The good the bad and the ugly

Hello,
The good news is that I ran 6 miles on Sunday morning. That's the first time I've run that far in probably 10 months. I was slow at about a 10 minute mile average, but the stamina was there. I'm happy about that. It double the amount of anything I've run recently.

The bad news is that this morning I weigh 246. Now I do have some soreness from the run and I suspect that 4 lb jump is most likely water retention. It certainly wouldnt be the first time I've had a 4 pound jump from water retention. In fact many runners will tell you that they often find they've GAINED weight while training for a marathon for example.

With that said even taking into account those 4 pounds I'm less than impressed with my progress thus far. I'm trying not to get discouraged though. I do realize I still need a solid plan in place that I don't have. I'm just struggling to come up with a plan that is so adaptable based on my hectic schedule. My schedule is no excuse for my diet though and it's still not what it should be so I should be looking there.

So I'm thinking about trying an actual diet of some sort. I don't know what yet, so I'm open to suggestions. In the end I can probably eat about 2200-2400 calories a day and lose about a pound a week. I'm just struggling with doing that.

Until next time.

Plugging away, maybe running in place

I'm still around. Progress is slow and this week was difficult from a workout perspective. I only ran once so far, but I hope to again tomorrow. Eating has been maybe a 6 out of 10 on the perfect scale. As a result I'm sticking around the 242 ish mark. Kinda spinning my wheels I guess, but at the very least I know where I am and I'm not gaining.

Plans for the future are to really start running more and training for a 5k and maybe a half marathon. Like I've said in the past I really operate more efficiently when I have clear goals and a path ahead of me. I need that right now.

Ok

Kindof hanging around the same weight arent I? Maybe this is the normal rate of weight loss for someone? I don't know. I'm watching the calorie and fat intake. I'm running or hitting the gym 3 times a week. I have had a bit of a cold which has kinda kept me pretty inactive aside from the workouts but I'm doing what I can.

One day I had a 239 weigh in, then a perfect eating day, then the next day it was 244. What the hell was that about? I dont know but I'm not letting it change anything.

So I'll just say I'm still working at it, I just don't seem to have much in the way of numbers to show for it yet. It's been 2 and a half weeks though and I am down 5 pounds give or take, so I'll take that for now. I really need to be firmly in the 230's though by October 5th or so. Maybe that's a goal.

On an unrelated note, I'm attempting to get this blog current. I really don't want to dwell on what I've done in the past. That said I will leave some of my accomplishments up because they do motivate me to move forward, get back to that spot, or even improve it.

I've also cleaned up the blogs I follow. I deleted any blogs that haven't been updated in the past 3 months, though most had not been touched in over a year. I need new teammates who are into this thing with me so we can help motivate each other, so if there is anyone who is reading who is keeping a fat loss blog, please send me a note so I can add you!

The Wheel in the sky keeps on turning...

The slight upwards movement in the weight isnt attributed to anything bad. I think that 239 was just a freak low weigh in when I barely ate any dinner the night before.

I'm still moving forward. Running when I can, riding when I can, always trying to pay attention to what I'm eating and how much. I've got a cold/sore throat thing going on. I've noticed that this is happening to me more since I've had kids, but I'm not letting it stop my good habits. This morning during my run I had to stop a few times to blow my nose, heh.

Moving Along

I've been lucky to be able to get 4 or 5 "workouts" in in the past 6 days.

I rode my bike to work one day (28 miles round trip), I took my son on a 15 mile bike ride, I did the elliptical at the Y, and I'm about to attempt another run.

I'm still working on a schedule per say, but at least I'm able to get some workouts in. It's starting to look like we're at a point with the kids where I can at least have a half hour in the mornings to do something, a run, or possibly ride the bike to work a few days a week.

The eating has been on too, in fact I'm sure I'm under eating from a calorie standpoint. Honestly I dont care , I feel fine, I have energy, and the weight is dropping. SOme of that weight has to be water (look at the chart on the right), but again, it's progress in the right direction so I don't care what it is. I'm happy to be back in the 230's. My goal right now is 220.

