Wish in one hand shit into the other, tell me which one fills up first.

I sometimes go back and re-read my older posts to see what I was doing on a given day and this morning I went back a year and read a post from March 30th 2009 and apparently this time of year gets me in the yard! This past weekend I wrote about all of the yard work and how my hamstrings are killing me right now and one year ago I was in the same boat almost exactly so it would appear that I have a pattern of sorts that I need to work on. My mornings start off great and then I bust ass all afternoon and bamn! a bad dinner? for why? Here is an excerpt from my March 30th 2009 post titled "Did I mention that I'm sore?.

"Busy busy busy! that pretty much sums up my weekend, we decided that it was time to paint "the blue room" AKA "the rec room" AKA "the big ass mess" so that we did. We moved everything out of the room and into my sons room so that we could move around in there, we painted and repaired almost all day Saturday to the point where we did not finish. Saturday night we decided that we would have a bonfire in our yard and burn up some of the brush that we have been cutting down in our yard so we spent about an hour dragging logs, branches and brush up the back part of the yard where the fire pit is and a bonfire we had! roasted marshmallows and all. The intake for Saturday was very much less than stellar but I am cool with it, I don't know if it was all of the work from the day or if its just the fat that we were having a bonfire but I ate terribly. Breakfast and lunch went well enough but then dinner was bacon pizza which I had 4 slices of and a bottle of water, hey at least I turned down the soda and chose water right? I had about 4 marshmallows and 2 bottles of Guinness while sitting at the fire so Saturday was a bad day for intake."

See that pattern? yeah the one where I make it ok to eat bad because I busted ass on any given day? yeah well that's gotta go! In the first year of me deciding to do something about my health I was a rock, I was very much a pain in the ass to eat around or with because I demanded that everything be my way or I would not be a part of it and I think that has to come back a bit. The point of me losing weight was so that I could first stay alive longer as I have a feeling that I was on the edge of some bad stuff before I changed the way that I live but there is another side to why I wanted to lose weight.


Being comfortable to move around in daily life is something that I think anyone that's not been huge takes for granted. Any event big or small was a hassle for me when I was 500 plus pounds, birthday party? no fuckin way man, too many people and they will all expect something from me that is more than sitting still on the couch, Amusement park? are you out of your damn mind? why would I want to walk around somewhere all day in the heat and watch everyone else have fun? Catch a movie? yeah sure thing! just don't forget to bring the Vaseline so that I can get my ass dislodged from the seat when its done. Being comfortable was something that I wished for almost on a daily basis when I was 500 plus pounds, I would think about how much easier things are when you don't weigh as much as a full on street bike instead of doing something about it. These days? I am comfortable, I run, I walk, I ride my bike and I play outside with the kids unhindered by weight and I am beginning to think that was the most important thing to me because I have relaxed on being as strict as I was in the beginning.

Right now I am just cruising through this better health thing and not pushing myself as hard as I once did and that's going to stop today, I am not going to wish for anything and I am not going to let my current comfort level be the point where I kick my feet up on the desk and proclaim victory. I am at a point where I love to exercise so that's not an issue, I drink like a fish so no worries there, my issue seems to be that I am way relaxed on the intake part of the equation because I can "judge" what I am eating so well now that I do it more often than I should be. I am not gaining weight so maintaining is a big 10-4 smokey BUT I am not quite at a maintenance weight just yet so back to the annoying pain in the ass with the scale mode I go which is going to suck with the warm weather coming and Mr Carona and Guinness hanging around but we will manage.

Another blogger friend of mine has issued a challenge to himself to drop 13 pounds by May 1st and has asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, by calling me out by name in his latest post and I am going to boldly say that I will be below 300 pounds before May 1st 2010. I will post my Friday weight to complete my April 2nd challenge results and see just how far I missed that mark because I AM going to miss it and start a new weight chart on the side bar to track this May challenge. IF I am able to get to my last Friday weight by this Friday I will need to drop 3.5 pounds per week to hit that May goal and again its an ambitious number but ambitious is what gets me going. If this Friday shows an up in weight which I think it will, that 3.5 pound per week target will be higher and after doing that math just now I am thinking that this is not going to be an easy task for me.

I am going to admit that I am pissed off at myself for not making it to that April goal that I set for myself even though there was a lot that went on in that time that effected the results that goes unmentioned in this blog, either way I am aggravated at myself for not making it. I refuse to be aggravated for a health goal and instead I am going to do something about it, sort of like when I decided that I need to NOT be 500 plus pounds any more. I have been in the last few months whittling away at the weight at a much slower pace than I once was and I suppose that's to be expected but I do know that I am not doing my part as much as I was in the beginning because of comfort and I am deciding that being comfortable is going to cost me some comfort and its time to amp up the workouts a bit and get the intake back into a VERY STRICT rhythm again.

Grab a bowl of popcorn unbuttered of course and watch for those 200's to come rolling around because its been a long time coming and I think its time to get back to what got me here in the first place. Out comes the scale for EVERYTHING and no more guesstimating on my measurements for a while, dropping the weight takes strict adherence to that system while I am finding out that I can maintain without the scale is a great thing I still see some road ahead that I need to walk, Its on...

Thats all I got today.

As Ever
Me

A Menu, a time machine and a bike chain...

When last we met our man on a mission Zeusmeatball, dedication and going for broke was the message conveyed and the plan was to hit the week hard and see what happened come Friday. Saturday morning started out like any other weekend morning but there was a school function for the kids for Easter and I decided to go, as we were getting ready Wify says "You could ride your bike over to the school, it looks nice outside" What a Great idea!! filled my water bottle and asked my son if he would want to ride over with me instead of taking the car with the girls and we were off. Two minutes into the ride I realize that it is way too cold to be moving 20 miles per hour gloveless with nothing more than a hoodie on but kept going and about a mile into the ride I realized that my son was not remotely near me so I circled in an intersection until he caught up. The ride is only about 3 miles one way but there are some pretty good hills on the way that were proving to be hard for the boy to go up without stopping and half way up the last and biggest hill I noticed that my son was no where to be found again so I stopped to wait for him. Around the bend I see him through the trees and as soon as he hit the bottom of the hill he stopped and yelled "I can't do it" so I waited for him to reach my position on the hill and dropped my bike into a lower gear and was going to ride to the top to wait for him to walk up and as I pushed the pedals forward the front wheel popped off of the ground, I pedaled twice and POP! I thought that the chain came off of the crank but it was worse! a link broke so I walked to the top with my son and ended up coasting down the other side to the school, my day was off to a fantastic start...

Lucky for me I had tossed the bike carrier in the trunk of the car and after the school function I loaded our bikes on the car and home we went, I dropped everyone off and ran down to the LBS and bought a new chain and installed it on my bike. Onto the back yard, My yard is a wooded area that at one time was clear and now it is full of small saplings, pricker bushes, shrubs and just lots of over grown crap that makes the area unusable. I have been wanting to get back there and clear the area out since last Spring but it didn't happen before it was full of leaves and poison ivy so wild kingdom it stayed but Saturday that all changed. The area that I was working on is about 50 feet wide and maybe 150 feet long and that's not even close to the entire yard just what I did Saturday, I headed back with some heavy gloves, some clippers, a machete and bad intentions for all of the overgrowth. Four hours later I had a pretty much brush clear area and a brush pile 6 feet tall for my efforts and the yard looks completely different than I have ever seen it and other than being a bit tired and hungry it was kind of fun actually...until later. The wife says "John is getting take out and I just wanted to put that out there" to which I replied "Ok what are we getting?" Doh! what happened to gung ho mister man gonna and I quote "beat the fat into submission" guy?? him? he had thorns in his hands and didn't feel like baking the chicken sitting on the counter. I ended up eating some General Tso's chicken and I opted for the white rice instead of fried, an egg roll and a Sam Adams which was later followed by a gigantico bowl of popcorn with a movie that night, it was not a good day for calories.

