First, I want to thank all those who have been supportive of me. Thanks for your encouraging comments and “Like” on Facebook. Those really help to keep me going, there’s nothing like public approval, support, and cheer. Thank you!

Ok, so since I’ve been tracking my calories and weight loss on MyFitnessPal I’ve lost 7 lbs. Since I started doing this I’ve actually lost about 10 lbs. Unfortunately, the rapid weight loss of 1-2 lbs everyday is over, guess the honeymoon is over.

Regardless of the plateau I’m happy to stay on track. I actually feel better. I don’t feel that bloated feeling all day, all night, and still when I wake up. I actually feel real hunger pains again! Not the “I want to eat hunger pains.”

I have more energy too; I haven’t “needed” a nap after work all week! Another bonus is that I’m so hydrated! My hands and feet aren’t swollen; they don’t look like ginger roots! Surprisingly, I don’t have dark circles and puffs under my eyes; water does a body good!

I haven’t measured my waist, hips, and bust sizes yet. I’m saving that for 20lbs. I really don’t want to get discouraged by measurements that haven’t changed. So I won’t measure myself until then… maybe not even then. The downside is that I noticed my boobies shrink. ☹ Boo! I didn’t realize they shrunk until a couple days ago when I put on a tank top over my bra. Before I lost the water weight the tank top squeezed my boobies and made them look like two water balloons ready to pop. Now, they’re just boobies in a tank top.

Why oh why couldn’t I just loose it in the chin or belly first? Why couldn’t the fat in my chin just slide on down into the fun bags? Nevertheless I continue to count my calories and hope the boobies don’t go away.

Some of you are probably wondering what I eat. I’ve stayed away from treats: candy, ice cream, soda, even juice. Slim Fast everyday does get old so yesterday I bought a bunch of Morning Star Farms vegetarian meals. They’re so good! My favorites are Hickory BBQ Riblets and Buffalo Wings Veggie Wings. I only drink water; I figured I’d save the calories for food. I consume between 1,000 to 1,200 calories a day plus a multi-vitamin.

Lunch is kind of like my happy meal, I’ll eat whatever I feel like as long as I leave enough calories for dinner so I don’t die of starvation at night. Like today I had Popeye’s Chicken (1 breast, 1 biscuit, 2tbsp red beans and rice = 680 calories). For dinner I had a Slim Fast shake = 190 calories. So I still have about 330 calories to consume, I could have snack but I’m still full from lunch, plus I could use that to take back the calories I over ate when I ordered Chinese food a few days ago. Normally, I would have breakfast, which is a Slim Fast bar or shake, but I was too busy at work this morning to scarf something down. And yes, I’m too lazy to get up early enough to get breakfast before heading for work.

Again, thank you for supporting me in this super hard task. Please join me tonight and chant… “DD cups stay, fat belly go away!” Say it with me… “DD cups stay, fat belly go away!”

Created by MyFitnessPal – Free Calorie Counter

Ok, so everyone who knew me when I was a kid I was a fat kid. Anyway, I was fat in grade school and fat in high school. Then I joined the Air Force and shed all that “baby weight.” Then somewhere down the line… ok… when I moved to Japan I just lost all motivation to continue working out and watching what I ate. So Japan was like 8 years ago! So after 8 years of gluttony and sloth, tonight, I decided it’s time to make a change.

I’ve been saying it for years “I’ll start tomorrow.” Well tomorrow has come and gone many times, about 2,920 times!

So, I’ve been thinking what can I do to make myself commit? What kind of motivation can I muster to really hold myself to this? Every other motivations never caught on… like fitting a size 2 again, looking great, walking up a flight of stairs without pausing midway to catch my breath, or doing more than easy sex positions! You’d think any one of these motivations, especially the last, would get my ass in gear. You’d think all these motivations combined would make me get on the treadmill and never get off until I lost all the excess fat.

Unfortunately, I found more reasons not to start… so many reasons I can’t even remember what they are. All I know are they weren’t reasons; they were excuses.  Stupid excuses that made me gain 10 pounds more every time I uttered the words “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Ok, now you’re thinking well if all those motivations were trumped by all the excuses what was it about tonight that made me decide to commit? And what is the thing that will make me commit?

