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Old 01-13-2010, 11:18 AM   #76  
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Originally Posted by tuckr View Post
Well after 8 days of the new lifestyle change, and tracking calories, I have lost 13 pounds, and most of that was without alot of exercise!! I have to get my big a$$ up and get to the gym, ASAP, but I am proud of the loss, just need to get the exercise in gear. I am stayin garound 1200- 1600 calories a day, but Sunday I had a little hiccup, with football and beer and chicken and fish free at the local club, I went to about 2600 calories, but got back on the horse the next day. My focus for the next week is to get a exercise program going, I am also working on getting a wii. Has anyone been working out with Wii fit and is it a good workout???

Thanks so much for you rblog, really an inspiration.

Later and keep it up
Tucker
That's awesome man, great way to get started. And the best part is that you know how many calories you ate on the bad day (which 2600 one day isn't that bad for your size anyway) so you area aware and you got right back on plan. It's tempting to let one bad meal or one bad day turn into a bad week or giving up. How are you tracking your calories? Be sure to get a lot of protein when you start working out more.

I have a Wii Fit and the answer depends on how out of shape you are. Most of the activities in the Wii Fit I don't think are a good workout (at least for cardio). If you can go to the gym and workout for at least 30-60 minutes I don't think you'll find the Wii Fit to be that tough. Hula hoop, bicycling, step, and free run can get my HR going a bit. Being horribly inflexible and having poor posture I do appreciate the yoga and balance parts of it. And it's FUN! A lot of the games are really entertaining and certainly more physical than a couch. But I would not advocate using it place of the gym.

On the other hand I also got EA Sports Active More Workouts for the Wii and that is TONS better. I get a great sweat even doing the 10 minute workout. All the activities are better at getting your HR up and keeping it up, and a lot are really fun. I like the cardio boxing, the obstacle course, and several others.

I view the Wii Fit as a gateway for someone that say couldn't even walk a half mile, whereas if you can do a little more the gym is the best or EA Sports Active is a pretty darn good workout too! I try to force myself to only do the Wii for exercise when I absolutely cannot work out a time to go to the gym, I wouldn't make it my primary exercise if possible.


Keep up the good work! I would also say that if you start exercising regularly that 1200 calories is too low for your size, I'd stay more in the 1700-2000 range. You will lose weight pretty quickly if you eat there and exercise but if you dip too low it might cause problems.

Edit: I should make clear that I actually play Wii Fit a lot, b/c it's fun and better than sitting on the couch, I just don't count it as my daily exercise, more like a small bonus.

Last edited by randomcards; 01-13-2010 at 11:21 AM.
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Old 01-13-2010, 10:35 PM   #77  
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Wed Jan 13 - Can you solve this nutrition problem?

Today's "plan" challenge.

I ate constantly throughout the day, or at least felt like I did, but turns out I was WAY behind in my calories. I had an apple on my way out the door earlier this evening to bring me only to 1000 calories for the day (my goal is 1800-2000). Then I got stuck unexpectedly in a 3 hour music rehersal.

So I get home at 9:15, starved and really behind on my calories (taking a snack wouldn't have been an option anyway).

Ok So do you....

A) Tough it out till bedtime and not eat anything to avoid that whole late night eating thing...

B) Knock back a large chunk of leftover lasagna and peach cobbler, I've got 800 calories to make up today...

C) Eat 800 calories but eat "healthy" food, noting that 800 calories is a LOT of healthy food...

D) Eat a smaller healthy meal of 400 calories to stave off the hunger but not totally make up today's calorie defecit...


I chose D but considered all of the above, what do you choose? Also I don't really know if there is a right answer.
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Old 01-13-2010, 10:42 PM   #78  
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D, most likely. I don't hold stock in that whole "don't eat late" thing...if you're eating junk, as most people do late at night, that's the issue, not the time. But I don't sleep well after a big meal, either, and not sleeping is one of my biggest overeating triggers.
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Old 01-14-2010, 02:54 AM   #79  
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I'd also choose D - not so much to "stave off the hunger" because that'll pass, but to honor the commitment in my head that there's always another meal or snack coming soon, so eating off-plan isn't justified.

If I deprive myself, my neurons remember and the next time I feel some hunger, some desire, or some craving they will be harder to ward off.
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Old 01-14-2010, 01:23 PM   #80  
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Default D as well

Good choice on D, I have been falling behond on calories as well, but I feel I am eating constantly, just good snacks, like nuts and fruits and yogart, what snacks are you all eating, maybe something to switch it up and or fav receipes. I made a low cal eggplant parm the other night and it was stellar, I also make a great chicken enchilada soup which is great, if anyone interested on receipes let me know. I also am a big fan of sweet potato chips baked with a lil ketchup, anyone else got a fav.

