Weigh in for the start of a new run at 275.

So lets get right to this, today is the day that I said that I would step on the scale for the blog once again and there has been some back sliding when that raw number comes into play but it is what it is and it shall begin once again. She looked up at me with her single blue eye and then the 0.0 let me know that she was ready to feel it, the display flashed not unlike a wink and it was on. I started with my right foot and then the left, this ol girl has a foot fetish for sure and she started spinning from the weight of my pushing onto her, then that blue eye looked up at me and displayed 334.4 pounds and it was over just like that.

This number is significant in the way that it means that I am starting off on this leg maintaining a 200 pound loss for the books and that's fine by me, it means that I have 59 pounds to lose to get to that magical 275 pound mark. I have decided on April 1st as a good time line to shoot for because having goals seems to help me stay focused, April 1st gives me 26 weeks which means a 2.26 pound loss per week average will need to be met in order to hit that mark in that time frame. Two and a quarter pounds per week should be doable with a little careful planning and lots of bustin' ass in the gym and on my bike, in fact I think that I could likely shave time off of the goal if I am careful.

With this new run at 275 pounds I will be weighing in every Friday again just like when I started this blog, I am in fact going to be focusing on weight training a bit more now compared to when I was a 500 pounder so I am unsure what that means for the losses but we will find out together. The addition of a weight chart on the left side of the page will help me keep up with where I am at a glance of the blog, I used that previously and I found it to be of use so its coming back.

The time has come to realize that original goal of weighing 275 pounds and I have given myself an achievable time line and realistic goals so its on. Giving a good hard push to get myself where I need to be is priority one because I deserve to see how 275 feels on my bones and I will not stop until I get there.

With that the beginning of the end of the rest of the fat that is hanging in there has begun.

As Ever
Me

Decide now...before its too late.

When staring down the barrel of losing a significant amount of weight sometimes it seems like there are just too many options between all of the fancy pre-packaged diet plans, gym memberships, self made plans and piles of different miracle pills out there. What do we do as a person that NEEDS to lose weight? which direction do we turn? how do we make a choice as to what to do to resolve our weight problems?

Then it hits you like that obvious obvious that's been sitting there the whole time, I have to do something, anything just as long as its not how I'm getting down right now because I weigh 500 pounds and this isn't working for me or anyone else in my life. The research begins, there is weight watchers, Atkins, South beach and a slew of other plans even including miracle pills like Harvey McDullardsonfengenden promotes, perhaps it will be a weight loss surgery that will get me out of this hole? and then we realize that we are very much an expert on all of these different methods of weight loss and feel over prepared somehow and yet still we don't know where to begin.

Lets get down to the root of how the weight got put on, we ate too much and didn't move enough so the opposite should serve as a way to take it off right? Calories in vs calories out? hmmm interesting concept and so it begins. Counting calories has probably saved my life and as dramatic as that last statement might sound it is the truth, I am not an expert on weight loss by any meaning of the words but I have been around that block a few times. It took a lot of things coming together all at once for me to decide that enough was enough and I literally flipped a switch one night and started down a path to better health. I was an early 30's Dad and Husband sitting and watching life pass me by because I couldn't control my intake? kind of stupid is how I saw it, My back injury kept me from walking without pain let alone working out but I had to do something, so I did.

I know that bad things were on the horizon for me if I hadn't changed when I did, I had constant heartburn, my lower back hurt all of the time, though I refused to go to a doc and get checked out I know that my blood pressure had to be high and I was very likely pre diabetic because how could I not be at 500 plus pounds? I thought that I was a dead man if I didn't change and if I didn't do it NOW not later, not in a week not in a month. The love of my life had run out on new years eve to grab a bottle of Disaronno to celebrate the coming of the new year but she came home with with more than that and that pint of Dublin mudslide became much more significant that either of us knew at the time. I decided that I would eat it a year later after I had lost some weight on my terms and thats just what I did and my life is so much better than that new years eve when the decision to take my life back took place.

Tomorrow is a new beginning of sorts, I say new because I am starting off at a new weight with the same goal but my strategy is changing slightly because I am in better shape now than I was when I started at 534 pounds. I will weigh myself and post the result here for you to see and it will be the start point for the new run at 275 pounds, I proved that I can lose a huge amount of weight and keep it off and now its time to prove that I can reach a level of fitness that I have never experienced myself.

Tune in tomorrow for the latest episode of Fatman and Blobin to find out what that number is and of course make the best decisions that you can for your health until then.

That's all I got.

As Ever
Me

Weigh in time the pre prequel..

Tomorrow is the day before the day that I step back on the scale for the blog, going off of this mornings number I am not all too thrilled about it but a deal is a deal so it shall be posted. I have a feeling that putting the weigh ins back on here each week will keep me a bit more on track because I need that accountability still, its amazing what that does for consistency. Losing weight is not something thats easy and I don't believe anyone that says that it is, HOW to lose weight is simple but actually doing it and staying on that path is where it begins to get a little more difficult. Maintaining my weight over the last year has been a learning experience for me because I thought that I would never be able to have a random beer or a slice or two of pizza here and there without completely blowing what I have done with my health. The fact is that I can have things that are not on such a strict regimen and not balloon up to my former size and I have proven that to myself without even knowing it or setting out to do so and thats somehow reassuring to me because I do enjoy a beer or two in the summer months.

Me stopping to test out my new phone in the mirror at the gym this afternoon.

That party is over for now because I have decided to give myself a deadline to hit 275 pounds, that deadline is April 2011 and we will see tomorrow exactly how much I will need to drop in that time but it is going to be a challenge. I am stronger than I thought I was back in Jan 2008 when I decided that enough was enough and its time to show myself that I am stronger than I am right now too. Making my way through better health this last year has been less than spectacular if we are taking only my weight into account and I started off with a goal to reach 275 pounds so I need to reach that goal. My physicality has greatly improved over the last year and my endurance is way up thanks to my bicycle, I have done strength training and I know that my raw strength is up but I am fixated on reaching 275 pounds, I need it.

