Stellar Path

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

I am having a VERY rough diet week. If I gain this week, I can’t shrug and say, “Doh dee doh, don’t know why this one happened.” I’ll have to say, “Yeah… I haven’t weighed or measured my food, and I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten WAY too late and WAY too much.”

I seem to have lost my fire and passion. Tina has, too, and I think we’re currently feeding off of each other’s lack of enthusiasm. But it’s fire and passion for eating healthy. Not for exercise. We’re still going to the gym. We went for a C25K run around our neighborhood just last night, and it felt good.

We’ve recommitted to doing this right TODAY. I’m not changing my weigh-in date or anything. Whatever I weigh Saturday is my weight for the week, good bad or ugly. I’ll just have to chalk the month of April up to a standstill and backtrack, weight wise, but that’s okay, because I’m not in a contest. I’m not eligible to win $250,000 and have confetti rain down on me from the Biggest Loser Stage. I’m just trying to live a healthier, longer life with Tina.

Okay, now that the whining is over, on with our regularly scheduled post.

I promised a cooking video on Sunday. I made it Saturday, but I’m just now getting around to posting it. I got so excited about the Aurorae Yoga Mat giveaway that I’m afraid everything else just took a backseat. And please, still enter and tell your friends! You have two more days to enter!

Tina and I are both huge dorks in this video, but that’s pretty appropriate, because we’re huge dorks in real life, too. (And please notice my tie-dye apron – Tina will have one next video.) But it was fun, and we’re definitely going to do it again. Hopefully, we’ll post our video on how to make Almond Joy themed LaraBars this weekend.

I think we need a name for our cooking show. Any suggestions?

As previously posted, I won an Aurorae Yoga Mat last week from Chicago Marathon Val. This is, without a doubt, the best yoga/floor exercise mat I have ever used. (I say floor exercise, too, because I use this mat for my core work that takes place, you guessed it, on the floor.)

I was so impressed with this mat that I emailed the company with my comments. I was very delighted to find out that not only was my email answered very promptly by an actual living human being, but the company is going to let me host a giveaway here at Stellar Path! I am tremendously excited, and I hope this giveaway is huge, so please, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your co-workers, tell everyone about this giveaway!

There is only ONE requirement for entry. If you don’t do this, your entries will not be accepted. However, this is a VERY easy requirement. You must either friend the company on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. (If you do both, you can have two entries!)

I am giving you a grand total of NINE different entries. You don’t have to do them all, but you MUST either add them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

For each of the following entries, you MUST leave a separate comment. I am not making this rule to difficult, but the way the winner is determined is by a Random Integer Generator, and whatever number comes up, that numbered comment is the winner. So, if one of your comments is fourth in the list, and the #4 comes up in the Random Integer Generator, then you win. But if you do all nine things in one comment box, then your nine entries are effectively one entry. Get it? Good.

Additionally, I know that some of you are already doing/have done some of the entries below. That’s okay. For instance, if you are already following me on Twitter, just post a comment along the lines of “I already follow you on Twitter – my user name is” and there you go.

Two final things – in one of your entries, please state which color Yoga mat you would like. You can see the colors at their webpage. If you don’t specify and you win, the company will send you a color of their choice. And lastly, I do have to limit this contest to participants in the United States.

1. Follow Aurorae Yoga Mats on Facebook.
2. Follow Aurorae Yoga Mats on Twitter.
3. Leave me a comment here, stating that you want to win. (This would be a good entry to let me know what color Yoga mat you’d like if you do win – that’ll be the color you get.)
4. Follow Stellar Path in Google Reader! (or other blog reading service of your choice).
5. Follow me on YouTube! My username there is JeremyRay45.
6. Leave me a comment on any of my YouTube videos, and then come back here and tell me which video you commented on.
7. Follow me on Twitter @stellarpath.
8. Tweet about this contest with this comment. “@stellarpath is giving away an @AuroraeYoga mat! #giveaway http://bit.ly/950Kb5″
9. Become a Fan of Stellar Path on Facebook!

Okay, nine super easy ways to enter. Do them all or none, but you MUST do one of the first two to be eligible to win.

This giveaway is open now, and it will run end at midnight on Thursday, April 29th. The winner will be announced on Friday!

