didn't have the coffee headache to go along with it.

T - 83 - Need Cardio Ideas

I'm pretty happy with the new blog schedule.  Posting to my blog in the afternoon, gives me enough time in the evening to get other important things done.  I'm able to get to bed early and wake up early as well, which is probably the biggest plus.  Also, I'm not as exhausted so I can think more clearly, so it doesn't take me as long it used to at night, to write a post.

There is, however, one down side that I had not anticipated.  I don't remember a damn thing that happened yesterday, to write about it today.  While I can think clearly to write up a quick post, I'm having to spend more time remembering what happened yesterday, so I can give you a better breakdown.  This is a problem that needs to be rectified quick.

T - 84 - Speed of Light

"Time is making fools of us again" ~ J.K. Rowling. 

That is what I feel like now.  Remember how I used to complain about the days being so long and slow.  Well, I'm doing the opposite of that now.  When I started this whole diet and blog process, I felt time had crawled to a stop. The first week was the worst. Everyday felt like an eternity. Having to plan every single detail of every day was exhausting. I recall every night while typing the blog I had to force myself to stay awake. I was so tired by the end of the day, that I would pass out as soon as I hit the bed.

Now that I'm in a routine though, I feel like I'm in warp speed. I blink and a day has gone by. Holy cow! Just when you get used to the pace, time plays tricks on us and speeds up.  I've definitely got more energy throughout the day. For example, yesterday I need to burn of some energy while at work, so I decided to go up and down 10 flights of stairs during lunch. It was a nice quick little workout. I don't feel as lazy as usually, but I've still got a long way to go.  Working out in the evening still seems like a tedious task, but its not as daunting as it used to be.

T - 85 - Rain or Snow (Long Read)

Last night was a crazy one.  Probably the craziest since I started on this journey.  It all started in the evening.  As part of my strategy to not go out for dinner, I've been eating a good sized meal a couple of hours before I head to the gym.  This prevents me from feeling too hungry before, during and after my workout.  I've only been doing this for a few days now, but it has been working pretty well.  I was eager to get back to the gym since I hadn't worked out all weekend.  I wanted to get in there and sweat the guilt out of me.

So there I was eating my chicken soup, around 4PM, as a pre-workout meal.  The soup cup wasn't too big, but I could tell it was loaded with chicken.  As I was getting to the bottom of the cup, I realized I'm getting pretty full.  Almost too full for a pre-workout meal.  I was worried.  What if it doesn't digest enough for me to do cardio in a couple of hours?  What if I end up using this as an excuse to skip the gym, again?

Night Owl No More

I've come to the realization that the task of updating my blog every night is actually one of the reasons I'm staying up late.  I just don't have enough time in the evening to squeeze in a workout, dinner, update the blog, relax for a bit and still go to bed early.  If I am to meet my goal of sleeping early every night, somethings gotta give.  Don't worry, I'm not giving up on the blog.  I'm just going to shift the time I post my updates.  Instead of posting my daily update at night, I'm going to start doing it in the afternoon.  So for example, tonight's update, will be posted on my blog on Wednesday around noon.  Make sense?

T - 86 - New Grading System

I'm not off to a good start this week.  Once again my plan to workout in the evening at home didn't materialize.  This is precisely the reason why having my gym close to work is a great option. It forces me to workout right after I get off from work, preventing me from making up excuses once I'm home.  I'm not going to sound like a whiny baby and spoil your night.  So lets just say, I'm determined not to skip gym tomorrow.

Also, I've been thinking.  Keeping track of how I did each day with the checklist below is a good idea.  However, I don't exactly know how I did today, compared to yesterday or the day before etc.  To solve that problem, I've come up with a new grading system that I can use to grade myself each day.  Here is how its going to work.  For each task on my checklist, I get 1 point.  I'm going to split task 7 into 2 points, so I can round it out with an even 10 points.  So if I completed 7 out of the 10 tasks successfully, then I get a grade of 70%.  Simple enough.  This will help me graph my daily, weekly and monthly progress.  Hopefully it will also show me a trend of which days I'm having the most trouble with completing my tasks, so I can better prepare myself on those days.

