The Journey
Interesting read
Source: Habit Relapse: What To Do If You Fall From Your Diet or Good Habits : zen habits
Weight: 361.8 pounds Loss since 8/12/14 (366 days): 54.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 61.8 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 27.10%
Caloric limit: 2080 per day
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)Next Milestone (Goal): Repeat past milestone of losing 76 pounds (target date: 10/14/15)
Target Date Using Overall Daily Average: 7/18/2018 (1044 more days)
Target Date Using Daily Average Since 8/5/15: 2/5/2016 (154 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON-EXISTENT
I have lost 20.8 pounds in the last 30 days… I can’t be upset, right? But my loss has been stagnant for the last 7 or 8 days.. so I can be upset, right?
I have been struggling a little with staying under my daily calorie limit… Yesterday for example I didn’t calculate my dinner calories until after dinner and the Hatch Chile, Bacon Quiche was higher than I expected so that caused me to go over. I need to calculate before hand and then stick to it exactly!!
Thanks for reading and PLEASE comment so I know someone, anyone is reading… you don’t have to say much, just say ‘Hi’ and if you have a minute, click on an affiliate ad.. that helps me out too. My goals for the rest of the week are:
- Weight myself daily and log into the chart
- Count every calorie, EVERY day on MyFitnessPal.com
- Work out in some way daily (walking, exercise bike, elliptical, working with weights will be the approved workouts)
- Drink at least 56 oz of plain water daily
- Write here at least once a day (small, quick posts are okay)
- Work on being less depressed
- At the end of the week: Lose 7 pounds
My planned short term goals and rewards:
- Goal: Exercise 30+ days and lose over 75 pounds
- Reward: Buy Season 2 of Bates Motel DVD’s
- Goal #2: Track calories for 90+ days and 100 pounds lost
- Reward: Buy myself some sort of fitbit type device to wear that will monitor my activity and sleep patterns (one that will integrate with MyFitnessPal.com)
- Goal #3: Drink water for 120+ days and lose 125 pounds
- Reward: As much as I hate using food as a reward, I will go to Fogo de Chão
Weight: 364.6 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (366 days): 51.4 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 59.0 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 25.70%
Caloric limit: 2080 per day
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life) Next Milestone (Goal): Repeat past milestone of losing 76 pounds (target date: 9/13/15)
Target Date Using Overall Daily Average: 8/21/2018 (1093 more days)
Target Date Using Daily Average Since 8/5/15: 12/20/2015 (118 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON-EXISTENT
Quick update… I am counting my calories and staying focused on the goal.. I am seeing progress and will continue as I have been. Didn’t do so well on my weekly goals… I did count all my calories… and I’m not as depressed.. other than that no goals were met.. so I will repeat them this next 7 days
My goals for the next 7 days are:
- Weight myself daily and log into the chart
- Count every calorie, EVERY day on MyFitnessPal.com
- Work out in some way daily (walking, exercise bike, elliptical, working with weights will be the approved workouts)
- Drink at least 56 oz of plain water daily
- Write here at least once a day (small, quick posts are okay)
- Work on being less depressed
- At the end of the week: Lose 7 pounds
My planned short term goals and rewards:
- Goal: Exercise 30+ days and lose over 75 pounds
- Reward: Buy Season 2 of Bates Motel DVD’s
- Goal #2: Track calories for 90+ days and 100 pounds lost
- Reward: Buy myself some sort of fitbit type device to wear that will monitor my activity and sleep patterns (one that will integrate with MyFitnessPal.com)
- Goal #3: Drink water for 120+ days and lose 125 pounds
- Reward: As much as I hate using food as a reward, I will go to Fogo de Chão
Weight: 365.8 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (366 days): 50.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 57.8 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 25.10%
Caloric limit: 2080 per day
✓
Next Milestone (Goal): Repeat past milestone of losing 76 pounds (target date: 10/14/15)
Target Date Using Overall Daily Average: 8/9/2018 (1092 more days)
Target Date Using Daily Average Since 8/5/15:10/5/2015 (53 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON-EXISTENT
I marked the one year anniversary of this diet yesterday and it was bittersweet (like the chocolate)… I started so strong, losing 90 pounds in 196 days!!! and then the focus was lost.. I hung out at around 326 for about a month… then I lost it and as I gained pound after pound I started monitoring my weight less and less.. knowing what was happening, but trying to ignore it… I got more and more depressed about it.. which caused a spiral until I was eventually ‘power eating’ continuously.. resulting in gaining back 65 pounds in only 161 days!
