I am thinking of starting the 100 push-up challenge like Jeremy Wright is currently working on. Also, my wife has finally officially joined in and is looking forward to trying to drop ten pounds. Hopefully, working together will give us both the extra push we need to loose weight.

Having my weight thrown in my face on a daily basis makes it hard to avoid the issue, and I still sometimes just want to run away from the fact that I am over weight.

Denial seems to be one of my biggest problems, and facing this weight loss challenge, feels more like climbing a sheer vertical wall, than a slowly rising mountain.

Even when I walk around the city and see someone extremely overweight, I feel like commenting in a negative tone, much like how I talk to my family about their smoking habit. I don’t immediately think to myself “look who’s talking”, and later when I reflect on what I thought, and wanted to say, I feel really bad, as I’ve had others make comments about my weight, and that is never helpful.

There are so many things I have been working hard to do, but when you aren’t home and can’t keep your routine going, it was super difficult. I tried to make better choices, but I made more mistakes than I would have liked. I drank lots of water while I was there, but because I really didn’t do any exercise, or even walk around lots, every calorie that I took in, wasn’t really burned off.

I am going to try to step up my weight loss efforts over the coming weeks.

Usually, people gain weight when on trips, and I can see why. One of the things that was frustrating for me is that I don’t know Toronto well enough to know where I should eat, and of course all of the old standbys are junk: McDonalds, Burger King, etc…

Does Toronto even have grocery stores?

Hopefully, once I get to Kingston, I will get myself a little more on track. I will give myself some kudos though on this trip: no pop. I drank only water with my meals, and other than water, I had a Vitamin Water, which isn’t very healthy but tastes decent and at least might transfer some vitamin content to my body, unlike most juices these days.

Hopefully, next week, I will be able to increase my exercise, decrease my calories a bit, and increase my water intake. My cravings haven’t been too bad, and I’ve been nipping them in the bud with around 50 grams of honey peanuts. Which, while not the most healthy item in the world, definitely is better than a chocolate bar or a bag of chips.

Being stuck at 265 pounds is a little frustrating to me, but I am focusing on the fact that it is still six pounds less than the 271 lbs that I had ballooned up to a little while back.

My current goal is to get to 258 pounds before the end of December, or a reduction of seven pounds in a month. While I think it is a rather lofty goal, I think that it should be possible for me as my body should be able to shed pounds rather quickly until I get to around 250, where, like previous attempts, it will start to try to keep me around that weight.

My ultimate goal is really to be able to fit into a size 38 pair of pants. I still own many pairs and it is the highest size that some stores carry. I will probably have to get down to around 220 pounds before being able to fit into them once again, and while that is still a long term goal, I am keeping my eyes firmly affixed to it. Currently, a size 42 is a little tight, and I remember when I was between sizes, where a 42 was loose and a 40 was tight.

I deserve to be more fit than I currently am, and I am making time to do things that I wouldn’t have done before due to the excuses of work, home life, and other factors. But again, if Jeremy Wright can do it, then I have to be able to as well as he is much busier than I am on any given day.

Today though, I started off the day on the wrong foot. I ate a late breakfast, had some less than happy dialogs with a few people, and it really bummed me out.

When I feel like this, I just want to eat junk food, and it is especially hard since Sabine brought home a pizza last night. I had one slice, but have resolved not to eat any more of it.

The good news is that I got a small bench to do my dumb bell workouts on for free off of Freecycle. This will be really great, once I get it together and start using it. While I don’t always see myself needing to use the bench, it will help me do certain exercises and keep perfect form.

I have the car today, a rarity as of late, and I haven’t run off to the gym yet. Mainly because every time I go, I feel bad. I have a deal where I work on the gym’s website and help them with their technology and in trade, I get access to the gym, but I haven’t been able to help very much lately as I have been super busy. They have been relatively understanding about it, and probably don’t realize that I feel the pressure, but I do.

Thankfully, the weather isn’t too bad, so I will probably take out our dog for an hour and walk and play with her. Hopefully, that will burn off most of the calories I take in for lunch.

I am down a single pound versus yesterday, which is pretty good in my mind. I am not sure what I am going to do next in order to loose the weight that I need, but I know that I have to keep focused because I am sure a piece of my depression over the last three months now is directly related to my increasing weight.

Binge Eating

I was a secret binge eater. I would walk to the store, buy tons of junk food and hide it around the house so that my wife wouldn’t find it. Then, while working from home, I would tell myself that I need the extra energy to get through my long days and would consume thousands of calories in junk food, which would leave me feeling depressed, and I’d usually just finish off whatever was around.

