Day 417 - Getting Cold

I think it's getting cold enough at night that I should close the windows.  Well, one more sign of ending of the summer.

112/78/55 181lb 95 mg/DL

Day 416 - More Late Post

Sorry for the late post.  I sincerly didn't know what happened with that post.

115/74/79 181.2lb 101 mg/DL

Day 415 - Less Summer Heat

I live in the part of San Fernando Valley that's cold in the winter, and very hot in the summer.  Either this summer is extra mild compared to the past decade or the reduced body fat have altered my sense of heat.  Typically, about 1/2 way through the summer, it would've gotten hot enough for me to change the blanket into summer ones.  (I use the old fashion Chinese style cotton blanket).  This summer, I don't ever feel the need to do that, so as we head further into autumn, I'm still utilizing the heavy blanket.  Well, that's one less thing I have to do.

119/77/57 181.8lb 92 mg/DL

Day 414 - Back One Hole

After saying that I've been trying the new belt setting for about a week, I've decided to go back to the previous setting.  Since I'm close to goal weight, killing myself by this restriction might not be the best idea.  So back to 4 holes instead of five.

113/76/69 182lb 93 mg/DL

Day 413 - Third Belt Fourth Hole

So after debating for a while, I went ahead and wear the belt one more hole in.  It's not quit comfortable yet.  But lets see how this works out.

111/69/50 181.8lb 97 mg/DL

Day 412 - End of Week 59

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

09-25-2011 Front

09-25-2011 Side

More holding pattern.  Although I really did over ate at last night's dinner.  One more months before my eye surgery.  It should be interesting.

120/79/61 181.0lb 97 mg/DL
Week to Week 0.4lb
Total Weight Loss 147lb
BMI 25.97

Day 411 - Rest Day

I decided to take it easy today.  I still do my morning exercise.  But other than taking my car in for the 100k service, I did almost nothing.  I even try to catch up on sleep.  Well, time for more sleep.

117/79/70 180.6lb 95 mg/DL

Day 410 - Using Google+ for Work

I was going to blog about the frustrating last two days at work, but why dwell on the negative.  Lets talk about something positive.

As part of my work, I have to walk through my customer through installation and configuration of software.  If it's within the company, we'll use Microsoft Communicator and screen sharing function.  If it's external entity, we could use WebEx for collaboration screen share.

Yesterday, I was assisting someone within the company who didn't have much use for Microsoft Communicator, thus his account was deactivated.  I didn't feel like wasting money for WebEx for internal company configuration, so we hit upon the idea of using Google+ Hangout to share desktop elements.  Surprisingly enough, this actually work well.  The screen sharing function was introduced 3 days ago, and for some reason, the interface I have at work is stuck in the old fashion version, and I have to have my colleague start the hangout to get that function across.  I may have to take this webcam to work and see if it makes any difference.

120/72/51 181lb 91 mg/DL

Day 409 - Thigh Exercise Progress

I'm supposed to be working on the thigh exercise.  Unfortunately, I already have one lapse yesterday (didn't do it), and my thigh are still sore from Monday & Tuesday's exertion.  As I now write this, I'm reminded that a major point of the exercise is to do them.  So, I'm going to allocate time immediately after dinner to do these simple routines.

117/81/49 181lb 97 mg/DL

Day 408 - Buying Winter Clothing

With the Summer almost over, it's time to think about Fall & Winter clothing.  All of my winter clothing that I currently still owns are at least from 40 to 60 pounds ago.  The jackets are from at least when I was 355 pounds.  Needless to say, they don't fit me.  Today, on my way back from lunch, I stop in store and found a jacket (similar in design with the 2 of my largest jackets) that's 50% off.  I look at the price, and figure it's worth the value, and I really will need it in 3 to 4 months down the road, so that took care of one of the holes.  Now, to find sweat pants and shirts that fits me for walking around at home.

117/79/70 180.6lb 93 mg/Dl

Day 407 - Thigh Exercise

I got my annual flu shot yesterday.  The left arm is still sore, and will continue to be sore for 2-3 more days.  I got the shot after seeing my physician about my creaking knees.  Unfortunately she really doesn't have any magical remedy for me, other than trying out a new regiment of exercise to strengthen my thigh muscles in an attempt to straighten my ligaments.  I've already done one for yesterday, and much to my surprise, my thigh muscles hasn't fully recover yet.

125/81/61 180.6lb 95 mg/DL

Day 406 - Slowing The Pace

Whenever I either increase the pace or the length of my exercise, I've always push myself and maintain that new plateau.  This time, my 2 week experiment of walking 3 miles in the morning must come to an end.  Both of my knees are now hurting, even while not doing anything more exerting than walking.  And this is not right.  This morning, I dialed my pace back down to 3.9 MPH fro 4MPH.  I'm still getting a work out.  Lets just hope I didn't do too much permanent damage.