I posted a couple weeks ago a post titled "Will today be your day one?" and I think that I need to follow that question to the end for myself because today is a new day one for me. I am changing a few things in my program up in order to try and shock my body into doing what I want it to do which is burn more fat and make more lean muscle. I have written myself a program that includes weight training, cardio training and some minor changes in my eating routine and I will not change what I drink in a day because I can honestly feel a difference when I don't get enough fluids in. I will finish what I started back in Jan 2008 and hit that 27 pound goal and then I will move right on past it and get down even further because I have to, I have to so that I can prove to myself that I can do it.

I will be adding a weekly weigh in gadget on the side bar of the blog to track each week on the main page like I did when I started so that I can at a glance see the progress in writing in front of me. Updating the "Start/Current/Goal" gadget is on the list as well so that I can see what I am at currently instead of that low number of 305lbs staring at me each day when I post. Its time to kick this back into a higher gear and get down to that weight that I set so many months back because its been too long and these days of gliding through in a 2xl shirt need to be put behind me once and for all. Considering that I started off in a 6XL shirt I am in a good place but I would like to see what a regular old XL feels like again, I was about 12 the last time that happened.

Tomorrow I thought that I was going to weigh in and post it up for all of you guys and gals that read along with me but only if you promise not to point and laugh at the back slide that occurred between May 21st and now. For now that's all ya get because I need to go start making part of dinner but make sure to pop on in tomorrow and see what the scale tells me my start weight for the new run at 275 is, until then keep on keepin' on and remember that no one will do it for you so get up off that ass and move!

**Disclaimer!** I wrote this post thinking that today was Wednesday, I am weighing in on Thursday not tomorrow ooops!

As Ever
Me

Basically

Going nuts because of a perfect bike riding weekend and here I sit with a busted pedal on my bike, its true enough that I have that old Rockhopper sitting there begging for a ride but I am not sure that I trust a 20 plus year old bike for a longer ride. My intake over the weekend though it was within my budget I know that it was high in sodium because of stops at Applebees and Friendlys restaurants, no worries right? wrong! I think that I have to buckle down and start hitting it harder than I already am because my weight isn't really budging at all lately. This Friday I am posting my weight on the blog as the regular "Friday weigh in's" return but you may be surprised at the weight posted as it is not even close to where I wanted it to be at this point.

Over the last year I haven't really made much ground in the actual number of my weight, this bothers me a bit while at the same time it is what it is and showed me that I can in fact maintain my losses with some normal eating and regular exercise. Last June when I got my bike I literally rode a single mile, my rump was sore for the rest of the day and I was out of breath pulled into a driveway trying to decide on whether I was going to try to get further or just turn around and go home, I turned around. Last Thursday I rode an 18 mile ride so physically I feel that I have improved, I wear a 2xl shirt compared to a 3xl last year, I am smaller? but my weight is more than a couple pounds heavier than that low weight of 305 that I saw on May 1st 2010.

I am physically capable of more than I was a year ago and yet here I am weighing the same, I can ride further than ever on my bike and would be willing to bet that I could run further too , which will be tested at the gym today as I plan on doing some sprints and or a week of C25K just to see how I do, yet I weigh the same as about a year ago. Frustrating yet I understand that I haven't really pushed myself as I did in the beginning so what to do next? Well, let me tell ya. I am using today as the beginning of the end, huh? what you talkin' bout Willis?? The end of my gut is what I am talking about because I am through with coasting along at a maintenance pace and am going back to basics with the weighing and measuring each bite that goes into my pie hole again.

I think that my exercise is pretty much on par and obviously I am doing my part there because taking bike rides that last hours on dirt trails certainly gets the heart going not to mention gym trips that consist of 45 to 60 minutes of cardio but alas! I will up the intensity of said gym trips to aid in the push towards a sub 300 pound version of me. Today is going to be treated as a turning point in my plan, today is going to be the start of a hard run at sub 300 pounds which will start with me clicking publish and walking out the door heading to the gym where I will bust my ass in an attempt to force my body into submission because its been too long since I last posted a motorcycle on this blog.

so its on...

That's all I got..

As Ever
Me

I am impressed and some photos of a beautiful day.

Today was a great day for me and a how do they call it? NSV? or a non scale victory! I have lately been riding my bike more often than ever because the weather is just plain old magnificent for bike riding! Today I decided to check out a part of the trail that I had not previously visited and attempt an 18 mile stretch just to see if I could make it and guess what? I did it! and none the worse for the wear either. Biking has become my main source of exercise mostly because its relaxing all while being able to pump my heart up and get my quads screaming at me and I think that I am in love with the local trails! This is an exercise that was a pipe dream for me just a couple of years ago and here I am out there almost every day riding my arse off figuratively and quite literally also. I didn't stop much so I didn't get many photos of today's ride but as I sit here typing this out I am still relaxed and I have been done with that ride for about 6 hours now so its giving me more than just a great workout.

A shot at the trail head before starting down the path.

My day has gone well all around, My calories are where they should be as of right now, I have drank more than enough for the whole day and obviously I got some exercise into my day, today has been what I would call a perfectly healthy day. There was in fact a hitch or two along the way though but I am ok with them and will fix whats wrong and keep on chugging, before I get to that here are some of the photos that I did manage to take today.

This was I want to say about 7 miles into the ride, I hadn't taken many pictures yet so I figured it was a good spot.

A mile later I came to this ominous tunnel! which wasn't really very ominous besides the horse turds littered through it, do horses like to shit in the dark I wonder?

This was the 9 mile mark and the end of where I had decided to ride to, this one could be an ad for K2 bicycles I think.

17.94 miles when I got back to the trail head, this is my longest at one shot ride to date.

I was thirteen miles into the ride rolling along at 17 mph on a LONG downhill section and up ahead I saw two older gentlemen pulled to the side of the trail with a tire off of one of the bikes, I slowed down almost to a stop, asked if they had everything they needed to fix it and they did so off I went. Wanting to take advantage of this downhill section I start hammering down the hill again standing on the pedals and I feel my right foot slip to the outside of the pedal but keep going when bamn! the pedal went soft and felt bent. Looking down I could see that the pedal was broke and here I am 5 miles from the trail head so I just babied the bike the rest of the ride and when I say babied I mean going 14 mph instead of 17 but it was the plastic on the end that had broken and the stud was just fine...and I don't mean me, I mean the pedal stud so that was issue one.

Cheap resin pedals plus a 300 pound fella hammering down a trail adds up to broken pedals.

