Your brains, Zeusmeatball's strength, my steel cut oats!

What we've got here is failure to communicate, some men ya just can't reach so ya get what we had here last week. Now that's a line from the best movie of all time if its my opinion being asked and I at times hear that in my head when I slip off of the wagon or make a bad food choice and I feel that is the way it is for many people that struggle with weight loss. We try to make the best choices that we can for any given situation but there are times when it just doesn't play out the way that it should have and that is the point where people start beating themselves up and figure "welp I fugged that all up, time to eat a pie" why? because a slip happened its time to give up? nah we all know that its just the next excuse in the line of excuses that justify the bad choices that are all to easy at times to make.


I don't believe that there is a magic formula for losing weight, I do believe that the only thing that's needed is to make the choice to change the way we eat and move and the rest sort of just falls into place. Just falls into place? what are you nuts? get up and eat a healthy breakfast followed by some healthy snacks, make sure to drink enough fluids then I am expected to eat a good lunch and dinner? squeeze in some exercise, THEN get to bed at a reasonable time just to start over the next morning? but what about watching Conan O'brien?? oh wait...even still that's a lot of work! AND I am suppose to do all of the other things in my day like work and taking care of a house and kids? You kind sir are out of your gourd! I am now in the opinion that eating is NOT a sport, it is NOT anything other than a way to get fuel into our bodies so that we may do all of those things listed above, wow what a concept eh? eating to live rather than living to eat.


Once upon a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away I was a naysayer and a non believer in this philosophy as well but I promise that once that mental hurdle gets stepped over that it gets easier to eat like a human being rather than a billy goat. Exercise I am finding to be down right therapeutic and that right there is as good a reason to take it up as a hobby as any if you ask me, I mean think about it, taking eating food as a hobby got us here why not take up exercise as a hobby to get us out of this mess? When we look at it from a different angle where the view is not hindered by the roadblock called self pity things start falling into place where health and good eating habits are the subject, no really they do! I only know this because I have experienced both sides of that coin unfortunately but if someone would have tried to tell me -and they did- what I needed to do back when I was 534 pounds I would have given them a snarky response and finished my food.

Cheesy crumbs on my tee shirt and orange finger tips laying defeated on the sofa sipping root beer from a 2 liter bottle was just a warm up for the ensuing barrage of greasy goodness that was quickly super heating in the microwave is how many a night played out, hell that's how some mornings went! Getting up to walk into the kitchen and get a second helping of whatever was as much exercise as I was going to get or perhaps a walk upstairs to go to the bathroom but either way it wasn't much. I am too hard on myself sometimes with that whole thing because I did after all have a bonifide "excuse" as to why I couldn't exercise what with my back injury but then again did I really have to eat the way that I did? probably not. The stark difference from then to now if compared side by side is absolutely amazing to me, green tea on my breath and more fresh fruit in my house than ever there has been, counting every calorie that goes into my body and eating as many whole foods as I can my eating habits are completely different from then to now. Currently I go to the gym 4 to 6 times per week and leave only because I run out of time, I love being there and working out I look forward to that up feeling that comes after a good solid workout. The warmer months for exercise I ride my bike around the lake that I live on and walk the hilly streets in my area and have been know to run a bit, hiking and running around the yard with the kids is on that list as well and when I think back to how it use to be I cannot believe that it was me.


I always hear that "bad habits are hard to break" but I like to look at the other side of that and apply the same concept, if bad habits are hard to break then wouldn't Good habits be hard to break as well? Yes they are and let me splain, no there is too much, let me sum up because this happened to me just last week. I had a doctors appointment so I missed the gym that afternoon and as it turned out I wasn't feeling that great anyways so I decided to just not go that day at all and the following day I was still not feeling so hot and in the morning I decided that I would not go to the gym that afternoon. That time rolled around and as I was walking out the door it dawned on me that I had earlier decided not to go to the gym yet here I was in my gym clothes, water bottle in hand, head phones in my pocket and walking out the door with everything needed to go to the gym and until that very second had not even thought about it because I was not going, remember? it is a habit for me to get ready to go work out every afternoon now and I honestly feel guilty when I don't make it out for my cardio so I have to insist that if bad habits are hard to break then the good ones are as hard to break because a habit is a habit is a habit I say.

Once more than 500 pounds now more than 200 pounds lighter I have changed my habits and I'm tellin ya as hard as it was to drop those bad habits that were built up over years it will be as tough to lose these good habits that I have created in the past two years. Like a puppet my good habit walked me to the bedroom to get my gym clothes on, fill up my water bottle, grab my head phones and off to the gym instead of a short walk to a cold refrigerator to grab a large meal and return defeated once again to that couch like so many other times in the past.

That's all I got for today, As the fat guy turns will return at its regularly scheduled time and channel tomorrow, but that 6xl cheesy tee shirt will never return if I have anything to say about it.

As Ever
Me

Weight right there while I hop on this scale.

Lets get right to what the scale had to say to me this morning, first time on it said 322.0 pounds, second hop on again said 322.0 pounds and the third time was more of the same so it looks like a 5 pound drop this week and a new low by 1 pound. I was actually lighter yesterday afternoon at my docs appointment than this morning and think that me staying up until 1am (because of hitting the gym late) drinking water and having a late snack which was within my calories effected the weight this morning a tad. If I were a betting man I would say that next Friday's weigh in will yield me the three teen results that I am looking for if not sometime mid week. Because of the new low this week we get some images of things that weigh the same as I do along with some stuff that weighs as much as I have lost so without further ado here ya go.

This RM-Z250 comes in at 212 pounds and weighs as much as I have lost so far.

While this Vespa GT60 comes in at a whopping 322 pounds and of course that is what I currently weigh.

This weeks weigh in leaves me 47 pounds away from my 275 pound goal and to me that number looks small, some people have 47 pounds to lose and it takes them eons to get there and I just said that it looks small. I suppose that its because I am 212 pounds and 2 years into this whole process so in my mind the time line is a non issue for me where as in the beginning it was all about the time that it would take to get somewhere with the weight loss. Soon I will have lost more weight that I weigh and its a day that I am looking forward to seeing, I need to hit 267 pounds to be at that magical 50% lost mark and that's just 55 pounds and the light at the end of this tunnel that I have been waiting for.

Thursday I came in under my 1700 calories by about 50 or so and I drank more than usual with almost 2 gallons of H2O and 1 gallon of green tea. I did make it to the gym last night around 8:00pm and when I got home I was all hyped up and ended up staying up until around 1:00am drinking about 3/4 of a gallon of that H2O at that point and my sleep suffered a bit last night as well but not too bad and tonight I will get a better nights rest. My trip to the gym was good, I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill at a steady 3.4mph on a 3.5% incline and I passed on weight lifting because of the time that I was there.