Sunday I woke up and my hamstrings felt like they had spent the night in some kind of torture camp, rode hard and put away wet and then beaten a bit more for good measure but I suppose that I should have expected that after 4 hours of being bent over tearing up bushes and saplings eh? I didn't do too much besides a bit of shopping that needed to be done Sunday but had not had a good nights sleep since Thursday and I have been averaging maybe 5-6 hours sleep per night since then. This beating the fat into submission thing that I was shooting for on Friday sure doesn't look like its happening! Here it is Tuesday and I am still very sore on the hams and yesterday at the gym I had to take it easy because I am still sore all over from my Saturday bush work. The plan is to go to the gym again today but I will be taking it easy again and by taking it easy I mean no weights, a slow ride on the bike, yesterday I did 6.15 miles in 20 minutes where I usually do between 7 and 8 in the same time and a 3.1 mph walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes.

Here is a random look at Mondays menu.

Breakfast
7:15 AM
2 cups honey combs 220
8oz 1% milk 110

11:30 AM
1 banana 105
1 T peanut butter 95

Lunch
2:30 PM
1 can progresso clam chowder 220
1 light multigrain english muffin 100
1oz low fat cheddar cheese 80
smart balance 20

Random
2 bites of cereal 50

Dinner
6:30 PM
1 cup rice and beans 275
4 oz chicken breast 200

7:45 PM
2 oranges 160

Calorie total for Monday is 1635 but I have to cop to a couple bites of the rice while cleaning up after dinner so it is actually a little more than the 1635 that my spreadsheet shows.

My weight is up and I will not believe that one day of terrible eating over the weekend is to blame completely for that, I have not slept enough, I am sore as all hell AND I did not eat well over the weekend. Sounds like I want to beat that fat into submission eh? it is what it is and I lost the key to my time machine so there is nothing that I can do about what is done so onward I go and eventually I will whittle myself into the size that I want to be.

That's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

Gravity interpretation and the fat guy turns.

This morning as I walked towards the scale I said to wify "I will be happy with a 314 on this thing today" and upon stepping onto the cold black gravity measurement device 314.2lbs flashed onto the display. Every day since Monday the scale has said 316 pounds then I hit the gym yesterday and a 314 pops in on me, I don't think that making my 300 pound mark by April 2nd is a possibility at this point because it would mean that I need to drop 14 pounds in a week but I do want to see how close I can get. Making life hard on the fat will be my mission this week and I am going to go very hard on myself at the gym and be extremely strict with my intake this week and I am going for broke with the weigh in for next Friday because being sick for as much as I have the past 2 weeks really mussed me all up. In all honesty I am past all of the "go go go lets get er done NOW" part of this better health/weight loss thang and I am sort of just living life in moderation at this point which was the goal really and I have lost more than 200 pounds and have kept it off for close to a year now so changes have been made permanent where my health goes.

I mentioned yesterday that the contestants on the biggest loser did a challenge where they raced to 26.2 miles on stationary bikes and that I was going to try this because I think that I can beat the fastest contestants time. So, I walked in the gym yesterday and was riding the bike per usual and thought "lets do half of that distance just to gauge whether I am crazy or see if I can beat that time" I ended up riding for just under 35 minutes and went 13 miles on resistance setting 11 which is where I ride every day. That pace is faster than the fastest contestants end time but it was only half of the distance so finding out if I could keep that pace for the whole 26.2 miles will be interesting and I think once I am back to a normal schedule I will give it a go, I believe that I can beat his time.

Barring me getting sick again, its lovely having preschool aged children sometimes I tell ya, I am planning on an aggressive week as far as my intake and exercise goes. The plan will be to eat my allowed calorie allotment and do not go over, eat clean and watch the sodium and carbs, drink at least 1 gallon of green tea per day and 1/2 to 1 gallon of H2O daily. Go to the gym at least 6 days this week and ride my bicycle as often as I can after dinner all week, sleep at least 8 hours per night every night this week and hope that its enough to kick me back into high gear so that I can continue to see lower numbers each week on my gravity interpretation device. I felt good yesterday at the gym and only stopped because I needed to get back home, I was over on calories by about 100 yesterday but I am not worried about it at all because of whats in store for my body this week.

Its going to be an interesting ride for the next few days and into the end of the week but I am going to be expecting a new low weight come Friday and I am honestly going to expect a HUGE drop in weight this week as I beat the fat into submission. I can taste sub 300 pounds, I can see it around the bend, and I have a strong feeling that it won't be too long before its what I see on the scale and with that the end has come to this episode of......yeah, make sure to check in tomorrow as I am planning on blogging through the weekend this time around.

Fini

As Ever
Me

The return of the gym.

Today will be my return to the gym as I did not make it last night because of something not in my control and I am itching to get on the bike again. I watch The biggest loser each week and this week they had the contestants do a challenge which required them to ride 26.2 miles on a stationary bike and I immediately said to wify "If I was on the show I would win this one for sure" and then I thought about something, I can do that challenge at the gym! So after I get reacquainted with the gym I will ride for the same 26.2 miles and compare my time with the times from the show because I gots to know. With the weather warming up and the street sweeper having come by and cleared all of the sand from my tiny hilly road I see lots of bike rides on my actual bike in my very near future and I do think that I will be going to the gym and then later in the day taking bike rides so I will be getting more exercise than I have been. My son got a new bike for Christmas, Wify has a bike and I have mine of course and I am thinking about getting a tag along bike for my daughter so that she can come with us on our rides as she loves her bike but is still on training wheels and cannot keep up, so like I said, lots of rides in my future!

Lets talk about my weight for a moment, I am up in weight this week but I totally expected that as last week I was full on sick with a fever in the days leading up to my weigh in and have a feeling that it was falsely low because of that, we will see where that wheel stops tomorrow when I weigh in. In addition to the being under the weather last week and the beginning of this week I have not been exercising at all and honestly have been eating slightly more than my calorie allowances about 50% of the time since about Saturday by about 100-150 calories. The way I see it is that things happen that are not optimal and I react to those things differently every time just like most people do, just because I am on a road to better health and weight loss does not mean that I cannot have weeks where I don't exercise and eat more no matter how little more it is. Truth be told I am still not 100% where feeling not sick goes and I am still a tad sluggish but no fever, no coughing, no aches etc etc etc and that is mainly why I am not worried about any up that I am seeing on the scale right now, it WILL be beaten into submission in the coming weeks.

Being more than comfortable in a 315 pound body is an odd feeling for me as when I began down this better health path any weight with a three in front of it did not seem comfy to me in thought, yet here I am. I am not limited right now to what I can or cannot do and I have not felt limited in quite some time and some people may disagree that I am not limited but there is nothing in life that I am missing out on because of weight at this point in time. Last week we made an impromptu stop at an Applebees for dinner as it was getting late and I got the 500 calorie steak dinner that they offer but while we were sitting there I said to wify "I was hoping that we got a booth" and she just smirked. I thought about what I had said and could not remember the last time that thought was even close to something that I would have wanted and in my head I thought about how things have changed for me in the last 2 years. I have lost more than 200 pounds so far and have kept that weight off for going on a year now and still going, I know that I will never be back in the wrong side of the tracks where my health and weight are concerned because this side is a lot more fun.