The second issue happened when I got home and started cleaning the dirt and horse shit off of the bike, I was lubing the chain and cassette and wasn't paying attention and got some of the lubricant on the rear brakes. I am unsure if there is a way to sand the pads or scuff the contaminant off of them or if I will need to replace the brake pads all together, this is my first bike with disk brakes so there is a learning curve I suppose. For now the bike is parked until I can figure out the brakes and get a new pedal set that is NOT made of resin or plastic because at 300 pounds and the fact that I enjoy hammering down these New England trails apparently they just ain't gonna cut it.

Today was a day that would have only been a dream at 500 pounds and as I was cruising down the trail I found myself thinking about just that. The time in my life where even walking 1/3 of a mile was struggle is still a fresh memory in my gray matter and here I am riding 18 miles down a trail through the woods on a bike, I can honestly say that I am impressed with myself as I write this.

Impressed, satisfied and a with a smile on my face is how I end this post.

As Ever
Me

We all have options.

Today I will get a post up before I do my workout, a lot of the reason is because I am not sure what I want to do yet! Will it be my regular ride down the trail? perhaps the gym is in my future? or maybe I will go check out a new trail that was shown to me, whatever I choose its great having options. I have been thinking a lot lately about how things were compared to how they are now, knowing all of this that I was missing out on cannot be taken back forces me to appreciate every ride, every run and anything that I can do now because of losing the weight. I eat differently, my daily activities are different and honestly the way that I see things is different too! It really is amazing what dropping more than 200 pounds from ones bones can do.

5.5oz grilled salmon fillet, 3/4 cup cooked white rice, 3/4 cup eggplant, tomato and beans and of course the green tea for a total of 467 calories.

My intake was 1765 yesterday and included a dinner of grilled salmon fillets with a side of rice covered in eggplant, fresh from the garden of course with black beans and tomatoes again fresh from the garden seasoned with black pepper and minced garlic. I got the idea for the eggplant mash from the other Tony that lost a bunch of weight, He used it as a bean salad and I made mine hot with fresh tomato and put it over rice but it was the same general idea and I am glad that I found the idea from him. The entire plate was 467 calories and included 5.5 oz of fresh grilled salmon so to say that it was filling would be an understatement and it let me use a bunch of the eggplant and tomatoes that I still had in the garden so I am happy with it.

Exercise was a trip to the gym where as I said in yesterdays post I did 20 minutes on the stationary bike and 20 on the treadmill followed by a just over 12 mile bike ride which is starting to feel like par for the course to me. The first time I ventured out on a longer than usual ride it felt long and hard, now its just what it is and I enjoy every minute of it, even the hills! My normal rides have been hard and fast all hills and on road but since trying the trail out I am enjoying the longer duration rides and the views are definitely better, in fact I found a nice little fishing spot that I will try out next year when trout season starts up again. I really do enjoy myself with my exercise whether it be at the gym or out on the bike and that's not something that I would have ever expected to say when I began in 2008 so if you are reading this and feel that exercise is not something that you will be able to enjoy try it out for a while and see for yourself.

When a person weighs 534 pounds and is stuck in a couch it is hard to see it but we all have options, we all have the choice to either sit there and rot or get up and at least try to do something about the situation. There is no need to run a mile on the first day but getting up and simply walking a bit can be the first steps to a healthier version of yourself and I would never dare say that unless I believed it and I believe it because I did it. Choosing to get up and make small changes until they became habits which lead to bigger changes and a life full of views that had been long forgotten not to mention the whole not dying an early death thing is a good start.

What are you waiting for? put that cookie down, get your ass up off of the chair and go do something!

As Ever
Me

If I can do it then YOU can too!

It seems that lately I am posting later than normal because of the fact that I am taking advantage of the absolutely perfect New England weather but I am sure that's ok with you since this is a weight loss blog. This morning I headed to the gym early because I knew that I wanted to get a bike ride into my afternoon, I like to split the gym and bike rides a bit so that my metabolism keeps guessing whats next. My day at the gym was relatively easy, I did 20 minutes on a stationary bike and 20 on the treadmill nice and easy like, when I hit publish on this post I will do 100 push ups and no not all in a row. The video that I posted yesterday got me thinking about maybe posting more now that my video cherry is popped and I thought that some of you may be interested in seeing more from the bike going off of some of the emails that were sent in reference to that vid and I made something to make videoing on the bike a little easier.

No more wonky speedometer, that's the distance from my camera test run ride which was a fun ride! But then they all have been lately!

I took the video from yesterday on a whim, I literally whipped the camera out of my pocket and said what the hell and did it, I then debated with myself on whether I would actually post it or not. Riding one handed down a trail at about 10 mph on a mountain bike whilst taking video of ones self probably isn't a great idea in the grand scheme so I made a handlebar mount out of an old reflector and a couple nuts and bolts that I ran out and grabbed last night at the local hardware store. Five minutes after getting the supplies home it was mounted and seems really stiff for what it is, the test video has LOADS of vibration so I think a couple more neoprene washers may be in order to get that down a bit but the test video came out ok so a bit of tweaking and I believe it will work nicely.

This is what I started with.

This is what I ended up with, that wing nut on top is just there to hold the washers on while there is no camera mounted.

I am happy right now with how everything is going for me and my health and I think that starting to ride the trails more often than the streets is a heavy contributor to that state of mind. My intake has been pretty much perfect lately too besides yesterday when I decided to make some red meat for dinner in the way of a probably cloned beef chuck that was slow cooked all day with white potatoes, baby carrots and an onion, the short of it is that I ate more of the beef than I probably should have. Hydration is never an issue with me unless I get stuck out at a fair or something all day and forget to bring enough for myself, I mean you know it gets tiring carrying around a gallon of H2O or tea AND a 46 pound 5 year old! but yeah I am usually always hydrated more than enough.

I was once a 534 pound guy that could not even get out in the yard to run around with the kids or go for a walk with his wife through a park and remembering how those things felt will keep me doing what I need to do for my health. Today I probably did more for my health than I did in the entire year of 2007 and that is quite sad but as long as I keep doing what I am doing I can say with 100% certainty that I am giving my kids a healthy role model so that they may not have to endure some of the things that go along with being (and again really I hate this fuckin' word) obese. Me my bike and my Salter scale shall walk hand in hand making sure that I stick to the path that will ultimately lead me to my health goals and beyond, it will be so because I say that it will. I wanted to also mention that I have been active on My facebook page and have gotten a good amount of interest there lately so if you have a facebook account please don;t hesitate to add me or send me a message there, you know, if you were spo inclined to do so.

