Weight Loss Motivation

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

Weight: 370.4 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (45 days): 45.6 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 53.2 pounds

(Note: on the graph above you will see where the green, yellow and red lines jump together today.. this is when I reset them to make it more effective.. if you leave the lines the same from day one it makes it easy to slack off as there is a lot of distance to gain before you hit a line.. so resetting them lower makes it have more incentive to stick with it.)

Yesterdays food log is HERE

Been a couple of days since I wrote here… so let me review… Over the weekend I was  kind of sick.. very sneeze and runny…

Friday 10/3/14
After the Simi Football game we went to Big Z Pizza… I got a salad bar and that worked well.. made it easy to not eat as much pizza…

Saturday 10/4/14
We went to Red Robin… They have a really cool app (and it’s on their website too) that allows you to build your meal down to the point  where you can change each item on your burger…

I had a Jump Starter Fried Zucchini Sticks

 

 

Red Robin Zucchini is excellent!  The only one I can think of that is equal or slightly better is Claim Jumper Zucchini… But it is too huge and calorie laden… I would eat it all and have 1000+ calories to log… Red Robin’s Jump Starter is a smaller portion… it’s 4 sticks and a side of ranch and is delicious… the zucchini is 205 calories… 1 oz of ranch is 112 calories… it was so good…

I also had a grilled chicken sandwich…modified it to be grilled chicken, pickles, lettuce, tomato, Heinz 57 sauce and grilled onions.. all on a regular bun… that’s 459 calories… I had it ala carte (no fries or side dish)… it was moderately satisfying…

Sunday 10/5/14
I ate too much at the end of the day… went over a little on the calories… I have recommitted to staying under from again.

Overall I still need to add to this to jump start the rate of my weight loss… Still want to start exercising… but it just hasn’t happened yet…

Weight: 379.2 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (42 days): 36.8 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 44.4 pounds

I have been trying to find a good way to share my food diary from the day before here and I am getting nowhere… best I could do is to make a PDF out of it and post a link… not sure if this would be beneficial to any of you, but it might be to me so I am starting a new category which is My Food Diary… posts can be seen HERE

Weight: 379.0 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (42 days): 37.0 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 44.6 pounds

(Note: on the graph above you will see where the yellow and red lines jump down.. this is when I reset them to make it more effective.. if you leave the lines the same from day one it makes it easy to slack off as there is a lot of distance to gain before you hit a line.. so resetting them lower makes it have more incentive to stick with it.)

So as expected my weight loss has slowed… I was at a bad plateau for a while…  oh course that makes it harder to stick to the calorie limit but I have been able to do it so far.  I have been struggling eating much during the day (breakfast and lunch) and then eating a lot for dinner.. this is not the best way to do this.. am still using the MyFitnessPal app on my phone religiously and using their website as well, www.myfitnesspal.com… I track everything that I eat and drink and often plan out my meal on there first and then serve myself accordingly… This planning helps the most when eating out…

I have been trying to diversify my foods… I have added hard boiled eggs to my diet and some more fruit… but one of my downfalls has been diet sodas… I have been drinking too much of this and need to limit them to 1 a day and increase my water intake.My moods have not been good.. grumpiness from the diet and have had no motivation at all for anything.  Am going to try my best to stay focused and try to not be in a bad mood.. I should be in a good mood since I am sticking to this and losing weight, right?

My health has been good.. I definitely feel an improvement overall… When I walk a flight of stairs I am not winded… It feels like my low back issue is a little better… My Peripheral Neuropathy pain in both feet is still constant and at times severe… I am hopeful that at some point the weight loss will help, but there is a good chance that it won’t help.  I plan to schedule an appointment with my doctor when I hit 10% of my body weight lost (41.6 pounds will be 10%) and have a physical… when I hit 41.6 lost that will mean I have lost 21% of my goal loss of 198 pounds…

No one has said anything about me losing weight but I think it isn’t real obvious to others yet… For me my belly is MUCH smaller… it isn’t hard and protruding as much as it has.. I have been using notches in my belts that haven’t been used in awhile… I have worn a couple of shirts that were too tight to wear before.. so all in all I am happy with my progress so far.

Exercise is still something I need to dive into… there are no excuses really other than me just not doing it.  I don’t need anything to go for a walk, ride the exercise bike, play the fitness games on xBox with Kinex…

No one commented after my last post asking people to let me know if they are reading this blog.. so I guess I am doing this for just me at this point… but please comment if you do read this at some point.

CaptureWeight: 384.8 pounds
Loss since 8/12/14 (35 days): 31.2 pounds
Loss since top weight (423.6 on 9/13/10): 38.8 pounds

Sticking to the plan still.. monitoring every calorie I intake and staying under the calorie goal.  My mood has been okay and there have been some really difficult days with cravings, mainly craving to just eat a whole bunch of anything…

Last Friday I had a big dinner.. I stayed under my calories but it was huge.. 18 oz boneless Rib-Eye, mashed potatoes, etc. but that and the weekend definitely tough… I started and eneded the weekend at 387.0 pounds.. so I need to figure out a better way to avoid food at home.

My plan this week is to stay extra focused and keep well under on the calorie limit… try to work some light exercise in at least a couple of days a week and keep pushing to that first milestone.. losing 42 pounds (10% of my starting weight).. that would put me at 374 pounds 😉  If I can get back to the green line and stay there I would hit that goal in just 8 more days!!

If you are reading this please comment.. I always feel like I am the only one reading the posts 😉  Also if you click on any ad  on this site it does help me out 😉

I have a photo that my son Matthew took of me on July 4th, 2009… I know from my weight tracking that I weighted 390 pounds that day… it is by far the worst picture of me that I have ever seen (there are probably others in existence, but I don’t want to see them)

I am posting it here so I can refer to it in the future… never again!!!