From 534 pounds to a complete turn around in my health is what I have done to date and I am not even close to finished, I have things that I want to do and goals to be met and no one will stop me from getting there.

As Ever
Me

100 best blogs for weight loss support? moi? and a project oh dear!

This week has been interesting because as I was coming off of my being sick with a fever and just plain old feeling terrible my daughter now has it so I have not had much free time where I was feeling up to par. Getting to the gym has not happened in about a week and that time was coming off of being sick as well so to say that I have not exercised much in the last two weeks is an understatement that I am not happy about. Monday did not afford me a chance to go to the gym and neither did yesterday but I am planning to get out there tonight after dinner as my daughter is home from school sick again today so going earlier than that is an impossibility. I have been eating like I am maintaining this week and its partially because I am coming off of being sick and I was eating slightly more for no real reason other than I am home more so wandering aimlessly throughout the house bored. Sunday I was a decent amount over on my calories as I did not write them into my spreadsheet, I was eating because I was on the run all day but when I added them up at the end of the day I was around 2200 for the day, otherwise I have not gone over 1800 calories per day and have done ok.

Exercise, I mentioned that I haven't been to the gym in a long while but that's not to say that I have had zero exercise because I have done some. It has been simply gawjus around here all week and I did get in a couple bike rides, a few walks and on Saturday I spent about 3 hours cleaning up the yard in our garden beds but I don't like calling things that I need to do regardless exercise. I also picked up a new project over the weekend in the form of an older mountain bike that I got off of Craigslist for the low low price of $0.00! its a 1988 Specialized Rockhopper comp with all Shimano Deore components and other than needing a good scrubbing, some new cables, tires and tubes its in pretty decent shape. The size is somewhere between Wify and me but closer to her size and I am planning on fixing it up so that she can ride it around BUT I do like it so it may be a dual purpose 2 owners kind of bike because I am greedy like that and like I said I like it!

She is no beauty contest winner but that won't be the case for long if I have anything to say about it.

A shot of the biopace crank just for fun.

In my email box I found a message from a fellow named Ken who is with Nursingschools.net saying that I was included in their article for the "100 best blogs for weight loss support" and I am humbled by that! seriously. They have it set up into categories like "Those losing weight", "Those who have lost their weight" and "Coming back from Obesity" which is the category they put my blog into, along with a few more categories and I see a couple familiar blogs but I also see some that I haven't read yet and am planning to go through and read a few. I started this blog back in 2008 so that I would have a place to post my progress and have some accountability that was just kind of out there floating around in the virtual space of the internet and for someone to think that my blog belongs on a list of the 100 best for weight loss support really floors me. Knowing that other people find what I am doing helpful is something that I honestly never thought about when I started this blog, I started it for me, I still write it for me but I have to admit that the fact that other people read this blog and can take something out of it is an awesome thing for me. I know that losing weight, getting and staying healthy is not a simple thing for most of the people that try, me included and if I can be of some help even to one person trying to get healthy than that is a rock solid reason for me to write this blog every day on top of my original reasons, and again I am absolutely humbled by that idea.

This week I believe that I will see a slight gain in my weight from last weeks weigh in but its not something that I am worried about even slightly as I am getting back to the gym tonight and will beat the fat into submission once again. I know that I am up in weight as of this morning because well I am a scale addict and I check in almost daily with Hariet my scale just to have a baseline for each day. I have also found in my email box as well as some comments over the past few weeks a couple of requests to share my menus once again on the blog so I will try and get some of them posted again in future posts as I do enjoy doing that as well and if there is a request for them why not right? With the passing of my whatever it was that had been ailing me its back to business as usual for me and I am planning on easing back into the gym so that I don't over work anything right off the bat. Tonight he plan is to ride the bike for 25 minutes followed by a trot on the arc-trainer and a walk on the treadmill but I will stay away from the weights for tonight adding them back in when I return to my earlier in the day workouts when the kiddo is feeling better.

For today, thats all I got so keep on keepin on and all that, I shall return again tomorrow morning with the next episode of as the fat guy turns.

Fini.

As Ever
Me

Saturday oh Saturday...

Just popped inside for a few minutes and thought I would post, its a wonderful 70 degrees and sunny here in my neck of the woods and I have been outside since about 10:30 am, it is now 2:30 and we're eating a picnic lunch. Took the bike out for a ride and well....

Click the image for a full size picture.

In the good words of Forest Gump, That's all I got to say about that...

Enjoy your weekend!

As Ever
Me

Weighing in on Day 808 and some pictures.

The virtual week is over and time to get on that scale has come, its been a not so fun week as I have been under the weather again all week and no gym for me so a sad panda for sure. Last week showed no movement in the right direction and I was up by a pound but this week we have a new low weight and a 5.4 pound drop today. The scale said 311.0 pounds on the nose which means that I have lost 41.76% of my total weight to date which is a whopping 223 pounds and I am not even close to done yet! My original goal was to get down to 275 pounds and I am now 36 pounds from that goal and just saying that feels awesomely incredible to me because I was once staring down the barrel of having to lose 259 pounds to get there so that thirty six left feels very attainable. Lets get to some images of things that weigh as much as I do and as much as I have lost, this is my favorite part of a Friday post because it means a loss!

This Durbahn Ducati 999 V2 comes in at 311 pounds just like someone that I know.

This 1979 Suzuki RM250 weighs in at 223 pounds which is what I have lost to date.

MMA fighter Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic comes in at 223 pounds as well, imagine having to carry that fellow around on your shoulders all day!

Making good choices most of the time has gotten me where I am down this road and I say most of the time because I do this with the idea of everything in moderation without limiting myself from anything completely. There is a natural progression to eat more lean meats, veggies, fruits etc with my process as I rarely eat cloned red meat or pork and I tend to lean towards fish more than anything but it was chicken last year. The longer that I do this the more I am seeing a progression towards that cleaner eating and its just kind of happening more than something that I am consciously doing. I still enjoy an occasional slice of bacon pizza or a nice New York strip steak with a loaded baked potato, the difference is the frequency of meals like that.

It use to be the reverse of what it is now, I would have pizza, steaks, HUGE plates of food very often and a random salad with 3/4 of a bottle of dressing would serve as my high and holy meal that helped me justify the way that I was eating. I don't think that I will ever give up bacon and onion pizza or a perfectly cooked steak entirely, instead I treat them as, well, treats. I do things like say that on holidays I don't count my calories which doesn't mean that I strap on a feed bag it just means that I am going to enjoy the time with my family instead of worrying about being that pain in the ass with the scale on those occasions. If I go out to dinner with my wife I don't really worry all that much about the calories, I do make the best choices available and I do try and look up the nutritional information if I can but I don't obsess like I do in daily life, its not every day that I get to have a night out with the love of my life and when that happens I want to worry about her. I feel that moderation is the key to a successful weight loss program and hopping off of the road for a big plate of your favorite whatever every now and again will not sabotage the entire day, week, month or year.

I am obviously happy with the results on the scale this week and think that its insane that I am only 36 pounds from my first major goal weight of 275 pounds. Still being sick has me slightly concerned that the weight will jump up slightly this week as I get back to my regularly scheduled program and start back at the gym but that's to be found out I suppose and perhaps I will need to change my calories around a bit in the coming weeks, but those thoughts are for another post because right now I am just enjoying today's results.

Today's broadcast has come to an end, keep on keepin on because that's all I got for now.

As Ever
Me

Coma Toads, 2XLT and some random for your gray matter.

