Biggest Loser Wrap Up

Initially this was a 6 week competition, but it got chopped down to 5 weeks because of conflicts.  My team's name was Phat No Mo. Our biggest competition was Slimmer Skimmers (Accounting) and Weapons of Mass Reduction (Marketing). We were neck and neck for half the race, always trailing behind in 3rd. That is, until week 3 when we got ahead of the WMR by less than a percent. Then on Week 4 we passed WMR and were .07% behind Slimmer Skimmers.

This competition was solely based on weight percent lost - not fat percent lost. A gallon a water weighs 8lbs. The day before the last weigh in, both Janel and I didn't drink anything beyond lunch time, and what we did drink that day was all caffeine or lemon based to squeeze all the water out of our systems. We woke up early on weigh-in morning, Saran-wrapped ourselves, and sat in the steam room for 15 minutes.

Needless to say, I lost almost 9lbs for that weigh in. My standard loss was about 3-4lbs a week, so I lost 5lbs of water!

I was so thirsty that morning. We went up early to be the first to weigh (and the first to grab some water afterwards).

Everyone gathered in the first floor lobby at 2pm for the winners to be announced. There were 13 groups of 5 at the start. Most didn't show up for the final announcement, but there were a number of cheerers. Weapons of Mass Reduction came in 3rd (5.25%), Slimmer Skimmers in 2nd (6.03%), and Phat No Mo in 1st (6.61%)!

I have to mention that we won even with one of our team members bowing out of the race early on. From then on, her weekly weight loss was counted as 0, and we kept her total weight in our tally - and we still won!

I got a special prize for being the person to lose the most pounds out of everyone (27). I really expected Janel to win this because she lost about 10% whereas I lost 8%. PLUS, she deserves a LOT of the credit for our team winning. Not only did she pull huge numbers, but without her, I doubt I would have done as well.

She inspired the heck out of our whole team and we won because of it. She's the one who got me to join her at Star Fitness Center (although she did win an iPad from it ;) ), and she's the one who figuratively held my hand through my first exercise classes.

Our team got:

• Biggest Loser Gold Medal!
• An Exercise Band
• $50 Visa Gift Card
• Cold/Heat Press Pad
• Year Membership to Holiday Fitness
• 30 Minute Massage Gift Certificate
• $5 Smoothie King Gift Card

As the Biggest Loser, I got:

• Biggest Loser Trophy
• 4GB SanDisk MP3 Player
• Fancy Water Bottle

Afghan Done, New Projects to Start

Finished the Afghan for Dad last Friday. He liked it. It took a little over a month to complete.

Onward to projects 2 and 3: Design/build a website and design/build/fix/add on to my parents' pool deck!

Fambalaya

Yay for crock pots! Even semi broken ones.  The handles on my cover came off, so now I have to trickily pry it open with a spatula or other device and avoid the 3rd-degree-burning steam that comes out. It's okay. I have the skills.

Here's another recipe I edited for my own liking. About a year ago, I tried looking up a crock pot recipe for Jambalaya and came across Colleen's Slow Cooker Jambalaya. I made it and liked it, but it is most definitely not Jambalaya. This is why I now call it my Fambalaya (fake jambalaya) recipe.

I changed all the meat to chicken and added garlic and baby carrots... because that's what I like. When I made it yesterday, I put around 2 teaspoons of Tony's in it. That adds a lot of sodium though, so I think I'll leave that spice for after it is cooked next time.

It makes 11 cups worth of food, so that's how I divided the servings. The picture (which I ate! (pictures are tasty (especially pictures of this recipe))) is 2 cups of the crock pot and then 1 cup of brown rice, which was around 590 calories.

It was GRRRRREAT.

Ingredients	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Fiber
Yellow Onion, 1 large	60	14	0	2	3
Celery 2 cup chopped	28	6	0	1	3
Chicken Broth 99% Fat Free, 2 cup	10	0	0	1	0
Oregano 2 tsp	6	1	0	0	1
Parsley 2 tsp	1	0	0	0	0
Thyme 1 tsp	3	1	0	0	0
Diced Tomatoes (28oz)	175	28	0	7	7
Baby Carrots, 1 Cup	50	12	0	2	4
Green Bell Pepper	26	6	0	1	1
Tony Chachere's - Cajun Seasoning, 1 tsp	0	0	0	0	0
Minced Garlic, 2 cloves	8	2	0	0	2
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts, 3lb	1,320	0	30	276	0
Total:	1679	68	30	290	19
Per Serving (11 - 1 cup each):	186	6	6	24	2

Zumba Class

I did Zumba for the first time tonight at Star Fitness with Janel. It was complicated but fun.I didn't realize how many different dance moves there would be. Each time I started getting the hang of doing one, they would switch to another.

