Dan vs. In-laws! Fight of the Century-ish

Mayweather vs Pacquiao.  Ali vs. Frazier.  Dan vs. In-Laws? The big fight took place Saturday night, but the real fight happened last week in Frankfort.  After some of my colleagues and friends noticed that there is a competition section in the Fitbit app, I ended up in 3 separate challenges.  Basically, these challenges pit you against your friends as your new rivals.  I ended up in a challenge with my in-laws, co-workers, and friends/their co-workers.  Monday was a struggle for me as I think I was still recovering from my weekend exploits and I fell behind quickly.  I didn't give up but the number of steps my in-laws were adding up was astronomical.  After one day I was roughly 10,000 steps behind and by mid week I was down by over 30,000.  Basically my mother-in-law threw the hammer down and watched TV while walking in place.  As she is included in 2 of the competitions, there was basically no chance in me earning the top spot.  However, I didn't give up and I think I did admirably, considering my step count has gone up from the previous week.I still had a relatively high total of 67,458 steps between Monday and Friday, but you can see my Father-in-law destroyed me by doubling my goal and achieving 135,351 steps in an effort to beat my mother-in-law.  Just like the fight, he pretty much threw 2 punches to each of mine.  An AMAZING feat!  Kudos to him.

For a new meal this week, my wife and I tried the Mashed Avocado Egg Salad from the MyFitnessPal Blog.  I found it quite tasty.  The dijon mustard and the avocado provide enough smoothness to make it creamy and the lemon and lime juice (we used both) give it a little zing.  I took this for lunch two days this week.  The first day I used celery as a cracker and the celery seemed to overpower the salad.  Not that it wasn't good.  The second day I used Triscuits: Hint of Salt crackers and it was just as good the second time.  Give it a shot!  Avocado is a great brain food, so I'm hoping it will help with my memory which is lacking most days.

I have not had any sort of pop in over a week.  I don't count the tonic water in the drinks from last weekend as they were the healthiest drinks I could come across.  I honestly don't miss it.  I think I might still have one once in a while at a restaurant with dinner, but I have mostly been sticking to water and unsweet tea with some Sweet 'n' Low.  I think this has helped considerably with staying up on my step count as I am almost always close to what I would consider fully hydrated.  For my next trick!  I mean what I think I need to work on more is sleep.  I have been sleeping much more soundly according to the sleep tracking on my Fitbit. I just don't think I have been getting enough sleep to recover from my increase in steps.  I have been feeling tired in the mornings, but I am managing to make it through.  After the morning rush I am usually awake enough to feel just fine.  My plan is to try to get to bed about 30 minutes before I do currently and see if that helps.


As for my workouts, I have been mainly walking this week, but have fit in a couple shorter runs.  I also mowed the grass twice (mandatory bonus steps).  I have decided that my trusty Brooks Pure Flows are ready for the recycle bin.  I have been using them off and on for workouts and as an everyday tennis shoe for over the past year and I can now feel each of the little pods on the bottom of the shoe during every step.  I have decided to purchase a new pair of lightweight Brooks.  This time I went with the Brooks Launch 2 (I really like the Boston Marathon Edition).  I love buying new shoes, but this time I am vowing to only wear them when I am walking or running so they don't wear out any quicker than they should.  And I should be able to calculate how many miles I use them for before they are completely worn.

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for.  How did I do in the weight loss department this week?  Well, I went back to my official weigh-in day of Sunday.  When I stepped on the scale it showed 285.9 lbs.  That's a loss of 1.8 lbs. giving me a total of 8.5 lbs lost.  My goal is somewhere between 2 and 5 pounds a week, so I will take this as a very close to 2 pound loss.  Any success is success and it is much better than that first week when I only lost a tenth of a pound.  Thank you to everyone that is reading my blog.  You can follow along by using the links at the right or can subscribe via e-mail to make sure you don't miss my updates.

Until Next Time....FOOD. FEET. WATER. REPEAT!!