Screw It

I took this pic the day I started this blog. I was going to wait and not post it until I had something to show for it. I've decided to put it up now so I can remind myself why I'm doing this every time I view my own blog. Part of moving on is first acknowledging what you are and what you need to fix.

Weight Averages and other questions

I notice a lot of you guys are talking about your average weights. How do you get that? I weight myself every morning before I eat anything. In the past week my weight has pretty much gone like this:

296.5
296
295.5
295.5
294
293
292.5

What do I need to do to get my average weight? Should I even worry about it since this was my first week of being "healthy"?

Also, what do you guys do for food when you havent planned well? Like today, I didnt get a chance to eat lunch because I had an 11am dentist appointment and Im not allowed to eat anything until 2pm which is now. I have some mandarin oranges in a can.

All I've eaten today is a yogurt and I dont know if a jar of mandarin oranges is going to give me enough energy to do my lifting routine this afternoon.

Also,Honestly, I thought I would have lost more than 4 pounds in the first week. I mean, I know thats on par with whats healthy to lose, but I've been eating so well. I've done about a total of 5 hours on the bike at work, I've ridden 12 miles on a real bike. I've lifted weights to muscle failure 4 times. I think i deserve 6 pounds. Ha.

Temptation/Peer Pressure

I'm sure everyone has had situations like this when you first started dieting or changing your eating habits...

I had a tux fitting this weekend for a wedding I'll be in at the end of September. That was of course fun because I essentially have to announce my weight and pants size to the people at the rental place, as well as everyone else in the wedding party. Not cool.

Anyhow, after the tux fitting, the entire group went out for lunch at a bar. We all sit down and due to the seating arrangement I'm the last person to order. Which the exception of the grooms father, everyone orders beers or mixed drinks. I order unsweetened Iced Tea.

"What? You're not drinking?"

"No, don't feel like it, plus I'm on a diet or sorts."

"Are you sure? I'm sure one beer won't hurt."

"No, I'm good, thanks"

"Are you sure?"

So everyone orders their drinks, and someone orders a plate of hot wings and nachos for the table.

A few minutes later these items arrive, and being that I'm sitting in the middle of the table, are placed directly in front of me. Not cool.

Now, it’s time to order our food. Burger...Pasta...Cheese Steak...Burger...Bowl of Whale Fat....Pig Grease...Jar of Mayo....then it's my turn.

I order the healthy "wrap" and replace the side of fries that comes with it with salad instead.

More strange looks from everyone.

When the meals come out my wrap is all alone on a plate because my salad came out earlier. Admittedly, it did look kind of lonely and lame.

"Brian, have some of my fries."

"No, thanks"

"No really, go ahead, I don’t mind"

"No thanks I'm good"

"Are you sure?"

*sigh. I'm getting annoyed now. People don't seem to understand how hard it is to begin with, let alone that fact they need to keep asking me if I'm sure. I told them I'm dieting; I told them I'm trying to eat better. Why would I not be sure? Why would I be second guessing if I want a Guinness or a French fry? Why would they further try to persuade me to eat more things which are obviously counter intuitive to what I just told them I'm trying to do?

So I just smile, and continue to say "No, thanks" until they get the point. Eventually they do, but the process is comparable to training someone with no legs how to cross country ski.

As it turns out my healthy weekend plan went pretty well, although I didn’t get to do any type of cardio that I had planned on. I tried to make up for it by pushing myself a little harder and longer this morning on the bike. I also did allow myself to have 2 small glasses of wine on Saturday night when my friends came over for dinner. Overall though I’m happy with things. I know I can't build a pyramid in a day so I'm just trying to take it one day at a time. I guess that is all I really have to say right now.

Moving Along

I know its early still, but I feel like things are going well. Here's what I accomplished this week:

Monday: Not much :) This is the day i started reading Bill's blog and getting inspired. I'd already been going to the gym 2-3 days a week and semi watching what I ate, but not really that closely. This is the day I made a plan..

Tuesday: *cardio 20 minutes in AM (recumbent bike and a brisk pace).
*Ate healthy all day. Small meals throughout the day, limited fat and carb intake.
*Lifted for 45 minutes in the evening.

Wednesday: *cardio 25 minutes in AM (recumbent bike and a brisk pace).
*healthy eating, same as day before.

Thursday: *Healthy eating
*Rode bicycle 14 miles with friend after work. Good pace. Afterwards he had a Guinness, I had a water :)

Friday is today and I had my first Protien/Whey shake thing this morning. I'm going to go lift again this evening. I find that I'm not as sore as I used to be when I lifted, so I'm going to up the weights a bit and really try to push myself.

I've also purchased a protein shake mix with Whey. I really don't know what that is but I hear it's good so I'm going to try it. My girlfriend and I went to Trader Joe's and I got a bunch of things to suppliment my diet and my craving, but that have little to no fat or carbs.

