As required to track progress, Tammy and I decided to weigh ourselves for the first time since Tammy was six months pregnant.

The shock and horror? I weighed an obscene 290.2 pounds on August 27th. I was iffy on starting P90X again, but once I saw that number, it was game on. Tammy and I decided to do the P90X Lean program to get this fat off our bodies. The lean program has a lot more cardio and sweating than the regular program, which is exactly what I need.

Anyway, I’ve already posted this on Facebook and Twitter, and as ashamed as I am, admitting my overweight problem and overcoming the issue is how I best conquer the issue.

As of today, we’re on day 2 of our first P90X Lean session, my entire body is sore. In fact, when I woke up today, I asked Tammy if I had been in a car accident! Nothing wants to move. This made the Cardio X DVD extremely hard today, but we got through it at about 2/3 pace they show on the disk.

Someone on Facebook told me about this great iPhone/iPad app that allows you to easily track calories today to keep yourself on your way to fitness. The app is called “LoseIt” and is in the app store for my favorite cost of $FREE. It synchronizes with their website at loseit.com.

My goal is set. I will lose 100 pounds by June, 2012, 9 months away. This will allow us to run 2 90-day P90X sessions and a final P90X2 session. P90X2 is not out yet, but is coming soon.

Anyway, wish us determination. We’ll need it.

Blue Shield of California seeks rate hikes of as much as 59% for individuals

I think our family plan was a little over $700/mo for the four of us at that time which was what, about four years ago? Yikes.

I’m not totally sure why but I have a hard time blogging these days! It’s so much easier on facebook with my quick status updates. Are you friends with me? Make sure you are, I update there all of the time! http://www.facebook.com/ScottDaMan
Just remember to block farmville if you don’t play that game, I have a lot of those posts on my wall. I’m addicted to that damn game!

Anyway, what I wanted to post today is all about my health. It’s been the focus of ALL of my attention (other than maybe farmville on facebook, LOL) for the last 5 months now. When I meet up with people I haven’t seen in a while, it’s nice to see them do a double take! Seeing Gary recently has only inspired me to keep going, their entire family had nothing but kind words to say. Gary was most impressed at how well I’ve done. Of course, meeting the family in Mesquite for Aunt Peggy’s birthday was even more motivation to keep going strong.

In September I saw an infomercial for Beachbody’s P90X system. It’s the first infomercial that I felt wasn’t a scam. The people on there have busted their asses and worked hard and got great results. It triggered me to go downstairs to the office and search more, and more, and more! I looked at people on youtube and ordinary people were RAVING about the system.

At the time, I wanted to start doing something after seeing a picture Tammy took of me at the river last year in a life vest. I looked like a damned booey! I was disgusted. I wanted to change but wasn’t quite sure how, I’ve tried many diets that have all failed. After doing all of the research, I knew P90X was my answer. Hard work, no miracle pills, no fads, just hard work, exercise and a complete overhaul of my diet.

The downfall, I was 278 pounds, around 80 pounds overweight, and was in no shape to pass their “fit test” for P90X. I found out they released a system about ten years back called “Power 90″ and many people recommended it to start with. So, I went for it and brought Tammy along for the ride. We’ve been our own  motivation the entire time. Some days I felt like skipping out and she got me up and going and other days, the opposite. A great support system!

Here’s some basic stats for everyone:

Every 30 days Tammy and I took pictures to see our own progress.
09/19/2009 – 278 pounds – Start of Beachbody’s Power 90 program (2 pounds from morbid obesity)
10/14/2009 – 266 pounds – 30 Days of Power 90 Completed
11/16/2009 – 252 pounds – 60 Days of Power 90 Completed
12/17/2009 – 243 pounds – 90 Days of Power 90 Completed – We graduated Power 90!
(We added a few days of workouts here and took an entire week off for Christmas)
12/28/2009 – Start of Beachbody’s P90X system as seen on TV infomercials
01/10/2010 – 239 pounds – No longer obese by BMI (no pics)
01/26/2010 – 234 pounds – 30 Days of P90X completed
02/17/2010 – 228 pounds – 51 Days  of P90X completed (no pics)

50 POUNDS LOST AS OF YESTERDAY!!!

I had to share this occasion with the world. My goal is still to get below 200 with muscle. Then I’ll go and get my loose-fitting wedding ring adjusted. Under 200 pounds is my “normal weight” by BMI standard that doesn’t consider athletic build in its formula. I *still* want to get below 200 just to say I’m 190 something. Oh yes!! Heck, I’m only 28 pounds away!

