I know I haven’t been around much lately. Running back and forthe to the hospital to see my baby girl when I’m not working has been tough but I have good news! Morgan is coming home today!! I’ll take some pics when I get home from work and post them.
Type to ya this evening.
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss
So I get a call at 8:30am today. One of my really good friends. He asks what I’m doing. Knowing me like he does, he should have known that I was sleeping. I ask, “What’s up?” Big mistake.
He says, ” I need you brother.” 
I say, “What for?” I keep asking the wrong questions.
“Remember that email I sent you about us pulling that airplane? It’s today and we are a man short. Can you come down to Long Beach Airport and help out?”
“Crap. There goes my Saturday morning sleep in. I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”
I get dressed and head for the door. MrsMista says, “Where are you going?”
I respond, “I going to Long Beach to help Junior pull an airplane.”
“Well if you can get up at 8:30am on a Saturday to pull an airplane, you can come back and help me clean out the office that we are converting to the baby’s room.”
You’ll notice that she never questioned why I was pulling the airplane. I guess I do enough weird stuff to where the thought of me pulling an airplane doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Anyway, I get to the airport and I find out that this isn’t just an exhibition, it’s a competition and there are 15 other teams out there. My day just got longer.
Looking around I think outweighed all of the other teams combined. I was one of the small guys on our team. We were representing Fed Ex LAX.

We ended up pulling the plane 15 feet in 6.1 seconds and winning the competition. I didn’te get to stay for the award ceremony because I had to come home and work but it was worth it. All of the proceeds went to the Special Olympics, and the kids loved meeting all of us huge people.


Not a bad day after all..
(Finally all of that pushing the car paid off!)
Categorised in Charity, Fitness, Special Olympics, airplane, auto, blog, car, exercise, fat, food and weight loss
I measured myself this morning expecting a setback. Lo and behold (I always wanted to say that) my waist was 50.5 inches down from an original 56 inches and 51 inches at my last measurement. I’m excited about the progress considering I had a BBQ contest this weekend (we got second in tri-tip) and spent a lot of time tasting everyone’s food including our own.
This morning, K and I started Phase 2 of the Men’s Health TNT workout plan. I usually expect some soreness when we switch our workout regimen but I don’t have any…yet. That’s good considering we did some exercises I have never done before like the dumbell push press and romanian dead lifts.
Here was the workout we did today
Superset 1
Wide grip seated rows 3X12 120lbs
Romanian Deadlift 3X10 135lbs
Superset2
Kneeling Lat Pulldown 3×10 185lbs (I added a 45lb plate to the pulley rack)
Dumbbell Push Press 3×10 40lb dumbbells
Side Bridge 60 secs (30 secs each side)
This was a pretty cool workout and we were thru it in about 35 minutes. It felt good not to be dying at the end of a workout for a change.
Categorised in Fitness, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss
Hey folx!
Sorry I haven’t been posting much. Little Miss Morgan has been taking up most of my free time. I’m usually up by 5:45am on gym days or 6:45am on non-gym days and out the door by 8am headed for work. I get off at 6pm, pickup MrsMista and head to the hospital to see Morgan (usually her second trip of the day). It’s usually about 10pm when I get home and have about an hour to wind down before I do it all again. It’s hectic, but it’s worth it to be with my baby!
Morgan is doing great. Last night we did our yoga stretches and crib aerobics. The nurses and other parents thought I was crazy. My wife just looked at me and shook her head. She does that a lot. But Morgan and I had fun.
My diet has been crappy lately because I just don’t have time to cook. My son is coming down this weekend and we are competing in a BBQ Contest on Saturday. Wish us luck! I’ll be sure to take pictures and post them.
Anywho, I just took a break at work to type this. Gotta get back to it!
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food and weight loss
I’ve been tagged by Flabuless via Lady Rose at the Diet Pulpit to participate in the “Just as I am” Challenge. Here is the description:
From Flabuless Diva: The “Just as I am” challenge to bloggers is that instead of concentrating on the negative points of why you want to lose weight and what you hate about yourself…to write 5 points about who you are and why you are ok just like that, they can be quirky, embarrassing, brutally honest, boring it doesn’t matter…You are perfect, you are unique and you should accept yourself with all your quirks–’Just as you are’.
It will be a list that you might need to revisit every day for the next year to remind yourself, that you are ok, and your life is going to turn out ok…but more importantly it will be an affirmation to yourself and the first step in appreciating YOU just as you are.
For those that participate write a comment here with the url to your post and I will add your link to this post and let Flabuless Diva know so she can also add your links to a list she is putting together. Her full explanation is posted HERE (you can leave your link there too is you would like).
Here is my list - Five Just As I Am List by Waistloss:
1. I am a great cook and I make Award Winning Barbecue! (MrsMista likes that about me too!)
2. I make pretty babies! Here is my handsome son:

And you saw pictures of Morgan in my previous post.
3. I have a great sense of humor. (OK, I’m a little goofy sometimes but there’s rarely a dull moment when I’m around)
4. I have an almost endless supply of useless knowledge swimming around in my head. I’d go on Jeopardy but I just know the final category will be “Stuff Neil just doesn’t know”.
5. Most importantly, God loves me and that’s enough for me!
Now go post your list because YOU have officially been tagged!!
Categorised in Fitness, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow in the midst of all of this madness, I managed to lose 5lbs.! I tried to stick to my diet but i screwed up a few times. I missed some workouts, but I did a lot of walking and I climbed some stairs at the hospital. I didn’t sleep much at night but I had catnaps during the day.
Maybe it was stress. Who knows? I’m just happy with the result!
K and I worked out this morning and we added an extra set to all of our exercises. I’m tired but I am back at work today.
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss

Morgan is doing fine! She is still breathing on her own and they have under a lamp to stimulate her skin. I think she was enjoying it…



Going to bed now. I’ll be at the gym early tomorrow morning.
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss

Say hello to Morgan Patrice Strawder! She was born yesterday, July23rd (our anniversary) at 5:36am. She was 2lbs, 9 oz and 15 inches long. She is in intensive care and breathing on her own. She will be in the hospital for a coupla months. MrsMista had a c-section and will be home in a coupla days.
My diet hasn’t been great. Had a coupla forkfuls of hash browns and a pancake with my breakfast yesterday. Been pretty good with what I could find around here. More tomorrow!

Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss
I managed to get a workout in today with K. WE hit the gym and went thru our routine in about 40 minutes. Breakfast was a Buffalo Hamburger Patty and two eggs. Snack is Tuna salad with eggs. Lunch is a big salad with chunks of lean ham and blue cheese dressing. Haven’t worked out the afternoon snack or dinner yet.
The wife and baby are fine. They moved them to a more comfortable room this morning. They are still monitoring them and as long as my wife has no contractions and the baby is in no distress, they are not going to deliver her. She is 6.5 months right now. They want to keep the baby inside as long as possible. And as long as the baby is inside, they are keeping my wife in bed at the hospital. She is ready to choke everyone in sight right now. She doesn’t like being confined.
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss
I couldn’t workout yesterday because we were at the hospital. My wife is pregnant and her water sack busted early. She is fine and they are trying to keep from delivering the baby for as long as possible. She could be in the hospital for up to 4 weeks! This will play havoc with my workouts but I still managed to stay on track with my diet yesterday.
I’ll keep you posted…
Categorised in Baby, Fitness, Pregnant, blog, exercise, fat, food, nutrition and weight loss