It’s been almost 4 years since this site has seen any life at all… and what a crazy 4 years it’s been… besides the weight up’s and down’s, I now have an almost 3 year old named Sophia… she was born 3 months before the Pandemic lock down started…. to say she keeps me busy is an understatement. My sister was diagnosed with Leukemia and has since had a bone marrow transplant and my 91 year old mom moved in with us almost a year ago. It’s been a few crazy years.
The site is now back and I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what it will be this time… I have tried to build this site and have promised frequent updates many, many times in the past… none of which went very far. I want this to keep me accountable for my health and weight… I want to share things that I have found useful (products, websites, insights, recipes, etc.) I want to promote myself and maybe expand into cooking videos and books… but mainly I want to create content that will keep visitors involved, focused and possibly help them and to build that fan base. Monetizing (past the occasional affiliate link) maybe in the future.
But how to do all (or any) of this is the question. Here are my priorities:
- I think some or most probably don’t care much about my personal weight loss.. maybe just a current weight if anything… but there may be a few that would want that as inspiration and o don’t want to not offer that… so 80/20 rule… I will focus most of my time and efforts on what most will want: diet tips, recipes, product suggestions and reviews, motivational inspiring memes and links… and much less time on food logs, the history of my weight loss, etc… I have started this by removing food logs fun the site and automating the current weight and weight loss chart found in the progress and milestones page. Recipes and daily cooking tips will be a huge focus initially.
- I need to more specifically categorize my pay and future blog posts… categories like goal setting, focus, diets, products, recipes, mental health, personal journey.
- Make time to research and read… finding interesting content to share and comment on is very important.
- Adapt. As I get into this it will be of utmost importance that I do things here that keep ME interested. Part of that will be revamping the site design to something more modern and less cartoonish.
- Not expect others involvement… this site has to be for me first… sure I would love feedback and interaction from friends, family and complete strangers all over the world, but I can’t rely on that… and not use that as a measure of success or failure.
- Daily interactions. I need to take what time I do have and build content, store some nontime sensitive content to use on days I am overwhelmed with life.
- Connect. I have never had a problem opening up and laying every thing about my life or there… but that is no longer a focus here. Other than in the personal journey category I will limit my details to only brief mentions in coordination with us subject I’m writing about.
- Videos. I have to step outside my own comfort zone and do videos. Tiktok, youtube… right now I see cooking/recipe videos as the easiest for me.
- Social media and branding. Create logos for onepoundatatime and associated social media accounts and create a plan to promote them.
- Bowling. As I get healthier I will resurrect my bowling hobby and my progress will be tracked here also.
So I will start now. Please comment and say Hi!
Steve
Since I am under orders to stay off my infected leg for a few days I am focusing on diet and goal setting. Today I am taking small steps and making sure my motivation stays strong. I think setting long and short term goals will be my focus. Then I will create actions that are need to accomplish each goal.
A goal is a dream with a date, so for a long term goal I obviously dream of being at 218 pounds and fit so there are my first 2 long term dreams
Long Term Goals:
- Weight 218 pounds
- Be physically fit
The first one is easy to measure… just jump on the scale. But I need a way to measure if I am physically fit. After some searching I think this has merit 10 Tips to Evaluate Your Wellness & Set New Goals so I will read this and then figure out the fitness goal issue.
I could also set a goal that would be a bucket list goal. I have always wanted to do the L.A. Marathon but I have no idea if it would my body more harm than good to train for that once I am at a fitness level where I could tolerate it. So I will have a Bucket Goal but quantify that it may not happen due to health issues.
Bucket Goals:
- Complete the L.A. Marathon
I want to take some real time and make sure these goals cover everything, are realistic yet challenging and have a clear target and steps to achieve it. I will continue this tomorrow.
But for now we have:
Long Term Goals:
- Weight 218 pounds
- Be physically fit
Bucket Goals:
- Complete the L.A. Marathon
AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM PURCHASES FROM THE LINKS BELOW.
I may download this and see if it helps:
Click to Enlarge (that’s what she said!)
