@$#%@#$%!!!!!

Sometimes life just sucks!

Week 34 Weigh-In

I weighed 288.4 lbs. this morning which is a loss of 0.2 lbs. for a total of 91.6 lbs. I didn't take any other measurements this morning because I hurt my back yesterday. I went for a bike ride. About 7 miles from home I stopped and bent over to adjust a strap on my pedal. When I straightened up, I was in great pain. I had to bike that way back home. I am in pain and very, very frustrated about what I cannot do until my back gets better. It even hurts to sit here and type. I don't want to take a chance twisting around to take measurements.

Gross Pictures, but Progress

I always intended to post pictures after each 10 lb. loss. I think I have missed a couple. Anyhow, since I dipped below 290, I put these together with the ones I took near the beginning of my journey.


Doh! I see I time traveled and put tommorows date on the picture, lol.

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Week 33 Weigh-In

This morning I weighed 288.6 lbs. This is a 2.8 lb. loss this week for a total of 91.4 lbs. lost. My Fat ratio is 29.6%. I measured wrong last week, so this is up from last week. Last week's should have been 29.6% as well. With this percent, I have 203.2 lbs. of lean mass and 85.4 lbs. of fat mass. My waist remain 52.5 inches.

Getting below 290 is a big deal for me. This means that I have less than 100 pounds to go.The ticker at the top finally is counting in double digits instead of triple digits. Also, I have a few milestones coming up soon. When I hit 285, that will mark the half-way point as far a weight loss goes. Then at 280, I will have lost 100 lbs. Then at 272 I will reach the point of obesity without qualifiers. 45+ super obese, 40-45 morbidly obese, 35-40 severely obese, 30-35 obese, 25-30 over weight, 20-25 healthy.

The weight loss is a significant factor in my fitness. It is encouraging to see the weight go. However, it is one component in my overall journey of fitness. My fitness through exercise is a huge component in this journey. I am six weeks away from running in a race. I am certain that I will be the fattest guy there running, but I don't care. I still want to do it. This has been great motivation to keep going on my running program.

Another motivation has been the president's fitness challenge. In fact, I just earned a silver medal in the president's champions category. I will earn the gold by the year's end or shortly thereafter.

Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand -- Sophocles

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Secret?

Cactus Freak wrote: "What is your secret to continual motivation?"

I wish I could say I found some secret, some magic technique, that something that eludes most people. I cannot. Heck, I am still severely obese. So who I am to say anything?

However, the question has prompted me to go into some introspection. For whatever it's worth, this is my thinking at this point in my journey.

First of all, I have many motivations for living a fit lifestyle. I have listed those before here. The kicker is that all those motivations were there when I was eating horrible and sitting on my rump all day. They are truly motivations, but they didn't get me started. I like to think they keep me going now that I have started, but I am not sure.

Some times, my wife says that I have a lot of will power. I am not so sure that I do. Instead of using will power, I try to avoid those situation in which I need will power.

For me, it has been a mind game. I had wanted to get back to living a fit lifestyle for a long time. I was waiting for that magic moment when I would feel a strong sense of motivation, but it never came...and it never came...and it still never came. I told myself to just start. Just do it (sorry Nike). At least, I needed to go through the motions. I knew that if I didn't start, something terrible would happen. Much of the stresses I have now, I had then. With my morbid obesity, stress, and lack of exercise, I knew that I was headed for a nervous breakdown at the least.

So I started. Actually, my wife and both started the South Beach Diet. We became extremely moody and irritable, so about 12 days into it, we quit. That is when I started my own program which I had gleaned from various health and nutrition experts. One of my first mind games was tell myself that I wasn't doing this to lose weight, but to get fit. I was going to change my lifestyle forever. My goal can never be reached until I am six foot under because it is a life long goal. My goal is to live fit.

However, this is an ongoing mind game. I love the weight loss. I like to think about how many pounds I have lost. I like to think about how great it will be to reach this weight or that. I have to keep reminding myself that as great as the weight loss is, that is only a side effect of my main goal, living fit.

Along these lines, I do remind myself that living fit is my #1 job. When I live fit I make everything else that is important to me that much more important. When I live unhealthy, I treat all that is important to me like crap. Why? Because I am sacrificing them for pizza and donuts. I can't show how important my wife and kids are to me by eating myself into an early grave.

