Secret plan to a slimmer you revealed inside!

Another year gone and tomorrow is just another day in the chain of what I am doing, It is in fact a weigh in day for the blog though and I am kind of excited because I am expecting, hoping for a decent loss so that I can get to a new low since starting down this path. Last Friday I did have a slight up because of some Christmas eating and the Saturday after that it was even higher than what Friday's scale time said but I do believe judging by yesterdays peek that I will get a new low this week. The day brought me 1755 calories, a gallon each of green tea and straight H2O and I did get to the gym last night for a 20 minute ride on the bike and 20 minutes on the treadmill so par for the course as far as days go. Missing the gym today because of some things out of my control and I will just not have the time until after 6PM and my gym closes at 5PM today so it is what it is and I will have to do some calisthenics and stretches at home, I think that I need a rest anyways as I have been pushing myself a bit and can feel it so a day off will probably do me no harm.

I am sure there will be a ton of blogs about resolutions this week, Lots of people will be starting their own life changes with the new year and many will follow through but for a lot of folks it will just be the next attempt to make a difference in their lives that does not pan out. Why? why can't they all pan out? why can't everyone that tries to drop a few pounds or get healthier in 2010 be a success? I wish I knew because if I did I could package that in some nice shiny wrapper behind a blister pack made in china and distributed by one of the Xmart stores and sell it to the masses. It is an everlasting struggle that will have to be dealt with on a constant basis even by the most successful person because conscious decisions will have be made daily where diet and exercise are the topic if any level of success is to be expected or met and that may be the answer right there.

People expect to limit calories to sub one thousand and want to be able to maintain an end weight after they return to double bacon triple patty with extra cheese hamburgers. Some expect to hit the gym hard and then when the brakes are put on and the sedentary life comes back they want to reap the rewards of what they did in the past while going right back to the crap food and lack of movement and again, it just doesn't work that way. In my experience as a fat guy (and I have tried all of the above) the only thing that has worked thus far is to completely change the way that you look at food and nutrition as a whole, eat to live instead of living to eat comes to mind. There are a ton of different approaches that could be taken and some of them work while others are just big steaming piles of bullshit, it always comes down to the same thing no matter what "program" you choose, Move more eat less! every person that I have ever met or read about that has been successful with weight loss has at the root of it eaten less while moving more and honestly it is that simple and if you don't want to believe me than try what Harvey McDullardsonfengenden did because Jujuberry 7.2 worked like a charm for him.

Now that the secret is out every single person that reads this should be slim some time in 2010! if only it were that easy eh? A ton of determination is needed as well as some discipline and let us not forget the shake of willpower because all of it is necessary. It's been 2 years since I took my first step and started my way down the road to a healthier me and I am more than 200 pounds lighter for my efforts, if I had never taken that first step I have no clue where I might be today, that first step is the most important one because without it the second step cannot be taken so on and so on.

Tomorrow morning I will weigh in for the blog and I do have a good feeling that the return of the what I have lost items will be back going off of my mid week peek at the scale. Will I hit a new all time low weight tomorrow morning? to be found out I suppose. I am not doing anything exciting tonight besides maybe watching a flick with the love of my life and having a celebratory drink to bring the new year in so I will be weighing in first thing in the am so after the hangovers wear off make sure to check in and see how I did.

With that the end has come to another shenanigans filled episode of as the fat guy turns as well as another trip around the sun. Drink that H2O, move that ass and eat well for it is all that we can do to be as healthy as we can be.

See ya next year!

As Ever
Me

Hamster wheels and Cigarettes?

Tuesday could not have gone better where being healthy goes, I ate 1715 calories, drank 1 gallon of green tea and a gallon of straight H2O intake was pretty much flawless. Getting to the gym was a jump through a couple of hoops but I did get there albeit a little later than usual I had a pretty good workout but I do have sort of a gym rant that I wanted to talk about. I am really expecting to hit a new low weight this week as I am really being strict with myself with the intake and making sure I drink enough, I even made a salad adder upper thingy in an excel sheet where I can input the ounces of each ingredient and it shows me the calories as a total for the salad at the bottom of the equation and I have been using it almost every night I have had a salad with dinner or as dinner since making it. When I am strict with myself I usually see results go figure! who wouldda thunk? on top of the eating well and balanced I have been at the gym like its my job and today may be the first day that I have to miss but thats ok because if I do I am planning on doing some calisthenics throughout the day and perhaps one of Wifys yoga DVD's.


Onto my small gym rant, Yesterday I arrived at the gym slightly later than normal and it seemed to make a difference because there was a lot of people there, straight to my bike per usual and I set it up to my liking and turned on Rachel Ray, two minutes in a funk comes wafting towards me. Not unusual to get some stank in the air at the gym right? wrong! this smelled like someone was dicing onions into their pockets and as unappetizing as the smell was perhaps someone had come from lunch straight to the gym so no worries, the guy moved to a different machine shortly after I got on my bike and on I rode.

After the bike ride it was time for some weights which felt good to do because I had been doing heavy cardio for the past couple gym trips, onto the treadmill I go. Gazing up at the line of treadmills selection was slim as the gym was pretty packed so I find an open Hamster wheel for me to walk on between a girl running her heart out and a fellow walking briskly and set up but I smell cigarettes almost as soon as I set the treadmill up. My initial thought was "why would someone smoke on their way to the gym?" followed immediately by "I can't stay here" so I looked around and saw another open treadmill across the gym and I hit stop and B lined for that other hamster wheel. Again I set up but again an odor! the distinct smell of Windsong perfume and I only know what it is because my mother wore this her entire life and I really dislike the way that it smells but it was better than cigarettes so I stayed and finished my workout next to the very fragrant older lady on the next treadmill over. I suppose I just don't get why someone would smoke on the way to the gym or drown themselves with enough cheap perfume to gag a French hooker and I don't mean...er yeah, the onion guy gets a pass because it WAS lunch time but C'mon people its the gym! close proximity to other people breathing heavily is to be expected and strong smells are not really recommended, rant off, I just had to share that with anyone reading.

I cannot help but to keep thinking back to when I started off just about two years ago and comparing the level of fitness that I had then and now and the stark contrast of the two. If I had not decided to change the way things were I may still be sitting bitter in that old leather couch that had the shape of me in it wondering why anyone would want to go for a walk instead or playing a video game while eating a whole bag of doritos. From that to what I do now, eat well, drink much and exercise daily I cannot reiterate enough that its a mindset that got me started and a lot of hard work is keeping me in the direction that I need to be heading in and I have to admit that the "hard work" is more and more becoming something that I enjoy rather than "work" at all. I enjoy the foods that I eat, I enjoy the tea that I drink and exercise is my down time and quickly becoming what I want to do all of the time. Taking a ride on my bike is what I want to do in my free time or going to the gym to work out cigarette guy or not I enjoy being there and seem to get a high or a buzz after a good solid workout which is an added benefit to the whole losing weight thang.

With that the end has come to another mind blowing episode of Fatman and Blobin so be sure to tune in tomorrow to see what adventures get tossed at the big man.

Keep on keepin on and all that.

As Ever
Me

Two years worth of weight loss, what a change.

Monday went over without a hitch, I ate 1710 calories and dinner was a giant salad I got to go to the gym later than usual but I went none the less and I drank about 2 gallons of straight H2O and maybe a quart of green tea. I went in and added my weights for the past 5 months into my excel spreadsheet graph yesterday and it shows a fast drop for the first year and then the grade gets less extreme for the second year but downward still. The plan is to make that sloping downward line to hit a deeper drop for the next couple months so that I can get to that ever elusive sub 300 pound line that has been drawn in the sand.