So yesterday morning I ran out to do some errands before it was time to bring my daughter to school, or in other words get some bigger snacks because apparently my little princess was feeling like she was missing out by having a cereal bar and I made an impromptu stop at JC Penny to look for a shirt. I of course walk straight to the Big and Tall section and start looking around and I see a button up shirt that the price seems good to me at $24.99 and I asked the kid what color I should get and grabbed a 4xl off of the rack in her color choice, when I started asking a 4 year old for fashion advice I don't know. Now I grabbed the 4xl because any big guy knows that button up shirts fit differently than a tee shirt so a bigger size fits more comfortably usually and comes with the added benefit of being able to actually button the shirt AND sit down in it. Of course the 4xl fits and I can button it up so I am comfortable with the size BUT the neck is too big which is something else that I would think all big guys know so it looked awkward, lets try a 3xlt right? The 3xlt fit tighter than the 4xl and the neck looked better but honestly the shirt was still looser than it needed to be, especially because I am buying it to wear over a tee shirt and unbuttoned so something said "go out of this bigger is better comfort zone and try the 2xlt" and I did and low and behold it fit me. The 2xlt fit me length wise, it buttoned and as long as I don't sit down it looks good on me and I only know this because my daughter said "that one looks da best Dada its my favorite" I think that she was just tired of standing there while I tried on the same shirt over and over and had to try something BUT I'll tell ya she was right it did look the best from all of the shirts.

I went out of my comfort zone with this shirt because it actually fits me and is not loose and baggy like everything else that I buy and a 2xlt?? in a button up shirt?? Me?? woah like seriously it was like 7th grade the last time that happened. The other thing that I am going to have to start getting use to is the fact that there are actually stores that I can walk into and buy some clothing in without thumbing through a catalog and picking things from the very limited selection. I can walk into any store that sells jeans and buy myself jeans now a days as the last "new" pants that I bought were a 42 but since then I have poked 3 holes in my belt and the 42's slide off of my non ass without a tightly cinched belt so I don't know exactly what size jeans I am right now, but shirts have always been an issue. I own precisely ONE 2xlt tee shirt and now I own one 2xlt button up shirt and like I mentioned it was 8th grade or so the last time I was in this size but back then I was on my way up in sizes, this time around I am on my way down.

I have a specific memory from back then going "school shopping" with my mother and we were never well off so of course we are at K-mart and I was trying on xl shirts to no avail because they did not fit me. I have no idea what the section where they had the bigger clothes was called back then but I remember it being kind of a new thing to have stuff in bigger sizes but that could just have been a 7th graders view of it. Anyways, "look Tony these are 2xl try one on" said my mother, and it fit but the picture on the front of the tee shirt said "Coma Toads" and was a bunch of frogs laying on a couch like they were partying and were now comatose, I got the shirt. I didn't want the shirt, I didn't want any of the shirts that I got that day but it was all that would fit and I clearly remember it because it was the day that I went into "big clothes" and if I had know just how significant that shirt would be to me I may have tried to keep it. That day I was passing into a new size of shirt and it was a terrible thing that the size was 2xl and yesterday when I bought that 2xlt shirt and it fit me I am again passing into a new size of clothing but this time around 2xl is a welcomed thing.

I am not quite ready to say that I am a true 2xl size yet, I have 3xl shirts that fit me fine and are comfortable but these couple of 2xl things fit me too, just slightly snug for the moment. Maybe in a month or two I will HAVE to admit that I am this size because there will be no denying how the bigger stuff looks on me but I am still more comfortable in a looser fitting 3xl shirt than any 2xl that I own right now. The mental aftermath of losing the amount of weight that I have is interesting indeed and not something that I thought would be here at all, changing the way that I think I have covered, changing the way that my eyes see things is going to have to happen naturally because I honestly can still see the way bigger me a lot of times still, Not that I am small...yet...but still you get my point.

Tomorrow is a weigh in day for the blog so make sure to tune back in to see the stunning results of the week on the next episode of as the fat guy turns.

As Ever
Me

A quick Pre weigh in update.

Another week has passed and I have been sick all week again so no gym at all and the only exercise that I got was washing both mine and Wifys cars yesterday. Tomorrow I will weigh in with my "official" for the record books weigh in and I already know that I weigh less than last week but am unsure if its just because I am sick or if the drop will stay, I suppose we will find out. Again I am feeling that I need to adjust some things because with no exercise and nothing but calorie management I am down a pretty good amount from last weeks weigh in.

Today will be the day that I dust off the bike, pump the wheels up nice and hard and take it out for a ride around the lake for the first time this year. Sick or no sick I cannot pass up a 67 degree day when it comes to my bike, I haven't ridden in in a good long while and its time folks so out she goes a little later. I have to admit that I am going a bit stir crazy from hanging around the house and missing the gym a lot! I was sick last week and then got better for about 2 days then it was back to sick as my daughter came home from school sick. Starting to feel a bit better as of yesterday so hopefully this will be gone before the weekend but man I tell ya I am going nuts because of the lack of movement, maybe my bike ride later will get me my fix.

Is it a new low weight day tomorrow? is it just a pound? only the scale knows for sure and I have a few things that I need to take care of today so that's all I got for today.

Keep on keepin on and all that.

As Ever
Me

Losing fat and gaining so much more.

I have been lately exploring body image a bit and am coming to the conclusion that I am not all that big any more, that is still hard to say for me and even writing that didn't seem correct to me. Seeing my reflection in the mirror and in the picture window in my living room keeps catching me off guard and I have to literally do a double take at what I am seeing. Wify insists that I look like "a big guy" now instead of "a fat guy" and again, I am having a hard time buying into the idea completely just yet even with my double takes. I know that I still have at the very least 40 pounds to lose and probably closer to 65 pounds before I am at what I would call an "Ultimately perfect weight" and I am still unable to completely get past the fact that I am down 220 pounds because I can still see that bigger me sometimes.


So...I pulled out some of my old clothes from when I was 500 plus pounds and the jean shorts that I grabbed felt foreign to me, like they were not my clothing yet I have clear memories of wearing these clothes, in fact the shorts that I pulled out are the same pair that I am wearing in my "the pic that started it all" picture from my side bar. I held them up to my waist and I am betting that Me and Wify could both get into them now without too much fuss but at nearly 5 feet around at the waist that shouldn't surprise me right? It is really eye opening looking at those old clothes now that I am so much lighter and remember that there was a day that I fit into those clothes and the thought that I would need a larger size was a reality for me. I have a very large box of clothing ranging in sizes from 4xl to 6xl shirts and jeans from 46 to 58 that weighs at least 50 pounds just sitting there not to mention my suit jacket which if memory serves me right is a 72 long and I do believe that besides a shirt and a pair of pants to remember where I once was I need to get rid of the rest.

I am smaller now than when I met my wife and I in the last ten years have grown to my highest 534 pounds and have gone through clothing BUT saved it all because "I will lose the weight some day" and it has paid off because I really haven't had to buy much clothes until recently because I just made my way back through the sizes. A lot of the clothes that I have is brand new! some not so much but I think the time has come to either place an ad on craigslist, put some of it up on ebay or just straight up give it away or donate it because I have no use for it any more. I know that clothes in these sizes cost a lot so it could really help someone out to get some clothes at a deep discount and I WILL NOT need it again because I AM NOT going back up that size ladder ever again!

With all of that good there is still some negative because of the skin but alas that is another subject for another post but with the warmer weather coming around it IS on my mind a lot lately because one of my things is that I just want to be comfortable in my own skin. Starting to actually see the results of the hard work that has been put in and what its created is a great reward to go with all of the other stuff that I am getting with the loss of the weight that held me back for so long and I can't wait to see the end result. With dedication and discipline we can change our lives, not only that but we change the lives of those around us by making better choices with our eating and exercise regimen. Keep on keepin on and all that because for today, thats all I got.