The answer to the first question is really simple and super stupid compared to all the other motivations. I watched this video on YouTube by Kandee Johnson, The Skin Doctor: Lemon Trick. Yeah, what’s that got to do with losing weight? Well it all started from watching that video, then I watched more of her videos. As I continued watching Kandee I kept thinking, “oh, god I miss being beautiful,” and “wow, I really miss playing with beauty products and actually caring what I looked like.” I was thinking, “I really miss looking at myself in the mirror.” Yeah, that’s really vain. It’s true, it’s vain. And I think its time for me to trade one sin for another, gluttony for vanity.

The answer to the second question, well that’s more tricky because as I fantasized about looking at myself in the mirror again without wanting to vomit I was also thinking, “I’ve gotta come up with something to commit to.” I came up with committing to a  declaration shared to the world. Shared to anyone who reads this blog. Shared to anyone who cares. Shared to anyone who supports me. A declaration to get back into shape. To trade gluttony for vanity, sloth for lust.

Of course the declaration isn’t enough, I mean hell, I could keep saying that for another 8 years right? So what I’m going to do is to produce a weekly blog on my progress. For me to keep track. And for those who care… hopefully, you care enough to subscribe and support me by keeping track as well. To give me praise when I do well and to give me shit when I don’t.

Tomorrow is today. Today, I got on the elliptical machine for 20 minutes and worked off 172 calories. Baby steps.

Last term one of my classes was Digital Photography. It was more stressful than I though, as most of you know I enjoying taking pictures and I thought the class would be super fun. I learned a lot of things I wanted to learn on my own but never really made the time to, so the class was very beneficial. Here is my favorite project from the class, a story told just by photographs. Initially I didn’t really know what to do with the project, then one of my friends suggested I do it on the dogs. It was a brilliant idea, I took over 900 photos! Thank god for digital storage. Any way, from 900 photos down to 23 here is the story.

So, I’m taking this class GD-436, Interactive Scripting. Our homework for this week is to create a blog account and post a blog. Well since I have a blog account already all I have to do is post a blog for class. I couldn’t really think of a topic to blog about so I’m going to kill 2 birds with one post ~ stone.

First bird: Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways do blog sites aid in the dissemination of useful information and discourse? In what ways do they hinder it?I think blog sites are great informational sites. Of course some have better, more credible information than others. There are so many different blog sites that stating the information in blogs are useful or harmful, it all depends on the information you seek and how you verify credibility. Mostly, I enjoy blog sites that are educational and entertaining. Blogging is a great tool to disseminate information because blog sites are frequently crawled by spiders which help get visibility on a site, I don’t really see a way blogging hinders dissemination of information other than dissemination of possibly wrong information mixed in with good information.

2. Post the url to your blog from the assignment and post a response to one other students blog.Ok, well this is the blog for the assignment so, here’s a click here to refresh the page.

Second bird: Completing the Requirements for the Blog Post

1. Create Categories: well as you can see on the sidebar I have quite a few categories already. I’m inserting this post to the “blog” category.
2. Insert an image:
   
3. Apply a unique template: this template is very unique because I created the WordPress template to match the layout of my website.
4. Post a trackback to another blog site. Here’s the most recent blog in Balanced Energy, LLC‘s website. I designed that website for my friend’s business.
5. Use HTML in the blog: well I killed this requirement when I inserted the image above because I used the <IMG SRC> tag to insert the image.

1. Stopped traffic on the Autobahn, every other road is under construction.

2. Everything is closed on Sunday, and you can’t even do any work around the house especially if it is loud like mowing the lawn.

3. Dogs have go to daycare or something to that effect because German law states pets cannot be left alone more than 5 hours. Instead you must put them in the care of a stranger and hope they are treated well.

4. Everything takes forever! There’s no such thing as expedient service.

5. People refuse to speak English even though you can tell they understand you.

6. People are just polite enough not to be called rude to their faces but rude enough to make you feel like you want turn around and slap a bitch.

7. USD to Euro rate makes you poor.

8. Nothing open past 8pm, especially on weekends.

9. Dogs can’t be dogs, they’re not free to bark freely without the fear of being taken away. Whoever said Germans love dogs lied.

10. Smoking is permitted almost everywhere. I saw pregnant teens smoking at the outdoor cafe of the hospital.

11. No right on red.

12. Many major stores and restaurants only accept cash. C’mon take a step into the 21st century it’s called credit and debit cards!

13. Deodorant optional.

14. A full mailbox of junkmail every other day. I bet we kill 1 oak tree every month on the amount of shit stuffed in our mailbox.

