No sooner had I hit the 30 day mark and met my goal of exercising everyday in November and my motivation for going to the gym seemed to evaporate once again. Even though my goal now is to do the same thing in December, true to form, as soon as I achieve a goal my inclination is to let up on the gas.

I woke up this morning with a headache after not sleeping very well. That, coupled with my quickly waning resolve, had me seriously thinking about taking some advil and going back to bed.

I sat on the edge of the bed with Isabelle head butting me to pet her, waging the never-ending battle on whether to get up or not. I reminded myself of two things. First, if a little headache is all it takes to get me thinking about breaking my streak, what happens when I really have something come up to deal with like getting sick? Secondly, It's easy to talk big about being back on track when meeting the goal's requirements is easy. It's when things start to get hard that the real test begins.

So, I admitted that my headache was manageable and that I'm tougher than my lack of motivation and went tothe damn gym.

The thing all the exercise books and TV shows don't tell you is that every morning comes with the same battle. It never gets easier. There is always a reason to stay in bed or take it easy or slack off. There's usually only one reason to get up and go, and the battle is always whether that one reason is strong enough today. For me, it has to be.

The Scott Project kind of fell apart after The Woman and I went to China. We had used that trip as a goal and when it finally happened, things started to slide. There was no real consistency in how often we went to the gym and there were too many week-long (or longer) gaps.

I'm not sure how much weight I regained between August '08 and now, certainly not all of it, but I did regain some.

I'm leaving the old Scott Project behind. This is the beginning of a new Scott Project. I successfully made it a whole month going to the gym. My next goal is to do the same through December. Knowing that the weather may become an issue (any significant amount of snow means we have to leave the car in the garage), The Woman and I are planning ahead on how we will get in our exercise on any days we are stuck at home. I know that there are plenty of exercise shows on On Demand and if we get a couple dumbbell weights, we should be able to make do if necessary.

I also plan to start riding my bike to work much earlier this year. I did last summer during May, June and the first part of July. My plan is to start in March, which will mean I'll need to get some rain gear, so that once May rolls around I can be up to riding 5 days a week. I only ever got up to 3 days in a couple weeks last year. The extra exercise was having an effect, but I didn't keep up with it. Riding to work is an hour-long trip each way. It's a nice way to jump up my daily exercise without horribly impacting my schedule.

I'm going to go get another one of those body fat dunk tests towards the end of December. The last one was right before we left for Beijing. It will be interesting to see where I am.

Tags: the scott project

I got sucked into Facebook, even though I had successfully avoided it for so long (blame Eric Englehorn for getting me to try Mafia Wars, the bastard). Not that I post all that often to FB, but it seemed a bit redundant to do a blog and maintain a facebook page.

I was looking around for a photo today and ended up finding here in an really old journal entry. I got to looking around and reminded myself that a/ I enjoyed posting things here, especially using it to keep track of my weight loss progress and B/ that facebook really isn't doing the job of replacing that function.

So, I'm going to get back in the habit of posting here. I have no idea if anyone is ever reading this stuff, but that's not really important anyway. I also need to get back to keeping a semi-public record of my weight loss progress. Not doing that has contributed to a general slacking off. I've even gained some back.

Time to reengage and refocus.

Oh yeah, and I just got an iPhone, so I can post anytime, anywhere.

Current Location: United States, Washington, Seattle

10.10 - 10.23

Workouts: 7/7
Workout String: 3 weeks
Total Weight Loss: 160 lbs. (official, as of 7/30)

My ability to keep up with doing this blog every week hasn't returned, but at least I've been able to get a couple of 7 day workouts the last two weeks.

Tags: the scott project

10.3 - 10.9

Workouts: 6
Workout String: 1 weeks
Total Weight Loss: 160 lbs. (official, as of 7/30)

I tried hard to get my 7. Hard.

But work got in the way. On Tuesday, I worked a 16 hour day, got home at about 1:30 am and got to bed a little before 2. Determined to get my 7, I had The Woman get me up at our normal 4:30 to go to the gym.

Wednesday night, I worked a 15 hour day, left work at about 12:30 am and got to bed by about 1:30. The Woman woke me up at 4:00 to ask if I wanted to go to the gym, but I had to say no.

So, I only got a 6 instead of 7.

Tags: the scott project

6.19 — 10.2

It's been awhile — a good 3 and a half months since I've updated this journal. During that stretch, I've been sick enough twice that I was off exercising for a week each time, The Woman and I went to China for the Olympics and ended up missing 3 weeks of exercising (although we did walk our asses off, averaging 5 miles a day with a 10 mile and 15 mile day in there), and then lots of off and on exercising that added up to a dwindling routine.

I decided last week that I'd had enough messing around and it was time to reboot the system. Time to get back on track.

So, starting last Friday, I rebooted. No more missing workouts. Back to 7 days a week.

Before the journal blackout, The Woman and I had started working with our trainer together. We're still doing that. We are with him for an hour three times a week with 45 minutes to an hour of cardio afterwards.. On the other days, we're doing an hour of cardio.

I'm also rebooting my food intake. I'd let things slide a bit. The travel helped with that, but I'd started falling into the trap of allowing success to translate into a more lenient food attitude. No more of that either.

I'm also rebooting this journal. It's interesting that as I let my habit of regularly writing about my progress slide, so did all the other aspects of my progress slide.

So, all settings are back to zero. I still have between 60-80 pounds to lose and I mean to lose them.

Tags: the scott project

6.6 — 6.19

Workouts: 7 & 6
Workout String: 15 weeks
Total Weight Loss: 150 lbs. (official, as of 5/30)

The Woman and I have started doing joint trainer sessions so that we are working out with him for an hour together instead of a half hour separately. We're doing a kind of boot camp routine that mixes weight lifting supersets with lots of all-over exercises. Starting next week, we're going to be doing that 3 times a week along with an hour of cardio each day. We're hoping that this will jack up our individual progress.

Tags: the scott project

5.23 — 6.5

Workouts: 4 & 7
Workout String: 13 weeks
Total Weight Loss: 150 lbs. (official, as of 5/30)

So The Woman and I decided to take Memorial Day weekend off from the gym and I took a 4 that week. No worries though, because on Friday the 30th, I stopped by my doctor's office and did an official weight on his scale.

I've finally hit the 150 lbs. lost mark.

To celebrate, The Woman and I did a "triathalon" on Saturday — an hour at the gym, 2 hours kayaking, 90 minutes biking and then poker with the Vag Pack. After a full day of activity, the only side effects were slightly sore butts from the bicycle seats and me out $10.

Tags: the scott project

Watching the first data download from the Phoenix lander at the Mars North Pole live on NASA Web TV. As the images came up on the display, they were almost instantly uploaded to the Phoenix mission website:

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=309&cID=7

The Martian tundra, courtesy of the Phoenix lander:



Incredible.

Watching the Phoenix probe's entry/landing on Mars live via NASA tv on the web right now.