Sustainability

The Facts: I have lost 9 lbs in 12 days so far. I started at 258 and I weighed in this morning at 249. I am currently 5 below my pacing line which would put me about 14 days ahead of schedule.

Sustainability – being able to sustain things long term. I have went about this weight loss with a whole different mindset that I have on previous attempts. My goals was not just to lose weight (which I have done on a number of occasions), but rather it was to settle in on a somewhat normal lifestyle that would reduce my weight my “body’s natural weight” (whatever the heck that is) and then I would hopefully stay there long term. The trend of my adult life has been a slow perpetual weight gain, where I would slowly creep up to near 250 or 260, and then I would crash diet and lose 40 or so lbs and then the slow weight gain would start back up again. I knew in the back of my mind that I could not keep this pattern up long term. This time around I am searching for the new normal on food and exercise that isn’t forced, looks and feels natural and doesn’t disrupt my family. Am I there yet…no, not yet, but I am slowly finding out what works and what doesn’t.

For example: Last Thursday my dinner consisted of a Wendy’s Chili and a baked potato. I didn’t feel like it was enough calories, but I stopped there anyway. I went to bed a little hungrier than usual. The next morning I got up and I worked out, and then my normal breakfast of two eggs, cheese, black beans and salsa was not enough. That usually is enough to tide me over to my protein shake 3 hours later. But since I didn’t give myself enough calories the night before, my body burned through breakfast too fast, thus leaving me hungry again an hour or two later. It threw my whole day off since I was snacks during times I wasn’t used to.

Day 1 Day 12

Day 1 Day 12

The Restaurant Dilemma

When I go out to a restaurant, I am always trying to determine one of two paths to take: do I exercise restraint with the choices I make or do I let loose and enjoy this treat. Here lies the proplem...one indulgent meal won't bury me. In theory this is true, but in practicality it could bury me. Ask any teacher "does one missing homework assignment put me in danger of failing, or is it the culmination of missing homework assignments?" I think the answer is yes to both.

Restaurant food is a special food that is different from the food that I make at home. That is why I want to eat as much as I can while I am out because it tastes so good. Will I never be able to stuff my face until my body falls into a food coma again? Restaurants can be a very dangerous place for people like me who have struggle with portion control. People like my wife don't seem to struggle with going out to eat. She doesn't seem to have this dilemma that I do. I know that I can't flip a switch and be like her, but I have found that the following works best for me.

My solution to this issue is that I have to make the decision about how I am going to eat prior to arriving at the restaurant. Like my pastor said at church on Sunday: "Plan your work and work your plan." If I am going out to a Mexican restaurant...yes, I will allow myself to eat chips and salsa or no I will not. If I'm heading out to a steakhouse...yes, I will chose to eat one roll or no I won't eat any. Prior to heading into Chick-fil-a....do I get the grilled or the fried, do I compensate by not getting the fries? These are the decisions I must make prior to stepping into the doors of a restaurant if I want to have a better chance of success. If I don't own up to a decision, then the food will own up to it for me.

Josh's Weight Loss- 7 Days In

Purpose of this post:

1. What did I eat

2. Workout schedule

3. Discovery/Future Strategy

4. Show updated pics

1. What did I eat:

I decided to keep track of my food intake for the past week just to see if I thought I was eating too much, so here we go: 3 bananas, 4 apples, a serving of broccoli, 2 servings of bar-b-que pork, turkey soup, 5 servings of chicken and rice, 4 protein shakes, 6 eggs and cheese, 3 servings of black beans, a salad, a taco salad, 3 tacos, 3 grilled chicken breasts, a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, half a bag of doritos (I had a moment of weakness with the spicy and sweet purple bag kind), a serving of grits, two servings of beef lo mien, a zucchini, a yellow squash, two servings of roasted potatoes, a bagel with peanut butter, a grilled chicken sandwich and a molten brownie dessert (more on this last item later).

2. Workout schedule:

I got a workout in tuesday, thursday and friday morning for roughly 40 minutes each. I warmed up with about a 1/4 mile jog and mixed cardio in with my weight training. Over these three days, I pretty much worked out every muscle group and got in about 2000 total jumps on a jump rope. I'll aim for roughly 2,500 jumps on a jump rope this week (or a little more than 600 per workout). I can already tell a difference in the mirror with my muscle tone.

3. Discovery:

Even after a significant decrease in my calorie consumption, I am still eating a ton of food. I have discovered in previous weight loss ventures that my most critical hours are those just after dinner until bed. It was often that I would consume as many calories during that time as I would during my evening meal. So in order combat that I decided to focus on one thing and that was not snacking after dinner. Within reason, I did not exercise any portion control during my dinner with the amount of food I would eat...that will come later...for two reasons. 1) So I devote all mental energy on no after dinner snacking and 2) to fill my belly so I wouldn't want more food later. So far 7 nights equals 7 victories. Now to the issue of dessert: I still wanted to remain as normal as I could, I decided to allow myself one planned dessert per week. This would allow me to resemble a more realistic eating schedule and allow me to enjoy time with friends or family on the weekends when we normally hang out. My biggest victory of the week was at board game night over at a friend’s house. He bought a huge tub of two bite brownies (110 calories each) from Costco. Where I have been known to pop 20 or 30 of those in an evening, I didn't eat a single one. I didn't plan for it, so I didn't eat it. Wish I could say the same for the doritos he had at the house.

4. Pics

6 lbs in 7 days. I’ll include the graph next week, but I’m ahead of pace, so I am happy with that.

Upcoming Posts:

The Restaurant Dilemma, Creating the New Normal

Josh's Weight Loss Log

Alright here we go. Starting tomorrow on 1/18/11 I am going to begin my weight loss journey again. See if I can get it right this time. My goal is to lose roughly 40lbs by mid May. What is in mid May you ask? Carrie Anne and I are running in the warrior dash together. It's kind of a arbitrary date for me, but I find things easier when I have a start date and an end date to commit to. Plus it works out to about a 1lb every three days. I think this will be a good pace for me. I have posted "before" pics below and will be updating the pics every week or so along this journey. I have also posted my trend line if I were to lose my weight in a linear fashion over the next few months. The horizontal axis is the number of days since the starting day and of course the vertical axis is my body weight. Using the graph, you can see if I am at, above or below my pace line. (I stole this idea from personal conversation with Zac Caudell http://zaccaudell.wordpress.com , though this blog is inactive now.) Enjoy.