Back to Losing Weight… (smh)

Oh yes, I’m back, and I’m once again, fatter than I should be! AAAAACCCKKKK!!! Yup, I’ve lost more weight in my life than most people have solely because I keep gaining it back again. I’m still dealing with my Plantar Facsitis so I still can’t really go running still. Hockey just started last Sunday and I was feeling it like you wouldn’t believe.

Monday (10-30-2016) I got back on a kick to lower my food intake. I’m counting calories, but I’m not looking to cut my calorie intake too much below 2000 daily. I’m looking to include a lot more fruits and vegetables into my daily diet. I’m still looking to establish a goal beyond just my weight. Something more along the lines of a physical achievement. We’ll see what I come up with.

I’m thinking about just doing a weekly post to recap the week and what’s coming up.

Wish me luck everyone. Sorry, but we gotta do this again. 🙂

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Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 21 | Eating Less Is Easy

That’s right, I’ve discovered the secret to eating less, and it’s so easy anybody can do it.

What’s the secret? How do I eat less?

Burn your food. Yup, it’s that easy. Just burn it all and you’ll lose your appetite really fast.

That’s what happened just 30 minutes ago for me. I was making some toast and had to flip the bread because it was a tall loaf. Shortly after pressing the lever, my almost 2 year old woke up, so I had to go get him out of his crib and change him. In that short amount of time, my wonderful toast went from perfectly toasted, to wonderfully burnt. Now, that didn’t stop me from eating said toast, but after each undelightful bite, my appetite waned until halfway through the 2nd slice, I was no longer hungry.

There you have it folks, to eat less is as easy as increasing cook times and boom, you’ll never overeat again.

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 16 | Yup… It’s Still Minnesota!

Two days ago we had 50+ degree weather and zero snow. Fast forward to this morning and well… here you go.

I just took that picture so we’re already starting to melt away some of that snow, but I think we got nearly 12 inches of snow overnight. That closed the schools in my area and thus, allowed me to work from home today.

Working from home usually presents some interesting challenges to my eating. Today is no different. After missing breakfast because of a lack of time to run upstairs to grab something I had a good lunch that filled me up, but now I’m stricken with hunger again. I was going to grab a breakfast bar, but remembered at the last moment that we have some healthier options. Here’s what I’m choosing instead of the breakfast bar.

Not a bad alternative. Granted, it’s not going to quench my hunger nearly as much as the other stuff I wanna eat, but it’s totally better for me.

How do you  quench your afternoon snack urges?

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 14 | If it were that easy…

Yesterday I had a comment on my last post asking if I’d considered just eating a healthy diet and not worrying so much about losing weight (I’m paraphrasing). I’ve been posed this before and my answer seems to always be the same.

If only it were that easy.

Yes, the right thing to do is to eat healthy. That’s what we all want in life, or at least most of us I guess. If it were that easy, however, I would already be doing that. It’s easy to say, “just eat healthy” it’s a completely different thing to actually do it.

Everybody has their own personal demons. Some of us struggle with similar demons, and others have inner demons so incredibly different from others. As much as I’d love to just eat better, there’s something inside me (mentally) that just doesn’t allow me to make that an easy en devour. I can go for long periods of time in which my discipline is quite remarkable, and I eat healthy and I maintain my weight. Then, something comes up, and I lose that discipline. Then I gain weight. The fact that I can recognize this and right the ship is what’s important. Some of my methods for losing weight aren’t the best; they don’t follow what nutritionists or fitness experts would recommend. The problem is, what the experts recommend, is often a cookie cutter approach that doesn’t truly address the underlying problem. All the plans in the world technically work or could work; they all revolve around reducing calories in some way and increasing activity. Very few weight loss or health plans really address the mental aspects of what’s causing us to overeat. Many diets claim that sugars and other non-natural ingredients cause us cravings, which in turn cause us to overeat. Possibly, but for me, it feels like it’s something much deeper than all of that.

I don’t have an addiction to food per say, but I do have something going on. Perhaps it’s how I deal with stress, or anxiety, but it’s not because I’m eating too much sugar. Do I feel better when I don’t eat junk food? Yes, and I’m not saying you should just eat garbage food. What I’m saying is we need to get to the true root of our weight issues. Perhaps then, it will be easy to just eat healthy without worrying about our weight.