One is a lonely number

I decided to weigh myself early last week, since I knew I'll be cheating heavly on the weekend.  So I weighed myself on Saturday morning and found that I only lost 1lb last week.  I can't say that I'm surprised by it, though I was hoping for a little bit more.  One is just such a lonely depressing number.  Although, I guess it better than zero.  Considering how much I ate over the week, and the amount of exercise I put it, 1lb sounds about right.

So I'm two weeks into the diet, and I've lost a total of 5lbs so far.  I'm still on track with my goal of losing 2.5lbs a week, but I need to kick things up a notch this week to make sure I don't fall behind.  I had signed up for My Fitness Pal a week ago, and have been keeping track of what I'm eating through their iPhone app.  Until now, I've been doing it to just be aware of the calorie breakdown of my diet.  Going forward, I have to actively manage it.

Birthday Weekend Results

Epic Fail!  That is the best way to describe my accomplishments over the  birthday weekend.  As you know, I had made this nice little plan on how to survive the weekend, without recking my diet. 

I got the sense that things are not going to go too well, when I deviated from the plan within a few hours after I had come up with it.  How miserably did I fail this weekend?  See for yourself.

T - 87 - Red Robinnnnnn. DUMMMM!

Well that didn't take long.  Only a few hours ago I had made this great little plan on how I'm going to stay on track with the diet this weekend, even though its my wife's birthday.  Oh if only we could all roll back time or be able to see the future.  I can only wish.

Obviously things didn't go as planned tonight.  Neither did I workout nor did I have a protein shake.  Instead, my wife and I went to Red Robin.  Yes, Red Robin.  The land of beefy juicy burgers, layerd with cheese and bacon, yummy steak fries, and oh so thick milk shakes.  Even while on the way there, I was dreaming of biting into the Bleu Ribbon Burger, my favorite.

Birthday Weekend

I'm in the second weekend of my diet, and am looking at the yet another challenge.  Last weekend, was the long weekend, and I had an elaborate plan on how to get through it.  This weekend, its my wife's birthday.  Needless to say, we will be out celebrating.

In the past, we would celebrate each others birthday for a whole week.  It could  be something as elaborate as going on a vacation or cruise, or just going out and doing something special everyday.  Either way, food was major part of it.  One year, I took her to all her favorite restaurant in one weekend.  This year however, because of the diet, we've decided to keep things rather low key.  A small gathering with friends, another with family and then something romantic with just the two of us. 

Aside from this, I also have a lot of house chores to do this weekend.  Cleaning, mowing, and blah blah blah.  The fun stuff.  So the challenge here is, how do I get this all done?  Celebrate her birthday, get my work done, find the time to workout, eat right and do all of it while showing my wife that she is most amazing girl in the world.  No small task, I know.

T - 88 - Mean Green Machine

Its been a productive day.  Had a good breakfast, signed up for myfitnesspal to track my calorie intake, and worked out in the evening.  I also did some research online to get some meal ideas.  Out of all the things I did today, I'm the most proud about dinner.  Not only did we endup eating at home, but we had freshly made juice.  Not just any juice, it was green juice.  Oh yeah, the good (aka yukky) stuff.  I feel like hulk.  I wasn't as hungry as I normally am after a workout.  Maybe it was the fact that I didn't cardio.  Whatever it was, it helped break the eathing out streak.

I feel like I'm back on the wagon, after not working out for 3 days.  The workout was great.  Spent all the time on weights.  Upperbody mostly.  I'm fairly certain I over did it.  So I know I'll be sore for the next couple of days, I just hope it doesn't throw me of the wagon again.  Well, tomorrow is another day.  I'm planning to go to sleep early tonight, meaning now.  It earlier than usual, so that's a good start I guess.

Taking Control

I've decided to take full control of my calorie intake, and by that I mean knowing exactly how much calories I eat per day, and where it came from.  So far I've been just eating what I want, as long it seemed healthy.  I didn't count calories, carbs, fat etc.  Its only been a week or so and I've lost 4 lbs following this method, but I know sooner or later I'll need to start paying more attention to the counters mentioned above. 