15. Non-reflective road paint + no street lights = super fucking dark roads

Don’t get me wrong there’s some stuff I love about Germany… The food is amazing and the opportunity to travel is wonderful but how much food and travelling can you do to?

In September 2008 Tay was hit by a life threatening syndrome called GBS, Gullian-Barre Syndrome. Not fatal to younger folks but very possibly fatal to seniors. In October 2008, I went back to Baguio for a month to stay be with Nay and Tay during this painful ordeal. As time went on I began feeling hopeless, when doctors tell you “we are still hopeful” that to me really means “prepare for the worst, there is nothing we can do.” And it really seemed like there was nothing they could do but manage the pain. I saw pain and frustration in his eyes when his entire body was paralyzed from the neck down.

My month stay was up, and there were no improvements in his health. His heart was starting to give out, he was tired. I was ready to accept the worst, almost welcomed it because seeing the strongest man I know lay there helpless and in pain was difficult.

Guilt. Now, just a year after since his diagnosis he is back on his feet, back at home, and regaining strength. I feel so much joy when I receive news of his new found strength and recovery, at the same time I feel so much guilt. I was so weak, I gave up on hope.

Tay truly is the strongest man I know. His will and love for Nay is so strong. The love between them is like the flame of life. I truly believe that their love make their hearts stronger, their love keeps them alive.

Here’s a video of  Tay walking! Thank you Tita Pya for taking so much time out of your life to be with Nay and Tay, and keeping all of us posted.

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Well I finally got around to posting the photos from our recent trips. In February, on Valentine’s Day we went to the Wilhelma Zoo in downtown Stuttgart. We didn’t really plan on doing much for V-day so on a whim we went to the zoo. It was cold almost snowy day but we went anyway. As expected not all the animals were out and about, regardless we still saw quite a few beauties like the tiger, peacocks, polar bears, and penguins. The baby penguins were the cutest, I don’t know if I have any photos of them posted because they were hidden in the little caves so none of the shots I took came out nicely.

On the first day of spring we went to Legoland, Germany to enjoy the start of warm weather. It was the first opening day for the year. It was smaller than I expected but it was nice. I loved the mini world; cities like Munich, Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, and more were there. They also had Neuschwanstein Castle, which was a nice preview because it was our next trip.

Our most recent trip was to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles in Bavaria on an USO tour to see the castle that inspired Walt Disney for Cinderella’s castle. I’ve been there about 10 years ago. I must say the tour changed quite a bit; no photos inside!?! The first time I went there I brought a 35mm camera with black and white film (yeah, stupid I know) so I was hoping to get new pictures. Anyway, I posted a few cool shots from outside; although the photographs do not come close to the beauty of the place. It was so surreal. Everywhere you turn is so picturesque, absolute breathtaking beauty. A fairytale scene in real life. The lake alone was captivating, the water was so clear I wanted to drink it, the Alps in the backdrop just completed the dream. We plan on returning in the Fall to see the change of colors.

So in my boredom I started stumbling and I came across this recipe “The Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake Recipe.” Before reading the article/recipe I figured it would be this rich and tiresome to prepare chocolate cake, but no… it only takes 5 minutes to make! I definitely have to try this… probably tonight. If and when I do I’ll post a photo and let you know how it was. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will taste absolutely horrible so I won’t have another easy fix to my fat cravings.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about something fun other than school projects. The January term ended last week with a week and a half break, so here’s to catching up…

On February 13, 2009, Stephen and I went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. We got up fairly early to catch the SBahn which dropped us off almost at the doorstep of the museum. As you can see from the photos the building is quite huge, from the outside it didn’t look as big as it did walking through it inside. I think there are 6 floors. You begin the tour by getting on the elevator that takes you all the way to the top and you work your way down the spiral design of the building moving through time represented by the cars. I took over 400 photos, of course too many to post online… that would be a bit boring to look through so I posted 82. I tried to take photos of all the cars but there were just too many, plus I skipped the cars from the 1980s and early 1990s because they were god-awfully ugly! Very Back to the Future-istic. I took us about 7 hours to walk through the entire museum, which turned into a dealership toward the end. It was nice to see the brand new cars.

click the image to see the photo album

Here’s the final version of my island. I put sound on it but the file is too large, I’m still figuring out how to make the file size smaller but retain picture and sound quality to post online. Here it is, much better lighting and a few other fun stuff added to the island. How I wish this is a real-life getaway.

(double click image to play video; this may take a while to load it’s a very large file)

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