With 2012 coming to a close it’s time for my annual retrospective. It was another crazy year with a new baby in the house, lots of ups, and even a few downs. Here are a few of the interesting moments of 2012, not in perfect order.
- Celebrated my 2 year runnerversary
- Fell from my fitness and got up a few more times. Hey, I’m only human and I never quit trying.
- Answered 20 clydesdale cyclist questions
- Tried to stay hydrated in the crazy hot summer this year
- The kids celebrated their birthdays, Abby her 4th and Brad his 2nd
- I started an exciting new job
- We celebrated 9 years of being married
- Geeked out on my bike a bit
- Finally learned to work on my own bike
Welcomed our cute baby Zachary into the world 
- Lots and lot of swimming with the family
- Had a 23 day ride streak preparing for my Sub-5+0.02 Century
- Finishing both a 100 km and 100 mi bike ride
- Rode my bike ~1,500 miles (a far cry form my 6,000 mile goal) on the road and many many hours on the trainer (which are hard to quantify with my older trainer).
- I sadly watched a cycling idol fall and while falling deal a near fatal blow to the sport I love
- Attended an exciting and heart felt Fitbloggin 2012
- Appeared on transformation pics and examiner.com as a success story
- Fell off the blogging & fitness map for a few months
- Survived the Mayan Apocalypse
- Starting 2013 with a renewed motivation and new ideas for getting healthy.
While we didn’t have any big exciting family trips this past year we had a bigger more significant event of baby Zachary in the house! If 2012 was the year of nesting and birth then 2013 will surely be the year of adventure and new experiences for our family.
Tomorrow I’ll post some of my goals (big and small) heading into the new year. Look for more postings from me again heading into this new year. I made it through 10 months last year before I lost some momentum, lets see if we can’t make it 12 this year 
See you on the other side!
It’s been 2 weeks since my last posting and my last weigh-in. I’ve been pretty busy with work and home life and haven’t managed a blog posting, sorry 
I have however been doing my best to stay on track and focused unlike in prior years and I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t been perfect.
First lets do the weigh-in … my expectations aren’t high for the number but lets see how it turns out:
Previous Weight — 267.6 lbs (on 10.06.2012)
Current Weight — 266.6 lbs
Change In Weight — -1.0 lbs
It’s a loss, win! I know that may seem like a weird statement considering it’s been 2 weeks and I’ve seen much bigger numbers, but given everything else I’ll take it with a smile and plow forward with more losses, slow and steady (just like my last weigh-in).
Over the past few weeks my meals have been 66% good and 34% bad. I say that because my first 4 meals each day (breakfast, snack, lunch, and snack) were almost always healthy and good choices. When I’m working these are easy decisions for me because I’m focused on the work at hand and food is more fuel than anything else. The following 2 meals of the day however weren’t always that healthy.
I wasn’t ordering pizza or eating crazy portions, no I’m not that off track … I just didn’t always make the healthiest choices. Rather than eat a healthy salad I chose the mac & cheese, rather than choose a small (kid sized) portion of pasta (which is plenty) like I normally would, I instead chose the regular (adult) portion. Follow the less than ideal dinner choice with a sweet usually as my last snack and you have the making of a few weeks with no losses and potential gains.
I have continued my October goal of tracking my weight every day so this should give you a feel for what I’m talking about.
Remember I’m not doing this to convince you to weigh-in every day, it’s not for everyone. I use it to stay aware of how I’m doing (good or bad) and because I’m the kind of nerd who likes details and enjoy understanding how my body reacts.
As you can see from the graph I had a few spikes throughout the last few weeks. I also had a much slower drop than previous weeks. This was due to the fact that not only was I not eating perfectly but I didn’t workout for 7 days during this time period. When I got home from work I was just destroyed and wasn’t up for working out, especially when I knew I had some other work to do for my job.
I’m confident that had I been working out I would have had a much nicer looking graph and may have even lost more weight. I am however only human and this is long term journey. I didn’t regress to poor habits and I still managed a loss over the 2 weeks so as I said earlier I’ll take it with a smile and plowing forward
I had a good week with mostly healthy food choices and great workouts. I’m still having trouble breaking the evening sweet trend but the rest of my meals were well balanced and healthy. For 5/7 of this weeks final meal I either included a sweet or called the sweet the final meal. They weren’t usually large sweets but that doesn’t excuse them. I’m all for a few here and there but that’s just too many.
Hopefully it didn’t impact my weigh-in too negatively this morning, lets go see …
Previous Weight — 269.0 lbs (on 9.29.2012)
Current Weight — 267.6 lbs
Change In Weight — -1.4 lbs
Not bad considering my food not being 100% on track. I’d have loved to see what the number would have been had I wrangled in the sweet tooth. My workouts were great and were a mixture of P90X weights and aerobics with some running thrown in for good measure.
