An exercise classic that still makes me laugh every time

Exercise

For Christmas this year my wife purchased me a week of private lessons at the local health club. Though still in great shape from when I was on the varsity chess team in high school, I decided it was a good idea to go ahead and try it.

I called and made reservations with someone named Tanya, who said she is a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and athletic clothing model. My wife seemed very pleased with how enthusiastic I was to get started.

Day 1 - They suggest I keep this "exercise diary" to chart my progress this week.

Started the morning at 6:00 AM. Tough to get up, but worth it when I arrived at the health club and Tanya was waiting for me. She's something of a goddess, with blond hair and a dazzling white smile. She showed me the machines and took my pulse after five minutes on the treadmill. She seemed a little alarmed that it was so high, but I think just standing next to her in that outfit of hers added ten points.

Enjoyed watching the aerobics class. Tanya was very encouraging as I did my sit ups, though my gut was already aching a little from holding it in the whole time I was talking to her. This is going to be GREAT!

Day 2 - Took a whole pot of coffee to get me out the door, but I made it. Tanya had me lie on my back and push this heavy iron bar up into the air. Then she put weights on it, for heaven's sake! Legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made it the full mile. Her smile made it all worth it. Muscles feel GREAT!!

Day 3 - The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the tooth brush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I am certain that I have developed a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was okay as long as I didn't try to steer. I parked on top of a Volkswagen.

Tanya was a little impatient with me and said my screaming was bothering the other club members. The treadmill hurt my chest so I did the stair monster. Why would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by the invention of elevators? Tanya told me regular exercise would make me live longer. I can't imagine anything worse.

Day 4 - Tanya was waiting for me with her vampire teeth in a full snarl. I can't help it if I was half an hour late, it took me that long just to tie my shoes. She wanted me to lift dumbbells. Not a chance,Tanya. The word "dumb" must be in there for a reason. I hid in the men's room until she sent Lars looking for me. As punishment she made me try the rowing machine. It sank.

Day 5 - I hate Tanya more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. If there was any part of my body not in extreme pain I would hit her with it. She thought it would be a good idea to work on my triceps. Well I have news for you Tanya, I don't have triceps. And if you don't want dents in the floor don't hand me any barbells. I refuse to accept responsibility for the damage, YOU went to sadist school, YOU are to blame. The treadmill flung me back into a science teacher, which hurt like crazy. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like a music teacher, or social studies?

Day 6 - Got Tanya's message on my answering machine, wondering where I am. I lacked the strength to use the TV remote so I watched eleven straight hours of the weather channel

Day 7 - Well, that's the week. Thank God that's over. Maybe next time my wife will give me something a little more fun, like a free upper-colon exam or gum surgery.

Week 2 results

So things have been really busy, but I have to post about yesterday. Joy pulled out a narrow victory by .1%!! I, unfortunately, fell off the wagon pretty bad last week. I only ran 3 days, and didn't do any of my other workouts. The only reason I was still in the running at all was because I managed to maintain some semblance of a controlled diet. Joy was victorious by exercising seriously 7 days a week. Dang.

The good news: We have both committed to 3 more weeks of competition. You have to give it time! We are still taking new competitors.

I hope to put out a real post soon. In the meantime, check out Heather's blog for the family updates.

Week 1 followup

Maybe it will be helpful to post what we did so we can learn from each other. I learned from Heather that I just need to get the stomach bug that is going around if I want to bump my numbers.

I ran for 30+ minutes on an eliptical on 5 of the 7 days, kept my diet around 2000 calories +/- did 2 resistance workouts and 1 failed stretching workout.

This week I need to do 30 minutes cardio 7/7 days, resistance 4/7 days and flexibility 3/7 days. Lets see how I do. Oh and continue to try to keep the diet in check. I eat whatever I want up to 2000 calories.

That sounds like a lot of work for 3 pounds. Hopefully I will do better this week.

Week 1

So yesterday was the first weigh in. Sorry for not posting yesterday, but it is never too late to catch up. I lost 1.5% (weight lost / original weight) which is a little short of my 2% goal, but not bad. I just need to push a little harder this week. It was enough to pull out a victory at the office, although this next week will be tough. So chime in and let us know how you did!

The game is on!!!

Okay, so for those of you who said you are going to participate, here is how it goes. Tonight (Tuesday) you have to weigh yourself to set a baseline and then next Tuesday I will do a post and you need to reply to the post with the percentage of weight lost. NO GUESSING OR ROUNDING ALLOWED. This will protect you from having to put actual weight numbers out there. If you don't reply to the post, I will just assume that you are all talk and no action (this is serious, man!). Jillian, you don't have anything to lose, so you can throw whatever you want out there. Or not.

Just for the record, there is one brave soul at work who has agreed to make this more interesting by putting money on the line between the two of us. The one who loses the least has to pay the winner, who lost the most, $5. Then we repeat the following week. Overall I have more weight to lose, so I am going to win:) Any other takers on that deal?

