Photo courtesy of Christophe Verdier

Well folks, today is my 28th birthday, and I have never felt better about getting older.

Just a few facts about this year.

• I became a father of two, Hudson was born in November.
• I gained 15 pounds this year (sympathy weight from my wife’s pregnancy).
• I lost 30 pounds this year (against all sleepless-night odds)
• I can now run a 5K (though I haven’t done an official 5K)

But the biggest thing this year has been my change in mindset

I really feel I have broken that weight roller coaster that I have been on.  The last six months have been the longest period of sustained weight loss I’ve ever had.  I have changed my thought process of weight loss and dieting. I have squashed some bad habits and started some good ones.  I have re-started this blog, which has been a big help. And I have found a good support community online (twitter and the Nerd Fitness Forums).

Even though I’m a year older, I feel better than I did ten years ago. I exercise more, I eat better, I’m more content, and I’m not hung over 80% of the time.

I’m really looking forward to what my 28th year of life will bring.

**UPDATE!** As I mentioned earlier this month, I am only asking for healthy presents. Nothing that will distract me from my goals, only help them.  So here are the results! Thanks to my wife and the parents.

More pictures are posted over on my wife’s family blog, check them out if you are interested in seeing pictures of my cute kids!

In other news…

Check out my guest post on Nerd Fitness

In case you missed it, I had a guest post published on Nerd Fitness this week. It highlights 9 different sports and activities that allow you to be a geek while still getting a good workout in.  It was fun!  I like interacting with a new audience and Steve over at NF has definitely done a good job building a community up.

Geek Into Shape Podcast

If you are reading this, then you are probably aware that I just launched a podcast.  I am really excited to keep working on this project.  As a huge podcast nerd, I love the audio medium as a way to spread news, tips, and advice.  I hope to deliver some high quality and content-packed bits of information over the next few months.

So subscribe to the podcast feed or check it out on iTunes if you want to get the latest episode direct to your audio listening device.

One thing I am looking to do with this podcast is make it a community effort, so if you have any questions, suggestions, ideas for a segment, or would like to send in a segment of your own, please contact me.

Future Posts

As always, I am working on other more posts for this blog, so stay tuned!

This has been a spectacularly crappy month for me.  I ended th month at 267 lbs which puts me at a 1.2 pound gain!  The month started off with a week of vacationing and overindulgence.  After vacation I didn’t jump back on things like I should have; so I basically just maintained.  Just look at the graph.

October Weight Loss Update

Losing weight is going to be hard these last 2 months.  It’s getting colder, and I really won’t feel like running in the freezing temperatures.  I’m going to give it a go though because losing weight is all about momentum.  I’m sure the holidays won’t do much to help, but I can be good on the non holiday days.  I need to finish this year strong!

This has been a wild month.  Most of the month was just so-so for me.  I haven’t been exercising like I should and my diet has been good but not great.  The first 3/4 of the month was slow but steady.  The last quarter of the month really cranked up the stress at work and you can see my weight responded.

Weight Loss Graph

I’m worried about that last bit of weight loss.  Obviously it’s stress related, and I really just feel weak now. I’m guessing that wasn’t exactly healthy.  Maybe I can make it stick.

Last month ended at 269.2 lbs.  This month ended at 265.8 which is only a loss of 3.4 lbs.  It’s not what I wanted and I can only blame myself.  This month I can do better, so I’m going to shoot for losing 4 lbs.  Wish me luck.  I have a vacation coming up, and I’m not sure how that is going to affect the weight loss.

So, last month I sucked it up and only lost one pound.  Since I decided to run a 5K race today (more on that later), I spent all of August getting ready for it so I wouldn’t die.  3 runs a week sure does help the weight come off!  See for yourself.

August Weight Loss Chart

269.2 lbs!  That makes my weight loss for the month about 5.5 lbs.  I’m very satisfied with the results and hope that I can continue my momentum into September.

It’s not all good news though.  I fell off towards the end of the month due to me stressing out.  I ended up eating out a lot more than usual at lunch as a result.  Also, the running makes me want to snack more and that’s not too good either.

My plan for this month is to continue with the running and to try to cut back my eating to what it was.  For this month my goal is to lose another 5 lbs.

Last week I told you that I was hitting the training hard for the Franklin Classic 5K on Labor Day.  Keeping to my word, I managed to run a total of 10 miles this week.

Monday I decided to try a new route I had never run around work.  It was a 3.2 mile route that took me around the mall.  I started with 5 minutes of walking and set off to jog the entire thing.  I didn’t quite manage to jog the rest of the way that day.  It was 92 degrees out with 73% humidity and once I got on the pavement I just got too hot.  I ran about 2 miles before I had to walk.  I ended up finishing in around 40 minutes.

Wednesday was my normal 3 mile route from home.  Since I sucked it up so bad in the heat on Monday, I was determined to jog the entire run following my 5-minute warm up walk.  The sun was setting, but ut was still damn hot: 90 degrees with 60% humidity.  I managed to complete the entire route jogging and finished 3.1 miles in 35:45.

Today I wanted to extend what I did on Wednesday just to prove to myself that a) it wasn’t a fluke and b) I could actually jog 3.1 miles non-stop after my warm-up walk.  I woke up early to get out before things heated up and it was a comfortable 76 degrees with 63% humidity. Starting with my 5-minute walk again, I finished the route jogging for a total of 3.8 miles.  It took me 44:34 to finish up this morning.

I’m feeling very satisfied with my progress this week.  I was able to overcome the mental barrier of jogging the entire 5K.  My body is feeling good now that I’m down about 20 lbs compared to when I tried to get into running a few years ago.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much easier it is to run at this lower weight.  Hopefully that will keep me injury free.