It has been one year since I stopped the madness.
One year ago today, I weighed 284.5 pounds and I was miserable. I hated to look at myself in the mirror and I worried about my mortality. A lot. I had lost weight before, but I was now in my late 40s and it seemed to me that I couldn’t do it anymore. However, I woke up that morning and I googled “1800 calorie diet”. I found a balanced diet and I started working on it. And man, did it ever work. One year later, I am a changed man. However, in the last month or two, I’ve seen my weight creep up a little, topped off by a business trip to Atlanta where I gained eight (8)!!!!11!! pounds. Oy vey. Man, the food was good, but I can tell you that I didn’t feel good.
I had it in my mind a couple of weeks ago that I would reboot on the first anniversary of my lifestyle change. I have thought about this a lot. I need to put together a plan that not only gets me to my goal (I never quite reached it, despite being tantalizingly close) but also I need to figure out how to live going forward.
WHAT WORKED
The diet worked. The diet gives me choices, but I am an eat the same thing every day kind of guy. Especially when I’m travelling, this makes things easy (i.e. no or minimal food preparation) and easy (to count calories). I found that drinking water is the best way to combat the feeling of hunger. No water: lots of hunger and increased calorie intake. Water: a lot (and I mean a lot) less hunger and stabilized calorie intake. I found that I can function on 1800 calories a day and be alert, feel good, and work out!
I almost completely eliminated red meat from my diet. Even over the summer as I started to fall away from the diet, I did not eat beef. I’m pretty sure that I did not eat 10 lbs. of beef in the last year. Pretty sure. I ate a ton of poultry, primarily turkey, and a fair amount of seafood. Most days, my meat consumption was about 5 ounces. In the reboot, I’m going to try and lower that even further, substituting beans for a protein source. Also, I ate a lot of deli meat, which is not really all that great for you. So, I’m going to work on some alternative to that. The problem is that deli meat is very convenient.
I did consume a lot of dairy, primarily in the form of non-fat yogurt, but in the reboot, I’m going to move away from that or at least reduce that because a lot of the low calorie yogurt offerings have aspartame in them. I would rather drink a glass of milk than consume aspartame, so that’s going to go out.
When I am in the Capital City, I eat out. My go to is Subway. More particularly, I go for the Subway salad, with mustard as a dressing. The salads provide a high volume of food with lots of vegetables and low calorie intake. I add a bag of apples on the side. I defy you to find a better fast food alternative. If you do, let me know. I also eat at Applebee’s. I know, the food is not very good, but they have under 550 calorie plates, which are actually well under 550 calories. Usually, these are actually palatable (I never get the steak ones, only seafood.) I’ve also had their tilapia, which is not great, but provides a little variety.
I do want to expand my diet a little because I think that’s a good thing. I will start with what has worked for me and experiment.
Exercise worked. I started with about 50 minutes a day at Lifetime Fitness on a recumbent bike. I didn’t do intervals, just a steady ride. Eventually, I moved to alternating between spin classes and strength training classes. The spin classes surely provided more fitness, but when I started these classes, the weight loss stalled out. I suppose you could argue that fitness is more important than weight loss and maybe that’s true, but I started out 40 pounds north of obese. I needed to lose the weight and the recumbent bike did work.
Keeping track of my weight worked. I built a spreadsheet with various information, including tracking weight loss, average weight over ten and thirty days, pace, project end date, etc. My wife thinks that the spreadsheet was a sign that I am OCD. I don’t think so. What it did was help me to focus. On good days, I felt great. On not so good days, I was even more determined. Most days were good, though and seeing that progress fueled my desire to continue.
I know this about myself. When I really want to do something, I do it. For about four months, I had a single track mind and I dropped sixty pounds in that time. I continued to lose after those four months, but that was about when I changed up and started the spin classes. The weight loss certainly slowed after that.
WHAT DIDN’T WORK
Maintenance. I haven’t gained 40 pounds or anything, but if I continue to gain at the rate that I have since I hit my minimum weight, I will be back up to 285 in no time. My problem primarily was that I really didn’t do a good job avoiding the types of things that are weaknesses for me: i.e. chips and other junk foods. I certainly was not aided by my wife, who continually buys this stuff and brings it into the house. I have asked her not to do this, but she’s apparently not going to change, so I just have to work on avoiding temptation when it is right there in front of me. When I was on the diet full bore, she would comment about not eating what everyone else was eating. Well, yeah. I’m on a diet, trying to lose 85 pounds. I think she’s more willing to refrain from commenting on that now, but I will tell you that maintenance is tough when there’s a high calorie meal prepared and you get grief for not eating it, even if you’ve made it clear that you want healthier choices. I will say though, that once I gained about 8 pounds from my low (207), I was able to hold my weight at about 215 +/- a pound or two until I went to Atlanta earlier this month for a work event that was non-stop high calorie eating.
