The Journey

Weight: 354.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (80 days): 61.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 69.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 31.3%
Next Milestone: 76 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Happy Halloween!  I haven’t in 9 days… I’ve been busy but mainly I notice that I tend to avoid this if I don’t feel like I am on track… and I didn’t feel like I was until 2 days ago.

In the last 9 days I have had ups and downs, luckily more downs than ups when it comes to my weight.  I have lost 7.8 pounds in 9 days which sounds like I have been on track the whole time… not true… I was floundering and then 2 days ago I got back on it and lost 8 pounds in 2 days…

I know weight fluctuates and that most diet ‘people’ tell you to only weigh yourself once a week… I don’t agree… Here is an article about it

Halloween means candy and usually by this time I have purchased many bags of candy (knowing that we get only a few ‘Trick-or-Treaters’) and would have eaten all of what I bought and gone out and bought more… this year I fought the urge.. I haven’t bought any candy yet.  I will be going to the store this afternoon and buying a bag or two… and I am going to try to get types that are not among my favorites. It’s been tough at times, but I have to be stronger than the urges.

Oh, this year I am dressed as Half Bearded Pumpkin Man…
20141031_074054 Happy Halloween!!!

 

Thia is one of those debates where what works for you may not work for others.. When I am dieting I try to weigh myself everyday and monitor that using charts… of course some would go crazy doing that… Here is an article that covers pros and cons with different weighing schedules.

How Often Should You Weigh Yourself & When Is The Best Time?

Regardless of your specific goal, one of the easiest and most common ways of tracking your progress is by weighing yourself regularly.

Simple and obvious enough, right? But like anything else, there are still important questions that need to be answered. For example, how often should you weigh yourself? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? And when you figure that out, when is the best time to do it? Morning? Afternoon? Night?

Your answers to these questions can result in some HUGE differences, so it’s important that you get them right and know all the facts…

Click here to read the whole article

Here is an article from Lifehack.org that may help with motivation issues…

8 Things Highly Motivated People Do Differently

Everyone has a burning drive inside of them. For some, they need to learn from others to find it. For others, the drive comes naturally and pushes them to do great things. See what those naturally highly motivated people do differently and what they can teach us.

1. They move on

Highly motivated people don’t dwell on problems. If they mess up on a speech in public, fail a test, or do something embarrassing, they don’t try to push it away. They don’t let their mistakes stop them from achieving their goals…

Click here to read the whole article

Weight: 362.8 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (70 days): 53.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 60.8 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Writing this on 10/22/14… Didn’t have a chance to write yesterday and forgot to weigh myself this morning so I am combining yesterday and today into one post 😉

The weekend and early this week didn’t go as well as I had hoped… I had trouble staying under the calorie limit and felt kind of out of control on my eating… I didn’t go completely out of control but just feeling like I might was horrible… Sunday was the worst day as I went over my calorie limit by 429 calories… the most I have been over since I started this…

I have started eating things that I wouldn’t have thought of eating the first 30 days of this diet… Cheesy Mexican food… McDonalds breakfast, etc. and that shows in the slowing of my weight loss…

So I am going back to basics… something that I haven’t focused on enough is water intake… I know how important that is especially when trying to lose weight… I have been drinking a lot of diet sodas which is something I was staying away from early on… I also have been drinking Gatorade more frequently… So as of now I am using my how to drink more water trick… I have my bottle of water with each cup marked off with the time I need to be at each mark and will be following this starting today!

Another thing I am going to do is review the first couple of weeks of food diaries and see exactly what I was eating… based on that I will be adjusting my current diet to more closely reflect the original foods. Just a quick overview shows I ate much more frequently… smaller dinners in general… Skinny Cow Ice Cream at night… and the big one, Zero Point Spicy Veggy Soup… that is something I will be making today…

Am am reemphasizing my Personal Health Mission Statement which I last revised in February 2011..

I will make myself (my health specifically) my number one priority.  I will take steps now to be more active each day.  I will prominently display my weight on a graph over my scale and on my blog and update it everyday.  I will focus on making the right choices for my food intake both in quality and quantity.  I will not punish myself for lapses in my focus.

