Meine Lieblingsstadt... My Favorite City

I came across this great stop-motion video of various sites in Berlin today.  It's a fantastic look at all the wonderful places that Berlin has to offer throughout the course of a single day.  This video captures the energy, life, colors, and vitality of this amazing city!

With about forty-five more pounds to go, videos like this help me to focus and keep me on track.

Getting back on the bike... literally

Although I have tons to write about in this blog with being a new dad and how life with a newborn has affected my weight loss effort (surprisingly its been really positive), I wanted to take a moment and make mention of a personal success that happened today.

After several years of collecting dust, I got my bicycle up and running.  This entailed a little minor maintenance, which was luckily simple.  After a full day of work, I went for a short ride around Middletown.  Altogether it was a short, flat 1.23 mile ride, it was a lot of fun and only moderately difficult.  This non-scale victory will have a resonant effect, because it is not only a great milestone, it also opens a fantastic type of activity that I enjoy and fuels my thirst for adventure.

This was a big milestone for me.  Two years ago (and 50 pounds more), this wasn't possible.  I had gotten so big that it was unsafe to ride my bike and I couldn't stay upright.  In addition, my knees hurt so bad that peddling was extremely painful.  Today, this wasn't a problem!  I'm hoping that at this time next year, I'll be riding a bike in Berlin!  

The important part about falling off the wagon is... getting back on again

This blog isn't just about reporting and celebrating my successes.  It's also about being truthful about my mistakes, so that others may profit from my journey.

The past two weeks have been difficult.  Things have been busy at work and I had some major events that I was coordinating that required significant attention.  Additionally, preparation for the coming baby and another major responsibility that I'm not at liberty to discuss have weighed heavy on my mind.  These bumps in the road caused me to fail off the wagon a bit with my weight loss efforts.  I missed my last two Weight Watchers meetings and I haven't been tracking.

This journey isn't about being perfect and it isn't about beating yourself up for past mistakes.  In a Weight Watchers meeting a few months ago, I heard from a fellow member "Turn your setback into a comeback" and that is what I intend to do with this latest deviation.

My plan is to reboot and to once again focus on tracking and boasting my activity.  In addition, I will specifically schedule my next Weight Watchers meeting for next Saturday.  I'll keep you posted!

This week's goal - Recording Daily Positive Thoughts

I am not a positive person.  At best, I could be considered a realist, at worst, a pessimist.  I focus on the negative elements in life.  I've never been one to look on the sunny-side and just simply enjoy myself.

Thankfully, I have been blessed with a focused personality and I work hard to change the negativity around me.  My pessimism is masked by dedication, which leads a lot of people to think that I'm actually a positive person.  I do believe that with hard work, a person has a chance to change their situation, but overall I agree with Thomas Hobbes when he said, "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Unfortunately, I've learned that this isn't the best outlook on life and doesn't help with my weight loss struggle.  Focusing on the negative can wear down your resolve and make your challenges difficult to overcome.

This week, I'd like to try to focus on the bright side of life by setting the following goal.  Each day, I'll write a short blog post that relates some positive element of my life that I am thankful for.

Like last week, I plan on keeping up with my past weekly goals in addition to this new goal:

• Track my Weight Watchers PointsPlus each day.
• Schedule a specific time to get activity every other day and keep to this schedule.
• No cigar smoking during the workday.
• 7000 steps per day

"7000 Steps a Day" - Weekly Goal Wrapup

Last week, I set the goal of walking 7000 steps per day and recording it via my Pedometer.  I was not strictly successful in meeting this goal.  The main problem I had was that mid-week I became ill due to side effects with my new diabetes medication, Victoza (I'll write about that soon), which left me resting for a few days.

Although I did not meet my per day goal of walking 7000 steps, I did manage to average 8828 steps per day, which was over my daily goal.  This was mainly due to having a very active day on Sunday, when Illa, some friends and I went down to New York City and did a lot of walking.