The time went by fast, and I had fun, even if I had trouble moving my feet like the instructor. Depending if Zane and I go to Ship Island on Saturday or not, I'll go to that class too. The Zumba teacher was very nice and told me I did well for my first time. She encouraged me saying how it's not about doing the dances perfectly as much as just moving. She also said what Janel has told me a couple times - you burn about 500 calories during the class. Well, as a man carrying 100 extra pounds on my back, I burn even more! Yay bittersweet!

Of Body Pump, Boot Camp, and Zumba, Zumba is definitely the most fun.

Oh, and there's even proof of me doing Boot Camp (aka Summer Slimdown) Tuesday on Star Fitness' Facebook page!

Biggest Loser started Monday. Round 4 of Summer Slimdown starts tomorrow. I'm going to win both, right?!

Healthyish Meatloaf

I like cooking, and I usually follow recipes pretty closely. Zane wings everything he cooks. If he wants to cook something new, he'll check a recipe for the general idea of how to cook the dish and then change it to how he wants. His methods have gotten me to experiment more myself with only about 50% good results.

Healthyish Meatloaf

• 1 Can Mushrooms (about 1 cup)
• 2 Stalks of Celery
• 1 28oz Can of Diced Tomatoes, well drained
• 1 large bellpepper
• 2 Cups carrots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 egg, 3 egg whites
• 1 15.5oz can of Black Beans
• 1 tbsp. oregano
• 1 tbsp. basil
• 1 tsp. thyme
• 3lb 99% fat free ground turkey
• 1 large onion, diced into squares
• 2 cups instant oatmeal
• 1 6oz can tomato paste
• 2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• salt/pepper to taste

I just winged this recipe drawing from some previous veggie heavy meatloafs, so the amounts I wrote in the ingredient list might not be exactly the same as I did it - specifically the spices and the oatmeal.

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Pull out the food processor or get prepared for lots of mincing. Mince and combine (yay food processor) the bell pepper, carrots, garlic, strained diced tomato, black beans, celery, mushroom, eggs, and spices. The eggs will allow the processor to more thoroughly mix the semi dry ingredients. Don't puree, just mince.
3. Empty the minced veggies into a large bowl or the casserole dish you're going to cook in. Mix in the ground meat, diced onions, and instant oatmeal. If you find the meatloaf is too wet, you can add more of the oatmeal, just like you would breadcrumbs.
4. Stick it in the oven for 45 min to an hour, or until the meat thermometer temp is about 165 degrees.
5. Mix the tomato paste and Dijon mustard in a bowl. Depending how much you like tang, use more or less of the Dijon. Fill the tomato paste container with water and mix that in the bowl as well. Spread this over the top of the meatloaf and then put it back in the oven for about 15 minutes.
6. Take out the meatloaf (the thermometer should read about 175 by now) and let it sit for 15-30 minutes.
7. Divide into 8 pieces.

I usually get canned mushrooms now because they go bad so fast, and I like having things in stock. Next time I'll probably add more garlic.

When I made it on Sunday, it didn't firm up completely, but we also ate it about 5 minutes after it came out the oven. It settled like normal meatloaf when I pulled out the leftovers the next day. It still tasted the same, so I'm not too worried about the firmness of the loaf.

Zane said it reminded him of a vegetable soup, but it tasted like meatloaf to me! He wanted me to add sugar and cheese and he ended up added Parmesan to his.

