Weekly Weigh-in (Week 41)

Sunday morning yet again, and time for my weekly weigh-in.

This week I feel has been one of my better weeks for my weight. I've been eating a bit less fruit, but there are lots of worse things one can do than not eat quite enough fruit. Life is full of stressful events, luckily I've been learning of late much better how to just let the stress flow around me without having much lasting impact. The reason I mention that here is that I know for many, myself included, stress can be a factor in over eating. Another over eating trigger I've been less good about controlling recently is big changes in my schedule. A party comes up or etc. and you end up eating more than you should, or something else out of the ordinary happens and throws off your calorie intake. It's a hard thing to work with, but I'm hopeful that I can manage it, and if not 1 bad meal doesn't remove all the benefit from the other 20 good meals that week, just lessens them somewhat.

Now, the first in what will turn out to be a string of segments in this post about the things I've been doing to help manage my weight. For the first installment, I'm going to talk about what I've been doing the longest for this, diet. I don't really like to call what I do a diet, because the word seems to imply to me something that ends rather than being the lifestyle change that eating right needs to be. When asked what diet I'm on though my usual answer is "The Don't Be a Fatass Diet." It works something like this, don't eat like a fatass and you won't be a fatass. Now, for reference, before I started on my weightloss trend my average meals were running close to 1500 calories in many cases. That's not a good thing at all. So I decided to sit down and figure out what I should be eating at the places I went to the most.

Most restaurants have their nutrition information posted on their websites, and those that don't can usually be found through sites like dailyplate.com. I went through and set myself a per meal cap for lunch and dinner, at the time the two meals I actually ate, and codified what I would eat at each place that was in that calorie range. I put all that together into an excel sheet that calculated an average and a standard deviation for said figures, for reasons I'll explain in a future update, and then printed it off on a sheet I carry around in my wallet. That way when I go out to eat to a place on my list, I can look up what I should order and know that I'm being smarter about my calories than I was before.

This has been a large part of the secret to my success I feel. Just eating reasonable portion sizes cut my calorie intake per day massively and has helped me burn off a lot of fat. In the past week or so I've decided to up the ante and start trying to count calories pretty extensively in an effort to help further manage my intake and thus my weight, we'll see how that works out as the weeks go by.

Well, what does the scale have to say? 221.2, up .6 from last week. Up a little this time around, but not much, especially considering how much I overate on a couple occasions this week. I'm going to be trying to do better next week, but even still, I'm in much better shape than I was this time last year, or even a few months ago, and that's something I'm proud of. I'll see you all next week, probably with the explanation for why I had excel doing math on my food list.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 40)

Sunday yet again and time for another installment of my weekly weigh-in.

This week makes 40 since I started trying to manage my weight through progressive lifestyle change. That's a somewhat complicated statement so let me break it down a little bit. Firstly, I say manage my weight rather than lose weight, because at this time I feel that is a more accurate representation of what I've done. Though it started out as me trying to lose weight, that was honestly short-sighted of me. Losing weight is only a good goal if you are overweight, and if you are doing it right that will stop being true eventually. While that's great, it means you have suddenly run out of goal to achieve. Rebounding after a "diet" or the like is a big problem for many and as such I have made a conscious decision to try and avoid that and move forward now that I'm approaching my original target weight. As such, I'm out to manage my weight not lose it, to get to a weight I'm comfortable with and then work on not just staying there, but cutting fat and getting into better shape.

Then there is that second part, progressive lifestyle change. That's something I've been big on since I started this, I am not on a diet. Diets are something that generally people do until they are done with them and then stop. After that, where are you? You're back to where you started, having not really learned much about eating better than you were before you started and this is a big reason people tend to regain weight when they have reached their goal. I'm not on a diet, I'm actively changing my lifestyle to suit my goals for my life. Eating better is a lifelong change that I am making. And it doesn't happen all at once. It's been a process of learning what I should and shouldn't be eating, managing my portion size, what brings results that last and what brings only short-term benefit. It's a process that I'm not yet finished with, but am eager to see where it takes me.

There have been a lot of changes going on this past week that I'll be discussing in future installments of this blog, but this week I felt moved to explain what I did above instead.

So what does the scale have to say about my convictions and my recent changes? 220.6 pounds, down 3.2 from last week. Leaves me down 62.5 since I started in January, which is a great place to be right now.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 39)

Tis Sunday yet again and time for another installment of the weekly weigh-in.

Feeling really good right now. Ate a lot of fruit this week and I think that helped. I've really been feeling great these past few weeks, lots of energy and really just feeling better all around than I have been. Made it out for a run this week, only the one sadly but it felt good and I am hoping to get in two or three this week. Once I'm actually keeping to it a little more I'll talk a bit about what I'm doing in terms of my workouts, but for now I'm not steady enough with anything to consider it a plan.

Got a new phone this week, shiny iPhone 4, and have a couple apps on it for tracking calories. I'm going to give them a try and see if they help keep me on track or not.

So, what does the scale have to say? 223.8 this week. Down 3.8 from last week. That puts me down nearly 60 pounds since I started in January. Progress is steady and rewarding, here's hoping I can keep it up.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 38)

It's Sunday again and time for my weekly weigh-in.

Going to be a short post this week as I have work coming up in a little while.

In terms of eating I think I've been doing really well recently, making more food at home, eating a whole lot more fruit. I'm feeling really great both physically and mentally. This week will be the first full week of Lara's job waking me up early in the morning. Some would say that's an annoying thing and a problem, I see it as an opportunity to be up early to go for a good run, so tomorrow I'm going out for a run. I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes.

So, what does the scale have to say about me this week? 227.6, same as last week. Down 55.5 pounds so far since January, and only about 20 pounds from my current goal. I'm hoping the running can help me keep going on the push toward that goal, but only time will tell.

Weekly Weigh-in (Week 37)

It's Sunday again and time for the weekly weigh-in.

Feeling really good this week. Work has settled down into a slightly more predictable schedule, Lara looks like she's found not one but two jobs, and it's almost starting to cool off in Phoenix. My fruit intake has been on the rise, and I made food for dinner on Monday and Thursday. All in all, things are looking up.

So, where do I still need to go? I'd like to be cooking more and so far am making good progress on that but could always do better. For reasons both of finance and of health I'm going to start trying to take my lunches with me to work more, though we'll see how well that works out in practice. And hopefully with the weather becoming more cooperative some running will be able to take place in the next few weeks as well.

So, what does the scale have to say about my recent progress? 227.6, down 3 pounds from last week. Keeping up a much better pace than I expected I'd be able to at this point. Hoping it holds but only time will tell. For now, I'm well on my way to the best shape of my life and doing what I can to keep myself there, and that's not bad.