Jen and I keep making these “pacts” so to speak.  “Ok, this time we’re gonna do this for real… no more fast food, no more pop, blah, blah, blah…”  Or my favorite is, “we need to get on a schedule, blah, blah, blah…”

Well, here we are again at the “start” of another plan.  So far so good, I’ve limited my daily chocolate consumption to less than a 1/2 pound!  I did, however, take my lunch with me to work today.  I suppose it’s a start!

Will write more later when I’m not rushing to get ready for work…

Curb Mindless Eating
Okay, you’ve all heard the term “grazing” — you know, picking at food throughout the day instead of (or in addition to) eating regular meals. This constant, indiscriminate eating — especially when you’re focused on another task, such as talking on the phone or watching TV — is the downfall of many a committed dieter, but it doesn’t have to be.If you’re piling on pounds because you eat when you’re distracted or bored, rather than when you’re actually hungry, try the following tactics to break the habit.

To curb daytime grazing:
Don’t eat while you’re standing up, in the car, or on the go or when you don’t have time for a full, proper meal. If you sit down at mealtime and pay attention to every bite, you will be more relaxed, you’ll notice when you’re satisfied so that you won’t overeat — and you’ll actually enjoy your food!

Don’t skip meals. I mean it. You might think you’re saving yourself calories, but it will only leave you famished and more likely to consume extra calories later on to feel full.

To curb nighttime grazing:
Why do most people graze at night? Because they’re bored. If you’ve been thinking about taking up knitting, crossword puzzles, Ping-Pong, or some other hobby that will keep your brain busy in the evening, now is the time to do it.

Brush your teeth. Food never seems quite as appealing when you have that fresh, minty toothpaste taste in your mouth.

Try a cup of hot tea; the warm liquid in your stomach can help you feel satiated.

My downfall is the night time eating.  I get home, get off my feet, veg in front of the tube, and “snack.”  I know I’m not particularly hungry (sometimes I am a little), but I like to eat for the pleasure of tasting the food.  This is my one mountain to conquer.  Daytime is not really a problem.  My workdays are structured with set breaks, and I’m on my feet most of the time, so I earn my food so to speak.  I’ll do some running around, errands and such after work, but it’s that 8-11pm time slot I run into most of my trouble.

I’m seriously thinking of scrapping Buddy’s Fitness News altogether and starting up a new project.  This blog seriously meandered way off the path of it’s original intent.  I’ll probably hold onto the domain for another year and keep the blog up for reference, but will take down the advertising since it’s a dead blog.

Thanks to all who’ve been frequent visitors.  I will announce any new projects as they come about.

Load 18 60-pound bags of ready to mix Quikrete plus several pieces of rebar onto one of those flatbed cart thingies (1100+ pounds).  Push the darn thing all the way through the store and past several male employees who must think you’re doing a pretty good job because none of them offer any kind of assistance whatsoever.  Checkout.  The cashier offers no assistance to get the stuff loaded into my van.  Load the van.  Drive home and unload 5 bags at a time onto the handtruck and cart up the drive into the back yard.

Round two…

Go back to Home Depot for the remaining 12 60-pound bags of Quikrete (720 pounds) PLUS one very heavy and awkward 94-pound bag of Portland cement.  With a few pounds less and my legs all warmed up, I fly to the opposite end of the store to the only open register to check out only to hear, “OMG, did you load this by yourself?  Do you need help loading it into your vehicle?  Are you sure?  You might hurt yourself!”

Was I in the same store?  Did I run into the only employee who payed attention to the training video?  Too little too late.  I was all warmed up and ready to continue my workout, so I declined any offer of assistance.

Day two…

Mix, pour, spread, tamp, and level 25 bags of Quikrete.  This part of the job made the previous workout seem like a cakewalk.  Surprisingly once Jen and I got going on the job, we finished it in just a few hours and had the tools cleaned and were in the house by 7:30pm.

Day three…

Removed the forms.  Patted myself on the back for making the executive decision to staple 3mil plastic to the forms as they easily lifted away from the slab.  Did some measuring for my ghetto deck and stairs I intend to build.  Drove back to Home Depot.

All I can say is this… they must have an entirely different training program for the guys in lumber than they do for the guys in the garden department, because all I had to do was look female and helpless, and the guys did most of the work.  They sorted through the lumber for me, picked out the best boards, and loaded them onto my cart.  They answered all my questions, did price checks, and assisted me in finding the other items needed for my project.  What can I say, it was a “lite” workout day!  All Jen and I had to do was load and unload the van.