Of course, the bad part, I’ve been so focused on my health and well being that I’ve put my business on the back burner. The downside of course, we’re broke but happy. LOL. I need to start working after my birthday tomorrow. Hopefully I can get back into working mode. Maybe we can get back out of debt and pay off our huge dental bills too.

Either way, I finish by saying this: Losing 50 pounds 2 days before my birthday is the best birthday present I could ever ask for. Thanks for reading!

I want you to try something next time you feel the early signs of a cold or flu.

Using a dropper, fill your ear canals, one at a time for a 10 minutes each side, with Hydrogen Peroxide. It isn’t a pleasant filling, the bubbling feels funny, but I’ve done a trial run and it has worked to kill off my colds symptoms twice now.

Doctors have done research on this and found that humans catch the cold or flu and spread it through their bodies via the ear canals. Everyone thinks you catch them through the eyes, nose, and mouth, but it may not be the case. Think about it, your ear canal is warm, moist, and the perfect breeding grounds for bacteria.

Every time I tell people about this, they look at me with skeptic eyes. But all of my research finds more and more people having excellent results doing it.

Give it a try, just for the sake of giving me results, and leave a comment on this post. I want to see how it works for others.

I don’t want you to go at this blind, I’m providing several resources below. I WISH people would spread this around, you know the government won’t, the pharma companies won’t, the doctor’s won’t. When it comes to the mighty dollar, they won’t tell you about the easy $1 cure.

Instead, they want you to take the flu shots which are KNOWN to have MERCURY, ALUMINUM, and FORMALDEYDE.  Too much MERCURY in combination with the other two is becomming linked to  Alzheimer’s disease  and autoimmune issues. Do your research:

There is some evidence that flu shots cause Alzheimer’s disease. This most likely is a result of combining mercury with aluminum and formaldehyde, which renders them much more toxic together through a synergistic effect than each would be alone. One investigator has reported that people who received the flu vaccine each year for 3 to 5 years had a ten-fold greater chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease than people who did not have any flu shots (Int J Clin Invest 2005;1:1–4). Source Link

Anyway, about Hydrogen Peroxide in the ear, I’m providing some reading resources below. Educate yourself and like I said, report back.

Forum – Does It Really Work?

Hydogen Peroxide in the ears for flu and cold remedy?

Hydrogen Peroxide Kills Bacteria

Hydrogen Peroxide Cure – Common in Germany and India!

Can Hydrogen Peroxide Prevent the Flu? Check out the quote below:

How many pandemics have been predicted in the last ten years? There was bird flu, SARS and now swine flu. How many never made it beyond sensationalist headlines? Why do they keep popping up? The latest estimate I read was, there’s more than four billion dollars in pure profit to be made on swine flu vaccine and injections. Has anyone else noticed that it’s not human suffering that’s front and center, but lost time and profits that are used as the benchmark?

Is there more to contracting colds and flu than keeping your hands away from your eyes, mouth and nose. An ongoing strong immune system and frequently washing the hands are good places to start. There’s also a lot of research indicating the inner ear is where viruses, flu and colds have the easiest access to the inner workings of the human body.

There are SO MANY RESOURCES out there saying the same thing over and over. Use a search engine, type hydrogen peroxide cure or hydrogen peroxide flu and you’ll see what I mean.

Remember, leave me comments. I want to know your results.

After discovering P90X via a commercial a couple nights ago, we decided to try the “easier” version called Power 90. Today, we started our first day of a 90 day cycle of diet and exercise.

From what I can tell about the program, it does everything that I have done in the past to successfully lose weight. Everything in the program makes absolute sense and it isn’t a lame “lose 7 pounds in 7 days” scam that forces you to lose 1 pound of fat and 6 pounds of water weight.

This program focuses on getting you leaner to gear you for P90X which is a much more extreme workout regimen. Since it focuses on removing fat and building muscle, I decided not to weigh myself often. I will weigh myself every month or so when the program has us taking pictures to see results.

As for updates, if you really want to keep up with us, we do a lot of posting on facebook.
Scott: ScottDaMan
Tammy: tammy.buehler

Send a friend request. We use facebook daily to keep up to date with David & Eric Gross, Elizabeth, Destiny, Jennifer, etc.=

That’s it for now. I’m exhausted. Power 90 is rough going at first, but I knew that going in.

