Week 6 Results

Sorry for the lack of posts this week everyone.

As I mentioned before, I had two Thanksgivings this week. This means that I get to have twice as much turkey, stuffing and the fixin's!! This also means having to manage with twice as many carbs. I decided well before this festive American Holiday that my diet would have to, let me repeat that HAVE TO go on a shelf a couple of times this week.

This week should be summarized as the good, the bad and the painful.

The bad:
On Thursday then again on Saturday, I overloaded on carbohydrates, both simple and complex. Ranging from mayonnaise and potatoes through bread stuffing to my favorite of favorites, pumpkin pie, the carbs were there en masse! Coupled with these two days of deliciousness, I was unable to go to the gym both of these days.
The painful:
After weeks of dieting and watching what I eat, two days of over eating has caused a painful stomach ache. Though i am layed out at home this morning, plenty of rest should knock this thing out.

In preparation at the gym, I kicked it up a notch this week. I discovered that if you max out the incline on the treadmill, you can burn upwards of 800 calories at the gym.
I start the workout at an incline of 15 at 2.5 miles an hour increasing it up to 3.5 miles an hour over a FIFTEEN minute interval. Then I will go back and forth between 2.5 and 3.5 MPH and decrease the incline 1 full degree every ten minutes.
At 15 minutes, I decrease to 14 degrees
At 25 minutes, I decrease to 13 degrees
At 35 minutes, I decrease to 12 degrees
At 45 minutes, I decrease to 11 degrees
At 55 minutes, I decrease to 10 degrees

Over 5 days of going to the gym this week, I burned between 500 calories and over 1000 between the treadmill and other cardio. This extra hard workout was worth it, but was painful getting started and with a work schedule like mine, very difficult to get through every day.

The good:
Besides the excellent food, of course, which I could go on about for days; the premptive workouts, keeping to the diet on the rest of the week (despite the promise of left overs) and getting more than one night of 8 + hours of sleep, I have positive results this week.

At weigh in this morning, I am at 205.4 pounds which means I lost .4 LBS this week. Not great results for a normal week, but seeing as this is Thanksgiving week, I am more than happy with these results.

Today also marks the last Sunday of November, which means that at 205.4 LBS, I have exceeded my goals for Novmeber! My goal for December 1st is 210 LBS. This also means that I am 5.4 LBS from my Decmeber goal, but with Chrstmas, family, friends and work functions, hitting that 200 LB mark may be the most difficult pat yet.

Overall, I have less than 31 LBS to go! Having maxed out in May of 2011 at 230 LBS and starting the diet in the beginning of October at 222 LBS, I feel much healthier than I have felt in a long time. 17 pounds is about one third of the way there, and I have no idea if the next 17 will be easier or more difficult to lose.

Week 5 Results

I've been told countless times that I don't look my weight: 'You weigh how much?'; 'I don't see you weighing 230'; 'You just don't look THAT big . . .', etc.

This being said, here is a copy of one of the engagement photos taken some time between the 230 weigh in and the 222 diet start:

As you can see, my fiancee is in shape and my shape was very round.
Even the brand new shirt I bought for the engagement photos was tight. This is a primary example of why I want to lose weight for our wedding. Ashley is stunning and I just know that she will indescribable at our wedding. The photos that will last lifetimes and I want to look my best for her.

Here we are five weeks into the workout and diet and I am happy to report the results from this week, which more than make up for last week's gain.

As of Sunday, November 20, 2011, my weight is at 205.8 LBS. This is almost a loss of five pounds from last week and over 24 LBS from where I was almost a year ago when I weighed 230 LBS.

If I can maintain this weight through my next weigh in and TWO thanksgiving dinners, I will call that a big Win!

Holidays- Turkey with carbs, carbs and oh no carby pie!!!

Next week is Thanksgiving, which means a Thursday and Saturday (Saturday is Thanksgiving Day for the fiancee's family) Dinner full of Turkey, sides, desserts and carbs carbs carbs. Looking at the typical Thanksgiving at my mother's we have: Turkey, rolls (Carbs), mashed potatoes or potato salad (carbs), Green Beans, stuffing (carbs), pumpkin pie (carbs), deviled eggs and cranberries. Two days later, I get to do it all again.