Over all a good solid week with a 5 pound total loss and a 1 pound loss if we are basing it off of my lowest weight in this process, I am pleased with the results. Another pound closer to my ultimate goal weight and a week stronger than I was last Friday. Once upon a time I was a 500 pound fella wishing that things could be different and now here I am 212 pounds lighter, I no longer wish for things, instead I do them because we all know that if you wish into one hand and shit into the other which one will fill up first.

That's all I got for today, you can now return to your regularly scheduled program.

Fini..

As Ever
Me

As the fat guy turns..

Wednesday went off without a hitch where diet and exercise goes and I have a feeling we will see a new low for tomorrows weigh in. Keeping my calories under my set number has become very easy this past week for whatever reason and getting to the gym each day has not been an issue, I am doing my part. At the gym I have brought up my rpm's on the bike up and I am averaging mid 90's rpm's alternating between level 11 and 12 resistance with the rpm's jumping into the 100-110 zone for the level 12 portions of the ride while my heart rate is staying around 145 bpm which is decent improvement from when I joined the gym back in October where it was mid 70's rpm's and the same heart rate. I really have been fine tuning my workouts lately in an attempt to get as much out of them as I can, a normal routine for me is 25 minutes on the stationary bike followed by 30 to 40 minutes of weight lifting on those days that I lift finishing up with 20 minutes on the treadmill doing my incline routine 9 out of 10 times with the other being a set speed at a set incline. That's about 45 minutes of cardio per weight lifting workout and when I do not lift I do 50 minutes to an hour adding the arc trainer to the mix.


This afternoon I will likely miss going to the gym because of a docs appt but I will try and get out there after dinner if I can especially with tomorrow being a weigh in day for the blog. I say try because I don't want to go to the gym and make Wify miss out on going because the evening is her time to go but if I can get a sitter perhaps we can go together. Last week on Friday I weighed in at 327 pounds which was a tad higher than the week before but there was definitely some water retention weight there because of a sodium filled few days before that weigh in not to mention the stress situation that I was dealing with last week. I know that I am lower than that 327 per my sneak peek on the scale earlier in the week but how low? to be found out in the morning but I have a good feeling that I will have a new low this week.

I am going to take a guess and this is a very ambitious guess but I want to say that the wheel will stop spinning on 320 pounds even tomorrow which will be 7 pounds this week and 3 pounds lower than my lowest weigh in from 2 weeks ago. I was shooting for 319 lbs so that I could hit those teens but that would mean an 8 pound drop this week and 4 pounds from my low weight AND the fact that I want the teens so much probably means that I will have to wait another week to see them so 320 is my guess. Getting to 320 pounds would also mean that I am exactly on schedule to hit my 300 pound mark by April 2nd if using a 2 pounds per week formula which is another reason I am going to hope to get there.

1705 calories, 50 minutes of cardio, 40 minutes of weight lifting, 1.25 gallons of H20, 1 gallon of green tea and 8.5 hours of sleep is how my Wednesday played out. Rinse repeat and reap the benefits is how I am playing this better health game and so far its working for me in all aspects. All of the hard work that was put in this week will surely add up to a loss but just how much of a loss is the unknown factor right now, looking for the teens but will be happy with a 1 pound drop from my low of 323 and expecting to keep on keepin on any way that it pans out. That's all I got for today so make sure to pop in tomorrow to see how I did this week, will it be a loss? perhaps a gain? the next installment of as the fat guy turns will reveal all of the answers.

As Ever
Me

It's the little things..

Last night the gym was packed but I went and enjoyed myself with a nice ride on the bike and then a trot on the treadmill, going later in the day always means that I am up late but I figure a trip to the gym and less sleep is better than not going and watching other people workout on the tele via The biggest loser. Its funny sometimes how we see others doing something admirable and they don't even know how much another person applauds them for the work that they are putting in because it went unsaid. Sometimes when I ride the bike I get lost in what I am doing and focus only on me and my rpm's/distance/time and then others I am studying what others are doing and last night was a people watch kind of night for sure as the gym was packed there was a lot to analyze. I am finding that I focus more on the over weight people that are bustin ass than anything else lately and not for the reason that one might think, I think these people are among the most admirable in the whole gym and I may be a bit biased having come from where many of them are but its how I feel.

Last night there was a fella next to me on a bike and I could see that he was doing everything that he could as far as working that bike goes to get his ass in gear. This guy was about 20 years old my guess would be just over six feet tall and about 425 pounds so kind of like looking in a mirror and I felt like "I am glad he is doing this now instead of waiting like I did" and I almost told him "awesome job" and the remembered how I didn't or don't want random people doing that to me so I didn't but impressed I was none the less. Then there was a girl on an arc-trainer obviously in pain by her facial expression but she didn't stop until that timer hit 30 minutes, she stepped off of the machine and hands on her thighs she bent over to catch her breath and smiled. Was that smile because "Thank god I am done!" or was it closer to "I did it!" either way victory was hers for that moment in time and she earned it.

The little things are sometimes bigger than we know because those two people whom I do not know made me push a little harder last night with my own workout, that and the fact that the UFC fight that I was watching wasn't over yet. I am doing this whole healthy life thing for me, I am doing it for my kids, my wife and honestly its becoming a for the fun of it kind of thing and that's the part that intrigues me the most. Here I am 200 plus pounds lighter than I was just 2 years ago and having fun with the process? who wouldda thunk? Once upon a time a big bag of Doritos sitting on the couch next to me, PS2 controller in hand, headset on and killing everyone in sight on Socom 2 is what was considered fun and now its much different. Now looking at bringing my heart rate down slightly while upping the intensity of a workout is on my list of fun things to do or realizing that I can bring the mph up on the treadmill with my incline workout and handle it just fine. Dropping to the floor randomly to do some planks (thanks for reminding me of this glorious exercise Dana!) during a commercial and having my wife look at me and wonder what the hell I am doing now while my daughter mimics the position on the floor next to me always gets me in a good mood, all of these things are so different than what I was doing at 534 pounds.

Its not always easy to stay on the straight and narrow when attempting to drop some weight but if we take from the little things all they have to offer it makes the walk down the road a little less boring and gives a push now and again. I have come a long way from when I started off, a ten minute walk was all that I could muster once upon a time but I did it and now I am doing 45 to 60 minutes of cardio 5-6 times per week and lifting weights 3 times per week, down 211 pounds and counting this lifestyle that I chose to live is here to stay. I am going to make my goal weight and I am going to make all of my health goals that I have set for myself because I say so and that's all it takes, I really do believe that.