Seth over at Fit with a Purpose recently posted his fifteen reasons on “why.” Okay, he didn’t word it that way, but I am. Why are we doing what we do? What’s the purpose? What’s the big picture? And he challenged us all to create our own fifteen reasons. I’m definitely getting on board.

1. I want to be a healthy husband.
2. I want to have a career in fitness someday.
3. I want to help other people make a difference, but how am I gonna change the world if I can’t even change myself?
4. Every minute spent in the gym is, in my eyes, one step toward being healthier.
5. I want to be the guy who can run a 5K and say, with no lying, “Oh, it’s no big deal. 5Ks are easy.”
6. I can already feel the strength in my heart and lungs.
7. Flights of stairs are no longer a death knell for me.
8. Elevators make me laugh. I’ll take the stairs, thanks.
9. I actually enjoy good tasting, healthy food.
10. I want to someday see Jillian Michaels in public and say, “Thanks for being such a bad ass. I needed it,” not, “Please help me.”
11. I want to see people who haven’t seen me since I weighed over 400 pounds and have them ask, “Did… do I know you? Did we go to school together or something?”
12. I want to challenge my future kids in sports and activity, not sit back and “supervise” from the sidelines.
13. When you lose weight, not everything gets smaller. That’s right. I went there. (And it’s true!)
14. I want to motivate people.
15. I want to live a good life, not just a long one. Fat people die young. I don’t want to die young.

Okay, yes, my lists encompassed everything from being a good dad to not dying young to penis size. Hey, if you’re reading my blog, you should know I’m a bit irreverent and random at times. (And if it’s your first visit or you are otherwise new, welcome! Please, pull up a chair, leave a comment, stay a while.)

In other news, Tina and I have decided to do Couch to 5K.

But wait, Jeremy, aren’t you always griping about how you’re too fat to jog?

Well, yes I am. However, I have learned two things in the past two weeks. Jogging on the balls of your feet does not make my feet and joints hurt. It took me a bit to get used to it, but that’s what I’m doing. I don’t have those awesome Monkey Feet Shoes yet, but I can still make an effort to shift my focus from my heel to the balls of my feet. It’s made a big difference.

And two, I hate jogging in the gym, but I’m okay doing it outside. So last night, Tina and I did Week One, Day One of C25K. It was quite doable. She’s faster than me, but she kept my pace so she wouldn’t run off and leave me. But we had a nice jog/walk (mostly walk – it is day one) around our neighborhood, and I’m looking forward to moving along.

I even have my first 5K planned. I’m going to be doing the Run for Sight 5K in Bowling Green. It’s a very flat course through neighborhoods, and I think that would be a good one for me and Tina to start off in. Maybe we’ll progress so fast that we’ll want to do one sooner, and if we do, of course I’ll post about it, but if not, that’s going to be my first 5K.

Okay, and some other news that I am VERY excited about.

I recently posted about my new awesome Aurorae Yoga Mat that I won. Well, I am very impressed with this mat, and I emailed the company with my comments. And they are going to let me host another giveaway on my blog! I will post my giveaway on Sunday the 25th, and the winner will receive an Aurorae Yoga Mat of their color choice. I’m so excited! I love giving stuff away! (Granted, I also like winning stuff, but I’ve already one won.)

As always, any company that is reading this, if you want me to give away your product, just shoot me an email at jeremy@stellarpath.net.

I have a love-hate relationship with yoga.

I love the health benefits of it. I am so stiff and not flexible, I know that I desperately need to take yoga. Admittedly, I’m always a little worried that I’ll end up pulling a hamstring or something-

“When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist…”

-but I just take it easy and stretch it out.

That said, I am so frickin’ stiff, I tend to hate doing it. I love all other forms of exercise. I can even tolerate ab work. But yoga is something that, for right now, I do SOLELY because of the health benefits of it that I so desperately need.

And Val from Chicago Marathon Val recently made my yoga classes a LOT more bearable. On her webpage, Val has frequent giveaways, and she just gave away an Aurorae Yoga Mat, that I won!

I picked the color Solar, which is supposed to be “creative, inspiring, energy, compassionate, warmth, family, and stability.” First of all, this mat is 72″ long, which is WAY longer than the mats the gym provides. It was also very nice and cushiony, which was a big plus.

