12/30/09
I weighed in this morning just because the personal trainer tool I'm using from the Runner's World web site can track it daily. To my chagrin, I was at 232 pounds or 3 more pounds than when I weighed in Monday. Disappointing, but shouldn't be surprising since I haven't been tracking what I eat, and eating pretty much whatever I wanted. So today I made a run at trying to eat better and did pretty good until a few minutes ago when I had a bunch of Doritos. I was feeling a little empty and they were sitting there and though they hadn't tempted me until the moment before I started in on them, I didn't hesitate a moment before opening the bag and digging in.
Here's the thing. Food has become much more to me than it needs to be or should be, and also so much less. What it is, is fuel to make my body run and to keep it healthy and running at the optimum efficiency. Eating the right foods and quantities will help me to live better, feel better and do more in my life. I want it to be simply that, a tool I use to run my body and mind well. Instead, I have given it the power to make me happy or deprived and have focused on two negative aspects of eating. Eating too much so I feel really full, and eating food that is processed and convenient and that I can pull out of the bag at 10:30 at night and ostensibly make myself feel better when it has the reverse effect. And I keep doing it anyway.
I'm starting to think about exercise - running, as a method for getting fit and for setting and achieving positive goals, rather than a way to get thinner. I'm thinking of it in terms of wanting to do it because it is fun to see what goal I can achieve, fun because there are all sorts of data to track and analyze and that provides instant feedback on what I've done and how I'm progressing toward the next goal. It's simple and can be done just about anywhere, (as long as you have warm clothes) anytime. Its a chance to see what *I* can do on my own; how far I can improve and what I can achieve.
So the feeding of my body, the instrument of the running is just as important as everything else I'm doing with running. Eating right will support progress in running both physically and mentally. My body will have the fuel it needs to perform and as my body performs better, that feeds the mental side, which can in turn, drive the body to achieve even more when I'm tired during a run, or don't want to get out of bed for a run. It all works together. It isn't reasonable to expect that I can maintain running without also maintaining a healthy diet. SO, the question is, am I making a commitment to running or not?
How do I do it? By eating REAL food, not over processed junk food that only pretends to be fuel. By eating the right amounts of real food at meal times. Avoid going out for dinner so much when the healthy options are limited and the information about nutritional information is even more limited. By educating myself on what I really should be eating and then taking the steps to have that food available. Create a meal plan and stick to it-make it realistic and know that I will be able to eat meat and fat along with fruits and vegetables. Have those indulgences like half and half with my coffee. Eat desert as long as it is a real food desert, not processed crap like candy bars and muffins out of a tube.
The fun part is that I believe I can do this. I believe I will do it despite all the evidence to the contrary in the form of numerous failed attempts in the past to get healthy. The difference I have now is running. Running as a goal and as a positive activity that I enjoy and which can be the focus of my efforts, rather than losing weight or some vague notion of getting fit. Yes, those things are important and I expect they will happen, but it isn't the focus, isn't the main goal. The goal is to run a marathon, along with a bunch of other races, starting with a 5K on April 25th in Iowa City. Rain or shine, I will run 5 kilometers and not only finish, but finish feeling pretty good. And making that goal a reality is not going to be easy, but the steps are pretty simple. I have to prepare my body and mind to run 5 kilometers. That preparation comes in two major forms. Training through runs of greater duration and distance leading up to 30 minutes/3.11 miles. And fueling my body and mind with the right kind of food. As long as I do those two things, then I can't be stopped in pursuit of those 5 kilometers.
FOOD IS FUEL-MAKE SURE MY BODY GETS THE BEST I CAN GIVE IT.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Couch to 5K in 2010
12/28/09
I started a training program called 'Couch to 5K' today. It is a program geared toward sedentary people to gradually get your body used to running with the goal of being able to run 3 miles without stopping. 5K is 3.11 miles. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been doing pretty good on the treadmill and I have decided that I really want to make a commitment to running as a way to stay fit. The exciting thing is that I have finally found that elusive goal I have been searching for that isn't just losing weight. The goal is to run a marathon. I'm still not sure if it is a realistic commitment for me, but I firmly believe that I CAN do it. The only question is if I WILL do it. And the funny thing is, I think I will this time. For the first time, I'm excited about an exercise program and am thinking more about that than the losing of weight which will almost surely follow. The first race I plan to run is a 5K on April 25th in Iowa City. The Couch to 5K program is only 9 weeks and the River Run in Iowa City is 17 weeks from now which gives me plenty of time to get ready. Between now and then, I will decide what races I want to run next. I should be able to get a 10K race in relatively quickly after the 5K and then I will decide if I want to try a half marathon first or go straight to the full 26.2 miles. If I decide to do the half marathon first, the I may not get to the full until next year, which is not the end of the world, but I'd really like to try and get it in this year if my body can take it and I am ready. The last thing I want is an injury though, so I want to make sure that I don't do something I'm not ready for.
In some ways, the difficult thing about the C25K program is that I feel like I'm taking a bit of a step backward in terms of the amount of running I'm doing. The last time on the treadmill I did 3.83 miles in 45 minutes. I had also been running 4-5 times/week. This program is running only 3 times/week with the other four days as rest days. And for the first couple weeks, it's only 20 minutes of walking and running for those three days. The first two weeks is 60 seconds of jogging and then 90 seconds of walking repeated 8 times (total 20 minutes). When I was doing the treadmill on my own, I was up to 3 minutes of jogging and 2 minutes of walking for 45 minutes. Granted I was exhausted when I finished. And that is the problem; I was probably overdoing and setting myself up for an injury, or for a pace I couldn't maintain for a long time. The advice I read online said again and again to avoid trying to do too much too fast and I'm going to take that advice and 'run' with it. Here is the 9 week C25K program:
Week Workout 1 Workout 2 Workout 3
1 Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.
2 Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.
3 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
4 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
5 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Walk 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog two miles (or 20 minutes) with no walking.
6 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1 mile (or 10 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1 mile (or 10 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2-1/4 miles (or 25 minutes) with no walking.
7 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes).
8 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes).
9 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes). The final workout! Congratulations! Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes).
So, I've begun and today I made my first monetary commitment as well. I bought running shoes to the tune of $100. I went to a running shoe specialty store in Cedar Falls and had the guy video tape me jogging on the treadmill to determine what shoes I need. I had a balanced stride so he recommended a neutral stability shoe and gave me three different ones to try. I ended up going with the Brooks DeFyance 3, they were the most comfortable. Iowa City, here I come!
I started a training program called 'Couch to 5K' today. It is a program geared toward sedentary people to gradually get your body used to running with the goal of being able to run 3 miles without stopping. 5K is 3.11 miles. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been doing pretty good on the treadmill and I have decided that I really want to make a commitment to running as a way to stay fit. The exciting thing is that I have finally found that elusive goal I have been searching for that isn't just losing weight. The goal is to run a marathon. I'm still not sure if it is a realistic commitment for me, but I firmly believe that I CAN do it. The only question is if I WILL do it. And the funny thing is, I think I will this time. For the first time, I'm excited about an exercise program and am thinking more about that than the losing of weight which will almost surely follow. The first race I plan to run is a 5K on April 25th in Iowa City. The Couch to 5K program is only 9 weeks and the River Run in Iowa City is 17 weeks from now which gives me plenty of time to get ready. Between now and then, I will decide what races I want to run next. I should be able to get a 10K race in relatively quickly after the 5K and then I will decide if I want to try a half marathon first or go straight to the full 26.2 miles. If I decide to do the half marathon first, the I may not get to the full until next year, which is not the end of the world, but I'd really like to try and get it in this year if my body can take it and I am ready. The last thing I want is an injury though, so I want to make sure that I don't do something I'm not ready for.
In some ways, the difficult thing about the C25K program is that I feel like I'm taking a bit of a step backward in terms of the amount of running I'm doing. The last time on the treadmill I did 3.83 miles in 45 minutes. I had also been running 4-5 times/week. This program is running only 3 times/week with the other four days as rest days. And for the first couple weeks, it's only 20 minutes of walking and running for those three days. The first two weeks is 60 seconds of jogging and then 90 seconds of walking repeated 8 times (total 20 minutes). When I was doing the treadmill on my own, I was up to 3 minutes of jogging and 2 minutes of walking for 45 minutes. Granted I was exhausted when I finished. And that is the problem; I was probably overdoing and setting myself up for an injury, or for a pace I couldn't maintain for a long time. The advice I read online said again and again to avoid trying to do too much too fast and I'm going to take that advice and 'run' with it. Here is the 9 week C25K program:
Week Workout 1 Workout 2 Workout 3
1 Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.
2 Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes. Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.
3 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then do two repetitions of the following:
Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
4 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
5 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Walk 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog two miles (or 20 minutes) with no walking.
6 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:
Jog 1 mile (or 10 minutes)
Walk 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
Jog 1 mile (or 10 minutes)
Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2-1/4 miles (or 25 minutes) with no walking.
7 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.5 miles (or 25 minutes).
8 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 2.75 miles (or 28 minutes).
9 Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes). Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes). The final workout! Congratulations! Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3 miles (or 30 minutes).
So, I've begun and today I made my first monetary commitment as well. I bought running shoes to the tune of $100. I went to a running shoe specialty store in Cedar Falls and had the guy video tape me jogging on the treadmill to determine what shoes I need. I had a balanced stride so he recommended a neutral stability shoe and gave me three different ones to try. I ended up going with the Brooks DeFyance 3, they were the most comfortable. Iowa City, here I come!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Going the Distance
12/18/09
It's been 13 days since I last wrote a blog post. True I was gone for 5 days traveling where I couldn't get onto the blogger site, but I still could have written it in something else and posted later. Traveling was tough on the eating part of the diet, though I did treadmill 2 of the three days that I had hoped to. Friday was a 6:00 AM flight after dinner out with the client and not getting to the hotel until about 11pm the night before so I knew that I wouldn't be exercising that morning. But I ate badly pretty much every meal with a couple exceptions with breakfast. This week hasn't been too good either, I've been eating a good breakfast, and mostly good lunches, but blowing it with dinner and snacking at night after. But I've been doing good with the treadmill and increasing my distance almost daily. I'm up to 2 minutes of walking at 4 miles/hr and running at 6 miles/hr for three minutes. Yesterday I managed to do 3.75 miles in 45 minutes. But I was just about wasted afterward and tired for quite a while that morning and afternoon. Since I'd been doing it each day of the week, I decided to take a day off today to let my body rest and recover a bit. So I'm pleased with my exercise, but need to get back on track for eating. I actually gained back 1.4 pounds on this past Monday's weigh in and expect I will have gained this week as well or best case, not lost any. Then next week is Christmas so it could be a challenging couple weeks for weigh in. I just hope I don't lose all the ground I made in the first two weeks.
The good thing is that I'm not getting too down on myself about it. I'm in it for the long haul and know there will be good times and bad and as long as I don't just completely stop exercising and trying to eat right, I feel good that I will make long term progress. I haven't completely abandoned eating well, I still have at least one good meal a day and often two since I got back from the travel. If I can stop eating out at night, I'll do much better. And I think I'll need to stop making or buying sweets as it's been really difficult to leave those alone.
It's been 13 days since I last wrote a blog post. True I was gone for 5 days traveling where I couldn't get onto the blogger site, but I still could have written it in something else and posted later. Traveling was tough on the eating part of the diet, though I did treadmill 2 of the three days that I had hoped to. Friday was a 6:00 AM flight after dinner out with the client and not getting to the hotel until about 11pm the night before so I knew that I wouldn't be exercising that morning. But I ate badly pretty much every meal with a couple exceptions with breakfast. This week hasn't been too good either, I've been eating a good breakfast, and mostly good lunches, but blowing it with dinner and snacking at night after. But I've been doing good with the treadmill and increasing my distance almost daily. I'm up to 2 minutes of walking at 4 miles/hr and running at 6 miles/hr for three minutes. Yesterday I managed to do 3.75 miles in 45 minutes. But I was just about wasted afterward and tired for quite a while that morning and afternoon. Since I'd been doing it each day of the week, I decided to take a day off today to let my body rest and recover a bit. So I'm pleased with my exercise, but need to get back on track for eating. I actually gained back 1.4 pounds on this past Monday's weigh in and expect I will have gained this week as well or best case, not lost any. Then next week is Christmas so it could be a challenging couple weeks for weigh in. I just hope I don't lose all the ground I made in the first two weeks.