That is my favorite line from one of my favorite movies The Shawshank Redemption and it’s basically what an old friend I’ve know since elementary school said to me 2 days ago in a message on Facebook. That message along with a lot of other forces in the universe is why I am back here posting to this blog for the first time in over 2 1/2 years.
Let me try to explain what is going on with me to put me here. The last 2 years have involved complete upheaval in my life. I left my job, separated from my wife, moved out of the state I grew up in got divorced and then got married, had a health scare and spent 8 days in the hospital (went to the ER and had multiple blood clots in both lungs (Bi-Lateral Pulmonary Embolisms). I have been on blood thinners and have my blood tested monthly. I have been in the ER more times in the last 18 months than I had been in the last 20 years. It was concern for my health that triggered the message I was sent.
One month ago I went to the ER… I had felt perfectly fine at 7:00 pm but by 10:30 pm I was shivering like I never have in my life… long story short the next morning, feeling like death and still with 101+ fever I went to the ER, they found nothing and decided it was a virus and it would run it’s course. I actually felt much better later that day but remained weak for several days. Then a few days ago I woke up in the morning with the same shivers, it was the exact same thing, felt fine the night before then BAM I felt like I was dying… this is no exaggeration when I say I can only remember being this sick once in my life (prior to the incident a month ago) and that was a really bad abscess in my gums. I posted on Facebook about it. This was why my friend messaged me. I was feeling like crap and I appreciated the message and briefly replied thanking her. I waited this one out and felt a little better that night. The next morning the front of my right lower leg was red, hot to the touch and hurt. A couple of the veins were really protruding and painful. Everything pointed to a blood clot.
Back in October when I had the Pulmonary Embolism I was really lucky. My father died from a sudden massive clot in his lungs when he was 53 years old (actually he was 53 Years, 9 Months and 13 days old). I didn’t have the gasping for air and major pain at all… mine was a slight discomfort if I took a deep breath… the only reason I went in was because my blood pressure (which is high) was super high and my wife insisted I go and they found it. Interestingly I was 53 Years, 9 Months and 27 days old… 14 days older than my father when he died. This event should have been a wake up call, there have been many events over the years that should have been enough to make me change my ways, stop being lazy, start eating right and actually getting in shape… but I ignored them all… even when I had the same thing happen to me that killed my dad at almost exactly the same age.
So with the leg issue and being pretty sure it was a clot I went to the ER and luckily it wasn’t… they say this is an infection and gave me a prescription for antibiotics on the way out the door. When I was home and going through everything in my head I remembered the message from my friend and read it again and the one line that had stuck out to me the first time was “make a choice. do you want to live or die !! It’s all up to you”. It had reminded me of the line in the Shawshank Redemption that I had always loved… “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” That random act of kindness had come at the exact right moment. combined with everything else that has happened and what could happen was that wake up call finally. I got some clarity and focus back in my life and once again feel like I can do this, I can get in better shape, I can lose weight again, I can succeed, I am worthy it… all the things I haven’t felt for decades!
I have had flashes of inspiration before… when I was 18 I lost 73 pounds in a year, was focused and worked on it everyday no matter what. I was running daily and was in what has been the best shape of my life at the end of that year. I kept fit for a couple years then , over time, life changes and it just fell apart… marriages, divorces, job setbacks, financial stress, raising kids.. life.. all contributed to my emotional eating… the biggest gain I had was when I quit smoking 2 packs a day and gained 80+ pounds in a year… then it was 10 here, 20 there, the holidays, etc… no excuses. the events in my life didn’t cause me to get to over 400 pounds… I did this to myself. I don’t have and condition that prevented me for working it off, no genetic disorder, no one held a gun to my head and said ‘EAT IT!’. I wasn’t active and I ate whatever and whenever I wanted. As my previous doctor would say point blankly (so you could tell he had never struggled with his weight) “It’s really simple to lose weight.. you just intake less calories than your body burns” What a revelation… if it was truly ‘that’ simple.