Last week I said I was going to share my daily weigh-in graph. My goal for doing this is to show the ups and downs of a typical week for me and how the scale should not rule your week. It’s a tool that is not reflective of your progress, especially over the short term. So many losses go in fits and starts and your body adjusts in other ways when you get healthy like muscle gain and shrinking before the pounds might fall.
Here’s my graph for the week, I left the whole month visible because I plan to do this for 1 month).
As you can see I usually shoot up the day following a free meal. That’s typically followed by a quick loss, though not all of it. That then trickles off and may plateau followed by an end of week final drop. The middle of week plateau also may be due to the fact that I typically take a midweek off day where I don’t workout but I do eat well.
The overall trend is down and the rest is just the ebb and flow of my body. You to should be aware of your body, its trends, and patterns and always understand the scale but don’t beat yourself up over it. Is just a number and is not an accurate reflection of your overall progress.
How’d your week go?
The other day I was participating in a small twitter conversation during one of the Lifetime Fitness chats. Participating might be the wrong term I suppose, I logged in while it was happening and was immediately put off so I jumped in the middle of a stream of Q&A. I don’t know why, perhaps I’d woke on the wrong side of the bed or perhaps it was because I hadn’t had enough coffee that day. Either way though, I was put off by the general topic of the hour … busting myths.
Now I don’t blame Lifetime Fitness for doing this chat nor do I blame any/all of the people participating in the chat. I’ve participated in a few similar chats myself in the past but this time something wasn’t sitting right. The general Q&A was Fact/Fiction, True/False, Truth/Myth where the moderator asked a question and you were supposed to reply with whether or not you thought it was Truth or Myth. The questions ranged from strength training to eating every few hours per day.
I didn’t have issues with the topics, what I had issues with was the entire underlying approach of the chat. How do you best go about busting a myth? Education and backing with solid science and evidence is the obvious answer isn’t it? Heck, look at the popular Mythbusters TV show … they start each episode with a myth and then spend most of the episode running different experiments that either bust or support the myth.
The definition of a myth is:
noun
- a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
- stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
- any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
- an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
- an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.
The origin of the word is mythological, as in a form of fiction and by extension imaginary and not necessarily truthful. What is the worst way you could go about busting a myth? By flaming the fire of another myth of course.
I don’t believe they were attempting to flame any new myths in this chat but I really feel like they did. Any casual observer of the chat might question some fundamental things they’re doing (or not) and walk away more confused and no more educated or informed then before stumbling in. Never once was the audience educated as to why the myth might have been created nor were they given information as to the evidence behind the moderators claim that the myth was True or False. Without evidence isn’t that just another myth:
noun
- a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
- stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
- any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
- an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
- an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.
Without education, sound evidence, and understanding how can we expect to improve people’s health? From their chat I learned that I should skip meals, eat tons and tons of protein, and do strength training (among other things). But why? According to whom? And that’s all I need to do?
Now maybe I’m coming off harsh and a bit dramatic but I’m just so tired of people spouting opinions on how to get healthy & fit without backing them up or discussing how their path is unique to them. Not everyone can, should, or needs to do the same thing to get healthy. Some people have great success eating often (every 2–3 hours), eating a balance of proteins/carbs/fats, and mixing cardio and strength training … that doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong.
Lets not forget, these same experts who were busting those myths that day were selling the myths as facts a few years months ago. They’re called fitness instructors or personal trainers and they’ve been learning new techniques for years … but lets be clear about something, learning new approaches doesn’t disprove previous ones. It just means there’s more than one solution to a problem and it should be their (and your) job to find the correct and best fitting solution to your unique health & fitness challenges.
One size does not fit all and one approach or technique isn’t invalid when a new one comes along. If your moderating one of these health & fitness chats in the future please please set the right tone for the conversation. And please do your audience a favor, provide links (crazy right) to the facts to backup your information. Ideally to peer reviewed studies or maybe a link to a website (crazy idea) that has many studies backing your claims. If it’s too much to add one to every tweet then wrap up the chat with links to all of the information.
Oh yea, in case you’re wondering, telling someone to Google it is not the answer folks. I can find just about anything on Google to prove anything I want. Reputable, proven, peer reviewed studies or research really has to be at the foundation of breaking any myth and we as bloggers and advocates to healthy lifestyles online should be at the forefront of advocating and educating and not just evangelizing it.
I’m curious what you think about these chats? Am I overreacting?
Besides staying motivated for myself and my wife, here’s another huge piece of my motivating force to getting healthy and fit.