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I am going to go to the gym a full five or six days, maybe even on Thanksgiving night.

For Christmas, we have two Christmas Eves and Christmas Day which makes things even more difficult for the diet and going to the gym. Luckily, I have a full week off work between Christmas and New Years. To maintain this routine and reach my goals, I will have to hit the gym as much as possible between now and New Years Day.

I know that I will go over my carb amounts on both Thanksgivings and on Christmas. This should be okay as long as I monitor portions, sugar and keep up the exercise.

Exercise Update

I thought I would update on how exercise and diet are coming along as well as go into my routine this week.

It is important to remember that I am 26 and in relatively good health.

The diet is going well. Eating out and daily lunches make low carb diet difficult. While I have enjoyed salads and yogurt and fruit and veggies, I miss bread and bagels and english muffins and pasta!

This week, I have begun the 8 weeks to run that I spoke about earlier :8 weeks to run
I have also added a 30 minute walk at a steep incline. With combining these two, I have been able to knock of at least 600 calories, 3 of the 4 days I have gone to the gym this week.

I am also switching out the bike, leg and back equipment daily to focus on other trouble areas. One obvious area that I have not tackled is my stomach. While some of the fat has poofed away from this routine, I have not done any ab crunches.

Now I am not one to shy away from tests or challenges, but I just don't know how to use the ab machines at the gym. I do need to start working on this, my most troubled 'trouble area' and will plan to do this in the near future.

Right now I am most concerned with making that number go down and hit my goals. Because I have given myself January to keep the weight off, I will try to work on the ab crunch machine come the New Year.

working up a sweat

Just wanted to make a quick note: I started the 'Run 30 Minutes Straight' in 8 Weeks today. In week 1, you are supposed to walk 6 minutes and jog for 1. Even with doing the treadmill almost every day, I worked up a real sweat today.


Let's get this scale moving back in the right direction.

Week 4 Results- Complete

This week, I accidentally tested 'natural' exercise versus the gym and the results speak for themselves . . .
With work and other obligations, I was only able to go to the gym twice this week. I did go hiking at a local state park on Saturday and walked around New York City twice. While five days of great activity and mobility sound great, the results were less than one would hope for.

With Four Weeks in and this being my first week with less than spectacular gym attendance, I had my first (though ever slight) weight gain.

This week my weigh in weight was: 210.6 LBS this is a .2 pound increase from last week, but definitely in the opposite direction.

I plan on hitting the gym a full five days this upcoming week, if not more and reversing this trend.

Let's hope this is the last of the weight gain shifts.

New York, New York

My job requires me to travel about once every six weeks. This week, I had to travel to New York.  This is my first trip since starting the diet and exercise. The trip gave me a chance to test out the diet and exercise routine away from home.

Good News: It wasn't easy, but I was able to stick to the diet. My job requires me to run executive conference, which I quite enjoy. Unfortunately, there are an abundance of carbs everywhere I look at the conferences. Every break has pastries or delicious cakes. Each table has a bowl of mints or candy and lunch usually has rice or pasta too.

While super tough in a land home to famous pizza, bagels and cupcakes, I was able to avoid two of the three (I did bring home some cupcakes for me and my fiancee). Finding awesome and low carb food choices in times square (BBQ and a salad) was not super difficult.

The bad news: I wasn't able to get to the fitness center in three days :(
I did go to Times Square and walk around for a couple hours on Monday and Tuesday. While not my traditional workout, it might have done the trick, we'll see in a few days.

On a personal note: Another positive about this trip is it really re-excited me about my job. The attendees at my conference were really happy with the event, my travel was superior and being back in the office at the end of the week should speed through quickly.

A good trip to the gym today did show me that even missing a couple days throws you off. Hopefully the stamina rebuilds quickly and the pounds fly off.

