I’ve been steadily going down in weight, which I am proud of.  The southbeach diet was awesome, but I promptly gained the weight as I saw it as a short term goal.  I weighed in on Saturday at 143.  My goal is to be 140 by my birthday.  At this rate, if I am 135 for the summer I will be pleased.  I refuse to have another summer of fatness.

For the last 6 weeks now I have been taking phentermine.  It’s pretty cool, but I don’t have extreme weight loss like I thought.  When I started taking it I fluxuated between 150-153.  As of late I range between 146-148.  Sad to think that when we started this dang website I was ten pounds thinner.  I don’t go to the gym-at all.  After months of bitching to get Kyle to the gym, he finally signed up and now neither of us go.  We suck.

I’ve never been much of a video game fan. I like playing them, sure, but I don’t get horribly excited about new consoles, and I just don’t have the time to dedicate to them. The extent of my gaming generally consists down to the classic retro adult arcade known as Ground Kontrol.

After hearing a friend talk about the Nintendo Wii and how he was sore after playing it, I decided to investigate why he said that. I learned that the Wii offers physical simulation (which quickly distinguishes it from the more popular rival PS3) A quick google query lead me to this wonderful article about how Wii users are exterting themselves to the point where their muscles are sore.

If one is simulating sword swinging, I can imagine some of the games get quite intense. This continuous motion, combined with the crack like addictive qualities of video gaming, might just well help you burn off some calories, and get your heart rate up to boot. Boxing is packaged, which as you can imagine, might include swinging your arms around quite a bit.

One quote that really got me:

Ryan Mercer, a customs broker in Indianapolis, lifts weights several times a week. But that hasn’t helped much with the Wii. After playing the boxing game for an hour and a half, his arms, shoulders and torso were aching. “I was soaking wet with sweat, head to toe — I had to go take a shower,” he says. And the next morning? “I had trouble putting my shirt on,” says the 21-year-old avid gamer.

Since quitting smoking, I have been downing Mocha’s, sometimes up to 3 per day. Those damn things are (1) expensive and (2) fattening. Very fattening at nearly 300 calories per cup. Ouch, so that’s where my big ass belly comes into play.

Looking at coffee though it’s exactly 2 calories. That’s black of course, but 2. With a T-W-O.  Maybe I could rock a little splenda and make it happen. That’s like the difference between calories in a Coke and calories in a Diet Coke. That, and coffee is 50 times cheaper than a damn Mocha. Maybe one day I will have a coffee maker again. I know I have one somewhere.

During my last episode of plumping up, I found that I lost far more weight by walking 3-4 miles 5 days a week with a laptop in tow than I did when I was going to the gym and running 2 miles a day 5 days a week.

I did a little research into why this was: Basically, running burns carbs which are like nitros: they give you engergy in fast bursts. But walking for a long duration causes your metabolism to switch to fat burning mode instead of burning the carbs and sugars. While running definitely doesn’t hurt, particularly if you are playing a sport (it’s more fun to be active when playing than simply excercising).

So if you’ve got a few hours to kill everyday, and you are serious about burning fat, go for a long walk.