Well, it’s been a pretty great week overall.

It started with a local group I’ve been providing video services to requesting me to come back for a third year starting Fall, 2011 again.  I of course said yes, because it’s a great group, I’m learning while working, and I don’t mind a little extra money in the bank.

I finally resolved the issue with my recently acquired GoPro camera.  After working with their support and determining the focus was faulty, I shipped the old one back, and they promptly sent me a new one.. actually NEXT DAY.  I’m quite satisfied with the level of support I received during this interaction, and I will certainly continue raving about how awesome this little camera is.  While I haven’t had a chance to really test it, aside from a quick bike ride, and messing around the house, I’m really looking forward to using it this weekend, which brings me to the next topic.

MSEA Steam Up is this weekend at Larson Welding in Fargo, ND.  I’ll be headed up there to visit Rollag friends, and also take some photos and video for the upcoming Avery/New-Way Feature this year at the Rollag show.  I came up with a mag-mount for the GoPro, so, hopefully, I can attach it on the Prony Brake, or a steamer, basically stick it somewhere I don’t really feel face putting myself, or my FX1.

Thursday, I had the opportunity to take some photos of our staff at Jobs2Web for an upcoming redesign of our own career site.  That was a good time, and had a chance to interact with some of my co-workers beyond a “Hey, scrape this for me” conversation.  I’ll be doing some video work for them later this spring, as well as returning as the photo guy for the 2011 Collaborate event.

Recently, I flipped my listing agent for the house, and so far, we’ve had 4 requests to show the house in the next week, so lets hope that this trend continues, and the place sells quickly now that we’re entering the prime real-estate season.  I’ll be spending next weekend getting the back yard in top shape, and also refinishing the decks, so everything looks nice and pretty.

As for the fitness topic – I got out 3 evenings this week, Thursday was just a bust with rain and overall crappy weather, and other stuff to address at home before taking off.  – I hopped on the scale this week, and saw no change.. Which, I’m OK with.  I’m not going up, so that’s a positive thing.  Just means I need to keep working on the running and riding to start on that downhill slide to a slimmer mid-section.

Have a good weekend!

Tags: Food, GoPro, MSEA, Recreation, Road Trip, Tractor, Weight Loss, WMSTR

While I full admit that I have not stuck to a diet plan 110% (after all, you get sick for a week, friends visit, you’re our of town) hell, life happens.  I’m not going to be a total diet-nazi to myself, and annoy those I’m out with..

I decided to step on the good old Wii-Fit on Friday, and just see where I was at.. (since I run, bike, lift weights) and do more than just diet, I don’t really count the scale as a credible source for tracking my loss, unless you really look at BMI vs. weight.

Wii Fit yelled at me, almost forgot my name and said I hadn’t been by to visit in 85 days or so, but I hopped on the board and went ahead.  Despite my running, biking, weights etc, I wasn’t really expecting anything shocking, because I still see my pudge in the morning, and isn’t going anywhere quickly.

I did however, kind of smile when I saw only a 1.1lb increase in that 85 days.  The change in BMI was less than .1%, so that’s nothing notable.  To me, anyways, that means I’m putting on more muscle, and not just getting fatter.  I was reaffirmed of that this weekend when I finally pulled out the shorts.  My ankles aren’t so wimpy anymore either.. Not fat, but muscle..  I won’t complain too much about that.

I will say that I think spending the last few weeks really trying to clamp down on my weekday meals, and trying to cut most, if not all beer or rum during the week is proving to be helping, and if I can continue that, I expect I’ll see the scale start tipping in the loss direction very shortly.  Also, I recalculated may calorie/food intake, and the numbers I had been using ended up being a few hundred calories high, which probably accounts for some of my non-loss this winter.  I’m especially happy now that I can get out on the bike a few days a week as well!

For those of you who are keeping track of calories, what have you found to be a good calculator for your intake?  Did you find your magic number in a book, magazine, website, SmartPhone app?

Tags: eating, Exercise, Fitness, healthy, Project Anti-Fatty, Weight Loss, work out

Well,

Most of the snow is about done and over with at least in my neck of the woods, and the weather is getting nicer.  For me, that means finally being able to get in some good workouts in the great outdoors.  Having spent a majority of the winter trying to jog outside a few days a week, I’m much happier not having to dodge snowbanks and slush.

On Exercise:

Over the weekend, I pulled out the old GT road bike, and got it all tuned up for the upcoming season with a little help from my buddy Mike, who has all the right tools.  After new tires, handlebar wrap and a spindle, along with a full cleaning and overall once-over, the bike is good to go for the season.  I’m hoping to get in 3 days of riding a week, depending on weather, in which case I’ll do weights.  I bet it will turn into 2 days of riding, 1 day of weights and one day of us and the two wiener kids going for a walk, which is great too.

On Tracking:

With the recent finding of MyFitnessPal on my DROID, I think I’ve finally found a great app to manage and track both my workouts and eating.  In the past, I had been using CardioTrainer to track my workouts, which worked pretty well, but didn’t really have a way to track what I was eating, so I was using MyCalorieCounter I think, which was pretty decent, but again, hard to track both together.

With MyFitnessPal, I can now track my workouts and my food in one spot.  I am still using MapMyRun, MapMyRide and Cardio Trainer to handle my fitness activities, but I can very easily plug it into MyFitnessPal and it accounts for the workouts and adjusts calories accordingly.

While I doubt I’ll be sharing my daily meals, because after all, I doubt anyone wants to see that I eat oatmeal for breakfast and have 12 bottles of water in a day, I will still post my biking, and probably runs, just since I am training with a few others for the upcoming bike tour.