Thinking back I still can't believe that I was where I was and how far I have come is amazing to me because honestly I am healthier than I have ever been in my life, almost. What I mean by almost is that there was a time in my life that I was stronger physically from lifting weights, there was a time that I could run what I figured to be a mile and there was even a brief moment in my life where I was a vegetarian but none of those things were all at the same time. I am right now definitely not as strong as I once was but we're getting there, I eat better now than I ever have and we're working on the running. I can say with 100% certainty that I feel healthier than I ever have, I am smaller than I was when I graduated high school and soon enough I will be everything that I want to be all rolled into one package and will have myself to thank for it.

Click this image for a full sized graph.

My best friend and I were talking the last time that I seen him and I told him that I wish someone would have told me that all I would have to do is consistently eat good and exercise years ago (not like I didn't know deep down inside anyways) and maybe I would never have made it to 500 plus pounds. When I said that he looked at me and said that all it took was a little girl to get me to realize what I needed to do and that I am way too stubborn to have listened to anyone back in the day, and he was right because I can remember people trying throughout my life to at least mention to me that I should do something about my weight. My mother offered me a dollar per pound that I lost when I was about 13-14 years old but still we ate fried foods and treats all of the time so though the offer was a good one for me it wasn't enough. The point that I am making is that we need to decide ourselves that its time to take control because no matter how many people say it no one wants to be told what to do even if we know the advice is sound.

I am hoping that my good eating habits will rub off onto my children and they never have to struggle with weight because in this world isn't it a silly thing to have to deal with when simple good choices will stop the whole train wreck? I am already impacting my children and people around me that see what I have done and am doing where exercise is concerned, my wife has joined the gym with me, my kids are always doing random exercises and asking to go for bike rides and other people have started eating better and exercising as well, its a win win all around. Every Thursday my daughter comes home from school and we compare what we each did at "gym class" and this is one of my favorite times of the week because I get the feeling that she really enjoys these talks and perhaps I will never have to offer to pay her a dollar per pound lost ever in her life time, which makes me think, my mom owes me $206!

Today will be another successful one and I have a sitter for the gym so I won't have to go tonight again like I did last night. I will predict that I will have a new low weight come Friday and we may see the return of the "this is what I have lost" pictures again, let us hope anyways! actually let me rephrase that because hoping for something to happen and doing everything in our power to make it happen is two completely different things.

I leave you with a visual today, well sort of, a visual that you will have to close your eyes and imagine for now as I have not taken the photo yet but I have lost 41 five pound bags of sugar so far! now imagine carrying that around with you 24 hours per day 7 days per week 365 days per year..... yeah, it was no party.

As Ever
Me

A new man two years in the making.

Two years ago at this time I was afraid that I would not have much longer here on this planet because of weighing way more than I should have. I had no clue what I weighed but my best guess was close to 600 pounds as I had not found a scale that could give me a straight answer at the time unless I wanted to go to a stone yard and hop on the scale that they weigh the trucks with. It had been days that I was online looking into what it took to get a weight loss surgery and I was as close as I have ever been to deciding on getting one of those surgery's and then I saw that death could be a side effect of having it and something clicked inside me an a decision was made, I have to do something before the choice is made for me in the way of a heart attack.


I was 534 pounds at my highest weight and today I am more than 200 pounds lighter just 726 days later and most of that weight was lost in the first year. Seven hundred twenty six days, that sounds like a long time if you look at it that way but really its not long at all and besides death lasts a lot longer than that so what was the alternative really? This time of year seems to get people all fired up to make a resolution and lose some weight "This is gonna be my year!" but 2 years ago was my year to mean it. I have re-learned how to fuel my body or should I say that I have learned how because what I was doing was not what I would call anything more than gorging myself at every meal just because I could. Contrasting my life back then to who I am now, how I live now and the latter is much more fun I have to admit because right now even at around 330 pounds I am not limited in any way that I notice. I run, I ride a bike, I walk, I go to the gym almost on a daily basis and things where my health are concerned are all where it should be and getting better daily and all because I decided to make a change in what I was doing.

I hate thinking about where I might be if I had not decided to get my shit together and the answer can scare me if I think about it for too long. At 534 pounds how much of that can a persons body really take? how long can a body last as it pumps blood through a huge body that is literally more than twice as big as it should be? I didn't want to find out. Today for whatever reason I was thinking back to those days where it took a plan to get upstairs to use the bathroom, I literally had to time it so that I would go upstairs the bare minimum amount of times because of the fact that my heart felt like it would explode on any given trip up the 13 stairs in my house and I am honestly happy that I got my arse in gear and did this.

I am glad that I can still remember how it felt back then at more than 500 pounds because some day I know that it will fade away and whatever weight I level off at will be my weight and be what I know and remember but right now it makes me grateful for what I have done. Some day I will show my Daughter a photo of me at 500 plus pounds and she will not believe that it was me and I can thank her for her role in me doing this. Some day I will meet someone that has never seen me heavy and I may show them a photo of me at 500 plus pounds and they will not believe it and some day hopefully I will get to walk my daughter down the isle because I made the decision to get healthy and change the way that I think about food and my health.

I am stronger than I have ever been in my life and I do not mean physically, We all owe it to ourselves and to the ones that we love to take care of our health.

As Ever
Me

Christmas weigh in

Very quickly in the spirit of being consistent I am posting up my weight from Friday morning before I run out to the gym, when I woke up yesterday I weighed in at 330.4 pounds and I kind of expected it as I had a very sodium filled day on Thursday and drank a ton of H2O before bed. Thursday morning I was 329.0 pounds so I know that I didn't gain almost a pound and a half over night so no worries I will see what Monday morning says and go off of that but for now I am updating my challenge weight to a reading of 330.4 lbs because that's what the scale said Friday morning and I did not weigh myself this morning and since I have already eaten breakfast and lunch today a weigh in at this point would be very inaccurate so I am posting Christmas mornings weight.

With that I am out the door heading to the gym so until next time!

As Ever
Me

The strength of a tree lies in its ability to bend

I have a goal, that goal is to make it through Christmas day without too many extra calories going into me and if I approach it that way, you know, as a game then I believe that I will come out without going too far over my calorie range. I hear people tout that "its a lifestyle change dammit so that means no matter what you need to eat salads and small portions of lean meats otherwise you are not treating it as a lifestyle change! you are just dieting again" I have to use something that my grandfather use to say to that God rest his soul, "Awww Horse pucky!" . Yes indeed it is a lifestyle change but that does not mean on special occasions I or anyone else cannot have a piece of Aunt Jackie's peanut butter fudge or a slice or 2 of honey baked ham because that is just a silly notion to me to be so strict that not a single indulgence can be had. It is a lifestyle change and when normal life use to be eating 4 cheese burgers or 3 plates of food on top of at least one serving of every dessert at a holiday meal eating a normal sized holiday meal along with a dessert and a piece of fudge is doing the right thing for our health.

Sure I could eat 2 pounds of raw broccoli an apple and a glass of water then beat my chest and in my best "The Tick" impression state loudly that I have changed my life! and smile down on all of the fattys eating the Christmas good eats but I know that The tree that does not bend with the wind will be broken by the storm. I have done this from the beginning, I have not counted Holidaze meals when calories come into play which does not mean that its a free for all it just means that I have normal sized portions and something else amazing that's happened along the way down my path to better health? I have learned to STOP eating when I am full! I have this new magical power to let something stay put on my plate instead of forcing it down the chute. With all of that said I do usually try and count the calories in my head but its more for me to have a general idea of what I ate extra because at this point counting calories is so second nature to me that it just happens in my head almost instantly. In short, I am going to enjoy my Christmas brunch and dinner without guilt because one meal will not destroy any habit or lifestyle change that has been made.

