Generally speaking I’m fairly please with my weekend results. I was not perfect, but I did have some good success.

Here is the run down on the goals.

Run/Walk 33 miles: I only made it 24 (73% completed). I was not able to do anything on Sunday. I will get those last 10 in today.

Lose 3 lbs: I only made it 2 (66%). I will likely drop 1 more after these last 10 miles are done, so falling short here is not to bad considering I basically missed a whole day of intense exercise.

Drink 3 Gallons of water: 100 %. Yeah! This is good to help weight loss and also ensures that any weight I lose will not just be water weight.

No Spinach Cheese Dip: 50% complete. Well, I got a little overzealous in my determination to lose weight. And my wife sort of convinced me that a little break is good. So I did make the dip – and it was delicious! I did however control the portions really well. I ate only 2 oz maybe. So it was a good appetizer, but not overly indulgent. Since I did not exercise I should have eaten a little less on my meals and then I would feel a little less guilty here. But it was really really tasty:)

I wanted to get 9 hours of sleep, each night but barely managed 7. So this is just right in line with the average. So I made 0% progress here.

And finally on the back. I have started to work with it a little more to make sure that it stays healthy. I even helped move a piano over the weekend for a friend and did that without any sort of hitch developing, so I consider this a success. I’ll score it at about 80% because I need to give it more rest and I need to specifically do a few more exercises to keep from re-injuring myself.

So the average success rate over the weekend was about 65%. If this were a football team – I would not even make it into the playoffs. But if it was a batting average, I’d be the greatest hitter of all time. I’m not sure which is the better comparison – likely it is neither – but it does cause one to reflect on how to judge progress.

I did not accomplish my goals from an absolutest stand point. But since I do not believe it is possible to be perfect, I want to concentrate on being perfected. Which is a much longer process and allows for ups and downs and partial successes are even rewarded.

So here’s to the success that I had, and here’s to hopeing for a better week!

Matthew Stearmer

This week has been a little harder for me. I injured my back at the beginning of the week and I’m still recovering from that. There were only 2 days where I was not able to do much at all, but really even the rest of the week was a lot slower.

Generally I try to do work outs throughout the day to keep the metabolish up as much as possible. But when I could barely get through my cardio, it was hard to then keep pushing my back. I keep hoping that by losing weight I will eventually get my back in order again, but I have a feeling it will always be a curse. It will get better of course, but I suppose never the same. The consequence of my decissions in the first place I guess.

Well, on that slightly depressing note here is what I am going to do about it.

I can continue to lose weight.

I can redouble my effort and not sink into discouragement

I can think of innovative ways to work around my injury

I can reduce my calorie consumption to insure that I lose weight on reduced activity.

This weekend I was going to indulge a little more. I was going to take a break, but I feel like I need to push myself a little more now since I missed too much in the middle. I am going to set a goal to do 33 miles from Friday-Sun. That will put me over 100 miles for the month, and will be a 50% increase over what I have done thus far in milage. It is a huge goal. I typically will do that over the course of a week with smaller shorter work outs in the middle, but I feel like I need to really push myself and get back on track.

I need to wait another week before I can do another Isagenix cleans. So I will set a more reasonable weight loss goal. I’m going to lose 3 lbs over the weekend.

This means that I will have to put off my spinch cheese dip that I was going to endulge in while watching a movie. And I will have to spend some more time workout out. But I will do it.

I’m going to shoot for 3 gallons of water consumtion as well. Since I will be home all weekend I can so that easily enough and I will be workout hard the whole time so my body will need it.

I am also going to shoot for 9 hours of sleep a night. I need the extra time to help recover. I’ve not been gett more than 6-7 at the most for several nights now. That never helps with weigt loss.

I am also going to look up my old rehab program for my back and start putting that into practice. The doctors said before that one of the main problems was that my larger muscles were out pacing the core muscles that help hold the bones in my spine in alingment. So I would really tweek things by getting into only partially better health. I need to get everything up to par again.

Well, that is the plan. I’ll report on Monday.

Well, today I’m supposed to review a supplement, but this is not going to be a regular supplement review. It is partly going to be how to overcome obstacles to weight loss. Yesterday I hurt my back. ouch! And I was making such good progress.

Now, in the past this has been bad new for weight loss. Typically I will get depressed. Eat badly and just give up. But not now. I know that people are looking at these results and I do not want to let anyone down let alone myself. I’ve come to far to stop now. And I do not want to go back to where I was.

Now, add to that, I had a business breakfast meeting this morning. So I had a double whammy. Little exercise, and high fat/large portions of food.

Now, let me first say that if you get injured don’t just take my advice. If you do not get a doctor’s opinion you could really damage things. This is just what I did and remember that I an not a physician.

Next, let me say that Aleve is a miracle pill. It will not help you lose weight, but it will help you work through minor injuries that might otherwise keep yo down. It has been a life saver.

The other day when I was doing my snatches I knew that I was pushing myself. I could feel my butt and hamstring really tighten up. So I knew that was going to wreak havoc on my back. Whenever those muscles tighten up it puts a strain on my back until they loosen up (48-72 hours later). Now, 2-3 days is too long to be out of commission for me.I took the aleve before the swelling an tension started to preempt the pain. It sort of worked. I also started to stretch out the muscles as best I could to try to get them to loosen up as well. And then I laid out flat on my back and tried to sleep that way for most of the night.

When I woke up this morning things were tight, but I felt that I could do a little exercise on the elliptical. It is a very controlled movement and not jarring at all. So I got on for some sprints before going to breakfast. I knew that I would need to burn some extra calories to make up for the breakfast. As I got going on the elliptical machine I could feel things start to loosen up and I was able to go faster and faster with each passing minute.

I decided to not go very long since I just wanted to get the metabolism going, and not kill myself and make the injury worse.

I drank an extra 24 oz of ice water and then went to breakfast. I ordered a breakfast food of Ham, Eggs and Rye toast. There were some cheesy potatoes there as well, but I did not eat much of them. I gave one of the slices of ham away and ate only a few potatoes, the ham slice and 1 of the slices of rye bread. It was a sensible meal, and with the extra water I had taken in I felt full. So, crisis one – successfully navigated.

Now, on the back injury. I cannot move fast or turn easily, but I can move. So I walked a little more this evening as well, and even with the injury I have still put in a few miles today.I guess the point of all of that is, an injury is what it is. I cannot change that. But I can look at what can be done and without causing more harm than good, I can look for ways to still progress.

Also, knowing that I am going to be burning fewer calories, I made a conscious choice to consume a lower amount of food to match my expenditures.

Bottom line, if you need pain relief, try the aleve. I think that is just great. But most importantly, do not give up. There are may ways to beat the weight back if you plan a head. I knew this was going to happen, so I thought through everything that I would do. If I had not been able to walk well enough I was going to go to the pool. Nothing was going to stop me.

So, think it through

Plan ahead the actions you will take to over come an injury

Seek medical help

Execute the plan to the best of your ability

Aleve