Well, I've got to run (literally) and then get to work.

Get me a paddle

Hopefully I can be out of the 240's relatively soon. Since I've started to really dial in my food intake I've dropped 4 pounds. I expect that's a lot of water weight, but I'll take it. I really do need to see numbers to feel like I'm doing something and to keep me motivated. That's why it really is a worst case scenario if I allow myself to stop doing weigh-in's. I guarantee that's a huge part of what got me here again.


In other new's I'm going to see if i can manage to ride my bike to work a few days this week. Logistically it's a pain but when I can manage it I basically get 2 hours of cardio a day which is great. As a fall back measure if I can't ride I'll get in some gym visits either in the AM or in the afternoons.

That reminds me, I need to get some new headphones for working out. Working out with no music is like canoeing without a paddle. You can do it but it sure aint no fun!

Progress

I've made some progress. Not the kind you're thinking of probably. Over the past few weeks I've started to semi pay attention to what the hell I'm doing from an eating perspective. I have been to the gym once and ran once but it's very hard for me right now to find time to exercise or even build it into my schedule just because of the world. I really do hate to make excuses but I'm working my full time job, working my side job trying to grow that business, and helping raise our 1 year and 1 month old children with my wife. Just finding sleep is hard enough to be quite honest. Did I mention we're also painting our house, repairing a leaky roof, moving bedrooms around and doing general remodeling?

That said there is no excuse for what you put in your mouth no matter how busy you are so I've been making a kinda of half ass lame attempt to monitor what I eat for the past few weeks as I've mentioned here. It may be working or it may not , because up until this morning I ha vent had the balls to weigh myself. With the numbers being the major motivator for me it was really hard to be a strict as I should have been when I didnt even know what it was doing.

This morning I weighed myself. I had to do it. If nothing else I need those numbers to see if I'm making any progress.

Out with it: This morning I weigh 247 pounds. I have mixed feelings. I'm pissed off at myself for letting it get there (I should be maintaining 215-225), I'm relieved I finally know the answer and can start seeing results , I'm embarrassed I'm 45 pounds higher than my lowest ever weight, I'm happy I still kept off 50 or so of the 100 I lost.

Mostly though I think I'm really to just not cry about it and move on with getting it fixed. So that's progress as far as I'm concerned.

Hi, my name is Brian, and I've got 30 pounds to lose.

Day 3 - Hi

Hello
just wanted to get one record that day 3 went well. Not working out unfortunately but the eating was pretty good. I'm still not ready to weigh myself but I'm getting excited about when I am. I really want to be able to track progress with numbers. Soon I'll take the plunge...

Anyway, Hope all if going well and perhaps I'll have a bit more to write tomorrow. Good Night!

Day 2 - Breaking My Silence and Hopefully Thiers

Yup, still here. Two whole days and going strong :)
I did well today on the food front. Made sure to eat breakfast where I had a small bowl of cream of wheat and a coffee. For lunch i had a giant salad. I forget all that was in it but it did NOT have cheese, dressing with any fat in it, or anything that was glaringly bad.

I didn't do any snacking except for about 6 skittles that someone had sitting on the desk behind mine. Not a good thing to be eating but I at least was aware of what I was doing and really did stop at 6, just a small handful. Basically the theme here is that I'm the one in control.

By the time I got home a bit ago I was starving and had a probably 160ish calorie no fat bowl of cereal with skim milk. Again, I didn't say I was eating healthy, just that I'm in control and not taking in a crap load of calories.

This is important because all around me both at work and at home are bad temptations. I have to make my son mac and cheese for dinner and not eat any. Candy type snacks all over the place at work, and so on. I plan to take a trip to Trader Joe's and get some better snacks to have on hand at my desk at work, which i expect to be a big help. The temptations are always going to be around so I have to get back to managing them better. Having better alternatives at hand was a huge help last time I did this and eventually it became second nature.

