Monthly Archives: March 2011

Weekly Weigh-in … Week 16

Posted on by
Reply

Bored yet?

Well, the good news is that I dropped a pound between last week and this week.  Not anything great to write home about but a reduction nonetheless and one more pound toward my goal weight (which is still a loooong way off).

So here’s the update:

Week 15 = 283.6 lbs
Week 16 = 282.6 lbs
Loss for the week = 1 lb
Total loss from Day One = 19.8 lbs
Average reduction = 1.23 lbs/week

At this rate it’ll take forever to get to my goal weight but I’m determined to keep at it.

I’m back to the gym.  I’m slowly but surely increasing my speed on the treadmill and added a few minutes to the time, as well.  Next will be the incline from level to 1% plus getting back to the circuit weights so I can build some strength.

Dealing With Hunger

The biggest challenge for me is dealing with hunger.  I’m OK at meals and not chowing down like there won’t be any food left.  It’s the in between times when I get a little peckish and want to eat something.  It doesn’t seem to matter what it is, of course, I like bananas, clementines, apples. All of them are about 105 -110 calories (the clementines are about 40 but they’re so small you really have to eat a bunch).  Graham crackers are also about 140 calories for 2 sheets (8 of those little sections). And pudding. The little cups are about 110 calories.

The calories add up no matter what the food is and, of course, “high quality” calories in the fruits and veggies are the thing to go for…

Anyway, I’m due to go to a conference in Savannah, GA in a couple of weeks and I would really like to break the 280 lb barrier even if it’s 279.9 lbs.  Stay tuned.

 

Bananas

Posted on by
2

I know.

Fruits and vegetables are supposed to be good for me.  Five servings a day or something like that.  So, I try.

There are actually some fruits I like (I’m not too big on many vegetables although I eat them).  Bananas are one.  They are slightly sweet.  Easy to prepare. Easy to consume. Lots of fiber and potassium and other nutrients.  What’s not to like?

The fact is bananas are about 105 calories a piece.  That means I can eat 20 a day and I’m done for the day.  Now, I’m not going to eat 20 bananas but I might eat two, maybe three.  Now, all of a sudden, I’ve eaten almost the equivalent of a meal.  I really have to watch what else I eat because the bananas have packed on 315 calories. That means I can another 350 calories and I have consumed a third of my calories intake for the day.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

I’m guessing that it just means that I really have to cut back on the other stuff that really has a lot of calories – bread, crackers, rice, potatoes, sugar (is this stuff all white???).  It also means I have to go easy on the meat.

I still like bananas and I will still eat them (and clementines! [50 calories a pop]).  It’s just something that I notices.  Fruit is not a “free pass” on the calorie train.

Weekly Weigh-In … Week 15

Posted on by
Reply

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

This week I actually put on .4 lbs.  Or, to put a positive spin on it, less than half a pound.

Week 14 – 283.2 lbs
Week 15 – 283.6 lbs
Total Gain (week over week) – .4 lb
Total Reduction from Day 1 – 18.8 lbs
Average Reduction per week – 1.25 lbs

I have a clue as to why progress has slowed. This past week or so I’ve been a little lax about counting all the calories I’ve been putting into my mouth. Sometimes I’ll eat something and think,”Oh, that’s just a 105 calories.  I’ll log it in later.”  Then, of course, I don’t.  Or, hey, I can’t live with “deprivation” 24/7.  I want a cookie!

Exercise is the other part of it.  I’ve been going back to the gym and slowly working up my speed on the treadmill.  I even tried out a couple of the various elliptical machines they have at the gym.  The thing is that I haven’t been going every day.   It’s not like I spend hours there and burn off tons of calories.  I burn off a few and the real deal is that I need to build the habit of going, again.

So. after 14 weeks of reductions, Week 15 was up.  Just motivation to get back on track and get going.

New Photos

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve uploaded some new photos to the photo page.  As I was looking at where I started with my photos and then where I am now, I realize it’s only 13.6 lbs.  Not enough to write home about.  It’s close to 20 lbs since I seriously started to count calories and make the concerted effort to reduce my weight.

The next set will come at the nest 20 lbs milestone which should be 263.0 lbs.  Hopefully, by then, there should be some noticeable progress in appearance.

Reading the Nutritional Label

Posted on by
Reply

OK.

