Oktoberfest reveller stuck in chimney for 12 hours

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who had been drinking heavily at Munich's Oktoberfest beer festival got stuck in a chimney for 12 hours while trying to climb into a friend's apartment, police said on Friday.

After finding his friend was not at home, the 27-year-old climbed on to the roof of a neighbouring building at about 2 a.m. (1:00 a.m. British time) on Thursday and headed for what he thought was a gap in the wall between the two houses.

He found himself sliding almost 30 metres (98 feet) head first into a chimney, a spokesman for Munich police said.

An 82-year-old janitor from the hotel next door eventually heard the man's calls for help and he was rescued at around 2 p.m. by fire brigade officers who knocked a hole into the side of the chimney to liberate him, the spokesman said.

He had managed to turn around and had removed his clothes to try to help him squeeze back up.

"Miraculously, he was only slightly injured in the fall, sustaining just grazes and bruising," police said. The man was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where he is being treated for hypothermia, they added.

--------------------------------------------
Why did I post this article today? Well, it got me thinking; if I'm ever lucky enough to be able to attend "Oktoberfest", and I find that circumstances have presented themselves in such a way that I find myself drunk, naked and in a chimney, I really hope that:

1. I'm thin enough to not get stuck. In a perfect world I'd be able to simply slither down the open chimney shaft and land quietly and with grace in an unlit fireplace. I'd deliberately dust of my shoulder and be on my way.

2. I'm in good enough shape so that if those circumstances do happen to unfold in a such a way that I need assistance in extracting myself from said shaft, that I'm not embarrassed of my pale, nude stomach and behind as they are being pulled out by the 82 year old man and the local police force.

After all, everyone should have that look of good proportion, muscle and dignity as the camera catches them being forcibly yanked from a chimney shaft at 2pm in the afternoon in the middle of Oktoberfest.

So here we have reason 9,345 to lose weight and get/stay in shape:
Some day you may find yourself drunk, in a chimney shaft, naked, being videotaped: - you need to be prepared.

Also, always keep a power bar in your back pocket, because 12 hours alone in a chimney with no food is a long time.

--------------------------------------

So it's time for another busy weekend. It's now wedding time for my friend who had the bachelor party last weekend. That means more drinking, eating, and little time for exercise. Am I worried? No. I'll do what I've been doing for over two months and watch what I eat and drink, and hopefully make up for some lost exercise next week.
I think the weight loss is coming a little slower now than it was initially, but I'm still doing 2 pounds a week or so which is admirable. The last 3 days my weigh-ins have been exactly the same down to the 1/10th pound. If this keeps up I'll have to make some changes, but I'm going to give it a few more days.

It's time to get some work done so I can leave work early. With any luck, you won't read about me and a chimney on Monday morning. I'm just not quite that happy with my body just yet, but give it some time.

Chip Away at the Stone

My life has been much like the old Aerosmith song except that instead of chipping away at the hard exterior of a woman to get her love, I'm chipping away at the soft exterior of my middle to get....it's...uhh...not....or...inner muscle...or.....something.

Sorry, I felt like an analogy today and that's all I could come up with.

Anyhow, yet another possible crisis averted over the past few hectic days. The bachelor party was a blast. So much so I completely slept through this happening outside my 33rd floor window. But don't worry; we didn't cause it as far as I know.

List of 10 good things that have happened to me in the past few days , most of which have to do with weight loss but a few that don't:

1. My weight did NOT go up over the weekend despite a constant barrage of alcohol.

2. I got 4 of a kind during a poker game and won $300. Yes, I was already down a few hundred, but come on! 4 of a kind!

3. I'm consistently walking 10k+ a day. Even though I didn’t get my regular exercise in over the weekend, I managed to walk over 27 thousand steps which roughly equals an hour cardio workout. Even if most of those steps were going from Poker tables to Roulette wheels, to dinner, to strips clubs, to poker tables, to roulette wheels, to poker tables.

4. I got refitted for my tux last night and I'm down a full suit size, a full pants size, and a half inch neck size(did I have a fat neck? Hmm).

5. I ate relatively well over the weekend especially considering the circumstances. From what I can remember:

Saturday I had a yogurt for breakfast, a tuna wrap for lunch, and a New York Strip Steak with sautéed onions for dinner. My splurge? Drinks (Diet coke and Vodka interlaced with Jamison's and Johnny Walker Black). I also had a wonderful bowl of Crab Corn Chowder with Dinner on Saturday. Screw it, gotta have some fun sometime.

