Got off track

I got way off track on my diet and exercise thing. Officially the worst by far yet. On Monday I was supposed to do a workout. My lame excuse is that my muscles still hurt. Boo Hoo. I could have still done it. I think my main mistake is way until later at night to even think about doing it. My schedule is all messed up and i've been waking up way too later. It doesn't help that my computer has been COMPLETELY messed up and i've been trying to fix it for 3 days straight AND work crazy hours. Luckily my computer is now running fine, but I fell behind in my regular work.

Ok, so Tuesday I was supposed to get a workout in. I skipped it and I didn't even feel guilty about it. I remember thinking though for a moment that this could be the start of someone stopping for good. That's how it all starts. To make matter really worse I needed some serious food at 4am just when my work was getting finished. I went to IHOP and got a Spinach & Mushroom omlette and a side of two pancakes. I ate half the omlette and BOTH of the pancackes. Both with Syrup. I confessed to my mom about this and her reply was "Big Deal!". It IS a big deal. The omlette had a lot of cheese in it and it came with some unhealthy sauce. I bet it was 800 calories and 40g of fat in one sitting.

At least i'm now getting back on schedule. I went to bed early on Tuesday night and woke up early. Went to lunch and had some healthy noodles, but later found out they just made me sleepy. Stupid Rice noodles. Strike that off my list of foods to eat. Wheat noodles is the only way to go. I went shopping at the mall and got some exercise just walking around, but on the way home I was so extremely sleepy.

I came home and immediately did a workout. It lasted about an hour and I got dinner after that.

It's 2:37am now, but I need to go to bed and wake up early. I need to be up for the Fedex truck. They are deliverying some memory for my computer. I had 4 1gb sticks in my computer and somehow the latest two were causing problems yet they were the exact same type, model and brand. My hard drive ended up being bad also.

So i'm now back on track and will stay there no matter what. Two days off is not good.

Windows 7 problems fixed?

It turns out the crashes i've been having might not be software related at all. It was really hard to recreate the crashes and they just happened at random. When one crash came, I could then right click my desk and explorer would crash and need to be restarted. It seemed like it only occured after I was using my computer for a long time and when I finally thought it was fixed. It was not overheating. My heatsink on my video card never gets hot and the inside of my case stays fairly cool. Turns out the voltage increase doesn't really matter after all.

I swapped out all 4gb of my OCZ memory for some Corsair memory. The Windows experience memory scored a 5.5 with 4gb of OCZ ram. Immediately when I put in the 4gb of Corsair it shot up to 7.1! Exactly the same specs. Something funny was going on, yet all ram tests passed previously. My memory just starting dying out. However that happens.

The ram was $155 at Best Buy. 4gb Dual Channel (2gbx2) of DDR2 800. I checked online and I could get it for $90, but shipping for next day is $22. I don't mind paying $50 more to have it TODAY. If I only get the free or 3day shipping i'd have to go without a computer for 3-5 days. No thanks. Best Buy's memory is quite expensive.

So this Windows 7 upgrade was not pain free. My memory was bad or just acting up. I'm hoping I don't have any more crashing. I'm really getting tired of it. I've wasted three days trying to fix this. It's just almost impossible to have Windows crashing this much. Not even software issues really cause this bad of a problem..usually.

Almost skipped another workout

I was so close to skipping my 2nd day in a row of my workout. I've just been so frustrated with getting my computer back up and running and I had a list a mile long of things to do. That's no excuse. It's not going to kill me to workout.

I needed a break from all this computer repair that I just went upstairs and did my workout. I was extremely surprised to see I could lift more weight then I could previously. Maybe that's my body telling me I need to split my workout up a little more. Perhaps my upper body needs more recovery time. I need to come up with a better workout plan so that I still do a workout every other day.

Anyway, I just ran Prime95 on my computer as a "stress test" to see if it's going to crash. Zero problems so far and that's very good news.

Now back to work!

Windows 7 very frustrating

What a pain this has been. Windows 7 has been crashing non-stop. Sometimes I feel like it hasn't gone 10 minutes without a crash. It's something new every time. Here's what i've tried.

Scanned hard drive and memory for errors.
Updated all drivers, even if they "looked" ok.

Flash would crash Youtube videos in ANY browser. I fixed that problem somehow after using the latest Microsoft updates. It seemed to work after that.

Removed any connected hardware just to be safe.

I did some research and someone suggested increasing the default Northbridge voltage by just one notch. I did that and ran a prgram that caused my problems and it didn't crash. I don't know if this fixed it, but maybe. So far, Windows 7 has just been so unstable. It works perfectly on my laptop.

My power supply is good and my video card is a recent one. All hardware seems to be working fine. This also is a clean install. Hopefully I won't see any more errors. Unfortunately all these problems have ruined my day. I wasted a day trying to get back up and running. This was my day to get back to work.

If this doesn't fix it, I may swap out the video card and soundcard and see what happens next.