Thansk Tucker
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Old 01-14-2010, 01:50 PM   #81  
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Yeah, I'd go with D. I might increase to 500 cals just on general principles, but tomorrow is another day, whether you eat too much, too little, or just enough. No point in eating food that you don't really need or want just because you were hungry earlier that day.

You just don't want to make it a habit to undereat, especially when you're trying to lose.

Jay
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Old 01-15-2010, 12:04 AM   #82  
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Good, sounds like D was the consensus.

And I agree about not undereating. Sometimes I don't have time to track calories more than once a day and I unfortunately haven't been at this long enough where I can do it in my head. I'll get there.
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Old 01-15-2010, 12:16 AM   #83  
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Thursday 1/14 - New Workout

Decided to try something new at the gym today. My gym has a short 1/16th of a mile track (a little larger than a basketball court). So today I tried the following.

Walk the 2 short ends and one straightaway, then for the other straightaway I would alternate between a forward sprint, backward sprint, and sideways sprints (one each way).

So I was essentially alternating sprinting/walking with about 70% walking and 30% sprinting by distance. I did a total of 20 laps like this for a distance of 1.25 miles, and did this as half of my cardio.

It was pretty hard, didn't feel real natural which is probably good. I felt like a fat person sprinting instead of an athlete sprinting, but that will hopefully change in time. It was a nice change from the normal machines.

Had a good day eating. Had Taco Bell for the 2nd time since being on plan (almost 6 weeks). I'm pretty sure Taco Bell is solely responsible for at least a third of my weight gain But I was good and only had 2 Fresco Chicken Burritos for 640 total calories. Put me exactly at 2,000 for the day the upper limit of my target range. Got in 136g of protein also after getting in 169g yesterday!
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Old 01-15-2010, 02:10 PM   #84  
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Thought of the Day - The struggle between immediate action and non-immediate results.

So reading a lot of posts has me thinking today about this topic.

When many of us start on this journey (myself included) we are not "experts" at it. We have to think about everything, solve lots of barriers/issues, constantly fight our old habits, etc. For any Dave Ramsey fans I think of "gazelle" intensity, picturing the intensity with which a gazelle runs when trying to escape a lion. Clearly maintainers have to continue to work hard, but obviously the more you make behaviours normal, the more natural it becomes in at least some struggle areas. I'm sure some folks who have been doing for 3 years can get to the end of their day and within 100 calories figure out exactly what they consumed, or maybe feel a little bit more natural need to go to the gym.

So on one hand those of us early in the journey have to think about it and work on it all the time, dozens of times a day or more.

But there is an obvious issue there and that is that every individual decision does not directly equal an immediate result in the one measure we all care about...fat loss.

We want to think "I bypassed that co-worker's birthday cake today, bye bye 0.05 lbs". Or "I jogged the longest I've ever jogged before, bye bye 0.8 lbs".
Even though we know this isn't how it works, the fact that we have to focus on every behavior and decision makes it hard not to.

So the net result is when you don't see the results you expect or feel you've "earned" it is frustrating to the entire effort. Or say you have an off day but somehow your weight still drops by a pound, then you are confused.

So I think there is this struggle between the the "gazelle-intensity" that a lifestyle makeover requires, with the fact that the lifestyle makeover (and resulting weight loss) is the cumulative sum of all of those little decisions over time.

I'm not sure if this is making any sense, and I don't have an answer for this struggle, but I think it's an important one for many of us newbies to recognize.

For some people this might mean weighing or measuring say once a week or less. For me I cannot do this and maintain the daily intesity in each decision that I am shooting for to build new habits. For some people it just has to mean that you separate the behaviors from the results and focus on developing right behaviors with the understanding that the results will come but not necessarily on some arbitrary time schedule you think if "fair"

Anyway this is my musing for the day...
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Old 01-17-2010, 02:56 PM   #85  
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Fri/Sat Jan 15-16; Dodging temptation and dealing with cravings

This has been a tough weekend for me, I haven't been off-plan which is the worst, but I have been having a really hard time staying on-plan which is frustrating. It's kind of a mental drain to have to "try" so hard sometimes, and keep wanting it to get easier. In some ways it is, but not this weekend!