Which brings us to being active… I have still not added activity to my diet routine and I know this is a huge issue…I have it in my mine everyday and I plan to be more active but it hasn’t happened… I haven’t even been making excuses.. I just don’t do it.  This needs to be done now.  I will be searching for tricks to make myself more active today and will post what I find that I think will work.

I will keep this quote in my mind…

“Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.” – the late Randy Pausch in his ‘Last Lecture’

I am trying to take this very seriously and regain control now… I want to accomplish this weight loss goal… speaking of goals… next milestone… I was going to set it at 100 pounds lost, but I am setting it as 76 pounds lost… that will make it the largest weight loss I have ever had (beating the 75 pound loss I had back when I was 17-18… going from 273 to 198 in one year)

 

 

Weight: 365.0 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (69 days): 51.0 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 58.6 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

 

This article from Syatt Fitness is a little long, but has some good information in it.

Being hungry sucks.

Whether you’re prepping for a figure competition, cutting to a lower weight class, or leaning out for beach season is irrelevant.

You’re dieting, you’re hungry, and you want to eat…a lot.

With only a couple hundred calories left to spare in your daily quota you find yourself walking back and forth between the refrigerator and dry foods section, on the hunt for a satiating and at least semi-decent tasting snack.

This goes on for 15-30 minutes before you:

  • Chug water and get out of the kitchen ASAP
  • Eat an entire head of lettuce while trying to convince yourself that it tastes like General Tso’s Chicken, or
  • Say “f*** it” and eat the whole tub of Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream which you were supposed to be saving for your next “cheat meal.”

Funny because it’s true

I’m sure many of you reading this are nodding your head in agreement and thinking “haaa…been there, done that!”…

To read the remainder of the article please click here

Weight: 364.8 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (65 days): 51.2pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 58.8 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Big milestone passed… I have lost 50 pounds… in 65 days… that’s an average of 3/4 of a pound a day… If I were able to keep up to that pace I would hit my goal of 218 on April 25, 2015… 191 days… I know that losing as fast as I have been won’t continue… but that was really amazing to me.. less than 9 months since I started this…

Been tough couple of days… still hung in there with the calorie counting.. went to a Mexican restaurant on 10/12… it was fabulous… after eating the way I have been it seemed so decadent… but so good 😉

Moving forward.. .

Having been able to stay committed to this diet (57 days) I thought I would write a post about my motivations.. and since ‘top #’ lists are popular on the web, I am going to make this a ‘My Top 10 Diet Motivations”.. not really a countdown as I am not worrying about the order…

#10 – The Gift of Life
There are no elderly morbidly obese people… Obviously being fat causes your body to struggle just doing what it is supposed to do… and you get all kind of things like Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension (High Blood Pressure), etc… Losing weight (being more healthy actually) can help you live a longer life.

#9 – My Family
I have a wonderful family… I am enjoying having a wonderful family.. my wife… my kids… it’s a wonderful life that I am having… I want to extend that as long as I can… I want to be there for them for weddings.. grandchildren.. other major events that I would miss if I died early.

#8 – Being Inspirational
I am hoping that this weight loss will help motivate others… my family at the very least… So when I think about slipping up I try to think that I don’t want to be a bad influence like I have been… I have been following Less of Les… Les has gone from 511 to 184 (327 lbs lost)… No surgery, no pills, just eating right and exercise… he was 45 at the time.. For me he has been inspirational… I follow him on Facebook and one video he posted really hit home with me about sticking to it… If you are on this journey I suggest you see it… HERE

#7 – Public Perception/Appearance
I have said that you shouldn’t care what others think of you… and that is still my belief… but, I will say that being a huge as I have been for as long as I have been really makes you see the way others react to you and your size… When I walk into a room (restaurant, theater, etc.) I see people look at me.. I stand out because of my weight… I am really tall too (6′ 5″) so even thin I stand out… but it’s different… there is no stigma against tall people.. Your height is not under your control… your weight is… So I see reactions… and it does bother me a little… Many immediately think fat people are lazy.. fat people are inferior… we have no will power… Being of a healthy weight will end/reduce those reactions… Also, I hate the way I look… I have heard how Anorexic people have a body image that they are fat, even when they are skin and bones.. I have the opposite… if there are no stimuli that make me feel fat, I have a body image that is of normal size and weight… For example I am home watching TV I don’t feel fat… It’s not something that is in my mind… but If I see a picture of me, see myself in a mirror, am sitting in a booth at a restaurant that is too small for me I then have a body image that is consistent with what my body looks like.

