MS Sports Hall of Fame and Museum

This photo of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum was taken a couple of weeks ago during an early morning walk--you can tell by the shadows that the sun had just peeked over the horizon.  The large parking lot which serves this building along with Smith-Wills Stadium, the Agricultural Museum, and a few other things, is a nice place to walk on the weekend. 

I was saving this photo to use as part of a longer post on my main blog because there's something you can't see in this photo of the building--birds are living in the various athletic balls that decorate the front of the building (see photo below).  They have even pecked holes and built nests in some of the columns which obviously are not solid through and through.  Maybe this is all somewhat appropriate since former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean is one of the biggest names in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

Before the bird photo, I'll just mentioned that my weight was down to 229.5 this morning.  It's nice to see a number lower than the 230's, but I have venture into this territory numerous times over the last couple of years and then faltered.  You'll know that this dieting effort is more promising than past attempts when I report a weight in the 210's.  Once I post this my plan is to go out walking to keep the momentum going.  Here's the photo of a bird nesting in the giant bowling ball--a bird in your bowling ball would certainly make a challenging sport even more difficult:

Praying at the Abortion Clinic

I went for a walk through my neighborhood this morning and started taking photos that could be used on my Photo From Fondren blog.  That's an inactive blog that I'm thinking about starting up again.  Anyway, I came home with a lot of photos of buildings in Fondren and nothing that fit as an attractive photo for this blog.  Therefore, I'm going with the most unusual photo from my walk, protesters praying outside the nearby abortion clinic.  Sometimes there are large groups, sometimes only a couple of people, but usually there is some sort of anti-abortion gathering standing outside the gates of this clinic.

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On a lighter subject, let's talk about my diet.  I was down to 230.5 pounds this morning, a definite improvement over the mid-230's at the start of this month.  Like most people, I want my dieting efforts to produce major results in a minimal amount of time.  Those high hopes and unreasonable expectations make it hard to stick with a diet because they lead to frustration over lack of results.

This time around I'm just hoping to lose 5 pounds per month, or basically about a pound per week.  That would put me at 225 pounds by the end of June.  While that hardly seems like much results for 2 months of walking and cutting back on food, it's a heck of a lot better than getting to the end of June and still weighing 235 pounds. 

Keeping on that same pace, the end of August would see me weighing in at about 215 pounds.  That would be a very noticeable change.  By the time Halloween comes around I would be at 205 and down from the obese category to just overweight.  Continuing this 5 pounds per month rate would have me at 195 by the end of the year.  Then the goal would be to never again have my weight begin with the number "2". 

Staying at that same rate would have me at 185 by the end of February.  Just two more months of moderate weight loss would have me at 175 exactly one year from the time that I started exercising a little and cutting back a little.  No great sacrifices would have been made, but a great change would have occurred.  About a pound a week, just five pounds per month--nothing spectacular but over the course of a year it can be life changing.  That's my mindset this time around.  If it goes faster then that's great.  If it goes slower then it is still better than doing nothing at all.  Small changes over time can produce very big results.

Another Green Lizard Photo?!?

Yeah, it's another photo of a lizard.  I tend to take photos whenever I see them--maybe I should start a blog exclusively for lizard photos.  That would get old in a hurry.

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Not much dieting to talk about.  Still in the routine of walking 30-40 minutes before work and trying to keep my calorie count below 2,000 each day.  My weight was 231.5 this morning.  Hard to say what that means in weight loss since my weight prior to May was in the 233-237 range.  The important thing is that progress is being made.  Got to go if I'm going to get my walking in this morning.

Kony comes to Fondren

If you look around the Fondren Business District in Jackson, MS you'll find these Kony "Invisible Children" poster plastered around on light poles, traffic boxes, etc.  It's odd to me.  The posters seem to advocate nothing other than building name recognition for the "Invisible Children" brand. 

I don't know who put up the posters or the thinking behind them.  I'll assume that they were put up by someone with genuine concerns, but I wonder just how much these people are working on the "invisible children" in our community?  There are plenty of children that need help everywhere and it seems like real action to help local kids might be a better use of time than putting up trendy posters promoting the cause of the day.

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Real quick about the walking and dieting.  It turns out that I'm doing most of my walking at the office from 6 to 6:30 and that doesn't allow for much picture taking.  Sort of defeats the purpose of this blog, but I'll probably still post here from time to time when I have the time.

