Oh my, look at the time!

Has it really been since November since I last updated this blog? I can't believe how fast these past short months have gone by. I'm looking forward to starting the blog up again.

What are we at now, week 12?

For some reason, I think week 12 probably past me a few weeks ago, but I'm feeling lazy and haven't taken the time to look up what it really is.

I am enthusiastic about this week and my eating and exercise routine. My oldest son has had little league football and he has had practice or games three times a week for the past couple of months. I have been using that, most likely, as an excuse to not exercise because my evenings have felt too busy. He had his last game on Thursday (undefeated this season... woohoo!) I also had a lot of stuff going on at work over the past few weeks, so that has just made me feel even more stressed. I am now finished, I feel like there is a load off of my shoulders and I feel good about this coming week. I have a week where I only have one evening planned to do stuff, and that's Wednesday.

This last week was more of the same as the past few weeks. I ate better this week than before I started this diet change, but it still wasn't stellar. Our young men's youth group had a trip to Columbia, South Carolina this last Saturday. A tradition of theirs is to go to a place called Cici's Pizza. If you take the time to look, you will see that it's not a place for a person that is dieting. I have to admit that I did eat better than some of the youth, though. Ian Mortenson from church ate 17 pieces and 4 breadsticks and John Lewis ate 20 pieces and I didn't catch from him how many breadsticks. I put that in there so that you will not cringe when I tell you about the 8 pieces that I had. (They are small pizzas, so that's roughly equivalent to a medium frozen pizza) That's not great, but I've done much worse.

I didn't exercise this week. Ian, from work, has said that he's excited about this week and nothing going on at work because that means that we can go down to the gym during lunch and work out. I'm going to hold him to that.

Tomorrow I'm taking a salad for lunch, it's already been made, and I'm going to munch on fruit. My mother-in-law, Sue, said that she was trying to snack on fruits and get the recommended allowance of fruits into her diet, and I'm going to try to do that this week.

I have to thank all of you for your encouragement in this past blog, it's very refreshing. Kristin, look out at Thanksgiving, because it's on!

I was able to lose weight this week, even with the Pizza Buffet, but I have to admit that this Sunday was fast Sunday and I weighed myself at the completion of my fast.

Y'all come back and see me next week now, ya hear?

Steve

Journey's starting weight: 260
Week's Starting weight: 245 Pounds
Current weight: 244 Pounds
Weight Loss last week: 1 Pound
Total weight loss: 16 pounds
% Weight Loss this last week: 0.41%
% Weight Loss total diet: 6.1%
Time jogging without stopping: N/A

Holy Cow, has it been a month already?

No really, has it been a month already? I have, as most of you have noticed, stopped blogging. I haven't made a conscious effort to stop blogging, it's been more of a procrastination. I have become so frustrated by my lack of weight loss that I've told myself that I was going to stop blogging until the next week when I could come back and talk about the weight that I've lost. The problem is that it's now been what, three weeks later? and I've stayed at the same weight. It was frustrating after the first two weeks, because I felt like I was actually trying, but then when I failed at those two weeks, I kind of gave up. I keep telling myself that I'm going to be able to start eating better tomorrow, or I will exercise tomorrow. Well, as Jon Russell has said, Steve, you can accomplish anything at all... tomorrow. How true that is.

I have failed all of you, I apologize, I gave up because of my frustration with the lifestyle change that starting unwinding slowly and then picked up momentum. I'll go back to what I said before, I like food and I like to eat a lot of it.

I have to recommit to this and recommit now, but I don't know how to do it when my desire is only at about 1% right now. You would think that I would be more into this when I look at myself in the mirror and realize that I'm as huge as I am, I haven't learned to motivate myself well when I lack all motivation. I guess that's one of life's biggest challenges, at least for me.

Here's to recommitting, I'm going to start again, I've tried to exercise 5 times in a week. For me, right now, that's just not feasible. I am going to start with three times a week until I find that I have more time in the evenings. As for eating, I'm going to start... again... eating a light breakfast and lunch and then a sensible dinner. I'll add in some healthy snacks in between the meals so that I'm not famished when I come home, which has been a real problem for me.

Let's try this again, please be patient with me for the past and I'll see if I can't get this ball rolling again.

Thanks for all of the feedback and the support, I would not be restarting this right now if it hadn't been for you all, I love and appreciate your comments, they are making all of the difference!