I might get more bugs in my teeth now than when I was 500 plus pounds but it just means that I am smiling the whole time that I cruise through the trails on my bike, something that was merely a dream in the old days of me, that's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

A video and a bike ride for today

Today we have something a little different for you fine folks that care to read my little space on the net, that's right its a video! I always bring my camera when I go out for a ride longer than just around the lake and as I was finishing up today's ride I said awww what the hell and pulled it out..the camera you perverts! and took a short video for the blog. This is the first time that I have ever posted anything more than a photo on here and perhaps I will do more? I don't know quite yet. Ignore the pants and heavy breathing and focus on the freshly changing leaves and the fact that there is a 300 pound man barreling through the woods!

I headed out and was going to go in the opposite direction that I normally do on this trail but when I got to the trail head I went with what I knew but decided to go a bit further than I normally do. There was only 2 other people on the trail today, another fella on a mountain bike and a girl on a horse which was a bit nerve wracking because I wasn't sure of the "trail etiquette" that went along with a horse rider. I did pull to the side and let the horse go by and going off of the reaction of the girl I think that she appreciated it, I said hello to her she waved and said Hi back then thanked me for stopping the bike instead of flying past the horse.

Just a shot down the trail over my bars.

I know that I was pedaling faster today than I have on the past couple rides and I felt fast for almost the entire ride but my bike computer was acting all kinds of wonky so I had no clue how fast I was really going at any point of the ride or how far I went. When I got home I used Gmaps pedometer to calculate my distance and I was just over 15 miles if I was including the street portions of the ride, which is where all of the hills are! On the way to the trail head I am going mostly down hill which of course means the way home, after about 13 miles on the trail is all uphill yay fun! I really don't mind the hills but they aren't exactly what I would call fun either, as I said I am still a 300 pound guy.

This weather is perfect for this type of riding and I am going to take full advantage while I can because sooner than later New England will be covered in the white stuff and I will have to settle for the gym and a stationary bike. I want to also say that apparently there is a problem with the comments on my blog! I got a few emails from different people saying that there is no link to leave a comment and I am looking into why that is but since I am not the best at this whole html thing I am having a time of figuring out exactly whats happening. If you want to comment or message me and the comment thingy is not at the bottom of the post feel free to email me through the link in the profile for email or directly at Zeusmeatball@gmail.com because we all enjoy getting comments/feedback right?

That's all I got for today so I hope that every last one of you enjoyed your day as much as I have.

As Ever
Me

Bombarded with acorns..

Today was another wonderful day in New England, about 65 degrees, clear sky and the tiniest of breezes, so of course that meant that I would pass on my drive over to the gym and take a bike ride. This whole kids back in school thing really makes it easier to do what I gots ta do with the weight loss game, I have felt awesome the past couple weeks since they went back and am hitting on all cylinders again. I almost forgot to eat breakfast today but caught it around 9:30am and ate a banana with peanut butter on it which is light but if I wasn't hungry for anything more I didn't want to push it. I decided that because yesterdays bike ride was a good length and pretty hilly that I would take a short hard ride this morning but when I got to the junction to either head back towards the house or go the other way to the MUP I bet you can guess which way that I went.

Because of the original plan of going for a shorter ride I had pushed myself to that point and was feeling it a little bit about half way through the 12 mile ride and I came across a cat just rolling in the dirt right in the center of the path. I stopped to say hello to my feline friend and the cat ran towards the bike and started purring and rubbing itself against me and the bike, a cat was not what I was expecting to find on the trail. Off I went back towards home and the whole ride lasted just about exactly an hour and was 12 miles and that my friends is a good workout let me tell ya! I wanted to try and get to the gym later just for a quick trot on the treadmill or some light weight lifting but this ride has wiped me out, I don't know if its the small breakfast, the ride yesterday, or the fact that I was up late watching UFC and Nate Marquardt beat Rousimar Palhares but I am done for the day.

I went over my calories yesterday by about 200 but my weight this morning tells me that it was ok as I am down from the previous morning and I am thinking about upping my calories a bit but haven't decided yet for sure. Hydration has never been an issue with me but I like to mention it as much as possible because I believe that its more important than we know when trying to lose weight and I drank 2.5 gallons of fluid yesterday between my tea and H2O. Exercise? well yeah I would say that I have it covered for yesterday and today so I won;t get into that any further.

The acorns were plummeting to earth as I rode through and a good time was had by all, even that cat that got a quick rub before I was on my way. This day would not have been possible just two and a half years ago and honestly I don't know where I might be if I hadn't changed things when I did but I am glad its turning out the way that it is. I have learned in the past couple years that if you want something that you have to do something about it because no one will just walk up and hand you life, its one of those things that we must do ourselves in order to appreciate all that it has to offer.

That's all I got for today, I hope that you enjoy your day as much as I am enjoying mine.

As Ever
Moi

Its YOUR life, live it! lots of pictures.

There are days when a person feels like they don't want to get up out of bed and then there are days when we jack in the box out of that bed, hit the ground running and have the most amazing of days and today, well you can call me Jack. I think that the program going as intended is starting to get my body back into a rhythm because I have not stopped moving today and feel like I can do more than I already have. This post shall be dedicated to movement and my bike for I owed her a nice ride because of the state that she was in yesterday with the clothes hanging from her limbs.

I had to start off with the tunnel of love to warm her up to me again

My trip to the gym this morning was a good one, I did 25 minutes on the stationary bike followed by 20 on a treadmill and finished up with some light weight lifting for about another 20 minutes. I did some light shopping for bananas and oranges and homeward bound I was but as I drove I noticed just how gorgeous the day was and decided that a bike ride around the lake was in my future. Upon getting home I ate a banana and topped off the tires on the bike and off I went but when I hit the spot in the road to turn and go around the lake I decided that I would hop onto the Rails to Trails path that's not too far from my house and off I went. These photos are just a few shots that I took during my ride, I figured that since I disgraced my poor bike with the clothing photos yesterday that I would make it up to her with a few pictures more in her element.

oooh! a Bridge!

and the purpose for the bridge.

Just me stopping for a drink about half way through my ride.