As ever
Me

Fat jokes and a high school picture..

People sometimes don't know how the smallest insults can effect a person in a long term kind of way and I think that over weight people get the worse of that because its almost ok to point out to a fat guy that hes...fat. Joking with Wify last night I told her that I hate that "O" word and I said to her for me its the same as that "C" word to women, you know the one that rhymes with hunt. I don't mean the good "O" either I mean Obese, its such an insulting sounding word and I don't know why, perhaps its because I fit the bill at one point in my life and arguably still do. Now if you add that "M" word in front of it?? "Morbidly Obese" I mean C'mon that just sounds horrible! but I suppose the situation where the term can be used is terrible so maybe it fits? At 534 pounds I was and I hate saying admitting this Morbidly Obese, that is like the worse insult in the entire universe of insults for me.

Throughout my life as a fat guy I have heard it all, I have heard every creative and not so creative way to insult a fat guy that could be thought up, some people got a mouth full of padded knuckle for their time and others got away with it because it just wasn't worth the effort and honestly sometimes it just took everything out of me. The standard "Fat ass" and and pig sounds etc to more elaborate taunts such as "Hey you have a dickie do yes?", "a dickie do?" , "Yeah your belly sticks out more than your dickie do! Buhahahaha!" but one of the worse ones was a day that it was cold outside and someone said "Hey when you are not looking I am going to cut you open like a Tauntaun and sleep inside you to stay warm". Then there were times in middle school when I would come home upset from school and told my Dad that whoever had called me fat and I cried or something like that and he said "The next person that calls you fat punch him in the nose and it will stop" so I did and low and behold it was a couple years before someone called me fat again.

Its amazing how a fat kids confidence can be beaten down into nothing because of constant taunting about the extra weight and yet a 6 foot tall 250 pound 7th grader could likely dispatch any of the other kids in the class quite easily. On occasion enough was enough and kids were thrown into lockers for calling me fat, other kids teeth were introduced to chubby knuckles but it always came back, the fat jokes are always there. In my high school year book I was "voted" "Laziest" in class along with the heaviest girl in the class and it was obvious to me that whoever did this "voting" DID NOT know me and chose me for that wonderful title forevermore in the year book purely on my size because at that time in my life I was not lazy, I removed the last names and the face of the girl in that picture from my year book to protect the innocent. My father and me were working on a house that my parents were buying so after school it was straight to that house and we remodeled much of a six family house just the two of us, I worked on cars in my spare time and was weightlifting 6 days per week for the last three years of high school so where "lazy" came from? had to be because I was the fat kid, its always bothered me that the title was given to me in the year book because of the obvious reason that it was given.

I am sure that every disability has its own prejudices but I don't know of one that is more widely accepted as ok to openly taunt the unfortunate person that has said disability as being fat does. I suppose that its viewed as "ok" to do it because the person should be able to do something about the problem thus deserves the taunting on some level? but in reality every one of those negative responses to a situation that NO ONE is happy about being in just reinforces the sulking and turning to food for comfort trigger and someone that has never dealt with a weight issue cannot possibly understand it on the same level as the person on the receiving end of these kinds of jabs.

I have come a long way on this weight loss, better health campaign and I am who I am today partially because of all of those jokes at my expense as a kid, I wish that I could say I would trade my experiences for those of a regular sized person but I can't. I have the most incredible wife on the entire planet and two wonderful kids that I possibly would not have if I wasn't who I am, and I am the person that I am today because of everything that has happened in my life to this point. I find that in a lot of people that were or are fat is an awesome sense of humor that has originally developed as a defense mechanism and that is something completely positive coming out of some negative vibes.

I do have to admit that the Tauntaun joke made me laugh last night when I was talking to Wify about it but hey! I did say that I developed a good sense of humor right?

As Ever
Me

Cajun Salmon and some random thoughts for day 802.

This weekend is not exactly turning out how I wanted it to, I was suppose to go out on a date with Wify Friday night and because of a situation outside of my control it didn't happen, not that it would have been too much fun because I have a new cold yay! My daughter came home from school with a head cold and I got it! I couldn't taste anything at all almost all day yesterday so a dinner date for Sushi probably wouldn't have been all that satisfying anyhow. I am feeling better than yesterday right now so hopefully this doesn't hang around too long but I am staying well within my calorie range I am not getting much cardio in because of the stuffy head. on the other hand. I came in way low on calories for yesterday because I had saved up for the date but I wasn't very hungry anyways so no big loss really.

I did play with dinner tonight and yes I know that I am not suppose to play with my food but I wanted to change my sides up a bit so I made a seasoned rice and topped it with some sauteed zucchini and yellow onion to have with the Salmon fillets that I made. I seasoned the Salmon with a very light shake of a Cajun spice that I picked up a while back and let me tell you I will be making this whole dish just as is again because it was very good. Making meals that taste as good as stuff that I would get in a restaurant really makes me feel like I am cheating at this whole weight loss thang, seriously. I eat better now than I ever have and the food taste so much better than the over seasoned crap that I use to eat when I was 500 plus pounds its unbelievable that I ever liked that other processed stuff. I snapped a picture of my plate before digging in and of course got the standard "Dada how come you like to take pictures of your food?" from my daughter she will some day read my blog and see why I took all of those photos and will be able to read all about how her Pops took his life back. This entire plate which consisted of 3/4 cup of the rice, 3/4 cup of the zucchini and onions and 7oz of the Salmon only cost me 480 calories and of course I had a nice big glass of green tea with it.

Cajun Salmon and sauteed zucchini with rice, 480 calories for the entire plate.

Rollin with this in lieu of being sick all week because I have to, This year will be the year that I hit my fitness goals and get down to that once seemingly unattainable 275 pounds and below I will go. I use to wonder if I was going to be able to get where I wanted to with my weight loss, I use to look at that goal number and think "Man that's a shit ton of weight to drop, is it even possible?" and these days I have completely changed the way that I see that goal, I am going to make that goal and even surpass it. Throughout my life I tried to lose weight and did lose some here and there but in all honesty looking back at it I was half ass-ing 90% of those attempts and all I needed to do was put 100% into it and look at what can happen. I am that pain in the ass who carries his scale around, I am that guy that when I head over you say "I am making chicken and corn on the cob does that work for you? should I make yours a different way?" and I don't care that I am that fellow, its what I need to get where I am going.

Saying that I am that pain in the ass with the scale is not always the case though either, I do have a beer with the neighbor from time to time, I do eat pizza and I do go out to eat at restaurants because that's just life and its going to happen. I literally just watch portion control and make sure that what I am eating is cooked the way I need it to be in order to make my calorie balance and that's it for the food. I have said this before and I am going to say it again, I am not special and contrary to popular belief I do not have any super powers when it comes to eating or exercising. I am just a fat guy that had enough of watching life happen around him while his waistline grew uncontrollably, perhaps one day I will not see myself as a fat guy but I am not there just yet folks I suppose that chapter is waiting to be written.

You can do this just like I am and many others out there that took their life by the horns and decided to live. Thanks for following along while I literally change my life and know that all of the support is more than appreciated.

That's all I got for tonight.

