Week 6

I have lost nearly 18 pounds now. I am starting to notice it in my clothes and in my face. The pledges are almost equal to the amount of weight I have lost so far. If that trend continues and we get $100 per pound, that would be $10,000 or 20 cows. In a perfect world that can happen, what about an imperfect world? Tell your friends and we'll see. It has been nice to do a lot of walking and geocaching this summer. The added exercise has really helped. I wonder what winter will do. Hopefully I will have the added stress of a new job (interviewed Friday and have a different interview tomorrow) to contend with. I have been doing a lot of research on classroom management and I have found quite a few great ways to reduce the stress of teaching. It is actually pretty exciting. I am being called to sub quite regularly and I can test things right away.

A number of people have mentioned to me that they read this blog quite regularly. Thanks for the loyalty. I will have to make sure that I post regularly and meaningfully. I have another blog where I post infrequently and about dumb stuff, it is From the Dark Village. The title is the Welsh meaning of my name. There is some strange musical stuff as well as some small samples of my writing. I post very rarely so I would not hit it every day.

Well, Claire is getting fussy. Thank you for all your pledges and support.

Colby

Week 4.75

Things have been busy and I did not get a chance to blog this weekend. Things are still going well. I have lost 15 pounds now. The totals on the web page are up to date. I am almost to the weight I was a year ago when I left my job to student teach.

Week 3

Well, still losing the weight. Lost three more pounds. Kind of sad to see it slowing down but 2 pounds per week is pretty optimal. I now weigh 258. It is nice to see that middle number as a 5 instead of a seven. There have been no more pledges this week. I have tried to set up the system for people to pledge easier but it still needs some work. I want to make it easy for folks. I have to say that the diet that I am on, The Whitmore-Spell Don't be a Pig Diet is working pretty well. It is nice to splurge a little on something not so healthy, feel no guilt, and the go right back to eating healthy. I firmly believe that we are designed for periodic celebrations. People need to enjoy the food of celebration (maybe not as much) in a sensible fashion. I don't know if that made sense. We had the Jones over for dinner tonight. I made chicken legs and Valerie made some first rate French bread from scratch. We all ate a little more than usual and I think that is OK. Makes changing my everyday eating really doable. The main thing to remember is that not every day is a celebration, so don't eat like it is.

Two neat things about the diet are: I have a lot more energy and I am no longer snoring. Course, without my CPAP I would snore but I was snoring with it lately. The extra energy makes it much easier to keep up with Claire. Claire is one high energy baby. She is one of the reasons that I want to be around for a long time. Here is a picture of her.

Week 2

I weighed this morning and I weighed 261. That is 10 pounds. That has been great because I have been eating in a way that seems pretty sustainable. I am not often hungry. I updated the pledge totals and weight on the main page. A lot of people are waiting on directions to pledge. I will be posting that information soon. It will be a little less automated than I wanted but I think it will be pretty easy and people can still write it off (I think, I am not really a tax lawyer). I feel a lot better already. Between the loss of weight and the walking, my hip is feeling much better. It should get better and better the lighter I get.

Week One

Check out the new stats on the main web site. We are putting together quite a little farm of animals. I weighed this morning. I have lost 6 pounds. I did that without starving myself so that is encouraging. Valerie and I have modified my diet from a popular weight loss program to a much simpler strategy. The only thing I am forbidden on my current diet is excess. We are making better choices now and it makes a big difference. Please excuse any typos. Claire is on my lap and has discovered the keyboard.

My brother e-mailed me and asked how things were going. The diet is going well. I have lost about four pounds already. I will weigh tomorrow and post that as well as the current pledge level. We are above 2 cows now. Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 3

After a little set back yesterday, I am back in business. I am being a lot more careful to make sure I eat enough so my sugar level does not bottom out. It will get a little easier once my body gets used to a healthy level of carbs. It is hard to judge weight loss in just a few days because of daily fluctuations but, for what it is worth, I have lost a pound and a half. I will do an update of the totals on the website probably this Friday.

D-Day evening

So I have completed the first full day. It was kind of rough. My body is pretty hooked on refined sugars. I feel pretty hungry even though I have eaten plenty. I guess that goes away in a couple of days. Valerie, Claire and I went walking on a track at a nearby school. I walked about a mile. I was worried about having energy because I was hungry but I was fine. I am pretty tired and looking forward to sleeping. By the way, there are a few more pledges made bringing the total to $11.10 a pound. Knowing that what I am doing is helping people helped me to stay motivated. Thanks again for all your help.

D-Day: Breakfast

I did not get to the store yesterday like I had planned. This morning I had to rush out to get breakfast. I had V-8, ham and some string cheese. Not to bad. I feel surprisingly good. I am a little surprised because I thought I would feel really weak. Maybe to early to tell at this point I suppose. I weighed this morning. The official starting weight is 271 pounds. I actually put on a pound with all my "last chance" meals. I had KFC and Ixtapa yesterday. Felt a little sick after that. You can actually eat healthy at both those places but that was not my goal yesterday. Claire and I did take a long walk through town. I was about 2 miles or so. It was nice and my hips actually feel pretty good. A lot of my hip pain is cause by inactivity. Working the joints lubricates the arthritic joint and helps out a lot. I am looking forward to my hips feeling better and gaining some flexibility back. By the way, $9.40 a pound in the first few days is pretty cool. You guys are awesome. Thanks.

Day one of pledges

Well, I sent out the big e-mail for pledges. I was hoping for a good response and I was not disappointed. So far the pledge level is at $7.90 a pound. At that rate we can give a cow and a half. Pretty cool. That is if I do my part. I am starting the diet on Saturday. Tomorrow I will be heading to the store to by a ton of vegetables and lean meat. I think I will be eating many types of stir fries and such. If any one has any good recipes, please send them my way. The big problem for me is that I do not have many breakfast ideas. All the recipes I have are for eggs. I can not stand eggs. I will make it work though. I just have to remember all those folks who would love to have an egg. Thank you everyone for your support. This is all very exciting and I am looking forward to seeing everything come to fruition.

Colby

The First Post.

Hi all. Right now I am gearing up for the big plunge. We have had family here this week and I am kind of dragging my feet. With help from my brother Shane and my friend Bren I am getting the web site squared away. I want to figure out some way to make the pledges easy for people. I also want some sort of visual way to display the amount of money being raised. As far as the weight loss, I will be using a fairly popular diet, that I will not mention at this point, that I think is quite sensible. It calls for a certain amount of vegetables for every meal. That makes breakfast really hard. I may have to develop a breakfast salad. The current plan is that I will start the actual diet this Saturday. I will periodically be posting as I go. You are welcome to make encouraging comments in response to the blog. Feel free to send the web page url out to anyone who would not think you are spamming them. Thanks for dropping by.