However, I think my favorite part of the Aurorae Mat, is that it comes with a rosin bag. Basically, you toss this small bag from hand to hand before you work out, rub it on the soles of your feet, and you don’t slip.

Seriously, you won’t slip. I sweat. Like a pig. But with the rosin bag by my side, I was able to keep a firm grip on the mat. I love my Aurorae Mat! Thank you Val!

First of all, today is my 32nd birthday. I have been on this planet for almost a third of a century. Hopefully, I’ve left it a little neater than it was when I got here. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. You all really made my birthday a nice one.

This is just a quickie post, as Big Bang Theory is currently waiting for me on DVR, but I wanted to post my birthday weight.

I weighed in this morning at 338.0. That means I lost 1.5 pounds since Saturday. That tells me I really DID gain six pounds, somehow. Not sure how, but you know what? It doesn’t matter.

I’m going to lose this weight. And a BIG chunk of it is going to be gone by my 33rd birthday. My ultimate goal weight is 180. Well, that’s my goal right now. I’ve never been lower than 260 or so, and at 260, I was still a good ways away from my ideal weight. But if I look great at 210, then that is where I’ll stop. It all depends on where I’m pleased, because 180 and 210 are just numbers.

But since this is the start of my new year, I’m going to post a few resolutions.

My New Year Resolutions

Over the course of the next year, I will:

1. Take so many spin classes that I’ll be able to whip out a 60 minute spin class (the dreaded Spin Class X that my gym offers) without wincing.
2. Get my Group Fitness Certification through ACE Fitness.
3. Go to my first Fitness Convention, AFTER I have my certification.
4. Get a part-time job teaching some type of group fitness class (whether it’s kickboxing, aerobics, spin, whatever – I want to START my career in fitness over the next year).
5. Get significantly closer to (or even reach, if possible) goal weight.
6. Bench press 200 pounds.
7. Get my biceps up to 18 inches. (I want to be muscular everywhere – I don’t want to be one of those guys with big arms but a weak back, but an 18″ bicep is an easy goal to state and reach as opposed to “be muscular everywhere.”)
8. Marry the love of my life.

Those are My New Year’s Resolutions. Have a great day!

I have just posted my very first video blog! You can find me on YouTube by going to my channel, JeremyRay45.

Or you can just watch it right here.

This is most definitely a What the Smurf Weigh-In. I knew I gained last week. This has been a crazy week at work, so stress levels have been high. Not that it’s been a bad week at work, but it has definitely been stressful, so I know my diet hasn’t been 100%. Still, I would have given myself an 85% on my diet. Not great but definitely not bad. And my exercise has been spot on. I’ve exercised every day.

So you can imagine how I felt when I hopped on the scale Friday morning, and I saw this number staring back at me.

339.5.

Uhm, what? That’s six pounds heavier than last friday. (6.1 to be exact)

Okay, that’s wrong. I must have been standing weird. Let me try that again.

339.5.

No, that can’t be right.

Well, I proceeded to weigh myself a few more times, and it kept giving me the same weight.

Scale isn’t broken. I somehow gained six pounds in one week.

What the Smurf?

I don’t know what I did wrong. I can’t even beat myself up too much, because this is such an illogical weight gain. Did I sleep walk and eat a canister of salt Thursday night?

This is part of the reason why I didn’t post yesterday. I was a little too disheartened. I didn’t want to come on here and own up to six pounds, for two reasons. One, six pounds? Yikes, freakin’ embarrassing. And two, I can’t even say what I did to EARN this six pounds and therefore prevent it. If I’d had a binge-y week, I’d happily say, “This is my mistake, I’m owning it, and I’m fixing it.” But the best that I can say is, “I don’t know why it happened, and I guess I’ll try better next week?”

But I don’t want to leave this unresolved, and after thinking all day yesterday, this is my solution.

I’m going to stay on program this weekend. No wavering, no wiggles, nothing.

And Monday (which happens to be my 32nd birthday, Happy Birthday to Me) will be my next weigh-in day. I was thinking about doing that anyway, because I want to be able to say on my 33rd birthday, “Yeah, I was one hundred pounds heavier on my 32nd.”

That will give me an idea of yes, this was a real weight gain, but I’ve managed to lose at least a pound of it or two, or look at that, I lost like five pounds over the weekend, so I guess it really was water retention. Damn sleep walking salt eating habits!

