Pedal Paddle Camp 2015 Day 1 Camp Heartland fight AIDS / HIV in Minnesota

Team Field Nation MS MuckFest START 2015

Start of Field Nation Muckfest MS Run 2015

Team Field Nation Muck Run for MS Training Run 2015 #GetWorkDone

Team Field Nation Muck Run for MS Training Run 2015 #GetWorkDone

MN Summer Training Pedal Paddle Camp One Heartland MS MuckFest W Field N...

Running MS MuckFest with Field Nation and Crossfit + Pedal Paddle Camp to Fight AIDS @ One Heartland

Running MS MuckFest with Field Nation and Crossfit

It has been some time since I posted. I am not going to dwell on that but I think I need to post more and keep myself accountable. I have not gone down in weight all summer. This worries me a little since this time of year I bike commute about 15 miles a day from St.louis Park to the AT&T tower in Minneapolis. I also do 30-40 min of cardio on an elliptical plus weights almost every day of the week. I watch my diet but I think I need to watch it more. 

Right now I am training for the MS Muckfest with my company team. I am adding in running 12-15 miles a week to get ready. As we set into fall I will be watching what I eat much more closely and adding in more weights and cardio.  I am going to start my winter Crossfit style workouts at the gym and boxing. 

I know I can lose weight and I will but I need to make sure I stay happy. One of the things I have been focusing on is being mindful to stay happy. I do this through repeatedly telling myself that I am doing my best. I think a lot of the time we are our own worst critic, something that is really not helpful when it comes to weight loss.

I will post more soon. Keep up the great work, you can do it. Make sure you know that you can do it in your mind and tell yourself that you are doing a good job!

Bike to work Minneapolis - Walker Art - AT&T tower - 94 East West!

2015 Minnesota Breast Cancer Ride

2015 Breast Cancer Ride Save the Boobies! Minneapolis Minnesota Jaycee C...

Biggest Loser Meltdown and Lent with a Fat Tuesday thrown in!

     

So here we are the 3rd week of Lent. It has been a long time since I posted. I travel a lot for work so I don't find that I have the free time that I once had to blog. I have been making the time to work out. Or I think I have been making enough time.

      Last night I did my regular gladiator class at the YWCA and boy was it hard. I had done a full sprint triathlon workout the day before and had a poor night of sleep so I was tired. I pushed myself through class and woke up sore this morning. I then put on a shirt I had been thinking about wearing for a couple of days. Everything was fine until I sat on my bed to put my shoes on. The shirt was so tight at the waist that I took it off and tried on another shirt which was also to tight. Man was I annoyed. I have been busting my but for months to lose weight and although I am down 7 pounds I am still heavier than I was at this point last year. I will not say that I am feeling old and fat but I can say I want to be in a different place physically than I am now.

     I am playing dodgeball tonight with a bunch of friends and then doing a sprint triathlon Sunday. I know they will go well and be fun. I am weighing out for the Biggest Loser (ATT tower version)  weight loss competition  next week. I will be down about 6-7 pounds for the last 8 weeks. I am also in week 4 of the Meltdown at the YWCA, my goal is to be down 10 pounds total in another 4 weeks. I know I can do it. I do find that the more I travel for work the harder it is to keep in the shape I want to be in. Even nice hotels have crappy weight equipment and almost no business hotels have pools fit for swimming laps. 

When I travel I try to eat as healthy as possible. I don't drink and I try to eat a lot of salad and not eat fried food. When I get a chance I will drink a green juice or a kombucha drink to keep my system clean.The problem is how much sitting I do. I sit on the plane, I sit while I drive, I sit while with my customers and I sit in my hotel room dealing with problems on my computer. 

I need to move more. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.

 I can't wait for it to be spring so I can start biking to work. I love the ride and it really helps me keep the weight down. I am still holding to my commitment to myself that if I can get below 260 I will get myself a fat tire bike. Right now I am back into the mode of measuring what I eat and how much I work out in order to see what I need to do to lose weight. 

Thats it for now. I will keep doing my best! Keep up doing your best towards your fitness goal.

Happy Lent!

-Gabe

Surgery Death and Holidays We must Cherish Life

Well it has been a long time since I last posted. It is 2 days before Christmas 2014. Wow has time gone by the last couple of months. 

First I had Varicose vein surgery. I had the secondary vein systems take out of both legs. Then in the same surgery they removed a fist worth of veins from each calf. In the middle of the surgery the Dr said I should look up. I was drowsy from the pain meds and asked him if he was talking to me. He was and I looked up, he held up a vein that he said was the larges he had pulled out of anyone if 25 years of surgery. It was 3 feet long and as wide as a pencil.