Another mind game I play is to keep myself from feeling hungry. I eat all day long until about 7 PM. But I eat small meals with healthy snacks in between. I try to never feel ravenous in my hunger. I try to eat slow as well so that my brain get the message before I eat too much.

I am not sure if this is medically possible, but I feel like my stomach capacity has shrunk. I feel full on less food. I think part of this has to do with another mind game. Before this journey, I would eat to get full...I mean stuffed. I could pack away a lot of food. I could pack away enough to make most people sick just thinking about it. Instead of eating to get full, I now try to eat so that I don't feel empty...and no more. Consequently, I find myself unable to finish meals when eating out. I can eat a bowl of soup for dinner and feel satisfied.

One of the greatest mind games is self-respect. This is especially helpful at buffets, family get-togethers, and potlucks. I imagine what I would think if I saw someone who looked like me filling their plate at those things. Did I want to fit the stereotype of a fat slob who had no self-respect? No! In fact, people were looking at what I was eating. They were thinking the things I would have thought. I told myself I needed to eat like someone who respected himself. I still wanted to fill my plate with mash potatoes and gravy and then get a dinner plate filled with deserts. Instead, I limit myself to one plate with nothing touching on the plate and one desert cut in half. I don't always follow through how I should, but I try not to let that get me down either.

Along these lines, if I am going to be out of town, on the road, or on vacation, I plan. I think about what I need to do in order to eat the way I want to eat. Even if I need to adjust my routine, I find I can still eat healthy and get some exercise if I just plan ahead.

One last mind game for the road is what is referred to as falling off the wagon. Since this is my lifestyle and not temporary program, there is not wagon for me to fall off. Part of living a fit lifestyle is accepting that there will be times when I will eat something that is not healthy. There will be times that I will blow off exercising for one reason or another. It's just part of life. But I haven't blown anything. I can't dwell on the past or give up the future. I can live fit right now. If I can learn something from when I have made unhealthy choices then I am the better for it. There is no learning without making mistakes.

So I play a lot of mind games. I am to the point where I don't need to think about these mind games all the time. Most of the time, they come naturally, but not always. I must resolve to live fit with all the mind games that come with it. This is simply the way I live now until the day I die. So I guess if I have a secret, it is to play the mind games. At least that is what has helped me to get to where I am at now. But since this is a lifelong journey who knows what I will say in six months.

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Week 32 Weigh-In

This morning I weighed 291.4 lbs. which is a respectable 4 lb. loss from last week. Hopefully, I will break the 290's next week. My body fat is 28.25% which is down 2.65% from 3 weeks ago. This gives me a lean mass of 209.1 lbs. which is up 6.6 lbs. and a fat mass of 82.3 lbs. which is a loss of 8.2 lbs. (from 3 weeks ago). My waist is 52.5 inches which is down 1 inch also from 3 weeks ago.

All in all, it was a good week fitness-wise. My new weight lifting routine is going well. Cardio slowed down this last week for various reasons, but I still did it 6 days last week even if some days were only for a half hour. I am continue to train for the 5.7 mile race on October 27th via the Beginning Runner's Handbook method. My daughter is still training with me. I am really pleased that she is sticking with it after 6 weeks.

Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts. -- James Russel Lowell

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Stress Shut Down

I had to go out of town at the end of last week for a meeting. I stayed at my dad's house, got some stuff done for him, and brought him back up with me to live for a few months. Because of this, I had a ton of things to do at work on Saturday.

While I was gone, a number of things happened at work so there was even more. In addition, I wanted to spend time with the kids to give my wife a break. Whenever I leave town, she has to load up all FIVE kids to do anything like shop or take one to piano lessons, etc...

I get home late Friday night with dad and of course, I can't get to sleep until about 2 hours later than normal. I get up a little bit late Saturday and one thing after another happened. I didn't get to work until noon. Ack!!! Instead of diving right into all that I dad to do, I could hardly do a thing.

I felt like I was trying to walk through tar. Everything I did was a great struggle. Despite this feeling, I forced myself to get a number of things done. Around 3:30 PM, I just shut down. I just sat there like a deer in headlights. I was frozen; unable to do anything else. I left many things undone. I went home and played with the kids.

I did end up having to go into work for about 30 minutes because of an emergency situation, but I went home as soon as I took care of it. I basically shut down and let everything go.