So officially I lost 47.0 pounds in one year… now including the ups and downs in that year I know I lost more than 271.3 pounds in that year (since I stopped monitoring my weight I don’t know exactly, but it has to be well over that amount based on what I do have).. I noticed that people that saw me stopped asking how it was going since it was obvious that I wasn’t losing, but gaining weight…
On a side note… I really appreciate all my friends in trying to be so courteous and save my feeling… but if you are reading this, please feel free to ask, especially if it looks like I am not losing… it might make me feel bad but that will also help in the motivation… you don’t have to be mean.. “Damn you gained a lot of weight” wouldn’t be the optimal thing to say… “Well I guess you failed on your diet” also might not be the best… “How’s the weight loss going?”… “How much weight have you lost?”… something like that would be fine 😉
On 8/5/15 (last week) I was able to focus and get motivated again.. I believe it is as strong a motivation as I had in the past. We will call this Steve 2.0 diet… I have lost 25.3 pounds in 9 days… That in itself should prove how much I was eating prior to that. To lose that much weight in that period of time while eating a substantial amount of calories each day (right around 2040 per day) is crazy.. not that I am happy about it.. it shows how lost I was… how much my body had just in the digestion process…
I am again adjusting to the changes in my diet and making sure I track and plan my calories every day. I am struggling with water intake, am not exercising and my mood has been up and down. I am trying to not beat myself up over the amount of backtracking I did… I literally fell all the way back to where I as on day 29 of the original diet.. 9/8/14.. I lost 11 months time… I have to forgive myself and just look forward to the next goals….
Speaking of goals, my next major goal is ‘Repeat past milestone of losing 76 pounds’… that means get to a weight of 340.0… 25.8 pounds away. Using past numbers it took me 61 days to go from 365.0 to 339.2 (roughly what this goal is)
“A goal without a date is just a dream” Milton H. Erickson quotes (American psychiatrist and Hypnotist, ) so I will set this goal target date as 10/14/15 (61 days from today)
I have other short term and long term goals and rewards set-up… all of these will be at the bottom of each daily update.
Thanks for reading and PLEASE comment so I know someone, anyone is reading… you don’t have to say much, just say ‘Hi’ and if you have a minute, click on an affiliate ad.. that helps me out too.
My goals for the rest of the week are:
- Weight myself daily and log into the chart
- Count every calorie, EVERY day on MyFitnessPal.com
- Work out in some way daily (walking, exercise bike, elliptical, working with weights will be the approved workouts)
- Drink at least 56 oz of plain water daily
- Write here at least once a day (small, quick posts are okay)
- Work on being less depressed
- At the end of the week: Lose 7 pounds
My planned short term goals and rewards:
- Goal: Exercise 30+ days and lose over 75 pounds
- Reward: Buy Season 2 of Bates Motel DVD’s
- Goal #2: Track calories for 90+ days and 100 pounds lost
- Reward: Buy myself some sort of fitbit type device to wear that will monitor my activity and sleep patterns (one that will integrate with MyFitnessPal.com)
- Goal #3: Drink water for 120+ days and lose 125 pounds
- Reward: As much as I hate using food as a reward, I will go to Fogo de Chão
GREAT article!