As Ever
Me

Mother Fluctuation

As expected I am up in weight this morning so no new what I have lost images but I am not really worried about it because as long as I am doing what I need to do I will get where I need to. Other than the weekend I did great this week with work outs and my intake BUT I did wake up this morning with a stuffy head and my sinuses are all wonky so perhaps one of the greatest parts about having children strikes again and being sick is screwing me up on the scale. These weeks happen on this road to a healthier body so I won't worry too much about it and the plan is lots of fluid today to try and kick this head cold before it can get a good foot hold and I will be skipping the gym today as well because I cannot breathe through my nose currently. I am up by almost two pounds this week 1.8 to be exact I came in at 316.4 pounds which means that my April goal is looking more and more like its not going to become a reality, I have no doubt that I will get below 300 pounds in the month of April just not by the 2nd.

I am in fact starting to think that I will need to adjust my calories a bit and I mentioned to my wife that I am kind of scared to do it, my exact words were "I know how to do 1700 calories, I know how to bust ass working out and I know how to drink enough fluid to support that, what I don't know how to do yet is adjust things upwards" which is what I believe I need to do with my calories. Throughout this whole process I have eaten a target of 1700 calories per day and I can pretty much get those in without thinking about it these days but when I start going over I get all backwards and start panicking that I ate too much. I started out a 534 pound guy eating 1500 calories doing minimal exercise 15-20 minutes on a bike and adjusted up to 1700 calories very early in the game and have stayed there pretty much the entire time with the intake and here I am now a 315 pound guy doing almost an hour of cardio per day at a minimum of 5 days per week along with weight lifting 3-4 days per week and still at that same 1700 calories.

At 500 pounds I was likely burning more calories just by living than I am at this weight but I am more active now, I am very likely burning more these days because of all of the extra activity and I think an adjustment may be needed. But but but! I lost 4 pounds 2 weeks ago! and last week was 4 pounds with no trip to the gym at all! and now this week I am up?? ahhh but you were sick last week and now sick again today my good man! see why I am unsure?! My doctor says that I am doing everything right and that I should stick to my 1700-1800 calories and keep up the exercise and I feel the same way on most days but then when I get an up week like this and I start over analyzing everything and forget my K.I.S.S attitude like I mentioned in yesterdays post but but but.... Its easy to say that as long as I keep advancing in my fitness goals that I should stay with this but the fact remains that I am still teetering between a 2xl and 3xl shirt size and neither one of those is small! granted I am probably in a 2xl and just need to get use to shirts fitting me correctly but still I am not small by any means of the word and I do have a good amount of weight left to lose.

Making good choices with my food and getting some movement into every day has gotten me where I am today so its hard to change the program up. Might I be over thinking this because of a random up? very likely and when I kick this new head cold Thanks kiddos! things may very well go back to normal and the pounds will drop again. That's that and today's episode of Fatman and Blobbin has ended with a slight up, a new cold and the end of another week, I am now 16 pounds from my April goal and than means 5.3 pounds per week will need to get kicked to make that goal. Crazier things have happened and I can still get there, can't I? I suppose thats to be found out BUT I can tell you this, if I go at it with a defeated attitude I won't get anywhere close and if I go at this thinking that I can do it I may just have a chance, there see thats better right?

Thanks for following along and that's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

K.I.S.S. and I ain't talkin about Gene Simmons.

Watching the scale can drive me insane at times because I just don't understand what the hell is going on inside my body going off of the weights from day to day. Because of the bad food weekend that I had last week I have been on the scale every day just to watch the fluctuation and its been steadily going down since Monday and I was hoping to get back to that 315 pound mark by tomorrow and have been doing everything right as far as following my plan. Yesterday morning I weighed 316.2 pounds and that was the lowest point all week and for a Wednesday was a good weight and I thought that I should get below 315 by tomorrow with a 316 mid week, its how it usually works out but then this morning I get on and the scale said 318.4 pounds. Yes I know that fluctuation is fluctuation but I ate 1800 calories on the nose yesterday, went to the gym and got in 45 minutes of cardio half of it was bike riding at a good pace with the treadmill being a mild walk @3.2 mph 3.5% grade but how can that equate to an up?

This is not a race to get to a certain weight so I am not worried about it but man! I am going to chalk this one up to the health gods standing in the corner of the room looking at me with a shrug and a look on their faces like "ya shouldda passed on that grinder last weekend bub" but then again I may be premature with my conclusion and I will be lighter that I think tomorrow morning. Something else that I am thinking more about is the fact that my workouts at the gym have been pretty for lack of a better word intense and maybe I should be eating more on the days that I workout which is every day because I am working out harder now than I have during this whole process. An average of an hour of cardio per day along with weight lifting at least 3 days per week is what I do lately and that doesn't seem like too much to me at all and I feel that I could do more but don't because I run out of time but once upon a time 15 minutes on a stationary bike 4 times per week was doing the trick. I don't want to start over thinking things at this point so I won't, eat less move more has always been how I roll and I am down 219 pounds doing so and I am going to stay with that plan but its weeks like this one that I gotta wonder.

My plan from the beginning has always been to eat what I want to as long as I stay within a calorie range, drink lots of H2O and green tea while exercising daily or K.I.S.S Keep it simple stupid, and this is still the plan to a point. I try now to eat as many whole foods as I can without obsessing over it and the exercise has been kicked up a bit because I am less limited now by my weight and I still drink like a fish but basically I am doing the same thing that I was in the start of this. My goal is to get down to a healthy weight and live a long happy life and so far so good on the plan so getting hung up on an erratic week where the raw weight is concerned isn't gonna happen, and who knows, I may actually get a new low weight this week after all. I know that there is no way I could have gained 2 pounds from yesterday to today so maybe I am retaining something somewhere but again I am not going to over think it, wait am I over thinking it? I keep going back to that so um yeah I just gotta remember keep it simple stupid and let it go.

Whatever that scale tells me in the morning is what it is and that's all that it is which is the next week in a row of weeks that have lead me to this point in the process, wow say that 5 times fast. I am looking at 22 more days until my line in the sand will be stepped over and we see if I made that 300 pound mark by April 2nd and the closer it gets the more I think I will be close but no cigar on that number, to be found out still I suppose. Weight loss sure is a fickle bitch and sometimes it does what it likes no matter what we do to beat it into submission and then there are other times that it just falls off like dead leaves on an autumn tree but time and willpower proves the strongest beast in that fight so that's where my money is going.

Tomorrow we weigh in and that weight gets recorded, will it be a loss? perhaps a gain? maybe break even? oh my! you will have to check in with tomorrows post to find out where the next chapter of as the fat guy turns heads.

Until then make the best choices that you can, you owe it to yourself.

As Ever
Me

Making choices.

Making my way through the week and looking for a new low number come Friday has been my focus for so long that I am starting to feel like this is my job. I don't mean the job that you wake up every morning and start loathing before the crust has even fallen out from the corners of your eyes but the kind of job that we wake up early because we can't wait to get started. This whole healthy living thing has become my purpose in a way, its like I have to prove to myself that I can do it again and again day after day so I wake up and start thinking about my meals and how my calories will play out throughout the day each end every day on the calendar. It use to be that waking up meant another day of struggling to move around comfortably and wondering when that time bomb in my chest was going to pop and that is quite different now that I chose to do something about my situation.

This morning I sat thinking about what I would do for exercise today, would it be business as usual and off to the gym for my 50 minutes of cardio on a machine? perhaps I would hike the 3 mile trail down the road from my house? Maybe a bike ride through the hills around the lake? Then I started thinking about my meals, would I have cereal for breakfast? perhaps today was an egg white omelet kind of day, or maybe I would make some steel cut oats and what of lunch? I am making Cornish game hens for dinner tonight whats that leave me for a calorie balance to use at lunch? I have a good idea of how my day will play out food wise as well as exercise and that was within the first 20 minutes of my day. Actually as I write this I am still unsure what I will do for exercise today but I am leaning towards the gym followed by that walk on the trail but I won't know until after I click publish and walk out the door.