What motivates you?
My post FitBloggin weigh-in is finally here (long week) and it’s time to pay the scale piper and check out my progress.
Previous Weight — 269.6 lbs (on 9.4.2012)
Current Weight — 269.0 lbs
Change In Weight — -0.6 lbs
I’m still 4 pounds shy of my 265 pounds goal for FitBloggin but I’ll take the progress I’ve seen. I made progress from last weigh-in and better yet, I didn’t gain after I traveled. I’m sure a lot of you know what I’m talking about. I almost always gain something after taking a trip. Usually it’s from eating out so much, darn all the sodium. Plus bad choices just seem easier to make when your far from home. Fortunately for me on this trip I had 1–3 workouts per day and a conference full of people who cared about the food so that certainly helped to keep me on track.
One thing I was planning on doing this October, call me crazy, but I was planning on weighing in daily. I was thinking maybe I’d post that either throughout the week or on my usual weekend weigh-in day. I’m not doing this to show how numbers are king (they’re not) nor am I doing it to stay accountable. I was thinking of doing it to show how dramatically the scale can swing throughout a week, or even between weeks, and how if you let the insane scale control you then your self confidence can and will be destroyed.
What do you think? Would this interest anyone?
Not to juxtapose a “scale doesn’t matter” message with a “scale goal” one but in case you’re wondering, I’m still shooting for my end of year goal to be at 240 pounds by 1/1/2013. To reach that goal over the holidays I’m planning a few interesting things that I’m hoping to share next week.
In case you’re wondering, my success rate for not gaining weight over the holidays is 0 for 12 years and counting so this should be interesting.
This past weekend I attended FitBloggin and now I’m sitting in front of my computer iPad trying to figure out how to turn the experience into a posting. To condense the entire conference into a few meaningful words seems nearly futile and would lose so much in translation. Last year I gave a session play by play with some notes, commentary, and a few photos. This year though, so many things felt different and I don’t think that format would do it justice.
Not different in a bad way, just different in that I don’t think a recap with pictures alone really paints the entire scene. You can’t take a picture that really captures the raw emotions and community that convened for this years FitBloggin. The raw honesty, happiness, excitement, joy, and pain that people shared in some of the sessions was eye opening and led so many attendees to spend some much needed time on self reflection … myself included.
So where to start? Humm … perhaps we should cue a soundtrack to loop in the background, you know like MySpace used to have. What would the best song be to convey the weekends ideals? It’d have to be upbeat, fit, healthy, happy, crazy, and make you wanna hug someone.
I’m pretty sure if you were at FitBloggin you know what I’m talking about and likely already know the song I’m thinking of …
Yea, that song … the You song from the Sue & Samantha ZUMBA spectacular on Saturday. The one where practically everyone at the conference was on the same floor showing our rhythm (or in my case lack of it), sweating, and craziness all with huge smiles on our faces.
Ok, now that the music is cued what’s next?
We could start with a few words that to me describe the event. These are words that I feel best express the effect the weekend had as well as what it was like to attend.
happy – I rarely saw anyone this weekend without a smile plastered on their face, unless maybe they were learning or sharing something at which point they had either a furrowed brow look or a tissue.
emotional – I know that happiness is an emotion but this one stands alone because there were a number of heart felt sessions where people let out all of their emotions … laughter, crying, disappointment, disagreement, etc. In the end, while emotional, I think everyone can agree the net result was positive.
active – Like last year, I pretty much was only in my room to sleep and shower. Whether I was doing yoga, sharing, cross fitting, hugging, zumba’ing, crying, laughing, eating, learning, running, or relaxing I was crazy active and wasn’t doing any of those things alone in my room or in front of a television. I think we’ve all been to those conferences where we’re happy for the day to end so we can go relax in the hotel or just get away, that was not FitBloggin.
rejuvenating – This weekend was restorative in every way. From the hugs by new and old friends to the breadth of topics discussed and shared you couldn’t help but walk out of this weekend ready to take on the world, your health, and your fitness.
reflective – Whether you reflected on the goal of your blog, YouTube profits, a sales pitch, your weight loss, self acceptance, or the amount of alcohol you consumed this weekend you spent some portion of it in deep thought.
singularity – I know this may seem like an odd one, but I’m a nerd so I’m allowed a certain amount of sci-fi liberty here. To me this weekend was a community singularity, as in providing infinite value to the community. The single place, the central point, where our community takes an infinite value and we are larger together than we could ever be apart.
Ok now that we have some subtext for the weekend I’ll be honest with you when I say those are not the words I’d use to describe how I felt going into the weekend. That list would have included words like fright, embarrassment, nervousness, and uncertainty.