The good thing is that I'm not getting too down on myself about it. I'm in it for the long haul and know there will be good times and bad and as long as I don't just completely stop exercising and trying to eat right, I feel good that I will make long term progress. I haven't completely abandoned eating well, I still have at least one good meal a day and often two since I got back from the travel. If I can stop eating out at night, I'll do much better. And I think I'll need to stop making or buying sweets as it's been really difficult to leave those alone.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
12/5/09
It is Saturday and it has been a few days since I have posted. It's been a so-so week as far as the changes go. The exciting thing is that I have been enjoying my time on the treadmill more than I did before. I've gotten into seeing how much further I can go in the 45 minutes I'm on and though it is probably too early to tell, I could see getting into running and wanting to participate in races at some point.
I started out just wanting to walk for 45 minutes, but one of the first times I did it, I decided to jog for part of the time and then I just started jogging for a while, then walking for a while. I realized at some point that I was getting close to 3 miles so decided I would go until I reached that point, which took a minute or two more than the 45 minutes I had planned. So the next day, I tried to do enough jogging and increasing my walking speed as close to 4 mph so that I could reach the 3 mile mark at or before the 45 minutes were up. Once I did that, then I wanted to try to do a little more and then in subsequent days, a little more. Yesterday, I did a total of 3.37 miles in the 45 minutes. My goal is to hit the 4.5 mile mark some time soon.
I find that this is appealing to my desire to set and reach goals and I get the instant gratification of doing it immediately, same day. It also has the potential to open up fun on the analytical side as I can start to figure out what speed I need to maintain and for how long to reach specific goals. The last couple days, I've been thinking about how I would set up a simple spreadsheet that would allow me to put in some assumptions about the walking speed and jogging speed and what mixture I would need to have to reach certain distances. For example, I start out by walking at around 3.5 mpg until I get warmed up, then I bump it up to 3.8 or 3.9 before the first jog. After that, I try to maintain it at the 4.0 even mark and that keeps me on the 3 mile pace and then any jogging I do after that just adds to the 3 miles in 45 minutes. As it is, I'm looking at my distance in relation to time and not really paying attention to how long I'm jogging or walking at a particular speed. I've been thinking that I will want to start doing that; first because I want to use it to increase my fitness and start making those jogging intervals longer and longer. Second, it will help me to set and hit goals because I will know what I need to do in terms of speed and time to hit the goal distance.
The cool thing is that it makes the time on the treadmill go by so much quicker. It was incredibly boring just to walk for 45 minutes and the time just dragged most of the time. Listening to music helped, but only somewhat. But, and this is completely counter-intuitive for me, the more I switched from the speed readout to the time and distance readout, the faster the time went. Especially today where I was watching it really closely since I was trying to beat the previous day's 2.24 miles, the first 30 minutes really went by fast. I find that I'm actually looking forward to getting on their and that is definitely a first. I'm still doing more walking than jogging, but there isn't any reason to believe that as I get more fit, I can switch that around, and perhaps eventually stop walking altogether after the warm up. From there, it isn't too much of a leap to think about jogging, or even running a 5K or 10K. So that is what was good this week.
On the down side, my calorie intake was all over the board and I had three pretty bad days. The problem is all the eating out that I did this week. Every time that happens, I go well over my goal and I'm going to need to find some way to deal with that, especially this week as I'm traveling for work and it will all be eating out. I do think I'll buy some frozen lunches so at least I can have that going for me, but it will still be tough with that buffet breakfast every morning and then going out after work. I will also need to try and minimize alcoholic beverages since they are loaded with calories no matter how I go (beer or vodka and 7up). I still think I have a shot at good news when I get on the scale Monday, only because my pants have felt really loose the last couple days, and they haven't been feeling that way for some time. I think the 45 minutes is working out much better than the 20-30 I was doing before.
Holy crap, I just figured out what my calories were for the day and it was even worse than I thought. Over 3100 calories today and 2500 of them were during dinner or after. That isn't going to help much. I'm not going to be a nazi about eating under 1800 calories EVERY day, but I can't afford to have many days AT ALL like this one. This is what I'm trying to avoid. A little slip and going a little over 2000 is one thing, but over 3000? That just is not going to work for me. Not any more. The average for the week, and I didn't count them on one day which means that day was probably not good was 2158. Almost certainly better than I was doing before I started paying attention again, but not where I wanted to be. I've got to start saying 'no' to eating out, that is what is killing me right now. If I eat at home, I have good calorie intake, if I don't, then I am well over. It's that simple.
It is Saturday and it has been a few days since I have posted. It's been a so-so week as far as the changes go. The exciting thing is that I have been enjoying my time on the treadmill more than I did before. I've gotten into seeing how much further I can go in the 45 minutes I'm on and though it is probably too early to tell, I could see getting into running and wanting to participate in races at some point.
I started out just wanting to walk for 45 minutes, but one of the first times I did it, I decided to jog for part of the time and then I just started jogging for a while, then walking for a while. I realized at some point that I was getting close to 3 miles so decided I would go until I reached that point, which took a minute or two more than the 45 minutes I had planned. So the next day, I tried to do enough jogging and increasing my walking speed as close to 4 mph so that I could reach the 3 mile mark at or before the 45 minutes were up. Once I did that, then I wanted to try to do a little more and then in subsequent days, a little more. Yesterday, I did a total of 3.37 miles in the 45 minutes. My goal is to hit the 4.5 mile mark some time soon.
I find that this is appealing to my desire to set and reach goals and I get the instant gratification of doing it immediately, same day. It also has the potential to open up fun on the analytical side as I can start to figure out what speed I need to maintain and for how long to reach specific goals. The last couple days, I've been thinking about how I would set up a simple spreadsheet that would allow me to put in some assumptions about the walking speed and jogging speed and what mixture I would need to have to reach certain distances. For example, I start out by walking at around 3.5 mpg until I get warmed up, then I bump it up to 3.8 or 3.9 before the first jog. After that, I try to maintain it at the 4.0 even mark and that keeps me on the 3 mile pace and then any jogging I do after that just adds to the 3 miles in 45 minutes. As it is, I'm looking at my distance in relation to time and not really paying attention to how long I'm jogging or walking at a particular speed. I've been thinking that I will want to start doing that; first because I want to use it to increase my fitness and start making those jogging intervals longer and longer. Second, it will help me to set and hit goals because I will know what I need to do in terms of speed and time to hit the goal distance.
The cool thing is that it makes the time on the treadmill go by so much quicker. It was incredibly boring just to walk for 45 minutes and the time just dragged most of the time. Listening to music helped, but only somewhat. But, and this is completely counter-intuitive for me, the more I switched from the speed readout to the time and distance readout, the faster the time went. Especially today where I was watching it really closely since I was trying to beat the previous day's 2.24 miles, the first 30 minutes really went by fast. I find that I'm actually looking forward to getting on their and that is definitely a first. I'm still doing more walking than jogging, but there isn't any reason to believe that as I get more fit, I can switch that around, and perhaps eventually stop walking altogether after the warm up. From there, it isn't too much of a leap to think about jogging, or even running a 5K or 10K. So that is what was good this week.
On the down side, my calorie intake was all over the board and I had three pretty bad days. The problem is all the eating out that I did this week. Every time that happens, I go well over my goal and I'm going to need to find some way to deal with that, especially this week as I'm traveling for work and it will all be eating out. I do think I'll buy some frozen lunches so at least I can have that going for me, but it will still be tough with that buffet breakfast every morning and then going out after work. I will also need to try and minimize alcoholic beverages since they are loaded with calories no matter how I go (beer or vodka and 7up). I still think I have a shot at good news when I get on the scale Monday, only because my pants have felt really loose the last couple days, and they haven't been feeling that way for some time. I think the 45 minutes is working out much better than the 20-30 I was doing before.
Holy crap, I just figured out what my calories were for the day and it was even worse than I thought. Over 3100 calories today and 2500 of them were during dinner or after. That isn't going to help much. I'm not going to be a nazi about eating under 1800 calories EVERY day, but I can't afford to have many days AT ALL like this one. This is what I'm trying to avoid. A little slip and going a little over 2000 is one thing, but over 3000? That just is not going to work for me. Not any more. The average for the week, and I didn't count them on one day which means that day was probably not good was 2158. Almost certainly better than I was doing before I started paying attention again, but not where I wanted to be. I've got to start saying 'no' to eating out, that is what is killing me right now. If I eat at home, I have good calorie intake, if I don't, then I am well over. It's that simple.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Week 2 begins a day late
11/30/09
8:30 AM
The good news first; I lost 4 pounds last week. Considering that I had three days of not eating on plan, and only managed to exercise 5 days, a pretty surprising result. So I weighed 232 pounds this morning. That is a total of 10 pounds less than when I started back in January. I should also always keep in mind that my all time high was probably somewhere 260 though I'm not sure exactly. The heaviest weight the doctor had on file for me was something like 263, but that would have been with clothes on and possibly even during the winter with boots. All that together could easily add up to 10 pounds. So we'll call it 252 just for round numbers and say that I'm 20 pounds less than my all time high.
The bad news is that yeterday I basically completely fell down. I didn't exercise because I didn't get up in time and then we had things to do. I started out with a healthy breakfast, but then we went Christmas shopping, I with Alia and Mindy with Camryn. We decided to meet at IHOP for lunch and I opted for the heart attack special of biscuits and gravy with two sausage patties, two eggs and hash browns. Probably a 1500 calorie feast. I thought I'd eat a light supper, maybe soup, but I ended up eating what everone else ate, which was a greasy fried chicken from the store and some steamed veg. That would have not been a particularly good day, but mentally, I wouldn't have completely let go. Except I did after putting Alia to bed when I went through 2/3 of a bag of club crackers topped off by a bowl of cereal. In other words, I just completely gave up. To top it off, I set my alarm to get up this morning for the treadmill, but then I ended up staying up late so reset it NOT to get up to run and so now have to try and get that done during the day or after bed time tonight. My record on that is not very good, I'm sorry to say. But I did have a healthy breakfast; I've been going on the philosphy that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so allowing myself a few more calories this time around than I did last spring. Pretty much every morning has been a cup of juice, a banana, oatmeal with 1/2 c milk and my coffee and half and half. The last couple mornings, I've been having the OJ and banana in the form of a slushie putting them into the blender with some crushed ice and a 1 tsp of half and half. I've always liked the orange/banana combo and it's very good. I think I'll try it without the half and half tomorrow and see if maybe I like it better without that little 'clingyness' you get with dairy.
10:05 PM
I did the treadmill today; the usual 45 minutes and 3.08 miles. I finished up with a sprint that felt good and really winded me. Since I didn't get enough sleep last night, I felt tired for most of the day, but after that, I had plenty of energy. I'm going to get right to bed so I'll feel like getting up at 6:00 tomorrow and start my day out with that energy instead of getting it mid-way through. It wasn't a great calorie day as we had pesto sauce over cheese tortellini and two pieces of bread with smart balance for dinner, but I didn't snack after dinner and still feel full now so mentally it was a pretty good day. I'm trying not to focus too much on the four pounds I lost the last week, but its hard because it feels good. The important thing to realize is that it was a one time thing that won't continue to happen weekly if I'm not more disciplined in my eating and exercising.
8:30 AM
The good news first; I lost 4 pounds last week. Considering that I had three days of not eating on plan, and only managed to exercise 5 days, a pretty surprising result. So I weighed 232 pounds this morning. That is a total of 10 pounds less than when I started back in January. I should also always keep in mind that my all time high was probably somewhere 260 though I'm not sure exactly. The heaviest weight the doctor had on file for me was something like 263, but that would have been with clothes on and possibly even during the winter with boots. All that together could easily add up to 10 pounds. So we'll call it 252 just for round numbers and say that I'm 20 pounds less than my all time high.