Week 3- Wrap up

Another week of dieting and exercise and much smaller than expected results. I keep hearing that 'muscle weighs more than fat'  and I have always thought this was something skinny people say to fat people so they feel better about themselves.

Here is the truth about muscle and fat and life in general. one pounds of anything is one pound, this doesn't change. Muscle does not weigh more than fat. Similar to saying one pound of meat weighs more than one pound of butter. Its still a pound.

Fact: Exercising regularly will transform fat into muscle and often times people who work out regularly will have muscle gain and fat loss and see no change in overall weight loss.

This blog/ website explains this much better than I can

Here are my results after Week 3 and going to the gym 5 days this week:

Current Weight: 210.4 LBS
Loss of 1 LB this week. While disappointed with the weight loss, I am happy to report that I am building the muscles in my legs.

Ultimately my goal is to look good for my fiancee at our wedding and in our photos.

This next week:
I am traveling to New York for work this week. I hope my hotel will have a good fitness center and I can find low carb friendly food in NYC.

I Want Candy . . .

Halloween came and went this week and we all know what this means, everyone (yes even adults) have an abundance of yummy candy goodness. Given the nature of this blog, my over weight/ over eating problem and my general fondness of carbs, it should come to no surprise that I love candy!

Now this love affair is not restricted to one type or genre of candy, I am an equal opportunity candy lover. You name it, I love it: chocolate, caramel, savory, sweet, sour, chewy, gummy, fruity, nutty, and the other descriptors. While my favorite candy is the Almond Joy (a perfect combination of chocolate, fruity, nutty, crunchy, and chewy), I enjoy gummy candy most of all.

It all began as a child when my favorite candy treat were Sunkist fruit gems. I am sure my mom thought, 'hmmm, these are made by Sunkist, they sell real Oranges, this should be okay. . .' In three (3) fruit gems (a little bigger than a U.S. quarter) there are 110 calories and 26 g of carbs (all from sugar). To recap from previous posts, 9 fruit gems would take me over all of the carbs I can have on my current diet. CRAZY.
 Sunkist Gems Nutrition facts


This love of chewy candy led me to try Starburst, Swedish Fish and of course, Sour Patch Kids amongst many others. Never stopping to think, 'This chewy candy is 100% sugar and I shouldn't eat this entire packet of Starburst,' I didn't start looking up nutrition facts of food heavily until I started this diet.

Finding nutrition facts is fairly easy, sometimes fun, and information is available of practically everything. If you type 'NAME of FOOD nutrition facts' into your favorite search engine, many web pages will pop up with results. Its good to check a few to ensure there are no discrepancies.


While I think I will always love candy, I have won the battle this Halloween. Incorporating a 'fun size' piece of candy (Almond Joy of course) as one of my carbs a few times this week, but successfully avoiding the evils of chewy candy (though I will always love these)! If I can make it though Christmas with out caving in, I think I will be okay!

Cost and Pain of the Routine

Creating a routine and going from inactive to super active to lose weight can be costly, especially if you don't know what you are doing. I learned the importance of shoes over the past week. When first starting out, I was lectured by my brother about shoes.

'You have to get a new pair of shoes,' he said. 'You don't have shoes designed for running.' And right he was.
After a week and a half, I began getting blisters on the bottom of my foot. A really nasty one kept me going full pace the last few days last week, and was causing enough pain to have me give up the treadmill after 10 minutes on Monday.

I am not one to spend much on shoes, but I went out and bought a pair of new gym shoes for *gasp* the gym. Shoes designed for running and not to hurt my feet. After buying these shoes, I started adding up all of the costs for this new lifestyle. It adds up quick. Be warned, if you are going to attempt this, you should know what it is going to cost you in advance.

Thus far I have spent:
Gym- Membership: 21.00
Gym- Annual fee:- 50.00
Clothes- Shorts: - 28.00
Clothes- new socks and underwear (boxers and working out don't mix) - 20.00
Clothes- Shoes- 30.00
Gym Lock- 5.00
Total: $154 not to mention $20.00 a month for the gym

All of this cost has been worth it thus far, as long as these shoes prevent more blisters. ouch.