End of the month goal

February 29, 2012- 11:05 PM- Squeaked to my February goal of 185.0 LBS

 This means that my current BMI is 29.0!

Feels good to move a full digit away from Obese.

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!

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.

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. . .

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.

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

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! 

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.

Paying for a Day Off the Diet Or The Gross Post

**Warning** This blog post is going to get a bit personal regarding bathroom habits. While I was trying to avoid this subject, I feel that it may be needed to fully explain the diet and cover both positives and negatives of the routine. This is by far a HUGE negative.

Last week, as you may remember, I only made it the gym 4 times, it looks like this week will have similar results (if not worse), given holiday parties and obligations Sunday, Tuesday and Friday this week. Last week, I also took some time off of the diet, not this week though. Last week, that was my BIG mistake.

I don't know if the food I ordered on Saturday affected me this way because it was breaded, deep fried chicken covered in sugar laden BBQ sauce and I really haven't eaten (besides chicken) much if anything with these qualities in eight weeks OR if there was something wrong with my chicken. No one else who ate with us (including my fiancee) has had these issues, so I expect it to be the former. Fried Chicken no longer agrees with me.

The diet has, over the past Eight Weeks, made my bathroom visits infrequent, but it was nothing I worried about. Since Saturday, I have had the opposite problem. While not worried, it should be noted for anyone who wants to start this routine, that this can happen and has happened to me (for about four days now.)

As I said, its a gross post, but a reality. I don't think I will be posting on this subject again after this.

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

Week 2 - Complete

Two weeks into the new diet and exercise lifestyle, and I am feeling good! I call this a new lifestyle, because it is. For the first time in two weeks, I exceeded my allotted carb amount for the day. This Saturday night, I allowed myself a 3rd carb. While this might not seem like a big deal, there was much convincing of myself to do this. I went out with a number of friends yesterday, many of them groomsmen, and of course, we had to have a couple drinks and go out to dinner.
Adding together my two drinks:
Bacardi and Coke Zero (no carbs in the coke Zero) and a Twisted Tea (my favorite beer alternative)
and my dinner:
Grilled Shrimp Tacos (awesome, if I may add)
This adds up to more not allowed carbs in a short period (about 4 hours) than I have had in almost an entire month.

Hopefully, I won't find an excuse every week to take a break from the diet, but I know a couple that will for sure be treated very cautiously- Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will talk about these in a future post.

Here are this week's stats:
Gym

• I went to the gym FIVE out of SEVEN days this week. Spending over 90 minutes each time. 
• Week 1 - I had family come to the gym with me, I can bring a friend with me unlimited numbers of times, three of the five days I worked out which helped keep me there longer.
• Week 2- My fiancee was able to go with me once, which had similar outcomes, but I have noticed that I peak at about an hour and a half if I am there alone
• I have not figured out if the bike is helping or a waste of time. While an excellent source for cardio, miles on the bike and miles on the treadmill do not result in the same number of calories burned/ mile. I may change my routine to focus on treadmill, other cardio machines, and weights and leave the bike for weekends when I can get a full two hours in.
• Weights: I have added a number of weight machines to my workout, most working out my legs and back. 
• I gain a lot of weight in my legs. Working out the various muscles in my legs, will help tone the muscle and shed this weight.
• I want to focus on my back, so when I begin doing abdominal exercises or more extensive workouts, I do not want to hurt myself.
• I have started adding in different weight machines from time to time, but again not a focus

Diet

• Other than one extra carb out on 'Boy's Night' - I have stuck to the diet. 
• My hope is to add more vegetables to the diet and increase the variety of my lunches for future weeks, I ended up having lots of yogurt two days this week due to my lack of preparedness

Continued Goals/ Things to Work on

• During the week, with this new schedule, I have not been as attentive to cleaning the apartment as I should be- dishes, picking up, laundry, etc. have all been put aside one time or another due to my new schedule
• Vitamin C- I need to ingest more Vitamin C and maybe get a flu shot over the next couple weeks with everyone around me getting sick. I have fought off a cold thus far, but can see it coming in the near future.
• Schedule. I want to try to make it to the gym 5 days a week, if not more. I will have to figure out how to structure this when I travel for work.

Week 2 Results
At my Sunday morning weigh in, I was at 211.4 LBS. This is a loss of just under 3 LBS for a week of work outs and diet.
As this is October 30, 2011, I can say proudly: October Goal: 218 LBS- Achieved!
Upcoming Goals:

• By November 1- 218 lbs
• By December 1- 210 lbs
• By January 1, 2012- 200 lbs
• By March 1, 2012- 185 lbs
• By May 1, 2012- 175 lbs

 At this point, I am less than 37 lbs from my goal and 26 weeks to go to May 1. If I can average 2 lbs a week, I can achieve my end goal.