122/77/69 181.4lb 95 mg/DL

Day 405 - End of Week 58

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

09-18-2011 Front

09-18-2011 Side

The week of eating take out food with very little means of actually figuring out how much isn't doing me much favor.  I went back to the exact weight of 2 weeks ago.  Thankfully, this kind of living is coming to an end and my regiment will be returning.

115/76/53 181.4lb 95 mg/DL
Week to Week -1.8lb
Total Weight Loss 146.6lb
BMI 26.03

Day 404 - Company Picnic

For some reason, I utterly forgot to post this yesterday.  Well, it's not like I was actually doing anything useful...

On Friday, I attended the second company picnic since my surgery.  Last year, I was about 7 weeks out of surgery when I attended the event, and while I can eat solid food, I was definitely NOT aware of my limits.  This year, I actually know my limit, and can eat a bit more than last year.  I think I did it a bit better, but the bag of popcorn didn't do me much favor.  I guess I can group the popcorn into the same category as bread and pasta as food to avoid.

119/81/60 181.6lb 101 mg/DL

Day 403 - Nisemonogatari

I originally was going to post about the return of back pain I sort of experienced yesterday.  However, the announcement of tv series adoptation of Nisemonogatari on January 2012 sort of made my day :).  Here's the trailer:

No real details except the slight changes in character designs for Hitagi, Suruga, Nadeko, and Tsubasa (gee, that's more than half of the cast).

And SHAFT also released a trailer for the previous announced prequel Kizumonogatari:

Also, This is the one year anniversary of the blog.  I don't play as much World of Warcraft as before, but I'm still blogging.

108/72/56 181.8lb 94 mg/DL

Day 402 - Sleep

As I become older, the things that I can just shrugged off with a good night of sleep become less and less.  Back in college and early part of my working career, going without sleep is doable, with lots and lots of caffeine.  I'll be quit irritable, but it's workable.  Now that I'm 41, this is no longer possible.

I used to able to do gaming late into night, and do catch up sleep during the weekend.  That also doesn't work.  Guess I'm just going to have to actually sleep at a reasonable time.

106/70/47 180.8lb 98 mg/DL

Day 401 - Judging Progress

Yesterday was another one of the support meeting where 2-3 times a year they bring in alumni of the program that are a bit further out.  All the while I sat there, I come to some realization.  My current state of the regiment IS a success.  Not as fast and as far as I would like it, but a success none the less.  Now I may have to have a doctor look at this bump on my right knee, but that's for another day.

Currently plowing through the podcast Writing Excuses by Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler and Dan Wells.  Though I'm not a writer, I do appreciate listening for guides on the mechanics of the writing.  Plus at this length, I can listen to 1-2 episodes on my way into work, and 2-3 episode on my way back to home.

120/74/47 182.2lb 96 mg/DL

Day 400 - Waking Up Early

I woke up at 4AM this morning. 45 minutes earlier than usual. It usually took me another 10 minutes to get my body down stairs and start the recording of my measurement. Since I'm running against clock this morning, I went right ahead and force myself to start my day right away.

It's now 3 hours later, and my initial rush of energy (I still have to do my morning exercise) seemed to have worn off, and I'm getting bout of fatigue already. So I'm resorting back to more coffee. 4 more days of this kind of routine. It's not exactly doing wonders for my weight loss program.

113/75/44 183.2lb 94 mg/DL

Day 399 - Vegetable

I've never been one to actively seeking out eating vegetable. I ate vegetable when the rest of my family have theirs. When they don't, I have to resort to eating kimchi to get my daily quota. Perhaps it's time for me to start drinking the V8 low sodium in earnest.

116/76/49 180.6lb 94 mg/DL

Day 398 - End of Week 57

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

09-11-2011 Front

09-11-2011 Side

The picture this week and next will be somewhat different, as I'm going to have to take them myself via a timed delay camera.  It turns out OK, I suppose.

113/82/56 179.6lb 99 mg/DL
Week to Week 1.8lb
Total Weight Loss 148.4
BMI 26.03

Day 397 - When Life Intrudes Upon Routine

The next week is likely to be somewhat interesting in terms of my routine.  This morning, I have to wake up at 3:30AM (I usually wake up at 6AM in the weekends) to deliver my brothers to the airport.  I still managed to get the exercise done after I got back.  Starting Tuesday, it's likely that I'll have to wake up 45 minutes earlier to get into work by 7AM for classes.  It'll be a challenge.

113/76/59 180.6lb 92 mg/DL

Day 396 - Further Ramping Up of Exercise

After writing up last night's post, I decided to follow through with the increase pace up to 4 MPH.  I actually did a bit more than 45 minutes (almost 46 minutes) and while my knees held up, I did feel mild soreness and numbness with my right hip joint.  I'll see how that helds up tomorrow.

