The Diet(s)

I've been kinda cranky this past week. I get that way when I'm deprived of things I like. I know, "boo hoo for me". I'm on two diets of sorts.

The first is a financial diet. I ran our books before I got sick. Of course, being laid up for 6+ months Lynette had to take over cold and did a magnificent job of taking care of everything even with my reduced disability pay. Once I was recovered I took the bill paying back over. Unfortunately I like to spend money. I like to eat out so we were doing that a lot. I way overspent on my kids for Christmas. We had several emergency expenses come up related to the car. And while I managed fine I wasn't able to stay disciplined enough to pull off the major purchase I've been wanting now for 2+ years - a 13" MacBook Pro. So, Lynette is back in charge now and I'm hoping soon (rather than later) I'll have that sleek machine in my hands.

A side effect of my financial diet is my semi-self imposed nutritional diet. As I pointed out earlier, I like to eat. I love to go out to eat. It would get so bad that I'd often eat out several times a week. Now that I don't have free reign over the checkbook I have to really buckle down on when I can stop somewhere to eat lunch. I won't be able to just say "let's get Subway or Wendy's for dinner". An agreement that my wife and made during the transition of financial power was that we were going to plan out more meals during the week so we wouldn't fall into the trap of 'easy dinner's out'. That should help provide good left-overs for lunches.

Before I got sick in October '09 I was pushing 275 on the scales. I ended up losing a lot of weight from my illness but have managed to put some of it back on. Now that I'm watching more of what I eat I figured I'd also try other new steps to help my 'diet' along. I've created a second blog called "Jimbo's Diet". You can find the blog by following the link to the right of this post. In that blog I'll be posting what I'm eating, any type of exercise I'm doing, dietary information I come across and anything else that might help me out on this journey.

Hopefully these changes will lead to a better, happier Jim!

The End?

Super Sunday! Packers vs. Steelers for the title. Everything I've seen up to this point indicates this should be a really good game. I admit I am a Packer Fan and feel good about their chances to win the game.

The Super Bowl signifies the end of the season. This is especially true now that the NFL moved the Pro-Bowl to the week before the big game. One thing we have to keep in mind though is that this might be the last time we see pro ball in any fashion for a while. The owners and the players association have reached the end of their current labor agreement. Many experts predict we will lose the entire 2011-12 season. No pro football next fall and winter.

We experienced this recently with the NHL. Their last lock-out resulted in a completely lost season. Now I'm not a hockey fan so I can't really speak to the impacts to the game that lost season had. Back in the mid-'90's baseball also had a work stoppage. Being a baseball fan I can relate to that one a bit better. Baseball had been on the decline as America's favorite sport and with that lock-out they lost a lot of loyal fans. They opened the door for the NFL to step in and become America's favorite. Neither Hockey or Baseball have much to fall back on to fill the need of the average fan during a lock out. The NFL on the other-hand has both College Football (which is very well televised) and local high-school games for the average fan to fall back on.

So my questions to you are: Are we seeing the end of the NFL as we know it? Will the NFL be just as strong after a lock-out? Will you still be a loyal fan (if you're one now)? And will college and high school ball be enough to get you through next season? Let me know in the comments below.

(Written on the iPhone)