Sunday I had mixed fruit, black coffee, and omelets with egg, tomatoes, and green peppers in it. No Cheese. I don't think I ate lunch, but for Dinner I went to my parents house and had a great low fat vegetarian lasagna my mom made specifically for me. Thanks Mom!

6. I had my home inspection on Monday and it went great! Nothing major at all. Now we're just waiting for the results of the radon test to come in.

7. I came back to work Tuesday and did my cardio, and I didn't die.

8. I'm still eating well.

9. I've lost just over 30 pounds now since July 24th.

10. The human head weighs 12 pounds, so I've heard.

More Temptations and a Crazy Week

Yea, my week is still insane and it isn't over yet.

Saturday morning I embark on a weekend long bachelor party in Atlantic City. Think there will be many unhealthy temptations there? Ha!

I don't see much of an end to the craziness. Monday I have my home inspection, then next Friday a rehearsal dinner followed by a wedding I'm in on Saturday. I expect lots of compliments in my tux at the wedding. In fact I had the tux fitting the first week I started this healthy lifestyle and I told all the rest of the wedding party and the tux rental place that I'd be 15 pounds lighter by the wedding, so I might have to come back and get refitted. Well, I'm 30 POUNDS LIGHTER!

So that reminds me, I also have to go get refitted sometime next week. Hmm..

Despite being so busy this past week I've also had some amazing numbers going on during my daily weigh-ins. Today I hit a new low of 259, verified on two scales. Yes, 259. Last Sunday I was at 266.5. WTF? I guess the plateau has been passed.

I did 12,000 steps for 2.2 miles of walking yesterday in addition to my morning cardio. Like I mentioned I've been averaging 9-10k a day so I'm happy with that.

And to be honest the drastic weight loss is probably due to the fact I haven't been eating as much as I was. I'm still having three meals a day, but I'm not having time to get in the extra snacks. It's all due to bad planning and the fact my work fridge is empty. I'll hopefully be able to remedy that next week.

Anyway, sorry my writing is all over the place this week, but I just dont have the time to put into my entries that I normally do. I'm doing my best to post as much as possible though!

Talk to you soon!

Hectic Week

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. It's been a really busy time. The sellers accepted our offer on the house so I've been scrambling to get papers together, figure things out, and do all of those things that first time home buyers have to do.

Aside from that the weight started moving down again. I've now sat at 263 for two days straight which is a new low! That puts me at right around 30 pounds total lost so far. This Monday the 24th will mark the end of the second month since I started this blog and this new lifestyle. I think 30 pounds in two months isn’t too shabby.

Even though I've been busy with other things I've still been doing my cardio every morning, lifting 2-3 times a week, and eating right. I feel too guilty to not do any of those even when I'm busy :)

In addition to that I'm also wearing my pedometer every day and I go on walks when I can. I'm usually getting right around 10,000 steps a day which is what I was originally shooting for. I'd like to get this a little higher, but right now I'm feeling good about it.

Also, my sister and Liz have both decided they're interested in getting more exercise. Tonight all three of us are starting a bi-weekly hour walk around the neighborhood. Anything to get rid of those pesky extra calories, ya know?

That's really about all that is new in the FAT world. I'm hoping to take my first set of "comparison" pics by Monday so I can show what I've been able to accomplish in the first two months. I really can't wait to see them myself because I feel like I look in the mirror so much it's easy to lose track of how different I might look.

Anyhow, gotta run!

Boring Weekends are for Fools

Let me start by saying I had a spectacular weekend. I don't think it could have been much better. Please allow me to walk you through it:

Friday:
Liz took me out to meet two of my friends at my favorite Teppanyaki restaurant as an early birthday present. We met up with my friend James and his wife and then enjoyed some Teriaki steak and chicken, grilled vegetables, fried rice, and two glasses of wine. In preparation for this meal I'd only eaten 300 or so calories earlier in the day. I'd had a yogurt for breakfast and a salad for lunch.


Saturday -(My 31st Birthday):
Saturday morning I awoke at 8:00am and walked into the kitchen to find streamers and balloons taped all over the place, along with a "pin the tail on the donkey" game on the door.

Yep, it was my birthday all right. Thanks Liz!