And starting next week, my weigh-in day will become Saturday. I think this will be a better day for me. Because I don’t work on Saturdays, and I want to start doing a video with each weigh-in, I’ll be able to get my weigh-in blog (and vlog) post up sooner than I can on Friday.

I’m also going to be doing away with my $5 Weekly Goals. I’m going to set Monthly Goals instead. That’s where I’ll come up with my money for my giveaways. I’m just finding myself not even thinking about my weekly goals, and if I’m not challenging myself with them, then what’s the point?

But speaking of giveaways, it is time to announce the winner of my most recent. The winner of the two canisters, one vanilla and one blueberry, of Biggest Loser Protein Powder is… Brandon from So Long Fat Ass! Congratulations Brandon! Please email me at jeremy@stellarpath.net with your mailing address and I’ll get the canisters out to you next week.

I don’t know what the weather looks like where you are, but here, the day could not be prettier. Spring is here. And it’s making me want to run a 5K! Seriously, I spent like thirty minutes looking on the webpage of our local Running Club to decide which 5K will be my first. I’m thinking into the future, because while I am too big now, I anticipate being 50 pounds lighter by early fall, and I want to get a race on my calendar so I have a concrete goal to train to. I’m even thinking about doing a walk 5K this spring, just so I can start a kickin’ collection of 5K t-shirts.

In other news, I am immensely excited to start vlogging! I have an HD camcorder coming to me any day now, so expect to see my first video next weekend. Tina is onboard with this one, too. We’re planning to do some healthy cooking vlogs, various motivational things, and so forth. I cannot wait! And there’s something else I’m immensely excited about, but I don’t want to build it up too much, because when I tell you what it is, the majority of you may very well say, “Oh… Really? That’s your big news? Loser.” And rightfully so, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you now.

As I mentioned, we’ll be doing cooking shows. (I’ve got the idea in my mind, but I don’t want to spoil THAT until it starts.) But I will tell you this part. I mentioned in my last post that Tina made me an awesome logo. Well, we are going to get aprons with our logo screenprinted on them! But that’s not even the coolest part to me, anyway.

In my gym, I have a reputation. I’m the big guy in the tie-dyed shirts. No, I’m not a hippie or a Dead Head, but at my very biggest, when I weighed over 400 pounds, I found an auction on eBay of several 4XL tie-dye t-shirts. I bought them, and when they come in, they fit. But just barely. So these shirts literally represent me at my very biggest. When I tried them on, they fit, but they were skin-tight. So when I wear them now, at my 2XL self, they literally balloon around me, and I am continually reminded of where I came from. That’s a good thing. And because they are big and baggy, I like to work out in them.

So wearing tie-dye has kind of become a part of my workout reputation. I’ve actually overheard conversations like this one:

“You want to know who tears it up on the elliptical? That big dude in the tie-dye shirts. I have seen him go all out for an hour on that machine.”

And that makes me happy. So tie-dye is kind of my thing now, if nothing else but in my own head. And as a result, Tina is going to make us both tie-dyed aprons with the Stellar Path logo on it.

That makes me happy, too.

Well, we are about to go to the gym, but before we do, I wanted to finally announce my latest contest!

I am a big fan of protein powder, even though most of it tastes like crap. Feeding your muscles is always a good thing, even if you are trying to lose weight, and protein after lifting weights (or even hard cardio where you’re working your leg and core muscles) is crucial.

However, most protein powder sucks. There are very few types I’ve tried that I like. There are some that I tolerate, but like… no.

Until now. And I’m not saying this because I am paid to endorse them (although I happily would – please feel free to contact me!), but I use them because I like them.

My 3rd giveaway is going to be for two containers, one of Vanilla and one of Blueberry, of Biggest Loser All Natural Protein by Designer Whey!

Most protein powders are only good if you disguise the taste with fruit and milk. These are HONESTLY good with just water. The blueberry to me even tastes like Kool-aid.

Again, as a disclaimer, I have not been paid to review these, and they will be coming directly from me, purchased with my own money.

To enter, just do the following. Each comment will consist of a separate entry, so you can enter up to four times. (You do need to leave a separate comment for each action you do, because what I’ll do is use a Random Number Generator to select a number, and that post number is the one who wins. So if you do all four things in one post, well, that’s great and I thank you, but it just gives you one shot.)