Exercise maintenance. I really failed to stay on the exercise bandwagon. After exercising every day for months on end, I slowly started missing days until I was back to no working out at all. I need the exercise and I have to have a plan that allows for exercising. The problem is, exercising takes time. My time is pretty precious. I have a bazillion things I have to do. So yeah, this is a vexing problem. The best solution, I think, is to schedule my life. Actually, that’s not being facetious. If I set up a schedule and follow it, I will probably maximize what I can get done and still get the exercise in.
THE WAY FORWARD
I don’t have to lose 85 pounds this time. I would be really happy with 20 pounds, which would get me down to the original goal but I’m going for 35 pounds. That would put me at about the weight I was on my 21st birthday, 185 pounds. I think that would be a really good weight for me. I’m not particularly muscular and hopefully going forward I will improve my strength overall, but first I want to lose the fat. I will measure not only my weight, of course, but also my body fat.
Because this plan is about not only weight loss, but strength and maintenance, I have decided to break the plan up into stages. I am going to go through alternating weight loss and maintenance periods. During the weight loss period, I am going to eat 1800 calories a day and do the lower impact workouts (i.e. the recumbent bike and similar exercises). This period will focus exclusively on losing weight (i.e. body fat). During the maintenance period, I am going to eat 2200 calories a day and do more high impact exercising, including strength training and spin cycling. This period will be about maintaining weight and improving fitness.
I am not sure what the length of each period will be. I originally thought that two months each would be about right with me alternating between each period until I was down to my target weight. However, I might shorten the cycles to six weeks or four or maybe even two. We’ll see how the first cycle goes. If I lose 15 pounds in a month, I’ll definitely go to four week cycles and maybe even four weeks on weight loss and six weeks on maintenance. This will be an experiment of sorts.
The good news, of course, is that over the past year, I’ve made tremendous progress. I don’t feel too bad about the recent stumbles, or at least I won’t if I am able to dust myself off and get back onto what would be a more sustainable long term plan. I understand that I will probably never be able to just eat without thinking about it, which means I have to think about it.
As far as this space goes, I expect to post about once a week. I want to let you know how the diet is going, but I'm more interested in how the diet/maintenance regime will work.
25 July 2012: 284.5 pounds
25 July 2013: 219.3 pounds
Congrats on your progress so far and good luck in the coming year!
Crap, SBG, you're down to about my weight (which is high for me). Well done, even if short of your goal.
1. Eating "well", as I have times in the past, has begun to make me very... flatulent. I used to have dry Cheerios as my go-to snack, sometimes with raisins or peanuts or even shaved-up mini chocolate bars. Often it was my go-to lunch. Or instant oatmeal. Then about two years ago, I started noticing that I was often very flatulent, to the point of discomfort, and ditched them. I believe substituting beans for meat would give me similar results. I don't eat particularly poorly now, but I used to eat less, and higher in fiber. Also cheaper.
2. Had a minor health "concern" a coupla weeks ago that have focused my mind a bit on my health in a way that I haven't yet: high blood pressure. It's slowly been creeping up to the danger area over the last few years, but on this day, I was not allowed to donate blood because my top reading was too high by a few points. Re-scheduled for the next day, drank lots of water, didn't drink a PM coffee that I had been accustomed to. BP was higher yet. (It wasn't a blood drive, so I did have to walk 8 blocks through downtown, got my heart rate too high also.) Since then have been trying to
a) exercise more: walks and biking
b) eat less/better: less eating the kids' dinner leftovers, more packing them up for lunches (which also prevents me from getting fast food for lunch)
c) ditched the PM coffee for good (until the busy season at work at least).
that's it so far. other recommendations for hypertension include drinking less (I typically have two beers each day on the weekends, none on weekdays), no tobacco (I don't anyways), and lower sodium consumption (I don't think I'm that high). Dad had HBP, too, not sure if he still does. I know he used some pills, and I'd prefer not to, at least not yet.
RE: Point 2
Mine has been creeping up lately, as well (when I went to donate blood, it was parked at "borderline"). It would likely be higher, but I've never been one to add extra salt to anything. My family has a history of high blood pressure on both sides, so it behooves me to pay attention to it.
That's the one thing that really worries me. I'm in decent shape, but high blood pressure runs in my family too. And once I actually looked at how much sodium is in my diet (like SBG I'm a sucker for deli meat) I was rather disturbed.
Congrats, SBG, and good luck on the next year! Your candidness in this has motivated me and many others. Thank you!