124/80/66 181.4lb 93 mg/DL
Month 13 6.4lb

Day 395 - More Belt Tightening

One of the things I do when I hit plateau is to add additional challenges. Now, I don't always keep that through, but it helps. Right now, my morning exercise regiment is 45 minutes of walk at 3.9 MPH pace. At some point, I should graduate to 4 MPH pace, just not today.

One of the other things that I do is to ever decrease the size of the belt I'm wearing. I test out some of my brother's older pants, and confirm that I can now wear size 34 with some effort, and size 36 comfortably. This means that I actually have some latitude in terms of how I wear my belt. As I mentioned back on Saturday, I'm on my third notch of the third belt.  Surprisingly enough, I'm already somewhat comfortable with this setting, and with some effort, I could go down more.  However, it's not quit there yet.

113/78/67 181.6lb 99 mg/DL

Day 394 - Dealing with Heat

I've mentioned that part of the side issue with the loss of fat off my body is the lost of insulation, which made me much more aware of coldness. It got progressive worse during the winter and early part of spring when the weather was cold.

The summer in Southern California this year has been mild, with yesterday being really oppressively warm. I have to step outside of the office three time yesterday , and in each instance, the heat envelops me, along with the humidity. I supposes I'm should be less susceptible to this discomfort do to the less insulation, but truthfully, it really feels no better. It will be 108 today.

Well, it's something I can live with with.

116/75/56 182lb 97 mg/DL

Day 393 - Eating Out

We went back to StoneFire Grill for Labor Day lunch yesterday. This time, I've learn my lessons from previous visit there. I gave myself, one small portion of salad, half of a bread stick, 2 slices of tri-tip beef. 2 slices of BBQ pork rib, and one small chicken drum stick. And I stick to the meal plan and not eat anything else.

Unfortunately, I decided to finish off the Sam Woo BBQ pork for dinner, with the rice. That actually set me into mini-insulin shock. The numbers this morning is still good. Lets see me stick more to the plan.

119/75/52 181.2lb 95 mg/DL

Day 392 - Defrosting Meat Quickly

I do quit a bit of my grocery shopping at Costco. Due to what they sell, I tend to buy things in bulk. That means the pork chop I buy from them have to be pre-sliced into individual serving size (usually 6oz) and put into zip-lock freezer bag for longer term storage.

When I have to inclination to prepare the pork, I run into the issue of defrosting the meat. Previously, I tried to thawed it using microwave at small time increment. The result tends to be cooked bits around the corner.

My brother suggested yesterday to put the freezer bag with the frozen meat right on top of the metal plate portion of the counter top range (in between the burner). The metal plate act like a heat conductor that accelerated the defrost process without doing anything else to it. I tried it, and within 10 minutes the meat is soft enough for me to cut, and process. Lets see how it turns out.

110/74/54 180.8lb 90 mg/DL

Day 391 - End of Week 56

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

09-04-2011 Front

09-04-2011 Side

A modest improvement this week.  Interesting enough that all of the weight loss came about between Friday and Saturday.  If I keep this up, I'll hit goal soon enough.

118/74/46 181.4lb 93 mg/DL
Week to Week 1.2lb
Total Weight Loss 146.6lb
BMI 26.03

Day 390 - Third Belt, Third Notch

Now that I'm at another plateau, it's time to do some change up.  I've been comfortable with the third belt at the second notch for a couple of weeks now.  As always, new tightening of the belt always feel weird.  I'm also not sure how much mileage I can get out of this, since I'm now wearing the belt smaller than my hip bones.

I have some Chinese BBQ pork from Sam Woo (bought 'em last night) with some rice for lunch today.  My brother bough the triple shredded beef/tendon/tofu from Noodle King for my dinner.  Lets hope it holds up for tomorrow's weight in.

115/76/56 181.4lb 83 mg/DL

Day 389 - Recommended Lecture: Howard Tayler at Utah Valley University Library Auditorium

Howard Tayler is writer and illustrator of the web comic series Schlock Mercenary.  It's one of my daily must read item that I can't do without.  However, this post isn't about that.  Instead, it's about a lecture he once gave about Talent Vs. Hard Work.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

And the last part:

The whole thing is about 36 minutes, and well worth the time to watch.

119/76/48 182lb 93 mg/DL

Day 388 - Loose Skin

Another one of the side effect of the weight loss is loose skin.  I currently have quit a bit of hanging skin below the belt line, around my thighs, and under my arms.  However, surprisingly enough, the places I most noticed is my back, where when I lied down, I can occasionally feel the folding of the skins.

I'm also a bit worry about the trend of my diastolic blood pressure in the last couple of days, which is trending up a bit more than I like.  Guess it's time to cut back on salt again.

121/80/60 183.2lb 87 mg/DL