The bad news is that yeterday I basically completely fell down. I didn't exercise because I didn't get up in time and then we had things to do. I started out with a healthy breakfast, but then we went Christmas shopping, I with Alia and Mindy with Camryn. We decided to meet at IHOP for lunch and I opted for the heart attack special of biscuits and gravy with two sausage patties, two eggs and hash browns. Probably a 1500 calorie feast. I thought I'd eat a light supper, maybe soup, but I ended up eating what everone else ate, which was a greasy fried chicken from the store and some steamed veg. That would have not been a particularly good day, but mentally, I wouldn't have completely let go. Except I did after putting Alia to bed when I went through 2/3 of a bag of club crackers topped off by a bowl of cereal. In other words, I just completely gave up. To top it off, I set my alarm to get up this morning for the treadmill, but then I ended up staying up late so reset it NOT to get up to run and so now have to try and get that done during the day or after bed time tonight. My record on that is not very good, I'm sorry to say. But I did have a healthy breakfast; I've been going on the philosphy that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so allowing myself a few more calories this time around than I did last spring. Pretty much every morning has been a cup of juice, a banana, oatmeal with 1/2 c milk and my coffee and half and half. The last couple mornings, I've been having the OJ and banana in the form of a slushie putting them into the blender with some crushed ice and a 1 tsp of half and half. I've always liked the orange/banana combo and it's very good. I think I'll try it without the half and half tomorrow and see if maybe I like it better without that little 'clingyness' you get with dairy.
10:05 PM
I did the treadmill today; the usual 45 minutes and 3.08 miles. I finished up with a sprint that felt good and really winded me. Since I didn't get enough sleep last night, I felt tired for most of the day, but after that, I had plenty of energy. I'm going to get right to bed so I'll feel like getting up at 6:00 tomorrow and start my day out with that energy instead of getting it mid-way through. It wasn't a great calorie day as we had pesto sauce over cheese tortellini and two pieces of bread with smart balance for dinner, but I didn't snack after dinner and still feel full now so mentally it was a pretty good day. I'm trying not to focus too much on the four pounds I lost the last week, but its hard because it feels good. The important thing to realize is that it was a one time thing that won't continue to happen weekly if I'm not more disciplined in my eating and exercising.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Getting Through Thanksgiving Weekend
11/27/09
The day after Thanksgiving. It's been two days of not counting calories and I'm sure well over the daily budget of 1800 calories. But I did the treadmill both days for 45 minutes and 3+ miles. I showed a little restraint yesterday until it was time for desert and then had two pieces of pie with loads of whip cream. This morning we had the sausage egg casserole and buttermilk biscuits. I had 3-4 biscuits. A couple of vodka and diet 7's in the afternoon, and then for dinner a big burger, fries and two more pieces of pie and whip cream for desert. So tomorrow, its back to counting and a reasonable diet. I guess I failed the holiday test where food is concerned, but passed for exercise. Then again, it was a tough week to start something like this and I think I've come through it reasonably well. As always, what important is what comes next.
I've been thinking about my goals and motivation for this change in lifestyle. I more interested in measurements than in weight, but I'm not sure what my goal should be for waist size and that is the only one I would even have a clue what I am now or what I would like to be. Now I'm probably close to a 42 inch waist and somewhere between 40"-42". I'd like to be at a 34", but no more than 36". I want to be able to wear size large shirts comfortably.
I think the idea is that I don't have a specific weight as a goal, but I use weight to periodically measure my progress. I'll know if I'm balancing food and exercise close to what I should be. Also, regarding the goal of 98% of the days following the plan, maybe that isn't such a bad idea after all. Maybe I should allow myself the big holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and maybe Independence Day without worrying about watching what I eat, and all the rest are where I am mindful. In a year, that is 7 days of free for all and 358 of planned eating. As for the exercise, there isn't any reason that shouldn't be on every day except where I'm too sick to get out of bed. And those should be fewer when I'm treating my body better.
I'm a little sore and tired from the treadmill. It was probably harder today then the other two days, mostly because I'd had the huge breakfast first and that was definitely a challenge. It was harder to breath in part because of that, I think, though I was also keeping up a faster pace than I had before. This afternoon, after doing a little with Christmas decorations, I was just beat and sat down with Cammy to watch some Sponge Bob and took a cat nap or two in the chair with her sitting in my lap. It was nice time together.
I'm not particularly looking forward to the weigh in Monday morning, but I'm not stressing about it either. If I didn't gain any weight during the Thanksgiving week, then that is a victory. And if I did, I still know that it is less than it would have been had I maintained the path I was on of eating badly and not exercising.
The day after Thanksgiving. It's been two days of not counting calories and I'm sure well over the daily budget of 1800 calories. But I did the treadmill both days for 45 minutes and 3+ miles. I showed a little restraint yesterday until it was time for desert and then had two pieces of pie with loads of whip cream. This morning we had the sausage egg casserole and buttermilk biscuits. I had 3-4 biscuits. A couple of vodka and diet 7's in the afternoon, and then for dinner a big burger, fries and two more pieces of pie and whip cream for desert. So tomorrow, its back to counting and a reasonable diet. I guess I failed the holiday test where food is concerned, but passed for exercise. Then again, it was a tough week to start something like this and I think I've come through it reasonably well. As always, what important is what comes next.
I've been thinking about my goals and motivation for this change in lifestyle. I more interested in measurements than in weight, but I'm not sure what my goal should be for waist size and that is the only one I would even have a clue what I am now or what I would like to be. Now I'm probably close to a 42 inch waist and somewhere between 40"-42". I'd like to be at a 34", but no more than 36". I want to be able to wear size large shirts comfortably.
I think the idea is that I don't have a specific weight as a goal, but I use weight to periodically measure my progress. I'll know if I'm balancing food and exercise close to what I should be. Also, regarding the goal of 98% of the days following the plan, maybe that isn't such a bad idea after all. Maybe I should allow myself the big holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and maybe Independence Day without worrying about watching what I eat, and all the rest are where I am mindful. In a year, that is 7 days of free for all and 358 of planned eating. As for the exercise, there isn't any reason that shouldn't be on every day except where I'm too sick to get out of bed. And those should be fewer when I'm treating my body better.
I'm a little sore and tired from the treadmill. It was probably harder today then the other two days, mostly because I'd had the huge breakfast first and that was definitely a challenge. It was harder to breath in part because of that, I think, though I was also keeping up a faster pace than I had before. This afternoon, after doing a little with Christmas decorations, I was just beat and sat down with Cammy to watch some Sponge Bob and took a cat nap or two in the chair with her sitting in my lap. It was nice time together.
I'm not particularly looking forward to the weigh in Monday morning, but I'm not stressing about it either. If I didn't gain any weight during the Thanksgiving week, then that is a victory. And if I did, I still know that it is less than it would have been had I maintained the path I was on of eating badly and not exercising.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Day 1-A. And, Do we know Where we are Going yet?
11/23/09
Got up at 6am this morning and did 45 minutes on the treadmill. Just over 3 miles so averaged 4 MPH though it was actually a mixture of mostly in the 3.5-3.9 range with occasional bursts in the 5-6 range. I weighed exactly 236 pounds. That's 6 pounds less than when I first started back in January and 18.2 pounds more than the all time low I recorded on 4/9 of 217.8. Kind of a drag to have lost all that progress, but meaningless when I think of this as a new lifestyle. The weight isn't the important thing, it's how I feel and there really is no point in dwelling on how I felt the last few months. What is important is how I feel today and how I will feel the rest of my life. Mentally I felt better today than I have in a while, knowing that I exercised and ate well today. I only had 1160 calories which is much lower than the <1800 I am tentatively planning. I feel a little hungry and have since not long after I ate, but I did feel full after dinner and I think what I'm feeling now, rather than hunger is the difference between stuffed to the gills and a normal, healthy fullness. I'd like to be able to go on a <1200 intake, but I'm not sure that is realistic. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't, but we'll see. Maybe I can think about a <1500 goal. Speaking of goals, I didn't given much thought today about what my goal will be with this lifestyle. Some thoughts include clothes size (seems vain) running a 5K, 10K or marathon; or some other type of endurance test/competition (maybe, but I don't love running) exercising and maintaining the caloric intake for a specific period The last one is intriguing and seems to match up best with the idea of making this a permanent change. Could I maintain those two things for a year, or even six months, EVERY day? Or do I say for 98% of the time? In six months, a 98% success rate is missing on only 4 days. But if I'm doing this for ever, why not 100% of the time? What about sick days for missing exercise? Does it mean NEVER exceeding the caloric goal? Or does it mean just eating sensibly, even if the food I'm choosing is higher calorie, like holidays? Or does it mean on a weekly basis, allowing me to completely blow a day but make it up in the other days of the week? Is that cheating; if not from a calorie standpoint, then at least philosophically? The endurance test is also interesting in that it is a specific event which would give me that sense of accomplishment. But what comes after? Another, similar event, or just another let down? Will I turn that into, "OK, I did it, now I can relax a little bit."? Clothes size seems the most like a weight goal which for whatever reason doesn't feel right. Feels like I'm doing it for the wrong reason though I can't quite put my finger on why it seems; why they both seem wrong. It just feels shallow somehow and like it isn't the right motivation. I guess because I don't really care what I weigh, or what size my pants are, ultimately. I want to feel better and be healthier. A reduction in weight will happen if I'm living healthier, but it is a byproduct, a symptom and not good in and of itself. For example, I could weigh 190 pounds and still be not healthy, say if I went on a crash diet that wasn't sustainable, or had cancer and couldn't eat. Or if I lost a leg. Ok, a little ridiculous, but the point is that there are lots of ways to hit that goal that don't accomplish the real goal, which is a healthy lifestyle. So I'm back to how do I measure living a healthy lifestyle? Maybe taking a step back and thinking about goals in a general sense will help. So, of course, I fall back on what I know about goals from work. Make them SMART. Specific-clear and unambiguous
Measurable-the one I'm having trouble with at this point
Attainable-that was the question about meeting my daily exercise and calorie goal for 180 days straight. Is that attainable? theoretically, but is it realistic?
Relevant-this is 'realistic' in some versions of the SMART goal, but it always seemed like a synonym for Attainable so I found a source that had something different. Relevant seems like a good one-does the goal even make sense? This is where weight and pants size seem to lose out. They don't seem relevant.
Time Driven-an end date; again carries concerns with it about what happens after, or as the time approaches? Do I get scared as it approaches, either because I'm afraid I won't hit it, or that I will and then be lost. But it seems the key to that is to have short, medium and long term goals and then to understand that medium and long term goals may well change as long as it is for the right reasons; and of course, you can always add more, bigger goals.
Another goal I just thought of in the exercise realm is to log a specific number of miles in a certain amount of time. Say 21 miles/week; or a 100/month? I like the sounds of that; it's a longer term goal which relies on the output of daily exercise. Its scalable so I can have a daily minimum to ensure daily engagement, but have weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual and even multi year goals. This along with caloric intake goals under the same time frames has a good feel to it. It allows me freedom to have some outright misses and some not quites on a daily basis while still leaving open the ability to make the longer term goals. These types of goals, along with some basic philosophies about how to act in the world-no gratuitous overeating, no eating when I am full or even not hungry. limiting the amount of food that has no healthy food value.
Which brings up coffee. I keep thinking that it is something I should give up. there are no calories associated with it, but nothing particularly healthful about it either. If it weren't for the half and half, I probably wouldn't think ill of it, but I don't love black coffee and if it came to that, I'd probably go with tea. I'm not giving it up yet, but if the idea is to just put healthy things in my body, where does that leave coffee? Are there any good effects that I can use to keep it around? I would miss you, oh coffee; you're the only one I want to talk to first thing in the morning.