So, to win, do the following:

1. Leave a comment here, answering this question. (“Why do you (or don’t you) use protein powder after workouts?”)
2. Follow me, and let me know that you are following me with a comment. (Either RSS or Google Reader or however else you follow blogs.)
3. Tweet this contest with this: “@stellarpath is holding #giveaway for Biggest Loser Protein Powder! #BL9 http://bit.ly/9Kaxoi”(Come back and leave a comment stating you have done so.)
4. Mention this giveaway with link on your blog. (Come back and leave a comment stating this.)

Okay, that’s it. Contest runs until midnight Thursday, April 15th. The winner will be announced on Friday’s weigh-in post.

Suffice it to say, this past Weekend Warrior challenge was not all I had hoped it would be. But first up, I have a list of those who were participating, some of whom did MUCH better than me.

• Carla from The Right Fit
• Lauren from Less Lauren
• Scott from Minus 5 Times 10
• Marissa from Fatty Slims Down
• Sean from Learn Fitness
• Joey from Joey’s Health
• Joe from Joe the Runner
• Jeremy from Stellar Path
• Lynne from Losing Lynne
• Steve from 265 and Falling
• Erin from Erin Takes Control
• Frank from Male Weight Loss Now
• Dana from Eat Sleep Get Fit
• Jess from Half of Jess
• Craig from My Life, Take Eight
• CiCi from Too Flabby Dames

As for myself, basically, I had two fails and one success.
One – Weigh at least one pound less on Monday morning than I do tomorrow morning.
This one was a BIG fail. I don’t even want to say how much more I weighed on Monday morning, but it certainly wasn’t a pound less. Frankly, at this point, I don’t even know how I’m going to pull a loss out by Friday. We’ll see.
Two – Go to the gym at least twice over the next three days. I say this, because my gym is closed on Easter, but it’s open tomorrow and Saturday.
Fail. Well, partial fail. I went to the gym on Saturday, bright and early, but Tina and I were out all day on Friday, and we just didn’t make it to the gym. We were very active the whole day, but there was no gym time.
Three – I will go for a one hour walk on Easter. The gym may be closed, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get in some activity.
Finally! Success! However, I ended up going it alone, because Tina was fighting a pretty nasty stomach bug from Saturday night on.

So yeah, I’m going to give myself a D minus for April’s Weekend Warrior Challenge. I’ll just have to make sure that I do even better for May! (And chance of a Star Trek theme, Brandon?)

In other news, I’ll sure some of my good news. I’m getting an HD camcorder! I’m very excited about this, and I definitely plan to start incorporating some vlogging (even though that sounds very weird to me) in my blog. Hopefully, I’ll get the camcorder before the weekend.

Have any of you thought about doing any video blogging? Any advice?

My blog seems to be working, at least momentarily, and I think people can leave me comments now. We’ll see!

As promised, this post is nothing but shout outs. I have been so neglectful in my blog reading and commenting over the past few weeks, this is my week of sharing some of the love that I get here so frequently. I’m pretty much going in alphabetical order as the blogs are listed in Google Reader. I’m sure I’ll probably forget to include someone, so please do know this list is not all inclusive of the blogs I read. I did make a fairly aware decision, though, to only include the blogs of people who have commented here at some point. It’s not being done spitefully or anything like that, but I am only aware of people who are reading my blog if they’ve commented on my blog. There are some great blogs out there, like 344pounds, No More Bacon, Body by Pizza, and a few others, et cetera, who I will continue to read as they are great blogs, but I very much doubt they have ever been here.

So, without further ado, my late Saturday night shout out!

First up is 1-2-3 Austim Free. This is not a weight loss blog at all, but it’s first in my list, so here ya go. Autismomma is a married mom with two kids, one of which has autism. I’m very grateful that I’ve found this blog, as even though I do not have chldren yet, I’ve already learned a great deal about how I can hopefully keep my little ones from someday developing autism themselves. And aside from that, it’s just a fun blog to read!

Seth at 1010 in 2010 is a pretty hardcore guy who has lost a TON of weight already (seriously, he has lost 2,000 pounds. He started his diet at 2,180 pounds. Okay, end lame joke. But he really has lost a lot of weight, and he gets a lot of respect from me because he doesn’t have a gym membership. He does it at home. I challenged him to bench press his couch one week, and the next day, he posted a photo doing it. He’s so hard core, he recently broke his ankle.