Windows 7 Installed

Last night I went to two stores and nobody had Windows 7 for sale early. I instead went home and bought it off Microsoft's website for download. It feels funny paying so much for a download that's all in one 3gb file. Luckily it's an ISO file and I will back it up. I was too impatient to wait to get it in a store.

I went with Windows 7 Professional Upgrade since I never got any earlier version of Vista to work with my Raid 1 setup that were listed as 'dynamic disks'. Vista Home Premium would only list them as 'invalid', but under Vista business they were working fine.

Install loaded and sat there for like 5 minutes without it doing anything. A prompt finally came up and even on my 3ghz Quad Core it seemed to take forever to install. It almost felt like something was wrong with my hard drive. It's a 640gb 7200rpm WD drive. I don't use my computer enough to NEED an SSD drive at the moment, but it's tempting.

I did a clean install and thankfully Windows moved my Program Files directory and other old stuff to Windows.old. I would have really not wanted them to be kept there to interfere with the new Windows install.

The only thing out of the box it did not support was my Creative X-Fi card. I had to download some drivers and it worked fine.

The only major problem I had is that when I tried to check into my printer drivers, Explorer would crash. It took me awhile to get it working. It's a Brother HL-5140 laser printer from abotu 4 years ago. It still lists a duplicate "HL-5140" printer that I can't remove.

The worst problem by far was trying to get WinDVD 7.0 working. The setup can't even be run it's so old. I paid for this program about 3 years ago and I guess it's just not going to work. I found a link on Microsoft's website and upgraded to version 10 for half price. Around $50. I just prefer WinDVD over PowerDVD somehow. WinDVD is so bloated and it's just the most annoying program ever to install, remove etc. It's getting to be like Nero.

So I went to install WinDVD 10 and when it asks me to install Quicktime the program freezes up and I have to close the installer. I try to install it again and it says it's already installed!! It's not listed in Add/Remove programs and there is no uninstaller to be found. I had to manually remove all of the Corel/WinDVD directories and about 500 entries in the registry. Had to search for 'WinDVD' and 'Corel'. What a pain. After that the installer worked.

While I was having so many problems my mouse stopped working. I tried 4 different batteries and still nothing. I tried a 5th battery and it started working. I guess it needed one that was 100% full.

So far I've had a few crashes in windows 7. Explorer crashed about half a dozen times total. Once I even got Task Manager to lock up. I did a log off somehow and then it froze. I rebooted and my mouse again wouldn't work and then my Wallpaper was gone. Strange.

Everything seems to be working fine right now. Maybe I shouldn't have gone with the 64-bit version. Who knows. I'm surprised Dreamweaver 8 and Quicken 2007 worked ok. Dreamweaver would crash a lot under Vista, hopefully it doesn't in Windows 7.

So far it's a LOT faster then Vista. Almost feels like I just got a faster computer.

free day (Sunday)

On Friday night I made a HUGE mistake of staying up all night. I was so engrossed in this new video game that I couldn't put it down. Eventually I started seeing light outside and the sound of birds. Oops! I finally went to sleep and had a hard time getting going when I woke up.

At 8pm I watched the Yankees game and that got over at like 1:00am or 1:30am. I can't remember. After that I did my workout and it was already 3:30am!! I didn't want to stay up forever again so I took a Tylenol PM. A workout and Tylenol PM can't be a good combination. I ended up getting enough sleep and Sunday was my free day!

I got on the scale on Sunday morning and I lost 4 1/2 pounds!! This is the most i've ever lost in three months of working out. I must have not eaten enough or worked out extra hard. That made my day and i'm so glad I didn't skip the workout at 2am the night before.

The only mistake I made this week is that at 8pm on one day I ate way too many chips & salsa. I just felt really guilty afterwars. It's only the 3rd bad thing i've done in 3 months, so i'm not going to beat myself up over it and get back on track.

Sunday was my free day and I should have skipped it, but I really did need it. We had pizza and after that I walked around at the mall for a long time just shopping. At the bookstore I was tempted for a few seconds to get a latte or a scone, but passed on it. A latte with sugar free syrup is the worst thing in the world to me.

I also calculated how much protein I really need for my lean body mass. I need about 200g per day. That's a heck of a lot. It's not too bad if I split it up into 5 meals. I may just go down lower just to be safe. I don't want to overdo my protein intake. I read somewhere that the body can't really use more then 50g all at one meal. Not sure if this is true or not. 300g a day sounds really bad on the body. I don't want to overdo the protein since I still have a lot of body fat to lose.

I tried on my size 38 pair of pants again. They felt a lot more lose then they previously were. If I keep it up I may get into them by November. I think for every pant size I drop I might buy ONE sugary food item. I want to forget what sugary food tastes like, but it might be a nice thing to reward myself with. I just want to devour some massive chocolate chip cookie. The ones at Barnes & Noble are perfect. That's like one bad thing every few months. I'll end up just skipping this reward anyway probably, but it'd be nice. I'm just glad I forget what junk food tastes like.

