The 25 pound (11.33 kg) Challenge
4:55AM, November 27, 2008 - [Permalink]
For most of my life, I've been overweight to varying degrees. As a child I can clearly remembering my grandma buying pants for me that were "husky" size. At the time, I thought it just was something cool, but it was for overweight kids. Looking back at some very old (and non-digital) photos, I was a pudgy kid, probably not terribly so, compared to the kids today, but still. Even when I was running 20 KM per day, I was overweight. Like, what the hell?
The precedent was set.
Sometime in 2003, I topped out at 270 pounds (122 KG) and freaked out. My body mass index was 38.7 and started to work on eating healthier. Tracey also wanted to lose weight, so we worked on it together and we managed to loose a pile of weight - I bottomed out at 161 pounds (73 KG).The problem was, I lost the weight *too fast*, and I developed gallstones, which I can tell you under no uncertain terms are no fun whatsoever. I managed to dodge the bullet of having surgery to remove my gallbladder (I like it exactly where it is, thank you very much). An epic battle of was waged to rid me of the gallstones, which I totally won, but that's another story.
Over this summer, Tracey and I both crept up in weight, due to our being real busy with work, bad food planning, and lots of yummy order-in.
That brings us to now.
When we got back from our lovely vacation, it was time to get back into eating healthily, with smaller portions, and less processed foods.Back in July, I did up a post and video about my Easy Soup that I'd started to make.
After about two months of careful eating, calorie counting and meal-planning, I have lost 14 pounds, reaching 180 pounds (81.6 KG).
The Challenge:
So here's what I'm thinking; My target weight is 155 pounds (70.3 KG), which I believe to be safely attainable by continuing on the road I'm on, and probably arriving there by March or April. I would like to specifically challenge David Peralty, a friend who writes for more web sites that I have kilos to loose, to loose his first twenty five pounds while I loose my last twenty five (which is from my understanding, the hardest).This is not a race to see who can loose the weight - I'd be happy if he could loose the 25 at the same pace I am. This is about supporting each other while we work on eating healthier, exercising more, and loosing weight along the way.
In fact, I think I'd open this up to anyone else who'd like to participate. I've added my current weight and latest exercise on the right hand side of the blog so you can all keep an eye on me. To participate, send me an email with your blog, and I'll add it to the list of participants.
What you need to do:
Currently, I update my weight and exercise on the side of my blog, so I think it would be reasonable to ask for at least weekly updates on your own blog or twitter account (try using the hashtag #25lbs) or other publicly accessible location on the Internet. I'll take a photo of me on the scale and post it to Flickr. Actually, I have created a Flickr Group so we can all do this, keep it clean, kids. I'll be linking to your blog/Twitter/etc, so I wouldn't mind a link back to this post:What I am doing
I'm obsessive about counting (points to my M&M Colour Distribution Research Project), so I count my weight, my caloric intake, and my exercise. I use a white board on our fridge, and some custom-built database freakyness, but Tracey uses About.com's Calorie Count web site, which works very well. Tracey's account and mine. Admittedly, I don't update mine much, but this is about what works for you.As I mentioned before, We've been focusing on meal planing (soup!), healthy portions *and* food, and exercise. I'm going to start getting back into regularly doing Push-ups, sit-ups and leg-lifts.
Hopefully, with my tracking software, and some encouragement from y'all, I can get back into the rhythm.
Lastly, this doesn't end when I/we loose our twenty five (or whatever amount, really) pounds. Once it comes off, it stay's off. Sure, we'll fall down from time to time, but you get back up and get back to it.
List of Participants
- Me (goal: 25 lbs)
- Tracey Vibert (goal 20 lbs)
- David Peralty (goal 25 lbs
- SuzeMuse (goal 20 lbs)
Additionally, there is now a Flickr Group with discussions, thanks to David for getting the discussions started.
A recreational badminton team goes to a tournament.
2:15PM, October 29, 2008 - [Permalink]
I'm a pretty avid badminton player, even though I don't take it too seriously. I've been playing since 2000 or 2001 (hard to nail it down exactly) at the Routhier Community Centre in the market area of Ottawa, and many of us have been playing together for years.
Two years ago, we entered a badminton tournament in Aylmer, and we got slaughtered, but we had a good time of it anyway.
We decided to go again, and take another whirl at it.
Our group doesn't take things too seriously - we could barely motivate to practice twice before the tournament.
I woke up at the completely unholy hour of 5:45 in the morning - pretty close to when I'm used to going to bed to give you an idea of just how wrong this is. I showered, puttered around, and headed off to Zak's with Tracey for breakfast, were I was reminded that their portion sizes are freakishly huge, and I smartly didn't clean my plate.
Mel met me at Zak's and she drove to the high school where the tournament was taking place. We changed into our badminton duds, and started warming up as the rest of our team showed up.
Hopefully, the organizers will work out something better than the PA system they were using as half the time we couldn't understand what they were saying.