So I’m trying to reduce my weight by counting calories.  No fancy programs.  No special drinks or foods.  No points or whatnot.  Just calories.

I got turned on to this by Tyler Weeks over at 344 Pounds. He’s just a regular guy who happened to lose well over 100 lbs by counting calories.  It reminds me of something I heard in an old Brian Tracy CD called The Miracle of Self Discipline — “Eat Less and Exercise More”.  Now, to be sure, if you listen to the whole CD it’ll also tell you to stay away from all the white stuff (sugar, dairy, flour) but his main message is pretty simple: burn more calories than you take in.

Pretty simple, huh.

Not As Simple As You Would Think – Odwalla: A Case Study

Last week I was on my way to San Juan, Puerto Rico on a short business/pleasure trip and leaving out of Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport (say that three times fast).  It was an early flight so I didn’t have any time to eat anything at home.  I figured I’d get something to tide me over at the airport.  Sure enough.  There was one of those little places that serves bagels and pastries and other goodies including Odwalla beverages.

Now these are suppose to be good drinks so I grabbed one.  It also looked small so I thought it might be relatively low in calories.  Not zero.  After all, it wasn’t “diet” Odwalla.  I looked at what I thought was a 16 oz bottle (about 3 swallows) and it said 150 calories.  Not terrific but not bad, either.

So, I swilled it down and I was talking to my wife, the USDA Nutritionist, and she politely pointed out that the label mentioned that the drink was 150 per serving and that the bottle said it was “about 2 servings”.  A serving size in this case is 8 oz (240 mL). Here’s the catch. The bottle is filled in milliliters not oz. so the bottle is really not 16 oz. It’s more like 15.216310216 ozs.

You with me?

Sure, it’s close enough to be 16 ozs. or 2 servings but it’s really not.  Actually, in this case, the difference is negligible except for one thing.  The bottle is so small that it really looks like it should be one serving and given the bottle it’s packaged in it really makes you think it is one serving.  But, it’s not.

It’s “about 2 servings”.

No Standard

The real challenge with counting calories is that there is really no standard for what a serving size should be or how it should be packaged.  Oh yeah.  I know.  These are multi-national companies that package in the metric system because, after all, the US is the only country that still has the silly US system of measurements.  Everyone else in the world is metric. Although, I’m guessing that not everywhere else in the world requires the nutritional labeling written in American English (vs British English…or French).

So, even when you want to be diligent about calories you can’t rely on nutritional labeling.

Odd, isn’t it.  All this Government regulation in order to help us consumers make informed choices about what we put in our mouths and we still can’t quite figure it out just by reading the label.

Just sayin’

Weekly Weigh-in … Week 14

Posted on by
Reply

Hoooo-ray!

Even though I went on a little business trip to an exotic locale (if you can call San Juan, Puerto Rico exotic) and didn’t log everything that went into my mouth, I was still able to reduce my weight.

Last week — 284.6 lbs
This week — 283.2 lbs
Reduced — 1.4 lbs
Total from the beginning — ~19 lbs give or take a few tenths

Of course, my all time high was about 303 lbs right before the Christmas holidays but I started actually counting around the beginning of the New Year.

The Way I Eat

Obviously, the ideal is to keep track of everything I put into my mouth and to add it to my online calorie counter and exercise log. It tells me how many calories I should take in just to maintain my current weight (my Basal Metabolic Rate). However, life is not ideal.

In addition to going to San Juan between last week and today I also went to a chili dinner fundraiser thing for a local swim club in my area.  It wasn’t a lot of food but it was chili (with cheese and rice and cornbread and cookies…you get the idea).  I think just the awareness of the fact that I want to keep reducing my weight is helping me from going completely nuts and loading up plate after plate.

Now, though, I don’t think I have any big meals on the horizon – fundraisers, professional associations, meeting friends for dinner – anything like that.  So, now I can get back to watching those calories more closely.

Back To The Gym

I also went back to the gym yesterday for the first time since my arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus.  30 minutes on the treadmill at 2.0 mph.  That’s a pretty leisurely stroll but it was 30 minutes straight and it burned 163 calories that wouldn’t have burned otherwise.  As time goes on. I’ll increase my speed, increase the incline to the treadmill and increase the burn rate on the calories.  I’ll also get back into the circuit training which helps with the strength and, I’m told, also helps burn the weight off a tad faster.  Plus, I need to make sure my muscle tone doesn’t go completely to hell.  Not that there is that much of it now.

