Weight gain
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
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.. .
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
On February 14, Valentines day, 1981 I was fed up with being alone and not having anyone special to be my valentine and I was also fed up with being fat… at 6′ 5″ and 273 pounds I was about 60-65 pounds overweight… so that night I told myself that I would have someone the next Valentines Day.. and to do that I became the most focused I have ever been on weight loss… to the point of over doing it initially, losing 31 pounds in the first 30 days and beginning to not feel well.. weak… that first 30 days was me weighing in and if I hadn’t lost a pound that day then I wouldn’t eat… water only fast until I was “below the line” on my weight graph… when I was below the line I would eat yogurt, plain turkey breast sandwich and a banana… that’s all… I worked out everyday without fail… I watched Richard Simmons’s TV show and tried some of the recipes… and I ran, every night, increasing my distance every couple of days… I hung a bicycle handlebar over a rafter in the garage and tried to do a pull-up… every night I tried and tried.. in the beginning I didn’t really move at all when I tried… but eventually, after I lost 75 pounds in 1 year, I was able to do a pull up.. actually I got to the point where I could do several… I remember that feeling when I was able to pull my chin up to the rafters and the feeling of accomplishment… happiness… I was running miles each night and a 6 mile cross country course about 3 times a week… I played racquetball and Basketball… I got down to 198 pounds and looked ‘thin’ for the first time in my life.
I leveled off at around 205 and held that for a couple of years… then I started gaining around the holidays each year.. 15-20 pounds that I would keep until the next holiday.. there were ups and downs in my life and my weight… when I was happy I got ‘comfortable’ and would gain weight… sometimes when I was sad I would gain too… The largest single weight gain occurred when I quit smoking… I had heard that the average weight gain was 11 pounds.. so I focused on staying below that.. and I did for about 3 weeks.. then I relaxed… and gained over 80 pounds in about a year… and then just kept on creeping up to the 400+ pounds that I am today… 30 years of rollercoastering up an down and up and up… that is ridiculous and insane.. I am a smart guy.. I know exactly what it takes to lose weight in a healthy way.. I know about exercise and diet and mental focus… I know that my upbringing was a big part of why I am obese.. I know all that.. yet I am still inactive… I still eat poor choices in large quantities.. I enjoy the instant gratification and don’t think about the long term… why? Why is the question.. Why am I not doing everything I can to regain my health and extend my life? Why am I not doing ANYTHING to accomplish this goal?
I have lost weight before.. I have been active before… I have all the tools I need.. I have an exercise bike.. an elliptical.. a Kinects with Fitness program… Richard Simmons DVD’s.. a jump-rope.. all sitting gathering dust… I have the ability to make whatever choices I want for my breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks… there is no reason that I couldn’t start eating healthy, smaller portions right now and stick to it until I am at my goal weight… the only thing stopping me is me! My ‘block’ is what is preventing me from being the person that my family deserves. I hesitate in calling it a block for fear of giving it more power by assigning a name to it, but it has been powerful enough for all these years that I don’t think it will matter. That ‘block’ needs to be destroyed for good.
A few years back I wrote a personal mission statement which was to give me direction in my life.. I am taking this moment to define for myself what I will do right now for me. This is my new Personal Health Mission Statement:
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.
As the late Randy Pausch said in his ‘Last Lecture’… “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.” I have allowed a brick wall to keep me out for too long… I need to want this badly enough now.
Also, it took me much more than 1 year to get that special Valentine… I had Valentines through the years… but it wasn’t until 15 years ago that I finally found the special one 😉
So first, I have been stuck at the 342-346 area for 5 WEEKS!!! Enough is enough… I have been eating well, but not being as strict as I was when I was losing weight.. I also have not been exercising like I should (and not at all most of the time)… I still have my goals, but I have lost the extreme motivation that I had…
There have been several things that have made me ‘feel’ like I was more motivated… We bought a Wii Fit, (which by the way is AWESOME! More on the Wii Fit below) When I got it home we noticed that the weight limit is 330 pounds… so I decide to try it anyway and when you get on it, it weighs you… and tells you that you are over the limit… so my kids and wife are enjoying it… I really WANT to get below 330 so I too can enjoy it… Also, watching the first episode of ‘The Biggest Loser‘ last night was great… one guy lost 24 pounds his first week… I’m sure he ‘bulked up’ going into it, but that is still amazing! Oh what I could do if all I did was workout, eat food prepared by a diet chef and had a personal trainer yelling at me all day!