My life is entirely different for the choices that I make each day where my diet and exercise is the subject matter and last night I was chatting with wify and I said to her that I wonder where I would be right now if I hadn't changed the path I was walking when I did. Truth is that I honestly believe that I would be either in a wide hole covered with turf and daisies or stuck in a bed that had some sort of reinforced frame underneath it wishing that I had the willpower to make a change in my habits. Finding myself at that impasse in my life when I did surely saved my life and has hopefully added many years to my existence on this planet.

I listen to people talk about how hard it is to lose weight or get started losing weight and I honestly start getting choked up because I totally understand how difficult it is to get that ball rolling and stick with it. I feel for those people because I was in those very shoes not so long ago and still am in a way because I am still a ways from being where I need to be with my health and honestly some days its like balancing on knifes edge with the staying on track. Making losing weight and getting healthy my goal in life is the key to my success thus far and I have to maintain my level of dedication and focus on the subject so that I will see this through to the end, I AM going to realize my fitness goals and I AM going to get where I need and want to with my health.

How are you going to make a change in your life today?

Fini

As Ever
Me

Skinny doesn't always mean thin.

With the weather getting nice I am running into an uncomfortable situation with my clothing, ya see the top of me is a comfortable 2xl and where my gut use to be comes in at a 3xl so finding clothes that look decent is becoming a task. I have one shirt that fits me perfectly and the rest look god awful or too tight which I guess equates to god awful and now that its warm out I will be forced into wearing shirts that are too big up top or too small down below and this is bugging the shit out of me and its only the first week of warm weather! I loved this fall and winter because I don't look half bad in my hoodie as it hides the loose skin issue that I am seeing, I mean don't get me wrong it looks better than the filled out gut but man I'm tellin ya. The thing about it is that I CAN see that its shrinking up somewhat but I am losing weight faster than it shrinks so I am left with a gut that looks bigger than it is because of the skin.

This week its been in the high 50's outside and I am finding that nothing I own for shirts fits! I have some 3xl Adidas tee shirts that I bought in the beginning of the winter and they are loose now so look bad and everything else that I own is either 3xlt or 4xl and well yeah. I have a Reebok sweatshirt that fits me good and I have been using it at the gym over my tee shirts but it will be way too warm for that soon and I will be stuck, whats a guy to do? This is a very frustrating situation for me because there is no amount of work that I can put in and change it, I am stuck with this until it either shrinks and tightens up some or I get a surgery down the line and either one of those is a wait kind of thing so nothing that will be fixed in my immediate future.

Part of my plan is to bulk back up some by weight lifting to help fill in some of the shar pei effect that I have going on but again that's something that will take some time. I am starting to see results with the weights and I have mentioned in earlier posts that my chest and arms are starting to show some definition through the skin but I think that I am going to have to get a lot bigger for it to make a real difference. Lifting weights and getting some of my bulk back has always been the plan and I am looking forward to getting in some serious lifting as I don't really consider what I am currently doing serious as much as base building and getting my muscles back into a routine so that when it is time to start serious lifting I am ready. My legs are actually huge right now muscle wise and its no wonder with carrying 500 plus pounds around for all of that time but in all honesty the bike riding and weight lifting that I have been doing on my legs has got to be making a difference also because when I say my legs are big I mean there is definition there that almost makes them not match the loose skin on the rest of my body.

Since I mentioned my legs I will mention my jeans and how they fit, I currently have a few pairs of 42 waist jeans that I wear BUT they are seriously loose on me and without a belt they will fall down with my first step. I have a size 44 belt that I have punched 3 holes in so far so that I can keep using it and I need to punch one in it now because its getting loose again so I am not really sure what size jeans I should be wearing but I am less concerned with that because I wear my jeans loose and the belt cinched up takes care of them falling down. I mention my pants because they are going down in size faster than my shirts and I figure that's because of the skin on my upper body (belly) area and I wear my jeans lower than I probably should (always have) but it is an indication that I am getting smaller either way and my gut is forcing me to wear super big shirts or suffer tight ones.


So you see my predicament right now with the weather warming and not being able to find something that fits properly. I stopped by the local Big and Fat shop over the weekend and tried on a few shirts in different brands and they either fit perfectly on top and were tight on the bottom or fit on the bottom and were very loose on top so I passed on all of them. I can't see buying an off branded shirt for $20 that doesn't fit right and that $20 was the sale price! when I have a whole closet of shirts that don't quite fit right at home. I have 3 of the same Adidas shirts because when I bought them they fit perfect for the size I was when I purchased them and I am on the lookout for the next shirt that fits so that I can buy 3 or 4 of them again but this time around its proving harder than it has been in the past.

More of a talking out loud, or typing out loud if you will kind of post today because of this problem that's coming on strong lately and it is directly related to my weight loss so I thought I would share. I can't exactly go through the summer in a hoodie or sweatshirt and it is what it is but man I tell ya its more frustrating that I wanted to believe it would be when I first started thinking about the fact that it would eventually be a reality for me. This will work itself out because there is nothing else that can happen so no point in stressing over it too much, but that doesn't mean that I won't be frustrated with it because imagine busting ass as hard as I am to eat right and exercise every day and not being able to see the results as strongly as they are felt which Isuppose could be called a Vain look at it but it is what it is.

I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin and right now with this new issue of nothing fitting and the weather warming up its whats on my mind.

Thats all I got.

As Ever
Me

Monday morning quarterback, the weekend in review.

This weekend did not go so well and I am unsure why, Let me start at Friday and we shall move forward from there. I did not take anything out of the freezer for dinner on Friday so when wify came home from work and asked what was for dinner I stated "Tuna melts?" as it was the only thing that did not need to be defrosted in the house and the look on her face told me it wasn't gonna happen. She said "How about Chinese food?" half joking with that I know that ain't happening look on her face and my reply was "I could do a chicken grinder from the pizza place if you wanted to order out?" and it was done. we ordered a small plain pie for the kids to split, she ordered a spinach calzone and I got a chicken parm grinder with peppers and onions on it and that would have been all well and good if I had eaten the grinder and nothing else for the remainder of the evening. My yummy grinder went down rather quickly and I ate a piece of crust thanks to my insane daughter that doesn't like the crust, I mean who doesn't like pizza crust? and I couldn't let it go to waste right? and then I had a taste of the spinach calzone as well, so much for being able to count the calories in the grinder eh? I also had some popcorn with a movie Friday night as well but no worries as I had made it to the gym and drank what I needed to so I put it down as a day of extra calories and that was that.

Saturday came around and my intake was perfect right up until dinner but I was kind of forced to do a light dinner because I ate heavy during the day. I ended up with 1800 calories after dinner but that wasn't counting the 3 marshmallows that I had eaten a little earlier up at the bon fire that I lit oh my! We had to do a dump run and I got rid of a bunch of junk from the basement and in the process ended up bring a lot of scrap wood back up to the fire pit in my yard and when I got back there noticed that there was a ton of wood that needed to be burned so a fire was lit and now my back yard is scrap free but it cost me a few marshmallows. Other than those tiny cylinders of puffed sugar goodness I did ok with calories but I didn't drink half as much as I should have for the day and I was up in weight that morning but come Sunday morning I was back down to 316 pounds so it went down as fluctuation.