So, I signed up for My Fitness Pal, after hearing good reviews about it.  I went back and entered what I ate since I started dieting and was shocked to see the numbers.  Even though I've been trying to eat 'healthy' and my calorie count is under what my goal is, my carb and fat intake was huge.  Almost 80% of my calories are either carbs or fat.  I'm sure most of it was the bad kind too.  Protein only makes up about 20% of my diet.  I had no idea it was that bad. 

If the numbers are this bad when I'm eating healthy, how bad was it when I was eating like a pig.  I don't even want to know.  The past is in the past, and now its time to take control of the present and change the future.  Who is with me?

T - 89 - Yet Another Night

I had promised yesterday that I was going to workout today morning to make up for skipping the workout. Well, I couldn't wake up early like I had wanted, but I did mange to workout once I was up. Same routine, 60 minutes of cardio. I haven't lifted weights in a while now, so tomorrow I plan to dedicate more time to it.

I'm sure you are used to hearing me complain about eating out every night by now, so I know it won't come as a surprise when I tell that tonight was no different. It was Chipotle night once again. This time was a little better though. I had a chicken burrito bowl with a little bit of brown rice, fajita veggies, black beans, and hot sauce. Not too bad, I think. Though next time I should ask them to put the hot sauce on the side.

T - 90 - Opposite of Exercise

I'm afraid my fears of falling off the wagon after the long weekend maybe coming true. I was supposed to workout today, but that did not happen.  Now that's 3 days in a row without having worked out.  I don't feel too guilty about not working on Sunday and Monday, because I did a lot of house maintenance work.  However, today, it was just pure laziness.

Came home and decided to go to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner, instead of working out.  I know, the exact opposite of what I should have been doing.  I almost didn't want to write this post tonight, because I was feeling so guilty, but I had to do it.  I didn't want one bad behavior to influence another.  It was a mistake and now I have to own up to it.

T - 91 - Long Weekend Recap

I know, I know.  I'm a day late on this update.  I went to pickup my wife from the airport last at night, and completely forgot to blog once I got back.  Oops!  I'll have to start keeping a reminder for this on the weekends.  Besides, I didn't do all that great with the goals yesterday, so that was probably another reason why I "forgot" to post the update.  Shame on me!

In any case. the dreaded long weekend is over.  I can't say I got through it unscathed, but I did better than expected.  If you read my previous, 'The Dreaded Long Weekend' post, you know I came up with a plan for each day of the weekend.  Let's she how I did.

T - 92 - Down 4 lbs!

I started the blog this time last week, and this has been the longest week I can remember in a long long while. When I started this, the goal was to loose 2.5lbs a week. Aggressive goal, I know, but I think it's doable. So far I've lost 4lbs, and that's with eating out 3 nights last week.

Now, I know there is no way I can keep up this rate of weight loss. Sooner or later it will slow down and plateau. I've got a couple of ideas on how to fix that problem when it happens.  I'll fill you in on that in a later post, but for now, I'm feeling pretty freaking awesome.

T - 93 - An Apple a Day

I've got James Brown's 'I Feel Good' playing in my head tonight.  I do feel good. No it's not because today was my cheat day and I had 10 super hot spicy wings and French fries, and nor is it because I've been sitting on my butt playing video games all day.  It's because I actually worked out today.  I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is to me.  You see I almost didn't make it.

I started playing game this afternoon and all of a sudden, I had no will get up and workout. I just wanted to sit there and keep playing. It seems my plan of playing games to keep me distracted from eating, works, though a little too well. I played straight through lunch time and when I realized it, I was too hungry to workout.  So I grabbed an apple and started munching on it while I was coming up with creative excuses on why I shouldn't work out today.

T - 94 - The Payne Begins

I was off to a rocky start today, woke up late due to staying up late last night, but things improved as the day went on.  Had a good breakfast, a Greek egg white omelet.  Ate a vegetable wrap for lunch and came home early.  I had to work some more once I got home, but it did give me the opportunity to get right on my elliptical once I was done with work.  I was done with the workout, shower and dinner by 7:30PM.  It was great.