Level Up to Lose Weight
By Leo Babauta
I know a lot of people who want to lose weight but are stuck, like I was in 2005. They want to get healthy and fit, but can’t seem to stick to a diet or exercise plan. They start, and then fail, and then feel bad about it. This was where I was 10 years ago, and I’m happy to tell you that it’s possible to change. The secret lies in leveling up.Like a video game, the way to changing your health habits is by starting out at the first level, and only going to the next level after you’ve beaten the one before that. The problem is that most people start at Level 10 and fail, and wonder what happened. Most of us want to skip several levels, but we’re just not ready.So the secret is to start at Level 1, and only advance once you’re done with that level. One level at a time, you’ll master the game of losing weight and getting healthy.Here’s my guide to leveling up.
Read the rest here: Level Up to Lose Weight : zen habits
Weight: 368.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (304 days): 47.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 55.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 32.00%
Caloric limit: 2040 per day
✓
Next Milestone: Repeat past milestone of losing 76 pounds
Target Date: February 6, 2017 (966 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON-EXISTENT
I’m back with my tail between my legs… I have been out of control with my eating for quite awhile now and it has just gotten worse and worse… I feel horrible and I have lost so much progress… officially I have ‘backtracked’ all the way back to 10/8/2014 or 247 days… I the work, limiting and logging calories… gone… so it’s time to look forward and not dwell and wallow in the past… officially today this is no longer the ‘(Not So) Stealth Diet Update’.. it is my “Lifestyle Update’… this has to be for the long term and no ‘diet’ succeeds long-term… it has to be a lifestyle change.
Before I get into this, first, new site design… was so unhappy with the old design that was just a ‘temporary’ design years ago… finally we have a design I like.. weight themed and bright… Let me know what you think in the comments. Second, the ads… I am an affiliate for the companies you see on the sidebar… clicking and/or buying from them earns me $$… I wanted to make it clear that I have not tried some of these products/services and am not necessarily endorsing them. Third, the weight graph at the top has changed… it now is a live copy of my current chart… this was mainly done to make the posting process quicker (which I am doing in an effort to blog much more frequently) Continue reading
Awhile back I posted about Waterever, an electronic water bottle that helps track your water intake..
Well a few of weeks ago I was contacted by Nadya at Hidrate.me asking if I could give them some input on their forthcoming water monitoring bottle… I was shocked that they found me and happy to offer my input..
I talked to Nadya Nguyen, Co-founder at Hidrate. She was very nice and we talked for a bit. I offered my limited advice, limited since I have not seen the product in person, only on their website… Truth be told, I was hoping she would offer me a prototype to test, but that didn’t happen 😉
Apparently they did listen.. one of my suggestions was that the price of $50 was too high… I just can’t see shelling out that kind of money unless the bottle did something like keep my water ice cold (even then it may bee too high)… Then I got an email that the are offering an ‘early supporter’ price… so right now, you can pre-order yours for $37.00! Just go HERE (special is over) and order… (I ordered a black one)
They also have a kickstarter coming up on June 1st… so watch their twitter or facebook for info
UPDATE:
The hugely successful KickStarter is HERE… right now you an order one for $45
Weight: 348.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (260 days): 67.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 75.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 33.90%
Caloric limit: 2040 per day
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: August 16, 2016 (507 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON-EXISTENT
Forgive me Blogsphere for I have sinned… it has been 41 days since my last confessi… post…
So I think we have established that when there is a big gap between my posts here it is because I am not doing well.. this time is no different… I completely lost focus and completely stopped trying to stick to any plan… That has caused a gain of 21.6 pounds and put me back to the weight I was at 12/20/14… that means the last 130 days have been for nothing… I can say that this is only a minor set-back.. I can say it isn’t a big deal… but it is. The biggest, scariest problem here is that I am not in the right mindset anymore… yes it bothers me when I am eating without abandon… but so far not enough to make me stop. A few months ago I wouldn’t eat anything without logging the calories… i wouldn’t eat if it was going to cause me to go over the calorie limit for the day… now I am not logging and know that I am far exceeding the limit every day… and that is obviously showing in my weight.
