Weight Loss Update Week 9

It has been a few weeks. I'll just say it right here and now- I didn't post because it feels like I have plateaued. I literally had nothing to share because I've had so little change over the past 3 weeks that it didn't feel worth writing about. Here are the stats-

6-23 Weight 210.8 Waist 46 Chest 45 Hips 43.75 Neck 16.75 R Bicep 12.5 L bicep. 12.25 R Thigh. 26.5 L thigh 26.75

7-14 Weight 209.6 Waist 45.25 Chest 45.25 Hips 43.5 Neck 16.75 R Bicep 12.5 L bicep. 12.5 R Thigh. 26.5 L thigh 26.5

As you can see, there is some change, but it is so small on a weekly basis that it's enough to get a guy discouraged. There is one bright point in there. My waist is .75" smaller. I hadn't realized that until just now, but one thing that I've learned is that the other stuff can bum you out and sabotage your resolve.

I've been hovering around 209-210 and it is driving me crazy. For the past three weeks, there has been a mid week day where I've dipped down into the 208 range, but it keeps popping back up each week before weigh in on Saturday. The traditional criticism might say that I need to stop weighing myself everyday. That these daily fluctuations aren't really weight loss, but just water weight transferring around. I'm used to the daily swings, but before, I was hitting progressively lower low points each week. That hasn't been happening.

Now it would be easy to pout, to blame it on someone else or to blame it on stuff that is out of my control. Genetics, situations, inconvenience, but I'll confess. I've been a little loose with the diet. Most days start off great. Perfectly portioned and composed breakfast, great mid-morning meal high in protein. I'm even ok at lunch most of the time. Where I'm slipping up is dinner and snacks at home in the evening.

I spent some time this weekend looking through my food logs and found that I'm eating an average of 300 calories extra in snacks fairly often. When I was making positive progress, I was sticking to my calorie intake goal consistently. This should be pretty simple huh? What has muddied things up is that I've been using the extra calories burned when exercising to justify extra food. Lame.

I'm putting it out there so you know that I'm aware of it and making changes. I'll be planning out my lunches in advance for the week (perhaps dinners too, need to talk with my wife first) and inputting food into MyFitnessPal before a meal begins so I don't get caught up in the taste and eat more than I should. This is a little too common of a theme than I like to admit. I was already doing this stuff before, but got out of the habit when things got really busy over the last couple weeks.

Back to it!

Weight Loss Week 3 Update - 21 Days in

So, this week brought a renewed vigor in my efforts and man did it pay off. Last week I weighed in on Saturday at 218.4. This morning I’m at 214.6. I’m always a little pumped when I drop below another 5 pound mark. 210, here I come. Here are the numbers-

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Measurements

One other thing that I’ve been doing, but am just now sharing are some measurements. I’m just keeping a text file on my iPhone that I update everytime I bust out the measuring tape. I’m using an app called Byword I also use it on my iPad, and on my Mac. What is fantastic is that it syncs between all three devices using one of two different methods. Dropbox and iCloud. I use Dropbox so my files are available from any computer. As a side note, I write most every post in Byword as well.

Here are the measurements-

5/14 Waist 47 Chest 46 Hips 45 Neck 17.5 R Bicep 13.75 L bicep 13.5 R Thigh. 27 L Thigh 27

5/27 Waist 47 Chest 45.75 Hips 44.5 Neck 17.25 R Bicep 13.125 L bicep. 13.125 R Thigh. 26.75 L thigh 27

6/2 Waist 47 Chest 45.5 Hips 44.5 Neck 17 R Bicep 13 L bicep. 13 R Thigh. 26.5 L thigh 26.75

The main reason this is important is that progress isn’t always just a weight thing. It’s also good to measure areas that aren’t of primary concern to me. For example, I never thought my arms were fat, but it turns out that is one of the areas where I’m losing fat first. In the past I only really measured my waist and would then get really frustrated because I couldn’t get it to move much. It was also pretty useful last week when I wasn’t seeing much movement on the scale, but could see that my body was still burning fat.

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Free Days aka- eating stuff I shouldn’t

I also have another thought. This one concerns free days. In the past, I have tried different weight loss plans, many of which tell you to take a free day once a week and eat whatever you want. There are many reasons given. Some say that it helps you to not feel like you can never eat treats and indulgent foods. Others say that it helps your body to not go into starvation mode. There are other reasons too, but I’ll tell you what is working for me so far.

I’m not taking a free day. Instead, I’m choosing when to splurge by meal. As an example, on Monday, we grilled up some fantastic steak. I chose to eat a steak that is roughly twice the size than makes sense for that meal because I love steak, and I’m willing to trade off a bit to include it. Yesterday, I had a big peanut butter, chocolate chip cookie. It was 350 calories. It was totally worth it. I didn’t throw the entire day away just because I indulged in 1 treat. In the past, one treat would totally derail me.