I can't walk more than a few minutes, I can't run, I can't stop eating like this, I can't stop drinking soda, I need my morning coffee, there is no way that I can drink that much water, my knee hurts so I can't exercise, I have a sore back I can't workout, I weigh too much to exercise, I don't have the willpower, I can't do this without a surgery, on and on and on the excuses can pile up until we convince ourselves that its an impossible task to take on and the next thing that happens we notice that we are 534 pounds. They are all excuses and they are all irrational attempts to brainwash ourselves that its ok to literally eat ourselves to death because of the effort that it takes to eat healthy and get some movement into our lives and the fact that it is too much work.

You CAN live healthy if you want it, everything else is just the next excuse and that's all I got to say about that.

Fini..

As Ever
Me

A weight loss story, can you dig it!

This week will be a week where I get a new low weight is my prediction, "How can you say that with such confidence man?" I can say it that way because I am going to make it so. Needing to keep this train rollin down the tracks so that I might hit my goal of being at or under that 300 pound mark by April 2nd is at the top of my priorities list currently and since I am the one that makes the magic happen then I must. Thinking about being under three hundred pounds gets me sometimes because I cannot honestly recall a time that I was sub three hundred pounds. I weighed more than three hundred pounds when I started high school which means that the last time I was less than three bills was more than twenty years ago. I had a full head of hair back then and not the foggiest idea about what having a girlfriend was like, reading car magazines and riding my huffy 10 speed was pretty much all that I knew back then and that was the last time in my life that I was even close to three hundred pounds.



Getting to under three hundred pounds is a huge deal for me, somehow it feels like victory will be mine when I get there and its been a long time coming. Making that number will mean that I dropped 36 pounds in four months (my little challenge to myself) and I will be 25 pounds away from my original goal of hitting 275 pounds. At 275 pounds I will have lost 48.50% of my total body weight! at 267 pounds I hit that 50.00% total body weight lost as well as weighing less than my father does currently so that is my real goal number but one thing at a time I suppose. If I let up I am only letting myself down and I have not dropped 211 pounds so far to start letting myself down now so onward I go and the next goal will be reached. I have done this without any miracle plans, I have done this without a surgery, I have done this without paying someone to tell me what I need to do to get my arse in gear, I have done this on my own.

Thinking about that 50% body weight lost thing it dawns on me that when I get there I will have lost 267 pounds, and realistically I could probably lose a total of 300 pounds before all is said and done which would leave me at 6'5'' tall and 234 pounds which does not sound unreasonable. I have no clue where this wheel will stop or what weight I will eventually level off at but I do know that where ever it is that I will be healthier than I have been in my entire life because of my efforts and I dare you to stop me from getting there, its just not an option for me, I will get there.

I may have to work out some deals to get to the gym tonight as my kids have the day off of school but I will in fact make it there to get in my 50 minutes of cardio for the day. Staying on point with my calories for the day thus far and am planning on keeping it that way for the rest of the week so that my Friday run in with the scale goes my way. Drinking enough fluids every day is a non issue for me as I am so use to it that I drink because I must, I drink because its there and I actually enjoy the way water tastes these days. A prediction that I would get a new low this Friday was made and I am going to take it a step further and say that I will make it into the teens which would mean that it was an 8 pound week going off of last Fridays number. Hitting the 3teens is a very ambitious thing to shoot for considering my last weeks weigh in at 327 but it is what I am going for. With that the end has come to another post by the one and only God of meatballs, tune in tomorrow to see where the day brought me and of course to get your daily dose of the big man.

As Ever
Me

Giada De Laurentiis, Me and the Gym.

Later than normal but here I am, Today was pretty busy and I have to admit that I busted arse as far as diet and exercise goes even though I did go over by exactly 1 bowl of grapefruit zabaglione over mixed berries on my calories. I ate often and healthy all day and hit 1700 calories on the nose pre dessert, I have been on point lately with my dinners and the way they are turning out. Saturday I made steaks out on the grill served them with baked sweet potato and a nice hearty salad, Sunday was a whole chicken seasoned perfectly then roasted to perfection with some of the sweet potatoes from Saturday and green beans seasoned with pepper and olive oil and then there was tonight.

I made oven roasted pork shoulder roast laced with garlic and herbs (yes I said laced people) with carrots and onions in the roasting pan, with that was roasted baby red potatoes wearing some olive oil, rosemary and thyme and more green beans prepared the same way as Sunday evening. While I was at the gym last week I was watching "Every day Italian" with Giada De Laurentiis as I do every day and she made a grapefruit zabaglione over mixed berries dessert recipe and tonight I found out that her recipe's are as yummy as she is. My bowl of tasty goodness only cost me roughly 150 calories and it was a good sized dessert! I did deviate from her recipe slightly by replacing the sugar that it called for with splenda but otherwise it was made exactly as she said to, I will be making this again as it was a hit with everyone and even my neighbor came by for a bowl.

Getting the gym this afternoon was a bit of a challenge but I worked out a sitter and off I went, when I left I was not in a great mood but afterward per usual I was feeling awesome. Twenty five minutes on the bike followed by twenty minutes on the treadmill and my workout was complete, a good day all around I would say. Shooting for a new low this week I am unsure if I will be able to make it but I am going to do my part so that the possibility of getting that new low weight is not out of reach. Stay on track, eat less, move more and drink my tea and H2O is whats in store for the rest of the week, or should I say for the rest of my life, yeah that sounds better to me.

Keep on keepin on and all that.

Thats all I got tonight.

Fini

As Ever
Me

Get up and carry me...

This morning as I mentioned in yesterdays post I decided that I would get on the scale to see whats happening as I try and get back to my low weight with lots of fluids and some strict eating. The display flashed a 326.2 at me which is just under a pound less than yesterday morning and thats with my Friday night popcorn and a movie with wify so I feel like I am in a good place and feel that the weight will level out by Monday for sure.

I kept my calories within target Friday at 1530 pre popcorn and then whatever a decent sized bowl of popcorn cost me, over 1700 total for sure but not too bad and I did counter it with a lot of fluids. 1 gallon of green tea and 2 gallons of straight H2O throughout the day as well as making it to the gym for 50 minutes worth of cardio split between a stationary bike and a treadmill. We are having a heat wave here in New England for a couple of days and its suppose to hit the mid 40's today and tomorrow which is way better than the 15-20 degrees and windy that we have had the past couple weeks so perhaps I can get out for a walk around the lake or something today.

I will keep this post short and to the point as I have some things to do but will post again tomorrow morning with the scales number. If you are wondering about the title of the post and what it has to do with anything that I wrote I asked my daughter to give me five random words for (to use as a post title) and that's what she said so off I go, where she will ask me to carry her nobody knows. Until then keep on keepin on and remember folks the easiest way to get to a thinner, healthier you is to eat less and move more, it is in my opinion the only thing that works.

As Ever

Me

Keep on keepin on.

