Watchin' weight and basketball

For those of you that don't know, I've finally bucked up and have started to eat better, work out, and generally take my health seriously. I'm not going to continue to eat horribly meal after meal after meal...being "blind" (ie. ignorant) to the calories I'm taking in. I've been above 300 lbs for over 7-8 years now, and even 3XL shirts were starting to get small. I'd make excuses that the 2XL shirts I couldn't fit into were shrinking in the wash, or weren't "true" 2XL size. That may all be true, but I also know that I'm not getting any smaller, and since I hadn't weighed myself in a long time, I had probably gotten bigger. I (along with B) decided that were going to take back the health we deserved in '08, and so I weighed myself, then puked at disgust as the scale hit 328 lbs (already 1/4 of the way to 400! UGH!). I immediately started watching portions and working out, but fell off around a week and a half into it. I came up with excuses of being busy. Then, one day after watching "The Biggest Loser" (one of the best shows on tv because of just how positive it is), I decided to join the biggestloserclub.com. It's been amazing so far. If only for the recipes, food plan, and workout plan they customize per the settings you choose. They have tons of recipes, and while it's been a learning curve to cook healthy, learn to cook with alot of ingredients I didn't cook with before (at least from scratch), and to control my serving sizes to the recipe, it's been awesome in how I'm finally learning caloric intake, portion sizes and what they "should" be for normal people. I'm also getting motivation by having a cool website to log my workouts, and see the progress I'm having by the graphs and charts they show on there. It's an amazing tool. It costs monthly, and I didn't want to incur another charge for us each month, so I bit the bullet and quit my World of Warcraft account for now. It was tough! Right now though, I have no time for it. With working out, family time, and trying to get more sleep, I haven't had the time.

This brings me to my next point. My workouts have consisted to the elliptical machine (thanks again BLC.com for finally engraving the correct spelling in my head...HA!) 6-7 nights a week, for 30 mins, then some general workouts (crunches, pushups, etc). I put on ESPN, watch some college basketball (since the NBA is no longer on tv it seems!!!), then slap on my ipod shuffle, hit random, and go to work. I've been watching so much college basketball (or at least parts of the games), that I have a good idea how to pick my NCAA Tourney bracket with a real sense of knowledge for the first time in YEARS! It's also this watching, that has made me have some revelations about college ball this particular year. I don't know if this is a trend or has been going on for years. Here they are:

1. The NCAA has about 3 elite teams (UNC, Kansas, and Memphis), another 10 good teams, and then the rest are mediocre at best. The top three are just so good that it will shock the heck out of me if one of them don't win the championship. They look like men among boys.

2. Besides the top 13-ish teams from above, no other team I've seen really has more than one good player on the team. Indiana's Gordon is just SICK! The guy will be a high round pick next year along with Hansborough from UNC. But back to my thought...seeing those teams with only one good player is hard to watch because they do what we used to do when I'd play ball at Urbandale back in the day with my boyz. We had this dude named Chris who was amazing. We'd get him the ball and just clear the lane and let him do his thing. We lived and died by how he did. That's what I see with those teams.

3. If the team doesn't have a clear go-to guy, they look like trash. I can't count how many teams I've seen look like junk this year. Totally disorganized and out of any rythm at all. I've only seen ISU one time this year, but they looked the part when they saw Kansas last week. I feel really bad for those teams when they look that bad. It just kills me how even though they're playing a good team (like an elite team of Kansas playing a bad ISU team), the bad team is still in a prominant league, so they should be getting some decent talent and have a decent coach, yet they look like an 8th grade team going against a varsity one. It's just sad. Not picking on ISU, because it's been happening alot. Even when it's two mediocre teams going at it, like Penn State and Ohio State last night, it was super hard to watch the game.

4. This all brings me to my last point. Unless the best player on your team is a center, and the focus of your team's attack is heavily weighed on your center (ie. UNC's Hansborough), the center is not used at all these days. I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing the center work his tail off to get position down low, have the ball rotated to his side, and then the guard throws it back around, not giving the center a chance. Every guard in the NCAA thinks they're trying to be the next Wade, Lebron, etc, and so they try to take on the other team 1 on 5, and end up screwing up and throwing the ball away, turning it over, or missing the shot. That leads to the team being horribly disorganized, because unless you are of the caliber of a Carmello, then you can't take the team 1 on 5. That also leads to the team taking 50 3 ptrs, and only making about 10 a game. Why do coaches not see that? How are you an NCAA coach, and even if your big man sucks (which makes me ask then, what is he doing as your center? height doesn't necessarily make a center...skill does), why are you not throwing the ball into your big man, let him try to open up the outside for your guards to shoot, or take a 15 foot jumper? It blows my mind. I had a few years where the teams I was on did this exact thing. I used to be pretty dominant in my day. I still am, but I've lost a step (editor's note: but it's coming back ya'll! gettin' in shape so I can ball again too!). But when we'd have a game where they would forget that they have the biggest guy in the gym, and can get them 15-20 pts a night, and instead miss 15 straight shots outside, I would get ticked. I'd just stop hustling. I'm not going to kill myself down in the paint, getting double and triple teamed, if you're not going to pay attention to matchups, or at least get the ball to one of the open guys. I see that in the college game, like I said, and it blows my mind on how the coach doesn't get his guys to wake up, use the center, and then their shots will open up outside. Basketball Philosophy 101 - the game runs inside/out...NOT outside/in. I'm not saying the center needs the ball every time down the court, but look how open guards are when the ball gets thrown in the post most times and kicked back out. Stan and I had that game down PAT! Man, I miss lunchball.

There, I've spoken my peace.

So, to bring us full circle. With me watching basketball, working out, and eating better, I'm down 21 pounds. I'm down to 307 last I weighed (last Saturday). I'll try to post at least each week on how I'm doing weight-wise, so you all can keep track and keep me accountable. I welcome any comments, or good wishes periodically to help keep me focused.

Have a blessed day, and lets cheer on those centers! WOO HOO!

E