Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I'll not make this a long post, but I just wanted to drop a note and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! Sure, we may be dieting.  And yes, Thanksgiving may not be a "forgiving" day as far as our diets are concerned.  But just remember, moderation is the key.  I have a bad habit of inhaling things like pumpkin pie, turkey, cranberry sauce, and banana pudding on Thanksgiving.  Usually to the point of misery.  No, I'm not planning on counting my calories tomorrow.  As I have been careful for the last several weeks, I am using Thanksgiving as my day to splurge (albeit with moderation of portions).  And I will deal with the after effects as motivation to go harder in the gym. So to all of my readers out there,...

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If the pants fit...

In our last post we discussed reasons why your scale may not be reflecting changes you are trying to achieve.  So in this post, we're going to take that conversation a little further.  And chat about why sometimes it's better to ignore the scale.  And as always, let me explain myself with some previous experience. I have a pair of jeans that fit.  They haven't always fit well.  But they fit.  They have never been distastefully tight or saggy.  But they haven't exactly been the most comfortable pair of pants that I own.  These are my "baseline" clothes.  I also have a couple shirts that were a little snug as well.  For the first couple of weeks, I didn't see much of a change to my "scale weight"...

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A Dieting Nightmare: Plateau's

You know it's true.  You go all week religiously counting every calorie you put into your mouth, you go to the gym every day and hit the cardio hard.  You maybe even look at yourself in the mirror and can see slight changes in your figure or body shape.  But then you go and hop on the scale to weigh in... And your weight hasn't changed.  Not even budged or maybe in some cases you've even gained a pound or two.  Nothing can be as discouraging to someone trying to loose weight than not seeing that number on the scale go down. Trust me, I've been there.  In the past years when I have attempted loosing some weight, this has always killed my motivation and ended up with me stopping my attempts at getting into shape....

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Let's Chat About Sacrifice: What is does and doesn't mean

One word: Sacrifice. This is something that I have been thinking a lot about over the last month or so.  I'm not really sure why, other than the fact that it feels like with any effort to loose weight, diet, or get fit you have to sacrifice some things to attain your goals.  And for every person, these sacrifices may be different.  So, first let's take a look at what it means to sacrifice something. In our context, we will look at one of the several definitions of the word from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: sacrifice- a destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacrifice For me personally, I have had to make several sacrifices to reach my goals thus...

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Getting Crafty...

I have fallen into the Pinterest trap!  Help!  I have been trying to think of ways to incorporate motivation in with a way to express it to other people.  Could be plain motivational or even humorous.  And I keep coming back to the idea of brainstorming up some shirts or shirt designs...  Maybe for wearing to the gym?  This is entirely within my scope of experience, as I enjoy playing around with some graphic design elements.  And it isn't terribly costly to dig into.  But I'm not completely sure about it. What do you guys think?  Would you be interested in seeing some "SlimTechie" designs in the future?Leave me a comment and let me kn...

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No Gym? Body Weight Routines Can Lend a Hand...

I was faced with an interesting dilemma this week.  As I may have mentioned in a previous post, we recently joined a local gym.  And it is amazing; with great people, plenty of equipment, and a great atmosphere that is conducive to wanting people to succeed with their goals.  We love it there!  But what happens when things arise that prevent us from going to the gym?  To be honest, we don't have a lot of equipment laying around the house.  We have a dumbbell set that includes 4 x 7.5 lbs. plates and a set of light weight resistance bands.  That's it. I encountered this type of situation twice this week.  Both of which were due to work conflicts, that prevented me from dropping by the gym.  But...

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Personal Progress Update: October 2012

With October 2012 in the history books now, I figured it was as good a time as any to get the birds eye view of how my progress went during October.  And I must say that I am rather happy with the success that I was able to achieve. Rewind back to late March of this year, I weighed in at 246 pounds.  This was probably not my all time highest weight.  As I had just recovered from the flu and had lost quite a bit of weight while I was sick.  But packed it back on as soon as I was better.  This left me around the 246 pound mark on the scale. Also, I was very sedentary; meaning very inactive.  After work, I would essentially plant myself on the couch or in front of my computer and stay there.  My...

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