So now what? Well exercise has been a non-factor so far and I have been ‘thinking about doing it… but still not doing it… now (as of 3 days ago) my back is f’ed up (I had a protruding disk found by an MRI quite awhile ago and I have been babying it… gardening irritated it and then pushing clothes down in the hamper was the final straw) and I really can’t exercise… Without exercise as an option my only real choice is to control my diet and by control I mean strict counting and limiting of the calories again… and truthfully my back hurts a little most of the time and hurts a LOT some of the time… to the point where it is hard and painful to just stand… but most of the time I can walk okay with very little or no pain.. so I need to do that.. WALK.. walk as much as possible when I can with little pain.
Diet motivation… so what worked in the past? Well when this diet started I was fed up with feeling like shit. I was scared about the way my body felt and that I couldn’t even climb a single flight of stairs without being winded… I was tired of it all… now I don’t feel as bad as I did, so that is less of a motivation… but I can’t wait an do nothing until I gain everything back and feel like that again… I have to suck it up and just do it…
Weight: 330.6 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (216 days): 85.4 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 93.0 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 42.70%
Caloric limit: 2040 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: December 30, 2015 (290 more days)
Yesterdays food log is HERE
First, the fast… day one I did real well… difficult at first then pretty easy… day 2 I woke up weighing 329.2.. one day loss of 2.8 pounds… but not feeling great and I just got more tired and feeling in a haze as the day went on… I think it may have been in my head but I decided to have a late dinner with the family at Souplantation. I started out good.. BIG salad.. lots of lettuce, mushrooms, celery.. a little black olives… and a lot of dressing… I know that is bad but I figured that I as going to be good with everything else so I could use some calories there… I also got a bunch of pickles and pepperonchinis on the side and a 1/4 cup Joan’s Broccoli Madness… so far, so good.. diet coke… okay… then I had a bowl of tomato soup to dip the Grilled Cheese Focaccia Bread into… this is one of our favorite combinations at Souplantation and we try to go when they have it… well I should have checked the calories BEFORE going… I figured they were high but I had no idea… I later found that each small piece (about 3/4 inch by 3 inches) is 190 calories! So that was a BAD choice… I had 8 pieces… so just the bread and tomato soup was 1805 calories! From there it fell apart… I had 2 corn bread muffins with honey whipped butter, a blueberry muffin, clam chowder, Albondigas Soup, Chicken Orecchiette Soup and for desert I had a bowl with 2 chocolate chip peanut butter bars, 1 brownie bite, vanilla soft serve and butterscotch syrup… basically I lost my mind… all in all I ate… 4708 calories…
Let me say that again… 4708 calories… 230% of my total daily caloric limit… this ‘healthy’ choice was possible the worst caloric catastrophe since I started this diet.. (at first when writing this I thought it was the second worse.. the first being the Fogo De Chao dinner, but after checking that dinner was 1330 calories less than the Souplantation dinner).. The scary thing was that I left there knowing I went a little crazy, but I assumed I had been right around my 2040 daily total… still a huge amount for one meal… but really had no idea I had good SUPER crazy… very sobering experience… lesson to be learned.. go back to per researching choices when we are going to eat out… other lesson learned.. all you can eat places are dangerous.
