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.

Had a scare - back on track.

First of all, Hello blog. I've been ignoring you for a while. Much has happened since our last meeting. I'm now a father of a beautiful now 9 week old boy named Henry:







He's awesome.

But the real reason for my post it to come clean. A while ago I found my maintain weight of around 215 or so. Well, after maintaining that for a while I got comfortable and stopped weighing myself. Eventually I knew I'd gained weight but grew afraid to step on the scale. Not cool. That's an old habit that got me to over 300 pounds eventually. Not cool at all.
I finally came clean a week ago after an especially debaucherous evening. The next morning i jumped on the scale ready for the worst, and it was the worst, 231.6. OUCH!

To rehash the past few years, I lost 100 or so pounds over 6 months, reaching 202 or so in early 2008. I maintained that for a while, at the same time getting comments from people telling me I'd gone too far. I eventually settled on a maintenence weight I felt comfy with, and that was 210-215. I maintained that until about 3 months ago after I finished a half marathon. Then the impending baby came. Goal-less "maintenence-land" existed for while. I stayed active, riding my bike daily, but my diet eventually started to slip and I stopped weighing myself.

That brings us to last Monday and my 231.6 weigh-in.
I'm now happy to report that after a week of much better eating and daily weigh ins to keep me honest I'm back down to 224 , on my way back to 215 or so.
I'll keep updating this blog until I get down to where I want to be again and to keep me honest.

But yeah. It just goes to show that it really is a lifestyle change and that has to mean forever. You cant allow yourself to slip into old habits and if and when you do, you have to adjust and get out of them. I'm working on doing that now.

Zone Maintenence - Paranoia Check

Today's weigh-in: 215.4

Today I'll be blatantly ripping off Bill's Zone theory, adjusted of course for my numbers.

Green zone: <212 lbs
Yellow Zone: 212-220 lbs
Red Zone: >220 lbs

220 was my original goal to reach, back in January of 2008. Since then I've found myself averaging as low as 203, to having weigh-ins as high as 221. There was an upward trend that started the past 4 months since I stopped Half Marathon Training, so the past few weeks I've been trying to get things in line and my number is coming back down. The reason I consider my green zone a little higher than my lowest recorded averages is that I've put some muscle on. Basically I don't start getting nervous about my weight if my number is below 212 or so.

So that's it really. Thanks for the idea BillyBob!

Psycho Killer Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Hi.

Been a while eh?

Well you know, I had those neck issues and all. I re-injured my neck after it was almost completely healed, so that set me back. That was a few weeks ago though and it's been 100% now for at least a week. So, no more excuses really.

Know what sucks? As soon as my workouts tail off or I don't watch those calories quite as close as I normally do, what happens? Fat shows up. Where? Directly on my hips and gut. Not so much anywhere else really, but right on my gut and love handles. How annoying is that?

I mean, I was still active, riding my bike and running maybe once a week, but I just lost the fire. And I was relaxing big time on watching my caloric intake.

Maintenance is hard...man.

So after just being tired, hurt, and maybe a bit lazy and watching my weight show my numbers as high as 221-ish, last week I decided I'd better get back on the bus. Err, wagon, and off the retard bus.

I surrounded myself with healthier snacks. I rode my bike a few more days, and I ran in a 5K.

Right, so that 5k. I ran this on Saturday:




On paper I guess I did well, running it in 23:45 and placing something like 170 out of 2000-ish people, but in reality, it hurt. I started the race towards the front for some reason, I guess I thought I was being more badass. You know, the place where they ask the real runners to start from...

I stood around with these 90lb women runners all decked out in spandex and muscles and told myself I'd pace with them for a bit. I mean, come on, I just ran a half marathon, I can do this. That's what I told myself. I forget the Half was almost 3 months ago and I've barely run 12 miles since then.

The Mayer of Philly sounded the alarm and the runners took off, myself included. That first 90 pound women took off, running between large fat cop legs, weaving in and out of Dunkin Donuts eating traffic. I stuck with her, but being 6'3" 215-ish I wasnt quite so agile as her. I found myself running at top speed to get around people in the crowd to try to work my way towards the front.

We hit the first mile marker and it said 6:45. That's when I was like, uhhh wow! I've never run a mile faster than 7:15.

What the hell am I doing? I cant breath! my legs hurt! where the hell did those women go?

I had to slow down and catch my breath and try to recover enough to finish the race.

My splits were something like

mile 1 - 6:45
mile 2 - 8:15
mile 3 - 9:30

hahaha! Way to pace myself! That hurt!

The short of the story is I got a decent time for me, but I almost died. I could have nailed a low 22-ish 5k time two months ago, but I've definitely lost some cario ability. My muscles hurt after the race too.

At the end of the race I basically collapsed at the finish line and layed down on my back for a minute. A random stranger kicked me lightly to make sure I wasnt dead. I just gave her a thumbs up since I still couldnt breath.

So yeah, I ran a 5k.

I've been eating a little better. If Bill's kryptonite is a Cheese Steak, mine are nacho's. beautiful, cheese and meat covered nacho's. Warm. Crunchy. Sour cream. Delicious....

I'm cutting those out for a bit. The constant snacking? Gotta stop that too.

So here I am, trying to eat a little better, ride my bike a little more, lift a little more, and drop about 8-10 pounds. I am down to 215 after topping out at 220.

Last summer I was maintaining around 204. I've put on some muscle with all the running and lifting work in the past year, so I'd like to maintain about 210 this year.

We'll see. Honestly I'd really like some nacho's though.