2011/04/12

50 years ago today....




On April 12th, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. His remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of 200 miles and carried him once around planet Earth. Commenting on the first view from space he reported, "The sky is very dark; the Earth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly". His view could have resembled this image taken in 2003 from the International Space Station. Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut, would not be launched until almost a month later and then on a comparatively short suborbital flight. Born on March 9, 1934, Gagarin was a military pilot before being chosen for the first group of cosmonauts in 1960. As a result of his historic flight he became an international hero and legend. Killed when his MIG jet crashed during a training flight in 1968, Gagarin was given a hero's funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. Twenty years later, on yet another April 12th, in 1981, NASA launched the first space shuttle.

2011/04/07

Weight loss for a fat guy - closing in

Welcome back to the saga that is my weight loss. When I last checked in, October 13th of last year, I had dropped 158 pounds.

Here it is April, 2011. Have I been able to keep the weight off? Did I ever make my goal of 225 pounds (170 pounds lost). Here's a little picture that will tell the story.



What that says is 203 lbs. That's right, 203. 3 more pounds to the 200 mark. I haven't weighed in at 200 since Jr. High School.

A little on what I've changed since last year. Up until recently, I was using a iPhone only application called Nutrition Menu by Shroomies. It was a great application, but they’ve stopped updating it since the middle of 2010. As I had already programmed in a lot of custom food, I was hesitant to change. Earlier this month I switched over to a free application called MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal is the same type of application, where you calculate how many total calories you need per day per body type, then track your food intake calories minus exercise calories. It uses the internet for food searches so that the most current nutritional information can be obtained without you having to input customized foods. This includes popular name brands and restaurants.

Best part is you can do this online through their website as well, if you don’t have a phone that can run the application. Go to http://www.myfitnesspal.com . You can input the same stuff you can via the phone application, and track everything via website instead of phone. I like it a lot, and hope that you will too. Best of all, it is FREE!