The worst part of this was that I would cover up the fact that I was doing this by eating regular meals with my wife. She would buy a bag of chips for us to share, and rather than saying “no”, I would consume around an equal share of whatever she would take. Thus, I wasn’t only getting a huge number of calories from my binge eating, but I was trying to hide it through eating regularly.

At first, I would leave bottles or chip bags in places I knew she would find them, in hopes that she would really take me to task and help me with this issue, but short of taking my wallet away whenever she left home, there was no way for her to help me.

Instead of getting mad at me for eating the junk food, she got angry over the fact that I was hiding it through the house.

I continued to hide food around the house, eating it whenever she left. Four packs of chocolate bars, a few cans of Coke, all the while telling myself that I needed it to stay focused, energized, and get all of my work done.

If I ran out of junk food, I would walk to the store, thirty minutes away, and pick up more. I didn’t care what the weather was like, and would sometimes bring back enough junk food for a family of four for a month, and consume it in a week. two large cases of pop, four bags of chips, half a dozen chocolate bars, and bags of various candy. I would consume it so fast that I had to sneak out a garbage bag full of wrappers, cans and containers every month.

Of course, my weight then started to rise fairly rapidly, as I wasn’t really using up any of these extra calories, and my sedentary lifestyle became more sedentary as my wife went back to University.

The Shock

After being caught for the third time, my wife was absolutely furious. She didn’t understand why I felt the need to hide all of this from her, and I finally broke down and told her it was because I didn’t want her to realize how much I was consuming.

We had a long heart to heart over the whole thing, and we decided that we both need to be more vigilant in making sure I work on this issue. I am sure there are psychological issues regarding this that I should work out at some point, but that doesn’t seem too possible/plausible at this point, financially.

I bought some dumb bells to do basic exercises at my desk while watching videos, or reading through my e-mails and RSS feeds. We organized some free time to make sure I could go to the gym, and we also decided that the best way to help control these cravings and binge eating habits would be to work on them slowly.

No Denying Food Cravings

I am no denying my food cravings, but I am learning how to deal with them responsibly. I don’t stop myself from eating that chocolate bar, but I do ask myself if I want that chocolate bar because I am hungry. I haven’t binged out on junk food since then. While I still eat much more candy and sugary products than I should, it is no where near as bad as it once was.

My Weight

My weight though is still higher than it has ever been. Just a week ago, I weighed in at 271lbs. I never thought I would let it get so bad. Things that used to fit me comfortably, no longer do. I am already working harder on trying to scale that back, and have been down around the 265lbs range since seeing that scary number.

I still need to get it further down. My original goal still exists. I still want to be closer to 200 than 300 pounds, but how long will it take me to get there? Can I make the sacrifices, and how can I learn to have a better sense of willpower, control, and create a better work/life balance?

My Inspiration and Challenge

I have people in my life that are inspiring me to loose weight, and the biggest inspiration right now is Tom Leroux, a friend of mine from Ottawa, who has come out and challenged me as part of his own weight loss journey. You can read about that on his blog Leroux.ca, and check out the conversations and pictures on Flickr as well as Twitter mentions under the hash tag #25lbs.

Other people inspiring me and pushing me forward include my wife, Tracey (Tom’s wife) and Jeremy Wright.

I want to give a second to talk about Jeremy Wright’s weight loss journey because I think his lifestyle closely mimics my own in many respects, and yet he has found a way, even with his busy life and schedule to make time to get healthy. His messages on Twitter about what he is doing are very inspirational to me, and gives me a stronger sense that my goals are possible.

My Goals

So my goal today is to get from the 267 pounds I weighed in at today, down to 242 pounds as part of the 25 Pound Challenge. I hope to do that between today and February 2nd, 2009. Who is with us? Join the challenge over on Leroux.ca and let’s all support each other going forward.

The new project, and my current full time job is working on College Crunch. I am very excited about how it is progressing and hope to continue to work on it for a very long time. I am learning heaps of new information, as I’ve never participated on a site set up like this. I am used to a much slower growth through blog posts, and while this site will also have blog posts through our College Crunch Gazette section, the content pages are much more important over the long haul.

Please take a look at what I am working on, and let me know what you think.

The idea is simple:

Just post your messed up childhood picture on your blog or a messed up picture of your own kid. Then write a little blurb about what the hell your mom was thinking or what you were thinking.

Since Family.com forgot to add a very important item to their prize package - I will be giving away a new Flip Mivo and 20″ Monitor to the best/worst/funniest post I notice in my Google Alert.

The winner will be announced through an email blast to my newsletter subscribers, so if you want to know who wins this thing in September, you�??ll want to subscribe to my newsletter.

