Beginning June 1st I decided to try and get out a little more. No, not partying and drinking (although … ) but rather getting some well-needed exercise. Skinny people who manage to stay so without vigorous effort can stop reading now.

For the past 10 years (or so) I have been relatively unhappy with my weight. In high school I was always the “skinny kid” even having to buy the “slim” jeans until age 12. Being tall for my age helped exaggerate this so I would come home fromschool, eat a 1/4 gallon of ice cream before dinner, etc etc. Then college hit. Suddenly there was no recess, no track, no planned activities whatsoever. My first year of college I coached basketball at Johnny Orr’s Basketball Camp (Iowa State University) and managed to gain 10-15 lbs over the course of 2 weeks. Having unlimited access to food in the dorms, along with pizza every night (and sometimes every morning) had a very big effect around the middle region.

Anyway, fast forward. I had tried some “diets” last year and did manage to lose a little weight, but not as much as I would have liked. On June 1st of this year I decided not to diet, but simply to go walking. I would rent a DVD from the library and have to walk from my apartment to the library to return it (about 1.8 miles round trip)

I thought I would be tired and grouchy when I got back, but the opposite happened – it gave me even more energy. It was this past week when I made the realization that may just give me the willpower necessary to finally lose the weight – all of it.

Weight loss is simple. It comes down to a matter of calories burned and calories eaten. I know, I know… all of the scientific peoples will tell me there’s more to it than that – but really that is the basics for any type of weight loss. With my sit-down job, I burn about 3000 calories a day without exercising. 1 pound of human fat is about 3500 calories. So, all I need to do to lose 1 lb a week is burn 3500 calories more than I take in. This can be done with walking, exercising, or in combination with dieting.

Simple.

I had always wanted to keep track of the calories I eat a day, but didn’t want to deal with “points” like weight watchers. What I found was a great site called “FitDay” that allows you to enter in the foods you eat and the activities you do a day, and it gives you all sorts of neat info and graphs.

I think I did myself a favor by starting an exercise program before I started watching the calories. Although I know my walk only burns about 300 calories each time, that is 2100 calories a week. Not too shabby.

So, I may be posting updates about my progress, and I may not. Some things are probably best left off blogs, but I do have to say I think this time it is really going to work. We’ll see.

The NBA Finals, Game 1 was tonight.

Did anybody even notice?

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, it has been a long couple of weeks. During Memorial Day I went to the Des Moines Renaissance Festival and took a few pictures that I posted in my gallery.

This past weekend I went to see Cap’N J.P. Boyd at the Story City Scandanavian Days in Story City. He was there with Molly doing the Pirate Comedy Show on Saturday afternoon. I also put some of those pictures in my gallery.

If you haven’t heard of the Pirate Comedy Show, visit their web site and buy their CD. Their songs are also available on iTunes, and I especially recommend “Where is the Renaissance.” It is a hilarious song about the lack of anything renaissance at the renaissance faires… like T-Shirts, turkey legs, pirates, light beer and diet cola.

To find out more about renaissance faires in the midwest, be sure to check out www.atthefaire.com.

Ok, so I made another blog today, trying to take the guise of Santa Claus. You can check it out at SantasToyBlog.com.

Basically I am reviewing toys and gadgets and posting link to Amazon, or wherever you can find them. It is supposed to be an all-year thing but already it is tiring to go and put up the links every day, and I am already about a week behind.

Check it out, and please don’t laugh.

Ok, this is getting ridiculous, there is yet another Movable Type version out there. I think I will wait before I upgrade this installation though. As you may recall, I have had terrible experiences updating and upgrading through the various versions. I did install it clean in another directory and the new features and updates look nice, I just don’t have the time or patience to completely redo the site again.

However, this layout is extremely boring, so maybe when I decide to update the templates to a new design I’ll install the new version – by then there should have been 5-6 more updates. Egads.