Aside from all of that if I'm lucky I'll go for a short run tonight after the kids are in bed and my wife gets home.

As I mentioned before there is no way I'll be able work out twice a day 6 days a week like I was basically doing when I lost 100 pounds in six months in 2007. This is a different animal this time, but I know I can make it work.

the huge elephant hanging over my head right now is the part where I weigh myself. I'm a numbers guy, and it's a huge motivator for me to be able to measure my success in numbers, even if I'm just seeing a pound or two a week. The catch 22 is that I'm not ready for the mental setback and pissed off scene I'm going to have when I see whatever that number is. I'm hoping by this time next week I'll be mentally ready to get on the scale. But who knows, maybe I'll do it sooner.

I will give you some other numbers in the name of coming clean.

July 2007 waist size in jeans - 44
July 2009 waist size in jeans - 34
July 2010 waist size in jeans - 36/38 (ouch, it hurts to write that)

July 2007 weight - 300 I think (I'll have to check the first page of this blog when I'm done writing this :) )

July 2008 weight - 204 (only really maintainable for me if I'm super active and eating perfectly. I'm 6'3 and not a small guy)

July 2009 weight - 215-220 - this is what I think is my sweet spot. Still fit into 34 pants. Looked OK without a shirt on, could still eat some cheese or some beers now and again. This is where I'd like to get back to.

July 2010 weight - ??? - I'm going to guess at best case high 240's, at worst high 250's. If I went and weighed myself now and it was over 260 I think I'd cry.

So there are some numbers to work with until I get hard current numbers. Not ideal, but it did feel good coming clean.It's never too late right?

One of the hardest parts for me is that I really not only felt good about myself before, but I felt like an inspiration to others because of all that weight I lost. Now I feel like I'm borderline looking like another douche bag who is on the way to gaining it all back. It used to be that people who I had not seen in forever commented how I was a changed man. Now no one says anything.

Silence is bad in this case.

Working on changing that and starting with me. Booyah!

I'm Back

I don't know if anyone reads this stuff anymore, but I'm back for another round of catch up. In the past 13 months or so I've had a lot of life changes. A new son last summer, and new daughter this summer, a new job, and basically a new life. Unfortunately not all of my good habits that I learned over the course of this blog have stayed with me. I have not weighed myself in who knows how long. Slowly my eating habits have gotten worse, I simple don't have the time to dedicate to all of the physical activities I did before.

My new job that I've been at for the past 5 months doesnt allow me to bicycle commute like I could at my last job. Much of my time is taken up by work and family.

The excuses are all over the place.

The worst part is that I spend a lot of time being pissed at myself for falling off the wagon instead of doing things about it.

So I'd really like to put that to a stop. It's going to have to happen slowly, unlike last time.

I'm going to start:

- paying attention to how many calories I consume daily. I'm not going to count, but I'm going to have an idea of what I'm eating and try to keep the number low. I did this for a long time during maintnence and it worked.

- working out in some form 3 times a week. It may be a run, it may be a bike ride, it might be a trip to the YMCA. What's been hard for me is that I don't have any set schedule. I really can't go to the gym the same time every day like I did before. I need to be more adaptable and go when I can in between working and being with my family.

- setting some goals. I might sign up for another half marathon in the winter, but in the short term I'm going to sign up for some 5k's or something. 18 months ago I was running half marathon distances in under two hours. Lat night I went got a 3 mile run, which turned into a 2 mile run because I thought I was going to die. I need to start from ground zero and build myself back up again.

- I'd like to blog when I can because that was a good help, but honestly a lot of that will depend on if anyone reads it. I really did get a lot more from blogging when I was doing it with other people. Hopefully that can start up again.

That's all I've got now. I've run out of time to be on the PC :) That's how life is these days.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some positive updates that show I'm back on track!