Got up at 6am this morning and did 45 minutes on the treadmill. Just over 3 miles so averaged 4 MPH though it was actually a mixture of mostly in the 3.5-3.9 range with occasional bursts in the 5-6 range. I weighed exactly 236 pounds. That's 6 pounds less than when I first started back in January and 18.2 pounds more than the all time low I recorded on 4/9 of 217.8. Kind of a drag to have lost all that progress, but meaningless when I think of this as a new lifestyle. The weight isn't the important thing, it's how I feel and there really is no point in dwelling on how I felt the last few months. What is important is how I feel today and how I will feel the rest of my life. Mentally I felt better today than I have in a while, knowing that I exercised and ate well today. I only had 1160 calories which is much lower than the <1800 I am tentatively planning. I feel a little hungry and have since not long after I ate, but I did feel full after dinner and I think what I'm feeling now, rather than hunger is the difference between stuffed to the gills and a normal, healthy fullness. I'd like to be able to go on a <1200 intake, but I'm not sure that is realistic. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't, but we'll see. Maybe I can think about a <1500 goal. Speaking of goals, I didn't given much thought today about what my goal will be with this lifestyle. Some thoughts include clothes size (seems vain) running a 5K, 10K or marathon; or some other type of endurance test/competition (maybe, but I don't love running) exercising and maintaining the caloric intake for a specific period The last one is intriguing and seems to match up best with the idea of making this a permanent change. Could I maintain those two things for a year, or even six months, EVERY day? Or do I say for 98% of the time? In six months, a 98% success rate is missing on only 4 days. But if I'm doing this for ever, why not 100% of the time? What about sick days for missing exercise? Does it mean NEVER exceeding the caloric goal? Or does it mean just eating sensibly, even if the food I'm choosing is higher calorie, like holidays? Or does it mean on a weekly basis, allowing me to completely blow a day but make it up in the other days of the week? Is that cheating; if not from a calorie standpoint, then at least philosophically? The endurance test is also interesting in that it is a specific event which would give me that sense of accomplishment. But what comes after? Another, similar event, or just another let down? Will I turn that into, "OK, I did it, now I can relax a little bit."? Clothes size seems the most like a weight goal which for whatever reason doesn't feel right. Feels like I'm doing it for the wrong reason though I can't quite put my finger on why it seems; why they both seem wrong. It just feels shallow somehow and like it isn't the right motivation. I guess because I don't really care what I weigh, or what size my pants are, ultimately. I want to feel better and be healthier. A reduction in weight will happen if I'm living healthier, but it is a byproduct, a symptom and not good in and of itself. For example, I could weigh 190 pounds and still be not healthy, say if I went on a crash diet that wasn't sustainable, or had cancer and couldn't eat. Or if I lost a leg. Ok, a little ridiculous, but the point is that there are lots of ways to hit that goal that don't accomplish the real goal, which is a healthy lifestyle. So I'm back to how do I measure living a healthy lifestyle? Maybe taking a step back and thinking about goals in a general sense will help. So, of course, I fall back on what I know about goals from work. Make them SMART. Specific-clear and unambiguous
Measurable-the one I'm having trouble with at this point
Attainable-that was the question about meeting my daily exercise and calorie goal for 180 days straight. Is that attainable? theoretically, but is it realistic?
Relevant-this is 'realistic' in some versions of the SMART goal, but it always seemed like a synonym for Attainable so I found a source that had something different. Relevant seems like a good one-does the goal even make sense? This is where weight and pants size seem to lose out. They don't seem relevant.
Time Driven-an end date; again carries concerns with it about what happens after, or as the time approaches? Do I get scared as it approaches, either because I'm afraid I won't hit it, or that I will and then be lost. But it seems the key to that is to have short, medium and long term goals and then to understand that medium and long term goals may well change as long as it is for the right reasons; and of course, you can always add more, bigger goals.
Another goal I just thought of in the exercise realm is to log a specific number of miles in a certain amount of time. Say 21 miles/week; or a 100/month? I like the sounds of that; it's a longer term goal which relies on the output of daily exercise. Its scalable so I can have a daily minimum to ensure daily engagement, but have weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual and even multi year goals. This along with caloric intake goals under the same time frames has a good feel to it. It allows me freedom to have some outright misses and some not quites on a daily basis while still leaving open the ability to make the longer term goals. These types of goals, along with some basic philosophies about how to act in the world-no gratuitous overeating, no eating when I am full or even not hungry. limiting the amount of food that has no healthy food value.
Which brings up coffee. I keep thinking that it is something I should give up. there are no calories associated with it, but nothing particularly healthful about it either. If it weren't for the half and half, I probably wouldn't think ill of it, but I don't love black coffee and if it came to that, I'd probably go with tea. I'm not giving it up yet, but if the idea is to just put healthy things in my body, where does that leave coffee? Are there any good effects that I can use to keep it around? I would miss you, oh coffee; you're the only one I want to talk to first thing in the morning.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
What I need now is a good heart attack
11/22/09
It has been months since I last posted and about as long since I have taken my health seriously. But I'll start with the good. During my last doctor appointment, which was sometime this late summer/fall (August or September, I think), the doctor said that due to the amount of weight I had lost, and more importantly, my A1C result, I no longer needed to take my blood sugar at all and he would not need to see me for another year. I don't remember exactly what the reading was, but I think 5.4 or so and I think it has to be over 6.0 to be considered in the diabetic range.
Unfortunately, that positive news seemed to be all I needed to completely abandon any semblence of healthy eating and resume my previous habits of eating whatever I wanted without regard to how I felt or how it made me feel afterward. I resumed eating until I felt miserably full, snacking late into the night and consuming all the sweets I could. Even as I felt my pants getting tighter and tighter, I continued on this course, knowing that I was headed back to the same weight at which I had started, and probably surpassing even that to try and get back to the all time high something close to 260 pounds. I had reached a low, I think, of 218 pounds at some point and I felt it all coming back on. Yet, as bad as it made me feel, I seemed powerless to stop it. I seemed to be waiting, for what, I'm not sure. Some times I think I was waiting for the inevitable heart attack that must surely come and which would, finally, be the thing that would cause the miraculous turn around in my attitude that seemed to be necessary. Instead, I just felt worse every day. Full all the time, constipated, mad at myself, knowing that I had failed yet again. And I keep going. For a while after I stopped the blog, stopped weighing myself and stopped tracking what I ate, I at least pretended to still care. I didn't snack like I used to, at least all the time. I wasn't eating like a crazy man until I was stuffed. I put some limits on being out of control. But as the weeks past and I got through the doctor's appointment, bolded it seems by the good news, all control was gone. I THOUGHT about what I was doing, and then did it anyway, time and time again. In October, I traveled for business and so had to pull out some clothes that I don't typically wear, slacks instead of the usual jeans. These were pants I had bought in the late spring or early summer when things were at their best. But one pair was slightly loose even then and the others had a stetch waist. It wasn't a struggle to get them on, but as they day wore on, they felt tighter and tighter. By the end of the day, I could barely get in the hotel room before taking them off and it was like being freed from some menial torture. That was confirmation of what I already knew from the occasional weigh in over the past few months; it was all coming back. Then as November came on, the belt I had bought when the old one got too big started to feel tight, even on the last hole. But I knew I still had the old belt and I continued my same behaviors.
This morning, I weighed myself for the first time in weeks. Over 236 pounds. I started last January at 242 pounds and had gotten down to 218. 25 pounds lost and 18 of them are back, all within a year. Almost all the effort put in from January to May lost. I'm scared that I may never be able to truly change my lifestyle and live a healthy life.
I remember feeling better just a few short months ago. That I felt better phyisically I assume, but truthfully that seems fairly minor and I can't even really say it for sure. But mentally and emotionally? That I remember. I felt like I was doing something good, that I was more in control of my life and that I was good. Not lately. Lately I have felt like a failure and that last spring was just a fluke, a fad and I will never be able to sustain it. I will always be fat and out of shape, winded by a run up the stairs. I was proud of myself and I hadn't been that in a very long time, and now it is fading away just as quickly as it came.
So I've got a new plan and I fear that it is destined to fail again, but what else can I do? I'm trying to come up with something that is more sustainable, that will weather the upcoming holidays and their focus on eating lots of unhealthy food. I understand that diets don't work and that I somehow need to change ME, change what I want and the choices I make every day, every hour. But I'm not sure it is possible. The last few months I've been thinking that maybe I'll just always be fat, will never 'do what I need to do', but instead, indulge what I want to do as soon as I want to do it. Ignore the little voice that tells me what I'm doing is wrong, that it hurts me and barely feels good even while I'm doing it.
But fortunately, (or unfortunately-because I haven't hit that 'bottom' that I seem to think I need) there is some small part of me that doesn't quite believe it. Some part that thinks I do have what it takes to make the change, to live the life I've always wanted and to finally, let go of feeling bad and start to feel good again. Its work, every day and every meal and every hour and sometimes every minute. It's decisions every day that seem little or that I try to make seem little, but each one of them is really a big decision trying to hide out. Its a battle between the little voices; the one that says that 'it doesn't matter' and the one that says it does matter, it matters alot and those little battles add up for either the good side or the bad. For a while, the good side was winning more of those little battles than it was losing, and so direction of the war had changed for a time. But lately, there have been few if any victories for that little voice and the direction had very clearly changed back to the direction it had been going for many years. Now that little course change seems more like a little bump in the road.
I had been shooting for a goal, and was on a timeline and I think that both of those things can be useful tools in a weight loss and healthy lifestyle plan. And I knew, at some level that while I had those goals in mind, I would never really 'win'. I would always have to keep exercising, keep eating right or I would slide back to where I started and probably worse. But somehow, it still seems like I was thinking of the whole thing as something I had to do to get to a certain point, that though I knew it wasn't true, somehow I could still win. I don't know if that went in to my failure this summer or whether that is just my mind trying to find a reason, or whether maybe I never will be able to sustain the healthy lifestyle I crave. But somehow, I have got to understand that I am trying to make a permanent change. That stopping, even for a day is surrender to the bad voice. Taking a day off for a holiday is the same as taking the months off that I have since June. I need to understand that if I really make this my lifestyle, I won't WANT to take off even a day, because that means I'm doing something that I really don't want and I will never be able to sustain that. Maybe through will power and goals and whatever else, I could sustain it for even more than the four months I did this year, but I wouldn't be able to sustain it for ever. I'm either choosing to make this my new life, or I'm just playing at something I think I should do to please something outside of me.
Yet, the nature of my personality is that I need to have a plan. Even if the plan is flawed, I KNOW I have no hope without having a plan. And what I was doing WAS working as long as I did it. So here it is.
- Weigh in 1/week. The ups and downs of a daily weigh in were hurtful sometimes. It was depressing to be working hard and for it not to show some days, or for it to go down one day and up the next. By doing it only once/week, I should see at least some loss each time I weigh in, and I think it will be frequently enough that I will anticipate it and look forward to it to help maintain my drive.
- Track calories for everything I eat. I need to understand what I'm eating and how many calories at a detailed level. This helps me to stay on track, to have the occasional indulgence and make up for it in another meal.
- Exercise Daily, starting with walking/jogging and adding strenght training soon. It has to be every day, no skipping.
- Writing at least 3 times/week. I need to be really thinking about the change I want to make, talking to myself about how I feel, what I'm doing and the progress I make and challenges I'm having. Writing forces me to really think about it and not avoid the difficult thoughts.
- Have a goal. This is the one I'm most scared of right now. I feel somehow that there may be danger in this because it seems so short term and that once I reach the goal, I may think I can stop. Or that if I get close, I can relax. Yet everything I have been taught is that you can't get anywhere without setting a goal. Perhaps the goal should not be weight, but something else? Is it something like running a marathon, or having exercised every day for a year? I'm not sure. So for now, I will think about what the goal should be. The more I think about it, the more I beleive that the goal should not be a weight. That isn't what I really want, what I want is to live a healthier lifestyle, but how do you set a goal around that?
This is something I need to think about and work out in the next few days.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Land of the Lost
It’s 5/18 and as I pull up my weight and calorie trackers, it’s been 20 days since the last time they were opened. It’s been 39 days since my low weight and I have added almost 4 ½ pounds back since then. It no longer matters what was going on at the time, whether I was at mom and dad’s for Easter, traveling for business or what. The only relevant fact is that I made a conscious decision to stop caring. I made the decision not to exercise and I made the even worse decision to eat pretty much what I wanted whenever I wanted and to continue to eat after I was full and right before bed time. I completely gave up on living a healthy lifestyle in favor of indulging whatever it is that gets pleasure out of that kind of behavior. And the fact is I really don’t know what it is. I don’t feel good after doing it. I don’t like that feeling of being so full I’m uncomfortable. What I guess I do like is that feeling when it is going in my mouth. To taste that sweet, fatty, greasy food coming into my mouth, chewing it and that feeling right before it hits my stomach. I guess I also like the anticipation of getting to eat all that food, as much as I want and all the flavors I want.
Ok, so that is enough of beating on myself. The only relevant question now is, what next? I’m heading into another week of business travel. I know the hotel I am staying at has a treadmill and nothing else. I know I am going to be working late hours and it will be difficult to eat a healthy diet. So what am I going to do about it? Or do I even care?