Sunday I did drink enough but and this is the maybe too much info part of todays presentation so if you are currently eating read no further, you have been warned! I had a date with the porcelain throne late Sunday morning and the meeting lasted roughly 30 minutes and started out well enough besides the twist in my gut but before we were done we had filled the bathroom with solids, liquids and gasses and by last night my weight fluctuated up almost 9 pounds! I am assuming that after the performance in the bathroom and yes it was a performance with many encores that I was light on fluids so I am retaining every drop that went in yesterday. In addition to that I maybe did have a little more than I should have at dinner last night but that wasn't my fault! I swear! Ok maybe I did have a little to do with it, I made BBQ chicken out on the grill and as a side I tried my hand at some "spanish style rice and beans" which to me really didn't taste spanish at all but I do have to admit that it came out more than fantastic! everyone liked it and when I was making it I have to admit that I did a lot of tasting just to make sure it was um seasoned correctly, yeah lets go with that, and it was maybe the best rice that I have ever made in my entire life! I will post the recipe up in a later post. If I had not done all of the taste testing while it was cooking I would have been ok on calories but I know that I went over calories for sure.

Getting to the gym this weekend just was not going to happen between the dump run and the bonfire on Saturday and then Sunday was our bulk grocery shopping day so I just didn't have time to get out there. I did get out for a walk with wify and the kids Sunday, we walked along while the kids rode their bikes and that was relaxing as the weather has been more than awesome here we were in the high 50's all weekend and should have the same weather for a couple days so I may just get a bike ride into one of these days while its nice out. I am planning to get to the gym every day this week and my calories shall not go above 1700 all week unless I have a lifting day at the gym and then it only goes over by a whey shake, thats my story and I'm stickin to it.

There is something about the weather warming up that makes me want to hang out in the yard with a beer and a pizza but I am going to have to get past that feeling and keep pushing hard with my routine because getting under 300 pounds I am guessing will feel better than any pizza and beer taste. My fluctuation up yesterday has to be retaining fluids because there is no way that I consumed more than 31000 extra calories so I am not to worried about it and know that it will sort itself out in a few days if not sooner. I can't wait to see a new low come this Friday and am honestly excited about getting under 300 pounds, I mean who wouldn't when they started out above 500 right?

This is turning into a Novel of a post so I shall end it here for now, I may pop in later with another post on skin issues because its on my mind lately but maybe not either way this one is done. Thanks for reading along and thank you for the support that you guys leave me in the comments as they help a bunch, keep on keepin on and all that.

As Ever
Me

Day 794 weigh in day and WOW!

I'm just going to get right to it today because I am more than happy with what the scale told me this morning. Last week I was 319.0lbs on the nose and this week I am down to 314.6lbs! that's a 4.4 pound drop this week folks! and it would appear that I am on a roll with more than 8 pounds lost in the last two weeks and of course a new low weight this week. I am down a total of 219 pounds now or 41.01% total body weight to date and both of those numbers are incredible to me as I can still remember day 1 like it was yesterday and how I felt like this was going to be the next attempt that didn't quite go the distance. I am a mere 40 pounds away from my initial goal of hitting 275 pounds and slightly less than 15 pounds from getting below that 300 pound mark and both of those figures don't seem so far away to me and I am pretty confident that I will get there sooner than later but more on that later, here are some images to show what I have lost and what weighs the same as me currently as well as a shot of the scale this morning.

My beautiful dogs standing on the scale this morning I still can't believe the drop this week!

This 1989 GSXR 250R weighs in at 315 pounds just like me.

MMA fighter Muhammed Lawal comes in at 219 pounds and is what I have lost to date.

I did get out to the gym yesterday if only for a short not very intense workout, it was more than I had done all week so it felt good. I rode the stationary bike for 20 minutes 90rpm on level 11 and then I walked for 10 minutes on the treadmill at 3.2mph on an incline of 3.5% and called it a day because I didn't want to push it and end up coughing as I am feeling better but not 100% just yet. The walk on the treadmill was so short partially because I was picking wify up from work so that we could get home early and take a walk so I did get that in as well. The walk was rather relaxed at the speed of a 4 year old pumping up hills on a training wheeled Dora the explorer bike but I jogged around my daughter as she rode and walked most of the just over a mile backwards, it was nice to get out with the kid and I can't wait for it to warm up some so that bike rides can come back into play.

I need to lose 3.75 pounds per week until April 2nd in order to hit that under 300 pounds goal by then, I have dropped 4 pounds two weeks in a row so I am not expecting another awesome week next week but stranger things have happened. A trip to the gym is in the plans for today but I will see how I feel later before I decide for sure, I do believe that if I keep my calories in check and get a couple workouts in this week and don't over do it before I am fully back to my normal self that I can have another good week and perhaps I will dip into single digits as in 309 pounds come next Friday. There I go again, mister ambitious and I know that would be a HUGE number for this week but pair the fact that I have missed the gym all week with the fact that I will feel much better in a couple days time (hopefully) and I have a feeling that I will be in full on bust ass mode all week.

Being within 15 pounds of getting under 300 pounds has put me in a more than great mood today and I am looking forward to next week already and I haven't even made it through today! Remember to get that H2O in and eat well because we are responsible for what we do or do not eat, we are the only one holding the controls when our daily decisions come into play and at the end of the day that person looking back at us in the mirror is the reason that we fail or succeed.

Thats all I got.

As Ever
Me

Pre weigh in thoughts

This week has gone by in a blur and other than following my calories I haven't done anything "health" related besides try to sleep as much as I can which didn't go over too well in itself. To stay on track I will need to see a 3.8 pound drop on the scale tomorrow in order to keep the April 2nd goal on schedule and with this week of no gym, no exercise and being sick I am not sure that number will be hit. If I get to 316lbs by the morning that will leave me with a 4 pound per week goal until the 2nd and I believe that number will still be an achievable number for me to make that 300 pound by April 2nd goal but man that's 4 pounds per week!

To say that I want to get back to the gym would be the understatement of the year, I am missing it something awful but a cough has kept me away. Today I may try to get there if only for a ride on the bike to see how things go and who knows it may help me along with kicking this thing. The weather has been beautiful between the snow and rain so I may just take a nice walk around the lake after I drop my daughter off at school this afternoon instead as it is suppose to hit 50 today and I haven't been around the lake since late fall. Perhaps a walk would be best so that I can give my new hiking shoes a try so two birds and all that.

I am over all feeling like I am still on track for hitting that 300 pound mark by the 2nd and if I don't make it its no big deal but if I do hit it I have a feeling that I am going to be more than happy and motivated won't begin to describe what happens next. I am right now lighter than I have ever been as an adult and when I get below 300 pounds I will be lighter than I have ever been as a teenager so when I say new waters I mean new waters! The last time I was sub 300 pounds I was 12 years old, now my son is 11 years old and thinking about that at his age I was creeping up on 300 pounds is truly as amazing as it is sad. When he turns 12 years old this year I will weigh less than I did when I was his age and it had not dawned on me until this very second that I typed it out knowing my son and who he is and how he does things just how limited I must have been at that age.

Tomorrow morning will be another notch cut into my weight loss walking stick and I will weigh less than I did last week and that's the point of this so as long as its less I am happy. I do wish that I could have done more this week in the way of exercise but it is what it is and the scale will have the last word in the AM so no need worrying about what could have been. I am pretty certain that I will have a new low weight tomorrow I just really don't know where it will end up, I do hope it ends up closer to that 3.8lbs that I need to stay on track but even if its a pound I will be happy as I really didn't do anything past eat within my calories and make sure that I drank enough this week.

Until tomorrow I bid you farewell and remember who makes the decisions where your health and intake are the subject, we are all individually responsible for what we choose or do not choose to eat and how much we exercise.

Fini

As Ever
Me