This morning started off as any other Friday morning, bathroom then straight to the scale and getting right to it I weighed 327.0 pounds which is 4 pounds more than last weeks weigh in. This up is not exactly a "real" up as much as it is a fluctuation in my opinion because even though I missed the gym all last weekend and had a couple days of stress eating I know that over all I did not eat 14000 extra calories. My guess is that by Sunday I will have flushed the sodium out and gotten my balance back but it is what it is and for the sake of being consistent it shall be written. I may just for the fun of it do a weigh in on both Saturday and Sunday to see where the wheel stops and see if my theory is correct. Thursday was a pretty good day with my calories coming in at 1735 total, I drank 1.5 gallons of H2O and a gallon of green tea (the tea was drank an hour and a half before bed and still may be on board somewhat), I made it to the gym yesterday as well where I did 25 minutes on the bike along with 20 minutes on the treadmill at 5.5% grade and 3.2mph, all in all a good day.


I posted yesterday a post called "No sugar coating" and noticed something when I looked at my hits tracker page for the blog, that post got less than half of the normal hits that any regular old Thursday post gets on average. I found it interesting because normally Thursday is a heavier traffic day and I always assumed that it was because its my "pre weigh in" day but I started thinking about it and wondered if the title of the post had anything to do with the lack of hits. I thought about how when I was bigger that I did not want to hear it unless it was sending waves of pity my way and blunt truths were not what I wanted to hear and that title might lead someone to believe there was just some plain old "this is how it is" in said post and the random person finding a link in a search engine may have passed it up yesterday for that reason. I said "when I was bigger" but its more of the state of mind that I was in because certainly right now at 327 pounds I can still stand to lose some weight and there are people starting off lower than that and are in that frame of mind. I might be totally off with my thought of why the hits were way low for a Thursday post but at any rate I did find it interesting once the idea that it could have been the post title slowing traffic yesterday so I thought I would mention it and maybe get some of your opinions on it.

Neither here nor there really just an interesting observation I made and the world keeps turning, I am planning on hitting the gym every day this week but again if things out of my control interfere again whats a fella to do? well for starters the calorie limit is the calorie limit and thats that, life's unexpected hurdles will have to take a back seat this week. I am the one that is responsible for what goes down the pie hole, I am the one responsible for how far I push myself with the exercise regardless of what else is happening I have to remain focused on this task because I was once 534 pounds and life was not exactly peachy back then so revisiting for nostalgia's sake is not on my things to do list.

Could I beat myself up because I didn't have a loss this week? sure but what would it accomplish besides possibly bringing me down? I think that I will choose to look at the positives and understand that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned and improvising with what is on hand is all that can be done, all in all I am a week stronger than I was last week and again staying with the theme I am the one to blame for that.

I have also been considering doing a video post for some time now, in fact more than a year and I have mentioned it before and I have even recorded some but then decide for one reason or another not to post it but I am again thinking about posting up a video post. Perhaps I will start doing a weekly video post on Friday as a weigh in kind of thing, or maybe a monthly wrap up kind of a thing, who knows!

Another week gone and a new one will start soon, where I will end up next Friday I have no clue BUT I do expect to see a new low which means I will have to drop more than 4 pounds this week, in fact I am going to aim for 7 pounds this week because I do think I have some sodium weight on me right now but I suppose its to be seen. If I can pull off a 7 pound drop this week I will prove that hard works equals results, thats not to say that I haven't proven that already because I believe that I have and will continue to do so until I reach my goals and beyond. I've added a poll to the sidebar to gauge interest in a video post, feel free to drop a vote in either way as I would love to see what anyone reading thinks about the idea and don't forget to check in tomorrow and Sunday mornings to check in on weigh in V2.0.

The end has come to another Fatman and Blobin, another post full of randomness and honesty, keep on keepin on and all that and until next time!

As Ever
Me

No sugar coating.

Losing weight is not an easy task for many people, it takes time and it takes a lot of patience but if the time and effort is put in better health can happen for just about anyone if it can happen for me. I consider myself lucky to have what I do, I have a great family and I am afforded the opportunity to spend loads of time with my daughter for whom without I may not have started down the path that I have. I happen to be 211 pounds down the road but it wasn't always like that for me as I started off at over 500 pounds and unable to walk for more than 10 minutes at a time without pain, but I did it. Turning down treats such as Aunties peanut butter fudge, or my mother in laws plates of experimental cakes or cookies was once a difficult task but again, I did it. I am in the opinion that anyone can lose weight and I came to that conclusion because if I can do it the apparent slacker video game addict calling "I'm base" when a game of tag came up as a child, disk injury havin once 534 pound guy can do it why can't the next guy or gal?


I mentioned that I feel lucky to have what I have but that's the end of where I feel lucky, when my weight loss is the subject I don't feel lucky at all because luck had not an ounce of sway on the results that I've had thus far, I busted my ass for every one of those 211 pounds lost. This is the part that I believe fails to get through to many people that attempt weight loss, I have been guilty of it myself and I see it all too many times when someone tries to lose some pounds, much of my family has struggled with weight throughout my lifetime so I have seen lots of "diets" started. The gun shot goes off and off to a great start! a couple pounds come off and almost immediately slacking starts, "nah I won't exercise today" or "It's just one peanut butter cookie" and before you know it the "start" of the next "diet" is coming to a Monday near you, its just not going to happen without the effort.

All of that thought came from my off day that I had because of "stress" and I began thinking about when I was 500 plus pounds and I was walking with my wife to a park that was literally less than 2 blocks from our house at the time and how I felt. It was Jan 2008, I had just begun eating better and couldn't believe that I was sticking with this for 2 weeks so far, I had an apple in my hand and walking slowly towards the playground I felt like a new person. We got to the play ground and I said to my wife something along the lines of "I got my walk in for the day" and I was red faced and out of breath from walking less than 2 blocks, but I had my apple in hand and DID walk to the playground and at that point it was what I could do. Was it a little embarrassing that all I could walk was such a short distance? it was a lot embarrassing! and I played it off like I could have done more but the truth is that if I had to go any further I would have needed a break which in fact stopping to let the kids play was the break I needed to make it back home.

Currently I think that I am in the best shape of my life and that's kind of bad considering that I am still above 300 pounds but it is what it is, I have worked hard to get here and no one can take that from me, not even a bad day of stress eating. I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I once was physically and mentally because once upon a time I would be looking for the next Monday start date for my next attempt, but here I am. Tomorrow I will hop on the scale for the official blog weight and with the week that I have had eating wise and missing the gym for this past weekend in its entirety I am not really expecting much in the way of a new low in the am but I will report in what the scale says none the less. A trip to the gym this afternoon and some good choices with my intake for the day along with another 2.5-3 gallons of fluid should help me along with tomorrow weigh in but in the grand scheme my fumble will not make a difference at all.