Same spot as the image of me above just shot from behind the bike.

This is one of the crossings where the path crosses a street.

oooh! a Lake!

I came across a couple other riders on the trail today but otherwise it was all mine and I have to tell ya, enjoyable does not even begin to describe the just over 10 mile ride. I also came across a couple deer! I was cruising about 11 mph down a nice sunny part of the path when about 100 yards in front of me I see a deer cross the bike path, then another and in the interest of not plowing into a deer on my bike I slowed down and kept my eye open for any more crossing. I wanted to get a photo of the deer but as soon as they heard the bike coming down the path they leaped back across the way they had come about 30 feet in front of me so no picture but it was pretty cool none the less.

I am still floored at the fact that I can just on a whim hop onto my bike and head off for an awesome ride like the one I took this afternoon because I can clearly remember not being able to run and this is a far cry from that old me. I at times think about all of the things that I must have missed out on in the past because of my weight and I can with all honesty that it saddens me. There are whole blocks of years worth of my life that I cannot get back and they were wasted on brown bags full of greasy fast foods laced with sodium and who know what else, I could have been enjoying things like I did on today's ride all along. Making the decision to lose the weight that was holding me back was one of the best and most important decisions that I have ever made in my entire life because now I am actually living that life unlike in the past when I was much heavier.

If you are on the fence about starting a weight loss program I recommend that you hop on down and start today, it doesn't matter if you count calories like me, join one of the pay to play programs or if its just making the choice to go for a walk after dinner tonight just do it. Who knows what I have missed out on because of being so heavy? I will never know the true extent of it but I wish that I had started earlier than I did because this side of the fence is a lot better than the one where dragging myself up a flight of stairs to take a piss was a reality. You owe yourself the chance to live life on your terms just like I do and everyone else that's in this world and if its weight that's holding you back you CAN do something about it and you MUST do something about it or else you are cheating yourself out of what life really has to offer.

That's all I got for today but you can be sure that tomorrow is another day and another post will be on the way, until then keep on keepin' on.

Oh yeah, I caught my bike smiling at me through the dust on the gears so she ain't mad no more.

As Ever
Me

Day 987 and a menu.

Monday went well for me on the better living front, My calories were on par, I drank more than enough and I made it to the gym bright and early. My plan for Tuesday is to copy Mondays level of success but there is a possibility that there will be no gym trip for me today as the little girl of the house is home from school sick today, which was a borderline decision as she seems perfectly fine as I type this. I've already done a stretching routine and 100 push ups (on the stairs) this morning and am planning on a bike ride with daughter in tow later this afternoon so that I don't miss out on my cardio so the exercise portion of today's lesson has been taken care of. I do after all owe my bike a ride after what I saw this morning because what I saw is reserved for unused fitness equipment not my baby! She is NOT a closet!

True enough I do keep the bike in the bedroom but man! she don't deserve that kind of treatment! anyways, we will be out for a ride later today at some point and I will make it up to her. The fluids in have been right where they need to be, we got a gallon of green tea down the chute along with a little more than a gallon of straight H2O so I am very much hydrated. My calories for Monday came in at 1745 so pretty much where I wanted them to end up and I have been doing well with keeping within range, have a look at the menu taken from my excel sheet.

Breakfast
8:00 AM
60g corn pops cereal 220
1 cup 1% milk 110

Lunch
12:45 PM
2 multigrain deli slims 200 1 T Kraft Olive oil Mayo 50
4oz deli turkey breast 120

3:15 PM
2 whole grain light english muffins 200
1oz turkey pepperoni 70
2 wedges laughing cow cheese 70
sliced tomato 15

Dinner
6:15 PM
6oz grilled chicken breast 300
3/4 cup curry rice 150
1 cup garlic/pepper green beans 40

8:00 PM
1 banana 105
1 T peanut butter 95

My garden is still giving me veggies but that will be short lived as the days are getting cooler and cooler but I still have a gang of eggplant out there that I need to pick soon. I just made eggplant parm on Sunday so I am kind of eggplanted out, not to mention the fact that there is still some of it in the fridge! perhaps I will make an eggplant based stuffing to have with dinner tonight. Next years garden will definitely have eggplant in it again as I got a lot off of my 6 plants and they did quite well in the area that I put them. I still have an abundance of tomatoes out there as well and have not bought a tomato since they started bearing fruit months ago! but it will soon be time to tear up the plants and clean out the beds as it gets colder and colder with each passing day.

I still have about 8 eggplants out there!

There is so much that I am able to do since losing the weight off of my bones that just wasn't a possibility before and I truly do appreciate the little things a lot more these days than I ever have. Just the fact that I can go out and dig some holes in a garden bed that I made pleases me more than anyone can possibly understand because there was a time in my life when I tried to make excuses for not liking things like that and it was merely because I couldn't do them. I enjoy riding my bike more than a 10 year old does, sitting out in the yard digging holes in the ground and planting vegetables is something that I consider fun now, just going for a walk and enjoying the fact that I can go as far as I want to and not be forced to stop because of pain is not taken for granted with me.

My life is just that now, Mine and I plan to keep it that way for a good long while with moderate eating and lots of exercise because the alternative just isn't as fun. Its time for me to kick it up a notch and get these last pounds off and finish what I started back in January 2008 and get down to my goal weight of 275 pounds which will ultimately just be another stop because I want to be lighter than that. We are just about half way through the month of September I am up in weight from my lowest point of 305 pounds and on the 30th I will post my weight no matter what it is and will start the Friday weigh in posts again from then on once again.

Any way that its cut I am a different person now than I was when I started and you will not find a more driven man anywhere.

That's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

Simply inspire.

Weekends seem to go by too quickly, Saturday morning comes, the day begins and it seems that Sunday night is there faster than it should have been. There is a difference in the weekends now compared to back when I was much heavier though and these days my time is spent enjoying life instead of shooting people up in Socom2 online. I had the luxury of going to a local fair on Saturday and spent about 4 hours walking around the fairgrounds while the kids rode the rides and Wify and me just enjoyed all of what was going on. I did however eat a fried dough and a cinnamon bun at the fair so I didn't stay where I needed to with the intake but its not anything that will ruin my outlook on how my weekend went. My daughter has been copying me lately and that's something that I am not disappointed in one bit because she is making up exercise games and said that she wants to start coming to the gym with me, of course I told her that she would have to wait until she was 16 for the gym but I will exercise with her any time that she wants to.