Nutritional Info:

Ingredients	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Fiber
Instant Plain Oatmeal, 2 cup	66	0	8	0	0
Green Bell Pepper, 1 med (149g)	30	7	0	1	3
Canned Mushrooms, 1 container (240 g)	50	8	0	4	2
Celery - 2 stalk	12	2	0	0	1
Onions - Raw, 2 cup, chopped	134	32	0	3	4
Diced Peeled Tomatoes (28oz), 1 can	175	28	0	7	7
Carrots - Raw, 2 cup, chopped	105	25	1	2	7
Garlic - 4 Clove	20	4	0	0	0
Beans - Black Beans, 1 Can	385	67	4	25	25
Eggs - 3 Large Whole Egg	210	3	15	18	0
Tomato Paste, 1 container (6oz)	175	30	0	10	5
Dijon Mustard, 2 tbsp.	30	0	0	0	0
Ground Turkey - 99% Fat Free, 3lb	1,560	0	24	324	0
Total:	2986	206	56	394	54
Per Serving (8):	373	26	7	49	7

A Pound of Rough Yarn

49/77 (7 squares not shown) = 63% done.

When I first looked in the yarn section at Michael's, I couldn't imagine why someone would ever need to buy the 1lb of yarn. I purchased it yesterday. It's deceitful how much yarn goes into making something. I already went through two of the regular sized black yarns (like the white in the picture).

The first time I got yarn, it was at Wal-mart, and the HeartSaver brand is about all they carry. It's cheap and more rough. I was unaware of the soft yarn, which if I could turn back time, I would have gotten instead. It's made of the same material but because of how they manufacture it, it ends up being the thickness of one ply smaller than it actually is. That makes it soft somehow.

I was halfway through before I knew about the soft yarn. I decided to stick with what I've been using for consistency. Who knows - maybe washing it will make it softer? I checked the label, and it should be fine in the washer. I'm going to have a test run on a single square first... Or maybe I'll just throw it in the dryer with a dryer sheet and see what happens.

Afghan Approaching 50%

36/77 squares finished = 47% complete!

And before someone corrects me, I know the picture only shows 35 squares, but there's one more not pictured.

I checked my camera settings and it can do time lapse. I just have to find my tripod. Hmm... There'll be plenty of squares left to test that out on later.

I told my friend that this afghan is like downloading an MP3 in 1997: it'll take two months.

Hopefully I'll get a lot done over the holiday, assuming I'm not working with Sarah, the best, most beautiful, perfect-in-every-way person in the world.

Here's the original post with more information about crotcheting the afghan: Finishing my Grandmother's Blanket.

"Pump" at the Gym

Monday, I went to my first class (Pump) at Star Fitness with Janel. For a while, she's been trying to get me to go to classes like Zumba and Boot Camp with her. Pump seemed more doable because it starts at 5:15pm, so I can go right after work, and it was described to me as mostly muscle building, not extreme cardio. In other words, something I'm more used to.

Well, you might not call it cardio, but my heart beat harder than a 30 minute session on the elliptical at max level. It started off easy enough doing what I'm going to call "military presses with dumb bells." Janel grabbed me the 10lb because I bragged about using 25lb dumb bells for curls during my unsupervised workouts. Ten pounds was okay at first, but I was not expecting so many reps!

We worked about every muscle in the body, and on the second go-round of curls, I had to switch to 8lbs. I couldn't lift my arms anymore, hard as I tried. The description of "Pump" on Star Fitness's website is: "This 55-minute workout challenges all your major muscle groups by using Free weights to perform exercises like squats, presses, lifts and curls!" That list doesn't include step, planks, side planks, push ups, lunges, 5 types of cruches, and whatever else I've forgotten.

Now don't take this as complaining. The class was a lot of fun, much more than exercising alone. Following the instructor also pushed me way harder than I would have ever pushed myself. I followed along and did everything that the instructor did until about halfway through when I got that terribly nostalgic feeling of nausea from pushing so hard. I haven't felt that since basketball in high school! I had to slow down a bit, let my heart slow some, and (attempt to) regain some stamina.

I continued doing all that I could, but that ended up being about half (if that much) of what the instructor was doing. I'm not used to all that step, floor touching/squats, and OMG the cruches!

I definitely intend to do that class every week on Tuesday now. I might even go so far as doing Zumba (I'm looking at you, LD) on Wednesdays. The only downside of Zumba is that the class is at 6:30pm, so it's not as convenient for me as Pump. Once work's Biggest Loser contest starts, definitely expect to see me at many more classes.

After the class was over, the instructor asked me how my first class went. I told her how it started off easy, but I lost all my energy halfway through. She encouraged me to keep coming, and I'll get better. Very nice lady. I joked that I wasn't used to all those crunches because I only have one ab - one very large ab.