Here's a breakdown of my daily progress:

Day	Steps	PointsPlus
Monday	10041	6
Tuesday	12195	7
Wednesday	222	0
Thursday	4994	2
Friday	3682	1
Saturday	6433	3
Sunday	24231	17
Total	61798	36
Average	8828	5

I also set the goal of sticking with my previous weekly goals.  Here's a recap on how they went.

• Track my Weight Watchers PointsPlus each day. - I tracked every day except for Wednesday when I was feeling very ill.  (Partial Pass)
• Schedule a specific time to get activity every other day and keep to this schedule.  - I set and kept activity on Monday, Tuesday and Sunday.  Unfortunately, being sick also made this difficult.  (Partial Pass)
• No cigar smoking during the workday. - I didn't have a single cigar during the workday all week (Pass)

Although I had a few bumps in the road this week, I tried to stick to my goals as well as I could.  I'm not going to let these hurdles stop my continued progress.  I found this quote today that should help me keep focused:

"The game has its ups and downs, but you can never lose focus of your individual goals and you can't let yourself be beat because of lack of effort."  -  Michael Jordan

This week's goal - 7000 Steps a Day!

I've been wearing a pedometer for the past two months and it's been really interesting to see my daily number of steps, distance walked and Weight Watchers PointsPlus earned.  However, I haven't really used it to push my daily activity.  Until now.

I'm setting my weekly goal to help me increase my exercise using my pedometer.  I'm committing myself to hit 7000 steps per day and to report on each day at the end of the week.  At the moment, I usually average about 5000 steps, so this increase won't be very much, but it will structure my activity.

In addition to this goal, I'm keeping up with my past three weekly goals:

• Track my Weight Watchers PointsPlus each day.
• Schedule a specific time to get activity every other day and keep to this schedule.
• No cigar smoking during the workday.

See you next week with my progress!

"No cigars during the workday" Weekly Goal Recap

Last week, I set the goal of limiting my cigar smoking by attempting to not have cigars during the workdays.  This would change my normal routine of taking a mid day break and going to have a cigar at the Owl Shop.

I'm happy to report that I met this goal and avoided having a cigar during the workday Monday through Friday.  This was no small feat for me, since I typically use cigar smoking as a means to relax and last week was extremely stressful.

Not only did I limit my during the workday smoking, I didn't lapse into having them in the evening instead.  Altogether, I only had a single cigar all week!  This is a significant improvement.

Because of this, I am breathing better and feeling more energetic.  It also saves me some money.  I plan on sticking to this new goal this week and continuing to improve!

This week's goal - No cigars during the workday

One extremely bad habit that I have for my health is cigar smoking.  I used to be a cigarette smoker about a decade ago, but I quit cigarette's about seven years ago and haven't had one since.  Unfortunately, when I was extremely stressed and depressed after my father passed away two years ago, I took up cigars.

During my medical physical last week, my doctor performed a lung capacity test on me and the results were not good.  The cigar smoking has dramatically affected me.  Luckily, she said it was reversible, if I cut out the cigars.

Now, giving them up cold turkey is an option, but that is extremely difficult and may ultimately backfire on me.  So, I'm going to try it one step at a time.  This week, I'm setting the goal of not having a cigar during the workday.  Typically, I will take a lunch or a midday break to have a cigar, but this week I will attempt to pass on those.  If this is successful, I can then attempt to scale back more.

As with all my weekly goals, I'll check back in next Monday with an update.  Wish me luck!

"Scheduling Time for Activity" Weekly Goal Recap

Last week, I set the weekly goal of scheduling time every other day to get activity and to use that scheduled time.

I'm pleased to announce that I met this weekly goal last week with a slight adjustment.  I used my Google Calendar to schedule these times and used the event invite feature to invite my wife and keep me accountable.

To quantify this goal a bit, the added exercise amounted to about 26 Activity Points on the Weight Watchers plan.  This was based on averaging 3 Activity Points during each walk (M, Th, F) and a whopping 17 Activity Points on Sunday due to our baby shower, its preparation and cleanup (I used my WW pedometer to track my points).

I'm going to continue this behavior this week and schedule out my activity again.