Steve

Journey's starting weight: 260
Week's Starting weight: 246 Pounds
Current weight: 245 Pounds
Weight Loss last week: 1 Pound
Total weight loss: 15 pounds
% Weight Loss this last week: 0.41%
% Weight Loss total diet: 5.8%
Time jogging without stopping: N/A

Wish me luck, scold me, or comment with anything you like, I'll take it all with a stiff upper lip.

Until next week

Slim Thoughts

It's finally time to write about week nine

You know, I have to be honest, I hate writing these blogs days after I am supposed to be writing. This week has been a little hectic for me. I've been too tired or not had any time to write in the evenings. I'm going to keep this one short, sorry if you really like reading these, I'll write more next week, I promise.

I made some goals last week. Here are the goals:

1. Nutrition: I made a goal to limit my portions and to eliminate drinking any soda. I made both of those goals. I did very well at my portion controls and I avoided all sodas. Giving up soda, even though I drink only diet sodas, was pretty difficult for me. I love my drinks. I did find, though, as a side effect that I drank lots of water.

2. Physical Fitness: I did not make this goal. I worked out twice last week. I am starting to feel frustrated with exercise. I would like to workout in the evenings, but haven't been able to find the time. I have either had company coming over or had football practice for Steven or didn't get home until late. I am realizing that the only way that I'm really going to be able to make exercise a daily part of my life is if I do it in the mornings, but I am not a morning person at all, and haven't had the discipline to get up early enough to do that.

3. Weight Loss: I did not make this goal either. I actually stayed exactly the same. I can't expect more, though, when I don't get to exercising.

So, I told you this was going to be short. Here's the final results:

Journey's starting weight: 260
Week's Starting weight: 246 Pounds
Current weight: 246 Pounds
Weight Loss last week: 0 Pound
Total weight loss: 14 pounds
% Weight Loss this last week: 0%
% Weight Loss total diet: 5.4%
Time jogging without stopping: 4:00

Lots of Mistakes During Weeks Seven and Eight!

Okay, I'll have to start out by saying that I didn't really make lots of mistakes. I just needed something that was going to rhyme with eight. I only made a few mistakes, the problem was that I made those few mistakes over and over again. As you know from my last post, during weeks seven and eight I was on a business trip. Here's my problem with going on a business trip. I asked for some advice for those trips and got some great feedback. Some of the suggestions were to find a place with a kitchenette so that I could cook in. Other suggestions were to go to places that served healthy food so that I could eat something healthy off of the menu. All were great ideas and I had great intentions. I think there is a phrase, though, that says, the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, it can be said the same of diets... the pathway to gaining weight is paved with good intentions.

I stayed in a hotel called Homewood suites. I like staying there because they're generally nice hotels to stay in and they have all suites, so kitchenette and all. They also serve a light meal in the evenings. So when I got there, instead of going to the store and buying groceries, I was just going to eat their light dinner. It saves me money and usually tastes pretty good. My main problem with this trip is that I ate a decent breakfast in the mornings but then wasn't hungry during the day, so I only ate a few times during the day. So, when I got back from the conference in the evenings, I was usually pretty hungry. I would usually go to dinner around 6:30 and by that time I was starving. I also found that, while the meals are advertised as "light" they were anything but. I think they served meatloaf and mashed potatoes one day, taco bar another day, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches another day and hamburgers another, just to give you an idea of the menu. The food tasted wonderful and so portion control went out the window. I had two servings every time I went to dinner.

Staying there two weeks got me into some bad habits. I went, as most of you probably saw from my facebook post, and worked out once while I was there. I have to be honest, my wife and kids are a great motivator for me to workout. I am far more inclined to go workout when I have them expecting it every evening.

Those were my big killers for the week and did it in for my healthy habits last week... or lack of them.

I think I've done great at making large goals, the overall big goals for the end of this diet and the beginning of my new lifestyle, but I've not done so great at making smaller, weekly, goals. So, with that in mind, the bifurcation of my goals for this week is going to be focused on nutrition and physical fitness.

Nutrition

Eating: This week my goal is to have no more than one helping at dinner (where I eat the most) everyday this week.

Drinking: I got in a bad habit of drinking diet sodas. While they don't necessarily hurt me where weight loss is concerned, they certainly don't help. My goal for drinking is to avoid all sodas this week.

