I think we found out after day one of Summit West that having a Fit Club organized activity event in Vegas is totally unnecessary on the grounds that we all end up walking 5 miles a day around our hotel anyway.

I know that after choosing to walk from the Rio back to the Monte Carlo after dinner with the ABW crowd on Friday night, I was pretty shot, then to follo0w it with another 2 miles or so 9 hours later had me pretty tired before I even had to walk the hotel.

Maybe things will be different in Boston. In any case, I know there are more cool historic things to see in Boston that could make a walk really interesting.

Positive from Summit - I am down 5 pounds... the negative - I got there by having the flu and being half useless and missing all the parties and dining opportunities.

The Fit Club is going to have a design overhaul here soon and we'll be aiming to change from a competition into a community with some awesome resources to help us all shape up. Stick around.

- Wade

I got chance to get out and walk with a great group of folks this morning. Shawn Collins and Missy Ward from Affiliate Summit joined Lisa Picarelle, Sam Harrelson, Joel and Karen Garcia from Affiliate Fit Club/GTO Management and me for about a 2.5 mile walk.

It definitely got the heart started and once again I was shocked at how little is happening in Vegas before about.... uh... noon or so. Rarely did we have to wait for a walk signal.

We'll be out again tomorrow before the Gospel Brunch. Meet us at 7:00 am at the front door if you are up for it.

Here's a little video.

This morning is the first day of our trip to Vegas for Affiliate Summit. My husband and I met up with Wade Tonkin, Shawn Collins, Missy Ward, Lisa Picarille. and Sam Harrleson in the lobby of the Rio and headed out for our walk. We walked for about an hour at a fairly good clip through some of the more...interesting areas off the Las Vegas Strip. We had a pretty good time and light banter and we'll be going out again tomorrow morning. I did notice that I really need a new pair of shoes though...Forum Shops here I come!

No, I'm not talking about which team won or lost the Super Bowl...I'm talking about me! Despite all the high calorie delicious foods I could have had at our family's Super Bowl party, I managed to keep it under control and lose weight.

I'm now down to 242 and still doing the Medifast thing. I am down to the last packets though which isn't as much fun or delicious. The packets I have left are the stuff that I don't really care for (even in normal everyday life like tomato soup, yuck) but I can suck it up and deal with it for a couple of weeks.

It's definitely worth it!

Wow... I feel like I am about 3 months late doing something... but can't quite put my finger on it.

Here is my video blog entry #1. Like most of the rest of the Fit Club folks except for Shawn and Jim, I totally slacked on getting started. I finally have my Flip Cam and now there is no excuse. It's 30 days til Summit and I am finally getting my butt in gear and watching what I eat and getting to the gym.

I am going to drop 10 pounds from my current 315 pounds by Summit and will be keeping active by taking brisk morning walks with Shawn Collins and anyone else who wants to join us.

We'll talk more about that in the next post.

Take care,

Wade

Well, I'm back at it...I never really stopped, but I wasn't really focused on losing weight over the holidays. I should have been, but I wasn't. Can't worry about it too much I guess, just need to move forward.

While I was a bit lazy with my blogging and my gym habits, I was pretty good watching what I ate, so now I'm at 244. That's 12 pounds lost so far! Not too shabby, but I won't be meeting Heather Paulson by the pool at Affiliate Summit in Vegas. Boston this summer maybe, but Vegas in February? Not for this Cali girl! Too cold!

The last couple of days, I've been hitting the gym...

It's been a hectic weekend and I feel like I've crammed more than two days into it somehow. Our oldest daughter was away this weekend at Brownie camp, so on Saturday we took our two little ones to the Train Museum in Downtown Sac. It was a blast...our son is four and he was so excited that he was a total spaz and hard to keep up with.

Nice thing is that the trip provided me with some serious walking just trying to keep up with the meanderings of him and our 2 year old daughter, plus it's a three story building, so we took the stairs instead of the elevators. Of course, afterwards we stopped and had ice cream, but I only had a kid's size scoop and since it was in Old Sac, the kid's size was about 3 tablespoons worth of Mint Chip. Not on the diet, but overall, not a banana split sized cheat either.

Today, I went out and mowed the back lawn and did a bit of edging before it rains this next week, so that was about 45 minutes of steady workout as well.

Tomorrow, my goal is to drop off my oldest at school and then hit the gym in the morning. Here's to a shred of workout willpower on Monday morning!

Ok so when I first started this lifestyle change (maybe overhaul is a better description?) one of my many areas for improvement was flexibility. Up until recently, I never ranked flexibility high on the list of health concerns. As far as my old self was concerned you can count yourself fit if you're strong enough to lift your grocery bags and thin enough to wear single digit sizes.

Anyway, in addition to strength, and weight, and inches, and attitude, you've got flexibility. The "can you touch your toes?" stuff. The "hold the yoga pose for more than 1/100th of a second" stuff. I maybe ignored flexibility as it relates to fitness because, well, I sucked at it. Really sucked.

So one way to measure flexibility is to sit on the floor, legs flat, and measure how far out (in inches) you can reach past your heals. You're supposed to use a measuring tape and put the base of your heals at the 15" inch mark (I think...). Anyway, I had a trainer do this little exercise with me about 6 weeks ago. After I touched the 15" mark, my trainer enthusiastically said, "You're at the very TOP of below average." For a moment I thought I'd won an award or something.

Below average. Great. Another deficiency. Now, in addition to miles walked and sit ups completed I've got to track minutes stretched? Stretching? Really? Yep. Stretching.