So the next morning I woke up and surprisingly had still lost weight.. 226.6, matching my low so far on 2/24/15… it was Saturday and we went to visit the daughter… I did well at home.. preparing for dinner out I was careful with my calories.. only eating 330 calories all day until diner… we went to Johnny Carinos, an Italian place we have been to before… so I planned ahead.. or I tried to… the online pdf I found for Carino’s is 24 pages long… I also see now that it is dated 7/12/13.. so I go over it and we go to the restaurant and I start looking at the menu… and nothing matches.. there are many items on the menu I can’t find on the 24 page guide… and vise versa… so I ask for a printed nutritional guide and the waitress brings one.. it’s much smaller in scope.. and now I see things that were lower in calories on the monster guide are higher on the printed one and again there are many things on the menu not on the guide and vise versa… so I go with something I feel is a valid choice, Johnny Carino’s – Angel Hair Pasta With Articokes and Grilled Shrimp for 794 calories (via MyFitnessPal… 752 on the big guide)… and it was good.. not great… also a bowl of minestrone soup for 159 (146 on the big guide)… we got italian nachos (we got sausage) and we love these… I had a small amount that ended up being 210 calories and I had bread… I overindulged and had about a half a small loaf.. 210 calories… so after that and some diet sodas we went back to the daughters and had a desert that she had made… Betty Crocker Reese’s Peanut Butter & Chocolate Dessert Bar… I was under my daily limit by 19 calories… went home and all was well.. and then I went to pick up Jake at his girlfriends… and we went through McDonalds and I got a filet of fish… 390 calories… bad end to a decent day (diet-wise)
Yesterday, Sunday was good.. I weighed 329.6 (up 3 pounds)… didn’t eat until we had lunch at a local place called Fire Island Grill… it’s really good and I was pleased to see they had calories on the menu even though they only have 2 locations… so I had a Char-steak plate with veggies, rice and fire teriyaki sauce… about 900 calories… and a reasonable dinner at home of a chicken leg quarter, corn, rice and gray… only 2 meals and was still over by 64 calories
And then there is today… up another pound… almost back to the pre-fast weight… I need to exercise.. I need to want to exercise… even just a little bit of exercise will help…
Meatloaf tonight.. I am cooking so I will be trying to make it as diet friendly as I can.
Weight: 329.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (213 days): 86.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 94.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 43.40%
Caloric limit: 2040 per day (reduced)
✓ Next Milestone: Lose 76 pounds (making it the biggest weight loss I have had in my life)
Next Milestone: 100 pounds lost (50% of goal)
Target Date: December 15, 2015 (276 more days)
Yesterdays food log is NON EXISTENT
Well I have been struggling now for well over a month… not tracking all my calories (sometimes not tracking at all)… eating large portions and rationalizing it to myself.. same old same old.. so rather than go binging and gain all this weight back I decided to take a drastic measure to get my mind back in it… so I decided to to a 2 day water fast… mainly to take a breath and refocus and to prove to myself that I can… and if I can do that then I can track and stay under my calorie limit like I was in the beginning.
Now I know fasting is not a healthy way to drop weight, and I do have a little experience with it.. back in 1982 when I went on a huge crash diet and lost 73 pounds in a year I had a graph almost exactly the same as the one I am using now.. but on paper… if I went over the red line I fasted until I got under it again.. and at time it was until I got under the yellow line… so at one point within the first 30 days of the diet I was over the red line.. so I fasted.. water only.. for 9 days.. that’s right NINE MOTHER F’IN days.. after nine days on just water I learned a few things… first, you get over being hungry,,, at some point the hunger pangs just are there.. not a focus after awhile… second, I got real weak… and when I started getting dizzy I broke the fast… it was too long and I felt like crap at the end of it… third, nine days is too long… and if I ever fasted again I would listen closely to my body and end it if I felt it was harming me.
So yesterday I started the fast (so actually it started with the last thing I ate the day before yesterday but we will start it as of 8am yesterday… so right now it has been 30 1/2 hours of water only… some observations:
- It was really hard last night… I had told Cece that it was okay for her to cook and to eat around me (she asked)… my mistake… ground beef patties with cheese and fries was killing me!!! But I did it!
- It got easier later in the night
- Today has been pretty easy… not a lot of cravings.. might be hard not driving past all the fast food places on the way home but I think I’m okay
I may break it early and have a reasonable dinner tonight… but probably not.. just depends on how I feel later.
So I can do this… I can do the calorie counting.. I can hit my next milestone… I can lose 200 pounds!