So, all in all, I’m pleased that I’m making progress at about 1.357 pounds a week.  It would be nice to step it up and maybe getting back to the gym will help with that.  I’m still looking at a goal weight that is a looong way down the road.

Onward.

Eating On Vacation

Posted on by
Reply

I recently went on a little vacation.  It was really more like a long weekend away.  My wife and I went to  a conference in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The weather was great, the company was great and the conference was took up just enough time during the day to leave plenty of time for sightseeing and other activities.

The real downside to going away, of course, is that there are so many opportunities to eat.  There is the conference food — typically a “Continental” breakfast of pastries and coffee.  Yeah, there’s fruit but I haven’t learned how to eat that, yet. Lunch was pretty simple and almost tasteless so it was easy to, er, go easy on lunch.  It was dinner that was the real killer.

Night One was dinner with a group of other Marylanders at one of the area’s premier restaurants. Since we were a group, the menu was limited but the salad, entree, and dessert were still plentiful.  Luckily, it’s easy for me to stay away from the alcohol calories.

Night Two was dinner on our own but since my wife’s nap took a little longer than expected we ended up at on of the hotel’s restaurants.  This was a nice place but, again, the food was plentiful and since it was a steak house, we ordered steak which is not know as a low-cal food.

Night Three was a conference sponsored dinner.  This was more portion controlled but still plenty of rolls and butter along with a tasty entree and a fabulous dessert.

On Our Own

We stayed an extra day for the heck of it.  OK, not for the heck of it, more because we had never been to San Juan and wanted to do some walking around in Old San Juan.  Oh, by the way, we wanted t taste some authentic Puerto Rican food. So we stopped at a couple of local restaurants and a couple of food vendors.  WE had some good food and some good sweets.

Quite frankly, by this time, I was getting worried about how many calories I was piling on.  I thought for sure when I stepped on the scale when I got back home it would tell me I was back to where I started.  I didn’t step on it right away.  It was a couple of days.  I though it might be a good idea to let me body re-adjust to my home routine. So, I got on the scale this morning and was both shocked and amazed and pleasantly surprised that I actually weighed in at slightly less than when I left.

The Official Weigh-In Will Tell The Tale

Hopefully, this will hold up until I weigh my self tomorrow for my official weigh-in day.  It’s a good feeling to know that I can go on vacation and be aware of what I am eating without having to log every calorie that goes into my mouth. Frankly, I wouldn’t have a clue as to what calorie level to assign to some of the stuff I ate.  It was all good and possibly even nutritious but I have no idea on how to break down the calories.

So tomorrow will tell the tale.  Can I keep my progress intact?

Weekly Weigh-In … Week 13

Posted on by
Reply

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was a little disappointed in my weight.  Primarily, because I was eating too much.  Well, I don’t know how I did it but I managed to reduce another pound between last week and this week.  Anything is progress and I’m certainly glad to be down a pound.

This week the scale tipped at 284.6.  Last week it read 285.6.  That’s a reduction of 18 lbs so far. A little over a pound a week.

Hey, a pound is a pound.  Especially since I’m not back to the gym, yet.  That will be coming sooner rather than later.  My knee is starting to feel better and I think I can probably start back light in another week or two at the most.  At least, that’s my plan.

It was really a week of ups and downs.  I ate more than I should and ate out more than I should.  So I’m really glad that I didn’t gain.

This week I’ll be in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico though Monday.  I really need to watch what I’m doing.  The conference I’m attending is providing food and, of course, we have to try out the local haunts while we’re here.  I’m determined to keep a lid on it, though. I don’t want to start going up.

The Clothes Make The Man

One of the nice side benefits of reducing weight is that my clothes are starting to feel just the tiniest bit more comfortable and, maybe, even a little loose.  I tried on a suit that would have been out of the question a couple of months ago and I can actually fit into it (again).

The other nice thing was that the airline seat wasn’t horrible.  Yes, it was still a tight squeeze but I was able to fasten my seat belt without the extender (barely) and all that is progress.  Sometimes it’s not only the number on the scale.  It’s the way things fit and how you feel moving around.

