GREAT JOB on the 4 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!! you are doing great, and I am envious, I am still stuck at around the 25 lb mark, but it is my own fault, keep drinking the beer and cheating on weekends, so I know what I am doing wrong. I have though been working out for over 2 months straight 4 to 5 days a week and I feel great, endurance is up, No more intense red face from working out!!!!!!!! that stas with me all afternoon, I started elpical, 20 mins on a 6 doing 30 at a 12 and over all feel so much better!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks again for the inspiration and the continued progress you are makin, good luck on the 200 lb goal
GREAT JOB on the 4 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!! you are doing great, and I am envious, I am still stuck at around the 25 lb mark, but it is my own fault, keep drinking the beer and cheating on weekends, so I know what I am doing wrong. I have though been working out for over 2 months straight 4 to 5 days a week and I feel great, endurance is up, No more intense red face from working out!!!!!!!! that stas with me all afternoon, I started elpical, 20 mins on a 6 doing 30 at a 12 and over all feel so much better!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks again for the inspiration and the continued progress you are makin, good luck on the 200 lb goal
Quote:
Originally Posted by angelskeep
Thank you so much for your updates and inspiration. If you can do it we can do it right? And if we can do it someone else can. And it is so nice to read about your week and know that whatever is going on, it gives us something we can relate to or look forward to doing,..whatever.
I'm growing increasingly convinced that a massive key to weightloss and maintenance is a complete redefinition of "Special" meals/events/days. My old way of thinking about this was a significant barrier to weightloss for me, partially because of the calories from those "specials", but more significantly from the attitude that there are times it doesn't matter what I put in my body. This IMO led directly to a much easier environment for me to carry that attitude over into non special days.
Old Attitude/Approach
So my old attitude was pretty typical I think. I found a lot of excuses to call something "special" and would use it as license to go hog-wild (literally). Let's just look at the last several days for me. In the past I would have viewed all of these as "special" and given myself freedom to eat whatever.
All Week - Easter coming up lots of candy available
Wednesday - Dinner out with good friends
Thursday - Poker night with the buddies (junk food abounds)
Friday - My mother arrives in town, we go out to eat
Saturday - Easter egg hunt/church potluck with the kiddo
Saturday Night - Last date night with the wife before kiddo #2 comes
Sunday - Easter dinner and lots of leftovers
And that's just in the last half a week!!! It is clear that taking such a lax attitude towards "specials" might feel like a deserved reward for being on plan the rest of the time, but it quickly piles up and becomes just an excuse to binge.
New Attitude/Approach
My new approach that's been working pretty well has included the following steps.
1. Significantly cutting down on what qualifies as "special". I've probably cut these excuses down to <1/3rd of what they used to be. But I still recognize their place in my life...I'm not going to skip out on Easter dinner with the extended family.
2. Create several new categories of "special". I don't do this real formally in my head, but this is the approach.
A) Special without going off plan - for these I keep the special event but either completely avoid the food, eat beforehand, or eliminate the food component of it. For example when attending our church Easter Egg hunt and related events, I just didn't eat there. I had a nice lunch before and dinner afterwards. I enjoyed the time without pigging out on candy
B) Special but within total calories - for these I give myself license to eat food I might not normally eat on plan, but keep it within my overall calorie limits for the day. For example Saturday night on date night my wife and I split several things I might not normally eat, but I had planned my calories out all day and kept it inside my limits for this meal.
C) Special but make reasonable choices- for these I don't stress about calorie counts, but consciously still work to make good choices within the environment/situation I am in. For example Easter dinner I enjoyed with the family, but doubled up on veggies and skipped the cheesy scalloped potatoes and rolls.
D) Special and do whatever!!!- this would be the old approach. This is special and do whatever I want! I can't think of a recent example of this, the last was probably New Year's Eve where I went pretty crazy at a party.
Aftermath
Before working on this, 100% of "specials" were in Category D. Now I've first of all immediately cut 50%+ of what I count as "special". Within the remaining chunk I now want 80-90% to be in Categories A and B, with 10-15% in Category C and <5% being in Category D (if any). I don't obviously count it out like that, but those are the general weights I think are appropriate.
I think this is really important. The more I read these boards the more I am convinced (myself included) that the hard part of this process is not being on-plan, but instead the choices that you make when off-plan whether by your choice or circumstances.