After a bit I packed up all my gear and met some friends for a day of Paintball in the woods. I had not played since spring, and last time I played I remember being absolutely beat up and tired by noon. This time I felt great the entire day, and in fact played offensively which means much more running around. I wore my pedometer and by Saturday night it read that I'd taken 12,000 steps, or 2.5 miles, and 800 something calories. Not too bad I guess. The constant rolling around on the ground and jumping up and down was a nice workout as well.

I have some bumps and bruises to show how much fun I had :) Normally when I play paintball I wear several layers of clothing and gloves. This day I only wore pants and a t-shirt :) One: because although it was only 69 degrees you still get hot running around, and two: because I'm less embarassed to wear just a t-shirt due to the weight loss. I don't have to hide my fat in layers of clothing.

I tested my t-shirt out during the first game when as soon as it started I sprinted for the flag directly in front of the other team and grabbed it and ran right towards them. I thought it would catch them off-guard, and it did, but I still got shot about 5 times in the gut and legs right after capturing the flag. When I did my post game inspection I found that one of those paintballs came danger close to getting me in the...you can imagine.

In any event, paintball was an absolute blast, bruises and all! It's so much more fun when you're in good enough shape to stay active the entire day.

After paintball I went home, showered, played a little x-box until Liz got home from work. At about 6:30 pm my friend Dan and his gf came over and we headed to dinner down the street, and then to the Tower Theatre to see Interpol. At dinner I had some hummus and a large salad that I could only eat about half of. I also had two diet coke and captain morgans. It was my birthday after all :).

The show was pretty good and I got a nifty t-shirt which I'm wearing at work today (all by itself - see former layering comment).

Some other great things that happened on my birthday:

- my heated jacket liner I just ordered for my birthday present, that was shipped from Oregon (keep in mind I'm outside of Philadelphia) somehow made it to my house in just 2 days! Woohoo! It fit perfectly! For those unaware, I commute and ride on my motorcycle just about every day of the week(when I don't ride my bicycle). We have 4 seasons here in PA and it gets a little cold to say the least. The jacket liner plugs into your motorcycle battery and is heated, allowing 4 season comfort :). Can't wait to test it out!

- when I paid for dinner at the pub on Saturday night I got a $25 gift certificate. I'm a member of the "mug club" there and when you spend a certain amount of money you get gift certs. So we get to go back for a mostly free dinner. Woohoo!


Sunday:
Sunday we woke up early and headed to our favorite breakfast place where I had yogurt ,granola, black coffee, whole grain wheat toast with a little bit of olive oil, and fruit. As always everything tasted wonderful.

We then made an impromptu trip to a pet store where we met some 11 week old brother and sister st bernards. They were so great! We now know what type of dog we want when we have the room.

In the afternoon we ended up driving by a house (we've been house shopping for a while, we're renters right now) that had a price drop of 25k. It turned out the owner was out cleaning and we got a personal tour of the house. Long story, but we actually saw the house last fall, but it ended up selling to someone else. Now it's back on the market.

We'll needless to say we're putting an offer in on the house tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully within 60-90 days we'll be home owners! Woohoo!

To tie up the already great weekend, Sunday night I went out to a wonderful dinner with my family for my birthday. I had a filet mignon , corn, spinach and mushrooms. The food was perfect and a great end to my weekend.

Wow, that was a lot of typing. I really need to get some work done!

Talk to ya later!

EDIT: Sorry about the horrible spelling. I had about 500 interuptions while I typed this at work today and didn't get a chance to proof read.

Getting Over the Plateau's

As I mentioned yesterday I think I've hit a plateau of sorts in the weight loss department. I think this does mean that I've made progress, but I also think its yet another test that I need to pass if I'm going to be successful. I have a fairy simple plan to get over it:

1. Food: Yes, there are days like yesterday where circumstance makes it hard to eat enough, but that is not the norm. I recovered by evening time anyway. I feel like I'm doing what I can in the food department, so the plan here is to basically maintain my current practices.

2. Exercise: I'm still doing my 30 minutes of cardio every day on the bike, but it's getting too easy. The past two days I've mixed it up a bit by throwing in the elliptical machine as well as the Stairmaster. That is all good, and I can feel like I was worked harder than when I just rode the bike, but that's not good enough. It's time to give HIIT a try. This starts tomorrow, or possibly tonight if I have time (I've already done me regular cardio workout today).