If it works for you to eat healthy, awesome! Kudos to you and I recommend you continue with it. It’s never worked for me as a long term solution, because that’s not a solution for me. It’s simply a result of a deeper solution, that sometimes I’m on the right track with, and other times I’m not. So as much as I appreciate tips, tricks, recommendations etc. I really feel there’s a lot more to living healthy and more often than not, it has nothing to do with food for a lot of us. When I talk to friends and family about their own weight loss or health goals, I’m less likely to give them suggestions about what has worked for me, unless they ask. I typically ask questions that will go a little deeper to see if they understand what is causing them their issues. Some of us have never thought about why we overeat. Others are very aware. Being aware is probably the first step to becoming truly healthy.

Finally, don’t shy away from giving advice. When you give tips, if it’s done with respect and compassion, no matter the usefulness of the information, it is conveying support more than information, which is exactly what we all need. So I thank the commenter and I hope they understand, I felt supported by you and I hope you don’t feel contempt from me at all. That is not my intent. It sparked a thought in me that I thought I’d share with my 3 other followers (ha ha).

Good luck everyone on your goals. Keep up the good work, and always know, if you stumble, you can still pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and someone will be along to support you.

 

 

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 13 | Weigh In

It’s day 13 and my second weigh in of this Weight Loss Ultimatum challenge. I should back up a bit, first and talk about how I did over the weekend.

Not very good! Yeah, I didn’t follow any of my plans for the weekend. I ate way too much, way too often. Anyway, I had a great weekend even with the poor eating.

Obviously this must have negatively affected my weigh in, but still I managed to have a successful week. It could have been better I bet, but I’m satisfied with what I got. Let’s get on with it and see.

Starting Weight = 210.0 lbs

Current Weight = 207.8 lbs

Weight Loss This Week = 2.2 lbs

Total Overall Weight Loss = 3.6 lbs

Hey, that’s not too bad. Just over 2 lbs in a week is very satisfying. Let’s make this week just as successful.

Have a great week everyone!

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 10 | Fish Fry Tonight!

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with myself. Over the last 10 days, I’ve only gone over my calories 2 days. Those days, though I didn’t track my calories, I know I didn’t go overboard with the eating. The first 10 days of this are a massive success. I know I’ve lost some weight, though I fear my weigh in on Monday might not show that weight loss. Why? Well, tonight we have a big fish fry event we’re taking the kids to. Then tomorrow, the kids go to the grandparents house from 10am until Sunday after church. That means it’s a date night for the wife and I. We’ve got a B-Day party to go to.

What’s all that mean? Sounds like a fun weekend. What’s the problem? Problem is there’s a ton of temptations coming at me. Good luck me! I’m gonna need it.

Tell me, what are your strategies when you know there’s going to be a couple days of bad food thrown in your face? How do you manage what you eat without being that person who’s constantly entering foods into their phone in the corner. The person who constantly is say “Sorry, thanks, but no, I’m on a diet, I can’t eat that” to the host/hostess of the party/event.

My strategy, I think, is to partake. Yup, I’m going to eat the things I want to, but I’m gonna allow myself to not finish it. I grew up in a clean plate home. You ate everything on your plate or you sat at the table until it was gone. Now, as an adult, it’s ingrained in me to not allow a morsel of food to go to waste. Clean plate methods I believe lead more often to overeating and thus, leads to me living in fatty mc’fattertonville much of my life. This weekend, I’ll allow myself a bite or two of something I like and then not finish it. Even writing that makes me feel like I’m slapping every starving child in the face. I can use that guilt to keep me from taking too many of those things so I don’t have to throw too much food away. I absolutely hate throwing food away.

So, how do you deal with temptations?

Have a great weekend and good luck!

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 9 |And I Almost Gave Up

Day 9 and the real trials are starting now. I soooo wanted to break down and trash the diet for lunch. It didn’t help that I didn’t really prepare a balanced meal for lunch. Even by my standards, I should have had at a minimum 100 more calories in my lunch today. I’m pretty stocked though. I went to get myself a “snack” and came out with these.

For 1.58 oz you get 100 calories. Awesome! There’s protein, a little bit of salt, but not too much. This is exactly what I needed. There’s a problem. They taste horrible!

A horrible tasting snack means, I’m not hungry at all after eating these. That’s exactly what I needed. Go Edamame things (Just call them what they are, soy beans).

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 8 | Is it working?