I also came up with a complete plan on how I'll spend this long weekend.  If all goes as planned, I'd be pretty proud of myself.  I don't plan on sleeping early this weekend though.  I want to stay up late and enjoy myself, but I do plan to wake up relatively early, like 10-ish so I can squeeze in breakfast.  The challenge with staying up late though, is trying not to give into unhealthy snacking late night.  I'm prepared for it.  I shall prevail.  Anyway, I'm posting this update a little earlier than usual, because I'm sure once I get started on Max Payne 3, I won't be stopping for a while.

The Dreaded Long Weekend

I've been dreading this long weekend ever since I started this journey.  Usually I look forward to time off, like every one else.  However, this time I'm more nervous than anything else.  Why?  Three reasons.

1) Diet - My wife is going out of town to visit her parents this weekend.  Though she has prepared some meals for me to survive the weekend without her, I do need to fend for myself some of time.  Translation - I'll be eating out at least once a day.  Having seen how much of a struggle it has been this past week, to make healthy choices while eating out, I'm dreading this the most.  Plus, my cheat day is also this weekend.  I'll have my cheat meal at lunch, though I haven't decided which day its going to be.  This weekend will be a great indicator of whether I will succeed in this 99 night challenge or not.

T - 95 - An Epic Battle!

Yet another night and yet another battle. I named the blog Next 99 Nights, because I knew the nights would be the toughest in this journey.  However, even I didn't anticipate how tough they were actually going to be.  Looking at the picture, I'm sure you can guess the wife and I went out for dinner ... again.  Its the same old story, that even I'm tried of repeating, so I'm sure you tried of it too.  I was doing good throughout the day, worked out, came home and everything fell apart.  Sure, I've got my excuses, but that's all they are really, excuses!

That one night of working late has lead to a string of bad choices.  It started with a salad, yesterday was a steakhouse, and tonight it was Italian.  Carrabba's Italian Grill to be precise.  I almost ordered the Chicken Alfredo.  Took a deep breath, drank a whole glass of water, regained some sanity and made the decision to go with Grilled chicken instead.  I even asked them to substitute the mashed potatoes with asparagus.

T - 96 - Better and Worse

I'm exhausted tonight, more so than the previous nights.  Not sure why.  I was off to a good start.  Had a decent breakfast, split up my lunch into smaller portion, just like yesterday and ate throughout the day.  Even went to the gym in the evening.  So the day was going pretty well, until I got home.

    I did better at the gym today than prior days.  I was able to do cardio for more than 40 minutes today, but still didn't make it to a full hour.  Though, this time it wasn't due to lack of energy.  I easily completed the first 45 minutes, but I simply was too hungry to continue.  It was obvious even on the way home, that I wasn't in the mood to eat home food.  By the time I was done working out and taking a shower, I was ready to eat a horse.  However, I didn't want to ruin all the effort I put in during the day to stay on track.

A Man in a Woman's world

It's a woman's world.  No really, it is ... at least when it comes to weight loss.  If an intelligent alien species decided to learn about our civilization using the internet, they would come to the conclusion that only women are affected by obesity.  That's what I've come to learn over the past few days, while hunting the web for weight loss tips, healthy food recipes, and support groups etc.  Only women are fat, and men are not. 

At first, I thought, that's so great for women.  They have so many sites, blogs and forums for weight loss geared towards them.  They've got a huge support system, and so many of them willing to help each other out.  I felt like the odd 'man' out.  At one point I even felt a little embarrassed to be blogging about weight loss.  Now, I know I'm not the first guy to blog about this, but the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. 

T - 97 nights - Disappointed

Hats off to all you early birds out there, especially those who workout in the morning.  Not only did I not wake up on time, but my legs refused to obey my commands once I woke up. The first 5 minutes of this morning's workout was probably the hardest I've been through in a long time.  I spent just as much time on the elliptical today as yesterday, but only burned half the amount of calories.  I'm not sure if I can keep up with the morning workout routine, but I'm going to try and make it a habit... though not tomorrow.