You can lose weight, you can get healthy, you can stop dropping pity on yourself and get that ass up and do something about but YOU have to do the work, and YOU have to realize that its not a picnic to do so and there will be times that just plain old sucks ass but if YOU stop doing what needs to be done for your own health then there is only one person to blame...

YOU..

Fini

As Ever
Me

Why does food comfort me?

See that bowl of cherries over there? they ain't mine.. When life kicks you in the mouth once you've gained some momentum down that hill and your legs are not doing the propelling any more I dare you to try and stop without injuring yourself. In this case that fat kid peeked out from the dark corner and snatched up some crap food and basked in the stresses of life if only for an evening it still amazes me how easily it can happen and when it does that "I just don't give a damn" attitude comes out because the curve ball came just a little too fast, perhaps this is the life of a fat guy getting thin. Nothing irks me more than the after party part of some bad choices because it seems so easy once its done and over with and the bottom of the hill is coming up fast and the ground is leveling out a bit, but its too late at that point and the only thing that can be done is to get back into the right way to do it mode.

Confused yet? let me splain as much as I am gonna Lucy, apparently when the shit hits that proverbial fan and a huge plate of stress enters stage left this ol boy starts grabbin for the Doritos. Regular every day stress doesn't get me, Bills pilin up? hand me that banana, Car broke down? hmmm I think a salad for dinner sounds good, That old back injury actin up and keepin me from the gym? lets grill some up some fish! What I speak of is not for the blog but effects it just the same because I don't believe in un-truths otherwise I could merely just post about how great my intake was and pretend to not understand a gain or a no loss Friday weigh in. With that I've already said too much because no one reads this blog to hear about what I didn't do where my health and fitness is concerned so let me get to what I have done to remedy the Tuesday that I had.

Monday I had a great day, stayed within my calories and got to the gym albeit later than usual then yesterday I went over on my calories about...lets just say that I was well over but I did get 3 gallons of fluid into my body before I went to bed last night. This morning upon waking up and having a conversation with myself that ended up with a "Fuck you you fuckin fuck, do what you need to and stop with the stuffing of the pie-hole" I decided that it would be another 3 gallon day and as of right this second I am 2 gallons down so getting to that 3 will be an easy task. Breakfast went down, my pre gym snack went down, and my post gym Whey protein shake is down the hatch as well but I made the decision that I would post before I ate any kind of lunch so here I am. I left for the gym after dropping the kiddo off at school and I did 27 minutes on the stationary bike including a 1 minute cool down, after that I went over and lifted weights working my shoulders and back. When I was finished with the weights I headed over to a treadmill and did my grade program, long story short I was at the gym for an hour and forty five minutes and have to admit that I feel like awesomeness in a bag right now.

Busting my arse for the rest of the week is what I can do to help push the scale back towards where I was last friday but between my Sunday and yesterday I am not expecting much good news on the scale this week. I have been wrong before where my Friday weight is concerned in the past so who knows! Why does food comfort me? What is it about eating that seems to distract so many of us from situations that include stress? this is an answer that I need to find. Though I handle 95% of the stress that comes my way without the reckless abandon that was used last night there is that 5% of the time where its enough that I make the wrong decision with some comfort foods. I suppose the fact that I am down 211 pounds has to speak for something as far as my slips go because to lose 211 pounds slips or no slips I have changed my life and the way I live it for sure.

Thats all I got for today, check in tomorrow to see where the rest of my day brought me.

As Ever
Me

Monday morning quarterback.

Last Friday I hit my new low weight since starting down this path and while atop the mountain looking down at the world with my belt cinched in a couple notches more felt awesome it doesn't mean that I can let up with what I am doing. Saturday morning as per usual I woke up and stepped on the scale and 322.6 flashed on the display, and I ended up going over calories by a bag of movie popcorn (Sherlock Homles was pretty good) but that's not all, I was out all day and didn't get enough fluids into the day and I did have a couple drinks with my neighbor. Sunday came with a large side of stressful situations with my son and I honestly just didn't care about watching what I was eating, that's not to say that I gorged myself but to say that I counted a single bite would simply be a lie. Managing to get a big salad in for dinner last night helped a bit but I know that I went well over my calorie limit for the day by more than a few calories and I did step on the scale this morning and lets just leave it at I am up in weight, retention I am sure, but up none the less.


Thursday was the last day that I made it to the gym, It just was not in my cards this weekend which means that I will make every attempt to go each day this week. Today I will have a cleansing kind of day to get anything out of my system that I put in over the weekend, or should I say that I didn't put in namely H2O. I am 64oz of H2O down as I write this and I am planning on flooding my body today with fluids to help with the rehab from Sunday and there is a gallon of green tea on my kitchen counter that I will start into as soon as the publish button is clicked.

Along with all of the fluids that are in my immediate future is much fruits and vegetables because today will be a meat free day. I sometimes do an all veg day where I do not eat any meat products and I limit the cheeses etc which isn't too far from normal anyways but today will be one of those days in an effort to squeeze the excess sodium that I am sure is floating around in me out. Today's menu will consist of, My breakfast which was a bowl of cereal and I will have a pear in a couple of hours followed by veggie soup for lunch and some more fruit after that between lunch and dinner. For dinner I am making Turkey burgers for the family but I will have a big salad with baby spinach as a base and then off to the gym as I have to go later than normal today. Upon returning home I shall sit down to watch Heroes with however much fruit I need to finish the remainder of 1700 calories and perhaps a whey protein shake for good measure and a protein boost, with some simple planning it suddenly becomes easy.

It was a less than stellar weekend for me all the way around where diet and exercise goes but that does not mean that its time to pull out the good silverware and order up a rum cake so that I can sit alone and sad eating until the last bite goes down. I believe that is where so many people fail at dropping weight, a day or two of not so perfect eating turns into feelings of failure and down the hill the snow ball rolls until our midsections are as big as that very snow ball. Some days will not be as good as they could have or should have been but using that as an excuse to keep that ball rolling in the wrong direction sits firmly on each of our shoulders because we are responsible for what we do every day.

This week should be interesting with my weekend of not so great choices but in the grand scheme its not anything to worry about as far as I am concerned. My plan will be to work a little harder this week at staying strict with the intake, drink a little extra for a couple of days to counteract some of the sodium build up from the weekend of non hydration and to get to the gym every day without fail and while there work just a little harder than normal which is already hard enough! Walking the walk for 741 days now I am in a state of mind that assures that I will be successful with all of my health goals even when a random not so on track day pops into my immediate vicinity.

That's all I got, Thanks for following along and remember who makes the decisions.

As Ever
Me

Weigh in, Only 48 pounds from goal??? when did this happen!?!