Yes, I care. Yes, I want to lose weight, but I’m also figuring out that I feel better on a daily, even hourly basis when I am eating right and exercising. I’ll even admit that most of that is ego driven, just being able to think about what I’m doing, making the right decisions makes me feel better, completely outside of the physical benefits of a healthier lifestyle. But there are also physical benefits. Biggest of all is just not feeling full. Not being miserably full so that all I want to do is lay down and take a nap. And that’s the thing about beer too. I can’t really have more than 1 without feeling full and being ready for a nap. Especially during the day. Not to mention the 150-200 calories each one adds to the meal.
Monday, April 27, 2009
IT’S SO EASY
It has been 18 days since I last counted my calories or worked out. That was 4/9, the day before we went to mom and dad’s for Easter. I knew it would be a tough weekend, but I turned it into something much worse than that. We left on a Friday, and though I had planned to get up and work out that day, I don’t think I did. I don’t remember for sure, but am about 95% sure I didn’t. I find that when I try to think about it, my memory gets hazy, like I’m trying to think through fog. Anyway, I went out that night and drank a lot of beer and ate bad food (cheese balls, hamburger and pizza at midnight). I tried to do better the next day but then we went to monicles for dinner and I ate way too much pizza. The next day was Eastern dinner and I took moderate portions to begin with (only 1 roll) but then kept going back and ended up eating 3 rolls, more ham and two deserts. The next day on the way home, we stopped and ate pork tenderloins and I had some really bad jalapeno poppers. Then more crap at home. The next day, it was off to La Crosse for three nights where I didn’t work out there either and ate pretty much whatever I wanted and drank a couple beers each night. Back home for daddy/daughter breakfast and from there I was on a mission to gain all the weight back. I started indulging those cravings for bad food, we ate out a lot and I came home and had snacks right before bed time. I still did good for breakfast and lunch, but from there, it was anything goes. Once, I even bought two candy bars and ate them on the way home from Benders to get milk. That confirmed that I was really in trouble, but I still didn’t do anything about it. And to make it easier on myself, I didn’t keep track of my calories the entire time.
I was starting to give up. I didn’t get near the scale and knew that it was going to say I had gained some back, how much I didn’t want to know. More important than that was how I was feeling about myself and the progress I had made. I was giving it all back, giving it away to the fat person who didn’t care, who only thought about those moments of putting food in my mouth and how yummy it was. I knew it was bad, knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I just didn’t stop it. Until now. It’s 7:04 and I did my bootcamp work out this morning after getting up 1 hour ago. It was hard and there were moments when I wanted to stop, but most of the time, I knew I was doing good again, that I was doing the right thing now. Next, it will be getting back on the wagon on food and eating the way I should again.
Net loss, or gain in this situation, is 1.63 pounds. Not bad considering all I’ve done to wreck my progress in the last 18 days. I’m lucky that I was able to stop it after only that much back sliding and I’ve learned a lesson. You can’t take a day off. You can’t stop counting the calories no matter what. You can’t stop weighing no matter what. You can’t stop exercising no matter what. It is SO EASY for one day to turn into 2 and 2 days into a week and a week into two weeks, or 18 days. It would be SO EASY to fall back into the same routine as before, eating not just whatever I want, but continuing to eat, even when I don’t want to anymore. Trying to make myself feel better with food when what I know it is doing is making me feel worse. Not just worse over the long haul, but worse right that moment, as soon as I swollow whatever sweet things was in my mouth. And for that bad feeling to hang on until the next day, where I try again to feel better by eating something else that I know I shouldn’t. It is almost like a sickness, a mental breakdown that keeps doing the same bad thing expecting it to be good, but knowing even as I’m doing it that it won’t and that it makes things worse, a little worse each time.
I was starting to give up. I didn’t get near the scale and knew that it was going to say I had gained some back, how much I didn’t want to know. More important than that was how I was feeling about myself and the progress I had made. I was giving it all back, giving it away to the fat person who didn’t care, who only thought about those moments of putting food in my mouth and how yummy it was. I knew it was bad, knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I just didn’t stop it. Until now. It’s 7:04 and I did my bootcamp work out this morning after getting up 1 hour ago. It was hard and there were moments when I wanted to stop, but most of the time, I knew I was doing good again, that I was doing the right thing now. Next, it will be getting back on the wagon on food and eating the way I should again.
Net loss, or gain in this situation, is 1.63 pounds. Not bad considering all I’ve done to wreck my progress in the last 18 days. I’m lucky that I was able to stop it after only that much back sliding and I’ve learned a lesson. You can’t take a day off. You can’t stop counting the calories no matter what. You can’t stop weighing no matter what. You can’t stop exercising no matter what. It is SO EASY for one day to turn into 2 and 2 days into a week and a week into two weeks, or 18 days. It would be SO EASY to fall back into the same routine as before, eating not just whatever I want, but continuing to eat, even when I don’t want to anymore. Trying to make myself feel better with food when what I know it is doing is making me feel worse. Not just worse over the long haul, but worse right that moment, as soon as I swollow whatever sweet things was in my mouth. And for that bad feeling to hang on until the next day, where I try again to feel better by eating something else that I know I shouldn’t. It is almost like a sickness, a mental breakdown that keeps doing the same bad thing expecting it to be good, but knowing even as I’m doing it that it won’t and that it makes things worse, a little worse each time.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Back on Track
Back on Track
It’s been nearly a whole month since I last wrote for the blog. Much has transpired in that time; not all of it good. For the last 7 days, I have exercised every day; all of us it using ‘The Biggest Loser’ videos. I’m doing the Bob’s ‘Boot Camp’ level 1 except 1 day I added ‘Weight Loss Yoga’ in to get started. That run of exercise was after about two weeks of not doing ANY exercise. During that time I also got into the bad habit of not tracking my calories as timely; sometimes having to do an entire day the next day. While I tried to account for everything I ate, I figure it is inevitable that I forgot at least a few things. Inasmuch as I didn’t forget food, my calories stayed pretty good. The first week of March I averaged 1759/day and the next two weeks it was between 1900-2000. I was still motivated to lose weight and I did a pretty good job of eating right, but I’d lost the motivation to exercise.
It happened a week after first doing ‘biggest loser’ videos and stopping what I had been doing on the treadmill and with free weights. I’d resisted using the videos before because I was afraid to change what had already been working and which I had a pretty good routine with. I feared that changing would lead me to losing the will to keep at it. And either because it was a good instinct, or a self fulfilling prophesy, that is exactly what happened.
But I felt guilty about it every day. And eventually I started getting the head aches again, which had slowly gone away when I had started exercising in January. I thought back when I started that exercise would make them go away, but I assumed it would be immediate. That the head aches were stress induced and so a workout would remove that stress. When that didn’t happen, I was a little discouraged, but kept at it. Gradually I got them less and only when I started getting them again a week or 2 ago did I realize that it had been some weeks since I’d last had one.
The first week I didn’t do any exercise, I still managed to lose 1.8 pounds. Considering that the previous week (with exercise) I had only lost 0.4 pounds, that was a victory. Then last week, after two weeks of not exercising, reality set in and I actually gained back a pound I’d lost. That was the wake up call. The progress I’d made in the previous 50 days could all be lost very quickly. So, last Sunday, I got back on the wagon and started up again. And what do you know, the head aches went away within a couple days of starting and I didn’t feel guilty every day any more.
The other decision I made last week was to change my daily average calorie goal from 2000 to 1800. 2000 was actually pretty easy to do and I wanted to challenge myself a little after the previous two weeks of back-tracking and I figured it would also maintain, if not accelerate my weight loss. I did really well with it and came in this week with an average of 1738/day. And I am confident that I counted everything I ate too, because I got back to tracking what I ate during the day and not going to bed without ensuring that entire day was logged. The result? I lost 4 pounds this past week and finally surpassed the 20 pound mark (21.4 to be exact). That felt really good. This was also the first week since I started that I had done all 7 days with exercise.
I decided to post an updated picture, I think I can see a little difference in my face; not so puffy as before. Can’t really tell if my stomach is any smaller in this picture, but I think it probably is.
It’s been nearly a whole month since I last wrote for the blog. Much has transpired in that time; not all of it good. For the last 7 days, I have exercised every day; all of us it using ‘The Biggest Loser’ videos. I’m doing the Bob’s ‘Boot Camp’ level 1 except 1 day I added ‘Weight Loss Yoga’ in to get started. That run of exercise was after about two weeks of not doing ANY exercise. During that time I also got into the bad habit of not tracking my calories as timely; sometimes having to do an entire day the next day. While I tried to account for everything I ate, I figure it is inevitable that I forgot at least a few things. Inasmuch as I didn’t forget food, my calories stayed pretty good. The first week of March I averaged 1759/day and the next two weeks it was between 1900-2000. I was still motivated to lose weight and I did a pretty good job of eating right, but I’d lost the motivation to exercise.
It happened a week after first doing ‘biggest loser’ videos and stopping what I had been doing on the treadmill and with free weights. I’d resisted using the videos before because I was afraid to change what had already been working and which I had a pretty good routine with. I feared that changing would lead me to losing the will to keep at it. And either because it was a good instinct, or a self fulfilling prophesy, that is exactly what happened.
But I felt guilty about it every day. And eventually I started getting the head aches again, which had slowly gone away when I had started exercising in January. I thought back when I started that exercise would make them go away, but I assumed it would be immediate. That the head aches were stress induced and so a workout would remove that stress. When that didn’t happen, I was a little discouraged, but kept at it. Gradually I got them less and only when I started getting them again a week or 2 ago did I realize that it had been some weeks since I’d last had one.
The first week I didn’t do any exercise, I still managed to lose 1.8 pounds. Considering that the previous week (with exercise) I had only lost 0.4 pounds, that was a victory. Then last week, after two weeks of not exercising, reality set in and I actually gained back a pound I’d lost. That was the wake up call. The progress I’d made in the previous 50 days could all be lost very quickly. So, last Sunday, I got back on the wagon and started up again. And what do you know, the head aches went away within a couple days of starting and I didn’t feel guilty every day any more.
The other decision I made last week was to change my daily average calorie goal from 2000 to 1800. 2000 was actually pretty easy to do and I wanted to challenge myself a little after the previous two weeks of back-tracking and I figured it would also maintain, if not accelerate my weight loss. I did really well with it and came in this week with an average of 1738/day. And I am confident that I counted everything I ate too, because I got back to tracking what I ate during the day and not going to bed without ensuring that entire day was logged. The result? I lost 4 pounds this past week and finally surpassed the 20 pound mark (21.4 to be exact). That felt really good. This was also the first week since I started that I had done all 7 days with exercise.
I decided to post an updated picture, I think I can see a little difference in my face; not so puffy as before. Can’t really tell if my stomach is any smaller in this picture, but I think it probably is.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A milestone and a changing relationship with food
Today starts the 6th week of the new me. A little scary to say that since it assumes that I won’t just stop doing this at some point and gain back all the weight I’ve lost and more. But there is a confidence this time, or maybe a calmness that I’ve not had before when I’ve made other attempts to lose weight, eat better and exercise more. Especially in the last week, when I chose not to exercise as many days as I did choose to exercise. Yes, I was concerned, but I wasn’t in a panic that I was blowing it again. I am a little worried about being too relaxed about it and actually stopping, but I haven’t had that self loathing that usually accompanies a lapse in either eating well or exercising. And I’ve certainly had lapses in the eating department. At least once a week, for one meal, I’m just ignoring the diet completely and eating whatever I want; almost always because we have gone out to eat. But as I told Mindy today, as long as I can focus on the weekly average of calories, I think I should still be OK.
I hit what feels like a big milestone this week, even with exercising less. I’ve now lost over 16 pounds as of my last weigh in yesterday. Getting down under 230 was going to be a nice thing to see and I was concerned since I had not exercised as much if I would lose anything, much less get down to below 230. The previous week had been a tough one when I lost only 0.6 pounds, but this week I lost 5.6 pounds! Pretty amazing, but there was something else that was different this week; for the first time I came in under 2000 calories per day on average. 1609.13 to be exact and I feel pretty good that I tracked all my calories and it isn’t just an artifact of ‘lost’ calories that were consumed but not counted. So anyway, having lost 15 pounds feels pretty good and I’m looking forward to the next big number, which in my mind will be 20. At 2 pounds/week, that would take until April 4, but if I my current per week weight loss rate was sustained, I would hit it some time next week. I’ll take anything in between at this point and though I can’t quite figure out the logic of how/when my weight is coming off, I feel pretty confident that it will continue coming off fairly quickly for a while yet as long as I stay under 2K calories/day on average and exercise at least 5 time/week. I’d like to keep it at 6 just to be safe.
