Another good week — Week 23 progress

I weighed myself on Thursday morning and was 233½ lbs or something like that. It basically put me at half way to my goal. However, as of this morning I was officially 235 (I think). I indulged a little too much in free chocolate at work. :) Still good progress for this week. The new calorie limit is working out well. As LiveStrong.com adjusts it based on my weight, I'm allowed a hair under 1600 per day now.

With the new limit, I'm finding more and more that I need to work out somedays if I'm going to be able to eat anything decent for supper. It's not like I'm going overboard for breakfast or lunch either. They workout to 400-500 calories each. That doesn't leave a lot for supper, although it should. I just happen to like a little more sometimes at supper, or have a beer to go along with it.

That's the price I gotta pay and I'm more than willing to.

 

7/52 — Week 15

A somewhat disrupted week, but I managed to pull through with some photos anyway. Mind you, a tad repetitive. The sight of pizza makes up for it, I'm sure. Here we go...

The first, and only, DailyShoot assignment photo this week. I sooo love this game, but I usually play the bass more than the drums.

It was our homemade pizza night. Our kids like to keep it simple: pepperoni and cheese. That's it, that's all.

My wife and I like pepperoni, mushroom and hot pepper. If you've never tried it, you HAVE TO. Even if you're not a big fan of hot peppers, they really make it yummy, and they're not as hot as you might think.

From food, to birds. The feeder is right outside our living room window and they're fun to watch. This weekend we had more birds than I've ever seen. I think this is a female yellow finch. (Update: According to someone on Flickr, this is an "American Goldfinch that's still hanging onto its winter plumage")

I don't know what these are. I thought maybe some kind of finch, but searching the bird web sites turned up nothing that looked close. (Update: Again, according to someone on Flickr, these are "Common Redpolls")

These are my favourite, and from what I could find, they are yellow finches.

The birds tend to make a big mess on the patio, and this time they decided to clean (or attempt to) their own mess. My son said the photo makes them look like cock roaches. They drove my cat crazy.

As a bonus, you get to see my cat talking to them. :)

Nearly half way — Week 22 progress

I'm down 30.6 lbs in total as of this morning. It might actually be a pound or so more, but I forget my exact weight from this morning, so I erred on the side of caution and went a little higher.

I had a little help with the weight loss this week, as I had to fast all Wednesday in prep for a... uhh... medical examination on Thursday. Not a pleasant experience, but at least I reaped some benefit from it. :) I weighed myself on Wednesday morning before fasting and I was already down a couple of pounds. Nuff said.

I calculated that I have lost 1.3 lbs per week since I started this. It's not the 2 lbs per week that I had hoped to lose, but I think that' s probably a healthier rate in the end. At this rate, it'll take another 27 weeks to reach my goal, which brings me to around mid-October. That's a little disappointing considering I had hoped to hit my goal by mid-June, but again, probably healthier in the long run.

Having said that, I'm feeling really positive about the progress. I can't remember the last time I was this weight.

7/52 — Week 14

Without further ado... a whole bunch of 100mm shots, except for one.

A DailyShoot submission, and I really like this one. It turned out better than I expected. It did, however, require a bunch of small touch-ups with Digital Photo Professional's stamp tool to remove a plethora of dust specs. It does a great job.

The second of the two DailyShoot submissions for this past week. I like it as well, almost as much as I like my 100mm lens.

What would a week of my 7/52 be like without a shot of my 'ol kitty. She slept on the couch beside me on Saturday afternoon while I watched hockey on the TV.

This evening I decided to shoot different foods at 100mm to see how well it would work with no special lighting. First up... Bread.

Strawberry wheaty things. Didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I couldn't get the lighting/exposure just the way I wanted in post-processing. Although, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have much patience to tweak it more.

Cocoa. And ya know something... it's unsweetened, as I found out when I got some on my finger. Blech. :)

My favourite of the evening. The lighting and detail are just right, I think.

 

Success — Week 21 progress

It was close.

I was a little worried yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale and didn't see the kind of progress that I was hoping for. But this morning, seeing 239 blinking back at me made me was a great way to start the day. :)

239 is now my lowest official weigh-in so far. I had been a pound or two lower a few weeks ago, during a mid-week check, but by the time the Friday came around I had put it back on.

Onward and... uhh... downward!

Planning? What planning?

I cut my calorie intake from ~2200 to ~1600 on Sunday. I'm only two or three days into it and I can see that my meal planning is going to take... uhhh... some actual planning. :)

Yesterday I consumed a little over 1600, but I did burn 400 in a workout so it brings it well under my limit. That was a good day. I didn't starve myself, and I got to enjoy food I like. (FYI... a Lick's hamburger patty alone has 300 calories!)

Today, which is supposed to be one of my non-workout-break days, I'm already down to just under 500 remaining for supper if I want to keep it under 1600. I guess that's not bad — it works out to almost a third of the daily total for one of three meals. But, there's talk of fajitas for supper. I may have to get in some unplanned workout time before that, just in case.

I really hope I see some good progress by Friday's weigh-in. It'll be a huge motivator to let me know that I'm back on the right track. I already told my wife that even though there's a Sen's hockey game on TV Thursday, which can mean homemade "hockey pizza" night, I'd prefer that we skip it and have pizza for Saturday's game instead.

7/52 — Week 13

A DailyShoot photo. I borrowed the subject matter from a friend, posed it, and shot it. I converted it to monochrome and gave it a bit of a tint.

Another DailyShoot photo. The theme was "metal". I had difficulty focusing, probably because I shot it at f/2.8.

The DailyShoot topic for this one was... orange. Duh. I fired off a half dozen or so until getting this one. The others are pretty good as well, but not as "dominated by orange" as this one was.

Here's one of the reshot photos previously mentioned. This one is at f/11. It has better focus on them mug, but I find the background a little distracting from the subject matter.

Day 17 of my attempt to grow an avacado plant.

I'm trying a second seed as well. :)

Probably one of my favourite shots of the week... a DailyShoot that didn't make the cut for "orange".