Improvement

Today is March 15th and that means I am due for another weigh in.  I mentioned in my last blog post that I need to lose at least a pound at every weigh in between now and the end of month in order to reach my goal of being at or below 330 pounds.  I managed to improve on my previous weight by losing one pound.  My current weight is 334 pounds.

I don't know what my problem is but I am still drinking too much soda.  I think I had three since my last blog post five days ago.  I really need to do better.  I think it is just a convenience thing.  Whenever I do not have water or tea I find the temptation is stronger to get a soda.  The bottom line is I need to plan better so that I can minimize those temptations.  A good friend once told me that if you can identify the temptations that lead you to failure then you can learn to recognize the situations that lead to those temptations and avoid them altogether.  That is what I need do.

I really want to achieve this goal.  I have been contemplating making some drastic lifestyle changes in order to make this happen.  The main change I have been considering would be switching to a fruit and vegetable diet.  This would have to be more of a lacto-ovo vegetarianism as I would not be giving up milk.  Does anyone have an opinion on this or suggestions?  Let me know in the comments section below.

I got in a pretty good work out today on my Xbox 360 and Kinect with Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012.  That game really kicks my butt.  Since it tracks calories burned it really makes you pay attention to what goes in your mouth and how long you would have to workout to make up for it.  A lot of work is required to burn such a small amount of calories.

My next weigh in will take place on March 20th.  I need to lose at least another pound to stay on track with my goal.  I would really like to upload another video blog post between now and the 20th.  I will try to work that into my schedule.  Thanks for checking in on me.  I look forward to next time.  Take care friends!

Week 1

Has it been a week already? I don't know about anyone else, but it sure feels as if the older that I get the faster time moves. When I was a kid, a week seemed to take an eternity. Now, weeks pass by so quickly. Anyway, let's look at the numbers.

I weighed in this morning at 407.2 pounds. Looking back, my previous weigh in registered at 410.5 pounds. That means that I have lost 3.3 pounds this week.

I am not displeased with those numbers. However, I am aware of a couple of times that I could have done better. It was interesting trying to lose weight again. It seems like I had to remind myself of a few things a couple of times. The times that I could have done better I was a pretty down on myself. I had to remember that with weight loss, it is important to focus on winning the overall war. Individual battles may not always be won and when things go that way it would be silly to wave a white flag and surrender. Because even though a couple of days could have been better, I still lost a decent amount of weight. This was because I won more of the battles than I lost this week.

There is something that feels empowering about taking control of your diet. When not paying attention and counting calories it is easy to be unaware of how much I am consuming calorie wise. I think for me anyway, it is because I don't often think about what is in food. I guess that maybe I just go off what I perceive to be quantity. That is a mistake. For example, this burger is the same size as that burger therefore they are equal. But what if one burger has mayo and ketchup and the other has only mustard?

Patience is difficult. I remember when I lost close to a hundred pounds on my first weight loss journey. That took years. Because the goal was a couple of pounds every week and sometimes you would hit plateaus. This will test me. Because I want to make progress quickly. Frustration can easily set in even when making progress. More so when I hit a plateau. Some of the most frustrating weighs in from first journey were when I had a really good week, hit all my marks, only to weigh in and be the exact same weight as the week before or maybe even post a small gain.

I am not a doctor, but it stands to reason that there are many changes going on when attempting to lose weight. It was my experience the last time I had success that as I lost weight it was much easier to be more active. I had taken up walking to assist with the progress I had made. When that is the case then you are surely building some muscle mass. But on the other hand, it takes muscle to move around a 400-pound frame.

Should anyone else be following along and in a similar situation with needing to lose large quantities of weight, here is something that I have learned. Well intentioned people will want to help you. And to that end they may say things like, what would really speed this up is if you took on insert exercise routine here. Something like P90X maybe. Usually, the people that have told me this are not massively overweight. So, I just say in a nice way, imagine you had a person exactly your weight piggyback and then you tried to do P90X. How long do you think your joints would last? Would your knees or ankles hold up or would you do a lot of damage to your body? I do not say that to be mean to that person as I know they are trying to help.