Like a child on Christmas morning I sprung from my bed today and straight to the scale, after a quick detour to the bathroom of course. Onto the scale I went..but before I get to all of that Thursday went very well with the intake, exercise and hydration. 1790 calories went down the hatch and I had a big salad for dinner along with my gallon of green tea and more than a gallon of H2O I would call that day a success where my intake was concerned. My trip to the gym yesterday was great too! I did 20 minutes on the bike and did sprints @125-135 rpm every 3 minutes followed by the incline routine that I mentioned in an earlier post, I skipped the weights for the day because I was running out of time so 50 minutes of cardio would have to do, over all I am happy with how the day turned out.

Oh I did weigh in this morning, lets get to that! The first time that my feet made contact with the cold scale the number that flashed on the display was 323.4lbs, number two said 322.8lbs followed by 323.0lbs! We will use that last one and call it 323lbs for the week, That is a 4 pound drop from last weeks weigh in! I am now down 211lbs total or forty two 5lb bags of sugar and only have 48 pounds left to lose to reach my initial goal of 275 pounds. With this weeks weigh in comes a new low weight and that means some pictures of things that weigh as much as I have lost and weigh the same as me so here goes.

This 1971 T350 Rebel comes in at 323 pounds like yours truly, these bikes are starting to get smaller!

This little fellow is a 1969 T 125 Stinger and comes in at 211 lbs which is what I have lost to date, can you imagine carrying that around with you all day?

Normally I don't have two weeks in a row with huge numbers like this week but I will do everything in my power to try and get to the teens come next Friday as I believe that once I hit the teens a fire shall be lit beneath my ever shrinking posterior and sub 300 pounds will be just around the corner. Keep going to the gym, keep eating as many whole foods as possible without obsessing over it, keep drinking my Green tea and H2O, Get much sleep...This is the plan, this has always been the plan and this is what works for me so I must stick with it.

Two hundred eleven pounds lighter I sit here today writing this post, The same man yet so different that I literally do not recognize myself in the mirror at times. I can't say that its been the easiest thing that I have done in my life but honestly it has not been as hard as I once thought it would be. Starting out at 534 pounds and looking down the road at the end goal was 2 years ago and but a speck in the distance, now that I am only 48 pounds from that original goal that I set for myself, looking back at the days of 500 plus pounds is getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror and I see great things coming up in the road for me. People will look at me funny when I say "You just have to decide to do it and follow through" or "Move more eat less" and I usually get a response something like "Yeah right, if it was that easy no one would be fat" and honestly it would have been my response once upon a time too but with every inch of my ever shrinking self I say, It IS that easy. Perhaps when one is faced with the thought of an early death because of a weight issue the decision gets easier to make because of the alternate ending to the flick but the bottom line is that if you make the decision to do it, you can and will do it.

I have taken enough of your time with my ramblings this fine Friday morning so the end has come to this episode of As the fat guy turns....I suppose that soon I will not be able to say that and will need to come up with a new title to this soap opera because "As the svelte guy turns" just doesn't sound as good. Thanks for following along and bearing witness to just an average Joe dropping Maury Povich kind of weight with no magic tricks and no suction devices, just plain good old fashioned determination and a few simple rules.

Fini

As Ever
Me

Nothing profound, nothing witty, just a pre-weigh in post.

This week was an extremely strict one where the intake is concerned, I ate within my calorie range every day including the weekend which has been as of late a little bit loosey goosey when counting by the ounce. Making it to the gym has been priority one since the kiddos went back to school which is cool because that's my me time! and its what I need to do to keep the weight dropping. Drinking enough water and tea has never been a problem for me as I like water and I love green tea which means I am always hydrated, in fact as I type this I am on my 2nd giant mug of hot green tea because I forgot to brew the cold stuff last night, I do love my tea. Looking for a new low weight in the am because tomorrow is weigh in day for the blog, I have done an exceptional job this week with all aspects of eating good, exercise, sleep and staying hydrated and want it to reflect on the scale in the am.


Tomorrow is weigh in day and I am looking for a shiny new low weight for myself, will it be a motorcycle? perhaps a body builder? I never know what that "low weight" image will be! Todays post shall be short and sweet because I have a few things that I need to take care of this morning so that I can make it to the gym on time. Keep on keepin on and all that and make sure to pop in on me tomorrow to see the new low! yes I am predicting a new low even though Tuesday was the last time I got on the scale.

Thanks for following along and all that, now ask yourself "what have I done for my health today?".

As Ever
Me

Tell me is it time to get down....

Chugging right along this week I am feeling great about whats been done thus far, this is my off day from the gym but I may go anyways in an effort to push the weight down as far as I can by Friday. Something that I've noticed lately at the gym is the amount of people that are there when I am has more than doubled, I guess its all of the "new resolution" people hitting the gym and that's cool! but its making it harder to find a machine to work out on. The gym that I go to is a pretty good size with tons of machines so I say harder to find a machine but its more like find the machine that I am use to using, Yesterday I walk in and head to "my" bike and there is someone on it. The first thought in my head was "now doesn't she know that's MY bike for this time slot of the day?" I grinned at my thought and took the bike next to her and rode my ride. I found that the treadmill was the same story as I walked towards the part of the gym where I usually use the hamster wheel just about every single machine had someone on it, many of them fumbling with the controls and I thought about when I first joined the gym.

Its funny how when I walked in on my first day I felt like I didn't really belong and that all eyes were going to be on me and I can't help but to think many of the new faces in the gym are going through that same thing. Unsure of how to work the equipment, unsure of how to work the controls and trying to remember to wipe the machine down when they are done using it all while trying to stay focused on the mission at hand which is to get moving and lose some weight or get healthier. I expect the crowd to do a couple things in the coming weeks, I think it will thin out a bit as people learn what time of day works for them and adjust their schedule, I believe that some will lose their drive and simple stop coming and I think that a few of the new faces will become fixtures at that time of day as I have. The trainers are in full effect running around from person to person trying to sell their services and there seems to be more employees around in general showing people around the gym with the "tour" in an attempt to gain their patronage.


With this new atmosphere and wall to wall people Zeusmeatball strikes again with the singing aloud because of getting into the music a little too much, and this time its a doozy. About half way through my trot on the hamster wheel at an 11.5% incline Lo Fidelity all stars "Battleflag" which I just uploaded onto my mp3 comes through my ear buds and before I know it I am tapping on the treadmill in beat with the music. Lipping the words but no sound as I am working through the incline I can feel myself letting go of the fact that there are other people in my immediate vicinity and know that my head is moving to the music a bit now and there is a little more swagger in my stride to go with the song and then it happened. Loud and I am sure unexpected to all of the people around me I say "Tell me is it time to get down on your muthafudgin' knees" (I did NOT say fudge!) and as quick as I said it I realized just like Ralphie did in "a Christmas story" when he dropped the lug nuts in the snow what I had said. Trying to look as natural as possible I glance to my left and the girl had ear phones on but when I looked to my right this girl was ear to ear smile looking right at me so I just shrugged at her and smiled back and kept going, she chuckled and again I think that its time to stop listening to the mp3 when I am on the treadmill.