I did get a chance to go to the gym yesterday even if it was later than I would have liked it to be, My kids are home from school until after the New Year so I will have to adjust the time that I go until they return to school. I went around 8:00 pm last night and came home all amped up from the workout and stayed up until about midnight because of it and that's the reason that I don't like going in the evenings. I weighed my options which were Go to they gym and get a good workout in but be up late because of all of the energy or don't go and get a great nights rest but no workout and no energy, obviously I chose to go and I am glad that it was the choice that I made. I did 20 minutes on a bike followed by the treadmill routine that I came up with a few days ago where I progressively add incline for 10 minutes and then come back down in 2% intervals, I really like that workout as I feel like I have done some work afterward. No weight lifting last night but My mother in law agreed to watch the kiddos so that I can go this afternoon and I am planning on doing my bike plus that treadmill routine and maybe some shoulder movements with some weights, I am looking forward to going today for whatever reason.


My intake yesterday came in at 1730 total calories, I drank 1 gallon of green tea and more than a gallon of straight H2O, obviously I made it to the gym so all in all it was a great day for my health. I don't think that I will post tomorrow as its Christmas and well I don't think I will have time to nor want to take time away from any of that for a post but I am sure that I will get on the scale either way. I mentioned this already but I will try my best to get a weigh in post up on Saturday and I will include what the scale said Friday morning as well as Saturday morning I think it will be fun to see the damage difference from after Christmas.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and whether you choose to eat that 2 pounds of raw broccoli or a few pieces of Aunt Jackie's peanut butter fudge enjoy it! I don't consider anything that I do on this trip a failure or a victory, it is what it is and thats a guy that has relearned how to do things in moderation when it is food related and has learned that he loves the gym more than he ever thought he could.

That is all...

As Ever
Me

A new compare pic inside! more than 200 pounds lost.

Tuesday went off without a hitch besides a piece of cake that was for an occasion so I did not count that into my calories, I was at 1775 calories total before the cake so I am probably still ok either way I am not too worried about it. I drank 1 gallon of green tea and 1 gallon of straight H2O so I was hydrated for the day but I did have lots of sodium in the way of some baked chips with my dinner which was a tuna melt so I may be retaining a bit this morning but I will never know because I ate breakfast before remembering to do my mid week weigh in check. The gym was interesting for me because I did something a little differently than usual, I rode my bike for 20 minutes and then did some weight lifting for my back and shoulders then it was time for the treadmill.

The first image is August 2007, the second image was taken last night so December 22nd 2009, I took the second one just fooling around and yes I know that I need a shave but I haven't posted a pic up in a while so I thought that it was tine to pop a new compare shot up here, man I love my compression shirt! The bottom half of me is as thick as the top half but man what a difference the image is clickable for a larger view.

Usually I will do 20-30 minutes on the treadmill at between 3.0 and 3.8 mph and a 3.0% to 5.0% incline and I do this at the end of my workout so usually after the bike and arc-trainer. Yesterday I looked across the gym and there was a girl on the treadmill and she had it set at a wicked incline so I thought I would change it up a bit and ended up doing 20 minutes at 3.0 mph but every 2 minutes I went up 2% on the incline until I hit 11.5% at the 10 minute mark and then back down 2% at a time until 20 minutes was up. I have to tell you that wen I started I was thinking that it would be easy but by the time I hit that 11.5% incline I was ready for it to start coming back down! but in my head I was thinking about it as if I was peaking a hill and that the way down aould be easier but after 11.5% came 9.5% so I was still at a decent incline NOT the downhill that I was thinking I would get, its funny how our heads work sometimes. I checked my heart rate every minute by grabbing the bars on the treadmill so that I could see how I reacted to the incline changes and the graph matched the incline, my heart rate increased as the incline did and I am going to add this to my Tuesday workout as it definately changed things up and still gave me a good workout.

I don't think that I will get a post up on Friday because of Christmas so I will very likely just do a weigh in post on Saturday morning instead because I have to stay accountable with the weigh ins as it seems to keep me on track. Will Friday mess up the weigh in? we shall see but I am going to attempt to be a good boy and resist the urge to eat the cookies, cakes, fudge and all of whatever else will be around on Christmas day and eve. This does not mean that I will have nothing labeled as "treat" because I have always said that Holidaze do not count as far as me counting every bite that goes into my mouth because those few days per year of indulging are not going to hurt anything in the grand scheme. I am planning to make the best choices where dinner is concerned for Christmas and I will be drinking noting but my green tea, perhaps a beer and some water but on the food front I will not eat any differently as far as portion size goes and will make every attempt to eat the lower calorie dishes.

Again I say, we make our own choices and there is no one with a gun making us eat fatty food, there is no terrible terrible that will happen to us if we do not eat that triple double bacon bacon cheddar cheese and secret sauce burger with a side of giantico onion rings and a bucket O coke but there is a terrible terrible if we do eat it on a daily, just have a look at my before pictures.

Again another episode of as the fat guy turns has concluded, tomorrow is a new day where will it bring me? a step closer to my goal for sure. Thanks for reading along.

As Ever
Me

Effort plus Time divided by Determination = Successful weight loss?

The plan for today is the same as yesterday, stay within my calorie limits, drink plenty and hit the gym this afternoon. I ate 1740 calories Monday and that's just about perfect as I now eat between 1700 and 1940 calories per day depending on what I do at the gym, 1700 for non weight lifting days and 1940 for weight days and the extra is for a whey shake. I drank 2 gallons of H2O and about a quart of green tea yesterday as I forgot to make a gallon Sunday night I was limited to drinking hot cups instead of my cold brewed stuff. At the gym I did a lighter than usual work out because all I had to eat previous to going was my am bowl of cereal and started feeling weak midway through my workout, I ended up doing 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 15 minutes on the treadmill 3.5% grade @ 3.4 mph and finished up with a few sets on the preacher curl machine calling it quits after that.

Working as hard as anyone else in the gym and not looking like you are is a little bit frustrating, this thought entered my head yesterday as I rode the bike at the gym. Here I am sitting on this bike pedaling my heart out as I look in the mirror and see that I am bigger than I should be and its because of some extra skin that is still on my mid section. A guy walks by and looks like me from the chest up but below there he looks better, there is no extra baggage swinging around his middle, I keep pedaling. A girl that looks as if she was carved from stone stretches just feet in front of my bike she notices that I am looking in her direction and a smile and a nod later she is riding the bike next to me. I am here every day, I am busting my ass every day of the week with exercise not to mention the eating and drinking well and I am left with this reminder of older days in the form of extra me that there is nothing I can do anything about.


I own a compression shirt that I bought when I was running around the lake a while back and it is amazing what a difference there is in my silhouette when it is on verses when it is off of me. I knew that there would be a skin issue because of the size of me and always said "a bridge to be crossed when I get there" but I have to admit that it bothers me that its there, at 6'5'' tall on a pretty solid frame I believe that I could look much different at 328 pounds than I actually look right now because of the extra me just hanging around. The bridge that I am crossing with the way I am starting to look is sort of a dual feeling, on the one hand I am more than 200 pounds less than I use to be so wow! but the other hand offers a loose belly that doesn't quite look right because its not tight, it is sort of hangy if that's a word and though I can hide it in a hoodie very well the hotter months are really going to offer me a puzzle if I am going to somewhat hide the looseness of the whole package. Don't take any of this as complaining, it is merely observations and my reaction and thoughts to them because I would much rather be trying to hide some extra skin than hiding the whole me by staying in doors etc.