That is a big part of why I did decide to talk about things. I have enjoyed this site and its predecessor for the last nine years but too many times, I have gotten involved in stupid arguments about the Rolling Stones or some such nonsense that have left me feeling (a) that I didn't want to hang out here and argue about such things and (b) that the site could be something more than a place where people argue about the Rolling Stones or some such nonsense. The site really is more than that of course, and I'm determined for the most part not to be a negative at the site. That's not enjoyable for me or anyone else.
Therefore, I wanted to make a new contribution to the site. I mean, I started it and all, but I was feeling like I needed to move into a different role a while back. I had been feeling this mortality thing weighing on me so I started the diet. I was already doing well when Twayn had his heart attack, so I thought that I'd talk about my journey to improved health and fitness, starting with the weight loss and hopefully transitioning to a high level of fitness. My real goal is "best shape of my life" status, which I think is attainable. I may not be as fast as I once was, or be able to jump like I could, but I think I can be in a better position overall.
I also know that I'm human, I have weaknesses, and sometimes I just don't live up to my own ideals. So, there's some of that, too. I've lost a lot of weight, but even still, I'm not completely happy with my results and I feel like I have to rededicate myself all the time. I want others to know that, too.
Anyhow, I hope I've encouraged some people to break free from bad habits. I know it's not easy. It took me years of feeling bad about myself and my weight to finally get to the point where I could not take it one more day. If any of you are in need of getting in better shape, then I hope you can get to that day when you really can't take it anymore and you must do something.
the beauty of this site is that we can have adult conversations as well as silly ones. Sure, we get in pissing matches occasionally, but it seems as though we are sufficiently self-regulating as a community that we all come back to our senses quickly.
thanks again for being the guiding light and setting the community standard for civil behavior. It's why we've lasted so long and so well. You should be proud of what you created.
Congrats on the re-commitment to the program, bossman.
As many of you know from my lamentations, the Girl switched to a vegan diet a couple of years ago. I am the primary dinner cook around here, so that profoundly affected me. I cook a lot of legumes (pinto beans, black beans, lentils, kidney beans) and a lot of Indian dishes (dals, curries, etc.). We now eat very little meat, but we do splurge on occasions.
I also have a weakness for the crunchy salties. My solution is to pour a portion into a bowl, then put the bag away. Portion control works for me.
I also have a weakness for the crunchy salties. My solution is to pour a portion into a bowl, then put the bag away. Portion control works for me.
Ditto this. Realized I had a problem when I went through a box of Cheez-Its in three days. I tried harder on portion control after that, but what really helped was using a cup (or bowl for larger chips) and fill it no more than level with the top.
This is absolutely the only thing that even comes close to working for me. If the bag is around, or if it hasn't its way all the way back to the cupboard, I can eat a half a bag of pretzels or potato chips.
I really have a hard time with stopping, even if the bag is put away. I'm not above eating a whole bag of potato chips, regardless of the size of the bag. Putting them back is not good enough. If I start, I will go in for more.
I would be a horrible junkie if I ever started using hard drugs.
The *real* trick for me is to simply not start eating tasty salty things. I can eat dinner, have a soda or water and go about my night and be 100% content with not having a snack later. If I'm not thinking about it, it isn't a problem.
However, I have pretty serious snack inertia - if not eating, I'll continue not eating; if eating, I'll continue eating.
I get what you mean about the inertia. I often find it leads into full-blown meals at 10 p.m. That's not good either.
I've often had a situation where I'm hungry right after work and it's not time for dinner. 1500+ calories of junk later, I'm not hungry, and I don't eat a good dinner, either.
I used to be much, much worse about that situation than I am now that I have to make dinner for my kids.
In particular instances, I can do the cup/bowl thing. Especially with nuts. But over time I eventually get back into grabbing the whole bag. I also have the problem where my wife/family is unwilling to get rid of the stuff. My wife's extended family loves platitudes like "you kids ate chips as kids and you turned out fine" etc. This is an annoyance for more situations than just food.
Congrats on the weight loss, man, and best of luck moving forward.
I want to eat healthier, but I'll probably have to wait until after the new baby comes and the breastfeeding slows down some. She has things she says she needs to eat to help with milk supply, and since I know nothing about it I can't really argue. After that, though, I've told her I would like to reduce the amount of red meat we eat. This will be very difficult because my wife is similar to yours and won't stop bringing crap into the house. My hope is that I'll be the one to do most of the grocery shopping since it will be very hard for her to get to the store with two kids.
Like everyone else, I want to congratulate you on the achievements so far, as well as the re-commitment.
Second, I want to thank you for kicking this off a year ago. It took me about 6 months, but I finally joined in. I only really lost about 10 pounds when I got to (at least, I'm maintaining 10 pounds lighter than I was before), but that's not nothing, and I'm confident I can get back into it too, particularly with this community of support you've built up.