One thing that I though about early on is my changing relationship to food. What has come as a bit of a surprise to me is that I’m enjoying eating now more than I did before. There are multiple reasons. The most obvious and, in my mind anyway, most banal is that I’m more hungry now when I sit down to eat than I was most times before. I’d known before from the occasional missed meal or extreme physical workout how good food could be when I was really hungry, but I’m experiencing that almost every day now. To be sure, sometimes I get tired of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, but even that is much more enjoyable than it would have been before. More philosophically, I’m feeling better about WHAT I’m eating and don’t have this guilt every time I sit down to a meal. I didn’t really realize it before, but I guess I knew somewhere inside me that I was doing my body harm just about every time I sat down to a meal and it was eating away (sorry) at me more than I realized. Finally, I’m ENJOYING and appreciating the food I eat so much more now. It brings home that something that you have too much of loses its value and ceases to be something about which you care about any longer. When I was eating all the time, and knew that I would be eating a bunch more after dinner, I didn’t really give my dinner, as I was eating it, too much thought. It was just what I ‘had’ to eat in order to feel justified in eating the chips, cookies, donuts, crackers and whatever else as soon as Camryn went to bed. And that made me feel guilty as well. I was waiting for her to go to bed so I could indulge myself in all the junk that I either went out to the local grocery store to buy after putting her to bed, or what happened to be left over from the previous night when I’d gotten two or three things to choose from.
The biggest difference though is in sweets. I have always had a weakness for sweets and it was a given that I would have some every day. Now, it is only a couple times/week and when I do have them, I really enjoy them. I actually sit down with a cookie and a glass of milk or cup of tea and enjoy it. I actually think about how it tastes and how good it is. Its so much different than sitting down in front of the TV with 3-4 cookies which I eat in a few bites without hardly noticing. It helps me to appreciate and enjoy it so much more than before.
I hit what feels like a big milestone this week, even with exercising less. I’ve now lost over 16 pounds as of my last weigh in yesterday. Getting down under 230 was going to be a nice thing to see and I was concerned since I had not exercised as much if I would lose anything, much less get down to below 230. The previous week had been a tough one when I lost only 0.6 pounds, but this week I lost 5.6 pounds! Pretty amazing, but there was something else that was different this week; for the first time I came in under 2000 calories per day on average. 1609.13 to be exact and I feel pretty good that I tracked all my calories and it isn’t just an artifact of ‘lost’ calories that were consumed but not counted. So anyway, having lost 15 pounds feels pretty good and I’m looking forward to the next big number, which in my mind will be 20. At 2 pounds/week, that would take until April 4, but if I my current per week weight loss rate was sustained, I would hit it some time next week. I’ll take anything in between at this point and though I can’t quite figure out the logic of how/when my weight is coming off, I feel pretty confident that it will continue coming off fairly quickly for a while yet as long as I stay under 2K calories/day on average and exercise at least 5 time/week. I’d like to keep it at 6 just to be safe.
One thing that I though about early on is my changing relationship to food. What has come as a bit of a surprise to me is that I’m enjoying eating now more than I did before. There are multiple reasons. The most obvious and, in my mind anyway, most banal is that I’m more hungry now when I sit down to eat than I was most times before. I’d known before from the occasional missed meal or extreme physical workout how good food could be when I was really hungry, but I’m experiencing that almost every day now. To be sure, sometimes I get tired of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, but even that is much more enjoyable than it would have been before. More philosophically, I’m feeling better about WHAT I’m eating and don’t have this guilt every time I sit down to a meal. I didn’t really realize it before, but I guess I knew somewhere inside me that I was doing my body harm just about every time I sat down to a meal and it was eating away (sorry) at me more than I realized. Finally, I’m ENJOYING and appreciating the food I eat so much more now. It brings home that something that you have too much of loses its value and ceases to be something about which you care about any longer. When I was eating all the time, and knew that I would be eating a bunch more after dinner, I didn’t really give my dinner, as I was eating it, too much thought. It was just what I ‘had’ to eat in order to feel justified in eating the chips, cookies, donuts, crackers and whatever else as soon as Camryn went to bed. And that made me feel guilty as well. I was waiting for her to go to bed so I could indulge myself in all the junk that I either went out to the local grocery store to buy after putting her to bed, or what happened to be left over from the previous night when I’d gotten two or three things to choose from.
The biggest difference though is in sweets. I have always had a weakness for sweets and it was a given that I would have some every day. Now, it is only a couple times/week and when I do have them, I really enjoy them. I actually sit down with a cookie and a glass of milk or cup of tea and enjoy it. I actually think about how it tastes and how good it is. Its so much different than sitting down in front of the TV with 3-4 cookies which I eat in a few bites without hardly noticing. It helps me to appreciate and enjoy it so much more than before.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Housekeeping
I’m new to the blogging world, although I’ve created web sites more or less from scratch before. That was back a few years before anyone had ever heard of a blog and the web site software, while pretty easy was still a long way from today. I just don’t have time to keep up with the latest software and I wasn’t much of a designer anyway.
At first I wasn’t that wild about blogger.com and my spouse mentioned that she like wordpress. I decided to try it out since I couldn’t figure out how to make blogger allow me to post spreadsheets or other files on the blog. So I abandon my blog on blogger.com and kept it on wordpress for a couple weeks. While wordpress does seem to be a little more flexible, I didn’t like the interface very well and I wasn’t that wild about the themes either. So I’m back to blogger.com. I made the decision to come back when I discovered Google Apps and figured out I could publish my spreadsheets with Google Apps and then link to them via blogger.com. So, I pasted the posts that originally were on wordpress back here and have made the wordpress version inaccessible. Yes, I’m a recovering geek. My wife might say not so recovered
At first I wasn’t that wild about blogger.com and my spouse mentioned that she like wordpress. I decided to try it out since I couldn’t figure out how to make blogger allow me to post spreadsheets or other files on the blog. So I abandon my blog on blogger.com and kept it on wordpress for a couple weeks. While wordpress does seem to be a little more flexible, I didn’t like the interface very well and I wasn’t that wild about the themes either. So I’m back to blogger.com. I made the decision to come back when I discovered Google Apps and figured out I could publish my spreadsheets with Google Apps and then link to them via blogger.com. So, I pasted the posts that originally were on wordpress back here and have made the wordpress version inaccessible. Yes, I’m a recovering geek. My wife might say not so recovered
Progress (Started 2/8/09 and finished on 2/11/09)
End of Week 2, 235.6 pounds, 6.4 pounds lost
I weighed yesterday morning; looking forward to what the scale would say. I’d been diligent in tracking what I ate, avoiding late night snacking and eating healthy, or at least low cal snacks when I did snack during the day. I felt pretty confident that I would have lost at least a couple pounds. When the scale said 235.6, I was pretty disappointed. I thought that I had weighed in one day during the week and was down to 235.0, though I didn’t write it down so can’t be sure. Consequently, I thought that week over week I had actually gained a few ounces. I couldn’t believe it. I weighed again to be sure. Same result exactly. As it turns out, I’d weighed 236.4 the previous week so I lost 7/8ths of a pound. Not what I was looking for after losing over 5 pounds the first week, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable. And I’ve still lost over 3 pounds a week for the first two weeks so that’s really good. But I am concerned that it slowed down so quickly. I wonder if I need to curb my calories even more. So, I put all the daily calorie counts in a spreadsheet so I can start tracking calories on a weekly and average daily basis to make sure I’m staying on track. Week 1 was 14075 total calories for an average of 2010 calories and 15092 in week 2 for an average 2156. So an extra 150 calories per day on average. Was that the difference between losing 5 pounds and 1? I don’t know.
Exercise has been going pretty well; I’ve done 6 of 7 days each week so I feel pretty good about that part. A few days ago, I changed from two three pound dumb bells to my free weights and am now using two 9 pound bars/weights. There are some exercises with that weight that are pretty easy at 10 reps and some that become difficult toward the end, so I’m probably going to need to bring up some of the other weights and start using the long bar and additional weight for those exercises that aren’t hard to do.
So, now it is three days later and what a difference a few days can make. I think it was the next day or something crazy that I weighed myself again and I was down to 230. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve since weighed myself about every day, though I’m not writing it down and it’s been any where from 232 to 234; but the good news is that I’m still losing weight.
Since tracking my daily caloric intake on the spreadsheet, I’ve been more diligent about trying to keep my intake under 2000/day. This week is at 1904 so far so I’m feeling pretty good about that. I know I was eating less the first two weeks than when I started, but I’m really trying hard to keep it under 2000 now. I had one day at over 2400 and another over 2100 and then somehow had a day at 1295, but as I do this more, I think I’ll get better at staying closer to the goal.
I’ve been pretty hit or miss on getting up to do my exercising first thing in the morning; most days in the last week have probably been in the evening either right before or right after putting the girls to bed. It’s not ideal, but I am having a hard time getting to bed at 10 which I need to if I’m going to feel rested at 6am the next day to exercise. I also notice I’m much more motivated when I’m awake in the evenings and tend to walk at a faster speed on the treadmill. The important thing is that I do it and I have still missed just two days in the 19 days since I started. I’m looking forward to this weekend’s weigh in and think it is time for another picture. I really want to be able to see the progression when I get down to my goal weight. One more cool thing this week, I found that I had to move to my last belt loop hole. In another month or so, I’m going to need to get a new belt, I hope.
I weighed yesterday morning; looking forward to what the scale would say. I’d been diligent in tracking what I ate, avoiding late night snacking and eating healthy, or at least low cal snacks when I did snack during the day. I felt pretty confident that I would have lost at least a couple pounds. When the scale said 235.6, I was pretty disappointed. I thought that I had weighed in one day during the week and was down to 235.0, though I didn’t write it down so can’t be sure. Consequently, I thought that week over week I had actually gained a few ounces. I couldn’t believe it. I weighed again to be sure. Same result exactly. As it turns out, I’d weighed 236.4 the previous week so I lost 7/8ths of a pound. Not what I was looking for after losing over 5 pounds the first week, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable. And I’ve still lost over 3 pounds a week for the first two weeks so that’s really good. But I am concerned that it slowed down so quickly. I wonder if I need to curb my calories even more. So, I put all the daily calorie counts in a spreadsheet so I can start tracking calories on a weekly and average daily basis to make sure I’m staying on track. Week 1 was 14075 total calories for an average of 2010 calories and 15092 in week 2 for an average 2156. So an extra 150 calories per day on average. Was that the difference between losing 5 pounds and 1? I don’t know.
Exercise has been going pretty well; I’ve done 6 of 7 days each week so I feel pretty good about that part. A few days ago, I changed from two three pound dumb bells to my free weights and am now using two 9 pound bars/weights. There are some exercises with that weight that are pretty easy at 10 reps and some that become difficult toward the end, so I’m probably going to need to bring up some of the other weights and start using the long bar and additional weight for those exercises that aren’t hard to do.
So, now it is three days later and what a difference a few days can make. I think it was the next day or something crazy that I weighed myself again and I was down to 230. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve since weighed myself about every day, though I’m not writing it down and it’s been any where from 232 to 234; but the good news is that I’m still losing weight.
Since tracking my daily caloric intake on the spreadsheet, I’ve been more diligent about trying to keep my intake under 2000/day. This week is at 1904 so far so I’m feeling pretty good about that. I know I was eating less the first two weeks than when I started, but I’m really trying hard to keep it under 2000 now. I had one day at over 2400 and another over 2100 and then somehow had a day at 1295, but as I do this more, I think I’ll get better at staying closer to the goal.
I’ve been pretty hit or miss on getting up to do my exercising first thing in the morning; most days in the last week have probably been in the evening either right before or right after putting the girls to bed. It’s not ideal, but I am having a hard time getting to bed at 10 which I need to if I’m going to feel rested at 6am the next day to exercise. I also notice I’m much more motivated when I’m awake in the evenings and tend to walk at a faster speed on the treadmill. The important thing is that I do it and I have still missed just two days in the 19 days since I started. I’m looking forward to this weekend’s weigh in and think it is time for another picture. I really want to be able to see the progression when I get down to my goal weight. One more cool thing this week, I found that I had to move to my last belt loop hole. In another month or so, I’m going to need to get a new belt, I hope.