There are still some obstacles on this trip to a thinner me but nothing that looks like I can't crush, I mean hell if I have come from literally round shaped to the shape that I am in right now in just about 2 years anything is possible and a little extra skin isn't going knock me down. For anyone out there that thinks that it cannot happen for them because they are too big or too out of shape, take it from me, you know...the guy that was 534 pounds once upon a time that it can happen if the time and effort is put in, there is that "E" word again. I still have a long way to go with 53 pounds left to lose to reach my initial goal weight and 61 pounds left to go to have lost 50% of my total body weight and when the totals are put down to look at its easy to say "aww its only another 50 pounds you can do it!" but I'm telling ya this last go at the finish line seems like its going to be a difficult ride. Either way I will get there extra skin be damned I will get to that goal and I am predicting that I will go well beyond that 267 pound mark by more than a few pounds when this is all said and done.

That there folks is the end to yet another mind blowing episode of As the fat guy turns so you will have to tune in tomorrow to find out if that brownie on the counter lasted through the night. Thanks for reading along and thanks for the support, it is always appreciated.

As Ever
Me

Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids, Sleep....

Skipping and tripping through my days as of late keeping things together where my health is concerned, Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids, get enough rest over and over and over again is my aim. Being the best Husband that a fella can be, the best Daddy and friend but somewhere along the way there has got to be time for myself otherwise 534 pounds of yum yum goodness could come walking on back and none of the people in my life need or want that to happen so my guilty pleasure has become the gym, that is for me no matter what. I go to the gym because I have to but interestingly enough I am finding that I go because I want to, even on days where I am spent, or not feeling up to snuff, I go, I work out and feel awesome for my efforts. Thinking back to when I started off on my trip to a smaller me I can remember walking less than 2 blocks and feeling like I had accomplished something so much bigger and it was because of the previous life that I was living, walking to the bedroom was the furthest distance that I could would go back then.

20 minutes on the stationary bike is a warm up for the arc-trainer now a days and once upon a time back in 2008 a 12 minute ride on a much easier to pedal stationary bike was considered by me a tough work out, my how times have changed. Embarrassed because of not being able to take a walk to a broken bridge a quarter mile up the road one summer of my past, Using my daughters speed on her little bike as a reason to walk a bit slower than I should have walked and feeling excited when I realized that I could run again without collapsing my knees. Things changed so fast, or so it seems right now as I sit here writing a post after a trip to the gym, back then it felt like it would never improve and then it did Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids, Sleep.

Just under 2 years ago I was big, slow, tired all of the time and not happy with where I was or what I was doing. Today I am confident that I could out last my brother and father if we were to run, bike or anything that takes cardiovascular fitness to achieve and to the point that I would bet money on it! I started out doing this all for me and away I went, week after week of successful weigh ins showing drops in weight and the exercise was getting easier by the week. Lately I have slacked off a bit and I believe I figured out why, I am not afraid that I will die right now, I have not thought about my health doing me in for quite some time so its almost like though I am still eating right and exercising I have not been pushing myself like in the beginning. A decision was made that I need to see this through and hit my goal weight of 275 pounds and I believe I will go well beyond that number because I must put me first where my health is the topic because if I don't we all have seen where that got me.

Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids, Sleep, this is an easy Mantra for me right now because I enjoy all of these things. Drinking enough fluids to me is a treat, its like I can have as much water or green tea as I can take in and there is nothing negative about it but everything positive. Sleep, who doesn't like sleeping? my relationship with Conan O'Brien is suffering but I think that we will both get over it as I drift into my slumber at a reasonable hour. Eating good has turned into a completely different statement for me, instead of eating 4 pounds of Del Taco and a 66oz cup cherry coke its 5oz of baked flounder and a giant salad that does it for me, or turkey burgers on Portabello mushroom caps with a side of sweet potato fries that I crave, to me the latter is eating good. The gym is my therapy at this point, I can go and work out as long as I want to and disappear into the movement stopping only to change machines or to stretch, the gym is for me and I will embrace it.

I have come so far mentally that the physical almost seems secondary to me and that's saying a lot coming from a guy that lost more than 200 pounds. When I started down this road the way I thought was different, the way I did things was very different and the way I am currently is completely different than Dec 31st 2007. I looked at food back then and saw it as something to do not unlike how I now see riding my bike as something to do, it was like eating was recreation and is nothing that I saw back then or would have admitted even if I did see it. I can't lie and say that food does not tempt me now and again but the difference is that its not an obsession any more, that has shifted to my time at the gym or out on my bike in fact I had a New York strip on Saturday night but that was the first in more than a few months if not more and goes into the sensible choice category.

Focus must be maintained and I have to put myself first because when I didn't I ended up weighing more than 500 pounds. Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids, Sleep Has to be where my head stays if not to stay focused then to distract myself from other curve balls that life tosses in my direction.

The mental is more important than the physical Eat good, Gym, Drink fluids,Sleep..

Try and stop me.

As Ever
Me

206 total pounds lost! a new all time low coming soon to a theater near you!

So the time has come to hop on the scale and record it onto the blog for the world to see, this morning I am more than pleased with myself because it has pretty much been a week from hell if stress levels are the measurement yet I am happy with what I see on the scale. I will get right to it and say that I am back to my all time low weight of 328 pounds! Tuesday I did not think I would show a loss at all this week because of lots of different things but here I am and its a 2 pound loss for the week with the exact reading on the scale being 328.4lbs. Eight pounds in three weeks and well on my way to hitting that goal of being under 300 pounds by April 2nd which is pretty exciting if I am being honest, This coming Friday gives me an opportunity to hit a new all time low weight and I am planning on doing everything that I can to get there.

I am proof positive that perseverance is all that is needed to lose weight, focus helps, determination as well and this has turned into much more than losing weight for me. I have gained my health back in a way that is making me more driven than I ever was where health and fitness is the subject and it agrees with me. I am not expecting to see the other side 330 pounds again any time soon but those things have a funny way of working sometimes so if it does happen I will have to beat the fat back into submission on the arc trainer again.

Weight loss is not always a fluid motion with the line on the graph always pointed in a downward direction, sometimes it pops back up a bit but as long as we keep on keepin on it will undoubtedly head back in that lower direction again and again. I have come a long way since starting down this path to better health, I have stumbled a bit at times and I have pushed myself to the point of hurting myself, I have slacked off and at the same time I have been that insistent fellow in a restaurant demanding to know every bit of info about how a meal was prepared and the ingredients used but most importantly if you look at the line on my bar graph I have been pretty consistent throughout my trip to the half.

There was a point in my life where I was 534 pounds and I had no clue what I weighed, in fact I thought I was closer to 600 pounds and was relieved to find out that I "was only" just over 500 pounds, imagine where a person has to be mentally to be relieved that he is 500 pounds, trust me its not a good place. I have read blogs and stories online as well as in magazine etc of people losing 50, 100, 200 and more pounds and looking at side by side photos of these people and they look amazing! and I think about how I am down 206 pounds so far and still have a good amount to lose to be where I need to be and have that amazing side by side shot. I am still a magazine article away from hitting my initial goal weight of 275 pounds with 53 more pounds to go to get to that weight and I know that I want to be lower than that now because of how I currently look at 328 pounds. At 6'5'' I carry my weight decently but in all honesty I can lose a total of 300 pounds realistically and be at a healthy weight, I would be 234 pounds at 300 pounds lost which I may change my mind the closer I get but seriously?? I could lose 300 pounds?? Do I want to get that small? I don't think so but it is what my brother weighs and he is only a half inch shorter than I am and he looks good at that weight so it is possible for me to get into the 230's especially if I end up getting a surgery to remove excess skin, a chapter to be written perhaps.

Round and round he goes, and where he stops nobody knows.

This week is one for the W column, I am pleased with the scale, I am pleased with myself and next week I am predicting a new all time low weight for me. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the support, it is greatly appreciated.

As Ever
Me

I am a....