      I've got some good news and bad news. The bad news is that I ended up having to work late tonight, which means the wife and I went out for dinner.  We just got back and I'm still full, so I won't be sleeping early tonight nor waking up early tomorrow. I'll have to workout in the evening tomorrow. The good news, all I had for dinner was some salad and clear broth chicken soup. Working out in the morning, eating smaller meals and snacking through the day certainly helped me stay on track with the diet.

T - 98 Nights

T minus 98 nights to go.  Feeling pretty good tonight.  Not great, but good.  Accomplished most of what I wanted.  Started going to the gym close to work.  I figured if its close to work, I won't be able to use the excuse that its out of my way.  However, I'll have to rethink my workout schedule.  By the time I get to gym, start/finish working out, shower, get home and finish eating dinner its almost 9PM.  If I'm to accomplish task # 3 on my list, then I'm left with only an hour before I need to hit to bed.  So the plan is to start working out in the morning.  I'm not sure how successful I'd be, but its worth a try. Wish me luck!
   
On a side note, check out the temptation I had to resist on my way to the gym. Link.

Night 1 - Part 2

I was supposed to post this last night, but I was too busy writing my first welcome post, so this didn't get done.  So here it is now. 

Yesterday was night 1 of 99.  I spent the morning thinking about what my first goal should be.  I wanted the goal to be one that would energize and excite me.  A goal that would make me feel good about myself.  Soon it became obvious that first and most important thing I wanted to do, was be more active and lose weight.

Time to be more specific.  I weigh 202lbs, and I know the ideal weight for my body is 168lbs.  The deadline for me to reach my goal weight is Aug 27th.  That means in 14 weeks I have to lose 34lbs, which translates to about 2.5lbs a week.  Sounds do able.  Now, I know that the weighing scale alone is not going to a good judge of my progress.  So periodically, I'll be using other methods (such as checking my BMI at the gym etc.) to accurately chart my progress.

Going with the theme of nines, I made a list of 9 activities I could do daily, that would help me achieve this goal.  Below is what I came up with, in no particular order:
1. Spend 1 hour everyday being active - It could be going to the gym, biking, or doing chores that require physical exertion. 1 hour is the minimum, not the maximum time.
2. Spend less time watching TV - I spend at least 4 hours a day watching TV now.  I want to cut that down to 1 or maybe 2 hours max.
3. Go to sleep and wake up early - This is the biggest obstacle I have.  I'm usually like staying up until midnight, and I hate waking up early.  I need to change that so I can start my day off right.
4. Eat breakfast - My breakfast usually consists of 1 cup of coffee (yum Starbucks) and.... that's it.  I've always heard how its the most important meal of the day, especially if you are trying to loose weight. So it made the list.
5. Eat healthy snacks during the day - I need to do this, so I don't feel ravenous by the end of the day.  That is probably one of the biggest reasons why I eat out so much during dinner time.
6. Eat a healthy dinner - Easier said than done.  This will probably be the second biggest obstacle in the challenge.
7. Drink more water - I wanted to throw in an easy task in here, so I can at least have one things I can accomplish easily.  The plan is to drink 100 ounces a day.
8. Plan my day/week - Another biggie.  None of the items on this list will get done, if I don't do this step.
9. Blog everyday - I must blog everyday and report on how I did with the list above, to hold myself accountable.  I'm afraid that I will give up and go back to my old ways if I don't.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog - Next 99 Nights.  What is it about?  I'm glad you asked.  Its about attaining my goals, whatever they may be, 99 nights at a time.  Why 99 nights?  Before I can get into that, I'll need to give you a little bit of background about myself.

    I'm a 30, soon to be 31, year old male.  I've got (almost) everything a guy could ask for.  A good job, a fast car, a nice house and a beautiful wife who adores me.  You'd think will all these great things, I'd be pretty happy with my life, and I was, until recently. 

    You see, about a year ago, I started getting this feeling of dissatisfaction.  I guess you could even call it depression, but I feel that's too strong of a word, though some of the my symptoms are similar.  It usually starts in the evening.  I start feeling restless when I'm home and not doing something.  So my wife an I would decide to get out of the house, which usually means going out for dinner.  That leads to overeating, which in turn makes me feel lazy and lethargic, leading to excessive sleeping.  This has become a cycle that I can't seem to get out of.