Stephanie and I just had a baby and I’m using that as my excuse to not have the site updated yet (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

But the Biggest Loser is casting again and I wanted to give you guys something since I’ve been there done that.  You should start by checking out my post about it: What happens at a Biggest Loser Audition.

Next, I would recommend reading through a few tips from a guy that actually made it on the show, Pete Thomas.  Pete lost 185lbs from being a contestant on the Biggest Loser and has posted some pretty good information on the casting at his site WinningMan.com.  You can also follow Pete on twitter @PeteThomas (because you are already following me @dsackr – right?)

I’m not sure that I will be able to go to auditions this time around (did I mention that my wife and I just had a baby???), so if I don’t see you out there – GOOD LUCK!

Both the website and my life are… Under Construction!

Thank you to the few of you that actually checked back – I promised a facelift a few weeks back and its underway – but you won’t see much on the site until I’m a lot closer to done. 

As far as a quick update for my own personal journey (i.e. the reason I started this website) – the title of this post has it covered – Under Contruction!  If you want to keep up with me between now and when the site relaunches – follow me on twitter or facebook.

I promised last week an important announcement “early next week” – and here it is:  

Surgery has been scheduled…

for the website that is!  That’s right – I Quit Again is getting a total makeover!  I know, maybe a bit anti-climatic if you were thinking I was getting weight loss surgery, but unless I get sooo FAT, that I cannot physically get on a treadmill, surgery is just not on the weight loss road map.

So, you are thinking, what makes this a “big announcement”?  The current site isn’t doing the job I set out to do – help me lose weight.  Now, I know a new coat of paint doesn’t make an old barn any better equipt to house the hay – so to speak… but when I say Surgery has been scheduled for the website – I mean real changes.

Just a few of the planned changes:

• New look and feel
• New sidebar widgets for daily calorie intake
• New calendar functionality for workout schedule
• New hazing button that allows you the reader to send me a tough love reminder when I haven’t posted regular updates to my diet or workout – or if I just haven’t posted in a while.
• Twitter intergration and interaction
• Much, Much More!

Now here is the catch (isn’t there always a catch?) – its going to take some time to get the changes in place.  My desire here is to make the site more entertaining for you and more functional for me; my fear is that I’ll get so far behind in the upgrades that I will “quit” – AGAIN!  

This is where I need your help – I believe its going to take about a month to get all the changes in place, how do we – you and me – keep me accountable during the next four weeks?  I’m seriously looking for your help here – don’t let me down!  Post a comment – give me your thoughts!

PS – is there anything you would like to see on the site?

This has been a difficult road over the last several months – and if you noticed my last post – you should have a sense for my fustration level – however I have not quit!  I will be making a big announcement early next week.  

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GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

Its 8am, I’ve overslept, I climb out of bed, get dressed, play Mafia on Facebook, tell my son good morning, tell Twitter I’m late for work, get in the car and head to the office.  Attend meetings all day – make a few decisions, offer some suggestions, give some direction – call Stephanie to tell her I’m working a bit late, get home, eat dinner, watch TV with the family, put the kids to bed, play Mafia on Facebook, read personal email, read my @replies on Twitter, realize its 1am, goto bed.  GUILTY!

Repeat Tuesday.  GUILTY!

Repeat Wednesday.  GUILTY!

Repeat Thursday.  GUILTY!

Repeat Friday.  GUILTY!

Did I blink?  This week went by so fast, its hard for me to believe its already Saturday again.  I’m guilty.  Guilty of living on autopilot.  I did workout on Wednesday, and I did go for a couple of walks with the family at night after work, and I did have a few good food choices throughout the week – but I did it all on autopilot.

Have you ever been driving somewhere but as you pull in to your destination, you realize you don’t remember the drive?  It happens a lot to people driving to work or home.  When I was 16, I had a couple of speeding tickets and had to attend a driving class where I learned this phenomenon is often called white-line fever.   The week, I lead my life in that same fashion – autopilot.

There is a huge imbalance here.  I play Mafia twice a day but I haven’t read my Bible in a week.  Last week, a family member from out of state wrote on my wall in Facebook to suggest that I was spending more time playing Mafia than I was spending on my weight loss.  I will admit, it frustrated me.  I’ve put more time into this blog, into workouts, into educating myself this time than ever before.  