Just me at the fair, yes yes I know I always have an Adidas shirt on, truth is I have about 10 of them, same shirt, same size, three colors no waiting. When ya find one that fits right ya go with it!

Sunday I was relaxing on the couch while my daughter played with a friend in her bed room and when the play date was finished she asked for some plain white paper, so I obliged and gave her some from the printer. She began writing in little boxes that she had drawn onto the paper and then asked me for some names of exercises and how to spell them, Wify wrote a few and the kid wrote some more and then cut them all out. The game that she made up was that Mom would pull a random paper square out of a box and read the exercise off of it, I would demonstrate how to do it and she would then do as many as she could. I don't know if Wify picked up on it but I was smiling ear to ear when that little girl asked me to play it with her because I was genuinely enjoying this game that she made up on a whim and I believe that it shows that I am making a difference in her way of thinking even at age five.



Something that I have realized during this whole process is that our kids will follow us, whether it is into oblivion or to mountain tops they do as we do. I think that I am going to dedicate this week to inspiring my kids to be as active as possible in everything that they do more so than I do normally, if I had been inspired at an early age to be active perhaps I would never have made it to more than a quarter of a ton in weight. I think that every one of you that reads this post should do something inspiring to one child this week, even if you have no kids find a way to be a positive role model to a child in some kind of a way that promotes health and fitness. Let a child see how fun you are having when you are out for your run, or your bike ride, perhaps just give a positive smile or a wave to a kid playing a sport and I think it will go further to better their young outlook on fitness than we know.

Making a game from paper clippings followed by some exercise is far from socom2 on a PlayStation and I am happy that its the way things are going. I have said before that I have changed my life by deciding to lose some weight and make fitness a huge part of that life but in truth I am changing more than just my life because the lives of my children will certainly be enriched because of how I live now. Eating healthy and exercising as much as possible is as much a part of my days as anything else and I actually enjoy this healthier way of living a lot more than the drag ass days of sodium and fat packed dinners from a sack followed by hours of being stationary.

With that the end has come to this episode of as the fat guy turns, now get out there and inspire a child to walk the path of healthy living so that we may not have to read their blogs about how they struggled to lose 200 plus pounds.

As Ever
Me

Will today be your Day one?

This morning I woke up to a ton of email and a lot of messages on my facebook page which I encourage you to add me if it pleases you! that AOL article is to blame and it has put me into a magnificent mood! yes folks I just said magnificent! I have mentioned this before, I started this blog literally as a place to put my progress or back steps in a more public kind of way and it has become so much more than that in the last 983 days which wow! I've been at this for 983 days?? When I began down this road I wasn't sure what would come of it, I did not know if it would be a failed attempt or if I would be down to my goal weight in record time and for whatever reason it stuck this time and here I sit in my plush couch typing a blog and there is an article on a website called "Thatsfit" with me in it! I tell you that I can clearly remember writing my first post titled Day 1 and never did I think that I would be associated with something called Thatsfit, perhaps "ThatsFAT" but not the other.


My Thursday went very well, my calories came in at 1810 which is just about perfect and I went over because of having a pear around 8:30 last night so I am cool with the slightly over. When I was at the gym I decided that I hadn't been on the arc-trainer in a while so I did my 20-20-20 routine for an hour of cardio. The 20-20-20 is 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the arc-trainer finishing up with 20 on the treadmill, I did change it up a bit because I did 25 on the bike and only 15 on the treadmill but a good solid cardio workout was had either way. My fluid intake was on par with just under 2 gallons of fluids between the H2O and green tea so hydrated I am and as I type I am already down a little more than a half gallon for Friday. I will not have a chance to get to the gym today so it looks like a bike ride around the lake is in my future which is more than ok with me, in fact I have come to enjoy my bike rides more than almost anything that I could be doing, almost.

I enjoy what I have done for myself and for my family, a two hour walk through a virtual world to kill a notorious monster has turned into a bike ride to the playground with the kids. Instead of a sack full of sodium laced processed meats and cheeses on a corn tortilla...er on 7 corn tortillas I eat fresh grilled salmon and sweet potatoes, Mangoes and green tea, the flavor difference is quite amazing if you don't believe me try for yourself! The fact that I can now decide that a walk around the lake or a hike on a local trail would be a good way to spend my afternoon is light years away from hoping that I was going to make it up the stairs before my heart grenaded inside my chest and ending up with a hole in the side of my house so that the firemen could drag me out.

When you were once 534 pounds and limited by that fact things look a little different that they do from a closer to normal weight, somehow things seem impossible when simply walking up a flight of stairs is a huge task. For the longest time I was in pain, I don't mean emotionally though that was there too, I had a back injury and 3 disks that were just not the way that they should have been after a work accident and something like that controls the way we feel mentally and obviously physically. Having been through an injury like that left me feeling helpless to get out of my own way and there were times that I physically could not get out of my own way but that has all seemed to change and that happened when I decided to completely revamp the way that I was doing things. I in the last couple years have learned that if a person wants something they need to grab it and make it what they want it to be, no one will hand life to you but giant plates of food and a sedentary lifestyle can and will take it from us each and every time.

Take back what is yours..

As Ever
Me

Day 982 some new and old photos of moi and a menu.

Well we're movin' on up, to the East side to a deluxe new outlook on life, oh we're movin' on up! ok ok, enough of that but can you tell that I am in a good mood today? My plan for today is to get to the gym and do an hour of cardio and get home fast as I have some things to do around the house. My intake plan for the day is going to be a fruit and vegetable filled smorgasbord of crunchy and sweet goodness because that's how I roll. The Thatsfit article that came out yesterday put me into a really good mood and I got a couple pretty cool emails from people that were linked to my blog from the page and thats always a good thing.

This photo was taken in Texas I would say somewhere around 2005 and I am pretty sure that I was more than my high weight of 534 pounds but will never know for sure.

This was taken Aug 3rd 2010 for the Thatsfit article, now that the article has posted I wanted to put it up on the blog.

