Week 19 Results

It doesn't feel like I have been at this for 19 Weeks, but it has been a struggle to get this weight off.

After taking a week off from blogging, I am finally below where I was before my travels and diet cheating ways . .  188.4.

Let's hope this weight continues to come off and for the 1st time in 4 months, I have NOT hit my monthly target. To be honest, its extremely disappointing, but I have lost over 40 pounds from where I was almost a year ago and well over 30 from when I started this crazy diet experiment.

Thank you for keeping up with me and keeping me honest. To another 19 weeks and hopefully 30 pounds!

Have a great couple days! Let's hope George Clooney walks away with Oscar Gold tonight.

Week 17 Results

The past few weeks, I traveled quite a bit. To Philly and then to New York over the last few weeks, led me to skip the gym much more than I should. Not good stuff at all.

My weigh in was 192.4. This is a gain of over 3 LBS. I am going to double down on my efforts as you can see here.

I really need to step it up so that I can hit my new goals.

Thanks for reading.

Not Good Enough . . .

Ever since I dropped below 200 LBS, my weight hasn't dropped as quickly or as easily. I am completely to blame for this, which is not a fun thought at all.

I haven't gone to the gym as much (usually 3 times a week in stead of the typical 5) and I have eased on the diet much more than I should have.

To motivate me more, I have decided to do take the following steps:

1. My new goal is 165 LBS. This is ten pounds more than my original goal (175 LBS)
1. By March 31st, my goal is 180 LBS
2. By April 30th, my goal is 175 LBS
3. By May 31st, my goal is 170 LBS
4. By June 30th, my goal is 165 LBS
2. Until I reach 175 LBS, I am going to abstain from going to Starbucks. 
1. While I typically will get regular coffee, I have ordered lattes with more frequency than I would like to admit. 
2. I am not saying that I won't run to McDonalds for an occasional coffee at lunch, but no more Starbucks.
3. No alcohol until I reach 175 LBS. I have gone out with friends a number of times and alcohol is usually involved. Alcohol and mixers are extra calories that I really should not be consuming.
4. I am going to run/walk in at least TWO 5 Ks before the wedding. This will help me train more and keep me motivated.
5. I am going to try to blog at least twice a week to keep me honest and on track for the diet.

Not looking forward to tomorrow's weigh in. Wish me luck!

Week 16 Results

Happy Sunday Everyone! As Americans, myself included, get ready to watch the showdown between the Patriots and the Giants to claim the title of 2011 - 2012 Super Bowl Champion (which could have a 1950's monster movie- George Washington leading the fray against a group of giants- pretty cool), I am happy to announce my best weight results so far!
For the first time in my adult life I weigh 189.2 LBS. This sets me at just over 14 LBS from my goal of 175 LBS. This weight also lowers my BMI to under 30, as mentioned in the post here.

This week set up some milestones:

• No longer obese
• You can test your BMI by checking on this NIH site
• Finally after weeks of trying, my weight has fallen under 190 LBS
• I have started to modify the diet to focus on calories taken in, rather than limiting carbs
• I have begun training for a 5K

More about all of these later on.

Have a great and safe Day!

There's an App for That

I have decided that I am going to change up my diet. After 12 + weeks on a low carb diet, I have decided to switch to a low-calorie diet to finish off the diet.

While the low-carb diet was difficult getting started, the low calorie one has been a tough transition as well. How do you know how many calories something has? How do I keep track of these things?

I turned to my cell phone for help!

I started using this application on my phone a few weeks ago called Lose it. This app allows you to track calories eaten and calories burned through exercise. We will see if this change in the diet works as well. Wish me luck!

How I got started . . .

I wanted to take a post to go through what I have done so far . . .

I started gradually:
First I cut down big ticket carb items-
Sugar
Bread
Pasta
Rice
Oatmeal
Potatoes
Sweets (Muffins, Cookies, Candies, Scones)

Over time, I have added:
bananas
corn
beans

They have low-carb bread and tortillas, probably other things too. We buy these instead of normal bread.