I gotta tell you, though, that stretching, as part of a fitness routine, makes the same kind of impression as calling bowlers athletes.

Here, now, is the good news: as of today I reached two inches further. And 17" is (at the bottom of) ABOVE average.

Progress. Finally.

Well, it's been awhile since I checked in here, and that's my bad. I had a rough bit getting back on the diet after I got sick and didn't eat to well for about a month and all that tempting Halloween candy! Luckily, I haven't gained anything. This morning I was at 249 and I started doing Medifast again yesterday. I did cheat a little this morning, but that was because I gave blood and almost passed out and they made me have some orange juice and fruit. (Not from hunger, but because I'm actually really scared of needles and thought about it too much at the end of my donation.)

I can't excerise at the gym until tomorrow because I donated, but that's ok...one step at a time. Here's to jumping back on the wagon!

Gluten Free doesn't just mean: no wheat. (In case you thought that... Which I did...)
Nope, not just no wheat. No rye. No barley. No spelt. (I don't really know too much about spelt, except that I can't have it.)

Here's how that went... I stopped eating any and all wheat products (plus all these other ones) for about 5 weeks. I honestly couldn't say that I felt a big difference. Then I get it in my head that I'd just have me a bowl-o-pasta. Not an ordinary size bowl, mind you. A BIG bowl. Linguini with olive oil and garlic and a touch of butter. Well, the next morning I had the worst hang-over ever. Worse than the time I had a tequila drinking contest with two guys. Worse than the time I got obliterated consuming multiple shots of every liquor and liqueur out there... I mean, this was horrible. I ached, my head pounded, my eyes were swollen. That was all of the convincing I will ever need to realize that avoiding gluten makes a gi-nor-mous difference.

I stopped having corn-based products too. And found out after a hormone test (as in you spit in a little vial throughout the day and overnight express mail it to the lab) that I need to avoid taking in so much soy. This was surprising. I'm the one at Sushi always ordering the edamame. I'm the one at Peet's coffee ordering the soy latte. I'm the one--well, you get the picture. Anyway, turns out that soy wreaks havoc on our hormones. So, out goes that...

Plus I cut back on coffee and tea and, well, caffeine. You will have to ask all those around me how that went. I mean, I had a headache for a couple of days--but I'm sure that was not the only ramification of my stopping caffeine.

There's more... no carbonated beverages, no corn (or corn anything), no sugar.

Truly. I'm embracing optimal wellness. Today I'm sharing about the nutrition. Next I'll share about the exercise and other efforts.

So all of this change--this big shift--what has it meant for my weight? Well that is a tricky one. I've been exercising a lot and my actual weight hasn't changed much at all. I have reduced my body fat %, though, and, also, lost an inch here and there. I assume the pounds will start kicking in pretty soon. No matter what, though, I FEEL a lot better. Hope all of you keeping up with all of us consider the benefits of getting fit, too. I think it is worth it.

For the second time in my life, I just about let my machismo get the best of me (and drown my ass)

I was going in to swim this morning at 5:30 - saw the water aerobics class ready to start and thought to myself. Man, if old folks and women can do it... it must be easy....

I of course, decide to go to the deep end and give myself a "real workout" and 15 minutes later, I am flailing around to keep my head above water. It seems that I forgot how sedentary I have been lately.

I've decided for the next couple of weeks I am going to work out mostly in the pool to let my back continue to heal up. If you get the chance to work out in the pool at all, give it a try. It's low impact on your joints, but it can really kick your butt, and you can vary your workout by moving around the pool if the shallow end it too deep for you.

Take care (and keep your head above water)

Wade

On a quick trip to northern California and just made a major error... letting myself anywhere near In-N-Out Burger (drive thru or inside)

One Double Double later - and I can safely say, my butt had better be in a gym this weekend if I want to be down.

On a positive note, I ran into Tobias from Revenue Magazine and I think Tobias is going to join the competition.

Had a great dinner last night with Cresta from Hackersafe- wchich probably didn't help the over all effort either... but that Filet Mignon was good.

Unlike my Blue Team teammate Jim, however, I was able to pass on dessert.

My back is back to normal, so I look forward to hitting the gym hard from hear on out.

I believe (knock on wood) that I am finally over the nasty head cold that I've had for the better part of two weeks. My throat is still a little scratchy, but I no longer sound like I'm possessed.

I haven't been good while I've been sick but just ate what sounded good to eat instead. Luckily, the scale hasn't budged at all so I've lost a little time, but no ground.

I'm attending my cousin's wedding this weekend, so I'll have to be careful with the family around. There's always tons of delicious food whenever we get together...but frankly, I'd rather be slender than have a slice of pie.

I think I worried a lot of people when I talked about my all-tuna diet. Never fear! Even though I lived on tuna for about six months in 2000, I've realized that all tuna, all the time, is just not an appealing option. So I've been mixing it up with salads, too.

The result? The scale never lies. I've lost six pounds so far. I'm at 274. This means it's time to get serious. Now that fall is here, a morning walk is going to become part of my routine. It was hard to get excited about the morning walk when the height of the summer height was here.

I've been eating like a madman. Sunday we went out for Mexican with the wife's parents, then we hit Carvel after and I had a huge sundae. Basically, I've been eating like that.

But guess what? No weight gain. I was at the west side market, which is Cleveland's big old-world market, yesterday and I hopped on the giant floor beef scale just for fun. It said 280 exactly. I should have taken video, forgot!

Anyway, I am NOT dieting yet. I have thought about it though. Don't worry, I'll get to it eventually.