3. Daily Life: I feel there are other things in your daily life that you can do to supplement your weight loss and healthy living. One of those things is walking more. In an effort to do more of this, I just purchased a pedometer. The plan is to spend the next day or so getting an accurate reading of how many steps a day I take, then get that number up to 10,000. From what I've read online, walking a minimum of 10,000 steps a day is equivalent to a 30 minute cardio workout. Of course that is very subject , but more exercise is good exercise so I'll give it a try.

That is basically it. Tune in later for more details and hopefully I can report getting over this plateau.

-------------------------
Edit - Strength Training
I completely forgot to mention my strength training routine. I'm not changing it so I guess it wasn't on the top of my mind. I just started it this week. I do 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps to fail.

Monday

chest:
Cable Crossovers
Incline dumbbell presses

shoulders:
seated dumbbell lateral raises
dumbbell shoulder presses

back:
wide-grip pulldowns
seated cable rows

arms:
dumbbell curls
tricep pulldowns

Wednesday

ABS:
twisting sit ups
crunches
pullovers
vertical leg raises

Friday

Quads:
leg extensions
squats

hams:
leg curls

Bleh

It's kinda been one of those days where everything is harder than it normally is. Maybe I'm just lazy.

For breakfast I had a lame yogurt. 60 calories. I left home too late to have anything more exiting, and that is what was available at my desk, so...

Lunch was extra fun. I spent it at the dentist catching up on some tooth cleaning that I've been putting off for, oh, several years. Catching up at the dentist is a painful bitch.

Since spending my lunch at the dentist wasn't enough fun, afterwards I decided I'd supplement my afternoon with a visit to the DMV to renew my drivers license which expires in a few days. I took a number, and stood and watched the rejects they have working there call a bunch of numbers that were all over 20 digits away from the one in my hand.

It seemed like days as I stood there, listening to some screaming 4 year old as his mother did her makeup, obviously unaware of the agonizing sounds her kid was making 5 feet away.

As always, the DMV workers went about thier business, at roughly the speed of Molasses in January. For those who live in the south, that REALLY REALLY SLOW. But it's really no wonder because without fail, at least one out of every 3 DMV workers I've ever encountered literally looked and acted like they just excaped from the real life movie set of One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest. Last time I got my picture taken 4 years ago I swear to god the guy taking it looked like Lurch only he didn't have Lurch's cutting edge whit. In fact, I don't think he had any whit's at all.
Where do they get those people?

After standing for an eternity, I gave up, threw my number (951, 928 was being called)in the trash, and headed across the strip mall to the "Salad Stop" and get something to eat instead.

Oriental Chicken Salad with lettuce, chicken, ginger fat free dressing, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Calories? I have no idea. Based on taste I'd say about 4.

Back to work(yes, that was a long lunch). Shuffled some internet around. Made myself look busy. Got bored. Headed to the gym.

I did my "morning" cardio at 3:30pm Sharp. Out of bordom decided to try something new: instead of doing a straight 30 minutes on the bike I did 10 minutes on the elliptical, then 20 minutes on the bike. I hate the elliptical machine, but I figured I also hate most everything I had to do today, so why not be consistent. According to the machines I burned 390 calories. I almost stopped early in my routine several times. Like I said, jsut one of those days. Somehow I suffered through it.

After the gym I came back to my desk, emailed with my mom for a bit, then started typing this entry. Well, now it's 5:17, time to go home. I've barely eaten any calories today and my lovely girlfriend is asking me what I want to do for dinner.

Maybe we'll go out for some olive's, brussel sprouts, and a glass a warm milk. You know, to stay consistent and all.

:)

Just kidding.

Or am I..

End of Week 8

I guess I'm at one of those, plateaus. You know, where your numbers seem to kinda hover over a 10 day period. Where you're basically doing everything right, but progress is coming slower.

In reality, I have nothing to complain about. I got yet another positive comment from someone whom I have not seen for a few months (my realtor). I know I've shown some real results. In fact today is the first day of week 9, and in the past 8 weeks I've dropped 21 pounds. That's just over 2.6 pounds a week. I'm happy with that. I'd like to pat myself on the back but the way I see it I have maybe another 50 pounds to go before I go into "maintain mode" so I'm trying not to get too excited.

Do you celebrate when you're 20 minutes into a 30 minute cardio routine? No, you suck it up, try not to pay attention too closely to the time and you move ahead.