I’m officially working on week 2 of my Weight Loss Ultimatum and I have to say, it’s been easier than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I feel hungry a lot, but it’s certainly not a starvation feel. It’s a feeling I can ignore and it usually goes away. I’ve been staying pretty close to my allotted 1,400 calories per day which is pretty amazing. I’ve not been giving myself any activity calories, but some of that is simply because I haven’t been getting to the gym as regularly as I should. That will change now that my cold is pretty much gone.

That’s about all I’ve got for this post. Things are pretty mundane thus far. No major updates.

Have a great day everyone. Keep up the awesome work.

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 7 | Force of Habit

It’s day 7 of my new life. How many times have I said something like that? I’ve gone on quite a few weight loss challenges and been very successful most of the time. I’m quite good at losing weight (almost as good as gaining weight in the first place), but I’m quite horrible at keeping that weight off. Now, to be fair, the first time I lost a large amount of weight, I managed to keep it off for several years. What changed? My wife and I had a kid, then another, and then another. In the last 7 1/2 years since we had our first child, I’ve been having a harder time keeping my weight in check. There just isn’t enough time in the day. There just isn’t enough energy in my tank. There’s all sorts of excuses. I’m never happy with the fact that I keep falling. Luckily, I keep picking myself up, brushing myself off, and starting all over again.

This brings me to my overall point. Have you ever heard someone say, “All it takes is 30 days to create a new habit that is lasting.” Yeah, I have too, way too many times. Frankly, I don’t believe it. Why? I’ve gone over 200+ days of watching what I eat, multiple times. Keeping track of what I eat. Eating better foods. Making sacrifices. Yes, for some of those 200+ days I did some extreme things, so I cannot, and should not count those days as part of the habit building. Near the end of the diet, I was eating balanced meals daily. Why is this mentality so flawed? Well, my opinion, it’s shallow; it has no substance. Just building a habit isn’t enough. A habit implies that you will not have to work hard at some point; that you will somehow go into auto-pilot when you hit 30 days and it will be smooth sailing from there. Yes, 30 days is helpful to start a new habit, but if you haven’t had a lifetime of building a new habit yet, it’s probably not a real habit. A real habit has seen the test of time. It’s seen the new babies, the injuries, the friends and family members who have gotten sick and passed away; real habits have overcome all of that. Then, and only then is it truly a habit.

Don’t get caught in simple, empty promises of a quick fix. Losing weight is easy, but keeping it off for good is not. There is no quick fix. Those who tout these, “just do this…” or “just do that… ” singular ideas are just selling you something that is false. Yes, those recommendations may likely work. I strongly believe most weight loss ideas will work if you are consistent with them. It’s the maintenance of that weight loss that nobody has really addressed. Myself, I overeat for a lot of reasons. Never have I ever truly been able to address all of them. Something new seems to crop up, and I wind up having to start losing weight again, and you know what, that’s ok. It’s ok to not be successful in keeping the weight off the rest of your life. Don’t beat yourself up just because you gained some or all of the weight back. It’s what you do when you’ve realized it that’s important. If you have to lose the same 30 lbs every other year for the rest of your life, isn’t that better than simply gaining 30 lbs every other year until you’re too big to move? I think it is.

My opinions are just that, opinions. I realize I have a lot of personal growth I need in order to truly conquer the food/weight issues I have, but I know in my heart, I’ve conquered my weight already. It’s the other battles I’m still working on. Weight is simply a symptom.

Good luck everyone with your weight loss/maintenance goals. You can do it. We’re all in this together. Find people who will support and love you, and you’ll be ok, but be ready to work hard on it, the rest of your life. It’s worth it!

Weight Loss Ultimatum – Day 6 | First Weigh In

The weekend didn’t go super well. I was feeling under the weather for the majority of it so that apparently means I don’t need to track what I eat. I wouldn’t say I ate horribly, and I’ll just leave it there.

I’ve decided to make Monday mornings my official weigh in day. This way I’m more likely to eat better over the weekend (except this one I guess) and I’m more likely to write a post about it.

Without further ado, let’s see how we did.

Starting Weight = 211.4 lbs

Current Weight = 210.0 lbs

Weight Loss This Week = 1.4 lbs

I’m actually pretty happy with that number. It’s not amazing, but it’s success. Especially considering the weekend I had. I’m back on track this morning with a nice breakfast of yogurt and a granola bar and my lunch is pretty close to the same. I don’t plan on doing yogurt twice a day normally, but I was in such a hurry this morning it’s what I was able to grab.

How was your weekend? Did you stay on track or were you like me? When you fall off the wagon, what do you do to get back on?

Have a great day everyone!