Tuesday went pretty good over all, my calories were a bit higher than normal coming in at 1865 because I was really hungry in the am so I made myself a whey protein shake around 10:00am to keep that feeling away but otherwise was a text book menu. I drank 1.25 gallons of tea and just over 1 gallon of Straight H2O and did 20 minutes on the bike at the gym along with my incline workout on the treadmill. The incline workout is just 3.1 mph (for now) and starting at 3.5% incline increasing the incline by 2% every two minutes until I hit 11.5% and come back down by 2% every two minutes until I hit 3.5% again followed by a 2 minute cool down @2.5mph and finishing with a run @6.0 mph for as long as I can go.

My goal of 300 pounds by April 2nd is seeming less daunting to me lately and I am unsure why, Making that goal is what I am focusing on right now and because I have a target to shoot at it feels very attainable. Move more, eat less and apparently sing at the gym is what works for weight loss but I need to stop doing one of those three things else I become to someone "Sings on the treadmill guy" hey! its better than "fat dude on the treadmill" right?! and with that the end has come to the latest edition of as the fat guy turns, You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

As Ever
Me

Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today, So look out for those beauties oh yeah.

Looking out my window at the snow that seems to have been there forever I want to ride my bike, 3 inches of snow in the road and a foot in the yard the only thing that I want to do is take a ride around the lake. I got a set of bar ends for my bike for Christmas and while I was installing them my bike was looking at me from the corner of her eye begging me to hop on and ride her hard, but I have to turn her down for now because of the 100% chance of me ending up on my arse in the snow. Riding the bike at the gym though working some of the same muscles is not even close to a real ride and I don't know if its just because I have something new on the bike or if its that I truly miss it but it is calling to me. Soon enough the snow will melt and the leaves will return to the trees and the hilly road will be there again for me to enjoy, for now the gym will be my source of exercise and hopefully my strict rule of going daily will whittle me down to a smaller pilot and the length or intensity of my rides can go up come spring, I know it will.

The bike at the gym is a great tool for me, I can keep the leg muscles working in a familiar way so that when the time comes to get back on the mountain bike I will not feel like its been years since riding. I am able to change the intensity of my rides at the gym with the push of a button and I have been changing my ride each day just slightly enough so that its not the same over and over, I ride on level 11 and kick it up to 13 for one minute intervals maybe 3 or 4 times per ride and my distance has steadily been going up. This tells me a couple things, I am getting stronger because if I can bump the resistance up for small intervals and increase my distance then obviously I am improving. It also tells me that higher resistance doesn't effect me too much, its almost as if upping the resistance is making me work faster but not harder, I don't know how to explain it but when I do intervals I find it easier to ride, its almost like when I kick it back down to level 11 it feels easy and my cadence goes up slightly over all.

Monday was good for all aspects of this whole better health thang, I ate within my calories coming in at 1775 total calories and drank more than a gallon of Green tea and H2O. I made it to the gym and did 20 minutes on the bike doing intervals like I mentioned above followed by 40 minutes of weight lifting and a 20 minute trot on the treadmill. Sleep was on par but I was woke up at 6:30 am by my daughter sitting in my bed singing and blabbing to wify while she got dressed for work 7 hours is a decent enough nights sleep I suppose, at least my daughter will be in bed nice and early tonight from her early rise.

We're off to a good start this week all the way around so come Friday I am looking for a good drop in weight and hitting that 300 pound goal by April is starting to feel like I can do it. Whether you have 20 pounds to lose, 150 pounds to lose or like me more than 250 pounds to lose its up to you to do it, no one can do it for you and no one can make you do it. When I started off I looked at my weight loss and thought about how losing 100 pounds seemed impossible and here I am more than 200 pounds down so far and realistically I could probably drop 300 pounds total before all is said and done but that's a bridge to be crossed once I reach that first goal of 275 pounds. Walk, Run, bike whatever you choose just do it and do it for yourself because its the only thing that's going to work, hoping or wishing for better health and or weight loss just doesn't work, if it did I would have been a svelte version of who I am right now a long time ago.

I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman, All I wanna do is.....

As Ever
Me

Monday morning and a menu.

This week seems to be cruising on by and its only Monday, somehow knowing that I have done everything that I could over the weekend and my entire week as a whole is making me feel like I am going to have a very good week with the weight. Having posted that comparison picture in yesterdays post I looked at it and I said this before but I have to reiterate because I don't recognize the guy in the third picture quite fully just yet. I know that its me, I know what I have done and I know how different I feel but the visual is just not something that I am use to yet, I have been at many stages of health and different weights and I have not been this small since somewhere in my junior year in high school. I have also decided that that image will be the last one that I post on here until I hit my goal weight, so hopefully sometime in July or August I will be able to post a new one. That last statement gives you an idea of what I am shooting for as far as a time line with the weight. I figure that if I can get to 300 pounds by April 2nd that will be 36 pounds in 4 months and I will be within 25 pounds of my goal weight of 275lbs which will leave me 4 months if by July and 5 months if by August to get that last 25 off so it is a reasonable amount to shoot for.

I got a comment from someone saying that they miss me posting my menus so I thought that I would post up Sundays menu for your eyes. I haven't been keeping the menu as I use to, I still write everything down, I still count every calorie but I have been filling out my excel sheet short hand but it is something that I liked doing on here so I am going to try and post the menu up more often again, This is Sunday's menu and its 1665 total calories.

Breakfast
8:15 AM
2 cups honey combs 220
1 cup 1% milk 110

Lunch
12:00 PM
1 can low fat progresso clam chowder 220
1 multi-grain english muffin 100
1 whole tomato 30
smart balance spread 25

3:45 PM
1 apple 85

Dinner
5:45 PM
1 egg 3 whites 115
1/2 oz pepperoni 35
onion/peppers/jalapeno/tomato 50
2oz low fat cheddar cheese 90
6 slices turkey bacon 210
multi-grain english muffin 100
smart balance spread (sauteed on onions) 50

7:30 PM
1 apple 85
1.5 T peanut butter 140

Fluids
G-Tea 1.25 gallons
H2O 1 gallon

That is a pretty decent day and the omelet that Wify made me for dinner was very good but the day wasn't exactly 1665 calories like the spreadsheet says because I did have a bite of apple pie, I literally mean a bite off of a slice that the boss lady was eating I just couldn't resist! This week the kids return to school so I can get my trips to the gym back in order and all at the same time again which will be nice as I have been going when I can and that sometimes isn't the best thing because going in the evening for means that I will be up later from the energy boost that I seem to get after my workout. Good eats, good workouts and I had a new low weight last Friday, over all I am pleased with the last week or two of this whole get healthy thing, I am really gunning hard to reach under 300 pounds by April 2nd and with some hard work and discipline I should be able to get there.