Week 1 ends with a Bang Part 2 (also 2/1/09)
After yesterday’s ‘set back’ of not exercising and eating 4 of the chocolate chip cookies I made, today has been a good one so far. I set my alarm and again ignored it for quite a while, but when I did finally get up with the rest of the family, I went straight to the treadmill after weighing in at 236.4. I’m calling that my weekly weigh in, which means that I lost a total of 5.6 pounds my first week. A really great start that lifted my spirits for the morning routine.
I also find that the morning exercising are quite a bit easier if I’m fully awake; when I roll out of bed and head straight for the treadmill, I find the first 15 minutes I don’t go as fast and am not at all motivated. And that is even with the fact that I went to bed about 3am last night and got up about 8:30 for only 5.5 hours of sleep. Which means I need to get to sleep earlier if I want to get up at 6am or I need to somehow plan to do the exercises later in the day, which is a challenge. Once I ‘get home’ from work, it’s pretty much dinner, dishes, hopefully a little time with the kids and then the bed time routine. I get done with all that about 9pm with hopefully time for a little relaxation either in front of the tube, or the computer for leisure time.
I think it is about time to increase the weight I’m working with during my post treadmill strength exercises. I’ve just been using the two 3 pound dumb bells and that isn’t providing enough resistance. Bringing up the bigger free weights is going to prove challenging given the lack of space in the room in which the treadmill resides. The only exercise that really is a challenge is the leg lifts and crunches. They are both pretty tough. I’ll just need to figure a way to keep the large bar and weights upstairs or may need to do some of the work out down in the basement.
So, all in all a successful week, hopefully the first of many.
Oh, I added a page to show the weight when-ever I decide to weigh in. I was doing it daily but found that discouraging on those days where it was a little up instead of a little down. You can find the page on the ‘Weigh In’ link at the top of the page or by following this link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pNa0br-zusCKUEXmpjFoRFA
I also find that the morning exercising are quite a bit easier if I’m fully awake; when I roll out of bed and head straight for the treadmill, I find the first 15 minutes I don’t go as fast and am not at all motivated. And that is even with the fact that I went to bed about 3am last night and got up about 8:30 for only 5.5 hours of sleep. Which means I need to get to sleep earlier if I want to get up at 6am or I need to somehow plan to do the exercises later in the day, which is a challenge. Once I ‘get home’ from work, it’s pretty much dinner, dishes, hopefully a little time with the kids and then the bed time routine. I get done with all that about 9pm with hopefully time for a little relaxation either in front of the tube, or the computer for leisure time.
I think it is about time to increase the weight I’m working with during my post treadmill strength exercises. I’ve just been using the two 3 pound dumb bells and that isn’t providing enough resistance. Bringing up the bigger free weights is going to prove challenging given the lack of space in the room in which the treadmill resides. The only exercise that really is a challenge is the leg lifts and crunches. They are both pretty tough. I’ll just need to figure a way to keep the large bar and weights upstairs or may need to do some of the work out down in the basement.
So, all in all a successful week, hopefully the first of many.
Oh, I added a page to show the weight when-ever I decide to weigh in. I was doing it daily but found that discouraging on those days where it was a little up instead of a little down. You can find the page on the ‘Weigh In’ link at the top of the page or by following this link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pNa0br-zusCKUEXmpjFoRFA
Ending Week 1 with a bang Part 1 (2/1/09)
Ending Week 1 with a bang Part 1 (2/1/09)
Saturday mornings are swimming lesson days for Cam; they start at 9:30 and are about a 20 minute drive. I set my alarm for 7am so I would have time to get my workout done before we left. I snoozed until it was too late and then only made coffee and ate a fruit/nut granaola bar before leaving. So, not such a great start to the day from a healthly living standpoint. But we didn't have too much planned today so I figured I could do the workout when we get home about 10:30.
But then we had to go to the library to return some books and toys and for the Chinese New Year celebration they were holding. The Chinese New Year events consisteted of a banquet table set out with paper lantern stencils and the DVD Kung Fu Panda running on the TV. Not an Ox in site anywhere, nor any food. I guess we should be happy they realized it was the CNY at all.
When we got home, I was just tired and hungry, so I had a sandwich and some goldfish. Still no excersie, though Iwas thinking about it and still planned to get it done. And despite not having a very good breakfast, at least I was staying reasonable on calories. I needed to after we went out for dinner the previous night at our favorite mexican food restaurant and I had my usual chicken chipotle dinner. I ordered no sour cream, and drank water; and had only two tortillas, but I managed to put away nearly the whole dish which is a rather complete loss of the portion control I had been excerising all week.
Then we headed out for some appliance shopping and had a snack of a pretzel with awful nacho cheese sip and I had a few drinks of the coke that Mindy and Cam had. By then, I knew it was going to be a blown day and went ahead and had four small pieces of pizza and then made chocoloate chip cookies. These are the same ones Mindy had made earlier in the week, from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Definitely the best chocolate chip cookies we had ever made both times. I did pretty good when she made them, having had only 4 total and never more than 1 after dinner and none late at night while we were watching TV. But tonight, it was a disaster and I had 4 of these huge cookies and 1/2 a cup of 1% milk with one of them. That's about 850 calories right there. And of course, no excersise for the day to counter any of it.
I was supposed to weigh in this morning, but I guess it will be tomorrow morning and I'll be lucky to have lost anything after the last 24 hours of eating. I'm a little nervous about losing the control I felt I had through the week and obviously about not maintaining the regimine going forward. That fear is helped by the fact that I haven't entered the last two days of food and excersise into the spreadsheet, though I do have it in hard copy ready to go. Tomrrow is a new day and I will again set my alarm (though later as it's already 2:40am) and do my weigh in and have my oatmeal breakfast before taking my girls out to the weekly daddy/daughter breakfast. It was going too well this week before Friday night so I have to not let the last 24 hours get me down and pick back up where I left off Friday afternoon. It's the individual decisions I make, it's deciding not to have that extra 200 calories in that one more cookie after I know I have already had a high calorie day with no excersise. If I am to do this, I am going to do it one decision at a time, one day, one hour and one minute at a time. It is especially important when I am feeling like I'm losing, or I have already eating 3 cookies when I know I can only have 1; it's choosing not to have the 4th one to save that 200 additional calories.
Saturday mornings are swimming lesson days for Cam; they start at 9:30 and are about a 20 minute drive. I set my alarm for 7am so I would have time to get my workout done before we left. I snoozed until it was too late and then only made coffee and ate a fruit/nut granaola bar before leaving. So, not such a great start to the day from a healthly living standpoint. But we didn't have too much planned today so I figured I could do the workout when we get home about 10:30.
But then we had to go to the library to return some books and toys and for the Chinese New Year celebration they were holding. The Chinese New Year events consisteted of a banquet table set out with paper lantern stencils and the DVD Kung Fu Panda running on the TV. Not an Ox in site anywhere, nor any food. I guess we should be happy they realized it was the CNY at all.
When we got home, I was just tired and hungry, so I had a sandwich and some goldfish. Still no excersie, though Iwas thinking about it and still planned to get it done. And despite not having a very good breakfast, at least I was staying reasonable on calories. I needed to after we went out for dinner the previous night at our favorite mexican food restaurant and I had my usual chicken chipotle dinner. I ordered no sour cream, and drank water; and had only two tortillas, but I managed to put away nearly the whole dish which is a rather complete loss of the portion control I had been excerising all week.
Then we headed out for some appliance shopping and had a snack of a pretzel with awful nacho cheese sip and I had a few drinks of the coke that Mindy and Cam had. By then, I knew it was going to be a blown day and went ahead and had four small pieces of pizza and then made chocoloate chip cookies. These are the same ones Mindy had made earlier in the week, from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Definitely the best chocolate chip cookies we had ever made both times. I did pretty good when she made them, having had only 4 total and never more than 1 after dinner and none late at night while we were watching TV. But tonight, it was a disaster and I had 4 of these huge cookies and 1/2 a cup of 1% milk with one of them. That's about 850 calories right there. And of course, no excersise for the day to counter any of it.
I was supposed to weigh in this morning, but I guess it will be tomorrow morning and I'll be lucky to have lost anything after the last 24 hours of eating. I'm a little nervous about losing the control I felt I had through the week and obviously about not maintaining the regimine going forward. That fear is helped by the fact that I haven't entered the last two days of food and excersise into the spreadsheet, though I do have it in hard copy ready to go. Tomrrow is a new day and I will again set my alarm (though later as it's already 2:40am) and do my weigh in and have my oatmeal breakfast before taking my girls out to the weekly daddy/daughter breakfast. It was going too well this week before Friday night so I have to not let the last 24 hours get me down and pick back up where I left off Friday afternoon. It's the individual decisions I make, it's deciding not to have that extra 200 calories in that one more cookie after I know I have already had a high calorie day with no excersise. If I am to do this, I am going to do it one decision at a time, one day, one hour and one minute at a time. It is especially important when I am feeling like I'm losing, or I have already eating 3 cookies when I know I can only have 1; it's choosing not to have the 4th one to save that 200 additional calories.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Goals, goals, goals
The experts say that in order to be successful at making a change, it is important to set goals. A well known mnemonic device for remembering how to make effective goals is SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. I’ve been using WebMD.com to gather some of the information I’m basing my weight loss/healthy life style plans on. Although these things are always subject to interpretation; it suggested my ideal weight is 180. When I started this process, I weighed 242 pounds. So, to get to 180 pounds, I need to lose 62 pounds. Another guideline they have is losing 2 pounds/week. So 62 pounds losing 2 pounds/week means 31 weeks. That would put my goal date at August 29th; which through the magic of fate is the week of my 43rd birthday. 2 pounds a week is probably a pretty aggressive goal and may not meet the attainable and realistic threshold to be a SMART goal, but I won’t know that until I’ve got some time with the program.
This morning’s workout was a little bit tough. I’m doing 30 minutes on the treadmill and then some strength exercises. I am starting the workout slowly so I don’t get too sore which might lead to stopping. I upped the speed on the treadmill today just a bit and for the last few minutes was pumping my arms. Still not too much of a struggle but got my heart going a bit more. But the strength part was a different story. The last couple of squats I was feeling the burn ] and the leg lifts and crunches both were tough. I’m only doing 1 set of 10 reps of everything, but doing them very slowly and deliberately to get the most out of each rep. I was a little sore when I was done and then felt drained afterward. I complained to Mindy that I thought exercise was supposed to make me feel like I have more energy, not less, but I know that will happen with time. For the arm and shoulder exercises, I’m using 3 pound dumbbells which sounds lame, but again, I’m not letting ego get in the way of doing what I think is best for my long term maintenance of the program.
This morning’s workout was a little bit tough. I’m doing 30 minutes on the treadmill and then some strength exercises. I am starting the workout slowly so I don’t get too sore which might lead to stopping. I upped the speed on the treadmill today just a bit and for the last few minutes was pumping my arms. Still not too much of a struggle but got my heart going a bit more. But the strength part was a different story. The last couple of squats I was feeling the burn ] and the leg lifts and crunches both were tough. I’m only doing 1 set of 10 reps of everything, but doing them very slowly and deliberately to get the most out of each rep. I was a little sore when I was done and then felt drained afterward. I complained to Mindy that I thought exercise was supposed to make me feel like I have more energy, not less, but I know that will happen with time. For the arm and shoulder exercises, I’m using 3 pound dumbbells which sounds lame, but again, I’m not letting ego get in the way of doing what I think is best for my long term maintenance of the program.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
What’s in a name?
It just came to me, I hadn’t really given it much thought and when I decided to keep a blog of my experience, it just popped in to my mind and I liked it. I have wanted to try and lose weight for YEARS and I was never able to do it. I started exercising a few times and after I got ‘the diagnoses’, I made an effort to change my diet. We stopped buying Coke and we’d pretty much already given up McDonalds already except for the occasional lapse (the move Fast Food Nation was a turning point for me). But none of it ever lasted and the end result was that I have gained weight, not lost it.
Anyway, as I thought about all that time I spent knowing that I SHOULD lose weight but didn’t; and as my concerns about dying early as a result of this decision started to really bug me, it seemed obvious that in a sense I WAS dying to be fat. My choice was to continue to be unhealthy and that it was very likely a decision that would lead to my early death.
