Down with Whitey

In typical me-fashion, I’ve been debating for a few weeks on what my first reward would be when I hit the first ten pounds lost mark. And even though last week’s big fat ZERO happened on the scale, today I optimistically gave myself my present. Because surely this Sunday will reflect the milestone, right? RIGHT???

I decided on…a month of tanning, yay! Something Shari said when she got back from vacation is really what I’m blaming this on. Tan hides fat. I’m here to tell you it’s true. Well, maybe not so much hides it, but it certainly does something good to it. And as someone who has had an on again/off again relationship with the tanning bed, I know I always feel better about myself when I resemble human colored flesh, as opposed to the translucent glow I’ve been sporting for awhile.

And trust me. Even though I technically started today, it will certainly be awhile before I see any difference. I know from experience I have to go SLOW when I do this (started at 8 minutes today) and be patient, or I’ll just end up an itchy, burny, flaky mess. And even though I do eventually get a nice even color, I’ll never be asked to model Hawiian Tropic products. Well, maybe if I reach my tanning peak I could be the “Before” picture. Damn those “Before” pictures. My point is, by the time I’m tan I’ll have certainly reached the ten pound mark and actually hopefully even more than that, considering I know it’ll be a good month or so until I’m anything close to tan.

So what about you guys? Do you believe in the reward yourself system? Or do you think it’s just another excuse to spend unnecessary money? Inquiring minds and all that.

Good News/Bad News

The good news:  Yesterday I lifted about 40 pounds for about 600 repetitions.

The bad news:  It took me about eight hours to do it.

Sometimes it’s good to have a day when I’m not sitting on my butt behind a desk.  An active, physical-work day is sure as hell a lot less boring than an hour on a treadmill, watching the timer tick down.  And you get to accomplish some other things as well.

For the last several weeks, actually, almost every day I’ve been doing some sort of physical activity that involves a good hour of sweat.  If I’m not doing my manual-labor day at work, I’m mowing my lawn (push mower) in 90-degree heat.  If I’m not doing either, I’m working out.  It’s a lot less likely to result in burnout than five or six days a week on the same damned cross-trainer at the gym.

I would, however, recommend doing it someplace with air conditioning.  (And, if possible, with something you like on the TV.  The one day working a few weeks back with the World Series of Poker on the TV’s just flew by.  Nothing like finishing a workout by watching Hellmuth get knocked out of the Main Event by one of his former students.)