So why am I not motivated like I was… time and lack of results.. it’s a vicious circle I guess… I lose motivation, then that makes me stop losing weight, which causes me to be less motivated… etc.
What am I going to do about it? Well I have decided as of last night that I am not forcing myself to get back 100% on the lighten up program AND forcing myself to exercise EVERY day! That means on the elliptical or bike at home, or at the YMCA swimming or jumping rope in the garage or walking around the neighborhood… rain or shine, sick or well, tired or really tired I am going to do this NOW! I am going to use the desire to be on the Wii Fit and the motivation of watching the contestants on The Biggest Loser and breaking this 5 week rut!
This blog is a few days away from being 3 months old… I cannot afford health-wise to take this lightly (no pun intended) I need to refocus and kick myself in the ass to get going on the losing again. My hope for the blog is that I will start getting some comments posted.. any comments at all.. really if you are reading this PLEASE post something just so we know you are there!
Now about the Wii Fit… if you can swipe your kids Wii and find a Wii Fit at a store (which is difficult to do) I highly recommend you get it. It is WAY more than I expected it to be. It is a balance board that wirelessly connects to your Wii… when you start it sets up a profile for you and you stand on the board to weigh in.. it detects you balance and that is how you ‘exercise’.. they have yoga, strength training, balance training, etc.. the games are fun and you earn time that unlocks more games.. things like ski jumping, tightrope walking, hula-hoop (my wife’s favorite).. it doesn’t sound like it would be anything that can give you a workout.. but boy does it… and it tracks your progress too… you can set goals (like lose 2 pounds in the next 3 weeks) and it will help you achieve it. It is really a wonderful product and makes you want to play (exercise)
So Set your Tivo and fire up the Wii, and check back next week to see my progress!
Thanks,
Steve
So my wife and I got a rare chance to go to our favorite place for the weekend. Avila Beach is near San Luis Obispo, California and is about a 3 hour drive from home. The hotel that we stay at there ran an incredible special and we couldn’t pass up the deal.. and we both needed to get away SO bad…
So great trip.. lots of fun and very relaxing.. great weather… we had a BLAST! Now the down side is that there are GREAT places to eat there… and places that are not real Lighten Up friendly… so we decided to take it easy, and to really watch our snacking… and we did.. but I went off on the meals, not like I would have in the past, but definitely not on the program. For example I have breakfast ands had fruit instead of hash browns.. but I also had more protein on my plate than I am allowed in a full day… and I ate it all!
One diner I had three types of grilled fish.. steamed veggies and a baked potato… but I also had Breaded, Fried Green Beans for an appetizer and a bowl of clam chowder…
So anyway I expected to gain a small amount of weight… I hoped it wouldn’t be more than 4 pounds.. so was I in for a shock when it was a gain of 9-10 pounds (can’t tell exactly since I had to back to the old POS digital scale since I was over 350 again)… so that was Monday when I weighed 356.8…
That morning I went back on the food mover and now I am down 4 pounds… on track again and getting back on track with the exercise tonight.
It really taught me how easy it is to convince yourself that it is okay to take off this day or this weekend (or this meal for that matter) and how devastating it can be to your progress. I have been at about the same weight for a month now and I am tired of it. I need to refocus all my efforts and be serious again… I need to get below 300 and not be stuck here in the 340-350 range.
Next trip away I will still have a great time with my wife and we will eat at the same places.. I will just have to make the right choices and stick to it!
After this last weekend was over, I had gained 6 pounds! I really thought I was staying on track, and know I went over on my exchanges a little on Saturday, but I was shocked at the 6 pounds…
So Yesterday (Monday) I was fully back on and lost a little over 2 pounds… so I am refocused and anxious to get to below 350!
It’s really interesting the mental burden that gaining the hard-lost pounds causes… I tried my best to not beat myself up and to not lose sight of the big picture and the ultimate goal, but that is really hard sometimes.
I know that to get through this, I have to exercise more often.. that is the key, I think, to making this work at this point.