I am having a hard time keeping up with the journal due to severe workload.

Week 6 I lost enough to show 259 on the scale. Week 7, I took the week off on working out to let my muscles fully recover. Starting last Monday, which was the beginning of week 8, I’ve been working out once again. The good thing, even taking the week off, I didn’t gain anything back. To me, it means I will probably maintain my weight loss in the future (removing sugar does that).

Weight on September 17th: 260.4
Yesterday, October 3rd: 258.0
Weight loss: 2.4 Pounds
Total Loss: 17.0 Pounds

This is good news to me because I am losing the amount of weight they recommend as safe. Around 1 pound a week.

We’re still doing healthy food but we have also introduced some red meat into our diet. Yesterday, we had steak. That was good! 

Now the hard part, Cedar City snowy winter is coming. With snow, outdoor exercise will be limited. As we all know, winter brings cold, cold brings increased hunger to fight the cold, etc. This is where things will be more of a struggle I think, but we’ll see. Nothing can stop me from pumping iron and doing crunches, etc. That’s all indoors!

Well, back to work. Thanks for keeping up with my diet!

The weight was a constant struggle as I bounced from 264 to 261 throughout the week. I figured by today, I would probably announce that I didn’t lose any weight.

Then yesterday came along and I saw the weight coming off. Between yesterday and today, my body decided to give up the struggle and shed some more weight.

The stats:
September 10th: 262.0
Today, September 17th: 260.4
Weight loss: 1.6 Pounds
Total Loss: 14.6 Pounds

Although this is the first time I’ve seen 260, I desperately want to see 25*.** on the scale. Even 259.9. Haha. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve seen 25*, it has been at least 8 years. Hopefully next week, I will see that for the first time. I can’t wait!

By the way, I tried on a size 40 shorts last night, and I was shocked to see they already fit. I am able to zip and button them but they still are tight. I’ve been a size 42 for many many years and a size 40 could barely clear my waist unbuttoned. I don’t know what my goal size is for clothes, all I know is I want to be between 220 and 230 pounds by next summer. That’s 30-40 pounds to lose in 9 months or 39 weeks. It will be extremely hard to lose a pound a week as my goal weight nears. Oh yeah, lets not forget the two hardest-to-diet seasons are coming, involves a turkey and a pig… yikes!

09/03/07 – Weighed 264.2
09/10/07 – Weigh 262.0
Total weight loss: 2.2 pounds in one week.

I estimate I started this diet on August 13th. Sorry, I didn’t write the first day on the calendar so I am using this blog as a reference for this estimation.

August 13th, 2007: 275 Pounds
September 10th, 2007: 262.0 Pounds
One month weight loss: 13 Pounds!

Based on my weight loss during the second half of the month, my goal is to lose 6-8 pounds next month. Hopefully more, but this is my realistic goal.

What’s really cool, I was able to eat 2 huge slices of fatty (cheese) vegetarian pizza for dinner. It was my one of two “bad meals” for the entire week. Not bad considering I had at least two bad meals a day before this diet.

As the weight goes, the energy and ambition continues. Now, at the kids’ soccer games, I find myself jogging during halftime, running/kicking with the ball, and just feeling the need to burn some energy. I never had any of that three weeks ago.

My workouts at home have intensified. I do 60 “stair pushups” a day, 100+ crunches with my legs elevated with my thighs at a 90 degree angle to the ground (thanks Tammy for the tip, these burn!), and I even went out with Tammy walking/jogging around the neighborhood. As far as muscle building, I do 20 25+ pound curls, 3 times a day, every other day, using the TotalGym as a well as a few other exercises.

For walking, I noticed Tammy can walk faster than me for some reason so I have to do small jogs periodically to stay ahead/keep up with her. Heh. As long as my heart rate keeps up though, I don’t mind.

My diet usually includes one two-scoop whey protein shake for breakfast + lunch then a healthy dinner. Tammy has found some awesome recipes online and great cooking tips to easily remove fat from a meal without sacrificing too much on taste. We have loved some of the meals she has prepared, although, we have noticed it takes her a lot longer to cook at night. It is all part of the “lifestyle change” that she talks about in her blog post yesterday.

Well that’s it for this week. I look forward to next week. I am hoping to hit 259 sometime within 9 days. I’ll be sure to post about it, I know I’ll feel compelled. Thanks for reading!