I have tried many times and many ways to lose weight and get fit over the years. Some more successful than others and all not lasting long… I did Richard Simmons (which is how I lostthe 73 pounds when I was 18 and kept it off for many years), Fasting (very bad choice on my part), Low Carb (which made my gallbladder give out), Vegetarianism (where I proved you can be vegetarian and still have a horrible diet.. fried cheese is meat free), Weight Watchers (which did while I stayed on it), Trim Spa (Ann Nicole Smith RIP), Juicing (Green juice… YUUUUUUUK!) and others I can’t even remember. Each time I went into it feeling like I could succeed and each time I ultimately didn’t and each failure put more and more doubt into my mind that I really couldn’t do.
I started this blog in June 2008 and have abandoned and returned numerous times in those 10+ years, each time trying to succeed. Each time with a new motivation and a fresh hope. Each time with a plan and goals… my all time highest measured weight was 423.6 pounds (9/13/2010 just days over 8 years ago) I start now at 357.0 pounds, 66.6 pounds less (666?) and a long term goal of reaching 218 lbs (139 pounds to lose).
This blog has taken many forms and rather than delete it all and start over I am going to leave it all there for historic value and just change the focus and how it will work as I go. I am not going to focus on documenting every food item here (I will be counting every calorie with an app though), I won’t be fixated on updating me weight here daily (but I will be weighing and charting my progress everyday for myself and discussing my weights trends)… I will try to post something every day but I won’t beat myself up if I don’t… I will be transparent here and talk about my successes AND my failures and how I recover when that happens.. it will happen… and if I link to anything that I could earn any money from I will declare it clearly… I will credit the source of any material I post… I will keep any info you choose to provide private and never give your info to others… I will be sharing ideas that worked for me, recipes I try and either like or don’t, anything that I think is helpful, interesting, funny, sad, motivational, and try to keep the negativity out. I may add a Instagram, twitter and.or Pinterest at some point or I may not… I will be posting from time to time some shirts and other items that I sell through my website (www.worthy.fashion) to get some exposure and some sales, but will not make it a habit.
What do I want from you? I want to know you are reading this, looking around the site… I want to hear your thoughts, good or bad, either by commenting on stuff or in private by emailing me ([email protected]) I want to hear any question you mat have. I may not be able to answer it but I will try my best. I want to know that I am not doing this for just myself. That’s all.
Thank you for reading all this. I’m sure there are some typos and things that may not make too much sense, so thanks for trudging through it!
Steve Axworthy
If you haven’t seen it or want to see it again I HIGHLY recommend this movie.
AS AN AMAZON ASSOCIATE I EARN FROM PURCHASES FROM THE LINKS BELOW.
Pretty basic article but sometimes that’s what you need.
A complete and straightforward guide to lose 20 pounds in a month. Follow the plan and achieve the results.
Good article… turns into a sales pitch but makes some good points.
Source: The Elements of a Healthy Diet, & How to Change : zen habits
Weight: 359.2 pounds Loss since 1/8/16 (92 days): 40.4 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 64.4 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 28.40%
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: 6/27/16 – 81 days)
Well I have been floundering in the 360’s for 7 weeks (with a really brief dip into the high 350’s here and there)… the reason… not measuring… not staying under the calorie limit.. I have been taking a very lackadaisical approach for most of that time.. then I decided (again) to refocus… that was on 4/4/16.
Then the next day my son wrote me a great letter and he told me he was at the point where he is ready to change his life and get healthy… what a great motivation.. so we have been chatting everyday and I think, at least for me, it is helpful.. I want to succeed so that may help him stay focused and succeed. I have been passing on tips on foods and ways to prepare them to him and I think he appreciates that.. He dropped a ton of weight the first few days so that is a great motivation to keep going… since 4/4/16 I have lost 7.0 pounds and I am back to counting everything and planning in advance… I have my dinner out at Outback for tonight planned out and it leaves me with enough for desert and some to spare (as long as that desert is a Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwich)
I made a GREAT dinner last night.. I will post the recipe HERE.. it’s baked boneless/skinless chicken thighs with a feta cheese spread and baby kale lemon sauce… Delicious and 2 pieces is only 417 calories.. I also had baby broccoli which I steamed and seared.. it was REALLY good also..
