Biding Time...Weekly Weight Update
This week was my last week at my job and it was tough to stay focused. It was important to me to work diligently up until my last day but it was very hard to keep my mind on my work when I knew I wouldn’t be there come Monday. Not only that, I knew I had lots of hard work ahead so I won’t bury the news way down at the end of the blog but just give it to you up front. I have started my own accounting and bookkeeping firm called, creatively, Clark Accounting Services. Please visit my firm website, wesclarkcpa.com, and let me know if I can be of service.
Even while spending lots of time preparing myself to dive into the world of running my own business I tried to make sure to stay on track with diet and exercise this week. I had to move up my normal Thursday OrangeTheory Fitness class to Tuesday because I had some alternative plans that I’ll tell you about later. It was a devastatingly hard workout with lots of rowing but there was something even worse; a gross sweat towel.
If you are squeamish you may want to skip the next few paragraphs because what I’m about to share is (1) embarrassing to admit because (2) it is very gross. Go to “START HERE” below to skip the grossness.
Okay, I warned you that this was going to be terrible so if you are still reading you can only blame yourself. As I have mentioned before, OrangeTheory Fitness (OTF) is a hard workout that if you put in the effort will make you sweat more than Forest Whitaker in the Last King of Scotland. That is why I always make sure to bring a towel along because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see through the waterfall that is the sweat falling down my face.
On Tuesday, being out of sorts by going to OTF on the wrong day, I forgot to grab a towel before getting in the car. I didn’t realize this error until I arrived at the gym and by then there was no time for me to go back for a towel. Luckily, I was lazy enough to have left my towel from the Sunday OTF class in the backseat of my car. I gave it a once over to make sure it was dry and figured that this would do the job. I was going to be getting really sweaty anyway so what does it matter if the towel was already used to wipe up copious amounts of sweat then left in a car for three days?
The class started and everything was going great. Well, as great as can be expected when you can barely stand because of the crazy rowing machine. I rowed. I lifted. I squatted. I ran. I sprinted. I lifted some more. I used the towel to wipe my face and the more I wiped the more it became apparent that this was a terrible idea.
The towel smelled like a cow had died in the middle of the summer, rotted, was eaten by a vulture, and then the vulture was hit by a truck on the interstate in Texas. I tried to power through but each time I raised the towel to my face it was more and more potent. It was around the 40 minute mark that the stench of the towel had finally overwhelmed my senses and my abdominals. I raced to the bathroom. The men’s room was in use. I ran into the women’s bathroom and locked the door. I dry heaved and gagged. I almost threw up but I didn’t. I caught my breath and splashed water on my face. It was about a five minute break in the middle of a hard workout. Boy was it terrible.
After I had regained my composure I returned to the gym with a hand full of paper towels to replace my awful towel for the rest of the workout. Even with my short stint on the sidelines I was still able to burn about 970 calories in an hour which is pretty good. The moral of the story is never use the same sweat towel twice. You’d think I would already have that kind of common sense as a 36-year-old man but I also spent 10 days backpacking through the mountains of New Mexico wearing the same shirt the entire time so I’m not exactly a genius.
START HERE
Welcome back to those of a queasy nature and to those that aren’t thanks for sticking with it. Seeing as it was my last week, my coworkers were kind and did a few fun things for me. First, we went out on Thursday night for Happy Hour which turned into happy four-hours at the Tysons Biergarten. It was my first time heading out to this place and it is truly a magical oasis among the construction and high-rises in Tysons Corner, VA.
It even has Das Boot
Set up in what I can only image is a traditional German biergarten style, you purchase tokens upon entrance depending on the color (green=happy hour beers, red=food, blue=standard beers). There is another color (white I believe) if you want a liquor based beverage but what kind of crazy person would purchase a liquor beverage at a biergarten.
Beer currency
We sat outside on a beautiful night drinking beers, eating sausages, and listening to live music. I truly did have great coworkers and if I wanted to continue to audit I would have stayed at that firm but it was time to move on to new adventures. Thanks for the biergarten.
But that wasn’t all because on Friday they decided to have a little get together in the office that included a massive cheesecake. Of course, cheesecake is the greatest dessert that has ever graced our planet so I was ecstatic. I had a substantial piece at the office and was given the remainder to take home. Luckily Rizzo and my father-in-law, Carl, were around to help finish off the cheesecake on Friday night because otherwise I would have consumed the entire thing.
Rizzo’s dad, Carl, flew into town to spend the weekend with us and to hang out with Cece. On Saturday we weren’t able to get in too much outside activity because of the rain. We were lucky that our local theatre, NextStop, was putting on a production called Balloonacy that is perfect for kids. This was Cece’s first theatre experience and it was lots of fun. She was entranced by the performance but she clapped and smiled and seemed to love it.
All in all, it was a very good and bittersweet week. I’m sad to be leaving behind so many friends but I’m very excited about getting my new venture off the ground. However, with all the eating and drinking I was surprised when I stepped on the scale Sunday morning to see that I had maintained my weight at 206.2. It proves the power of consistent exercise (I got in the gross OTF workout and went running on Thursday and Saturday) that even if you fall off the diet train you can still maintain. That keeps the current weight loss total at 61.8 pounds. I’m curious to see how consistent I can be during my first week of self-employment. Wish me luck.
This week I had no gut feeling on how the week would turn out. Rizzo does all her working out and running in the morning so I never know how long she is gone or how many miles she has until Sunday when she says something like, “oh, I didn’t do so well this week. I only got 742 miles.” Then I have to metaphorically punch her in the kidneys. I was just able to squeeze out a victory thanks to Rizzo slacking off at the beginning of the week. It allowed me to grab a slight victory of 37.1 miles compared to 35.8 miles. However, it wasn't enough for me to gain the lead for the month so Rizzo is still up 39.1 miles to 38.9 miles. I guess I'll just have to use my newly found free time to walk a lot.
P.S. Here are just a few other random pictures from the week.
