Feeling awesome... Until my fitness test.

Weight: 289.9
Mood: Chipper

My weigh-in was a little later than usual, as I slept in until 7:00. But I have to say I was quite thrilled with the 3 pound loss in one day. I'm sure my hike yesterday had a little bit to do with that.

Today was a perfect day. I got to spend time with my wife and Maddox for the whole day. No work, no distractions, no neighbors coming over asking us to put saran wrap on their arms (seriously... what?) or anything of the sort. I spent the morning wrestling with Maddox on the living room floor, because his favorite form of play with me now consists of him yelling "FIIIIIIGHT!!!!!" At the top of his little toddler lungs and running at me full throttle to attack.

After that, I applied online for a couple of jobs through the NFL's job hunt site. It's kind of a pipe dream of mine to work for an NFL Franchise in some capacity. Even if all I ended up doing was cleaning the sweat smell out of the locker rooms I'd be cool with that. Being that close to football would be awesome. Chances are though you need a college degree for a job like that. There's another thing to add to the "to-do" list: Get college degree in sweat-stain removal.

After that Jade and I went to Sequim to hit up the Wal-mart and go to Carrie Blake park. We played and played and then came home.

I decided that as part of this whole lifestyle change I'm doing, I wanted to do a benchmark fitness test to set a standard for me to improve on. After doing some research on the web I discovered the President's Challenge - Adult Fitness Test and decided to give it a go. The test has four different portions: a one mile walk or 1.5 mile run, half sit-ups, push-ups, and the sit and reach. I figure I'll do this test once a month as a means for tracking my progress.

Here were my results:

1.5 mile run time: 25:45 (5th percentile)
Half sit-ups (1 min): 40 (35th percentile)
Push ups (1 min): 4 (5th percentile)
Sit and reach: 12 inches (15th percentile)

Overall score: 15th percentile.

While I'm not super concerned with the percentile score, it does help to know where I stand compared to the rest of the people in my age group. And I guess it means I have plenty of room for improvement. My biggest thing was I wanted to have a starting point so I can see my progress with more than just the scale. It's another metric for me to follow because while losing the weight is a definite plus, I don't want to lose weight and just end up weak and flabby. I want to be healthy at a healthy weight as well.

So I guess this is just another starting point. As long as I keep staying active and stay the course with my eating habits, I feel confident about improvement.