As we were picking up, the instructor was setting up for her next class, Spinning. How she can do spinning afterwards is beyond me, but that'll be a (distant) goal of mine.

Next time I will grab a towel beforehand. I didn't realize how much I would sweat. Pretty sure I've never sweated that much in my life. The sweat was dripping off my nose - imagery that I associate with my Dad. My hair was soaked. When I went to change my shirt in the locker room, the mirror showed my shirt was just about completely wet.

All of this being said, it was lots of fun. 55 minutes flew by way faster than working out alone. If any friends that live in the Covington/Mandeville area want to join, memberships are pretty cheap, or you can even pay by the class. Let me know if you're interested so you can use me as a referral!

Nier

I beat Nier on Sunday. It was enjoyable, but I had to read the wiki to fully understand what happened with the story.

The music and story were great, but the game is lacking modern graphics and creative gameplay. It boils down to a hack and slash with minor puzzles here and there.

Also, what's up with Kaine's nearly pornographic outfit? It was amusing that the characters made fun of the outfit during the game, but really, why? There's no logical reason to go fight monsters in lingerie. I skipped reading the Kaine novel after beating the game explaining her story. Hopefully somewhere in there they explain her clothes.

The game plays in SD, which doesn't make sense since it was made in 2010 for ps3 and xbox360.

It took me about 20 hours to beat, and that's because I was doing all the side quests. I stopped at 70% completion because they're really effing repetitive and boring. At that point, I looked up the side quests on gamefaqs and found out they (95%) only give a money reward. Playing the game without doing the side quests makes it more of an 8 hour playthrough. The side quests do add some neat story, but they're completely skippable. If they weren't as repetitive and had significant rewards, I'd be much more likely to do them.

The game has 6 different areas: the Forest of Myth, the Aerie (high up), the Village (where you start), Facade (desert), Seafront (water), and the Lost Shrine. All of the areas are neat EXCEPT the Forest of Myth, which I loathed. The story for the Forest of Myth is that everyone is trapped in their dreams and you have to rescue them by joining their dream. Fun? No. The screen turns black and for the next 30 minutes, you're reading white text on a black screen and answering multiple choice questions. It felt like the game creators ran out of money but wanted to throw another level in at the last minute.

Even though not original, the gameplay is fun. You learn a number of magical moves, and I used most of them throughout the game. The monsters get progressively harder as you progress, but playing in Normal mode meant none were ever terribly difficult. I would definitely recommend starting on Hard even as a beginner.

The boss monsters were all exciting and fun to fight, so if I were to play through it again, I would most likely burn through the game and not worry about any upgrades or side quests. Weapon upgrades really don't make much difference.

I recommend Nier to anyone who is not striving to get all the achievements; otherwise, you'll turn something fun into a big chore.

Who remembers anniversaries anyway?

Zane and I have two anniversaries: January 1, 2007 and June 16, 2007. The first is our first date and the second is when I asked him if he wanted to be official. After getting burned in a few relationships, I was very wary of committing to anything.

That being said, June 16th came and went last week, and neither Zane nor I noticed. New years is way easier to remember, which is usually the one we count by. I called him Saturday night after realizing that our anniversary was either coming up soon or already passed.

When he picked up, I made him promise to not be angry, to which he always replies, "I'm already angry, so tell me." I first confirmed that I remembered the right date for the anniversary and then asked if he forgot too. Surprisingly, he admitted to forgetting, but now he keeps pressing me to bring him out to dinner. I told him I brought him to the circus for our anniversary (even though that was the day before I called). Sarah, my coworker, also agreed that she gave me the tickets for our anniversary even though she didn't know when it was.

I keep telling Zane that we can't go out to eat so that we can save for our Disney trip in December. This makes Zane unhappy, but he's just got to deal with it!

Zane would also not appreciate my posting a picture of us from 4 years ago, so here it is!

Circus, Afghan, Losing Weight

Thanks to my most fabulous coworker, Zane and I went to the circus Friday night for free at the New Orleans Arena. It was my first time (that I can recall) going to the circus. It was more fun than Cirque du Soleil but not as professional. I was excited to see live tigers, but they didn't actually do much. Whatever happened to the flaming hoops? The elephants and ponies were much more entertaining, and oh-my-god elephants have large poop. The circus was READY with many a pooper scooper.