Anyway, as I thought about all that time I spent knowing that I SHOULD lose weight but didn’t; and as my concerns about dying early as a result of this decision started to really bug me, it seemed obvious that in a sense I WAS dying to be fat. My choice was to continue to be unhealthy and that it was very likely a decision that would lead to my early death.
Yea, I’m not too complicated.
In the beginning
I’ve decided, again, to lose weight and to generally live a more healthy life style. I’ve also decided to blog about it for a couple reasons. The weight loss experts say that if you tell someone about your goal to lose weight, you increase the odds that you will be successful. I also enjoy writing and have been looking for an excuse to start a blog and these seem as good of reasons as any. In a way, blogging about this is a little counter intuitive for me. I am pretty big on privacy, as well as in body size and talking about this is likely to be pretty personal at times. So, I’ve not decided if I’ll identify myself and if the pictures I will post showing my (hopefully) progress will include my face or not. I’m also relatively safe since few people are likely to read it. And now, the obligatory background…
I’m 42 years old and have been fat the vast majority of my life. It started about 4th grade which I can tell from my school pictures. I was ‘chunky’ from that point until my junior year in high school where I started a brief respite from being fat. My first unpleasant memories of being fat are a little hard to identify in terms of time, though it was probably almost immediately. But the place, I remember well. I grew up in a small town in central Illinois. My mom used to take my brother and I shopping at a clothing store called Applebaum’s in Decatur, IL. This was the late 70’s and Applebaum’s was one of the old school clothing/department stores in downtown Decatur that wouldn’t survive the advent of malls and the departure of many of the factory jobs in Decatur. The store was 2-3 floors of (as I remember) clothes and shoes. I remember the first time that we had to go into the basement to shop in the ‘husky’ department, as they called it then; and how I felt embarrassed and that I didn’t like any of the clothes. Mind you, there wasn’t much to like about clothes in the 70’s, even (and maybe especially) for the most fashionable of dressers. But it was about being labeled ‘husky’, not the clothes itself, but that was the first time I can remember feeling shame. To this day, I hate shopping for clothes; it literally drains me of energy in about 10 minutes and I wonder if there is a connection between this experience in Applebaum’s husky department and my current dislike for the clothes buying process.
So, from the time I was about 9 years old on, I got to endure the comments and tauntings of my fellow youth that almost everyone does at one time or another. Surprisingly, I don’t remember that much specifically about it except one of my brother’s favorite clever turns of phrase, ‘fat pat the water rat’. I heard that one a lot. I should also say that I wasn’t morbidly obese or anything, just overweight; something a mom would probably call baby fat as long as she could, until it was pretty plain that it wasn’t going away once I was taken off of whole milk. Not that my mom ever said anything about me being overweight. My dad and brother, yes, but not my mom. My brother would taunt and my dad would just say matter-of-factly, ‘son, you need to lose weight’; but mom would never have said anything that would bruise a little ego. Even within the last year when they were visiting their grandchild and I walked out of the bathroom without a shirt, dad said something sensitive like the above advice and my mom chastised him for the comment.
The first time I tried to lose weight was in my junior year when a knee injury playing football put me in the hospital. I was about 5’ 10” tall and weighed about 190 pounds. I was round faced and very soft in the middle. As I lay in that hospital bed, I came to a decision. I was going to be very inactive for a while and that meant that I probably was going to get even fatter. The idea was more than I could take and I decided right then that I would go on a diet so as to not gain any more weight. The diet plan was very simple. I would skip breakfast and lunch and only eat dinner. And if the goal was to lose weight, it worked. Over the course of the next few months, the pounds dropped off. Especially after I got off the crutches, I suppose and what’s more, I grew about 2 inches during this time. And then another not so strange thing happened; I started feeling really good about myself, discovered a new bunch of friends and started having fun again. I even got the nerve, sort of, to ask a couple girls out and they “went with” me. It was an amazing turn around and it was, I knew, all because I’d lost weight. And then I got maybe a little over attached to the idea of losing weight. When I got down to 145 pounds (and now 6 feet tall) and was still thinking 5 fewer pounds would be just about right, friends started to express concern that I was getting to thin. That was a pretty cool feeling. I eventually stabilized around 155 pounds. And so it went until college. I added on the freshman 15 plus 5 and from there it has been a slow but steady incline until now. Most recently, my family and I moved back to the Midwest from the west coast and since that time four years ago, I’ve added another 20 pounds; the fastest gain in a long time. The highest weight I know of that I have reached is 263 pounds.
Which brings us to today. No late growth spurts, so I’m still about 6 feet tall, but now 242 pounds. It’s hard to believe I’ve gained nearly 100 pounds since my low weight in adulthood. I saw some pictures of myself from early in my freshman year in college recently and I couldn’t believe how skinny I was; I’d forgotten what I looked like. What’s more, I was diagnosed with diabetes about a year ago and I had a high cholesterol reading six months ago. The diabetes is pretty ‘light’. My daily blood sugars are actually good and the A1C (3 month blood sugar average) is just over the line to be considered diabetic. No medication, but doctor has advised I lose weight. The big concern is that it will just continue to get worse as I get older if something doesn’t change now. Worse, over the last year or two I have really started to feel my age and the additional weight. I get winded going up stairs, I can’t run around with my 6 year old daughter and I just don’t feel that good. And lately, I’ve started to worry. Worry that something really bad is going to happen. Like a heart attack or some serious diabetes symptoms. Or worse. So I have been thinking a lot more lately about finally trying to lose weight again. I’ve only really done it once, but I’ve been thinking that it is now or never. I’d planned to start as a new year’s resolution, but it didn’t happen. Finally a couple days ago, I talked to my wife about how worried I’ve been, and that seemed to be enough to start. The next day (a Saturday), I got up with the alarm clock and did time on the treadmill and some light strength training. Just a few exercises to go along with the cardio. I also am tracking what I eat and along with that, be more conscious of what I’m eating. Cutting out the snacks between and after meals (biggest challenge will be at night after the kids are in bed) and as important, working on portion control. I’m also going to weigh in frequently, though I’m not sure daily is the right amount. So I’m two days in and so far so good. First day was about 1500 calories and today, even with daddy/daughter breakfast at my favorite breakfast joint (two eggs, hash browns, 2 sausage patties and two pieces of toast-1200 calories) and pizza for dinner, only 2100 calories. I never tracked it before I started trying to control it, but I’m guessing that I was doing 2500 calories or more before. So there is the boring back ground. I’m going to have a separate document tracking my weight and any other interesting statistics and post pictures once I figure out the face thing. Though I’m doing this for myself, I hope that by talking about the challenges and rewards of this process, I can help someone else who is in a similar position.
I’m 42 years old and have been fat the vast majority of my life. It started about 4th grade which I can tell from my school pictures. I was ‘chunky’ from that point until my junior year in high school where I started a brief respite from being fat. My first unpleasant memories of being fat are a little hard to identify in terms of time, though it was probably almost immediately. But the place, I remember well. I grew up in a small town in central Illinois. My mom used to take my brother and I shopping at a clothing store called Applebaum’s in Decatur, IL. This was the late 70’s and Applebaum’s was one of the old school clothing/department stores in downtown Decatur that wouldn’t survive the advent of malls and the departure of many of the factory jobs in Decatur. The store was 2-3 floors of (as I remember) clothes and shoes. I remember the first time that we had to go into the basement to shop in the ‘husky’ department, as they called it then; and how I felt embarrassed and that I didn’t like any of the clothes. Mind you, there wasn’t much to like about clothes in the 70’s, even (and maybe especially) for the most fashionable of dressers. But it was about being labeled ‘husky’, not the clothes itself, but that was the first time I can remember feeling shame. To this day, I hate shopping for clothes; it literally drains me of energy in about 10 minutes and I wonder if there is a connection between this experience in Applebaum’s husky department and my current dislike for the clothes buying process.
So, from the time I was about 9 years old on, I got to endure the comments and tauntings of my fellow youth that almost everyone does at one time or another. Surprisingly, I don’t remember that much specifically about it except one of my brother’s favorite clever turns of phrase, ‘fat pat the water rat’. I heard that one a lot. I should also say that I wasn’t morbidly obese or anything, just overweight; something a mom would probably call baby fat as long as she could, until it was pretty plain that it wasn’t going away once I was taken off of whole milk. Not that my mom ever said anything about me being overweight. My dad and brother, yes, but not my mom. My brother would taunt and my dad would just say matter-of-factly, ‘son, you need to lose weight’; but mom would never have said anything that would bruise a little ego. Even within the last year when they were visiting their grandchild and I walked out of the bathroom without a shirt, dad said something sensitive like the above advice and my mom chastised him for the comment.
The first time I tried to lose weight was in my junior year when a knee injury playing football put me in the hospital. I was about 5’ 10” tall and weighed about 190 pounds. I was round faced and very soft in the middle. As I lay in that hospital bed, I came to a decision. I was going to be very inactive for a while and that meant that I probably was going to get even fatter. The idea was more than I could take and I decided right then that I would go on a diet so as to not gain any more weight. The diet plan was very simple. I would skip breakfast and lunch and only eat dinner. And if the goal was to lose weight, it worked. Over the course of the next few months, the pounds dropped off. Especially after I got off the crutches, I suppose and what’s more, I grew about 2 inches during this time. And then another not so strange thing happened; I started feeling really good about myself, discovered a new bunch of friends and started having fun again. I even got the nerve, sort of, to ask a couple girls out and they “went with” me. It was an amazing turn around and it was, I knew, all because I’d lost weight. And then I got maybe a little over attached to the idea of losing weight. When I got down to 145 pounds (and now 6 feet tall) and was still thinking 5 fewer pounds would be just about right, friends started to express concern that I was getting to thin. That was a pretty cool feeling. I eventually stabilized around 155 pounds. And so it went until college. I added on the freshman 15 plus 5 and from there it has been a slow but steady incline until now. Most recently, my family and I moved back to the Midwest from the west coast and since that time four years ago, I’ve added another 20 pounds; the fastest gain in a long time. The highest weight I know of that I have reached is 263 pounds.
Which brings us to today. No late growth spurts, so I’m still about 6 feet tall, but now 242 pounds. It’s hard to believe I’ve gained nearly 100 pounds since my low weight in adulthood. I saw some pictures of myself from early in my freshman year in college recently and I couldn’t believe how skinny I was; I’d forgotten what I looked like. What’s more, I was diagnosed with diabetes about a year ago and I had a high cholesterol reading six months ago. The diabetes is pretty ‘light’. My daily blood sugars are actually good and the A1C (3 month blood sugar average) is just over the line to be considered diabetic. No medication, but doctor has advised I lose weight. The big concern is that it will just continue to get worse as I get older if something doesn’t change now. Worse, over the last year or two I have really started to feel my age and the additional weight. I get winded going up stairs, I can’t run around with my 6 year old daughter and I just don’t feel that good. And lately, I’ve started to worry. Worry that something really bad is going to happen. Like a heart attack or some serious diabetes symptoms. Or worse. So I have been thinking a lot more lately about finally trying to lose weight again. I’ve only really done it once, but I’ve been thinking that it is now or never. I’d planned to start as a new year’s resolution, but it didn’t happen. Finally a couple days ago, I talked to my wife about how worried I’ve been, and that seemed to be enough to start. The next day (a Saturday), I got up with the alarm clock and did time on the treadmill and some light strength training. Just a few exercises to go along with the cardio. I also am tracking what I eat and along with that, be more conscious of what I’m eating. Cutting out the snacks between and after meals (biggest challenge will be at night after the kids are in bed) and as important, working on portion control. I’m also going to weigh in frequently, though I’m not sure daily is the right amount. So I’m two days in and so far so good. First day was about 1500 calories and today, even with daddy/daughter breakfast at my favorite breakfast joint (two eggs, hash browns, 2 sausage patties and two pieces of toast-1200 calories) and pizza for dinner, only 2100 calories. I never tracked it before I started trying to control it, but I’m guessing that I was doing 2500 calories or more before. So there is the boring back ground. I’m going to have a separate document tracking my weight and any other interesting statistics and post pictures once I figure out the face thing. Though I’m doing this for myself, I hope that by talking about the challenges and rewards of this process, I can help someone else who is in a similar position.
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