Oh, that reminds me, well intentioned people may also say you should try X diet or Y diet. There may come a time where exercise routines or diets are the best way to move forward. But at double my target weight I need to do things that are doable for me right now. As it stands now, when I get home from work, I am exhausted. Specialized meal prep and so on most likely would not happen or be something I could do long term. I feel like making it through the workday is a battle in itself.

At any rate, my plan right now is to stay within my calorie budget. I know that once I drop some weight it will be easier for me to do activities. At that time, I will take up walking again. That was how I lost a hundred pounds the first time. Perhaps when I am down a hundred pounds, I will need to take up something else to continue to move forward. For now, I think this is the best plan for me. I appreciate all the encouragement I received from everyone. It is great knowing that people care. I hope that if you are someone that has recommended an exercise routine or diet to me that you understand where I was coming from. It is a blessing to have people care enough about you to want to help. I appreciate and am lucky to have people in my life that want to help me. If someone has never been massively overweight, it is difficult to fully communicate what it is like. When I lost those hundred pounds, I keep talking about I could do so much more activity and I felt like a million bucks. It will transform my life and I cannot wait to get there. Until next week my friends. Goodbye.

I must do this!

Here I go again. I have been pretty inconsistent over the course of this blog. Yet, something must change. I cannot continue to live this way. I must do this!

My current weight is 410.5 pounds.

I honestly cannot go on living like this. I mean that quite literally. I ask myself what the average lifespan of a 400-pound man might be? I don't really want to know the answer to that. In many ways, clues to that manifest themselves in my life every day. For example, both of my knees are shot. I am sure that at least the left one probably needs some type of surgery and yet I am confident that any doctor would tell me that I need to lose weight first. Otherwise, it would be pointless. Knees are not meant to carry around this type of weight for years and years on end.

I think back to when I began this blog and my first weight loss journey. At that time, I weighed around 350 pounds and I found that number unacceptable. Now, I weigh 60 pounds more than that. The first weight loss journey I was able to lose around 100 pounds and it took me years to do that. I have always wanted to do it for myself. Because I just know that if I have a procedure to help me lose weight that once I had lost the weight, I would not have learned how to do it for myself. I would have been forced into it and my biggest fear would be to have a procedure and gain all the weight back since I did not learn how to lose weight. On the other hand, I have not been successful at keeping weight off since initially losing those 100 pounds.

The tools I will use to lose weight will be similar to what I have used in the past. I will track my weight weekly on Sunday mornings. I will log my calorie intake daily in MyFitnessPal. I have used Lose It in the past but let me explain why I want to go back to MyFitnessPal after using Lose It the last several attempts. I used MFP back when I had the most success. It is not so much about that. It actually has everything to do with my step counter. I simply enjoy the way that MFP integrates my Apple Watch into my daily logs. With LI there does not seem to be much data regarding steps or anything. It is only when you have a lot of activity that you see an adjustment to your calories budget. What I find with MFP though is that as I log my calories it is very easy to see my last synced step count and I found that was often times a motivator to get up and be more active.

I am thinking hard about whether or not I want to make some kind of commitment that if I have not lost weight in a year that maybe I will just undergo a procedure anyway. I will continue to think about that and discuss further in future blog posts. Something has to give. That is for sure, and I don't want it to be my time on earth. More in a week. Goodbye.

Good News and Bad News

Well, I have good news and bad news this week. That said, it may be that the good news has some bearing on why there is bad news. Maybe not, I don't want to make any excuses. Let's get down to business.

My previous weigh in was 386.0 pounds. When I weighed in this morning I had gained 3.4 pounds. My current weight is 389.4.

So, where is the good news? The good news is that one of my dearest friends ordered me a scale online and had it sent to my house. Thank you again! This scale has a lot of nice features like Bluetooth so it syncs with my phone. It also measure many things other than just weight. It is awesome.

I would lean toward believing that my old scale was just inaccurate. I do not feel like I did anything over the top this week that would have caused me to gain 3.4 pounds. I think that since I have a new scale I will begin weighing myself daily but still report every Saturday. I believe that will help me to better identify things that are not helping my weight loss goals (just in case I really did gain weight). Plus, the new scale is pretty cool and I find myself wanting to weigh more often. So anyway, that is the good news. That I hopefully have a scale providing me accurate information so that I can really get on with this program. I hope that everyone has a fantastic week and I will have better news next time. Take care!