Time flies

I've been doing really well with my weight loss. Today i'm taking a day off of my weight training due to muscle soreness. I really need it.

Today I ate ok, but I didn't eat enough protein during the day and forgot to take my vitamins. My nose is runny all of a sudden too. I need to stay warm and don't do something stupid like run down to the store without a coat!

I went outside today twice without a coat and then ran down to Subway for some food without a coat. Ever since I got back my nose has been runny. Not good!

I also cleaned my house today and bought Uncharted 2 for my PS3. I lost another few pounds on the scale this morning but I still can't fit into my size 38 pants. Maybe soon.

Starting last week i've been having a ton of energy ALL day. Not FAKE energy from eating certain foods or pop. It usually lasts me all day and I just need to make sure to keep eating regularly.

I've been trying to remember which foods make me feel like crap and which ones give me energy and actually make me feel good. I've found that most highly processed foods make me feel sluggish and just tired. I ate some simple whole wheat crackers yesterday and they made me feel really tired all of a sudden. The same thing happens when I eat any kind of past made with white flour. Or really sugary cereal. Currently my favorite thing for breakfast is shredded wheat with 1 packet of raw sugar and some 1% milk. It's not a sugar overdose and it gives me a lot of energy as long as I don't put a lot of milk on it.

Yesterday I had so much energy that I worked 12 hours! When it was time for bed nearly 19 hours later I still wasn't feeling super sleepy like I usually do. I've been staying up way too late lately and it's got to stop!

I now notice a huge increase in how I feel when doing certain things.

When i'm cleaning my house for a long time I don't get as tired as quickly as I would in the past.
When i'm shopping I feel as if I can walk around the mall non-stop all day without getting tired. When I was overweight and out of shape i'd seriously get tired after walkings the length of the fall from start to end and back. Not that tired, but you know what I mean. Pretty sad really.
I used the threadmill the other day for the first time in years and I was amazed and how long I could run. I usually started gasping for breath when it gets really tough, but what stopped my running is that my calves felt like they were going to explode. It was even tough to walk up the stairs after that. Strangely they didn't hurt the next day.

I'm also sleeping much better and I don't have any back pain in the morning. I think the back exercises have helped.

The newest thing i'm doing is Military Presses without the machine. This helps a lot. If I lift too much weight it makes me feel like i want to pass out. Not really, but it's just hard to describe. I'm not sure why this is the only exercise that makes me feel this way. Military Presses while standing up feels as if it's working out my entire upper body. I can feel it in at least 3 different areas of my body. I need to try to do more exercises that work a lot of different areas of my body. Maybe deadlifts or something like that. I first need to get another barbbell for that. The one I got is just junk. It's curved in the middle and just is a pain to use.

My goal was November 3rd I think to get back into decent shape and back to my old weight. Getting back to my original weight that soon was an impossible goal, but I set it for that anyway. I just need to keep working out as hard as I can. My last workout somehow took me 1 1/2 hours. Oops! No wonder i'm sore 2 days later! I try to go for 40-60 minutes every other day. I use a smith machine and regular free weights.

Wow, it's been a week already?!

Time flies. It seems like it's only been a few days.
I took my free day this week on Friday instead of Sunday. My mom and I invited our brother, wife and kids out to Pizza, but they couldn't make it. Since we were really looking forward to getting pizza anyway, we went without them. The problem is, is that it was the least healthy pizza we could have possibly gotten. It had a ridiculous amount of cheese on it and the crust was very thick. Luckily it was whole wheat crust. It was an ok pizza. What's stupid is that it cost $16.99 as the base price and each topping was $1.89 and we got four. I like paying extra for good pizza, but that's overpriced. Luckily the service was good despite them being extremely busy.

It's getting hold outside now. I haven't turned on my heat yet, but I should. I instead, heat only the rooms i'm in with a space heater. I found a really good one. It's a long space heater that has a remote. It's completely silent and only cost me $50. I was so impressed with it that I purchased a second for upstairs. In the morning it was 61 degrees in my house and I had slept with an electric blanket so I didn't feel cold.

Getting into working out was a pain. I had to wear some shorts in the freezing cold, but once I got going I was fine.

This week I lost another 2 1/2 pounds! Can't wait to fit into a size 38 pair of pants. The ones i'm wearing now are very lose and my current shirt size feels too big.

Didn't eat many bad things this week at all. I bought a "Protein Bar" that looked healthy and had a lot of protein in it. I ate it and it was loaded with sugar. I felt like I was eating a candy bar. It only had 15g of sugar, but it felt like it had triple that. Some Special-K bar. I also had a pretzel at the movie theater without cheese. They coat it with oil I think to make the salt stick. Out of everything they have it's the best thing I could have eaten there..maybe.