Then the games began.
Playing against A-level teams could be pretty frustrating - if we were trying seriously, but obviously we weren't (hence the lack of practicing). That said, our ladies doubles (Crystal and Mel) came very close to winning against one of Ottawa U's teams.
Even though we're in this for fun, I get very self-conscious when I'm on the court at these competitions - I believe that I am the weakest player on our team, so I sometimes try a little too hard. Louie reminded me to relax and all was well.
Until our racquets clashed (my forehand smash to his back hand) and my Black Knight Rapier Pro died on the court, but fortunately, his racquet was fine. I ran off-court, and borrowed someone's racquet and got back on court, and continued the game, which we lost. I did get back into my groove, using other people's racquets, though. If your expectations are low enough, you can have an awful lot of fun.
At this point, I'd observe that nearly everyone we played against was pretty cool about not just clubbing us like baby platypuses. One team, however, we all felt was pretty unsportsman-like, which was unfortunate.
Our impressive streak streak of losses continued until we made it into D-level, which is where we pretty much belonged. We were eliminated, placing sixteenth of sixteen, which is roughly where I expected us to be. Looking back over the games, the biggest problem I had were the errors; net-serves, short serves, shots just out, etc.
Nonetheless, it was fun. Maybe next time we'll actually practice.
Behind the scenes: Canadian Museum Of Nature
4:41PM, October 07, 2008 - [Permalink]
Last week, friends of mine, Mel & Martin, knowing what a huge museum geek I am, invited me (and Tracey) to come with them on a private tour of the Museum of Nature's Natural Heritage Building - their workshops and storage facility.
The building itself is in Hull, a short drive away from our place. Once there, we were introduced to some of the folks who work for the museum, Kieran, Jennifer and another lady whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.
I cleverly wore my "Never Forget" tshirt, which the paleontologist thought was funny, however, I was in such awe of the collection, I completely didn't think of getting a photo of be beside some of the specimens until we were driving home.
The tour started with the walking through a records room, with a few small samples and, notably, a yellow Lego triceratops. From there, the tour began in minerals and dinosaurs, a large room filled with rows and rows of shelves filled with catalogued specimens.
As we moved through the collection, I recognized various pieces that used to be on display in the museum, including a huge cross section of a tree trunk that used to be on the fourth floor.
We were shown how many bones were still in the original packing from when they were dug up, some dating back into the early 1910's. Also in this particular isle was a previously lost skeleton - it had been lent out many years ago, and then, lost. Eventually, it was found in a trailer and returned to the museum.
To be completely honest, they could have just left me in this room and I would have giddily kept myself busy looking at bones and rocks for the rest of the day, however, the tour moved on.
We moved into a somewhat cooler room, that contained many of the specimens from the ice age exhibit we saw when Tracey and I went to the museum at the end of our summer vacation.
We then moved into the botany collection - another large room full of sealable storage cabinets that contained dried specimens, which Jennifer told us, once included a plastic flower collected on the shore of Hudson's bay (and stored as a deferred joke, I suspect). She also showed us some very old field journals and talked about protecting the collection over time (acid free paper, temperature and humidity controls, etc).
Next, we moved on to the lab where specimens that are stored in formaldehyde or alcohol are processed. The room is heavily ventilated (read: loud), *everything* is grounded, and equipped to handle containers large enough to hold a shark. There were what appeared to be small lampreys, and a few creatures I couldn't readily identify. The technician spoke about the process of keeping the samples safe, dealing with evaporation, and simple solutions they have come up with for various problems.
The next room had a collection of mounted skeletons in one corner, the walls were *covered* in antlers from various animals (that must be chore to organize, I'm certain), more rows and rows of shelves storing everything from giant turtle shells, narwhal tusks, and other water-borne creatures. Along the wall there were two mounted whale skulls - intellectually, I knew whales were big, but seeing them in person really gave me a clear idea as to the scale.
The room also contains some bones and vertebrae of the blue whale that will be mounted in the Museum of Nature when the renovations are completed. Amusingly, the palentologists have been tasked with assembling the whale skeleton, as they've had lots of practice.
Also worth noting was that one of the ribs was oozing whale oil - the bones need to be treated to remove the oil, otherwise the mounted skeletons would be rather messy.
We then moved on to the insect collection (they were out, unfortunately), and then we spoke with Andre (hope I got that correct), who is a mollusk expert. I know, I know; I thought the same thing - but after chatting with him for half an hour, I was keenly reminded why everything in the world is so fascinating.
Our final stop was a smelly room where the blue whale skull (that will be mounted) was being treated to remove the previously mentioned oils. *Holy crap is it huge*. The skull and jaw are in a "tub" that is large enough to hold our car.
We finished, returned to the lobby, thanked everyone profusely and drove home. The staff was wonderful at answering everyone's questions and very tolerant of my taking photos - I would truly love to go back and spend more time going through the collections.
More of my photos from the trip can be found in this Flickr Set.
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