I’ve been watching TV lately and have this Baskin & Robbins commercial in my head, you know the one about ice cream and cake! Well yesterday I took a day off of the diet but worked my tail off. I put in a patio beside our front porch in the heat yesterday.
My wife fed me well as I was working hard – all told the job took about 6 hours. We dined on a spaghetti dinner and I headed off to the store for some dessert. I looked for some small cake pieces and a small container of ice cream. I got German Chocolate and Carrot Cake along with some Rocky Road ice cream!
In this post I’ll talk about my progress this week and how the diet and exercise went. I found videos of the ice cream and cake song, now in my head because there is a contest. I’ll show a few of the better ones I found in this post.
Now who could object to a little ice cream and cake? Oh wait, I guess I could come up with a few objections. But really, lets think about this for a minutes. We all know desert (like appetizers) are not really a part of every meal but rather special occasions. If you ate desert with every dinner, it would be hard to maintain weight, let alone lose any weight!
The cool thing about a cheat day is you can eat food that you would not normally eat! Now you cannot have too many cheat days and still lose weight but I am planning on at least one real cheat day every month. Next month it is going to be on Oktoberfest and I think you can guess what days in November and December. 
Ok this past week was my first Friday morning weigh in and I lost a pound! I had been in a three week plateau but having to focus on diet more got me over the hump. You see Wednesday and Thursday I was not having my normal rum and cokes or beers and I did not on fill up on side dishes too much so Friday mornings weigh in would be a real reflection of my true weight. My weight was 231 pounds so that means I have eleven more pounds to do go be just overweight and not obese!
That is quite a hurdle for me because the last time I was that light was in 2001! My exercise went fine and I focused more on my bag workouts, jumping rope and katas. I did not injure my right hand because I took the time to wrap it. What do I mean?I am trying to wrap my wrist, hand and knuckles (slightly compressing them and holding the right shape) so I do not break anything when slugging the bag – here is a video.
I did two bag workouts, put in the patio and did a run today. Dr J. over at calorielab.com, commented on my last post that weight loss should be achieved by diet. I agree with that because unless you are Michael Phelps and burn 5000 calories a day normally – it is way easier to just get a caloric deficit with diet and do the exercise to increase metabolism, increase stamina, increase the efficiency of your cardio-pulminary system and such. The exercise will nominally help with weight loss but what I am saying it is hard to lose weight with exercise alone. Here is a look at what a bag workout should include.
Did you notice the jump rope at the beginning of the workout? I have always endorsed doing the actual boxing workout instead of the cardio versions. The cardio workouts DO NOT TEACH BOXING!!! But they do teach bad habits and enough to get yourself hurt. No I say if you want to do a boxing workout, learn some boxing or kick boxing and then you can practice the moves for cardio if you want… just don’t do sloppy moves because there will not be any ancillary benefits.
By the way, Muata over at Mr. Low Body Fat’s Blog should like the body weight exercises that are in this workout. I must confess that I have been skipping that part but hey – at least I have been doing the jump rope! Ah well – I’ll have to set a goal to do the calisthenics too.
I will leave you with the real ice cream and cake dance.
I’ll have to admit, I didn’t watch the video with the ice cream song. All I need is a song caught in my head that I can’t get rid of – especially one about ice cream.
Grats on breaking the plateau. That is a frustrating part about trying to lose weight. As I have said on my blog before, if we keep doing the right things, the weight will come off.
It looks like you have a good program going. Keep it up!
.-= South Beach Steve´s last blog ..Giveaway Post & Motivation for Monday =-.
I love ice cream and cake together! In fact, yesterday was one of my little guy’s birthday party and guess what we had? It was yum. And in moderation it’s perfectly fine.
I know you are relieved to have broken through that plateau. The eating portion was what usually kicked a plateau to the curb for me. I was exercising enough (generally) but sometimes had just slacked off enough on the eating side to see a maintain rather than a loss.
Congratulations, and I know your wife is happy you got that patio done!
.-= Diane Fit to the Finish´s last blog ..Frustration: Friend or Foe? =-.
Hi John!
Glad you are on the mend! I’m off to hit the bags right now! Thanks for the motivation, buddy!!
.-= Dr. J´s last blog ..The trouble with shopping lists, golf is good for you and taking the harm out of soft drinks =-.
I just wanted to pop over and say thanks for your comment on my blog! I am thrilled with all of the people out in the blogoshere who seem to be so willing to help me along this journey. Great job kicking your plateau to the curb and dropping another pound!
.-= 266´s last blog ..Perfection Is Overrated Anyway… =-.
Hi South Beach Steve! Sorry about all of the ice and cake videos! I just was having too much fun with it.
Hi Diane! Thanks for pointing out slacking on the eating side! That’s what I’m attempting to avoid – hard to get back on track all the way. But since I know the weigh-in is coming Friday morning – I hope to make it.
Hey Dr. J! Glad you are hitting the bag too! Nothing like that an jumping rope for a good workout. Now I have to start working in the body weight exercises in.
Hi 266! I loved the pictures! My wife and I noticed your sliming in the waist! It is real motivating to start seeing results.
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&vid=99bd7418-99b9-4bed-8bc8-90e6dd1842fc&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:7a45f8b4-6fd9-48c5-9c9b-0f2ba8cc09d3%2C3804b88b-c4b7-43ea-b023-b5319f395f14%2C883fcd80-5429-42ad-83f6-64d33917a1c7&from=MSNHP&tab=m1189615355930>1=42006
I don’t know if you’ve seen this. It was on the msn.com main page today. I don’t know if the link will work. It’s a chimp that does karate!!
John that cake and ice cream sounds delicious. Did you save me some?
Congrats on the one pound weight loss and breaking through the plateau. I know how hard that can be.
I like your one cheat day a month, but I prefer one cheat meal a week. I don’t think I could last an entire month.
Keep up the great work!!!
.-= Dr. Kal´s last blog ..A New Day =-.
Hey Dr. J!
Thanks for the link – that was cool. Kind of sad having to live in a cage for the chimps but boy that monkey can kick better than I can!
Hi Dr. Kal!
The ice cream is all gone but it was good!
I’m with you on the cheat meal a week. I try and let myself have a day off (hopefully) once a month so I can overindulge a bit at b-day parties, holidays, and such.
LOL! If I could kick like that, they’d cage me too, cause I know a certain commenter on Diet-Blog that would be my first target
FYI: Calorielab is rolling again
.-= Dr. J´s last blog ..Dr. J on the Go-No Go decision =-.
Cardio Workout is really great when you want to burnout those calories:;.
the best cardio workout is of course running and jogging~-.
the best stuff that you can do to reduce body fast is of course a cardio workout .