We're pretty different in our approaches, but there are a lot of your habits that are great examples for me, and I think I'm a healthier person a year into your fitness efforts because of those examples. In short, you should count the 10 pounds I've lost as your success too.
On a different note, tonight will conclude day 3 of the Great Pickle Experiment. I have been day-dreaming about those pickles all week. I tasted the brine this morning in checking on progress -- it tasted like dill pickles (just like Bubbies, for those who know the brand, which was my goal).
Sheenie pickled jalapeons last fall. Yummy!
Lindsey's family usually makes a number of jars of dill pickles that have jalapenos and habaneros added to the jars.
They. Are. Delicious.
We did that one summer. Totally agreed. My favorite part was that I got to eat the jalapeno as well.
I still have a jar of jalapenos I pickled when we lived in Illinois. Our last garden there was in 1998.
The aunt used to make really great refrigerator pickles. I made a cookbook a couple of years back - I will find and post.
Congrats on your progress, Boss. I finally jumped in and started exercising a couple months ago. After I had gone a solid three weeks, I posted about it on the Fitness section here for the first time. And then completely fell off the wagon.
I have some legit excuses: moved a family of six, mom with a scary health situation, vacation. But I'm primed for a reboot as well. Onward!
Good. We all just keep plugging away.
Good stuff, Stick, congrats. I've settled back into my diet/nutrition routine pretty well since early this year, but I fell off the exercise wagon during the holidays. Today I finally got off my ass, put my bike back together and went for a half hour ride. I pushed hard enough to breathe hard, break a sweat and feel the burn in my quads, but easy enough that I never felt so winded I'd have to stop. It felt really great to start shaking off the rust and I'm already looking forward to riding again tomorrow. By Labor Day I want to be riding an hour a day (my goal is to make the full 17 mile trail circuit at Elm Creek Park in an hour), with at least one 2 hour ride a week.
42 mile ride today with NBBW and the BFF. Did this: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/858602.
Nice temps, traffic wasn't too bad (some stretches of busy highway, but numerous long segments of country road). Have switched away from using Gu or Chomps to using dried cranberries/apricots/almonds, i.e. real food. Leftover cornbread is manna.
Am thinking about making a batch of jerky in the dehydrator to mix it up. Expecting a recipe from bS for this as he knows all. That pickle LTE rocked!
From here to Sept its a ramp up of miles until the Tiverton century. Thank God the temps have come down a scoche.
I've never made jerky, NBB. Looking forward to another Citizen stepping forward. AMR? You ever made venison jerky? That might be adaptable.
I made some venison jerky back in HS. I didn't chop & form, just strips of cuts.
Take a semi-frozen cut, slice thinly. Get as much fat as possible off. Put into a ziplock with your marinade for at least 24 hours.
Can't remember much of what I put in the marinade. I know there was Worcestershire sauce, some liquid smoke, some hot pepper.
Place on dehydrator rack and dehydrate. Can't remember what temperature, but it always took longer than I wanted it to. 48 hours maybe?
Liquid smoke a good idea. I will try this. Wished I had access to venison out here in CT.
NPR did an interesting story on the 5-2 diet of "mini-fasting" two days per week.
Bad link. Repost?
I fixed it.
Danke.
Interesting.
I think that fasting all day long would pretty much kill me.
The wife has been making smoothies pretty consistently every morning since we came back from The Meat Trip To Uruguay, but I just made my first one this afternoon in her Vitamix blender.
Her deal is to have some fruit (if frozen then don't need ice), some greens, some liquid (skim/coconut/almond/soy milk), something sweet (honey/agave), protein powder and of course, chia seeds.
So I made mine tonight with frozen cherries, frozen mango, broccoli rabe, raw agave nectar, protein powder and chia seeds. I added ice, but probably didn't need to. Delish!
Vitamix Rools.
The Self-cleaning Option Rools also.
Option? Was ist das?
I just rinse, put a drop of dish soap in, fill 1/3 with water, and run on high for 30 seconds or so, then rinse again.
NBBW's model 9000 (or whatever it is) has a dial that you select the cleaning option - drop of dish soap, and it determines how long to run.
And no thrall to do the rinsing?
Do have to do the rinsing. This isn't
The Year Two Thousand.
We have gotten basil for three straight weeks from the CSA. I had basil in 4 out of 5 meals this past weekend. I even had a basil smoothie for breakfast!
Weren't you the NBB that avoided animal protein? Has that ended?
It's abated. I had slider burgers on the grill tonite and chix last night.
So we have moved to about 3 or 4 meals a week being vegetarian. Maybe 1 vegan.
Pro tip: cut your basil pesto with lots of fresh spinach. The green stays nice longer and the flavor is lighter. I had leftover pesto pasta for lunch today.