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!

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! 

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.

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

BMI Update

So, for the fun of it I went back to check my BMI to see where I am on the scale. At 5' 7", my BMI is at 31.7. This says that I am 25 LBS lighter and still obese. I feel lighter, my pants aren't snug and some of my 'large' sized shirts are starting to feel a bit big.

I also wanted to reiterate some of my findings from playing with the BMI Calcualtor:

• My weightloss goal of 175 LBS is right in the middle of the BMI Index 'Overwieght' category.
• 159LBS at 5' 7" is the largest weight that is considered 'healthy' for my height.

 I stick my thoughts that BMI is BS.

Exercise VS Stress

Going to the gym about 5 times a week for seven weeks teaches you a few things about yourself. It shows you how can make yourself disciplined enough to spend hours at the gym, rather than on the couch eating. One thing I learned is that going to the gym takes my mind off of stress.

Much better than smoking, over drinking, shopping, and my previous problem, eating; going to the gym relieves most of my day-to-day stress. Focusing on the routine and to a smaller account, the blog has helped keep me motivated to lose the weight.

If you ask anyone that knows me, I stress out over things too much. I mean WAAAYYYYY too MUCH!

I worry about things outside of my control: "What is going on in politics?" "What is happening in the economy?" And I worry too much about things I can barely control: "Are we going over on our Wedding budget?" "How Can I be better at my job?"

Money, job, family concerns all stress me out. In the past I would turn to food (sweets, greasy food, carbs galore) to combat these stresses, and maintaining my sanity.

While never being completely overwhelmed or consumed by stress, I do stress about things both big and small more than I should. I'm still the same 'worry wart' that I was when I was a kid.

What I found out about myself is that exercise is a great stress reliever. Spending an hour on the treadmill and focusing on the workout takes my mind off all the troubles in the world. It is a great feeling to come out of a work out burning 700 calories and all the stress from the day. Burning calories, losing weight and stress all at the same time, sounds pretty good to me.

So I will continue to go out there and hit that treadmill hard so I can shed these 30 last pounds and the everyday stress that bogs us all down!

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.

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.

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.

Week 1 - Complete

Today is October 23,2011 which marks the beginning of Week 2 of the full diet and exercise program that I have developed to drop weight for my wedding with my beautiful fiancee, Ashley, on August 11, 2012. I want to be around for a long time and I have never been 'in shape' in my life. The only shape I have been is round and I have a keg rather than a 6 pack.

Saying this is Week 2, may be a bit of a misnomer though. The truth is that we, my fiancee and I, started the diet about a week into October and I did sign up for and go to the gym one time before this week (Friday, October 14).

I feel that it is easier moving forward with the blog and the diet looking towards my goals and using Sunday, October 16, as the start day for the diet and exercise program, as that was the day of my first weigh in.

Here is a brief summary of the diet, routine, and goals, if you have missed any of my previous posts.

• My fiancee and I are on a low carb, high fresh fruit and vegetable diet. Weening down our carb intake. 
• Ideally, we would like to get to about 70 g of carbs a day, while shunning most simple carbs (candy, sugar, honey) all together. 
• Like many things I have found, there is no real answer to what is the ideal amount of carbs. The Atkins diet calls for 20 g of 'net carbs' (Carbs minus fiber) a day or less. Atkins Site Regarding Carbs
• A number of diets to maintain a health lifestyle recommend 120 total grams of carbohydrates a day Low Carbs on About.com 
• One concern that we both have is the negative responses to a high protein diet Negatives of a Low Carb Diet
• Our first challenge is limiting our simple and wheat related carbs (bread, wraps, pasta, oatmeal, cereal and granola) as well as potatoes to 2 a day.
• I am going to the gym, a minimum 4 times a week. Doing a combination the first 4 weeks of 70% cardio, 30% weight training. 
• For the Month of October, my goal was to get to 218 LBS by October 31 and 210 LBS by November 30.
• Starting Weight: 221 LBS
• Current weight: 214.2 LBS

Excercise

I don't know about you, but I have never been big on exercising, NEVER.

I used to go on walks a lot in college, but that was three years ago, rarely longer than 20 minutes and rarely, if ever, at an intense pace. Needless to say, jumping on a treadmill or doing cardio for 45 minutes straight is NOT something that I have ever done.

Going from couch potato, more like couch cushion (or mashed potato), given my increasing weight gain over the years to 50 pounds lighter and less cushion-y, maybe even less of a potato (no promises), will be a difficult journey. After spending some time on the internet (see couch potato) I have found several different and contradicting articles about eating and exercising to lose the weight and keep it off.

Here are some of the more useful articles I have found:
10 Strategies to Lose Weight - Mens Health
I love about.com, because there are always a number of useful tips and hints to many things. I have found the two following articles interesting.
Beginner's Guide to Running
After my first 4 weeks at the gym, I am going to attempt this as well:
8 weeks to learn to Run


I am giving myself 4 weeks of treadmill, because right now I am not able to jog more than 30 seconds.

Based on what I have read and my own limitations, as mentioned I haven't exercised in excess EVER, the first few weeks I will follow the following routine at the gym:
Cardio:

• 2-3 miles on the treadmill on various inclines at speeds ranging between 2.5 and 4.5 MPH
• 4-5 miles on the stationary bike on various incline options
• Attempt other cardio equipment and get up to .5 miles on stairs. After a few attempts, I am lucky to make it .1 mile before having to give out

Weight Training:

I want to focus first on my back and legs and move into arms and chest as I move through the routine
I am going to start with different leg lifts at a minimal weight (10 lifts each leg separately and 20 together)
For my back, I am going to do 30 reps at 50 pounds and increase to 70 by Week 2 of Gym

After 4 weeks, I will re-evaluate and increase my routine.