I limit myself to two a day (which may seem like a lot, but it really isn't). The goal is to limit total carbs to under 70 grams a day.

After a week on the diet, I joined a gym.

I started slow, going 3 - 4 days a week and walking on the treadmill.

After about two weeks of this, I started increasing the incline of the treadmill. The sharper the incline, the more calories you lose.

Right now, I am slowly starting to eat normal, but I am watching my calorie intake. I am about 15 pounds from my goal. I will probably try and lose more weight, but its tough getting there.

This isn't a diet where you drop 10 pounds a week, but should be able to drop 2 - 5 pounds a week.

I hate getting sick

Without fail, I ALWAYS get sick in January. Every January, I get sick. It is crazy and is like clock work. I started off this week with what I originally thought was food poisoning, but think its more of a stomach bug. I won't get into the details too much, but I have had painful stomach cramps which did not let me get to the gym the first half of the week.

During the second half of the week, I have been out of town still feeling the stomach sickness that has plagued me all week. The last two weeks have knocked me off of track for the diet, which is horrible. I will try to post more on here to update what I have been doing with the diet and exercising.

Let's hope that I am able to keep the weight under 200 pounds and am feeling better so that I can hit the gym hard this weekend and next week.

week 14

I didn't get a chance to weigh myself this morning. We celebrated being engaged one year today.

I will post a Week 15 total. The great news is that I hit my lowest weight of 190.0 LBS this morning. . .

Week 13 - Results

This has been a great week for the diet! This week, my fiancee decided to join the gym and she jumped completely on board hitting the gym five days this week. I also hit the gym five times this week, with great results!

When I weighed in this morning, I hit a new weight of 192.6 LBS.

This means that I am under 20 LBS from goal and have lost 30 pounds since I have begun this diet and almost 40 pounds from my all-time-high of 230 LBS.

I have a number of comments on the blog that I will respond to soon, hopefully today or later this week.

A milestone . . .

I have been a big guy my entire life. Growing up overweight was tough, and it seems to be tough on all large people growing up. Maybe you just ate too much, or were depressed, or were picked on, or were bad at sports, or had a lousy dating life because of it . . . whatever the reason or the outcome, being fat sucks. I have been fat my entire life.

Today I have reached one milestone, I had once thought long impossible- while fully dressed, the scale read under 200 lbs. I am looking to the day where I will weigh 175 LBS and I may even change my goal, given the excellent success that I have had thus far and reach for an even lower end weight, but that will come in time.

If I keep up my routine and lose as much weight as I have been in the last several weeks, over the next two weeks, I will hit yet another milestone- having a BMI under 30. As you may recall from my post on body mass index, found here, the NIH and the World Health Organization use a simple calculation based on weight and height to determine if you are obese.
To see your BMI, you can use this handy NIH Calculator. Having a BMI under 30 means that I will no longer be considered obese.

On a side note, I really hate the word obese.

For more information about the World Health Organization's (WHO) definitions of obese and overweight, you can visit their website here.

Week 12 - Results

With my leg still sore this week, I took it easy at the gym. Rather than going full pace and risk hurting myself, I started to build back up my endurance on the treadmill.

I went to the gym five days this week, and while my workouts were not as intense or as long as they had been in the weeks leading up to the Christmas and New Years Holidays, I have great results.


At weigh in today, I was at 195.2. This is the best I have seen yet and a loss of over 3 pounds from last week.


My fiancee is looking to join the gym with me, though she has already lost enough weight through joining me as my support team on this diet.

Starting Back Up

Yesterday I went back to the gym for the first time in ten days after pulling a muscle in my leg. Not wanting to hurt my leg again, I took things very slowly, I spent 45 minutes at a slower than normal pace on the treadmill at hardly any incline, 25 minutes on the stationary bike and 15 minutes on the elliptical, before taking an extra mile walk outside. Overall, I burned about 500 calories, which is much lower than I have been used to burning.