I completely agree with you on this, randomcards. When it comes to food, everything counts, all the time. Our bodies don't care whether we call it "special" or not.
Starting Weight - 260 lbs
Current Weight - 202 lbs
Loss This Week -0 lbs
Total Loss - 58 lbs
Per my prediction last week, not surprised to see a 0 this week. The 4 last week was an anomoly after 5-6 straight weeks of losing 2 per week and was partially lower water weight. I'm actually pleased to not go up since I had a hard workout on Sat, and then Easter was over calorie which tends to lead to more water weight. I did good last week, so not worried about the 0.
NSV of the Week
After losing my first 9 pounds I made this post....back in December
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomcards
Had to stop by the store to pick up a new temporary belt (my one "fat" belt wore out) and decided to get one 4 inches shorter than my current belt in a moment of boldness (note I have not lost 4 inches, my fat belt had a little growing room). I tried it on and could just get it buckled on the widest buckle so I figure that will be some good motivation to get that new belt up to the 3rd or 4th notch.
Wore that belt this weekend and I am now wearing it comfortably on the tightest notch. In otherwords this belt is now too big for me! I'll have to get another smaller one!
Diet
At home again so not a whole lot to talk about. I did wander from plan more than I should have this weekend.
Friday my mother arrived into town so we went out to eat. I made some good choices at a Mexican restaurant, but it was still definately off plan. Then Saturday night we went to a dinner/movie and I did not do great at that meal (although really good up to that point). Then Sunday was Easter dinner which is going to be off plan. But in each case I still made better conscious decisions than I used to make in the past so that is good.
On a more positive note, there were tons of tempting food around the house this week, Easter candy, leftovers, cake, ice cream, etc, and I ignored all of it. This is a good sign for being able to pace myself with the onslaught of meals we will get when the baby comes.
Also, I am eating far too many 60 calorie sugar free puddings. Too much of a good thing.
Exercise
Great week here, had 5 solid gym days only skipping Friday this week. Started to up the intensity at the gym this week, and do more short circuit type high intensity exercises which are tough but good for me I think.
I'm now running a mile at the beginning of all of my workouts at a 7.5 on the treadmill (8 min mile pace) which is awesome, never pictured I would be able to do that. And most gym days my total cardio ends up being 3-4 miles. I'm feeling pretty strong, but not as agile or flexible as I'd like, I hate working on that stuff, but need to make it a higher priority.
Looking to the future
Still no kiddo 2 (again!). That's the big event of the week hopefully (wife is already 5 days overdue). Again I'm still nervous about how this will impact diet/exercise, but my energy and confidence is high to keep going!
Had a 2nd large and completely unnecessary piece of amazing lasagna. This was dumb because even the first piece was slightly larger than what I should have eaten.
Then surprisingly 3 chocolate chip cookies some friends brought over ended up finding their way to my belly, and to be honest it was really close to being like 5 or 6. This is wierd for me, it's been months really since I've had anything more than a tiny bite of a non low calorie dessert.
I got to thinking later about it and there was really 2 key reasons...
1. 1st the obvious one of lack of self-control. Can never ignore that one or fail to take responsibility.
2. 2nd and more interesting was my food the rest of the day. When looking back here is what I had eaten prior to dinner. Note I had a long hard workout also.
a. 180 calorie protein shake
b. 1 can of tuna with a little lite miracle whip and hot sauce
c. A bunch of sugar snap peas
d. 100 calories of sunflower seeds
Basically I got really busy with work and ended up skipping my second lunch, so I got to dinner with only 500ish calories in my belly. That is creating an environment for failure...
Get back on the horse, we are always going to have as you call them fail days, and maybe we need those days to get our head back on straight??? You are doing great!!!!
Big news! Well I know my weekly update is a little late, that's because my son was born on Monday afternoon! Everybody is healthy, he's a big boy clocking in at 9lbs 8oz. My wife had him completely natural in a birthing center with a midwife, which is an experience I would highly recommend for those interested, it was our 2nd time.
So that's the big news, weight loss stuff pales in comparison but I'll go through that too.