I can hardly wait to get to my goal weight (180 lbs).  Won’t that be sweet.

The journey continues.

Falling Off The Wagon…Temporarily

Posted on by
Reply

I’m about to go on a short business/pleasure trip to beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico.  It’ll be the first time I’ve gone there and there will be some meals as part of the conference and, of course, the eating “on our own”, as the agenda says.

But, that’s not the topic of this post.  You see, I was planning to do my Weekly Weigh-in today.  I have to get up super early tomorrow in order to get out the door and to the airport in time to catch a relatively early flight.  So, I thought, I’d do it today and then go back to Thursday next week when I get back.

Well, the road to hell are paved with good intentions.  I stepped on the scale this morning and surely thought I had gone to hell.  I was up (I won’t say how much) but it was more than I wanted to admit to the world via the Internet. Of course, you don’t go to hell without sinning, first, and that’s exactly what has been happening.

Eating For The Sake Of Eating

Over the last week I’ve been eating later at night and I’ve eaten out for a couple of lunches.  To top it all off, I had this huge breakfast yesterday morning topped by a ridiculously fattening and high calorie meal last night at a local restaurant.  It’s not even a restaurant I like very much.  It just happened to be convenient and fast.

Yes, there was stuff on the menu that would have been a better choice but between being hungry and wanting to “let loose” I ordered the fish and chips.  Wrong choice.  Very wrong choice.  Not only was it deep fired within an inch of it’s previous life and horrible looking and bad tasting, it was mega calorie. As if that wasn’t bad enough, i ordered dessert which I shared with my wife but still….

So, I learned my lesson.

Keeping Nutrition In Mind

If I’m  going to fall off the wagon, I want to do it with food that is well prepared and tastes good and may even be nutritionally good for me. This eating garbage just to satisfy hunger just doesn’t get it.

So I’m going to get up early tomorrow morning, hop in the shower and write down my weight.  The nice thing about the Internet is that I don’t have to be in my house, at my dining room table (as I am right now) to weigh in and report.  I can do that from virtually anywhere and I’ll certainly be able to do it from a hotel room in San Juan.

Today, I’m really going to watch what I eat and drink lots and lots of water.  Maybe swill down some psyllium in the hopes of flushing out my system.

Stay tuned.  I’ll report tomorrow whether it’s up, down or sideways.

Eating After Six

Posted on by
5

It seems that as life moves on dinner time gets later and later.  I remember the days when dinner used to be about 5:30 or 6:00.  Of course, those might have been the days when Mom cooked dinner and when a job that was 9 to 5 really meant that you left the office at 5.

Nowadays things have changed. People work later.  Sometimes much later. 9 to 5 has been replaced with “work until the project is done because we’re on deadline” or 8 to 6 or whatever.  Two income families. After school activities like soccer or dance or music lessons or even math tutoring.  What it means is that dinner doesn’t happen until much, much later in the evening.

Late Night Calories

The downside of this late night eating is the addition of some hefty calories at exactly the time you don’t need them — right before bedtime.  Yep. Just before you lay you head on the pillow or veg out in front of the tube or computer for an hour or two, you pack on about 1000 calories. Give or take.

I know that’s what seems to happen at my household.

My wife doesn’t get home until about 7:00 or 7:30 a lot of the time. Then there are the times I’m out with clients until it gets dark and beyond. All this means a very late night of eating. Iif we don’t have a “meal” we’ll snack on all the stuff that really have the calories. I don’t know what’s worse.

I remember back many, many years ago when I visited a hypnotherapist to lose weight.  At the time, it actually worked because I dropped about 60 lbs in 3 months. Something I remember, to this day, is a direction (post-hypnotic suggestion?) he gave was never to eat after 6:00. He gave all the reasons I just went through plus some more kinda metaphysical reasons why eating after six was a bad idea.

I don’t know about the mumbo jumbo reasons but I have noticed, recently, that if I don’t eat after six or if I snack on some fruit, I will actually weigh less the next morning.  Coincidence? Maybe. There have been occasions when I’ve been out to dinner and weighed less the next morning and instances when I really watched what I ate and weighed more. I’ve got to think, though that eating after six is really more downside than not.

In any case, no matter when I eat I need to be aware of my calorie intake. Packing on huge amounts of calories doesn’t work no matter what time of day it is.