Here are mine:

Okay, the last one I did myself… it was a Star Trek pin from California that I had, and I added it to my shirt. My mom was mad, but I enjoyed showing my Trek fanboy self.

I started out three years ago as a full time blogger, then I became the Communication Manager at Bloggy Network, before moving to being the Head of Marketing at Splashpress Media, and then finally the Community Manager at PicApp. I have had some very interesting titles, most of which might have pointed out the main focus of my job, but didn’t really describe my overall experiences and day to day roles.

I never felt comfortable in any of the titles I was given, except for Problogger. I enjoyed writing full time. I enjoyed crafting words, talking to people, and learning the business of writing online.

I have to admit though that I really don’t like freelancing. Currently, I am between jobs, and as such, I am taking on side projects here and there. While the projects don’t pay as well as I am used to, nor are they the most consistent jobs, they are giving me some much needed variety.

The next job I will be doing gets me back to my writing roots, and so I am pretty sure I will enjoy it. I will also be learning new things, which is always very exciting to me as I am a knowledge junkie sometimes.

I don’t yet have a title for my new job, but I don’t really feel like titles are all that important, except for on a resume. Wish me luck…

Sound weird? Well, that’s because I am doing a lot of freelance work for people in hopes of making some money but it is taking up huge blocks of time and concentration right now. Soon, I will be starting a new full time job which will hopefully help get me back into a stable routine.

I do have another small excuse though as the gym I go to isn’t twenty-four hours a day during the week from now until September. I can’t wait until they are open pretty much all of the time again so I can go whenever the mood and energy hits me, be that at two in the afternoon or two in the morning.

I am back up to 255 pounds, and feeling really depressed about the whole thing. I thought having a slow, long term goal, a gym membership and this blog to hold me accountable would be enough to keep my weight loss on track. I even had some very supportive friends (I am looking at you specifically Tom), but I wasn’t able to keep on course.

I have started feeling the fitness bug again, and have been going to the gym every other day for the last two weeks. It is slowly starting to become habit and I feel weird when something comes up and I can’t go.

Some ways that I have made going to the gym more fun is bringing my laptop to watch movies, bringing the iPod for music, grabbing an FM receiver so I can listen to the televisions at the gym, and working on reading some novels, all while I am on the bikes or the treadmill.

I have found that I can quickly lose track of time, and also how fast I am going. Recently, one of the owners of the gym came over and let me know that I had to slow down, as I was pushing my heart rate way too high. I think she was afraid I was going to stroke out, but I was listening to some fast paced alternative music and was really feeling the energy.

My goal is still the same. I want to get down to just under 200 pounds, but I have decided to revise my goal to not have such a firm date. I am going to start a food log (something I absolutely hate doing) as well as keeping track of exactly what I do at the gym, so I can work on improving slowly, but consistently. I am also going to buy some dumbbells for home, so that when the mood strikes me to get in another small bit of exercise, there isn’t anything in my way with regards to doing so.

Lastly, Sabine and I have been carrying on with our evening strolls. We have tripled the length of them, some of which now last an hour or two, rather than the thirty minutes or so that they used to be. Surely, this should mean some extra calorie burning.

The biggest issue I am having right now is dietary. I love junk food, and as I increase my exercise, my cravings for it also go up, and with my personal willpower feeling pretty low, I am having the fight of my life to make sure that I eat healthier.

To be honest, I don’t need or want the talk time, as I don’t really need a cell phone, but even at $75 for 6GB of data, that could be a very reasonable amount of data transfer, at what I consider to be an almost reasonable price.

I have been watching how crazy Canadians are getting about the Rogers iPhone situation, and while I agree that something needs to be done, I must also concede that $30 for 6GB of transfer is fair and more than enough for more than two thirds of Canadians that would buy an iPhone.

Even if you only browse pages that are 1MB each, that still provides you with over six thousand page views in a month, or two hundred a day.

I think that Rogers shouldn’t put a time limitation on this deal, and I think that they should make the barrier for entry as low as possible because they will have each iPhone user in a three year contract deal. At seventy-five dollars a month over three years, Rogers looks to earn $2700 per iPhone, and that doesn’t include the $199 or $299 cost to purchase.

I don’t think Rogers should complain about giving their users a break, and if this $30 for 6GB deal makes sense for a limited time, why not forever? Also, I think Canadian consumers have to give Rogers some slack. They won’t create an unlimited access account level, and so we have to be reasonable within the rules that they set.