As for the diet, I was down to 232 this morning.  My goal is a pound per week so this keeps me on pace.  The pound per week thing is very effective over time and can be very frustrating in the here and now.  I have to keep telling myself that a pound per week would put me at about 200 pounds by the end of the year.  That would be a tremendous achievement and an immense improvement in my health.  Just have to stick with things long enough to make that happen.

And now I need to get to work or else my walking will be cut short today.  Don't want to start dropping below the 30 minutes or more mark so soon in this project.

Primpin' Ain't Easy!!

It's a little shocking to see that "Bob's Cut and Curl--The California Concept" is no longer on the Fondren Strip where Duling Avenue runs into North State Street.  It has been replaced by "Acey Custom Hair Designs".  If you click on the above photo to bring up a larger image you might be able to read the slogan on the door with the hair dryer:  "Acey--Primpin' Ain't Easy!!".  It's hard to argue against the validity of that statement.

Do you think that Acey caters to both men and women?  Maybe so, but it's unlikely that I'll give up my clippers and let Acey have a whack at my hair.  I did go to Bob's for a year or two.  It was always just a regular haircut--there was never much confidence on my part that I could live up to the California Concept.  That seems like too much glamour for a down to earth guy like myself. 

So Bob's is gone and Acey is here.  Will she and the Fondren Strip be here this time next year?  That's a good question.  I wonder how things are going on the plans to redevelop that area?  My gut feeling is that the developers want to gut all these stores, not primp them up and preserve the history.  That's going to be an interesting battle in the near future.

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Not much to report on the dieting aspect of the blog.  I walked for 30 minutes this morning at the office so that was good.  Went out to eat at lunch with a friend and former boss and had the McAllister's club sandwich with potato salad.  Not exactly low-cal, but not too bad.  All in all, it has been a decent day.  Tomorrow will be more difficult but not impossible.  Maybe I'll have to switch over to drinking diet sodas instead of light beer for the Wednesday night with the guys.  That would be a significant cut back in calories when calculated over the rest of the year and I need to cut back on calories ever place possible.

Racebannon All Ages Show

This poster with the "All Ages!" label made me laugh--I'm thinking that a sextuplets of Linda Blair exorcism look alikes and a pentagram might be just a little too heavy for some age groups.  It turns out that the band Racebannon had travel difficulties and didn't make it to Jackson for this May 4th show.  While I'll admit that this isn't my favorite music genre, I would like to film the band if they every do get to Jackson.  As you can see by the video below, they are high energy and I'm sure the audience members really get revved up at their shows.


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I bet this is the first diet blog to feature a Racebannon video.  Then again, is this really a diet blog?  Probably not--at least not for any readers.  I did walk today, getting up at 4:30 in order to arrive at the office by 6:00 for 30 minutes of walking.  In case you are wondering, we didn't have a Racebannon poster on the office bulletin board.  I took that photo a couple of days ago and used it to represent today's walk--it seemed like a much better selection than any of the items found in the hallways at my office.

After making the effort to get up and walk at 6:00, I sure wasn't going to blow my diet by eating candy during the day or eating too much at a meal.  It was a good step in the right direction towards losing my 60 extra pounds--now I need to follow today up with somewhere between 180-240 additional good days.

Fen-Phen Alternative

The weight loss drug Fen-phen was pulled from the market in 1997 because of dangerous side effects.  By the looks of it, this weight loss ad may have been stuck to a local light pole shortly after Fen-phen was banned.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't post back-to-back photos of items stuck to light poles, but this ad seems so appropriate for the start of a weight loss blog.  Don't we all wish there was a magic pill that could melt away 50 pounds of bad choices we've made through the years? 

I have some friends who have recently lost a lot of weight while taking a doctor prescribed appetite suppressant.  I can see the value of that, but these people have also drastically change the way they eat.  They eat far less and much healthier, a guaranteed route to losing weight.  Is the pill they take helping physically or mostly psychologically?  I don't know and I'm not sure if it matters either way.  What I do know is that the pill wouldn't have worked without the greatly modified change in diet. 

I'm working on greatly modifying my diet.  In a way the walking for me is like the pill my friends are taking.  The walking will help my physically, but there's also the psychological aspect of keeping me committed to this effort of losing weight.  For me, doing something natural like walking is a far better choice than going to the doctor and asking for a pill to help me do what I should be able to do on my own.