Saturday I knew was going to be really hard since I had 2 kiddo birthday parties to attend. When I got up, I realized (should have thought more the night before) that I couldn't make it to the gym that unless I left right then for a quick trip.

Temptation 1
Of course as soon as I'm ready my wife is like "but I've got all the stuff ready to make omelettes". I was hungry and it sounded so much easier to stay in and eat, but I decided the gym was more important, especially since I was in charge of the little one on Friday so couldn't go to the gym.

Temptation 1 avoided....to be honest it helped that I already had my gym clothes and was almost out the door.

On the plus side my wife put all the omlette fixings in the fridge and I had a nice filling healthy omelette after my workout to get some protein in.

Temptation 2
First birthday party of course there is pizza and cake there. Normally I would just lounge around while the kids played and unknowingly polish 4-5 pieces of pizza and a large slice of cake.

Temptation 2 avoided....turned out the whole omelette thing worked out well as I was still really full from that.

Craving 1
When we left Birthday Party 1, we had to go straight to the next party about 1.5 hours away. I was hugely craving fast food (even though I wasn't really hungry). It was almost like I wanted the satisfaction of my old habit of stopping at a drive thru and getting food I didn't even really want or need.

I just ignored it and drove on, luckly most of the 1.5 hour drive was out in the boonies, so wasn't passing a lot of places anyway.

Temptation 3
By now it's 2pm and I'm pretty hungry. The sunflower seeds I brought aren't cutting it this time. Of course at this party is super cheesy enchiladas, chips, 5 kinds of dip, obv more cake, etc.

I lucked out again a bit on temptation 3 as there was also a crock-pot full of what I was pretty sure was quite healthy mexican chicken soup. It was basically broth, chicken, peppers, etc, I can't really think of anything bad in it. I had a few chips with salsa. To be honest if that soup wouldn't have been there I would have been in trouble. I had a meal bar in the car, but it just wasn't going to happen...

Craving 2
Took the kiddo over that evening to a friends house around dinnertime. Was really really craving pizza (I'm guessing since I passed up earlier), but instead of ordering, we made a little pasta. Pasta wasn't ideal, but the portion size was pretty small so that was great.

Craving 3
On my way home I had by far the worst dessert craving I've had in my 6ish weeks on-plan. I was dying for an old standby, the large Dairy Queen chocolate extreme blizzard! This used to be a weekly regular for me. I couldn't get my mind off it the whole way home and was really lucky I did not pass any Dairy Queens on the way home, before pounding 2 60 calorie SF puddings...

BTW I looked up the nutritional value of that blizzard today...1430 calories and 68 g of fat WOW, glad I skipped that!


So in the end I did good for the day, partially due to good decisions and partially to "luck" being helpful in a couple of key spots. You'd think I'd be pretty happy about the successes, but am a bit down today. I feel frustrated that it was so hard yesterday. For really the first time in 6 weeks I'm wanting that carby stuffed feeling. I guess it's a combination of all the little meals and drastically reducing the carbs I'm intaking.

Hopefully this will pass, or else I might have to tweak the eating and see if I can come up with something that will help, I need to rely less on willpower than I did yesterday...
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Old 01-17-2010, 04:34 PM   #86  
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I can totally relate to your weekend. I have been on plan and exercising for a good three weeks straight not really craving anything. Well my weigh in day is on mondays and I decided on Saturday to take a look at the scale and see where I was for the week. The scale only said I had lost like .4 pounds. Seeing that minimal loss kind of messed with my mind a little bit I guess because after that all I wanted to do was eat for some reason. I got through saturday fairly well but I cannot say the same for today. My husband ends up fixing waffles and bacon for breakfast which he never does but i managed to just eat half a waffle and only one piece of bacon so I felt pretty good. Then we had a church dinner today and it has gone down hill from there. Did ok with portion control but I took carrot cake and came home with about half of it and have now eaten two more pieces of it this afternoon. I am so ready for this weekend to be over and hopefully I can get my mind right for tomorrow.
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Old 01-18-2010, 03:44 PM   #87  
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Weekly Update - Week 6

Starting Weight - 260 lbs
Current Weight - 229 lbs
Loss this week - 4 lbs

WOW! As tough as I was feeling yesterday (see previous post), today is the opposite!

After getting 4 last week, and seeing the scale bounce all over the place this week, I was thinking week 6 might finally be the week I saw a 0, or 1lb loss. To see 4 instead was a really big surprise. I did not expect to lose a combined 8 lbs in weeks 5 and 6.