I've weighed myself every morning when I first wake up. I started out at 296.5 on Tuesday and today I was 293.00 I was told that's normal for my first week. I actually have a feeling I'm going to lose the weight fast initially as that has been how it has worked in the past.

Next weekend for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I'm going on a loaded bicycle tour with my father and a friend. We'll be biking about 60-100 miles a day for all three days (and then camping at night). When I used to do this I'd think that I could eat whatever I want since I was burning so many calories. In fact in 2003 we rode our bikes from Chicago to Philly over 10 days and no mater what I ate I was losing weight. However, this time I'm going to continue with my regular diet. If I find I don't have enough energy for the trip I'll suppliment with power bars or an apple or something. Not really sure, it will be an experiment. In any event, I'm expecting there to be some weight loss that weekend.

I guess that's it for now. Any suggestions of anything I should be doing differently?
Today I'm picking up these two books on a recommendation by Bill:

Metabolism advantage by John Berardi

eating well for optimal health by Andrew weil

Hopefully I'll get some good info there.

Later!

The Plan

Here's the problem: I don't know much about exercise or nutrition. I mean, I'm a fairly intelligent person and I know a few things, but not a lot. What I really want is for someone to just stand next to me all day and tell me when to work out, what to eat, what not to eat. Since that is not going to happen unfortunately I need some plan.

About two weeks ago I joined the gym. Maybe three weeks ago. Another of my goals is to gain some upper body strength. I've never been able to do a pullup, so doing so is one of my goals. I know that drastic changes in routine and diet tend to not last with me, so I'm trying to slowly change all of my bad habits.

I'm going to the gym three days a week. While there I do about 20 minutes of cardio, and about 30 minutes of lifting. Upper body stuff mostly.

I've also been trying to watch what I eat, and limit the really nasty things that are high in sugar and saturdated fats.

All of this is great, but I still feel like I have no clear goals, and I don't really know what I'm doing. There is so much information out there about nutrition and exercise that its overwhelming. When I start to think about it and do research, I realize I'm spending all of my time doing just that, when instead I should be working out and eating correctly.

So for now, forget all that. Here is my plan.

Exercise: I'm going to continue to lift weights 2-3 days a week. At the minimum, every Tuesday and Thursday after work. I'm going to do some form of cardio activity 20-30 minutes every morning, Monday through Friday. In addition to these two things I make it a point to do one thing every weekend that I enjoy that involves physical activity. This past weekend it was white water rafting. One weekend it was going on a hike. One time it was riding my bicycle 30 miles. Whatever.

Intake: I pack my lunch for work every day but Friday. On Fridays I go out with some friends from work, but order the healthiest thing on the menu. I pack a lot of small healthy things in my lunch so basically i'm eating small meals thoughout the day. I have things like low fat yogurt, soy milk with no fat, tune fish, bananas, apples, and sometimes these 100 calorie snacks from weight watchers. I sometimes eat "lean cuisines" and things like that when I forget or don't have time to pack my lunch.

This Blog: This is my newest plan to aid in my weight loss development. This blog will get updated weekly with my weight. Today for the first time I weighed myself (296.5lbs) and took pics of what I look like (gulp). I won't be posting the pics until I can show some inprovement. I will post in this blog with updates at the very least, weekly. I work as a web developer and spend a lot of time on a computer, so bringing this entire thing into that world will hopefully make it easier to keep up with my progress, and stay on track. The blog is here because I realize that in order to be successful my biggest hurdle to overcome is mental. I hope seeing my own progress and maybe sharing it with others will help me in that regard.

Overall: I'm sure my plan will change over time, and that is fine as long as I am working on getting to my goals. Right now, I'm not even sure what goal i want to achieve from a numbers point of view, just that I want to look better. So I've picked 215 pounds out of the air as a weight that seems like it would be good for me. But right now, I'm just concentrating on eating the right things, and working out while still having a good time at this. I really feel that it is time for less talk, and more action, so I don't really have much more to say.
Talk to you soon.

My Worst Critic..

..is me. That said, I'm not happy with what I look like without my shirt on. In fact I've been a bit embarrassed to go around in public without it on for years now. I don't want to be "that fat guy" everyone is staring at. Or Mr. ManBoobs, or Dr.McFattyFat, or whatever else you can come up with. I'm tired of it and its time to take control.

I'm a pretty active person normally. I like to bike, hike, and kayak among other things. I also don't pay much attention to what I eat and well, I like to indulge. I'm now 30, and every winter for the past, oh, 10 years, I've put on weight when I'm not outside doing the above said activities. I've had plans to change things, but eventually everything always fizzles at some point and I end up finding myself looking in the mirror in February and wondering what happened.

This blog is now here to remind me that I need to do something about it, stick to the plan, watch what I eat, exercise, etc etc. It's also here to hopefully serve as a record of where I stand now, and what I want to achieve. Or should I say, what I WILL achieve.