I go back to what I have said to others before. Rogers either needs to reduce their plans by upwards of $30 each, making their most inexpensive plan at $30 per month for 150 minutes of talk time, and 400MB of bandwidth, or double all bandwidth on the plans, which would make their heavy user plan for $115 provide users with 4GB of data transfer.

It still wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be much more competitive when compared to what the rest of the world is doing with regard to the iPhone.

I think Canadian consumers should continue to push for fair plans from all cellular providers, but I also think that they should be reasonable in their goals.

At lunch time, we had a picnic in the park, and walked around looking at the trees, river, and paths. It was a beautiful day for being outside, and so I am glad we didn’t waste it. After lunch, I had to do some work, and spent most of the afternoon stuck behind the computer before having a light supper with Sabine at home. She had cleaned up a few things, making the house look nice, and had taken some time while I was working to go out and buy some plants for our front yard, as she really wants it to be nice for when my family comes.

After that, we spent the evening watching videos and retired to bed fairly early. I spent a lot of time reflecting back on the nearly six years we have known each other and the first year of marriage we have had and suffice to say, I couldn’t be happier. Here is hoping for an amazing second year.

Recently, I have been going through a rough time emotionally, and have gained back some of the weight I had been losing which only feeds the negative emotions. Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have an amazing group of friends and family help me through all of this, but it is still frustrating to have gained back weight that you had hoped to shed forever.

How do I work at stopping my emotions from controlling my eating? It is something I will definitely have to research.

b5media’s offices are on Spaldina Ave, a street that isn’t right on the main roads, but has an interesting and diverse culture. You can see many smaller shops, as well as old brick buildings right across the road from new fancier brick, glass and steel buildings. IT is an interesting site, almost like the road separates two different towns.

With WiFi permeating the entire city, you would think I would feel more connected, but because the service is a pay service, and isn’t everything these days, I find myself looking around feeling like a tourist from another area of the world.

It is so much busier in feeling than Ottawa. Such high traffic levels, in the early afternoon, is insane to me.

There also feels like there is a strong dichotomy here. There are many people that don’t look well off, and then there are people driving around in the latest Audi’s and high cost BMW’s. Where are the middle class people? Maybe I don’t notice them as much as the poor and the rich.

There is also a strong odour in this city. It stinks like a big city. Pollution, cigarette smoke, and a bit of what smells like the paper factories of Cornwall, Ontario. That bitter, burning smell that many of the largest cities seem to have. Is it pollution as well, or smoke from a factory, I am not sure, but it isn’t the clean air that I am used to in St. Thomas.

I wouldn’t mind working here, but living here for an extended period of time feels like something I am less and less interested in doing.

So, in case you haven’t heard yet, Sabine and I are expecting our first child. Sabine used to say she wanted four, but since she has found out that she is a month and a half along and already uncomfortable, she doesn’t want any more than one.

We are both very excited and are looking forward to everything that comes along with being parents. The due date is expected to be November 25th. I am pushing for the 24th so that the baby keeps going with the “4″ tradition for birthdays in my immediate family.

Wish us luck. Here’s hoping we have a healthy, bouncing baby boy or girl come November.

Some people have complained about this move, and others are excited. I fall into the latter camp. I think the power of the 9rules brand was its membership and exclusivity. I used to chase 9rules membership in hopes that one day they would let me add the leaf to one of my sites.

As I was passed up for each subsequent round, I got more and more frustrated with the 9rules brand, wondering what was wrong with me. What wasn’t I doing that made me not fit what they were looking for. I even tried to structure my blog to fit what they needed.

I doubt you would see too many people doing that today with their current social network slant. Right now there is no real exclusivity, nor do they feature member content heavily enough to be doing a good service to those that are members.

When I found out they were going back to their roots, I almost leapt out of my chair. I feel that this will be the first step in the road towards the 9rules leaf becoming a highly sought after badge of respect and an honour for those blogs that get to display it as a member.

I really didn’t think Scrivs, Rundle and Tyme had it in them to steer the ship a full one-eighty. But they are doing it, and I am super impressed. Will I be chasing the leaf again? While Xfep is part of the Grand Effect network, started by Sarah Perez, it really only “fits” for one of my sites, and so I might start working hard to see if I can earn the leaf. I have great respect for the owners, and their ideals. Kudos to the 9rules team, and members.

It is an RSS feed you can subscribe to that will alert you to posts I am making on pretty much every blog I consistently publish on. It is pretty interesting that I can do this, as it wasn’t as easy as I first guessed.

This post is also to let you all know that I am going to lose weight. I know I have said it before, but this time I am adamant. I even started a new blog on the subject in hopes that everyone will continue to help inspire me, and hold me accountable. It is also great therapy for me in dealing with my obesity, how I got here, and how I am going to change it. You can check it out at BloggingWeight.com.