But I did spend more time in Mafia this week than I spent in prayer.  I don’t mean to point out a silly facebook game – its not the problem.  I am out of balance.  I am GUILTY!  I don’t talk much on here about religious matters – its not the purpose of the blog – but I do feel having balance in your life is critical to successful weight loss.  I believe in a higher power that is involved in our daily lives and deserves our attention if not our complete devotion. 

Sin can be a subjective term – today I use it to describe my week on autopilot.  I’m guilty, but not condemned.  This is the last day of the week, tomorrow is a new week, a new start, a chance for redemption.

Nothing new to tell – but I find that my lack of posting results in a lack of focus – So I am here talking about my ups and downs, my victories and failures.  Of coarse lately its been more downs than ups, more failures than victories.  My wife is pregnant and her third trimester cravings are making it hard for me to stay the course.  I’ve put in a few pounds over the last few weeks – Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming her.  She didn’t make me snacks with her – I put the food in my mouth.

I did take pictures of everything I ate on Friday – which was a big help in making the right food choices.  I’m currently considering a new plan of attack for my diet – its simple – add fruit and vegetables to my diet everyday.  A LOT of fruit and vegetables.  The idea is that adding the right foods to your diet will push the wrong foods out naturally.  Those late night cravings for sugar snacks would be replaced with carrots…

I’ll keep you posted…

Today is Wednesday – George and I work out on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s.  Ok – we are SUPPOSED to work out three days a week, preferably on those days… If you read my last post, you know I didn’t work out Monday at the gym although I did walk for about an hour that night on the treadmill here at home.  Yesterday *could* have been a make up day for not working out Monday, but it didn’t work out (pun intended!)

Lack of Sleep

Last night I was up until after 2am – so at lunch time today I wasn’t feeling much like working out.  But I pushed through and got a great workout — THAT’S WHAT THIS POST SHOULD READ —

Making Bad Choices

Instead, I talked George into joining the rest of the team for lunch.  We went to a local restaurant that we haven’t been to in a while, where I ordered the two egg lunch special – two eggs (salt added), hash browns (covered with ketchup), and two pancakes (smothered in enough butter for 10 pancakes, two flavors of syrup, and for two bites I even added strawberry jelly!).

Shame

I told my wife and she rightly said – “You ate all that in front of the guys at work!!! Weren’t you embarrassed!”

The truth is, I wasn’t paying attention to how bad my food choices were until George commented that I had my pancake preparation down to a science.  Yes, I was embarrassed.

More Bad Choices

After lunch, in a meeting with a vendor- I was offered brownies – WHICH I TURNED DOWN, FOR REAL, NO JOKING THIS TIME. BUT – If Paul Harvey were still with us, he would tell you that I didn’t turn down the larger-than-the-palm-of-my-hand sized cookie that was right beside the brownie or the Starbucks double shot coffee that was about 380 calories, and I can hear Mr Harvey saying “And now you know, The Rest of the Story!”

So, my indiscretion did not end at lunch – or with that cookie!  During the meeting the box of cookies was past around and I grabbed a second cookie!  And a second double shot!  I know, its like watching a train wreck, you want to stop watching but you can’t look away, right?

When the meeting was over, the box of cookies was still over flowing and without much arm twisting by a co-worker who said “take one, I can’t take all these home”, I grabbed yet another bigger-than-my-palm cookie.

Accountability

Why am I sharing such a horrible display of a total lack of self control with you?  I considered not sharing it – but the point of this blog is to hold me accountable.  How can you, my faithful readers, do that job if I hide the truth from you?

I haven’t been logging my food since just after my last Nutrition Facts update (located in the sidebar to the right) – that was back in January!!!

Stephanie suggested I take pictures of my food before I eat it – which is what many of  the Biggest Loser Blog Edition bloggers do.  I meant to do that today, but I truly forgot.  Maybe if I had to take a picture of those cookies before I ate them, I would have thought twice about it.

A Ray of Sunshine

There is some good news.  Although it doesn’t make up for my bad food choices, I did go to the gym after work.  I put in an hour on the treadmill and did several upper body weight lifting sets too.

