This Post is part of Dr. Ben’s “Fitness 2009″ program. To follow Dr. Ben’s progress every week, visit the main “Fitness 2009″ page.

Failure and Bouncing back……

Those are the themes of week 5 and 6.

Week 5

If I learned anything at all in week 5, it was to trust what you blog in week 4 (haha). If you remember, in the “Week 3-4 Review” post I talked about how, for my weight, it was important that I only lose around 2 lbs. per week. I warned my readers that if I lost much more than that, that I would most likely “rebound”.

Well…. In week 5 I had my worst week yet.

I started off really tearing it up in week five. I was down around 4 lbs in the first few days (which I knew would turn around and  bite me in the ass. Sure enough, I went out and ate on Saturday night (a meal bigger than my usual 300-400 calories) and by Monday Morning I had only lost half a pound for the week. Now normally, one “off” meal wouldn’t hurt my progress, but I had lost too much weight at once, and my body went into “Rebound” mode.

I was very discouraged last week. In all failures, however, we learn something.

On to week 6…..

Week 6

At the beginning of week 5 I was really bummed out because I hadn’t lost much (total) weight in the previous week. I really wanted to hit it hard and exercise like crazy and not eat much…..

But the “Smarter Me” prevailed. I decided to stick to my program and goals. I didn’t modify my exercise or diet, and instead I opted to keep going with what had gotten me this far.

I am proud to announce that at the end of Week 5 (coming into Week 6) I had lost 3 and a half pounds.  In short…I rebounded from the rebound.

I am currently at 213 lbs (I started at 229 lbs).

I am at a milestone….I am around 2-3 lbs from being the weight I was when I was in highschool. I’m pretty excited to see if I can hit it.

I’ll let you know next week

-Dr. Ben

Week 5 and 6 is a post from: DrBenAdkins.com - Serial Progress Seeker

I wanted to shoot you all a few tools that I use that make vacation planning (and my life!) alot easier.

Cost to Drive (www.costtodrive.com)

-If You’re Driving- Cost to Drive is a very useful tool because it gives you a very good rough estimate of how much money you’re going to have to spend on gas for a trip. Half of my problem with budgeting for a trip is that I can never get a good estimate of what my gas cost will be to a place that I’ve never been before. (I also hate doing a lot of complicated math…and this saves me the trouble). I just type in where I’m going, tell “Cost to Drive” what kind of car I have, and it spits out a very good estimate of what the trip will cost me in gas.

There are a few limitations with Cost to Drive. For example, if you drive a car that was made before 1999 (Cost to Drive Just Updated their site and it now covers 10 more years of car info!), you’re out of luck. All in all though, it’s a very good way to get a rough idea of what your gas expenses are going to be

Kayak (www.kayak.com)

-If You’re Flying- I’m going to be completely honest, I had stumbled across Kayak’s page several times before I actually took the time to understand what it really did. Kayak is really good at helping you find the best deal on a flight or hotel by comparing all the major travel sites. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this the hard way by typing in my trip information at all the major travel sites (Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, etc.) and then comparing them. Kayak does all the typing for you. You type in your trip info once at Kayak and it goes and gets all the results from the major travel sites for you. Kayak will save you a ton of time when you plan your next trip.

Schmap (www.schmap.com)

-If Your Planning Trip Activities- As you can probably already tell, I am a fan of sites that do the job of 4 other sites. Nothing brings trip planning down quicker then having to jump back and forth between different resources and then put the information together yourself. That’s why I love Schmap’s. If your going somewhere and you want to get a good idea of how you should spend your time when you get there, then Schmap is amazing. You tell Scmap where you want to go, and then it shows you where all the relevant sites of interest are, gives you a history on each, and more information then you could ever ask for. It cuts your “trip research time” in half (at least). (As useful as Schmap is, its a million times more useful if you happen to be carrying an Iphone around with you.)

Trip Stalker (www.tripstalker.com)

-If your looking for Cheap AirFare-There are a ton of services out there that help you find the cheapest airfare. The only problem is that rates change almost daily (and most services only search for the current rates). The key to finding the cheapest price for a particular flight is to check airfares everyday, at least twice a day, for every airline. That’s where Trip Stalker comes in. You type in what you want to pay for a flight and trip stalker will tap the airline databases continuously until the fare meets your criteria. You can set it up to send you a text message or alert via email when your flight gets priced where you want it. It will save you alot of time when your looking for your next flight.

Did I miss a gem? Got another useful travel tool? Send us a comment below!

Dr. Ben

Travel Tools that Make Travel Planning Easy! is a post from: DrBenAdkins.com - Serial Progress Seeker