Better late than never I say, my day is almost done and I have stuck strictly to the game plan, just finished a big ol salad for dinner and my trip to the gym was a good one, tomorrow is the "official" weigh in for the blog and I am hoping that there is a loss. If a loss is not shown on the scale that's ok because I am a week stronger than last week and though stress is poking its head into my regimen I am proving to myself that I can motor through it and stay if not exactly on plan close enough to feel good about what I have done. For whatever reason I have been in the past few days missing my bike, I saw a fella riding down my street a couple days ago and since then I have been wanting to pull the bike out and take it for a spin around the lake but as I am in good old New England we have had some pretty rough weather lately, it has been clear out but below zero temps with the wind chill so it is not really an option.

It is a later than normal post and I am feeling random but I am really looking forward to tomorrows weigh in because I do feel like there will be a loss and as long as I am creeping towards that 300 pound mark I am a happy camper. There is a lot of things that have been learned as well as lessons taught as I walk this road to better health and I look forward to reaching that finish line, being a skinny person is not something that I have ever known and I have to admit that I am more than curious to see life from that angle.

I am a Father, I am a Husband, a guitar player Dragon to my daughters princess when need be, I am a poet, I am a writer, I am a gym rat and a cyclist I am a Son, an Uncle and a Brother, I am a swimmer in training as well as a friend, I am Santa Clause and no one calls me Maurice. I am a Ford Mustang fanatic, a bad singer that deep down believes that he sounds good, I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker I get my lovin' on the ru....oh wait.

Something that I am not is a fat guy sitting on a couch wishing things were different and that's a fact which will never change.

Fini.

As Ever
Me

Another day in the life of...

Tuesday went well, I got to the gym, I ate within my calorie range, I drank more than 2 gallons of fluids and I got eight hours sleep, not too shabby if I do say so myself. Making a lifestyle change instead of being on a diet is key in this whole weight loss extravaganza and I believe that the fact that I have made this a lifestyle change and not just the next thing is why I can recover so quickly from a bad weekend or four. I have noticed that I have been up after the weekends and I have been blaming it on bad food choices etc when there is actually more to it than that. In general I do not go to the gym on the weekends unless we can find a baby sitter, but if not then its just house stuff that gets done on the weekend so there is another factor as to why I may be peeking back up slightly come Monday hop on the scale. To say that I am making bad or worse food choices on the weekends is misleading as well, when I say bad food choices I do not mean that I am raiding the fridge and I do not mean eating a ton of extra calories, its closer to not really getting as much fluid into my days because I am busier than on the week days or that I had a big ol salty bowl of popcorn with wify while watching a movie and come Monday the less water more sodium less movement plus a shake of somewhat of a stressful situation I am going through right now apparently equals up to an up fluctuation now and again.

In spite of everything that I just said I do believe that I will see a drop in weight this week, do you see what I mean when I mentioned groundhog day in yesterdays post? its like I am cycling through the same time span over and over and over. With that said, I am making advances with my health each and every week, it is easier for me to do my 50 minutes of cardio per day and I am finding that if I needed/wanted to I could probably toss in another 30 minutes with not too much of an issue but then the question is why? is 50 minutes to an hour of cardio not enough? I am getting stronger with the weight lifting and I have some definition which is mostly hidden behind flying squirrel like skin for the moment being but I am seeing actual gains in strength and endurance and progress is progress.


I must stay as focused as possible so that come April 2nd I am looking at my next goal instead of trying to figure out what happened with this one, I have to get to that under 300 pound mark if not because its a lesser weight then to prove to myself that I can still meet ambitious goals with my health. Will I reach that sub 300 pound mark by April 2nd? only God knows but I have a strong feeling that I will get there before April 2nd because in lieu of a personal crisis that is happening for us right now which will not get more detailed than that as far as my blog is concerned I must keep focused and I must finish what I have started and take my health back.

This week I will predict that the motorcycle photos will return and I am also looking for a new all time low weight, again, am I ambitious? you betcha! if I do not show a loss come Friday it matters not because it is who I am now to continue down my path and get as healthy as I possibly can, I actually get down if I have to miss a workout and cannot wait for spring to get here again so that I can get back on on my bike on those days that the gym is not an option.

Lastly, I have adjusted the comment section on here because I have been getting more and more spam comments with links to a shoe seller, another for energy drinks and a political site so I turned on comment moderation which is something that I have not had to do until now. I did not want to turn off anon comments because I am interested in hearing from anyone that actually reads my blog even if they wish to stay anonymous so the moderation was the next best thing. It changes nothing besides the fact that I will have to click a tab that allows the comment to be posted before it shows up in the comment section so please don't let it stop you from commenting as lately I noticed fewer comments in general from actual readers of my blog.

That's all I got for ya on this cold windy Wednesday so it shall end here.

As Ever
Me

Not much to say when you're high above the mucky-muck.

Sometimes its the things that we don't see coming that get us worse and sometimes its the things that we know are there that have the largest impact, Then there are those days that go perfectly and nothing could have been done differently else the day would cease being perfect and then all at once a rug is pulled from beneath our feet, as we collapse to the ground we watch helplessly as the expensive vase falls in slow motion towards the hardwood floor. Trying to stay on track and do everything correctly so that by weeks end the scale shows me what I want to see at times becomes more than a challenge while sitting besides the eggs in the bowl as shiny chrome beaters that loom over head get closer and closer, I do believe that I have a good idea how those eggs feel after this weekend.

I did stick to the plan as much as possible though Saturday I did have to make some choices because of circumstances not in my control where my intake was concerned, I could have made better choices but I didn't and it is what it is at this point. I have not been to the gym since Thursday for more than one reason and I will share one of them in this post, I am sick! doncha love kids sometimes? My son got a bad cold Wednesday, Thursday was my daughters turn, Friday Wify got it and by Saturday afternoon it was my turn. Today I am feeling a bit better and may try to make it to the gym at least for a bike ride because I must keep my weight going the way that I need it to which is as we all know in a downward direction. This morning as I emptied my bladder I decided that I would step on the scale because I knew that I was not as hydrated as I should have been by what I was seeing and not too much to my surprise I am up in weight by 4 pounds from Friday, 334.4 flashed onto the display but I know that I did not eat 14000 extra calories over the weekend and concluded that it has to be the weekend that I had and some stress poking its head into my life right now that is causing the "up" in weight. I am not saying that me not going to the gym doesn't have anything to do with it and I am not making an excuse, otherwise I could just not mention it but I also know there is no way I had 14000 extra calories either, again it is what it is and we will see what Friday says.

It is starting to feel like the movie "Ground hog day" with the being up post weekend for me, hopefully I can make Friday feel that way as well because I have had a loss each week for the last couple. The plan is to drink 2.5 gallons of H2O and green tea today, hit the gym for at least a light workout as I am feeling somewhat better today, and stay within 1700 calories for the day and try to not let stress control my actions the way that they demand doing so. This week I am planning to post a weigh in each day just to keep me on my toes, its a different kind of week for me so I need something a tad off the beaten path to keep me paying attention to what I am doing.

That's all I got today, its a bit random, a bit honest and more than a bit of a forced post because I am not exactly in a writing kind of mood but hey! that's life now ain't it?! keep on keepin on and all that and I will be back tomorrow with a new post, I will weigh myself in the am and post the results for your entertainment and the world keeps turning.

As Ever
Me

Weigh in time, how is the goal doing??

This is the day that I put up my "official" weigh in number up on the blog so I will not keep it to myself any longer, Last week I came in at 332.8 pounds and that was a 3 pound drop from the week before and this week? 330.4 lbs and that is a 2.4 pound drop and keeps me well within my 2 pounds per week goal. I will count this as 2 pounds because I like to deal in whole numbers but since the start of my little challenge to myself I am down 6 pounds since Dec 1st which puts me ahead by 2 whole pounds as far as reaching my goal by April 2nd which makes me a happy boy. I am again within 2 pounds of my all time low weight of 328 pounds and I honestly believe that I will fall below that number come next Friday if not before so we may see the return of the "what I have lost" images AKA: motorcycles and porn stars! if you are a newer reader you may be confused and if you have been following along for a while just look at the "weigh in" tags and check out some of the older posts.