My intake for yesterday came in 100 calories over what I usually eat at a whopping 1800 total but I went over with an apple so a good choice was made and I ain't going to worry about it. My largest meal was breakfast and it held me over for a long time all while being more than extremely yummy, I have noticed that my drinking has gone down slightly over the past day or so with me polishing off only about 1.5 gallons per day but its still enough so no worries. Have a look at my menu from yesterday.

Breakfast
7:30 AM
8 oz potato 200
peppers/onion/Smart balance 50
5 egg whites 75
1 whole egg 70

Lunch
12:45 PM
5oz ground turkey 225
2 whole grain deli slims 200
1.5oz light chips 110

3:15 PM
1 T peanut butter 95
1 banana 105

Dinner
6:00 PM
6oz baked Haddock fillet 240
3/4 cup steamed white rice 150
1C green beans 40
Tartar sauce 50

6:45 PM
1 banana 105

8:15 PM
1 apple 85

Grand total of 1800 calories for the day and it was more than enough food for me to feel full all day, which is always a plus right? Its always good when a person can feel satisfied with what was eaten in a day while it remains healthy. I am the one calling the shots just as you are and every other person out there struggling with losing weight, I am not perfect and in my years on this planet have yet to find a person that is perfect so when a mistake is made as long as we get back up and on track is just a mistake. I struggle with making the right choices even still after being on this path for more than two and a half years and though it is easier than in the beginning or in the past its a daily struggle to stay on top of something that is an ever present itch on ones back. Today I will go to the gym, I will eat within my calorie range and I will drink at least 1.5 gallons of fluids because if I want to get to my goal weight its what I will need to do.

Maintaining my weight for the last year has taught me that I can live a relatively normal life meaning not carrying my salter scale around and measuring every ounce of every bite that goes into my body but it also reminds me that it is a lot of work to keep weight falling off. Its time to go for another hard push and get that 275 pounds that I put in my sites when I started this whole weight loss gig and prove to myself that I can and will get there on my terms.

Making my way towards that line in the sand and I am shooting for that goal this year, will I make it? will I get to that 275 pound mark? lower perhaps? all to be found out in a future episode of Fatman and Blobin!

As Ever
Me

Thatsfit featured little old me in an article? Very cool!

Later than usual today but its been a long hectic day for me! Alarm goes off at 3:30 AM and I jack in the box out of bed to drive my mom to the airport I had the idea that I would hit the gym on the way in since I drive right by it. Walking into the gym at ten minutes to five in the morning was a little different because other than the Arc trainer army the gym was relatively empty so onto my bike I went and 30 minutes later was on a treadmill. Home I came to greet my wonderful wify getting ready for her day and I prepared an awesome scramble for breakfast that only cost me 390 calories and had peppers, onions, potato and egg whites. Somehow I am feeling driven lately like it was in the beginning, to the point where I am excited about this whole better health thang all over again.

I suppose that being featured in an article on a site as big as AOL can get me feeling awesome again and the Thatsfit article was indeed posted up today! see it at "Moderation helped Tony lose 229 pounds". To think that I would be associated with anything that was health related was eons away from reality just two and a half years ago and now something called "Thatsfit" has my image and some info on me on their site. A once 534 pound guy changed his life for the better and I honestly see myself going into a health related field at some point as a job because I really do feel passionate about staying on this road that I am paving for myself and my health.

My calories have been more than perfect lately and I am getting in loads of foliage and green tea, I am drinking about 2 gallons of fluids per day between the H2O and green tea and am loving the gym again since the kids are back to school. For far too long I sat in the back row watching everything happen around me and now that I have slid up more than a few rows life is going to be on my terms from here on out because its the little things that we miss that are most important. Being able to run around the yard with my daughter kicking a soccer ball instead of sitting on the porch watching is one of the best rewards that have come from this whole weight loss thing and I would not give it up for anything in the world. Once upon a time I was literally leashed to my couch and now that the tether is gone I dare you to try and get it back on me but don't be too upset when you go home with rope in hand and a hollow feeling of failure because I tell you I am not going back to that.

I want to thank Martha Edwards for the article and hopefully there is someone out there who can take something from it that will help them start down their own path to better health. Onward and upward we go and I see good things in my future and all it took was to make a decision not to sit in the darkest corner of the theater watching as the show happened around me.

That's all I got for today and this episode of as the fat guy turns has come to an end, tune in tomorrow for more.

As Ever
Me

Hey fat boy! the gym is that way!

Plugging right along with this whole weight loss gig, this weekend has not afforded me the chance to write you fine folks or myself a blog post but fear not! I hath return from my long weekend away! My mother is here visiting from California and that's added to the lack of time to myself but my plan stands, full forward until I get to my goal of 267 pounds which will be 50% of my highest weight. My return to the gym has been great! having the kids back to school is great on more than one level because I am getting all kinds of home projects done in addition to the being able to have a normal gym schedule again. Friday I did miss the gym because I hyper extended my left elbow somehow and woke up Friday morning with some pain and discomfort so I skipped going, the good news is that by Sunday it felt 100% again so onward we go.

Thursday I mentioned that AOL and Thatsfit.com was doing an article on me and if you read regularly You probably noticed that I never posted a link! The email that I received from the writer doing the article said "Just wanted to let you know that we're featuring your story this Thursday at 3pm ET (that time could change at the last minute, but that's the plan right now.) Here's the link" BUT the link was dated 2010/07/09 and that is today so I am thinking that the "Thursday" was a typo in the email and that perhaps since its dated for today that the article will be up some time today? we shall see!

Sold! to the lady with the crisp twenties!

This week will be my getting on a roll with the gym again week, I am also planning on taking advantage to the September weather and my bike because today is a Winnie the pooh kind of day out there and not taking a ride around the lake would be a shame on me. I did something that I thought would be harder than it was concerning one of my bikes this weekend too, I sold one. It was a Craigslist find bike that I got a while ago and put some time and effort into cleaning her up with all intentions on keeping and riding it myself and I did! but my brother in laws girlfriend was looking for a bicycle and when faced with five crisp twenty dollar bills I folded and gave it to her. I put an old bike back on the road, helped someone out with a quality bike for a good price and made a little green all at the same time so I am happy with the transaction. Perhaps I will make bike flipping an alternate means of a little extra income if I can convince myself that letting go of a bike is ok!