I am not sure what the repercussions will be this coming week. I am not sure that I care. It was just strange. Normally, I flourish when the pressure is on. For some odd reason, I shut down this time. What is the matter with me?

Anyhow, I should mention that my third and final interview was scheduled for this coming Tuesday, but I postponed it indefinitely. It's a job I think I could do well. Yet, I am not sure that I really want to do it. I am not sure if it is because I don't want to leave my current career or because I am afraid to leave my current career. I am not sure if these feelings are about the job I have been interviewing for or if I would have the same feelings for any other job.

Hehe, just a little aside. I have thought about becoming a personal trainer once I reach a healthy weight. I would like to specialize in helping the obese. I have done a little a research and it's scary. It looks like you can become a certified personal trainer with little to no hands on experience. I was looking for a college level program with lots of hands on experience. Anyhow, that is a long way off.

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Interviewed for Weight Loss Tips

I was interviewed for the Weight Loss Tips website.
http://wltips.com/Half-Man.html

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Biggest Loser-Gainers?

Last Tuesday, Biggest Loser aired a special which brought back some of the old contestants to see if they kept the weight off. It looked like almost all of them gained a good chunk of weight. The number that sticks out in my mind for the men was 240 lbs. It seemed that most if not all the men weighed around 240 lbs. Granted that is much less than most of them weighed to begin with, but for some, that is close to a 50 lb. gain since the end of the show.

I am sure that by the final weigh in, they went to great extremes to weigh as little as possible in order to win the dough. I am sure they probably purged themselves, downed exlax, and dehydrated their bodies for that weigh in. Heck, that is what I would do. Even considering that, it seems like they packed quite a few pounds back on.

I was surprised to see that and not quite sure how to take it. I wonder if it has to do with how they lost the weight. I believe they were on highly restrictive calorie diets. Perhaps their bodies became use to so few calories so that when that ate more reasonable diets, their bodies didn't quite adjust. Perhaps, this is a sign that losing so much weight so fast is not as effective as losing it more slowly.

I know I have been losing rather quickly, but I believe I am averaging in the recommended range of 2-3 lbs. a week. I hope that when I get under each 10 lb. mark, I will never rise above it again.

The best thing they showed was that they were all living fit lifestyles. Many of them were helping others live fit lifestyles as well. Of course, my goal is to live fit for the rest of my life. I am living fit right now. My body is becoming more fit every day.

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!

Week 31 Weigh-In

Bleh! I weighed 295.4 lbs. this morning. This is a gain of 2.6 lbs. That sucks! I was hoping to break 290. But, I am not deterred. I am determined. I will be heading down to dad's house later this week, so hopefully I will remember to grab my tape measure. Then I will be able to start getting my other measurements.

I could try to rationalize this gain, but there would be no point. I could have eaten healthier. I could have exercised more. However, I did eat healthy. I did exercise. Considering, how I have lost weight around 28 of the 31 weeks, I am not too worried.

Two weeks ago, I was on vacation. I exercised that week, but much less than usual. Healthy eating declined toward the end of the week. Last week, eating was fine. However, I did change up my exercise routine. I did this for two reasons: 1) I can no longer keep up the intensity of 2-3 hours of exercise a day and maintain all the other crap going on in my life. It's all starting to catch up. 2) It's time to take weight training to the next level (as far my weights will let me).

Previously, I trained my whole body twice a week: Mondays & Thursdays=Upper body; Tuesdays & Fridays=Legs & core; in addition I tried to do 2 hours of cardio Monday-Saturday. The weights consisted of one lift per muscle group.

My weights are a set of dumbbells up to 35 lbs.

My new lifting routine is:
Mondays: Push ups, Chest Press, inclined chest fly, military press, front lateral raises, side lateral raises.

Tuesdays: Standing bicep curls, hammer curls, concentration curls, straight crunches, left & right side crunches, reverse crunches, and pelvic tilt.

Thursdays: One-arm dumbbell row, dumbbell pullover, dumbbell shrug, squats, lunges, standing calf raises

Friday: Bench Dip, French press, tricep kick-back, kneeling butt blaster, side-lying leg lift, inner thigh lift, kneeling leg curl

Cardio will be 1 hour a day.

This reduces my time exercising, but increases the intensity. I am sure the trade off will be worth it in the long run. I do need heavier weights. I hope to be able to afford power blocks one day.

Oh, here is a before and now picture.

Living Fit Is My #1 Job!