The surgery seemed to go well and now 5 weeks out I have stopped wearing my compression socks everyday. I did have an instance where I bled quite a bit from one of the incision sites. That seems to be healed now. I look forward to getting back to my regular exercise routine without all of the pain and swelling. 

Next -  I was out watching a movie with friends the night before thanksgiving and I got a call from my mother. She said "Are you sitting down?" I said no but that I would be fine. Well it turns out I was not fine. My grandmother had passed away that night. So yeah the night before thanksgiving my grandmother passed. She was a huge person in my life and the world will be a little more empty without here. But she is with grandpa in heaven now and I will always cherish her memory.

Then we get into the holidays. I have been really trying not to eat bad food. Especially since I can't exercise as much as I would like. I am up about 4 pounds and plan to take it off before the end of the year.

Man when life hits you it can really hit you. All I can say is we must really enjoy the good times in life. Tell that person you love that you love them as often as you can. Enjoy good food and exercise and seeing the sun. I have started to write out what I am thankful for every night and it's not just a nice thing to do. It will make you think about what is important and what you need to change. 

I will be leaner in 2015 and I will be more healthy. I hope you join me. 

I wish you the best of holidays and that in the new year you get all that you need and much of what you want. 

Thanks for reading.

-Gabe

Fall is here time for Weight to Fall off =)

I have been waiting to post something until I felt like I was losing weight. I am currently at 275. A bit up from what I was at this time last year. I was feeling down until I read a blog from the trucker in Fat, Sick and Nearly dead. He talked about re gaining the weight that he had lost and about his struggle to hide his gain and exclude himself from life. 

It is darn hard to be an overweight person. Many lean people may say that we do it to ourselves and I don't disagree but there is much more to it than being lazy and choosing to eat more than we should.

I know what my triggers are, if I am stressed or sad or tired or stressed I will eat more and I will eat things I should not be eating. The way I eat reminds me of talks with my Grandma Betty she would always tell me about how she was given sweet things when she was sad. This was continued by my late Grandpa Gerald who always gave  grandma chocolates for every holiday and if she was mad or sad about anything. 

Grandma has since lost all of the weight because of her Parkinson's but the idea is still there. We as parents should not do to our children what was done to us. Bad food should not be used as a reward or a crutch when we are emotionally low. 

As we approach the holidays I need to watch out for sugar. If I have one thing I can't control well it is my desert or candy eating when there is a lot around. With kids this gets even worse than for single people. We get as much as 50-60 pounds of candy on Halloween alone.

So this fall I have started watching my intake, working out more and biking to work.

I will be going in for varicose vein surgery soon. It has been causing me pain for some time and even though I have to pay for it out of pocked and I am very nervous I am moving forward. My Dr said it should make working out less pain full and my legs will be less tired.

I also started using my SAD light for the fall. If you don't have one  or have never tried one I recommend it. My light helps me feel more energized and positive when we lose our sun in Minnesota winters.

The most important of all things to do this fall is exercise. Make a plan and stick to it all winter.  Exercise is the best way to lose weight, feel energized, shed stress and overall improve your life.

I put a challenge out there to myself. If I get below 260 ( which I will do) I am buying myself a Framed Minnesota 2.0 bike (fat tire) to try winter bike commuting.

I have started to lose weight again and I have a long way to go but I am positive. I wish you the best in your goals and I hope to see you soon.

Keep up the great work towards a better you!

-Gabe

4 Kids and It's Time to Rock! Varicose Vein Surgery

It has been a long time since I updated everyone.

It might be no surprise that I have backslid a little in my weight loss. I was thinking over what happened and one big thing is I stopped feeling accountable to anyone. SO I will get back into my blog =)

Really what the cause of my weight gain has been is lack of will power. Lack of power to get myself to work out as much as I should, lack of power to eat as little and as healthy as I should and lack of control over many parts of my life.

I could blame the facts that I have 4 kids, a large house, a demanding career and 2 kids in diapers at home who do not sleep enough.

I will take the burden of fault on myself. I have tried my best to keep in shape and I have still gained weight.

Looking back a year when I had 3 kids and a different career it seemed easier to control what I was doing. I am almost 18 pounds heavier than my leanest weight a year ago. Next week I go into my annual check up with my DR and I know he will tell me I need to lose weight. I know I need to lose weight so I am committing to do so. I will lose 10 pounds before the end of the year. I know I can do it with some hard work and dedication. Friends supporting me will also be a big help. So ask me about how I am doing and help me by holding me accountable.

One thing that should help me is varicose surgery. For a long time I have had big varicose veins from lifting and sports when I was heavy. They have turned into a pain when I exercise and my ankles hurt a lot. I have also read that they can contribute to fatigue.  In about a month I go in to get an ultrasound on my legs and soon after that I go in for surgery to get my veins removed. I am excited and nervous, I hope  the surgery relieves some pain and gives me a little more energy.