Oh, and another coworker gets to call me "Tubby" until I weigh less than him (like next week) and then I get to use the name on him for the rest of eternity, because he isn't exercising. HA! Take that.

Ok, so on your marks, get set, go!

Im a Loser, just not the Biggest Loser

So I was just talking to a friend at work about the reality show "The Biggest Loser." Now in case anyone is confused, yes I am still morally opposed to reality shows, but this show is different. It is based on people affecting real, lasting life-long changes for the better.

So why write a post about it? For one, I didn't realize I was so into it. I could tell stories about previous contestants and had my own story to add to it. I guess it is almost into the hobby category for me. Weird. Anyway, without realizing it, I told how I was a Loser. I didn't realize it before, but I have a Losing story, so I decided to share it with the world now, just because I can.

I weighed the most I have ever weighed at the end of last year -- 235 lbs. Yep, I just put that most personal number on the internet for all to see. Take that. You may be thinking "He's not a big fatso. Chunky maybe, or thick at times (in more ways than one) but 235?" Yes my friends, it is true. The link to my proof--all of the pictures of me being fat--is here.

That's right, the link doesn't work. One, because I ain't puttin' those pics on the world wide web, and two, because they are no longer accurate. I started watching The Biggest Loser last season and after a couple of hours watching fat people suffer at the hands of two of America's fittest personal trainers, and lose over a hundred pounds in one week collectively, I thought "I could do that!" So I started exercising and keeping track of my exercising and my diet. Each Tuesday night, as the contestants weighed in, I would take a commercial break and step onto my bathroom scale. Some weeks were good, some not so much. But the point is that the show got me to take action.

In the end, my good habits were not permanent. The show ended and so did my record keeping, exercising and calorie-control initiative. I returned to the bottle (of Dr. Pepper) and my sedentary lifestyle. What did last is the result. I lost 25 lbs. in that time, and I have maintained at 210 for almost a year. No, I'm not "healthy" and I am probably in as bad a shape as ever, but there were results, and I am thankful for that.

So now a new season has begun, and I have been watching. It is time for me to get back up off of the couch and make another run at it. My goal is to be 180 in 2009. (Pretty brave to write my goal down like that, huh? It means that I have to do it or you have the right to humiliate me later.) I believe in baby steps, so I am shooting to be 200 by Christmas, 190 by 2/1/09 and 180 by my birthday in March. Anyone want to join me? It doesn't count until you have set concrete goals in a reply to this post (you don't have to share personal numbers however:)). I predict zero participants, mostly because I only have 2.5 readers, and all 2.5 of those people are probably too smart to share the goals like I just did. Or maybe you are already in shape. I will accept any goal in lieu of weight loss in that scenario. Go ahead I dare you.

Finally, I will end with one caveat. I like TBL as a show. It is much more uplifting than most of the other crap on TV, but they have caved into making it a big emotional blubber fest for half the show to get people more emotionally involved. Now I'm not saying that it isn't an emotionally trying time for the contestants, I just don't want to watch it. So I record it with my DVR (which is the greatest thing since sliced bread) and skip the commercials and crying-people parts. It is just better that way.

The Cab Driver Goes to Heaven

A cab driver reaches the Pearly Gates and announces his presence to St. Peter, who looks him up in his Big Book. Upon reading the entry for the cabbie, St. Peter invites him to pick up a silk robe and a golden staff and to proceed into Heaven.

A preacher is next in line behind the cabby and has been watching these proceedings with interest. He announces himself to St. Peter. Upon scanning the preacher's entry in the Big Book, St. Peter furrows his brow and says, "Okay, we'll let you in, but take that cloth robe and wooden staff."

The preacher is astonished and replies, "But I am a man of the cloth. You gave that cab driver a gold staff and a silk robe. Surely I rate higher than a cabbie."

St. Peter responded matter-of-factly: "This is heaven and up here, we are interested in results. When you preached, people slept. When the cabbie drove his taxi, people prayed."

Funny stuff

So I have decided to use my blog to aggregate stuff that I don't know where else to keep. My last post was a memory that I wanted to preserve. This one is much less noble: A joke. Rather than spam the world with it, I will post it here for present and future visitors to enjoy.

Now, yes, this one was emailed to me (courtesy of my dad), but it is funny. I'll try not to do this too often, but often enough to have a good list of jokes when I am done.



UPS Airlines

Just in case you need a laugh:
Remember it takes a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one; a reassurance to those of us who fly routinely in our jobs.
After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet,' which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics corrects the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way,UPS is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident.
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
*
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
*
P: Something loose in cockpit
S: Something tightened in cockpit
*
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
*
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute
Descent
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
*
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
*
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
*
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.
*
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
*
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you' re right.
*
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search
*
P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.
*
P:Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
*
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
*
And the best one for last
*
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from the midget..