I am sure some of you are rolling your eyes, but I have always been a very open person, and I enjoy letting people into my life, and hopefully I will inspire others, or at least help them feel like they aren’t the only one going through a rough time battling obesity.

Work
So what’s new with me and work? Well, I continue to work at Splashpress Media, and while you might have thought it has been pretty quiet on that front, I have been doing some behind the scenes stuff. I hope to continue to work on some behind the scenes stuff, though the company would really like me to be their front man. I don’t have a problem with that, as I love meeting people and I have no shortage of things to say, but I have been at odds with myself lately regarding what I want to do with my career.

eXtra For Every Publisher continues to grow and change. I am really enjoying writing on there and seeing it develop. It has been a slow month though for me as I concentrate on a myriad of other things, but the site is doing really well. While its traffic continues to beat my expectations, the monetization efforts aren’t reaping the rewards I had hoped. Here’s hoping I can change that around over the coming months.

In less than five days, I will be flying to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Northern Voice conference. I am looking forward to seeing Nick, a good friend of mine from High School, as well as James Cogan, a good friend of mine from Ottawa. I am hoping the conference will be great too. During the first day, called Moosecamp, I hope to pull some people aside and talk about Blogging for a Network, as well as Blogging for Money. That is, if anyone is interested.

Family
Sabine and I are doing well. Currently, she is on a trip in Belgium for her grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. A huge congratulations to them for the milestone. I really can’t wait until Sabine gets home though. Shame that two days after she gets back, I leave to go to B.C..

Other than that, things are the status quo, with little deviation in our lives. Sabine and I are working away, trying to pay down debts, and get out of rut we are in financially. We were really hoping to put some money into RRSP’s before the closing deadline, but as of yet, it doesn’t look like we will be able to.

It is definitely difficult to pay yourself first when doing so would mean not paying for the car or heating the house. I am sure things will turn around eventually, but until then, the lack of money is always a nagging stress.

I hope everyone that still reads this blog is doing well. Drop me a line sometime. I am pretty much always home, alone, talking to myself. Though, a big shout-out to my cousin Mark for helping with that lately as I really appreciate the time you’ve been taking to hang out with me on Skype and just chat about life, its far more interesting than the voices in my head.

Here is a quick update on everything going on in my life, for those of you still following this blog.

Work
Working with Splashpress Media is going really great. They are keeping me busy with a variety of things. I assumed that moving to a larger company would mean more organization than Bloggy Network, but that hasn’t entirely been the case. I look forward to helping Splashpress get more organized, though at the same time it makes me laugh since I am not the most organized person in the world.

I have been writing as much as possible on Splashpress sites, and have been working on moving the sites from Bloggy Network’s old servers. The other interesting thing going on in my work life is training the advertising sales person now on our team, also named David. He is a smart cookie, and quick to take in any advice I give him. I am really glad we have added him to the team, and it reminds me how much I enjoy teaching people.

I have also realized that as much as I love writing, I also enjoy dealing with server stuff, files, permissions, missing libraries. It is fascinating, and I hope to push my way into doing a bit more of that as things progress.

On the marketing side of my job, I haven’t had too much time to do anything, but I have a feeling 2008 is going to mean a fair number of conferences for me, and thus Splashpress Media.

I am still working on my own personal projects as well. eXtra For Every Publisher is doing really well, and that is where I spend most of my personal time blogging. I am also working on trying to get into a groove with AltSciFi, and I want to launch another blog that I have sort of on the back burner right now.

Other than that, I have a project that is slowly being developed. I really hope it works out as well in the real world as it does in my head/imagination. It should be launching in the summer of 2008. A big thanks to Corey and Ryan for their continued support.

Family
Sabine and I are doing really well. We have been insanely tight on money lately, to the point where a gift from my dad for Christmas helped us get through the month without raking up too much more debt. Thanks Dad!

Mostly our money issues stem from Sabine not having a full time job, but to be honest, despite the stresses of having no money, it has been working out alright education wise for her, as she continues to get the courses she needs to go to College or University for Nursing. (That’s the goal anyways…)

So right now we are trying to keep everything as inexpensive as possible so that she can focus on her education and her goals in that respect. Hopefully, it will all work out for her, as she really deserves to get to do this.

On Boxing Day, Sabine and I are going to make the trek to Kingston to visit with as many people as possible. Hopefully, everything will go well. I miss my family, but I would rather see a few of them at a time and spend real quality time with each than being part of the craziness that is a big family Christmas.

Hopefully, everyone out there is doing alright and I hope you all have a safe and happy holidays.