Now, wait a sec, don't get too worried. I certainly don't have any alcohol issues (other than having a mason jar of vodka and lemon rind that still needs to be mixed with syrup to make a new batch of homemade limoncello). I have a drinking problem in that I don't hydrate myself enough.

I have been doing a survey diary the past 5 days on what beverages I drink, how much I drink, etc. I've known for a while that I don't hydrate enough, but seeing how sparse my beverage diary has been was a wake up call.

On a typical day I...

1. Fill up a 20oz plastic jug of water and nurse that all day at work.
2. I will drink a tall glass or two of apple juice during the evening while at home.
3. Most days, I'll have half to all of a can of Caffeine Free Mountain Dew for dessert at some point in the evening.

And that is it. Lately, I haven't been eating cereal as much, so that's another area I've unfortunately cut my fluid intake. Admittedly, when I'm doing physical labor, I'll drink more water. However, I don't do much physical labor in my day-to-day routine.

I need to figure out what I can do to help spur me to drink more. Some sort of routine or habit other than some sort of requirement for me to chug some amount of water at certain deadlines. I've tried that before and couldn't consistently get myself to do it.

The update is that I haven't turned on Wii Fit since early January. The primary culprit is my inability to get to bed at a decent hour or sleep solidly through the night. Sure, I've had illness that has also made me smack my alarm and roll over for more sleep, but my late nights or overnight wakings certainly get top honors. My routine became sporadic in the late fall, but I was encouraged that I seemed to maintain my weight when I did return to Wii Fit.

My parents have mentioned lately that they thought I looked like I've lost more weight. While I'd like to believe they are right, I've been skeptical because I know I'm completely out of whack on any regular exercise. Yes, I get exercise, but in fits and spurts, definitely not every day or some other consistent basis. If anything, I'm inclined to think that I've had muscle loss that contributes to a loss in weight (not that I had been doing much strength training to begin with).

I did start to think maybe they are right this morning. I was putting on my jeans and my usual notch felt loose. I easily got the belt tighter by one more notch. Hopefully I'll be able to leverage my optimism into better discipline at getting to sleep earlier and actually waking up with the alarm.

From New Years to the beginning of September, my weight-loss was fairly consistent (if not accelerating). I dropped 35 pounds over that period. Then I was sick for a week and didn't exercise. And I was sluggish the week after that.

I have yet to get fully back on board with my morning exercise routine since then. Where I was working out 4 or 5 days a week before, I'm lucky if I work out 2 or 3 days now.

This is a domino situation, IMO, caused by my staying up later at night. If the boys take a long time to get to bed at night, that pushes how late JD and I get around to watching our DVR'ed shows, and then I don't find myself rolling over for sleep until around midnight. When that happens, I'm just awake enough at 6am to turn off the alarm and roll over.

I MUST get back in the habit. While I'm grateful that this whole time I've plateaued my weight has just been fluctuating up and down by about 3 pounds, it is discouraging to look at the BMI/weight graph and see the long slope down segue to a growing horizontal line.

There's a time and place for everything. It is called college. This was taken on the catwalk of the Bama Theater in downtown Tuscaloosa...probably in '93.

Here are some shots after my first haircut where the length in back wasn't trimmed short. It feels like my hair is longer and bushier than the pictures show. :/




More like business in front and business casual in back.

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Ah, here's a chance for me to share my experiences using and endorsing Body Solutions for weight loss while I was on the air in Dallas.

Most jobs in radio have really low pay...but you get a lot of freebies! Businesses that advertise on the station will often provide samples (free food brought to the station, one advertiser gave the whole morning show laser whitening), certificates, discounts, and such (I miss walking into Fat Mo's and Mo or Shiva giving me a free roast beef sandwich or burger). Then there is the payday of landing a "live spot" for a product. Not only do you get the product for free, you also get paid to do the spots. In Dallas, I was the only person on the morning show that needed to lose weight, so when the folks at Body Solutions was looking to advertise on KLIF, I was the lucky guy.

At the time, Body Solutions was saturating radio with ads and DJ/host endorsements. Only loser stations in a market didn't have a deal with Body Solutions. When the company's marketing head had his first conversation with me, he stated that I was to take the products and wait until I had lost at least 8 pounds before going on the air to talk about it. While he insisted on waiting until I lost 8 pounds, he contacted me every few days to see if I had lost the weight yet.

Here is what the Body Solutions package included:
* The core element - the Body Solutions bedtime potion was to be taken right before going to bed. However, before taking that solution, you were to cut off eating food and drink (other than water) for 2 hours before bed.

* Powder for making some "vanilla" or "chocolate" shakes. This included a pamphlet that provided ways to use Gatorade with the vanilla for a orange sherbert flavor, among other ideas.

* cheap pedometer

* Instructions to drink, at least, 6 glasses of water a day

It took me a little over 2 weeks to lose the 8 pounds and to start doing my on-air ads. After a couple of months, I had plateaued at around a 15-17 pound loss. But as my weightloss slowed, the marketing guy from Body Solutions kept suggesting ways to alter my pitch: where I had previously focused on the pounds lost, I now switched to focusing on inches lost; after a few weeks of that, he told me to talk about how I felt about the weight loss or what others had told me; but he was always persistent about air-checking the ads and trying to get the most out of his ads. This obsessiveness started to rub Darrell.

As I was losing weight, I knew that much of my initial loss of weight was due to the fasting for two hours before bed and my dramatic change from drinking juices/Gatorade to drinking mostly water. The shakes, while not the tastiest shakes, were a nice supplement that did a great job of keeping me away from solid food. The big question and what I started to feel more and more was the crucial part of if I was ethically okay with the endorsement was the effectiveness of the nightly solution. When I hit the plateau, I figured that most of the weight loss had to do with my lifestyle changes. I started to lose confidence in the product and the Body Solutions marketing guy was coming across more and more like a used car salesman.

