In light of this opinion, I may start to become a bit more active on Facebook. Twiiter will still be my primary platform, but I can no longer ignore the Facebook juggernaut. The risks to my privacy are less severe as I already try to live my life “in public”. I just hope the less technical users aren’t trampled underfoot by Facebook’s increasingly complex privacy controls. These controls seem designed to trick/bewilder the user into allowing more data to show publicly to the benefit of Facebook & advertisers.

You may soon even see Twitter “retweet” & Facebook “like” buttons showing up on the blog when I finish my next redesign…

So, without further delay…

Here are photos comparing my body at a pre-Gastric Bypass state (7/6/2009) to 6.5 months out from Gastric Bypass surgery (1/25/2010). I’m still not happy with where I’m at and I still have 30-40 pounds hopefully left to go, but I’m thrilled with the progress so far…

Sorry the pics aren’t all from fully similar views, but this is what I’ve got to show…

Here are some additional stats

Waist size (Jeans)

• THEN 52-54
• NOW 40-42

T-Shirt Size

• THEN 3XL-4XL (3XL was typically too tight to wear, so 4XL was the size of choice)
• NOW 2XL

• Lose down to under 200 pounds (199.9 or below) – This is a stretch goal for me as it is beyond what my surgeons predicted, but it is where I want to be. Might as well shoot for the moon if you’re going to strive for anything at all.
• Build up to running 3 miles without dropping down to a walk – Ultimately, I would like to train for a 5k, but for now, I am setting the goal at running 3 miles straight in straight-forward conditions such as that of a treadmill at the gym.
• Be a better husband/father – Get more involved in and be more supportive of my wife & children. I hope that I can become less selfish and be more of a rock for my family to use for support and encouragement. I still need to come up with solid, attainable goals here rather than the vague concept as it is now.
• Climb the beginner’s course on the rock wall at the gym – When I first tried months ago, I was only able to get a couple of holds up the wall. In 2010, I hope to complete the beginner’s course to the top.
• Develop my first iPhone app that actually makes it to the storefront.

Yes, it has taken me too long to put these up given that we’re more than a week in to 2010, but maybe getting my resolutions up on time will be a resolution for 2011

PS: Yes, I know I still owe the blog and friends a full photo showing my weight loss progress, but I just didn’t feel like doing that tonight

On a related note, how do you get used to running outdoors? I understand that trying it in the fall/winter may not have been the brightest move on my part, but how do you get over the pain from an inflexible running surface and the resulting joint pain? Also, isn’t there an accepted way of breathing while running (in through the nose, out through the mouth or some such)? I have never been able to train myself to breathe properly and tend to more gasp when pushing myself

• Outdoors vs. gym
  • Concrete doesn’t flex like the treadmill’s platform
  • Cold
• Heavy warm clothing vs. gym shorts & t-shirt
• Still sore from tearing up carpet yesterday
• Slight incline/decline vs. no incline treadmill

I was supposed to do this workout yesterday, but I was simply too exhausted from the cleaning/carpet work. So, I delayed it until today as I’m not supposed to start week 2 until Sunday. This was the first workout since my surgery where I have found myself cursing the iPhone for telling me it was time to run again and then pleading for the time to end. All that said, I did do the full routine and will continue on Sunday with next week’s ramped up intervals. I do hope this gets easier, but I’m sticking with it…

Next week, I have a body assessment scheduled at the gym followed by a personal training session. I’m hoping for some guidance on what else I can do to continue building on my weight loss…

Here is where the story ends up at Couch to 5k. I had heard about the program before, but never seriously considered it. However, now I do want to get used to running, so I reconsidered.

It’s actually relatively simple:

• 3 days a week you exercise with an off day in between – I will likely continue to walk pretty much every day.
• The exercises take the form of a 5 minute walk warm up, 20 minutes of iterating between some amount of time walking & jogging/running, and then a 5 minute cool down walk.
• Each week, the jogging/running intervals get longer
• Over the course of doing the above for 9 weeks, you build up to running a full 5k (3.1 miles)

I started last night and while I’ve done some jogging, this really made my leg muscles burn. It was definitely more of a workout than I had been getting with just 30 minutes of walking. They recommend you don’t exercise strenuously on the off days, but I think I will continue to walk as I aim for getting exercise (even if only moderate) 6 or 7 days a week. I will generally have to play this by ear as I am hurting somewhat today…

Interestingly & typical, technology made the leap more appealing. I found a great iPhone app that helps track and guide you through the routine. It’s called obviously enough “Couch to 5k“. The app will provide voice prompts, alarms to make sure you remember to switch activities (walking to running and vice versa), visual cues (green UI when walking, red UI when jogging/running) and tracking days completed. I have Nike+ running in the background and music or a podcast also going to distract me from counting the seconds, but this app just provides the audio cues over the existing audio. I love that I can have it all kicking around at once.

I’m hoping this helps in the weight loss area as well as maybe driving me to learn to run. Maybe I’ll even learn to enjoy it

I’m hoping I’ll crash through this temporary speed bump & not have to fully address the issue yet, but who knows…

Front:

Side:

Click for higher resolution photos…