Oh yeah… for all you “green” people out there who frown upon people with gas guzzling vehicles… um… I loaded ten footers into my van and had a couple feet to spare with the doors closed.  So you can just kiss my ass, ok?  You try doing that in your little matchbox Yugo.  There was a reason why I bought the beast.  My Chevy Cavalier days are way over!  I often joke that my next vehicle is going to be a Uhaul!

Next post:  some pics of the project.

Basically, all I need is a set of steps at my side door.  Well, now I’m in the process of major excavation with the intent of pouring myself a concrete patio area with concrete steps.  It’s what I intended to do all along, but never had the motivation to begin the project.  Now I’ve begun it, and I’m in a race to try to get as far as I can before we hit freezing.  As it is, tonight we’re expecting snow showers and the current temp is 34 degrees!  On top of that, I’m at work during the prime daylight hours.  I’d hate to say it, but it’s times like this that I miss NOT having a job!  Well, we’re supposed to have a couple dry days ahead with temps going back up to the low 50’s (I hope).  I’ll just have to work fast.

Between the digging and shopping for supplies after work hours, I haven’t had much of a chance to even think about working out.  My eating’s been ok for now.  The good thing is I’m broke, so as tempting and convenient as fast food sounds for 3 meals a day, I can’t afford it.

The fun all starts tomorrow when 4 tons of #2 crushed stone will be delivered to my house.  I’m praying that they can dump it in my drive between the houses.  If not, they’ll just dump it at the end of the drive and I’ll have to cart it one wheel barrel load at a time to where I need it.  I just don’t like the idea of it being at the road, because in my neighborhood, it it ain’t tied down with a homeowner on guard with shotgun in hand, it’s free for the taking.  Oh well.

Friday was a disastrous day at work, followed by fielding phone calls from my players saying they wouldn’t be at practice that night.  I suppose the good news is that Jen and I had a whole sheet of ice to ourselves for an hour and a half.

Saturday turned into a major construction day at the house.  I started outdoors by digging a foundation area for my new back steps I intend to build.  Then after dark, Jen and I crawled under the house with all the petrified spiders, scrurrying mice, and who know what else was watching us, and we began excavating under the exterior walls of the house.  It’s a long story, but after years of drainage problems and erosion, my pre-1896 house has some issues.  Needless to say, by the end of the night, we were covered in soot soaked dirt, webs, and other nasty stuff, so eating scheduled balanced meals wasn’t at the top of my to-do list.  So, a single trip to the McD’s drive-thru, and dollar menu fare it was.

Today is just another day.  Hockey at 9am, no time for breakfast, drive-thru lunch while running errands afterwards, and now were off to a friend’s house for chili and a football game.

Like I said, there’s always Monday.

1 tab good.  2 tabs not so good.  Because I’m on my feet +/- 8 hours a day now that I’ve got my job, I’ve taken a few pain management steps to get me through the day.  For years I’ve been killing my insides with megadoses of Naproxin Sodium with little effect for the pain in my back.  So for kicks I’ve decided to try these Lortab things which everybody seems to be raving about, and all these public service announcements are warning about on the tv and radio.  Well, anyway… I can handle being on my feet til about 2pm.  It’s the 2 to 5 (or so pm) which is killing me.  So, I pop 1 Lortab and it gets me through the rest of the day.  Ok, no big deal.  The problem is that these things really don’t kill the pain per se.  They just kind of put you in a state of mind where you don’t care as much about the pain.  Well, as an experiment, I decided to take a second tab 4 hours after the first just to see if it would kill the pain (like people are claiming it supposedly does.)  Uh… well… um, let’s just say I won’t be doing that again!

Within 30 minutes I could hardly keep my eyes open, and 45 minutes I was having sweats.  Because I didn’t eat that much, I decided to eat (pizza of all things) to try to settle my stomach.  I ended up laying down for a short nap; I was so queasy.  Then within minutes after getting up (about 3 hours after taking the second tab) I was barfing pizza into the trash can!  I know people who pop these things like tictacs; how do they do it?!!  But then again, I’m an extreme lightweight (cheap date) when it comes to alcohol, too, with my 3 beer limit.  I guess my body has an aversion towards these sort of toxins.

So, needless to say, I never got around to drinking my 19 cups of water or doing my workout, and my dinner didn’t stick around long enough to be digested!

I suppose the good news is I’m feeling much better, wide awake (and starving) at 6am!  I think I’ll make the best of it and go into work early today.

I think I’m now going to take advantage of my newly acquired health insurance to finally go to the doctor (after all these years) to try to find a way to alleviate my back pain.  To be honest with you, I don’t think there’s a pain reliever in the world that’ll “fix” it.  I think I need a serious (permanent) realignment.  You can read all about my pain issues in this post:  The Gym, The Chiropractor, Hockey, And Being Sidelined With Injuries.