Other than that life is good. I am getting back on the healthy life bandwagon. I hope you are doing well in your health and weight loss.

Keep up the good work!

-Gabe

Fish Throw Contest Fishermans Picnic Grand Marais Mn 2014

Happy Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras New Orleans Lent in Minneapolis No Sugar an...

YWCA Meltdown 2014 Polar Body Age and Body Geometry Bike fit with a Little Cross Country Skiing

Here we are in the 3rd week of the 2014 Meltdown.  Starting off we weighed in this year with a Polar Body Age test. This took into account our age, weight, body fat, amount of weight we could lift in a static standing position, flexibility and blood pressure. My score was Age 34! I feel relief that my body age is not 50 but also a little upset that with all of the work I have done in weight loss I am not younger than I actually am in body age. 

I jumped into the Meltdown with my goal of losing 16 pounds. 2 weeks in I am down about 3-4 and I think I can hit my goal. I know how to watch what I eat, I know what I have to do to burn weight off and I know I can do it.

I have been realizing how hard it is to lose weight and stay in shape as a parent. With 4 kids everything is hard!

It is hard to have  me time, to have any time in my life that I can do what I want or what I need to do.

 During the work week I wake up before anyone else in the house, get ready for work, go to work, either come home from work or workout, make/eat dinner and hang out with the kids. Then we put the kids to bed and deal with house business. Then I am usually the last person to fall asleep at night. On the weekends I am so tired from the week I schedule workouts ahead of time so I can make myself do them. If I don't get a chance to work out right after work the battle is almost certainly lost. There is no way to carve out extra time to work out after I get home or if there is I can't do a hard workout right after dinner. I can either choose to sleep less or work out more. I guess for now I will sleep less.

Food is also a problem!

Many nights dinner gets out of control. With 4 kids my wife is so tired and busy just taking care of the kids that she is worn out by dinner time. I am also worn out and we find it harder and harder to want to cook good meals. We have turned to scheduling meals as a family on Sunday nights which is a solid idea but does not always work out as planned. I don't want to become the family who eats pizza as a fall back every week.

I work in downtown Minneapolis and there are few really healthy and affordable choices for lunch if I fail to bring one from home. I often bring a PB & J sandwich. I use Ezekiel bread with no sugar PB and Jelly my mother in law makes, so it's pretty healthy and packed with protein. I also make sure to drink lots of water and more coffee than I should during the work day. If I am too tired at night to make lunch it gets to be a big game of what can I eat that is healthy. Sure I can get a salad but paying $10 for a salad at a grab and go place gets old pretty quick and the ingredients are often not very fresh.

On the weekends we don't plan what we eat and I find myself playing run away from all the meals the kids and my wife eat. I feel like Saturdays and Sundays are one big eating orgy, I get really frustrated with all the eating when I am trying to lose weight and make other things a priority.

In general eating bugs me. We easily spend $900 a month on food and we are always running out of something. We eat organic eggs and milk and don't buy things with corn syrup. In a perfect world we would grow most of what we eat or go to a co-op for everything else. Eating is really hard to do right when you live in the suburbs with a family of 4. I am open to any ideas on what other people do when it comes to naturally feeding a family.

I know I need to get back to the VitaMix and my smoothies, but again it takes time and I feel like I am pinched for every second of life. 

What do you do to make extra time or prioritize what and when you are eating?

Right now I am doing my best to eat healthy and exercise as much as I can.

I do Body Pump 2 times a week, Gladiator 1 day a week and Dodgeball every Friday. I also lift or do cardio pretty much every other day. When I work out at home I walk on the treadmill at  3.5-4 MPH at a high incline and do a couple sets of bench after every 10 minutes. I will also throw in spin training around the 4 triathlon's I train for. 

On to the Bike. 

I did a Body Geometry Fit at Erik's bike shop this weekend. It was really fun and it showed me a lot about how I bike. They made my bar further forward and curved up, they gave me a new seat that was firmer and wider and they put shims and supports in my shoes. The fit technician watched me with 2 video cameras and made lots of tweaks over a 3 hour period. I think this will really help me with my back feeling good and with my pedal power on the Red Ribbon Ride and other rides I do.  I love to bike and it is one of the best ways you can train or simply get around with little impact to your joints.

Well I think that's all for now. Back to the food log I go and body pump tonight. Please ask me questions and share ideas you have to help me and others.

   If you are interested in working with me as your beach body coach or meeting up for a workout or bike ride, please click the link below. 

As always keep up the good work, and remember, we are doing this for ourselves and our kids.

http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/GABRIELSKELLY

-Gabe

After - Body Geometry Bike Fit Erik's Bike Shop

Before - Body Geometry Bike Fit Erik's Bike Shop

Swim Indoor Triathlon YWCA Minneapolis January 26 2014