SparkDad

With my current weight loss I am paying close attention to what I am eating. My goal is to get to 180 pounds by April 1. I am working really hard to get there and then of course maintain it.

Starting at 214 I was not huge, but I am definitely not at my optimal weight. Now as I was writing this post, I thought “What is my optimal weight?”, so I went out and found a health calculator   .

Health Calculator

You can read the rest of the weight loss challenge posts here.

Last week was a rough week for me in my weight loss challenge. First of all I only went to the gym 2 times last week. I did get a workout on the elliptical at the house, but I find that it is a lot less of a workout. I burn fewer calories during a 20-30 minute workout than I do on the treadmill.

Secondly, my diet was terrible. I succumbed to temptation and ate several cup cakes left over from the Dia de la Candaleria. Our neighbor Veronica made these cupcakes which where carrot cake with cream cheese topping. Oooh! They were good! So after devouring 4 of them I gave them away to another neighbor : ) In addition I had Chick-fil-a a couple of days. Granted I had grilled instead of fried it was still not homemade.

In addition Mama and I went out for an early Valentines night out. We ate wonderful food at Mark’s restaurant in Houston. We both had seafood, but it was all very rich. Add cocktails and a bread pudding for desert and you have a recipe for diet disaster!

So this morning when I was schedule to weight in I was very worried. I woke up and took care of all bodliy functions and then stepped on the scale…..

199 pounds! I broke 200 pounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

180 here I  come!

- Spark Dad

Last year I procrastinated on getting my eyes checked. Our health insurance gives us a eye exam one time per year and $130 off of new frames. Usually I get it done early in the year, but this year I put it off. Finally while we were on vacation in New Mexico over Christmas break I went to another eye doctor and had the exam.

We purchased a nice pair of Oakley frames for me to wear everyday. I had the great idea that I would get prescription sunglasses as well. We spent the time to pick out the frames, paid and put in the order. Unfortunately my prescription would not work in any of the shade frames that I had picked out.

So off I am this week looking for prescription shades. Now you have to understand that I have a very round head. I am bald so round shades look terrible on me. I have to have a very rectangular frame for it to look right on me.

I searched online to see if I could find some to save myself driving around looking at frames.

One of the places that I ended up at had wholesale sunglasses. They had great prices and sold in bulk, but with my previous mistake on the prescription not working I had to go local.

My eye doctor in town has ordered some frames in for me to try on Monday so hopefully I will find something that will work!

I will post a new picture once the new shades are done and in!

This post was paid for by modasunglasses.com – wholesale sunglasses

I am happy to report that I have managed to lose another 1 1/2 pounds this week. This puts my total loss since December 18th at 11 pounds!

Now I had reported that my goal by April was 170 pounds, but today when I was calculating what I still needed to lose I realized that 30 pounds by April puts me at 180. So I need to correct that, which I have done.

This leaves me at 2.3 pounds per week from now until April 1. We are celebrating Valentines on February 6th, which is 2 weeks away, so I am setting my goal for February 6th at a little higher than the 2.3 pounds. I am shooting to take off 6 pounds by February 6th. Which would put me under 200 pounds!

What I did well:

I exercised 4 days. I did pure cardio with a spattering of weights.

What I did poorly:

I ate 3 candy bars and had about 4 diet cokes. (I know ouch!)

Changes for the next 2 weeks to facilitate the 6 pound goal:

1) Cut out cheese

2) Cut sodas to 1 per week

3) Add upper body / lower body weights to circuit

Good luck to anyone else who is trying to get healthy!

Follow my progress and Tweets at www.twitter.com/sparkdad and follow the hash #sparkdadchallenge

- Spark Dad

Over the past 7 days I have managed to lose another 1.5 pounds. Not tremendous but slow and steady. This is not on track with my goal of 30 pounds by April first, but I would rather miss the April goal and keep off the weight than to lost the weight really quick and get it all back within six month!

You can see the chart and data for my weight loss here.

My diet is not totally stringent. I am simply eating 6 times per day, but when I eat a meal I eat smaller portions and my snacks are health snacks such as this Orange with chili lime salt on it.

My exercise program is simple treadmill work. I do 30 minutes on the treadmill. I started today to track my times. I will post the spreadsheet when I get a weeks worth of data.

Watch my Tweets for updates while at the gym!

- Spark Dad