Week 2

Dad has now lost 10 lbs and I have lost 4. I was really discouraged on Tuesday night--the dreaded second week-but when weigh in hit on wed. I was okay with what the scale said. Dad is pretty pumped and not even giving in to the chip craving. He is hoping to lose another 5 before the weigh in in Feb. I will be content with another 4.

First Week Weigh In

We had our first weigh in yesterday. We didn't all meet together to do it-that happens just once a month-but we just sent our weight lost in to our record keeper. Dad did terrific! He has lost 8.4 pounds already. That is so much better than the 2 pounds a month he was hoping for. I know that men drop the weight faster but he is working hard for it. His percentage of weight lose was 3.1. Two of the ladies lost over 3% as well. The competition is great for us. We do an hour of exercise together most days and he also does a mile climb up the hill across from his work at least once and sometimes twice a day and then comes home and works out with me. He also swims 2 or 3 nights a week.
I only lost 1.6 lbs. or .83 but it is a start. I am getting to not dread the exercise so much. I workout with dad on Monday and Tuesday and then on Wed, Thurs, and Fri I really kick it in because I can do it first thing in the morning and I do at least an hour of the Biggest loser dvd and then I do the treadmill and cardioglide as well. I can tell that my pants are getting looser even if not much weight is gone.
Some of the ladies keep sending tips and suggestions to each of us and that helps me just keeping it to the front of my mind-although as sore as I am it isn't easy to forget.

So I am going to be the Biggest Loser

At dad's work several of the ladies decided to try the Biggest Loser route for losing some weight and invited Dad and I to be a part of it. We will each put in $10 a month, weigh in once a month and the one who loses the biggest percentage of weight each month will get half of the money. The other half will be saved until July when we have the final weigh-in and 2/3 of that will go to the Biggest loser and the other 1/3 to the runner up. With 13 of us participating this could me a nice chunk of change each month and at the end. I fully intend to be the Biggest Loser.
Knowing that this was coming in January, I cleaned out the sewing room and made a gym for us with all the exercise equipment we have and I also got Dad two of the Biggest Loser workout dvds for Christmas. We started on Monday and have done some serious exercise. My knees really hurt the first day and they hurt when I am actually working out but it doesn't last long afterwards.It looks really crowded but there is room to get on each machine.

Updates will be forthcoming and positive reinforcement would be greatly appreciated. Also any suggestions as to what has worked for any of you will be helpful.

Removal of the cyst

So in the spirit of getting rid of things (one of my New Years Resolutions) I decided that I had held on to my cyst long enough. I actually brought it home intending to blog then but am the world's worst procrastinator. So here is the story of the cyst.

Clear back at the end of October I started to notice a rather unpleasant odor about myself. I thought it was because I was spending a lot of time with a woman from town that has a cat-dog-moldy house-garbage smell but after a shower one night I ran my hand across my neck where I have had this really big bump for a long time and my hand came away smelling like old dirty sweat socks. Once before I went and had this cyst cleaned out because it got really sore so this time I had dad just squeeze and squeeze and a lot of creamy white stuff came out. We decided that it was time to just get it dug out. I went to the clinic in Downey because it is next to impossible to get in to Dr. Eskelson. The Dr. said there was no real medical reason that it had to come out unless it was really bothering me but I decided to just get it done. It took her almost an hour to get it dug out because they like to get the whole sack at once instead of cutting it up. Because of scar tissue from the other time I had had it worked on it was a real challenge to get it out intact. After digging it out she didn't want to stitch it because it needed to heal from the inside out so she just bandaged it and I would go in every three or four days for them to repack it. After two weeks they just sent me home with a syringe to keep it clean and let it heal. I had a big gapping whole for quite a long time but it has finally healed completely over. The picture doesn't do the size justice because after having it for this long it has shrunk a great deal. It was about the size of an small acorn and now is just the size of a large grape. It is just a mass of white fatty tissue and they don't know what causes them. Now I have a tiny little scar on the back of my neck.

All this just because I wanted to throw something away today.