According to my body bug, I burned about 700 calories at the gym.  That gets me through half my lunch, now I need to burn enough to cover the rest of lunch, the 3 cookies and two coffees, and dinner…

Yesterday I was supposed to workout at the gym but I got caught up in a project at work and missed it.  My workout partner and I have a system that if we cancel a workout we get a tick mark beside our name on a whiteboard at work – just as an extra incentive to not cancel.  I had to put money up front to join this gym even though I already had a gym because my co-worker has a lifetime membership to 24 hour fitness (which by the was isn’t open 24 hours, ironically) so I couldn’t convince him to join my gym.  Did you follow that?

Anyway, I told him early on that if I put the money out to join 24hour fitness, then he had to commit to working out three days a week with me.  Now, we both have similar workloads in the office that sometimes require us to work through lunch or take a short lunch – so when George agreed to three days a week, he said he was going to keep track of when I canceled so that if he had to cancel he could refer back to when I canceled – confusing yet?  Shorter terms – “Yeah, I know I had to cancel, but you canceled last week so we are even!”

Yesterday – I got a tick mark on my name.  ARRGGHHH!  There is a chance at redemption – if we workout today as a makeup, my tick mark goes away – the commitment is for 3 days a week, not specifically for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Last Friday, George knew he had to work through lunch, so we planned to workout on Thursday instead (which we didn’t do!).  Friday, I went to the gym after work and put in a 2 hour workout to make up for missing it during the lunch hour.  Yeah me!

Back to yesterday – I caused us to cancel the workout – so I own the tick mark.  We plan to workout today which will put us back on track, but tick marks and co-worker rivalery aside, I need my workouts because I eat like a bird (yes I said bird – the average bird eats over half its body wieght a day!)  I can’t risk that we would miss our workout today as well and lose those calorie burns – so I hit the treadmill that we just bought for Stephanie last week.  I walked over 3 miles and got caught up on “The Office” at the same time!

See you at the gym…

I WILL NOT QUIT!

Ok, when I started this blog at the end of last year I was posting a few times a week – some weeks I posted every day – but over the last few weeks (ok, its been over a month) I have slowed down to almost less than once a week.  So what happened to the fat guy at the other end of this website?

Contrary to the name you typed in to get here, I have NOT QUIT.  I admit I’m having trouble with the diet – late night snacking over the last month has really set me back.  But the difference between someone that is failing and someone that has quit is, at least in my opinion, profound.  I’m failing – but I’m not quitting.

Over the last 15 years of my life, I spent 11 or 12 of them gaining weight.  Last year, I lost weight.  I lost almost 20lbs last year.  This year, I lost a few more pounds putting me briefly at a total loss of 23lbs.  But right now, I’ve put a few back on.

I am building muscle but what many people tend to forget is that it takes calories to build muscle – and if I had not increased my diet, my body would have found those calories from the fat wrapped around every part of my body and I would have continued to loose weight.

I am going to the gym three days a week now and I’m taking my son hiking on Thursdays.  I’m trying to add a cardo activity to our normal Saturday routine as a family as well.  My long term goal is to loose 150lbs putting my at my ideal weight for the first time in my life – but that is a long term goal.

If it takes me five years to accomplish that goal, so be it.  I know there is potential here to completely quit under the guise of ‘taking it slow’ – and I admit I’m quilty of crossing that line more than once over the last few weeks – but I’m not quiting.  My focus is on changing the direction of my life.

If I focus on the end goal I get discouraged – its a long road ahead of me and I’ve never done this before.  But if I focus on changing my direction – I can see results now while still keeping the end goal in sight.  Six weeks ago, I wasn’t working out at all – now I’m over five weeks into a three days a week gym habit.  A month ago I drove past these short mountains on my way to work, but now I stop and climb to the top before I go to work.  And I’m taking my five year old son along for the hike because I don’t want my children to learn how to be fat from me, I want  them to learn how to be fit.

So what about the blog slow down?  Other than the weight gains which are enough to discourage me from writing all by themselves – I’ve been in overdrive at work lately, my website business has been busier than ever, and my schooling has started to became a fore-ground priority.  In short, I’m too busy!  But I honestly feel that quitting this blog is the same thing as quiting my diet and abandoning my plans to live a healthier life.  So I will continue to plug away and I hope publish something worth reading in the process!

It was a comment from a blog reader like you that provoked me to write this post – you guys do make a difference!  Please, feel free to comment on my blog, follow me on facebook and twitter, and send me an email everyonce and a while!