Also excited that this puts me >30lb loss in a month and a half and more than halfway to the big 200 number! I also feel like looking back at my nutrition and exercise that I have not short circuited anything and have done it right, hopefully...

I nailed my plan pretty well this week. Really didn't have any major excuses this week, just a few small things (in retrospect, not at the time) that I had to deal with.

Nutrition Observations

Mon - 1453 cals
Tue - 1850 cals
Wed - 1579 cals
Thu - 2005 cals
Fri - 1469 cals
Sat - 2100 cals
Sun - 1500 cals

As you can see my calories are still bouncing all over the place. This mostly because I do not (like many on here) meal plan to hit a certain number. I guess the real reason I am counting is to make sure I am eating enough, and better understand my "calorie/pleasure" curve, I'll explain that one in a future post.

I did not have any cheat days or even cheat meals really this week. Since I am not restricting any specific foods, I define a cheat meal as one where I eat a lot of calories or inappropriate portions (something like >800 cals). Also was able to keep my protein well above 100g every day.

I do need to start mixing up my food more, I'm not eating quite as many vegetables as I would like to/should. At this point I need to start expanding my food "repretoire" further to avoid any ruts.

Exercise Observations

Monday - Gym
Tuesday - Gym
Wednesday - Gym
Thursday - Gym
Friday - Wii - EA Active
Saturday - Gym
Sunday - Rest (although did a short Wii - EA Active)

Great week of exercise. Continue to mix it up every day. The stair stepper still kills me compared to the other machines. I tried alternating sprints this week and did some jump training (OMG that was hard!).

Today I went up another weight bar on the machine bench press. I am now doing 50% more lbs on the bench (same reps) than I was 6 weeks ago, WOW!

I really need to go get fitted for running shoes, I'm really sick and tired of everything above my knees feeling like it can do more, and everything below my knees slowing me down. I hope new shoes will help.

Looking forward to next week
I am not travelling this week again (yes!) so no reason to not have another great week. I think this week the mental battles will start up worse. I need to start mentally preparing myself for a week of hard work followed by a -1, 0, or +1. If you look at my overall results there would be nothing wrong with that, but I think it will be tough for my brain. However it is probably inevitable so I need to prepare for it.

Other than that, onward ho! I need to keep focusing on making the right little decisions every day, thinking ahead, happening to my life instead of the other way around, and moving on quickly from mistakes.
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Old 01-19-2010, 01:13 PM   #88  
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Well after another week, I only lost 3 lbs, this is the second week but after losing 13 first week, this was a bummer!!! But i did have mnore beer this week and had a huge steak dinner Sat, so i guess I have to march on and it is a loss!! I also have not got into a exercise routine at all!!! I need to get my but in gear ASAP.

Your post about the cravings was outstanding totally relate. Hang in ther ethough u are doing great, you are in the 220's WOW!!! I have to get motivated to exercise!!

Keep up the good work.

Tucker
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Old 01-19-2010, 01:58 PM   #89  
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Well after another week, I only lost 3 lbs, this is the second week but after losing 13 first week, this was a bummer!!! But i did have mnore beer this week and had a huge steak dinner Sat, so i guess I have to march on and it is a loss!! I also have not got into a exercise routine at all!!! I need to get my but in gear ASAP.

Your post about the cravings was outstanding totally relate. Hang in ther ethough u are doing great, you are in the 220's WOW!!! I have to get motivated to exercise!!

Keep up the good work.

Tucker
Don't sweat it man, nothing wrong with a 3, quite the opposite. In fact you are ahead of my 2 week pace and I was in the gym every day almost at the beginning.

Definately try to get the exercise going. Doing some rough math in my head, almost half of my calorie defecit has come directly from exercise. And my losses have pretty closely aligned with my calorie defecit.

Also the exercise gives a lot more energy and makes the eating a lot easier (esp if you are counting calories). Now when I think about binging on something I equate it to # of minutes at the gym, and it makes it easier to pass.

Keep trucking, have a good week and I'll be you are in the 200's next week!
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Old 01-19-2010, 08:06 PM   #90  
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Tuesday Jan 19th - I just realized something fun!

I'm surprised I just thought of this today, it would have been a great mini-goal.

As of this week I have lost an amount of weight greater than the weight of my almost 2 year old (who is pretty big for her age - 98th% in both height and weight).

I carry her a lot obviously, but it takes some effort to haul her around for long distances, your arm gets tired after a while and you keep switching.

Crazy to think that 6 weeks ago it was like I was hauling her around 24/7.

Anyway off to play with her actually, puts a new spin on that!
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