Finally, the shit started hitting the fan for Body Solutions. The company was having financial problems AND they were under siege from a deluge of lawsuits and consumer complaints. When they dropped their advertising, I was relieved. When we received a call about our endorsement of Body Solutions, Darrell and I discussed the situation on the air. I talked about how I did, in fact lose weight. We discussed what was happening behind the scenes with the marketing guy. Then we wrapped things up by stating that none of us had any desire to do ads for a product like that again. Did I lose weight while I was doing the Body Solutions program (product + lifestyle change)? Yes. Was I certain how much of that could be attributable to the Body Solution product as opposed to the lifestyle changes? As time went on, I was less convinced the product was key. However, doing the Body Solutions program helped me to make a lifestyle change I had long contemplated but procrastinated on. Was the product and program worth the price? I no longer thought so.

BUT, when Body Solutions stopped advertising, I did go to the sales person that dealt with them and took a couple of her spare bottles of the Body Solutions nighttime potion and some vanilla shake powders.

Head is SOOO FULL of snot. I can't think well at all.

***

Have yet to finish watching the race in California. I think I'm about 50 laps from the finish. After the boys went down, it was time for JD and I to watch The Amazing Race, I watched some of the race, JD asked to watch something else, and I fell asleep before I could get back to the race.

***

I'm liking several of the contestants on TAR. I think I'm going to stick with the little stunt guys as my favorite despite the sympathy factor for the deaf kid/mom and my familiarity with Mike White (School of Rock, Chuck & Buck) who's participating with his dad. As long as the NFL cheerleaders don't win, there is a God.

***

The hair has faded to green w/ a blueish tint on top. The side and back are more green-blonde.

***

The rest of the house may be pretty darn clean, but the master bedroom is an ABSOLUTE WRECK! Until JD finishes getting stuff set to sell at Kids Market, it will remain a mess.

***

I really need a non-windy day soon...but on a day that I can actually do yard work. I must napalm the mulched areas of weeds. Also, the henbit and other spring weeds have started earlier this year in the lawn and will need some Weed-B-Gone, too. The south side of the house is in particularly bad shape.

***

Harper isn't consistent, but she's getting much better about only waking up once or twice a night. Last night she needed attention at 11:30pm and then didn't wake up until close to 6:30am.

Last night at dinner, I was half distracted with feeding Harper. JD was nice enough to fix me a plate and I didn't want to also ask her to fetch my juice from the other room. After getting some small nibbles of the carrot soufflé, I took a fateful bite of chicken breast.

As I chewed, I realized that both my mouth and the chicken were dry. I needed a drink. Then something else happened. I'm not sure what it was - Harper demanding food, one or both boys telling/asking me something, or whatever. But my "solution" to getting that chicken problem resolved was to just swallow the bite.

Bad mistake! The piece of chicken became stuck in my throat.

I tried coughing it up, but it wouldn't move. I was coughing and gasping loudly and headed to the sink in prep for throwing up and/or getting some water to drink. The kids and JD were now starting to freak out. I bent over the sink - half trying to get the chicken out of my throat and half trying to breathe. There was enough mental awareness in me to realize that air was getting through when I wasn't doing strong gasps. JD came up behind me and tried to do the Heimlich, but I didn't expect much since the chicken hadn't completely closed off the throat. I then calmed myself enough that I was able to focus, get some water in my cupped hands, and drank it. The piece of chicken washed down my throat. After a few more coughs and deep breaths, I was okay.

The only thing bothering me now is that I have a HUGE knot in my left shoulder. There is an area about the size of a deflated football that HURTS. I just tried to relax last night in hopes it would melt partially away from light meds and rest, but I woke up with the pain just as strong as it was last night. My #1 job for today is to use heat/cold and the massager to make it possible for me to turn my head without audibly going "OW!" I would like to drive without shouting in pain.

For future reference, if I need JD to give me the Heimlich, I'm going to need to kneel on the ground.

1. I want to have a wake, not a funeral.

2. I want to be cremated and have my ashes spread in Washington D.C. Ideally, I would like for them to be separated and spread at the locations of the three branches of our govt (White House, Capitol, Supreme Court). Due to silly terrorism concerns, I promise not to haunt anyone as long as I'm spread somewhere in D.C. Tidal Basin wouldn't be bad. (Yes, I'm that silly of a patriot that I want this. It was purely my own interest that lead to my doing Poli Sci classes at Bama, and I loved it so much that the next thing I knew...I had enough hours to declare it my second major.)

3. Folks like bluevinylangel who have known me for a while need to contact JD as soon as I die. I have my filing cabinet with memorabilia and you get first look and you can remove some of the items that pertain to you before the cabinet's contents are available for "celebrants" at my wake.

4. verticalbar needs to discuss with my dad what vinyl he wants to keep (even though he, too, is currently without a turntable). You can keep 'em for yourself or sell 'em.

5. I want to be wearing my "wedding Converse" when I go. Y'all can do something artsy with the 19 other shoes if you want. Anything to give people a tickle at the wake is appreciated.

6. auronsgirl, I guarantee that my parents or in-laws have enough space in either of their houses for you and your husband to come down and not incur hotel costs.

7. I have been working on a list of songs for my wake for several years now. Behind the cut is my list as it stands now. I am open to additions but am looking for, at least, 50% of the songs to be mid- to up-tempo. I may add more songs today as life slips from my fingertips. ( Songs for Cory's Wake )