I know this may be shocking to some but I was headed into this years FitBloggin 20 pounds heavier than last year after peaking 45 pounds heavier this past January. While I was (and am) still battling back down that doesn’t mean I wasn’t embarrassed with my gain. If I couldn’t accept where I was how could I expect to fit in and be accepted at a conference of Fit(ness)Bloggers? I mean have you seen the muscles on Carla?
Add to that the fact that I’ve been less social on twitter and I was nervous I wouldn’t be accepted and would be woefully out of touch with where people were on their journeys. My blogging had continued but my readership has dropped significantly about mid year, perhaps they were bored with my cycling posts? The uncertainty of the whole thing had me on pins and needles until …
Well, I don’t know if there was a single moment but you know what the Cheers effect is? Perhaps not as I may have just made up that term. It’s the effect where you walk into a room and everything just feels comfortable … the people, the conversations, and the hugs. Everything about it just felt comfy, like that worn pair of jeans you love or your favorite blanket on the couch.
I walked into the hotel lobby and it all just clicked. I saw faces I recognized from last year, some I only knew from their twitter avatars or blogs, and entirely new ones as well. The hugs and handshakes started to melt down that wall of nerves I’d built and by the time welcome reception came around that night I was comfortable and ready to take on the weekend.
Well … kinda sorta comfortable. You see, while I’d knocked down my wall of nerves I didn’t realize I hadn’t cracked opened a hole to let my confidence out. It was then that I found myself in the Self Acceptance and Weight Loss session on Friday unable to speak, frozen with nerves. I sat there listening to all of the amazing stories and insight into self acceptance, wanting to participate, to share my story, but unable to muster the confidence. While I thought I’d learned my lesson from last year I apparently still stumbled on that first step to sharing. If you have the time I definitely recommend reading the liveblog from this session, warning … bring Kleenex.
After the session I vowed to not make the same mistake on Saturday during the When You Have A Lot To Lose session. It was sorta harder to freeze up there anyhow as Tara asked me to participate … like last year, she challenged me to break out of my comfort zone (in a good way). Tara has an amazing way of bringing the best out of everyone around her, I miss her already.
During the session Tara spoke first, followed by Meegan, finally I had the microphone for a few minutes. I tried not to talk too fast and mumble, both habits I have when I start speaking about things I’m excited about. I explained my backstory, my tipping point(s), and offered my advice and then it was over. I wasn’t sure if the format would allow us to circle back or not, it didn’t but I wish it had. Afterwards I thought of so much more to share but rather than bore you with that now I’ll save it for a future blog post. I’ll just say now that I opened up and though I wanted to say more it felt great to not sit there bottling up thoughts and feelings and to instead share with everyone.
While there were a number of great session at FitBloggin, these two for me were pivotal when I look back at the overall experience this year. They best represent how our community strives to support one another, how deep our back stories are, and how despite outward appearances we’re all our own worst enemy when it comes to self acceptance and weight loss. The health & fitness battle journey truly is 10% physical and 90% mental.
I know this posting may not be what you were expecting from a recap but to me FitBloggin is not about the money making sessions nor the networking to build my brand. When we’re honest with ourselves, and on our blogs, readers will engage us and opportunities will present themselves. How we schedule our tweets, setup our SEO, or place our ads is missing the point. FitBloggin as a conference will always have sessions that focus on educating us but it’s true strength lies in it’s community and the sessions around building and supporting it.
Through the community we’re stronger, healthier, and more accountable … we’re able to call bullshit and we change lives.
FitBloggin is not a bunch dreary lectures from talking heads like most conferences, it’s much more like a huge community hug with smiling and accepting friends family.
Wrapping It Up
I did actually decide to close by sharing the sessions I attended and link to their live blogs (where available). I changed my mind on sharing the sessions I attended partially because I didn’t want to forget and mostly because they were awesome sessions that I highly suggest you check out. I won’t regurgitate the details here, that’s what the live blogs are for … besides I couldn’t capture all of the details and emotions anyhow. I actually plan on blog postings for a few of them soon, check back in the coming days and weeks.
Thursday
- McCormick Offsite Tour
- Evening Mixer
- Susan Ito’s Food Food Body Body performance
Friday
- Yoga
- CrossFit
- Got Chocolate Milk
- Cathe Friedrich Workout
- Self Acceptance and Weight Loss
- Blogging, How Much Is Too Much
- Ignite Fitness Keynote
Saturday
- Zumba
- Turning Your Post Into An Article
- When You Have A Lot To Lose
- Monetizing Through The Pitch
- Reception
Sunday
- FitBloggin 5k
Thanks for taking the time to read. Hopefully I’ll see everyone in Portland next June for FitBloggin 2013!