Tara over at 263 and counting has recently just completely torn up the Couch to 5K, in addition to losing about thirty pounds. She’s also done this without a gym (although she did just join a gym, so I suspect she’ll be a gym rat with the best of us pretty soon). And she currently has MacGyver as a personal trainer, so I’m pretty sure that before too long, we’ll hear about Tara taking down a terrorist organization with a toilet paper roll and a toothpick.

Steve at 265andfalling265andfalling says Woot a lot, and I know he has host problems. Okay, seriously, Steve is always out running 5Ks, and I’m completely jealous because he went to FitBloggin and I didn’t. But this is a good webpage to go to if you want to watch a guy successfully do it. He’s lost some thirty plus pounds since I started following him, so he’s clearly doing something right.

Diane at 35 and shrinking does not weigh 35 pounds, but she is 35 years old and she is shrinking. As of the time of this writing, she’s almost lost fifty pounds, and that’s definitely a big milestone that deserves major kudos.

I’m giving everyone else a shoutout in their own paragraph, but these two kinda need to go together, and I very much doubt Mary at A Merry Life will mind sharing. Both she and Kepa at The Fat Lazy Guys Log have fallen in love, despite living some four million miles apart. They’re still in that ooey, gooey phase of a new relationship, which is always so fun to be in, but it really sucks for them, because in addition to the physical distance, there is also a time zone difference. Between the US and New Zealand… I think it’s like forty-nine hours of time zone difference, or something ridiculous like that. Fortunately for the love birds, Kepa is coming to America this summer (they’ve made this publicly known on both blogs – I’m really not a stalker).

Andrea at Andrea’s Wellness Notes is one of my newer blog finds. It’s not weight loss per se, but more just about living healthy and staying well. However, everything she talks about certainly fits in with a healthy, weight loss lifestyle, so I’d recommend checking her out.

Andrew at Andrew is Getting Fit also lives on the bottom of the world (or top from his perspective, I assume), but what impresses me about Andrew is that he has made it to goal. In fact, he’s always out running, and he posts some pretty impressive pictures from his run.

How could I do a shoutout without including Erin from Erin Takes Control? She’s one of the first people to comment on my blog when I got it going. On her own blog, she shares stories of her personal training sessions, Wookie cookies, and various other Star Wars nerdiness. Everyone should have Erin on their blog roll.

Diane at Fit to the Finish is another weight loss success story. She’s amazingly friendly, and she was recently on the Dr. Oz show. In fact, she’s been in quite a bit of media for her health efforts. And because she has been there, on both the journey and the maintenance side of things, her very informative posts are always interesting, insightful, and useful. She’s another one you have to read regularly.

Kat at Fit Mind Body Spirit is taking a “whole life” approach to weight loss. She’s clearly not in this for the quick fix, and she’s looking to improve every aspect of herself, hench her blog title. If you ask me, she is someone we could all definitely take a hint from.

Karyn at Fitness Road Trip is, at least according to her gravatar image, a stick figure who is trying to lose weight. Her blog is her accountability tool, but it’s more than just posting food. (Actually, she hardly ever does that.) But she does share a great deal about her training and her efforts to get healthy.

Jess at Half of Jess recently called me a Power Ranger, so she’s already my freaking hero. (Even though she totally just blew my cover.) This chick has already done more amazing things than most of us get to do in a lifetime, and she’s even going to law school in a few months.

Frank at Male Weight Loss Now is a no-nonsense, straight-forward, here’s-how-you-do-it own-your-own-actions kind of webpage. I like that. And honestly, I sometimes need to NOT be coddled, and Frank doesn’t coddle.

This entry makes me a little sad, because Eloise hasn’t updated her page in MONTHS, and I don’t know how to get in touch with her. I met Eloise at Maybe We Are Rabbits last year when I was on blogspot. Her webpage was about her veganism, and unfortunately, her last entry was about a break up of a long term relationship she had with her partner, and she hasn’t been seen sense. I’m sure she’s fine; she just left the blogosphere. Still, you get to know someone through their writing, and it sucks when a web “friendship” that you’ve formed just vanishes beacuse real life got in the way. I completely understand how it happens, but it still sucks.