Starting Weight - 260 lbs
Current Weight - 200 lbs (Tuesday weigh-in instead of Monday)
Loss This Week -2 lbs
Total Loss - 60 lbs
Pretty fun to hit a major round number the same week as my child's birth. I started this process when my wife was 22-23 weeks pregnant, can't believe how much I've changed in the weeks since.
Realistically I'm not expecting to lose for the next 4-6 weeks, my goal is to stay between 200-205. I'm going to have drastically reduced control over what food I eat for the next month between constant family members, friends, church bringing meals, only able to control portions which is still not my strong suit. I'm already doing much better in this department, but my diet will be far from "on-plan".
Diet
As mentioned above I'm a bit screwed here. I'm trying to think positive and view it is a test for learning how to control myself when surrounded by temptation. I've done a great job of making my house an environment for success, but that just won't be the case for the next month.
My main focus will be to try to have at least breakfast and lunch every day be typical on-plan stuff. Then dinner I'm just going to have to practice portion control. The worst will be desserts, everybody will bring them and they'll just sit here with my wife and mom nibbling on them until they go bad...constant temptation.
Exercise
Killer week last week, worked out M-Sat every day awesome stuff.
We'll see how this week goes, I'm going to try to go a couple of times, I think it will be good to get my blood flowing and keep in the swing of things, but obviously scheduled is a little wacked out now.
Looking to the future
Entering a new phase of things, it will require agility on my plans and behaviours.
Right now my main focus is to not use life events as an exuse to go crazy. There is a critical difference between not being perfectly on plan vs. downing the 3 quarts of icecream in my freezer right now. My goal is to "survive" the next couple of weeks from a weight loss perspective and then sit down and decide how I will need to adjust what's been working for me to accomodate the changes at home!
Wish me luck!
Last edited by randomcards; 04-16-2010 at 11:15 AM.
Congrats on the kiddo, and the 200 lb mark WOW!!!!!!!!!! Amazing
You will do just find, if you look back at your journal you will see that temptation is around you all the time anyway, and you have been handling it great!!!
Well so far about as expected. I've been sleeping less, exercising less, and eating more
But it's not as bad as that, overall I'm pretty pleased with this week. Got in 3 good workouts and am making fair food choices given the circumstances and the unbelievable amount of food that is around from family/guests. Had a few slip-ups with desserts, but eating close to maintenance calories which is ok with me for the moment.
I've made a lot of posts here about my frustration with running. I felt like my ankles/calfs/knees were not holding up as well as I expected them to with the weight loss as I tried to increase my running. I could run 1 to 1.5 miles, but after that my legs would give out and really start to hurt, and I really felt it was holding me back.
I hoped the issue was shoes and against the better advice of everyone on here I searched for shoes on my own instead of going to a running store to get fitted. Actually bought a pair at a sporting goods store, and ended up returning them.
Finally I decided to heed the advice of others and go to a running store and get analyzed and fitted. WOW!!! The process was very great, efficient, I ran on a treadmill and then watched it in slow-mo while the person showed me my overpronation (it was so obvious and looked painful!). She brought out some shoes, all of which felt good. I tried ones with different levels of stability assistance.
It was unbelievable to see the instantaneous difference on the slow-mo video with the stability shoes. Ended up getting them and it was a fair price. I'm sure it was 10-15% more than I would have paid at a big store, but the personal service and help was more than worth it.
BIG NSV
Back in my first post I listed my major priorities. One of them was...
Quote:
B) Drastically increase my fitness level Measurable: Run 5k without stopping.
Today I decided to go to the gym and try the new shoes out. Longest I've run consecutive without stopping has been about 1.5 miles. Today I ran a full 5K (3.2miles) without stopping once!!!! I did the whole thing at a 6.5mph pace. It was unbelievable, my knees and ankles didn't really hurt at all. My feet hurt a little by the end which is understandable with new shoes and running more than double my previous best. Anyway that was a huge huge huge thing for me. A major goal!
Last edited by randomcards; 04-17-2010 at 11:11 PM.
Congratulations on the shoes!!! They make a tremendous difference, as you have found! Many years ago in my 20s I tried jogging with crappy tennis shoes, and my knees got so bad I thought I had some weird arthritis. It was just the bad shoes.
NIce
). Let's just look at the last several days for me. In the past I would have viewed all of these as "special" and given myself freedom to eat whatever.
.
to the little boy!