I’m trying to take a holsitic look at each day and decide what is important to me. There are some foods that I’ve just dropped, because the value and/or enjoyment just isn’t high enough to justify the space in my day and body. I’ve also started eating a lot more vegetables. My favorites are Baby Spinach leaves and Red Bell Peppers.

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Diet

If I can summarize, I’m learning that living by a “diet” or a strict system, doesn’t have basis in true life and for me, feels like legalism. I believe that choosing when and what to eat is a matter of self-control. People keep asking what diet I’m using and my answer so far has been “common-sense”. Figure out how much your body needs (accounting for exercise) and then eat that much. If you want to lose weight, eat less. This isn’t rocket science.

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Anecdote for the week

On Tuesday, I had a terrible day at work. A couple of client requests derailed my whole day and I was feeling really unproductive. I found myself sitting in my office at about 3pm thinking “I’m hungry, I need to go get something to eat” Almost as fast as that thought entered my head, another thought came to me. This one came pretty heavy, like a slap to the back of the head. “You aren’t really hungry, you’re just stressed, tired and frustrated!”

I promptly filled my water bottle, pounded the whole thing, plowed through the next two hours and then the ride home totally eliminated the stress.

I love moments of clarity.

Losing Weight

I think of myself as a trim, in-shape guy. I know that this is common- to hang on to the image of yourself at 18 even though you are much older, much heavier and not as active. To be clear, I am 80 pounds heavier than when I turned 18. I'm 5'10" and I was 145 then and 225 now. Thats a 55% increase. I was heavier -242- about 3 years ago, and then I started riding my bike to work daily and training for a relay race called Hood-to-Coast. I got down to 207 and maintained that for about 6 months. I've crept back up since then.

Like so many other areas in life, I totally know what to do to change things. It is really quite simple. Eat less calories than my body needs daily.

My problem with losing weight is discipline. The discipline to eat portions that are appropriate for my activity level. The discipline to stick with it on the weekends.

This is why I'm writing about it. About 4 years ago I learned that I had high blood pressure. I discovered it when Emily had a home blood pressure machine during her pregnancy with our youngest child and I tried it out. It was high. High enough that I went to see my doctor and was told that my body didn't "like" being overweight. That the high blood pressure was a result of this dislike. He told me that it was an indicator that if things don't change, I have a high probability of developing diabetes. I have a family history of diabetes. I also have a family history of heart problems.

If it isn't obvious by now, the doctor basically laid it out for me. If I don't get my weight under control, I am likely choosing to shorten my life significantly.

Skip ahead to today.

I have lost weight since then and started riding my bike 14 miles every weekday. I'm pretty hardcore about it actually. Rain or shine. In other words, I'm getting plenty of cardiocascular exercise. My blood pressure, with medication, has gone down some, but not enough.

There's another reason I'm writing. I have an amazing wife and three amazing kids. Up to this point I have made the choices I've made about this stuff-namely eating too much, largely without consideration for them. This is problematic for a couple reasons.

1. I'm the only father these kids have. This is important for a few reasons: First, that I'm here for them for a long time. Second that I live that time in front of them with integrity.

2. My wife married me with a committment to living our lives together, raising children together and growing old together. In addition, she married me with the understanding that I was and would be a man of my word. In other words, someone who follows through on commitments.

By keeping it a private matter, I've kept this lack of discipline to myself. I've made a lot of effort to lose weight over the years, but because no one really knows about it, when I fail, I can treat it like it is no big deal. If no one else is aware, it's easier to avoid dealing with the reality that not dealing with this is selfish and lazy.

I don't think that I'm being legalistic and I'm not saying that this assessment applies to anyone else. For me, it is a character issue and a classic example of dealing with what I do when no one is watching. I'm taking my cue from James 4:17

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

So here is what I'm doing about it. First, I'm posting this so that I can't hide it. I'm doing this to help it feel more real. I'm telling you about it so that I have to remember that other people know. Second I'm asking for your encouragement.

It will suck if I don't follow through. I know myself and I'm pretty sure that giving it higher stakes will help me. Failure will be more embarrassing, and success will be sweeter.

I'm not following a specific plan at this point. I do have a target. My doctor thinks that a good weight for my height, build and age would be around 180. He also thinks that it is realistic to lose between 1-2 pounds a week. I'm setting a goal of 1.5 pounds a week. My target is Dec 8th, 2012.

I would say wish me luck, but this isn't going to take luck.

Here we go!