-Brian

p.s. I think I have 30 pounds to get back to where I want to be, but I won't know for sure until I weight myself. I'm just not ready to do that yet though...

Fat In the Water

I mean dead in the water.

Work is KILLING ME. It's zapped my completely both emotionally and physically. The time of year isnt helping.

Between a sickness and then crazy work stress and hours I've stopped running. I'm not eating well either. Weight is probably around 240-ish. Ick, not good. My good maintenence weight is around 215-220.

I'm working on getting into a new position with a different company that will help take away much of the stress. Hopefully I'll know something in the next few days.

If anything out of all these negatives at least I'm aware of what's going on and I am really trying to do what I can to keep things in control, but it's really really hard right now.

Just wanted to come clean. Overall I'm really not happy with how things have gone the past 6 months and I do feel like I need another lifestyle change to get things back in check. No, I'm not looking at losing 100 + pounds like the first time, but this stage is no less hard and maybe harder then when I first decided to get healthy almost 3 years ago.

Trying to hang in there. Stick with me.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! Right?

AS has been said thousands of times by probably thousands of people, maintenance is a bitch! I mean, if you break it down it isnt. Is it technically hard to weight yourself regularly? No. Is it hard to limit your intake somewhat? No. Is it hard to get a normal amount of exercise when you can? Not really.

But put it all together? Is it hard to keep that mindset day in and day out for the rest of your life? Yeah, for me it is. Here's my deal: I focus on things and they consume me. Weight loss and fitness was one of them.
When I stop making them my #1 priority they fall off somewhat. They don't completely disappear but they definitely fall off some. When a healthy fit lifestyle falls off a little we pay the price, and before you know it if you're not careful you find yourself in an unhappy situation again.

Duh.

So of course that said, it's clear I havent been keeping the healthy lifestyle as much as I'd of liked to. Let's break it down.

Here's the bad:

- I haven't weighed myself in a while. Like probably some months. I'm kinda afraid too which is a bad thing. I just don't want to be depressed and pissed off by the number.

- Eating hasn't been good for a while. Holidays, not into counting calories or paying much attention to intake. Not mentally in it. Call it what you want but eating hasnt been great.

I guess that's the extent of the bad.

Here's the good:

- Still working out. I biked up until late November, then I started running again. I'm going to run the half marathon again and I'm in my second week of training for that.

- I suppose I'll count that I'm still thinking about my health and worried about things getting out of hand as a good thing. Obviously if I wasnt even admitting I need to get back on track then I'd be back on the road to blubber.

So there you have it. Some shirts are getting a little tight. I went up a jeans size from a 34 to a 36 about a month and a half ago. No one is calling me fat and no one has told me I look like I've gained weight, but I can tell. I know I have and that's all that really matters. What is different for me this time if that you're not going to see me going all out living a 100% completely healthy lifestyle like I did when I lost 100 pounds in 6 months. It's not sustainable. My goal this time is just to dial it in a little bit. Get back on track. Get back into a 34" waist pant. Start weighing myself again, just not every day. But I do have to say I don't think I'm ready to weigh myself yet. I want to give myself another week of marathon training and decent eating...I know, some of you will disagree with that, but it's what I want to do.

I'll also be posting again until I feel I'm back where I want to be. In a 34" jeans, feeling good again. Ha! that's funny, because I never felt 100% good even when I weighed 200 pounds. I always felt like I still had love handles and some flab. Even in this pic I felt flabby and not how I wanted:


Now I look at it and wish I was there again. So it's a bit of a state of mind. Finding what's comfortable for you I guess.

Here's me a few months ago:



felt fat there.

here i am about a month and a half ago:

i know it's not the best pic because of the big bulging jacket, but i felt fat there too.

anyway, I don't know what I'm saying anymore, except that I want to be back in a 34" pants and I want to feel good about myself. I'm not there right now. But is the grass always greener on the other side? I just don't know.

Talk to you soon.