Face The Music Friday #8

My weight this week is:

 

185.4

 

Beginning:  240

Last week:  186.5

This week: -1.1 lb

Total loss:  54.6 lb

That’s more like it now. I like putting a negative sign instead of a plus sign. This is the first full week I’ve completed with my new routine and mixed up eating. I made it to the gym every single morning by 5am and got my workout out of the way. I feel like it lifts a weight off of me when I think about having to go when I get out of work so that was a nice benefit. I also branched out in my menu and didn’t have the same thing every day. I even added two new veggies to the list of things I’ll eat – peas and broccoli. They’re not favorites obviously, but I’ve decided I’m OK enough with both of them that I’ll add them into my menu.

I’ve also decided on Fridays that I’m going to add in my fitness for the week so I can see how I’m progressing, as well as my monthly measurements that I take to watch that as well. Just throwing it all out there and you guys will all make me feel accountable.

Fitness this week:

Saturday – Running (outside) – 24 minutes (still building back up after IT band injury)

Sunday – walked approximately 3.5 miles around the Wrentham Outlets according to my Fitbit

Monday – Running (treadmill) – 24 minutes

Tuesday – Chest, Triceps, Core (all sets of 4, 8 reps per set):

Bench Press – 10 lb each side, Fly – 60 lb, Cable uppercut – 5 lb each side, Push-up to failure (knees) – 13, 11, 12, 8

Tricep Dips – (Assisted w/ 115 lb), Rope pull-down – 20 lb, Kickbacks – 10 lb

Ab Crunch – 60 lb, Torso rotation w/ cable – 15 lb, Cable hold – 10 lb x 30 sec, Knee Raise – 10 x 4, Plank – 30 sec x 4

Wednesday – Running (T) – 24 minutes

Thursday – Back, Biceps (all sets of 4, 8 reps per set):

Row – 40 lb, Back Extension – 80 lb, Pull-up (Assisted w/ 130 lb)

Regular Bicep curl – 15 lb, Hammer Curl – 15 lb, Reverse Curl – 15 lb

Friday – rest

Inches lost so far, only recorded since January 2013:

Chest – 4.75″

Waist – 6.25″

Hips – 7″

Thighs – R 5″, L 4.5″

Arms – R 4″, L 3.5″

This was a very exciting week for my wife and me. In late June of this year, DOMA was ruled unconstitutional. This was  the MOST exciting development to come out of the last few years for us. Let me back up and tell you why.

In February 2009, we were married in MA because they were already performing same sex marriages. We really just did it so that Tara could be added to my health insurance at my current job – we’d already been engaged for years at that point. Tara was branching out to a full time nanny position and would be requiring health insurance and since my employer at the time was awesome and said they would add her if we were married, it was a done deal. We had a JP marry us at Seekonk Town Hall (just over the border with RI) with my best friends and Tara’s parents. Later that year, we had a reception for all of our friends and family, but that’s another post for another time.

So we’re married now, tra la la. Time moves on and in late 2011, I lost that job…which means neither one of us now had health insurance. We got temporary insurance and luckily neither of us got gravely ill in the meantime. I got a new job (the job I have now) in early 2012. The problem was they would NOT offer her health insurance because it was a company policy that they only would offer if it was federally recognized. It didn’t matter that we were legally married in MA, nor did it matter that by this time RI had passed a civil union bill (2011) and then later said it would recognize out of state marriages (2012). Even when RI had legal marriage passed in 2013, it still didn’t matter. We had to pay for her plan out of pocket every month. We only got the most basic we could to save on the huge payment each month, so she ended up paying for a lot of stuff that would be covered for me (like PT, lab work, etc).

It wasn’t long, though, until DOMA went down. The day the ruling came out, June 26, 2013, I was so excited. I immediately emailed our corporate HR department to see how they planned on proceeding. I was told legal was already talking about it and an announcement would be forthcoming. Around September I still hadn’t seen an announcement and was getting antsy so I followed up and she said an announcement would be made during open enrollment (November). I finally got the confirmation in late October that I would be able to add Tara to ALL of my benefits (medical, dental, vision, life insurance, THE WORKS!!).

Earlier this week, I submitted that enrollment. We’re going to save almost $150 a month by not having to pay for her terrible plans separately anymore! This makes the federal benefits that much sweeter that we’d already be getting, like if something were to happen to one of us, or for tax purposes.

In honor of this great personal achievement this week, my song will be Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

 

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