A new week, a new year and hopefully come Friday we see a new low weight for me, Thanks for following along.

As Ever
Me

Comparison pictures 2 year 207 pound lost inside!

Its Sunday afternoon and the snow has been falling all day, we have up to 40 mph winds says the monkey in the plastic magic box and we are experiencing sub zero temperatures so I have been inside all day finding not much to do. Yesterday it was closer to 30 degrees so we took the chance to go outside and romp in the snow for about an hour and wify had brought the camera outside and snapped off a couple pictures. I was playing with the kids and ended up making a 7 foot tall snow angel because I was on a small hill and slid down while flapping, I thought it would be fun to take a photo from winter's 08 through 2010 and shop them next to one another for a compare shot. The first image is Jan 08 and I was 5 days into my lifestyle revamp the second image is late December 08 and the last one is from yesterday, and of course my wicked snow angel.

Winter 2008 to winter 2010 comparison shot, I still look at that last one and don't recognize the guy in the picture sometimes. these images are clickable for full sized views.

My Giant snow angel.

I did very well with my intake yesterday coming in at 1700 calories on the button and I drank more than 2 gallons of tea and H2O. I did make it to the gym with Wify in lieu of the snow storm that we were having I did 20 minutes on my stationary bike and another 20 on the treadmill, we called it a day and headed home for a great dinner that I thought was going to be less than extraordinary. I made tuna with red onions and black pepper on toast with lettuce and I made sweet potato fries on the side, for whatever reason this meal was exactly what I needed because it was very tasty. By the end of the day I had enough calories left for a small bowl of airpopped popcorn with a movie which was cool as I have been craving it all weekend.

Over all its been a great holiday weekend and having Wify home for four days was nice, I stayed on track and ate only what I should have and got in some good exercise between the gym and all of the shoveling which I think I will go finish up as soon as I hit publish because it appears to have stopped falling from the sky for the time being. Thanks for reading along and remember kids, the decision is yours to make because no one forces you to stuff your face with shit food and nobody is stopping you from exercising and please don't fool yourself with "I am too big to exercise" or "I just can't do it" You can and you are choosing not to, I told myself those things for far too long and it got me to 534 pounds and if I can exercise at 534 pounds those things startslooking like just the next excuse.

As Ever
Me

600 posts, 2 years and 207 pounds later..

This post marks my 600th post since I started writing this blog, that is 600 attempts to better myself where health is the subject and 600 times that I sat at my lap top and decided that I would show the world that a once 534 pound guy can and will stick to a diet and exercise plan that has changed his life forever. When I go back and re-read some of my older posts I can recall exactly how I was feeling on any given day, I can remember how it felt to want to lose the weight and hoping that it would stick this time around. If you are reading this you know that it did stick this time and I am a different person for my efforts, I look for things to do that will get me moving and I jump at the chance to do yard work or shovel the drive way when it snows and the contrast between then and now and how I approach these things is insanely different.


Dropping to a new low weight yesterday seems to have kicked me back into gear because last night I turned down popcorn with a movie and today I have already made my whole menu for the entire day. I will have a lower weight come this Friday because I plan on doing everything exactly how I need to so that I can make that claim an actuality. I have been at this for 2 years now and most of the things that I do on a daily basis to better my health and drop the pounds come second nature at this point, I really don't think about making my meal portions too big any more because when I make my plate if I am not weighing it looks pretty much the same, I HAVE learned portion control. I feel deprived if I have to skip working out for a day instead of if I don't get an extra extra large piece of cake, in fact there is an apple pie in my refrigerator that has been there since Thursday night and I haven't even thought about cutting myself a slice.

Friday I did good with the intake coming in at 1725 calories, 1 gallon of green tea and slightly more than a gallon of H2O and I did make it to the gym. At the gym I rode the bike for 20 minutes but I upped my pace and rode an extra mile in the same time so I was off to a good start. I then got on the treadmill and did interval running, I walked for 2 minutes at 3.5 mph and than ran for 1 minute at 6 mph at varying inclines throughout the routine and felt pretty good about the workout as a whole.

Making good choices is second nature for me now where justifying that 1 pound beef and bean burrito was second nature for me in the past. I enjoy taking a ride around the lake on my bike or going on a hike through some of the trails local to me with Wify now where logging into a game or making a double decker sandwich of some sort is what use to be the days special, Things have certainly changed around here.

Here's to another great year and with some hard work I will hit my goal weight sooner than later.

As Ever
Me

New low weight!!! return of the pictures!

Lets get right to this weigh in thang this morning, I woke up and of course I went straight to the scale and what I saw was 327.0 pounds on the button. I was 330.4 pounds last Friday so this week brings be not only a 3 pound loss but also a new low weight since starting down this road to better health so I am excited about that little tidbit. Because I am at a new low weight it of course means the return of the what I have lost so far pictures and somehow that makes me want to do it again next week and this weeks post hasn't even been posted yet! Here are the images for your viewing pleasure.

This KTM Duke 690 weighs in at 327 pounds just like yours truly.

Andre Iguodala of the Philidelphia 76ers weighs in at 207 pounds which is what I have lost to date.

This is Mike Morelli from The biggest loser season 7 and he lost the same 207 pounds as I did.

My Thursday went well besides not making it to the gym, I ate 1800 calories and got all of my fluids into my day in the way of 1 gallon of green tea and a little more than a gallon of straight H2O. Though I did not get to go to the gym I did do some light dumb bell movements with some dumb bells that I have here at the house but that was the extent of my working out unless you want to count the snow shoveling that I did in the afternoon.

I feel like I am on a roll again and came out of the Holidaze on top with my numbers, I am looking forward to next weeks weigh in and the possibility of a NEW new low weight! I was chatting with Wify last night and I told her that I need to get into the 3teens because that would mean less than 20 lbs away from my under 300 pound goal and I am very number driven so I think that when I am that close I will become fixated on the 200's and plow through it. When I hit my 100 pounds lost mark I kind of went into a funk -which didn't last long- because it felt like I was starting over at zero -yes I know silly way to see it but hey!- something is keeping me tethered to this 330 pound area and I have to get into the teens so that I can take that next step and move on down into the 200's for good.

Two years ago to the day I was 534 pounds, here I sit typing this post 207 pounds lighter and eons wiser where health and wellness is the subject matter. That first step was a hard one but once the momentum got going just like anything its harder to stop it than to keep on keepin on so here I am. Thanks for following along and thanks for the support over the past two years, Your comments and emails have definitely helped me along the way.

Will next Friday bring me closer to my goal weight? to be found out but I am going to try my hardest to make sure that it does.

Fini

As Ever
Me