Thanksgiving 2019

Hello and welcome to my Thanksgiving week blog update. One of the most dreaded updates of the year. Was I able to lose weight despite the holiday? Keep reading to find out.

For the previous weigh in (11/24) I was at 383.0 pounds. When I weighed in this morning I had gained 3 pounds. My current weight is 386.0 pounds.

So, I have this frustrating relationship with my scale. No, it is not what you are probably thinking. Sure, I want it to always show me losing weight. But this frustration stems from the fact that it is not really very accurate. It is a digital scale but it is getting old. It is supposed to record my weight when I step on it but it acts a little bit like an analog scale instead. When I step on it, it fluctuates before it settles on a number. What it is supposed to do is lock in on a number and flash that number and then stay on the screen for a while. What it does lately is fluctuate until it eventually shuts off. So I step on it several times, this morning it was probably five or six times before it will flash and give me a number.

Now what is frustrating about this is that the fluctuations themselves are dramatic. One step on it was fluctuating around 379. Honestly the time it locked in was the highest reading of any. Usually it was around 383 to 384. I do not really want to buy a new scale right now as finances are tight. I suppose there is accuracy in a ball park figure overall as with weight loss it should be reading lower over time I suppose. Still, it is frustrating.

I need to work harder. I have been trying to be more active at work. This past week however we had off everyday but two so being at home more was not helpful either. I should have motivated myself to take some walks or something but I did not. I should also mention that my scale has been doing the fluctuation thing for some time so the previous weigh in may have also been inaccurate. Perhaps that one landed on one of the lower readings and registered. Anyway, enough complaining about my scale. I hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Check back next week for the new post. Later!

Wow!

I apologize for not posting yesterday which should have been weigh in day. Things got a little busy, we went to a birthday party and by the time we made it back home it was late. I strongly prefer to weigh myself I the morning. I believe that having a routine weigh in time gives me the most accurate measurement of progress.

My previous weigh in on 11/16 was 387.4 pounds. When I weighed in today I had lost 4.4 pounds. My current weight is 383.0 pounds. I am pretty happy with those numbers for reasons that I will detail below.

The reason this post is titled Wow! is because I was actually not very good at sticking with my calorie goals yesterday. I already mentioned that we went to a birthday party. My friend's son turned three. He is such an awesome kid. We played Spider-Man vs. Captain America. They would fight and he would laugh. Anyway, back to the point of this post. I ate way too much pizza and I did have some cans of Coke. Plus, after I got home from the birthday party I ended up eating after 11pm. Eating late is not good for the weight loss program.

The truth is that I started this week strong but started to lose some resolve as the week went on. In all honesty, the soda that I had at the birthday party were not the first during the past week. That is something that I will need to keep working on. I am surprised to have lost 4.4 pounds and yet excited to keep working at it. Until next time, so long!

I'm Back

Well friends, here I am again. I doubt anyone even reads this anymore but perhaps it is cathartic for me to write the blog. That is what I am hoping anyway. I keep trying to lose weight but then I end up giving up. Perhaps this time will be different.

Lately my knee has really been bothering me. I have no doubt that being overweight to this magnitude is not helping matters. The last time that I weighed (prior to today) was October 21st and on that day, I set a record. Not a good record either. In hunting and fishing, the bigger and heavier the animal, the better. But I am a man and so being bigger and heavier is bad for me. Bad for my health and bad for my life in general.

Back to the point, on October 21st I weighed in at a disappointing 392 pounds. That is the heaviest that I have ever weighed as far as I know. A mere 8 pounds from 400! Today I weighed again and I now weigh 387.4.

A couple of factors have forced me to make changes. One is my knee for sure. It is kind of not cool when your knee hurts. It really puts a crimp on one's desire to get up and move around. I don't like it! Financial issues also necessitate that I reduce my spending a bit and the first thing on the chopping block has to be eating out. I am looking at both of these factors as opportunities though instead of problems. These are opportunities to make some things right. I must seize them and use this as the impetus for a healthier future. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, but it is more likely for those that make wise decisions.