I have a doctor’s appointment this morning at 9:00 AM.  As I mentioned before, I have sleep apnea, and I’ve really had a hard time lately.  I’m not sleeping and as a result I’m exhausted.  Hopefully, the doctor can help me out and I can get back “in the game”.  As it is, I’ve been living on less than 4 hours of sleep, per day, for the last four months, and I feel like I’m dying.

• 0 Comments

Two of my good friends and I have decided to compete against each other in a “Weight Loss Challenge”.  Grand prize?  A new putter for the guy who loses the highest percentage of weight.  Here are the details:

1. The challenge began last Monday.  Since we all live in different cities, using the same scale would be impractical.  So, we are all using our “home” scales.
2. After establishing initial weights, I created a spreadsheet using Google Documents.  I created columns for our names, starting weights, current weights, and percentage lost.  Here’s the spreadsheet with fake names and numbers.
3. I’ll email the guys every Monday and they’ll send me their current numbers.  I then enter those numbers in the spreadsheet so that we have a current view of our progress.
4. We started in July and we will have a “midway” winner declared in December.  He’ll receive a round of golf, paid for by the other competitors.
5. Next July, challenge ends and a champion will be declared.  The other guys will come together and purchase a putter for the champion.  Maximum value will be $100.

So, there’s the setup.  Three big dudes who are trying to lose weight.  (I’m actually, weight-wise, the smallest of the dudes.)  So, why did we go with percentage lost instead of pounds lost?  To keep things as fair as possible.  If one of my friends reaches his goal weight, he’ll have lost over 120 pounds.  There’s no way that I could lose that much, considering I’m 31 pounds from my “initial goal weight” and 60 pounds from my “final goal weight”.

I’m excited about watching my friends lose weight and I hope to win the challenge.  But, I’m really not all that “competitive”.  I just want to see us all get healthy.  Seriously, if I lose 60 pounds and come in last place, I’m still a winner.

Was that the cheesiest line ever written by a man?  Yes, NCN, I do believe so.

Off to the gym I go!  Wish me luck.

• 2 Comments

I’ve just returned home from a week at church camp.  I spent a week as camp-director.  The work was exhausting but I managed to focus on my diet and I even managed to get a bit of exercise.  (By the way, I always misspell the word “exercise”… shouldn’t it have a “z”?)  I’ll have an official weigh-in Monday morning, but before I left, my weight had ballooned back to 239.5 lbs!?!  Yuck!  It felt great to be eating fresh fruit, granola, and nuts.  In fact, the only meat that I’ve eaten in the past seven days was a little turkey on a couple of small sandwiches.  I could easily become a vegetarian.  I’ll weigh-in tomorrow and let you know where I stand.

• 0 Comments

I remember when I was getting out of debt, I’d login to my old blogger account, update the No Credit Needed site, and I’d ALWAYS have some progress to report.  Those, my friend, were the “good old days”.  Now, I login to No. Calories Needed, and I think to myself, “Hmmm… I haven’t been eating healthy foods, I haven’t been counting calories… why in the world do I have a weight loss blog…”.  Clearly, after stalling for a month, I lost whatever motivation that I once I had.  Clearly, I have weight loss issues.  (If YOU had a blog about weight loss that MANY of your friends knew about, wouldn’t YOU be motivated to go ahead and lose the weight?  Yes, YOU would, because you are a sane, normal person.)  I suppose that I should be proud of the weight that I HAVE lost.  My body apparently loves the number 231, 235, 232, and 237.  Why?  Because, no matter how many calories I consume or how much exercise I get, the scale always reads one of those four numbers.

So, in a last-ditch effort to lose weight (and restore the legitimacy of this blog) I’ll just go back to a very, very basic diet.  I’ll ditch the diet soda, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and head back to the gym.  Surely, other people have broken through these types of ‘funks’ and lost weight?  We shall see…

By the way, I did NOT write this post so that you would leave a ‘You can do it, NCN’ comment.  I’d LOVE for you to leave a comment, but I’m not whining.  I’m actually not depressed about not losing weight.  I’m perplexed?  confused?  Does any of this make sense?  I just want to lose a little weight and feel better, and my mind seems to be working against me.  Hopefully, it’s just a matter of doing the right things, over and over, until the results start to come…

• 3 Comments

I just returned from a round of golf. For the first time, my son, NCN Jr., went with me. He didn’t actually “play” golf with me, but he did ride in the cart, hand me tees and keep me company. He’s only 3, but he was very well behaved and we had a blast. It was probably the most enjoyable round of golf I’ve ever played. I shot a respectable 79. I did a little searching on the internet and I found out that a round of golf (with a cart) burns a little more than 1000 calories! Wow. I had no idea. Here’s a list of funny things NCN Jr. said during the round…

Daddy, why do you keep putting those white nails in the ground… (tees)

Daddy, when you hit a silly shot, you have to try, try again!

(Shouted) YAY! Daddy hit it in the water! Daddy hit it in the water! Yay, Daddy!

He’s a great kid, and I was blessed to be able to hang out with him. I can’t wait ’till he’s a little bigger and can “hit ‘em” with me.

• 0 Comments