Making adjustments, but staying with my weekly goal

Sometimes, life (and the weather) gets in the way of our best laid plans.  Yesterday was one of those times.

Previously, I set the goal of "scheduling time every other day to get activity and to use that scheduled time."  So, I set the following events up on my calendar:

Monday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Wednesday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Friday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Sunday - All day - Setting up for the Baby Shower

Yesterday, it rained heavily in the evening, so we couldn't walk around outside.  At this point I had two options, find another activity to do inside or reschedule.  Unfortunately, the cottage is not ideal for any real sort of inside exercise, so I moved the event on my calendar to tonight.  The weather should be clear tonight and we'll definitely be able to walk.

The take-home message here is that making adjustments shouldn't be an exception to your plan, it should be part of it.  I could have simply became frustrated and cancelled it all together.  Instead, I consciously adjusted my plan while still keeping with it.

This week's goal - Scheduling Time for Activity

During my weekly Weight Watcher's meeting last Saturday, our WW leader had a slide on her clipboard that read:

Last week was                          
because                             
so I'm going to                            

She asked each of us to fill in the blanks and I decided to share mine.  Here is what I filled in:

Last week was  really busy with work, so I didn't get much activity
because  I didn't have a lot of extra time and I made work a priority 
so I'm going to  make 'me' a priority and pre-schedule blocks of time for me to get activity 

This dovetailed nicely with my idea of setting weekly goals that I can achieve.  So, this week, I'm going to set my goal based on this exercise.  My goal this week will be to schedule time every other day to get activity and to use that scheduled time.

I have scheduled the following blocks of time to get activity:

Monday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Wednesday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Friday - 5:30-6:00 - Walk around Indian Cove before dinner
Sunday - All day - Setting up for the Baby Shower

I'll report back next week on how successful I was.

Tracking Goal Recap

Last week, I set a goal that I would track what I ate for the next week based on the Weight Watchers PointsPlus program.  I am pleased to announce that I successfully completed this goal, having tracked all my food from last Monday to today.

This goal has helped me get back on track with watching what I eat and I plan on continuing it for the foreseeable future.

At my weekly Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday, I talked about this goal and the WW leader gave me a bravo sticker.  These bravo stickers are good motivators for rewarding non-scale victories, such as setting a goal and achieving it.

Gramin Velothon Berlin

In my Facebook news feed, I am subscribed to several Berlin-focused blogs and websites, which allows me to see several cool events, activities and new locations as they appear on these sites.

Recently on Visit Berlin, I saw the Gramin Velothon Berlin, a 60 km Bike race throughout Berlin.  It looks like a really awesome course to see a fair amount of Berlin.

Here are the details about the event:

The Garmin Velothon Berlin - that is Cycling for everyone at the highest level. Since its premiere in May 2008, the event has established itself as the second largest cycle race of its kind in Europe. The attractive route along major attractions and the concept of a city cycling race attract over 13,000 participants who create a cycling festival in the German capital.

• Completely closed roads for traffic
• Participation in a team or as solo-driver
• Race-Highlights: "Brandenburger Tor", "Potsdamer Platz", "Tempelhof Airport", "Eastside-Gallery", "Regierungsbezirk", "Siegessäule","Straße des 17. Juni"
• Two distances: 60-km distance for beginners and hobby drivers, 120 km distance for ambitious cyclists
• Attractive fair program on 7,000 sqm
• "Kid's Velothon" for children and young people
• "Straße des 17. Juni" as finishing line
• 250.000 spectators along the route

Here is a map of the course:

Taking a long bike ride through Berlin sounds like a great trip.  Berlin is fairly flat and is not overly congested.  It's filled with large spaces filled with trees and shade, and just outside of central Berlin are lakeside areas.

I don't think I'll make it there on May 18th of this year, but perhaps I'll have a chance to ride the same path next year.  Although I will most likely not participate in a large biking event like this (I hate crowds), this is a good way to plan for an extended biking trek.  Plus with Deutsche Bahn's Call-a-Bike program, it's easy for tourists like me to rent a bike.