Physical Fitness

Exercise: My goal this week is to workout such that I get my heart rate up at least five days this week. Watch for my running entries in the top right hand corner of this blog.

Meeting my goals for being more healthy should lead to the overall goal for this week...

Weight Loss: My goal is to lose five pounds this week. I would like to lose seven, so that I will be on track for where I would have been had I done well these past two weeks. Plus, this is the beginning of my year-long diet and I need to lose all that I can now when I have more to lose.

That's my story for the last two weeks. Hope that you all cheer me on in the coming days. The vacation is over for me now.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, the word of the week is bifurcate: To split or divide into two.

Steve



The usual weekly statistics:

Journey's starting weight: 260
Week's Starting weight: 245 Pounds
Current weight: 246 Pounds
Weight Loss last week: -1 Pound (GAINED)
Total weight loss: 14 pounds
% Weight Loss this last week: -0.4%
% Weight Loss total diet: 5.4%
Time jogging without stopping: 3:00

No Post for week 6

Sorry, I am on TDY this week and I will not be doing any type of progress post. The week was good for eating, but bad for exercise. I have started the next week out strong, though. If anyone still wants me to post, let me know and I'll do a post for last week!

Stayed Alive through Week Five!

Okay, okay, I get it. I'm a day late. I know. That seems to be the story of my life, a day late and a dollar short. Those stories, however, are for a different blog. I do have an excuse. I am on business this week and was traveling all day Sunday. I was just not up for blogging at 11:00 at night after I had traveled all day. I hope that you will excuse this fopaux.

I have to admit, this week wasn't too bad. I wish that I had exercised more. I exercised three times last week, as opposed to five times, which is my goal. The amount of times that I exercised is definitely an improvement over what I have been doing, but I do realize that "a little better" is not the same as my best. Please forgive me if I don't seem as bummed out about not exercising everyday this week, but the week wasn't a total failure.

For eating I controlled my portions well this week. I didn't make a concerted effort, it was more a guilt if I let myself get too full. That control on the portions is a great feat for me. I have been one, for as long as I can remember, that ate until I was stuffed. I still have people ask me if I usually ate until I was uncomfortable, and I would have to honestly say that I always ate until I was so full I couldn't eat anymore, but I loved that feeling, so I wasn't uncomfortable. That desire to stuff myself hasn't gone away, but I have found myself pausing and considering my actions now and sticking to one helping of food. I feel like this past week was truly a learning experience for me, another "ah hah" moment. I realize that Roger may have some validity to his statement when he says that weight loss is in large part due to portion control. I am actually enjoying exercising and am not using this as an excuse to cut that out. I have to admit, though, that an hour's worth of exercise isn't going to compensate for having that second helping of meatloaf and mashed potatoes at dinner.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that there were several things that I also learned about myself:

1. Don’t allow myself to get to the “starving stage” in my day.

a. I definitely saw the bad in doing this. This past week I let myself get there twice and came home from work and ate more than I should have. I didn’t eat as bad as before the diet, but still worse than usual.

2. Make sure that I exercise in some way every day.

a. I did not do this. I love staying up late, and so I’m usually too tired to get up early and exercise. The problem with this is that with church youth activities, peewee football, and general working around the house activities, I don’t have the time that I would like in the evenings. So, I need to get to bed earlier so that I can get up and exercise on those days when I won’t have time in the evenings. That is my goal.

3. Say no to restaurants.

a. Did good on this one. I think I went out once and I ate pretty reasonably.

4. Don’t give up after a bad day.

a. Check… Hua?

5. Don’t eat when I’m depressed.

a. Okay, this one was a gag, anyway. If you know me, I’m rarely depressed. In fact, I eat whether or not I’m depressed.

I think that pretty much sums up my week. I, unfortunately, am not going to have a picture this week or next week due to my business trip. I won’t have a weigh in next week, either. I did weigh in this week before I left.

I do apologize for not having a picture, but I think this will be cool to see the difference after two weeks of being away on TDY.


Journey's starting weight: 260
Week's Starting weight: 248 Pounds
Current weight: 245 Pounds
Weight Loss last week: 3 Pound
Total weight loss: 15 pounds
% Weight Loss this last week: 1.2%
% Weight Loss total diet: 5.8%
Time jogging without stopping: 2:10