#6 – My Physical Comfort
There are so many times where my size has caused me discomfort… I think the worst time was at ‘The Wall’ concert at MGM Las Vegas – Seats were so narrow that I left there with bruises on both outer thighs/hips… hurt for days after that.

#5 – My Health
I want to be healthy… I take too many medications… I don’t go out and do physical things… mainly because my weight makes it very difficult especially on my back… I want to have the option to get out there and help with something that I cant do now… I want to be able to go for a run… I need to not get winded when I exert myself a little..

#4 – I Need To Pee On A Grave
Hear me out on this.. I have sworn to myself and others that I will pee on a certain individuals grave… that person is not dead yet.. I need to outlive them just so I can accomplish this bucket list item.  I am not going to give details but I will tell the world after it is done 😉

#3 – I Don’t Want To Be Fat When I Die
I really don’t know what caused this thought.. but it has been there for a long time… originally it was so the pallbearers would be able to lift me.. but I choose to be cremated now… I guess I still have this feeling because someone will have to move my body around anyway.

#2 – I Want To Bowl
I love bowling… when I was young that was my outlet.. something I was good at.. I was in league after league… It was awesome because there was no picking teams so I wasn’t picked last… At one point I was in 3 leagues a week… Monday night with my dad.. Thursday with Hillside Jr. High Bowling class and 2 back to back leagues on Saturday… I dreamed of being a pro bowler… Even into my adult hood that was a dream.. now I have stopped bowling… the last few times I went (at least 2 years ago) my left knee ached severely for days after… and now since I have the ongoing back issue I really don’t think I am physically able.. actually I could probably do it, but risk major issues with my body if I did… I miss it so much… I want to lose weight so I can be physically able to go bowling whenever I want.

#1 – Fear of Being Immobile
I have said to myself that I am a small injury away from being immobile… like the guys you see on TV… if I were to become immobile I would gain weight since there would be only a minimal expenditure of calories and I would be depressed.. I tend to eat when depressed or when I an upset… It would be a game changer.. that scares me… the more weight I lose the better my health and mobility will be… every pound puts the fear of being immobile a little further away.

That’s my list… I would love to hear some of your motivations… so comment if you are reading this

Weight: 366.6 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (58 days): 49.4 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 57.0 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

So close!!! I want that 50 pounds!!!

Did well yesterday… went out to the habit and splurged (while staying safely below my calorie limit) and had a double cheeseburger, tempura green beans w/ranch dip and a diet coke.. it was one of my higher calorie meals (1130 calories) but it was something that I was craving and it was so good!

My health is about the same… neuropathy the same… exercise about the same (meaning non-existent)… mood is hit and miss…

Weight: 367.0 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (57 days): 49.0 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 56.6 pounds

Yesterdays food log is HERE

I have been floundering for a couple of days… eating more foods that aren’t the best use of my calories… I have lost some of the initial motivation… but then… out of the blue… I get a big weight swing… lost 4.6 pounds since yesterday… I have lost exactly 49 pounds in 57 days,, and I am feeling better now 😉  I got through the 370’s and am 1 pound short of 50 pounds lost…

I have to admit that for a long time I told myself that I couldn’t lose significant amounts of weight… I have a strange schedule.. I’m too old… I enjoy life and that includes eating large meals… Once I started losing I still had that little voice in the back of my mind saying that I wasn’t going to be able to continue this weight loss… Well today it is silent… I’m sure it will be back when my motivation lags… I just need to continue to ignore it and power through!

I am renewed with the ‘I Can’  attitude

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