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Friday, April 29, 2011

Another fail week — Week 24 progress

Failed the weigh-in this morning by a pound and a half. They seem to happen on a regular basis, followed by a catch-up loss. When I see the graph of my loss, it's like a roller coaster ride. As long as it continues to go down overall, I don't think there's any reason to be concerned. So I'm not. :)

 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

7/52 — Week 16

More birds, no cats, and signs of spring.

I shot this from my truck while waiting for my wife at Giant Tiger and Shoppers City East. You see this every once in a while and there's no clear explanation for it. If you Google "shoes hanging from wires" you'll find a whole bunch of theories. One blogger pretty much summed it up: "So there you have it. It's either a harmless prank, a rite of passage, or a sign of the end of civilization. You figure it out." :)

The finches are becoming more and more trusting. Yes, there's a pane of glass between where I stand and the feeder, but they hardly pay any attention to me now when I walk up to the window to watch or photograph them.

The finches were out in full force this weekend, and emptied the feeder twice. I tried to catch them in flight coming and going.

No flowers yet, but the lily bulbs began sprouting in the last two weeks.

The peonies have sprouted and reach for the sun.

Stop. Click the photo if you don't know what it is.

A sure sign of spring at our house; I put our patio table and chairs out on our small front patio. All it needs is a nice cold beer sitting on it. :)

 

Friday, April 22, 2011

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.

 

Sunday, April 17, 2011

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. :)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

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.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

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.

 

Friday, April 8, 2011

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!