In spite of being way up on Monday it would seem that I have done what I can this week because a 2.4 pounds loss is pretty good in my book. I ate right, I went to the gym almost every day and I stayed hydrated which translated into a successful week as far as the scale goes and just in general. The plan for next week? the same exact thing and this week I am going to watch myself a little closer on the weekend, when Wify rents our Friday night movie this week I will have baby carrots dipped in Newmans own light dressing instead of my big ol bowl of popcorn to save on the sodium and see if I can beat down that old all time low.

Feeling good on this Friday because of the positive weigh in and I will do my part to keep the momentum going because I REALLY want to get below that ever elusive 300 pound mark and get into the 200's for the first time in my adult life. Keeping it short and sweet today since I have a ton of stuff to get done but there you have it, a great weigh in and a couple pounds closer to my goal, keep on keepin on and all that and remember, we own the choices that we make so make them good ones.

Todays post has been brought to you by the letter B.

As Ever
Me

The ups and downs of weight loss.

This week has tested me a bit where stress goes, not anything weight loss related and then at the same time weight loss related things were there as well, they are always there no matter what else is happening, sometimes I feel like I need to be tested to keep me on my toes. Over the weekend I ate salty foods and ended up being up in weight on Monday, of course it was retention weight mostly because of the amount that it was but seeing a large bump in that number on the scale plays havoc with attitude towards losing weight. I have said it before and I will repeat it now and many times in the future as long as I am writing this blog, weight loss is more of a mental game than anything else, if a person can pull the reigns in on the mental part the physical part is easy.

Easy? you are out of your damned mind mister Meatball! that cheese cake literally calls my name when I walk past! I NEED to eat! we all do right? we have to eat to live! damn you and your "its all mental" attitude! Indeed it is mental, yes yes we do need to eat to live BUT what we need to learn is that we SHOULD NOT Live to eat. We will all have up days/weeks and we will all have down days/weeks but if every time that a down week peeked at us we gave up we would never be able to accomplish anything at all. It was a long time for me before I had a week where I did not lose at least something when I started on my trip to the half which was huge mentally. It made me feel unstoppable which just fueled me to go further with the program, but when a gain is seen, or even a week where we break even and there isn't a loss it somehow smashes everything else that we have done to that point. Why does a single off week control us like that? is it because we were just waiting for that single moment to scream "You failed! now stuff your pie hole with tasty goodness! I knew this would happen" are we expecting to fail? if you expect to fail you will fail, and that goes for anything not just weight loss.

Physically our bodies only need so much nutrition to function and anything past that is gravy..sometimes literally! somewhere in our lives we used food in place of something else as a coping mechanism and its something that I still to this day dislike admitting but its the truth. I ate because I like the way food tastes, that's my story and I'm stickin to it! but there has to be some underlying reason for it or else I would have been able to stop eating that way before the idea of dying young and rotund stopped me. That is where the mental part comes in, its just a habit and though they are hard to break it is only a habit and can be broken, my body has never needed a Macho Nacho, 3 cheese burgers with only ketchup, a grande beef burrito, a 99 cents potato burrito and an order of deluxe chili cheese fries worth of calories and yet that was on the menu many nights ON MY WAY HOME FROM WORK! yes that was after the day was done and I was coming home from work at 10:00 pm! why? I suppose for the same reason a fella climbs a mountain.


What are you getting at man? a mental game? ordering half of the menu items at Del Taco? No matter what happens we have to keep on keepin on unless what we are looking for is failure because giving up is admitting defeat. There will be times when it feels as if giving up is the only option and we have all been there but what does giving up gain you besides weight? We all fall down in life the important part is that we get back up because if we do not what do we have besides a great view of the ground?

Tomorrow I weigh in for week two of my latest challenge, I have a strong feeling that I will have a loss but if I don't will I stop trying? I don't think that I enjoyed the view of the ground so I don't think I will stay there if I do not see a loss on the scale. I have lost more than 200 pounds now since starting and I have had my share of bad weeks ie: failures and if I stopped going at this like it was my job in life I would likely be back to my old rounder self by now. I guess my point put simply is that no matter what happens all we can do is our best, we will have slips, we will have less than perfect months, weeks, days, hours because we are all flawed somewhere otherwise we wouldn't be in these situations and you would have no reason to be reading the blog of a former 500 pound fella, If the difficulty of the situation is the lock consistency is the key and every one of us can be consistent with good habits if we want to be.

As Ever
Me

Recovering from the salty weekend, and baby its cold outside.

The last couple days have felt good, hopefully come Friday I will see a loss that brings me below that 332.8 pound mark and maybe even lower if I get all of my ducks in a row. Since this weekends up fluctuation I seem to have re-focused and I am hoping that it translates into a decent loss, I only need a one pound drop to stay on course for my under 300 pounds by April goal but of course I would like to see at least my 2 pound minimum so that I can stay within the goal numbers easily just in case I have a bump in the road kind of week.

The view out of my front door this morning towards the lake, gotta love the snow.

The gym yesterday was suppose to be a nice easy trip where I was planning to just ride my bike for 20 minutes and a quick trot on the arc-trainer but it turned into more than that. I spent 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 25 minutes on an arc-trainer followed by 10 minutes on the treadmill which would have been a good work out at 55 minutes of cardio but then I lifted weights. I ended up doing over the head presses, preacher curls, seated back rows, lateral raises and some shrugs, I told myself that I should slow down on the weight lifting but how can I when I am just starting to see results from it? I can flex my bicep and there is definition, The muscles in my quads are separated and clearly visible when I stress them or stand, my shoulders look like shoulders instead of mashed potatoes! how? why?? stop now? I can't. This is the point that I was waiting for, I wanted to start lifting again, I needed to start lifting again! no matter what I tell myself I can't come up with a good enough reason to stop so I won't.

My intake was on par for the day coming in at just about 1800 calories, Home made Turkey soup was on the menu for dinner and I got a lot of veggies into the day as well. Fluids, ahhh fluids, I drank 1 gallon of green tea and 1.5 gallons of straight H2O so slightly more than normal but I figured I was recovering from the salty weekend and its not like I tried to drink that much, it just happens sometimes. I will not be able to get to the gym today because of a snow day for the kids and the fact that I don't feel like getting stuck at the bottom of my long steep driveway but I did get in some movement while shoveling said driveway. An hour of shoveling snow has to count for something and I plan on maybe doing a yoga DVD and some calisthenics later because I have to keep the movement happening so that this Fridays weigh in comes in at a loss rather than breaking even or a gain.

The week is turning out decently well where fixing the weekend goes and other than missing the gym today I will do my best to keep the momentum up so that I can hit my goal in April. I have two restless kids and I am listening to Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone sing "baby its cold outside" so it is time for a cup of hot green tea while I put the kids in their cages....er I mean play with the kids for a bit! keep on keepin on and all that and tune in tomorrow to see where the next episode of As the fat guy turns goes.

As Ever
Me

Sleeper hold! nobody gets out of the sleeper hold!

Something is a miss, I weighed in Friday and I was 332.8 which was a good week but come Monday the scale had different news for me. Granted I was up late all weekend and ate popcorn late on 2 of those nights along with going to the gym 7 days last week so I may have been slightly over trained to go with the sleepy but when the scale said 339 pounds yesterday I was at a loss because it had not been a terribly bad weekend and the biggest issue was the lack of sleep. This whole up thing did bug me a bit but in the grand scheme it is what it is and all I can do is keep doing what I am doing and hope that it fixes itself, say that 3 times fast! that or I can just start going to bed at a reasonable hour. I have never been that guy that over analyzes his intake, I basically eye ball my veggies to protein to fats to carbs ratios and have never written them down as long as my calories fall between two points I am happy so I won't start doing that now as I feel that it just confuses the situation BUT I am going to do something that I did for a while back a few months and that is add an all veggie/fruit day each week.