My activity is still non existent… I hurt my right hip.. I’m not sure how although I did have a trip and hit the wall incident and the pain started about a week later… Urgent Care said maybe Bursitis… it’s getting better and feels more like it’s muscle related… so I am taking a muscle relaxant… but like every other time I am injured and unable to do much, all I think about is walking, running, etc. Crazy how that works.
Finally, I am still waiting for my Hydrate Spark Water Bottle… They shipped the first orders from their first run on bottles and I wasn’t in that group.. hard to believe that I wasn’t one of the first ones to buy.. I posted this back on 5/18/15… almost 1 year ago.. got an email today that my order is going through final quality review and will be shipped shortly! Rest assured I will be doing an honest review of it on here! I downloaded the app and linked it to MyFitnessPal and the app would then open and crash.. then open and crash.. the app has updated since then and appears to be working… hope it links to my bottle and works well.. I am drinking more water, but still not enough!
My current goals:
- 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
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: 367.6 pounds Loss since 1/8/16 (39 days): 32.0 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 56.0 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 24.20%
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: 4/9/16 – 54 days)
So in the past a gap in my posting has coincided with a lack of focus and of progress on my diet… but not so this time.. I have been busy.. and have remained focused and on the right track!
I have been tracking limiting my calories (and being under my daily almost every day.. with the only big failure being Valentines Day eve which I will address below) My weight loss stagnated as it will do for a time.. I was stuck in the 370’s for 13 days.. which isn’t that bad I guess…
I bought a really nice food dehydrator… I got this one and it is a beast! I love it and have made raisins, bananas, oranges, grapefruit, kale chips, pineapple, watermelon and cantaloupe… but by far the best is the Beef Jerky… I have been doing little bits of everything and have been careful counting calories as I am still learning on these…
I set-up the juicing station again and actually juiced some stuff… I made carrot/celery juice and a beet/kale/onion juice… I drank 1 bottle (18 oz) of the carrot/celery juice but couldn’t get into it still… I am going to try again soon and maybe just do a carrot/apple/ginger one… I need to get into it!
Overall my moods have been good… my pain level of my feet has been a little better… my back has been bad.. getting slowly better over the last couple days… so there has been no attempt to exercise at all as even daily chores are tough.
My meal planning is still a struggle but the spare fridge that I took over has helped a lot… I keep stuff to snack on in there and some meal stuff… so even if plans change or I need a meal I can find something in there that will work.. I also am not losing as much food either as I can more easily see what I have… I do need to work through the fruit and veggies better.
Had a wonderful Valentine’s Day eve with Cece… we celebrated 21 valentines days together a night early and went to dinner and a movie, Delmonico’s Steak and Lobster in Encino.. it’s been their 50+ years and we had never been… it was amazing! Old school decor.. like you walked into a 1950’s steak house/bar.. piano player and singer… and the food.. oh the food… SO good… I planned ahead and only ate an omelet for brunch… and I knew I would go over so it was a ‘cheat’ meal.. which I hate doing.. but this was really worth it… I had a Caesar salad to start.. then fresh garlic bread… the entree was a 20 oz rib-eye… that is a boneless, 20 oz rib-eye… cooked to a perfect medium rare… with a pepper corn butter sauce on top… grilled asparagus and a baked potato… sour cream and chives… it was wonderful.. Cece had the same plus a lobster tail 😉 I posted the website I made for Cece (www.ILoveMySweetie.com)at dinner and she really liked it. I even had desert… Pecan-Whiskey Pie with whipped cream… it was really good… Cece had the cheesecake which was real good as well… so dinner alone was 2,672 calories… for the day was 3,396 calories… so I was 1,316 calories over for the day… trippy part was that I actually LOST 3 pounds… so weird… got right back on the calorie limit the next day! Saw Deapool.. GREAT movie… very graphic and definitely NOT FOR KIDS!
Okay.. that’s all for now..
My current goals:
- 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
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
These 14 symptoms of dehydration might not seem so serious at first, but if left unchecked they can lead to numerous problems.