Taking a full week and then some off of the gym taught me a few things.

• When taking time off of a diet and exercise routine, it is very difficult to get motivated again
• When exercising through an injury, it is important to watch for signs of pain
• Even one week off of the gym, kills your endurance and energy
• As my routine grew over the first 10 weeks, I was able to get more energy after exercising and I didn't feel tired and sore the next day
• After one day of starting back up, I am very tired and a little sore.
• I have to push through the next two weeks of exercise to build up this endurance

I have just under 24 LBS to lose to hit my goal. With 30 LBS gone, I have become complacent and unmotivated to push myself. Being around 200 LBS is an achievement for me, but it isn't good enough.

I am going to go to the gym as much as possible over the next two weeks. My hope is that my leg fully recovers over the next few weeks and that I continue to lose weight. Once my leg is at 100%, I will re-evaluate where I am and how I can best reach my goal by May 1st

Week 11 - Results

Happy 2012!

At the end of Week 10, I pulled a muscle in my calf. With the sore muscle, I decided not to go to the gym this week.

With the holiday festivities and not going to the gym, I gained a little weight this week. My weight is up to 198.8 LBS. This is a slight gain this week, but I am still under my December end goal of 200.0 LBS.

Last Week of 2011

As we were ending last week, I pulled a muscle in my left leg. That painful move has sidelined me from going to the gym this week. Rather than aggravate a sore muscle and turn it into something serious, I have taken this week off from going to the gym.

I have kept to the diet and hop that the results are still positive at the end of the week.

This Blog

 The reason I keep this blog is to keep myself accountable for everything I do with this diet and exercise. Keeping a real time log of each weekly weigh in, articles I find interesting and what I am doing to lose this weight gives me the ability to review what worked and what hasn't.

Making this public and updating facebook and twitter with each update allows friends to monitor what I am doing and celebrate my successes with me. My hope is that my story will be an inspiration for those who are also struggling to lose weight. On my 26th birthday, I was in the worst shape of my life. At this point, ten weeks later, I am coming close to being the lowest I have weighed since I was a high school freshman.

This being said, I recently came across an article from Men's Health that said that keeping your diet and fitness routine a secret could help you lose weight by avoiding those all too common 'one piece of cake won't hurt' and 'you have done well all week, you can take a break on Saturday' type of temptations.

My thought is if you don't have the will power to say 'Thanks, but I can't. Maybe next time.' OR if you do have that piece of cake, stay an extra 20 minutes at the gym to make it not matter, a diet might not work for you. . .

Diets are TOUGH. Sticking to a diet where you have to cut out most of your favorite delicious foods is even tougher.

I am glad you all are enjoying the blog. Have a wonderful Christmas and/or Hanukkah! 

Week 9 Results AND Week 8 correction

So I re-read last week's results and realized that I typed the wrong weight. Last week, the correct weight was 202.0 LBS.

This week was very tough. The holiday season throws around everyone's schedule and getting to the gym is difficult.

I was only able to get to the gym four times this week. Sticking to the diet and getting to the gym has helped me reach my December goal early.

Today, I weighed in at 199.0 lbs at a loss of 3LBS.

With the holidays diets are difficult and getting to the gm may be very tough over this next week.

My Motivation

I know that I have mentioned this a few times, but I am getting married in August 2012. I fiancee is a wonderful woman who has been by my side in good times and bad, prosperous and times when I didn't have a job, and no matter how big I was, she has loved me and I her.

In early October, we went out with a few friends and as friends with fancy smart phones will do, they took a picture of us. When I looked at this picture, it was the final straw. I needed to lose weight. Not for myself, but for Ashley. Ashley who has done everything she could to make our wedding wonderful. I know that wedding pictures last lifetimes and I wanted to look back on our wedding photos with pride, not "Oh my God!! Ashley is beautiful and I am a blob in a tux next to her."

I wanted to post the picture that finally got my butt off the couch and into the gym.

My face was rounder than I have ever seen it and a shirt I had just purchased and wore one time prior, no longer fit.