The plan will be to have 2 days per week where I eat no meat at all, mostly veggies and breads with some cheese perhaps so that I can make veggie pizza flat breads and the like. I used this approach a while back and liked the change in menu, it forced me to get creative with meals which accomplished more than one thing, I get to eat different foods as there are times that I get a little repetitive at the dinner table and it lightens things up. Not going to the gym is not an option for me so I will not adjust that much, what I can do is tweak it a bit which I am unsure of how to do that right now because I currently do between 40 minutes and an hour of cardio followed by 30 to 45 minutes of weight lifting with the lifting being 3 days per week. I am seeing results from the lifting so I do not want to take it away completely from my program but I may scale it down slightly and focus on taking pounds off again as my main goal.

The fact that I have not lost a significant amount of weight in the last couple months, in fact I have bounced around the same few pounds for a while now, does not mean that I am not seeing a difference in how I look. I am in between sizes again with some of my clothing, I got a couple of $20 gift cards from the local big and fat shop like I do every year for "being a loyal customer" Like I had a choice! but I do appreciate that they do this because at the prices big dude clothes cost every little bit helps. So..I head on down gift cards in hand and wify came with me, she found a Reebok sweat shirt that is normally $40 and its in a discount rack for 25% and with one of my gift cards it ended up costing me $9.99 so that was cool, it was a size 3xlt and fits me snug enough that it fits but loose enough that my juggle is hidden somewhat. With the second card I figured that I would get a Tee shirt so of course I grab a 3x and off to the dressing room I go but the shirt is too big on me, not by a whole lot but big enough that it looked odd. A 2xl came with me into the dressing room next and it was only slightly too small but small enough that it looked like I was wearing my little brothers shirt, I bought the 2xl shirt because it will eventually be what I need and with my coupon it ended up being free.

3xl is too big, 3xlt works as long as its a sweatshirt, otherwise it is slightly tight and too long and a 2xl is too snug, I am stuck with what I have at the moment for clothing but hey! I would rather be between a 3xl and a 2xl than AT a 3xl! I am still looking for a loss this week and have a strong feeling that even with yesterdays high weigh in that I will make it a loss come Friday, its just how I have to think otherwise I am thinking like a fat person and well...that's just not me any more. I Passed out fell asleep yesterday putting my daughter to bed at 8:00 so I ended up with a very good night sleep and it is the plan for the rest of the week to go to bed no later than 10:00pm because I think its a bog part of why I was up in weight, that and the fact that I ate salty foods all weekend, so we shall see.

It will be a tough week of being strict and hitting the gym as religiously as I have been and I am going to end there for now because I have to get ready for the gym and finish getting my daughter ready for her day at school.

Eat well, drink much and sleep long for it is what is needed to live a long healthy life.

As Ever
Me

Weighing in on weighing in, Off to a good start..

This morning is the Official beginning of my April 2nd challenge, which is to get below 300 pounds by April 2nd 2010 which gives me 4 months to do it. In the beginning of the week I was 336.4 pounds and I used that number to give me a start point for this week so that I could see how I was starting off and this morning when I weighed in I was 332.8 pounds so 3.6 pounds this week, I will round down and call it 3 pounds. With that weigh in I am ahead of my goal by one pound but I am sure the week where I need that extra pound will come into play so we will just call it a good week.

Heading to the gym yesterday I was feeling pretty good about going in lieu of feeling worn down in the am but when I arrived it was almost like the energy was sapped out of me again. Onto the bike I went and ended up riding for twenty five minutes and then onto the treadmill for an additional ten minutes so only 35 minutes of cardio, while I was on the treadmill I noticed one of the trainers looking in my direction but he did not approach me so I figured it was just eye contact held too long and went on with my walk. When I was done I wanted to get a light chest work out in on the machines, as I headed towards a press machine that trainer came over to me and introduced himself and some small talk ensued he asked what my fitness goals were etc and this is something that I have noticed lately at the gym the trainers seem more active with approaching people and its the second time in 2 weeks this has happened. So we chatted a bit while I was using the press machine I told him that my main goals were to lose fat and gain muscle and he said that he could help me "get started on some serious weight loss" if I was interested in using his services at the gym, I smiled and that's when I told him that I was down more than 200 pounds. He asked me what my secret was and I asked him "What would you have charged me for your services?" He laughed and said "Fair enough" and we talked a little bit about it while I finished up the press machine and I just told him that more movement and less eating was pretty much all I was doing, I may take him up on his offer at a later date as I still get my free fitness eval and he seemed knowledgeable enough.

This afternoon I am planning on doing my 15/15/15 cardio workout along with some bicep and shoulder strength movements to finish up my exercise for the day. Over the weekend as long as weather holds up I am going to try and hit a trail near my house that Wify and I walked a 3 mile stretch of about a week ago, I found a 5 mile stretch of the same trail using Gmaps and it starts where we left off last time so if we can find the time and a baby sitter a hike may be in my weekends future. Over all I am pleased with the way this week has turned out and I am that much closer to getting below my all time low weight, I have a strong feeling barring anything out of my control that within the next few weeks my weight will drop well below that low weight of 328 that I hit right before my surgery.

With that the end has come to yet another post among the masses of weight loss blogs floating around out there, You may now return to whatever takes up the rest of the time in your days, Thank you for following along and thanks for the support.

As Ever
Me

Run Forrest! Run!! er...I mean walk?

Tomorrow I weigh in, This weigh in will be the official starting point weight for my goal to be under 300 pounds by April 2nd and I am hoping to see at least 334 on the scale because when I figured my pounds per week to lose I included this week from a 336.4 start weight mid week. I have done my part this week and expect to see at least the 2 pounds needed for me to stay on track with my new goal, I have been to the gym every day this week and am following my intake plan barring the few Hershey kisses that I had Tuesday night so its been a good week so far.

My trip to the gym yesterday was interesting, Wednesdays are usually an off day for me because I work my legs with the weights on Tuesday but I decided that I wanted to go anyways. I rode the bike for 25 minutes and then planned to walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes more, a nice easy work out but I ended up running intervals on the treadmill for 30 minutes, or should I say attempted to run intervals. After a warm up walk for 5 minutes I ran the first interval but I have no clue how long it took me because I wanted to see if I could run a quarter of a mile without stopping, and I did! I was not expecting to be able to do it but I did and could have gone further, I had the treadmill set at 5.7 mph while I was running and it felt good. Slowing down I walked at 3.5 mph for the next quarter mile but I had taken a big drink of my water so when I started the next interval I got a cramp on my right side towards the back of my ribs, blah! so I only ran for about a minute and a half and started walking again and ended up doing that again about 5 minutes later so when I say that I ran intervals I mean that I ran once and then tried to run two more times but I cramped after that first interval so I just walked the rest of the time. My legs were getting a bit fatigued right from the start of my workout and I think that it was because of the weight lifting on Tuesday, it is what it is and from now on if I decide to do a leg workout I will take it easy the following day so that doesn't happen again.

With that it is time for me to start getting ready to go to the gym so I will keep this one short, Tomorrow we will find out if I am off to a good start with my 300 goal and another week bites the dust. Thanks for following along with my story and always remember that it is you who makes the decisions, You are the one that decides if its time to do what you need to do.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled program...

As Ever
Me

Weight loss IS a mental game, don't believe me? then read here.