Back to more cheerful news, we have Craig! Craig at My Life, Take Eight recently just freaked everybody out when he started off a post with a lamentation of how he was quitting. I’m glad I kept reading, because I almost drove down further south to go kick some sense into him. It would have been a very awkward trip, because I only know that he lives in Mississippi, and I don’t know how I would have found him except to keep going to people and say, “Are you Craig? Did you recently write a blog and decide to stop losing weight? No? Do you know someone who matches that description?” It would have taken a while. Anyway, big news for Craig… he just got under 200 pounds! He’s in Onederland, as the skinny people call it.

I also think I have a mancrush on Steve at Nerd Fitness. One, he’s a nerd and proud of it, and that’s pretty cool. But two, he’s one fitness blogger who can post a shirtless picture, and people will not think, “Wow, that took balls to expose that pale, flabby belly,” but instead will think, “Fit bastard has a six pack. Punk.” So yeah, his struggles have more to do with gaining weight, but his webpage still is incredibly awesome and WILL help you lose weight. Even if he’s trying to gain weight. Punk.

Cathy at See Thermy Run is another blog that I just found recently. First of all, despite being on the more logical metric system, she weighs herself in with pounds and so forth, and I both like that and respect it, because I’m American, and I like round numbers. This blog is her journey to get active. She’s currently out there running, about to run her first 10K, and she’s even going to medical school very soon, so she’s also smart.

From the chilly north, we have Brandon at So Long Fat Ass. I hate Brandon. I’m consumed with jealousy. And it’s not because of his pet polar bear. It’s because he routinely loses between 3.6 and fourteen pounds EVERY week. Seriously, though, Brandon is tearing it up, and I’m kind of glad I found him early in his blogging journey, because I know he’ll be reaching goal relatively soon, and it’ll be nice to have seen his entire journey.

Tami at Tami’s Kitchen Table Talk writes a blog about cooking. She is one of those bloggers who actually remembers to take pictures of her recipes and then post her recipes on her blog. A lot of her food is low carb, but it’s not crazy low carb, like “Eat all the butter and steak you want!” It’s more here is healthy food that is also low carb.

I know a lot of people call Tony Jared, mostly because his blog is called The Anti-Jared, but his name is Tony. I really like this blog, but I’m going to be honest. I HATED his blog when I first came across it. I read it, thought it rude, and didn’t come back for a few more months. Then I read it again, and thought, “Maybe he’s not so much rude, but he’s just blunt, and I don’t like blunt.” And then I went away again. And then I came back, and my thoughts this time were more, “Meh, he just calls it like it is.” And now I really like his blog, respect him a great deal, and read it regularly.

Diane at The Incredible Shrinking Family is one of those bloggers who actually manages to post pretty much everyday and still have something insightful to say. She’s been blogging for a while, and a big part of the reason why I keep her blog on my reading list is because she frequently hits the nail right on the head. The philosophy I can best take from Diane’s blog – don’t eat garbage. Eat nutritionally dense food (eat a rainbow, as she would say) and good health will follow.

I have a Canadian on my blogroll, too. Carla at The Right Fit is not morbidly obese. She’s not obese. She’s on a journey to lose 25 pounds, and she’s halfway there. And already smokin’ hot. Can I say that? Well, she is. Her gravatar pic is of her in a bikini, and trust me – no one is complaining.

Lara at Thinspired is just a sweetheart. Her blog is just about food. She’s clearly a foodie, but I can tell, both from her posts and comments I’ve seen her leave here and there, that she can relate to the weight loss aspect of eating. She’s definitely one of the BIG name blogs out there, and when you read her blog, it’s no surprise why. She’s an excellent writer.

And last but most definitely not least, we have Staci at Weight Loss Mama. Like several others, she is starting to incorporate running into her weight loss journey. And much like Carla, she doesn’t have tons to lose, just a bit, so we’ll also see her cross her finish line pretty soon, too.

Whew. Okay. I know I left someone out. I had to have. A fear of leaving someone out is the ONLY thing that has kept me from doing a giant shout out post like this before. If I have, I am SO sorry, and I will make it up to you, just as soon as I realize.

Are there are any amazing blogs that I’ve left out?