I've Been A Bad Boy

Valentine's Day candy, pizza, root beer...yeah, baby! Diet? Not a word I use.

Truth be told, I haven't actually committed to never eating pizza or drinking root beer or eating chocolate. The occasional splurge makes for a happier Kent. I've been officially on this shape-up journey for going on 15 months now and I expect that the journey won't end for at least another 18 months. Could I get to a fit and trim 190 lbs sooner than that? Sure...I hope to be there by the end of summer. The reason that I'm adding another year to the process is that I figure that I'll need at least another 12 months of weight maintenance before I will have created the habits I'll need to stay fit and trim for the next 20 years.

Side note: I found it interesting that a Subway commercial I saw last night on TV was lauding Jared for his weight loss and 10 years of weight maintenance...but only showed snapshots of the well-known spokesman. I've been wondering when Subway was going to dump him and launch another approach and maybe that's already in the works.

Backsliding

I've probably put 10 lbs back on from my low just before Christmas. Oh well. I know I can take it off again and I have truly been enjoying eating a bit more and some delicious not-very-healthy foods to boot! As I mentioned in the last entry, I'm not going to fight mother nature and try and lose bodyfat in the winter. I'm still riding the exercycle 3-5 times a week and am getting more serious about walking on the treadmill again and starting to lift weights.

I'm still tracking my exercise on sparkpeople.com and will probably bite the bullet and start tracking my food consumption again. I moved the previous entries over from blogs at sparkpeople.com and exercisefriends.com in an effort to increase my accountability by better recording what I am doing. Because I did it last year, I expect to be able to lose 20-30 lbs this year and get closer to my target weight. I doubt that I will be able to spend as much time this year working out, but I'm in better shape today than last year and hope to be more efficient in my calorie burning.

Feast and Store Up Some Fat!

Ok, so I've been enjoying myself and indulging for the past 3 days! Chocolate, Root Beer, lots of food--not necessarily unhealthy foods--just lots of food. It's been 7 months of control and it's been great to let loose for a couple of days. Yeah, so I probably gained a few pounds back. I'm not too worried. I've been exercising at my reduced pace (30 minutes a day) and I'm back to counting calories today. And my sparkpeople-generated calorie allowance dropped by 600 calories a day when I cut back my schedule exercise amount.

I've come to realize yet another benefit--religion aside-to our November and December feasting. It's cold outside. What a dumb time to try and lose bodyfat! (Assuming that one is living in a cold climate.) Our ancestors feasted to increase their bodyfat so they could survive the winter, and while most of us don't have that concern, our encoded DNA is still programmed to retain that nice insulating layer of fat.

So be of good cheer! I usually chuckle when my skinny family members complain about the cold and I'm feeling right comfy. Although, I have noticed the cold a bit more this winter as a result of shedding 40 lbs.

Reasonableness

I'm not going to reach my weight goal by the end of the year...but I can hardly beat myself up as a result. I started the year at 250 and will end it at 210 and in much better shape. I figure I've lost 50 lbs of fat and gained 10 lbs of muscle. It has been a major priority for me and I've had many days where I devoted 2 hours or more to working out. Interestingly, I've only lost 5 lbs in the past 4 months, including the 30 days that I religiously tracked my food intake here on Sparkpeople.

I'm ready to move on to a more normal approach to fitness and health and have other priorities that I need to turn to with the energy that I have been expending each day working out. Not that I am going to stop exercising. Today I did a "light" workout of 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes walking on the treadmill. My plan is to do the same 3x a week and on the alternate days do some light weight lifting.

I'm happy with my shape at the moment--waist is down to 36 inches--and if it takes me another year or 5 to get down to 190 or 180 then sobeit.

Tulips

I think I knew that the whole wheat pancake I made for myself at 8pm was probably going to blow my numbers for the day, but I ate it (and enjoyed it!) nonetheless, even topping it with some butter, which I haven't been doing very often this past 6 months. I knew that I could munch on some celery, but honestly, I figured that I was doing ok on my numbers for the past few days and a slight reward was ok.

The day got away from me and so I didn't get my official cardio workout in, so I'll have to do it today instead. I have myself scheduled for 6 days a week and normally I would take Sunday off. It's just a reminder that the liklihood that I will blow off a workout increases exponentially after 8pm. Early morning is the best time to get it done and out of the way.

I helped my mom sign up for SparkPeople yesterday...right after she returned from the supermarket and had all sorts of tempting goodies to eat. I indulged in some of the rotisserie chicken that she brought home, in between digging holes for tulip and daffodil bulbs. (On the low end of the spectrum of chores that I enjoy doing at my mom's house. I'm not a flower guy.) Fortunately, I had my 6 year old along and she was thrilled to be planting the bulbs in the provided holes.

I Can't Tune A Guitar, But I Can Tuna Fish

One of my current challenges, now that I am actually tracking my food consumption, is figuring out what I can eat that won't bust my daily plan. I know that it is going to take a while for my stomach and appetite to shrink down and not feel hungry most of the time. Yesterday's big help was the tuna I had for lunch, and the 6 or so slices of whole wheat bread at different times throughout the day.

I know that I am going through phases, and I'm not quite at the veggies for breakfast stage. In fact, I don't really like to eat breakfast at all. Or, I should rephrase that...I like to eat breakfast, but I don't seem to lose weight when I eat breakfast regularly. Well, at least I haven't in the past, but then I haven't ever counted calories either. I suspect that breakfast wasn't the culprit, but that I was eating too much during the rest of the day and so cutting out breakfast was an easy way to reduce overall calories.

Hopefully I will be able to establish a nice habit of eating the right amount of familiar foods and then move on the next stage of eating the right balance of foods.

One Step At A Time

I've been slacking for the past 10 days and enjoying it for the most part. I came to the realization that the 30 minutes a day on the exercycle was burning calories in big chunks (avg 20 mph) but also developing the wrong kind of muscle. I'm interested in fast-twitch muscle fiber development (I want to jump again!) and so I decided to back off the biking until I hit my target weight of 190. However, that got me out of my routine of early morning exercise and I stopped walking on the treadmill, too.

The first week was relaxing, but as I was also starting to eat more and more of the wrong things, I figured that I had better get back at it. So last night I walked for 2 miles (easy 3.5 mph pace) and this morning I did 4 miles in just under 60 minutes. I was hoping to play some VB last night but it didn't happen.

Part of my plan is to lay off the weights and biking and allow my body to stay in weight reduction mode as I do have a specific weight I am targeting. And as muscle weighs more than fat, the benefit from calories burned versus that additional muscle weight means I will burn the calories slower by walking for the next couple of months.

I might start including some jump training exercises into my daily routine, and start with the situps again. (I was up to 100 straight before my break.) And even though I have lost 35 pounds this year I have avoided keeping a strict record of my food intake so far. But honestly (ad for Sparkpeople coming) this site [sparkpeople.com] makes it really easy to track things and I found myself with no calories left as of 7pm last night and managed to not eat anything else, even though there were plenty of temptations in the kitchen. (Papa Murphy's Cheesy Bread!)

It will be interesting to see how responsive the site admins are in regards to the input I gave them that 1 cup of oats is only 300 calories, not 600. (According to the box.) I'm thinking I could have enjoyed the difference sometime around 9:30pm!