If you convince yourself that everything is ok it is easy to believe, as simple as that you go on day after day accepting things the way that they are without challenging a single one of them. At 534 pounds things are viewed differently than they are at even 330 pounds, excuses are made and become the normal life of you, missing things and unable to participate in even the most remedial activities is just how it is, That is no way to live, especially when fixing the issues is as easy as it really is, confused yet? I am not saying that it is an easy task because its not but what needs to be done really is simple but until we are willing to wrap ourselves in it and accept that we are weaker than we would like to believe at those extreme weights we may as well as consider ourselves chained down because realistically the two are comparable.

Where once there was the drive to ding the next level in a video game, or maybe attempting to convince everyone that you are just a large framed big boned all muscle under the padding not so much of a fat dude as you are just a little rotund is now a feeling of accomplishment because you ran for 3 minutes straight without stopping, or waking up and instead of the first thought in your head being "How big of a breakfast can I eat and make my wife believe that its reasonable" reasonable for what? a show horse? the thoughts are now closer to "Man I can't wait to get to the gym and try and run for 5 minutes straight" when a good deal of weight is dropped mindsets change, I should say that when any weight is dropped the way we think is completely different than when we are use to dealing with failure.

Why do we fail? what is it that makes weight loss so hard? We fail because we give up when we don't see results instantly and it is hard I believe because anything worth doing or having comes with some effort, which is a simplified look at it but basically how I feel. Again I can only speak for myself but I know that when I do my part most times I come out where I want to be and the times that I slack I know that the weigh in at the end of the week suffers somewhat. With that said I have to say that as long as we are honest with ourselves and at the end of the day accept our efforts for what they actually are instead of the fog and mirrors that we at times put up for others, you know what I mean "I ate perfectly today all within my calories and balanced to boot! I am amazing!" yeah except for that coffee this morning with the extra cream in it and the hand full of M&M's that I snuck out of the community dish at work, oh and then there was that....and on and on and on. We have to take responsibility for what goes into our mouths as well as the effort that is put into exercise because if we don't we are only hurting our own efforts and really just letting ourselves down before we have even had a chance to get a leg up.

The bottom line is that this health game is not easy for mAny of us and the weight loss game has proven to be seemingly impossible for others but we must remain diligent if we are to reach the goals that we strive for. We will slip, we will have perfect days, we will have victories as well as defeats along the way but the things that need to stay true are the determination, drive, willpower and plain old desire to get where we want to with our weight and health, make it a lifestyle and I promise you that it gets easier to pass on that extra piece of cake or the 12oz steak which use to be a 16 oz steak for me and is now a 6 oz steak when I do treat myself on those very rare occasions to some red meat, but when we expect to eat healthy and it just is what we have become then the effort eases and soon you will find that you want a glass of green tea instead of a super big gulp Dr. Pepper.

I now eat a carrot and it tastes sweet to me, and a regular cola is way too sweet for me to enjoy, I use to drink at least a 2 liter of soda per day probably more and now just the thought of that makes me cringe. I am the guy that because Whoppers were a buck the question came up "hmmm I wonder how many I can put away" my friend was buying and that number was 8 before I couldn't go any more and now the thought of eating at a fast food restaurant is so foreign to me that even my daughter asked me what the store was called as she pointed at Mcnasty's Golden arches, we just don't eat there, and its because the habit is now to eat something healthy instead of places like that.

The mental part of weight loss is the key, once we can get into a frame of mind that allows us to clearly see that we were not meant to sit on our asses all day while shoveling greasy food down our throats we will be a step in the right direction and the rest seems to fall into place. Eating high fat foods all willy nilly while sitting on our rumps is bad and refocusing on getting some movement into each and every day while making good choices with our intake is a must if we are to take control of our futures, if not? our futures will surely be shorter than they have to be.

Do you have the self control to take your life back?

As Ever
Me

Being comfortable in my own skin...ALL of it....

Monday provided me with a pretty good work out at the gym and I stayed under my calorie range, hydration was the game for the day and over all I am happy with everything that happened for the day where my health is concerned. I mentioned that I was going to do my 15/15/15 routine and I did but I changed it up a bit, I did my 15 mins on the bike, I did my 15 mins on the arc and I did my 15 on the treadmill but instead of walking at various inclines I warmed up at 3.0 mph for 3 mins and then did intervals running for 2 minutes then walking for 2 minutes and I did that for 20 minutes, the intervals near the end were less than 2 minutes each but it was a good work out none the less and something new to me so I was pleased with it.

Last Wednesday when I was at the gym with Wify I tried running on the treadmill for the first time and it wasn't as bad as I thought and is what prompted me to try it yesterday, and I almost chickened out and just walked. Looking for a treadmill that was stuck in a corner or behind a pillar was the plan but as I was walking away from the weight area I thought "why hide in a corner to run?" so I walked to the treadmill front and center of the gym and was right in plain sight, running is still something that I am not fully comfortable with even with a compression shirt on and I did not have it with me, but I did have my hoodie and that sufficed. My original thoughts of all eyes on the fat dude momentarily came back when I began running but quickly faded as Black train Jack blared in my head phones and I slipped into that I really don't give a.... mode.

It is still hard to not be in that frame of mind at times when you once weighed over 500 pounds, its a hard feeling to shake, you know, the one where it feels like everyone in the world is staring at you. Even now at around 330 pounds and physically able to do pretty much anything that I want to I am still a big boy, I am still not what you would call a physically fit individual if you were judging on looks alone and perhaps not even if it was my abilities that were being evaluated but none of that really matters. Doing what I need to do is what I need to do and that's it, letting what someone else thinks stop me would be my loss and that isn't something that I am ready to accept, does that mean that I won't wear my hoodie to hide the jiggle? nuh uh! its hoodie all the way! but I won't hide in a corner to run either. I have all winter to wear my hoodie to the gym when I run and hopefully by the spring I will have lost a significant amount of weight, at least be under 300 pounds which is a goal of mine.

Getting to under 300 pounds has sort of been back burnered for a while because I am as I said doing pretty much anything that I want to and my weight is not limiting me in any way currently, which is probably untrue but coming from where I have it sure does feel like I am unlimited. Talking to Wify a couple nights ago I told her how this weight that I am right now is where I am comfortable, its what is familiar to me so the hard push to lose lose lose! isn't there, I mean I am working out, I am eating right but its almost just slightly above maintenance levels because I give myself a lot of slack with the calories lately, I am able to walk/run/bike further than ever so I am seeing progress there instead of weight numbers. This morning I weighed in at 336.4 pounds which is 8 pounds higher than my lowest weight and where I have been hovering for the last couple weeks since my surgery and now that the cat is out of the bag its time to get back into a downward swing with the weight so a challenge will be set.


I want to hit 300 pounds or below before April 2nd 2010, that number is a very achievable amount of weight as it will mean that need to lose 2 pounds per week on average from this Friday until April 2nd. Because I am the way that I am I want to try to get below that number before then and I am planning on upping the intensity at the gym, I will still do my same two routines but I will up the speed, distance and weight in which I am doing these things and hopefully it will kick the weight loss into high gear, or at least a higher gear than I am in right now. Unlike the last challenge I will not be having a surgery to mess up the final result so Iwill add it to the side bar and add a weigh in each week until April 2nd, I am trying to think of something that I will have to do if I reach the goal, surpass the goal or do not make the goal like maybe donate to JDRF a certain dollar amount per pound under or over or whatever, if any of you fine people have any good ideas please drop it in the comment section.

There you have it, another post, a new challenge and now you owe yourself a big ol glass of H2O so hop on up and get it, you have sat on your butt long enough reading this post. Of course thanks for the support and for following along and tune in tomorrow to find out what happens in the next episode of as the fat guy turns..

As Ever
Me