They fell a number of times during acts, something I never saw at Cirque, and it didn't take away from the awe of everything else. My favorite part was definitely the seven dirt bikes riding around in the steel sphere. I'd put pictures up from it, but Zane wouldn't let me use his phone!

For Father's Day, my sister got Dad a gift card to Lowe's and packaged it in a mini tool box. I'm still working at the afghan and will be for at least a month. Last night I got bored of making squares, so I started stitching them together. After I took the picture, I made a quick mock up in Photoshop of the finished pattern. Thankfully, I did that before finishing because I made a change to it!

I was contemplating making a time-lapse video of some of the process, but I need to see if my camera has that option. I'm not going to go through the process of editing normal footage. That's more work that I'm willing to put into it.

Speaking of WORK, one of the great things about my place of employment is their encouragement to live a healthy lifestyle. Starting July 11th, they're going to do a "Biggest Loser" campaign pitting teams against each other for weight loss. I joined, but I'm also not actually interested in losing a ton of weight fast. It's just a fun incentive to keep things interesting and is a good motivator to keep going to the gym. I'm content with the progress I've made so far: about 20 pounds in two months.

Finishing my Grandmother's Blanket

I learned to crochet because I wanted to make a couple friends flowers for their hair a couple months ago. Why, you ask? Long story short, one friend likes flowers for her hair, didn't have one one day, so the other friend made one from paper. I showed that friend up with my own paper flower. Then I jumped ship and moved, so I wanted to do something nice for them both.

I planned to learn to crochet after Mom, my sister, and I cleaned out my parents' attic and found my paternal grandmother's lot of unfinished crochet materials. She died before when I was too young to remember. The picture on the left is only a portion of her granny squares. I moved them into a separate bag to organize. I thought it would be nice to finish her blanket some 25 years after her death, and I knew my Dad would really like the sentiment.

Some of the squares aren't in great shape from being in the attic so long, so I decided to make an Afghan and just incorporate some of her granny squares into it. Plus, this way the blanket won't be that wonderful 1980's cacophony of color and will better match the room it'll be in.

Well, I started the work last Friday, and as is everything I do, I completely underestimated the time it would take. I'm using the SunRise pattern shown in Theresa's Art of Crochet tutorial on youtube, and it's taking me over an hour per square (but I'm getting faster).

I'm using 17 of my grandmother's squares that I'm adding a black double stitch border on and making 60 other squares from scratch. This will most definitely not be done for Father's Day.

This picture shows the two different squares I'm making from scratch and the two different color of squares I picked from my grandmother's stash. Hopefully I'll be done in the next two weeks. Twelve squares down, 65 to go!

I'll have no desire to ever crochet again after this.

SEO is Magic

There are no shortcuts to getting your page rankings up. Researching for 3 months on how to do Search Engine Optimization will land you with half of the experts saying to do one thing and the other half saying it doesn't work.

The only thing that is consistent is having daily, fresh, and engaging content and getting back links by putting your site out there with PR and social media.

Voila.

You can stress about keywords all you want, but the best way to do SEO, in my opinion, is to focus on making what people - humans - want and are interested in. When you write/design for SEO, you're doing yourself a disservice.

That being said, I'm continually looking for the magic method to increase Google page ranks in order to get more traffic. The thing is, if I find that magic method, everyone else is going to find it too, and then it becomes moot.

Theme of the Blog

I started blogging on Livejournal in high school and then stopped during college. I lost interest in it. I had gained a group of about 40 friends through blogging, mostly from the DC area.

At the time I thought it would be nice to more or less catalog the events in my life because I'm clearly just so damned interesting and would one day like to go back and see what I was doing.

Today I decided to see if I could get in the habit again. The temporary title is a lyric taken from Electric Six's Danger High Voltage. I tried to figure out what theme would be the focus of my blog, but it's really just going to be things that interest me: web development, SEO, video games, my family, and the gays.

Speaking of the gays, my office houses myself and two others, one who is a wealth of knowledge about the gay culture and the other who shall learn many things in the months to come. This afternoon I explained what a bear was and how Zane (my boyfriend) and I fit into this category.

The walls on my side of the office are pretty barren. Perhaps I should put the oh-so ugly bear flag up. That and/or pixel art of Link from a Link to the Past. Well, it's either that or I keep the default pictures in frames I get from Walmart and tell people they're my family.