That's what I'm trying to do now. Maintain this lifestyle, but also step it up a bit at the same time. I mean, I could keep doing what I'm doing and I supposed in 5 or 6 months I'll have met my goal. But that sounds too easy. And if its too easy to get to my goal, I think it might be too easy to go back into bad habits. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but I need to keep working hard exponentially. Eventually the hard things get easy so you have to switch it up to make it equally as hard. So that's what I'm going to do.

Yea.

YEA!

Ok, time to get some work done...

Weirdness

Weirdness in the numbers that is. The first strange thing was as I mentioned in my last post, I lost 4.5 pounds in just a few hours while on a bike ride. Well now, 3 days later, not only have those 4.5 pounds NOT come back, I've gone down another 4! My weigh-in this morning was 269.5. Now, that was using the scale I've used this entire time that always read 4-6 pounds higher than the other scales. I checked it against another scale at work that always read correctly, and it was within a pound. So it seems the scale I've been using this entire time that always read high, now does not read high. I don't really know whats going on there, but I'm going to keep checking the two scales against each other to hopefully get a more accurate reading. I think I might have to bow out of the September Challege this month until I can get some consistent good readings. As it stands right now I'd already be down 9 pounds for the month of September so far. I don't really think that can be.

At any rate, I AM losing weight and things are going well, even despite my day of drinking and a few cheats yesterday during the Eagles game.

In other news I saw a few friends yesterday whom I had not seen for a few months. They both questioned my weight before I even said anything to them about it.
"Geez, how much weight have you lost??"
"Yo skinny, what have you been doing?!"

Now I'm no where near skinny (nor do i ever want to be) but I have to say it was really nice to hear the compliments. My other friend who was also on vacation with me all last week also said to me that he was really impressed with how I ate last week, even with all the temptations going on.

So, all that stuff is great and I do feel like I've made some progress. I also feel like I have a lot more to go though. I think I'll feel like that for a while. That is a good thing though because it keeps me motivated.

This week I'm back to work, and I'm going to be trying out a new lifting routine that is a lot more hardcore and regimented than what I was going before. I'll let you all know how that goes after a bit.

Thats all I have for now...Have a great day!

-Brian

A tip: How to lose 4.5 pounds in 5 hours

Do you guys want to know how to lose 4.5 pounds in just 5 short hours?

Bike 70 miles in the hot North Carolina sun.

That's right, this morning I weighed in at a nice 277.5 and now, just 45 minutes after returning to my vacation home 5 hours and 70 miles later I weigh 273. Kinda crazy especially considering I drank mucho water the entire time, and even consumed a fish sandwich half way through my trip.

It's back to reality after today. Tomorrow morning we start the 7 hour drive home. In a way it's sad since this basically means back to work, end of the summer, back to monotony of daily life. But in another way it's a bit of a relief. This by far has been my hardest week so far in sticking with my healthy routine. I had all these great plans, but in the end there was NO lifting, and some less than stellar eating decisions. I chalked it up to being on vacation, but I can't say there wasn't a bit of guilt when I ate that brownie the other day, or had that 7th glass of Captain Morgan's and Diet Coke the other night...

My saving grace was the roughly 150 miles I was able to bike this week as well as the other 95% of good eating choices I made. The net result is that I weighed 279 when I came here, and was weighing in at 277 before today's bike trip that brought me down to 273 (in all water weight I'm sure).

Considering the reality of this week, I deem a 95% success rate to be a 105% success rate on any normal week. I don't think that having regular sub 275 weigh-ins by my birthday on the 15th will be a problem at all. That will officially be my first goal met. Isn't it funny how much your goals change once you've come close to just the first one? I've already got my sights set on 250.

One more thing before I get back to enjoying the last few hours of my vacation: If I've learned anything from the past few weeks of my healthy lifestyle, it's that for at least part of your new life of fitness, you have to find something that you really enjoy to help you through the tough times. Weather its biking, or walking with your kids, or the elliptical machine(in case you happen to be a Masochist) or whatever, you need something that you at least semi enjoy so that this whole thing doesn't seem like it's such a big chore. When all else falls there has to be something to fall back on so you don't have a complete mental breakdown. Don't have something like that? Then you have to keep an open mind, consider your options, and find it. I think there is something out there for everyone.

Anyhoo, I hope everyone has had a great week! I'll be back into the regular posting upon my return...

Cheers

-Brian