Today I will be making my Calorie conscious eggplant Parmesan recipe because of the 17 eggplants that I currently have growing in my garden, they really have taken off within the last couple weeks. I get a lot of emails asking about my menus for each day so I will very likely start posting them daily again because it really does help me when I post them and it seems that some you guys that follow along are interested too so look for those to start popping up again. I mentioned earlier that I have 10 months before the kids are back out of school and the plan is to see if that original goal weight is obtainable in that time, I think that as long as I stay on task that getting there should happen.

Today the plan is to stay within my caloric range, drink at least 2 gallons of fluid of course my fluids of choice are green tea and straight up H2O and as soon as I hit publish I will pull the bike out and go for a quick ride around the lake before I head to the gym. Today is My day, You have a today that is yours too, what will you do with it that is for you?

That's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

Day 975 as the fat guy turns.

Feeling amazing I float through my days effortlessly where this whole diet and exercise thang is concerned, at the gym I am in my element and I started the weight lifting again with yesterdays trip. There is something about being at the gym that motivates me, it could be that other people doing the same thing in a group sets the pace or perhaps just having all of that equipment just waiting for me to hop on and go, I am unsure. Yesterday I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike followed by some weight lifting for my biceps, shoulders and upper back when that was finished a 15 minute brisk walk on a treadmill finished my time at the gym. When I joined the gym I was worried about what all of the "healthy" people would think about this fat dude riding his ass off on a stationary bike, I worried about using the weight machines and competing with hyper ripped body builder types and was plain old intimidated with the idea but as soon as I went I quickly found out that all of the worry was for naught.

My life has changed so much in the last two and a half years because of making the decision to live healthier, I am sure that it has changed in ways that I am even unaware of. A once 534 pound fella I am now unlimited in what I do, simple changes in the way that I eat and conduct my exercise regimen has brought me to where I am today. Now don't let the word simple fool you, the changes were simple but following through with them well that was the hard part because losing any amount of weight is not easy when they are backed up by years of bad habits.


When I started writing in this blog I just wanted to have a place to write down how I was doing and today around 3PM AOL and Thatsfit.com is featuring me in an article about people that have blogged away weight, too cool. My wife has dropped 75 pounds in the same time that I dropped my more than 200 pounds and to say that our lives are improved since making the decision does not begin to say how much has changed, we are different people inside and out. When you weigh as much as a sports bike its hard to do anything past sitting on your ass and lifting fork to mouth let alone do anything that could be considered living a full life but somehow when I was on that side of the equation it was easy to rationalize the situation as normal. There is no one way to have a successful weight loss program but the root must be the same in my opinion, we have to get to a point where enough is enough and simply making the commitment to stick to whatever plan we choose has to be made.

I know people that have lost weight by calorie counting and have been successful, just look at me, then there are those that have used plans like weight watchers and have had great results and still other people who have used other means. There is no one way to do it but the one thing that every successful weight loss regimen has in common is being consistent with the chosen plan, I didn't gain 250 extra pounds over night and its not going to come off over night but if we are consistently eating well and working out better health will follow every time.

The time has come for me to go beat up on a bike at the gym but I will be checking for the article on Thatsfit pretty much all day and i will post a link directly to the article as soon as I see it pop in there. Tomorrows episode of as the fat guy turns will be sure to have white knuckle moments along with some tears and possibly a new recipe so make sure that you tune in to see what happens next. As always thanks for following along with me and my trip to the half, drink much and move more than that and a healthy life can and will be yours for the taking, that's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me

War huh what is it good for? for making asses smaller I tell ya!

Getting right back into the swing of things at the gym I got in a good solid 50 minutes worth of cardio yesterday followed by some yard work and I can honestly say that I feel more up because of the movement. Its almost like having that time to myself makes me want to do more with it, when we have a little bit of time that we can call our own things somehow feel easier. Children take up a lot of time and attention, especially when one of them has special needs so its not always easy to get to the gym no matter how important getting there is, but you can always take a bike ride man! True enough that a bike ride is an option, push ups are too, I mean hell I have time to write this very post I should be able to find time to get some kind of exercise into my day right? sort of. All at the same time I can and will never make an excuse for not working out, I should be able to find time in every day for at least something even if its just some calisthenics but there are the days that its a struggle to do it and we will all have them.

Being able to focus on myself 100% again since the kiddos are back to school is important because when we focus on us 30% of the time and take care of other things in the remainder it can be difficult to drop weight and keep or build muscle in the same way as when its 100%. This is why weight loss is so hard, it really is like a full time job, if we lose it as a focal point it becomes very easy to start slipping back and before we know it weight is coming back on. We need to find a balance between keeping our lives rolling forward while we eat clean and exercise daily, doing this really is simple but is as hard as they come if that makes any sense at all. I say that its simple because it is, eat a certain amount of food, make sure that its clean, drink enough water, exercise daily and that as a concept is simple and honestly as a practice should be simple too. It becomes hard because of all of the other things happening in concert around us while we do those things, kids, jobs, house work, spouses, pain and breaking old habits but it is possible and as long as we believe that while we follow through with the basics you can have success with becoming healthy.

Right now as I type this I know that I will be in the gym 20 minutes after I hit the publish button and honestly it will be the highlight of my day. Now that the kids are back in school I can focus on me a little more closely than I have been over the summer, There are some other plans in the works for me and where I am going with my weight loss and plans because of it but that will be for another post some other day! In an earlier post I mentioned that I will weigh in on September 30th and every Friday thereafter and I am planning on getting some more motorcycle pictures up here, My plan includes smashing my weight goals to the ground and going into full on war with myself to get the weight lower than it has ever been won't you join me with that task? awe c'mon you know ya want to!

Also worth mentioning, Thursday the 2nd which is yes TOMORROW! I will be featured in an article on thatsfit.com, I was contacted by a writer for AOL a couple weeks ago asking if I would be interested in being featured in an article and of course I humbly accepted! tomorrow around 3PM ET the article will be up on the site! very exciting! I have seen the article in draft already and will post a direct link as soon as it appears on their site so that anyone that is interested could read it. When I started writing this blog it was purely so that I could have a place to reflect back on and have a little accountability in a public eye and here I am being asked to be featured in an article, I truly am humbled by it.

That concludes this message from the emergency weight loss broadcast system, this was only a test, if it had been an actual weight loss emergency the post that you just read would have been followed by official information, news or instructions and that's all I got for today.

As Ever
Me