Weight: 375.4 pounds Loss since 1/8/16 (17 days): 24.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 48.1 pounds
Percentage of goal lost: 20.30%
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: 3/3/16 – 38 days)
So here we are again… I haven’t posted since 9/4/15 and we all know what that means when I don’t post.. it means I am out of control again… no focus… (I just realized that if you were reading that, and probably most of my posts, it sounds like I am at an A meeting) Back then I was 361.8… well I went all the way up to 399.6 (possibly higher as I wasn’t weighing myself for a long period of time)…
A lot of things happened and none of it really matters. Fact is that I had lost a bunch of weight, then gained a bunch, lost some, gained more.. to the point of feeling horrible physically, worrying about my health. upset with myself for gaining almost all of it back… depressed.
I knew exactly what I was doing… I thought about it every time I was eating huge portions.. eating foods that I knew were a bad choice… yet I continued… I would call it a binge but I always thing of a short period of time with a binge.. this was a marathon binge. I purposely avoided the scale. My clothes didn’t fit like they had. People were kind and didn’t say a word when they saw me… no more ‘you look great’ comments…
So why am I trying again? Many things happened… Back in December my friend kristin invited me into her juicing group on Facebook… I have been reading posts and interacting a little in there.. then I had a Cardiogram done… it’s a great story but basically I was supposed to have an ultrasound done under my arm because I have pain and swelling there… the order got mixed up so they did a cardiogram instead… any way that test came back pretty good… I do have some thickening of the heart walls and slight Diastolic Dysfunction… my heart doesn’t relax as much as it should.. both are not a major issue.. yet.. and both and weight related… so my doctor, who always just kind of mentions my weight every appointment, gave me a little lecture.. he said that I need to make the decision to lose the weight because I am at the age now where it will really continue to affect my health… He was really stern about it… so that was the day I started counting calories again… since then I have had my ex-father-in-law (even better story) approach my wife and I and express his concerns with our eating habits and out health which only further emphasized to me how important this is.
So in the past 17 days I have lost 24.2 pounds… the weight always just falls off the first month or so… I am very pleased with that especially since today is Monday… historically it is hard for me to be successful on the weekends.. so this one I stayed really busy on Saturday doing chores… and stayed under my caloric limit both days and lost 4.0 pounds! YEAH!
One big change I made was to take the spare refrigerator in the garage over and clean it out… then I took any of the foods that I frequently eat while counting calories and put them in that fridge.. then I went shopping and bought stuff to load it up with… spending a lot of time at Trader Joe’s and picking up a lot of GREAT items (I am a huge ‘Reduced Guilt’ product fan now!) So I have a fridge full off lower calorie foods that I can pick from any time.
One Trader Joe’s item I MUST talk about here is the Trader Joe’s Soft Multigrain Rustico Bread… 70 calories per slice and it’s wonderful… the slices aren’t taht big but I have been using it for everything from toast for breakfast to sandwiches to using as a crustini for hummus… I am really pleased with it!
I will be reviewing a lot of Trader Joe’s products in upcoming posts! Perhaps a list of ‘Steve’s Top 10 Calorie Conscious Trader Joe’s Picks’?
And the other thing I did was to resurrect my old juice station. Yep that’s right… the old Omega J8006 is cleaned up and back on the counter along with all my supplies 🙂 Saturday I tested some stuff to see what I could tolerate (I have never like the flavor of any of the juices except the fruit ones) I made plain carrot juice.. on a scale of 1 to 10 I rate it a 6… celery juice 5 out of 10… onion juice 1 out of 10… red kale juice 2 out of 10 and beat juice 5 out of 10… combinations were tested at various percentages and I settled with 50% carrot and 50% celery in honor of my late Grandfather Bruce Palmer who back in the 60’s swore by fresh vegetable juice and made me try it every time we came over. Today I had 18 oz of carrot/celery juice for breakfast… I am officially a juicer again!
Okay I could go on and on but I wont.. these were my goals when I stopped posting last so they will be my NEW goals:
- 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 8.2 pounds (4 more than right now)
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
Digestive, skin, bladder and kidney problems, fatigue and headache are just some of the adverse effects from not drinking enough water. We need it as much as air we breathe in! It’s not a joke. Did you know that when you start feeling thirsty your body is already dehydrated? The…More
Source: 11 Reasons Dehydration Is Making You Sick And Fat – Healthy Holistic Living