This weekend, we went out and got smart fancy phones of our own. With it, my fiancee took a picture of me. While I still need to lose weight, the 20 + lbs that I have lost is evident.

While not looking directly at the camera, you can see that my face has lost some weight and believe me, clothes are definitely fitting better.

Snack Time

If you are anything like me, you love to snack. I know I sure do! Snacking away has not led to a very healthy lifestyle. Craving some candy or chips or something even worse (cake, brownies, sugar laden soda), can cause my diet to take a 180 straight into gaining weight (and not the good muscle weight I hear so much about)!

In the past, I would eat tons of sugar or salty chips (sugar in the form of carbs) then sit around watch tv and go to bed. No Activity! No calories burned! This is how I was able to balloon to 230 LBS.

The problem here is that I still love to snack. At work, at home, long drives, to get rid of stress (when I am not at the gym), snacking still comes to mind. What is the worst part of it all, is that I am not even hungry, most of the time I do have a desire to snack on something. I learned early on in this diet that I am very bad at stopping myself from snacking. What I can control is how much and on what I am snacking.

Yogurt has become my go to evening / after work our snack. I will cut up a piece of fruit, throw some almonds in there and you have a delicious, crunchy, healthy and low carb snack! If yogurt is not available I will eat a pickle, some almonds or a piece of fruit. Choosing the healthy snack option is definitely the way to go.

December 9

December 9 was a BIG day. My little brother turned 21. In addition to his birthday celebration- a friend at work also celebrated his birthday Friday at work.

With all of the excitement, I was not able to stick with the diet. Hopefully one day of a few extra carbs won't affect the end results this week.

Getting Started -- New to Working Out

To say that I am happy with my results after 7 weeks is an understatement. I am thrilled with how much weight I have lost and that I keep losing it.

Here is what I am not doing:

• I am not starving myself
• I am not taking any diet drug, diet shake, appetite suppressant
• I am not 'killing myself' at the gym for 3 hours a day

Here is what I am doing:

• Diet
• Limiting the amount of large carb items (20 or more carbs for a apart of a meal) to TWO a day. This included sugar, bread, pasta, cereal, granola, oat meal, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pastries and bananas
• Portion/ snacking control. Rather than have another mini meal, I will grab a yogurt, piece of cheese, piece of fruit, pickle, or (if under my carb limit) a bowl of oatmeal as an after dinner snack.
• I should note that I have never been a big breakfast eater. I do snack on Almonds and get many calories from the cream in my 3 cups of morning/ afternoon coffee
• Exercise
• My goal is to lose weight, not become John Cena in 6 months (though that would be pretty awesome!)
• Building up your endurance is the best way to get started. 
• Start on a treadmill at 2.0 MPH for 15 minutes, then longer and a little faster.
• I have been losing fat through burning calories. My favorite way to burn calories to do the treadmill at a slow pace and a high incline.
• I will typically spend 70 minutes (60 minutes PLUS 10 minute cool down) on the treadmill and follow this with 20 minutes on a stationary bike or at weight training machines. 
• I will keep a slow/ moderately slow pace for the stationary bike OR do various machines at a small weight (30 -70 lbs depending on machine). 
• On the weight training machines, I will between 50 and 200 reps at the smaller weight and then move to the next machine. I focus on my legs and my back so that I can maintain the endurance of the treadmill without throwing out these important muscles
• Getting Started
• It may seem obvious, but these are the steps we took to start this routine:
• Stop buying carbs. It took us a good week or two to ween off of carbs. Stopping cold turkey (you can definitely eat cold turkey on this diet!) might knock your system through a loop or the cravings might be too much to handle.
• Get someone to go to the gym with you. Most gyms will give you a couple free passes for friends. Starting off with a friend or family member will help you keep to the routine
• Set a goal. Having my goal of losing 47 lbs or being at 175lbs by May 1st allowed me to really get a full picture of what I need to accomplish each month to reach these goals.

Good Luck