February comes and goes

Sad news today. And yesterday to a lesser degree. I read that Paul Harvey passed away. I always enjoyed listening to his news reports... there's a major part of Americana gone with him. And then yesterday was the last day teh Rocky Mountain News was printed. I remember doing an internship in Holyoke, Colorado 25 years ago and being so enamored with the size of the comic section in the Rocky. It's kinda sad to see it go.

Okay, so, time for an end of month report. I'm typing this without my contacts so, if i'm making big typos I can't see, so forgive me in advance.

This morning I weighed in at 355.0. My measurements were 59.5 chest, 59.5 waist and 51.5 hips. So if I remember right (I did just go back and read last month's numbers a few minutes ago, so if I'm wrong it's... um... yeah, my contacts are out, that's the ticket! (Better that than admitting to bad short term memory). Anyway, I was 59.5 on the chest, 60 waist, 54 in the hips, so right now it looks like it's the hips that are doing the best. I was at 367.6, so in February I lost 12.6 pounds. And, that puts me at 38 pounds overall, almost 20 percent of my goal.

I'm really happy with how things have been the last couple weeks. I've done well at avoiding any kind of binges or serious falls off the wagon. Granted, on South Beach, y ou have more flexibility in foods than Atkins, they encourage adding more carbs into your diet. This is far less restrictive than when I was on Atkins, for example I have oatmeal most mornings (whole grain, not the instant stuff -- more fiber and lower glycemic index) and some breads, some whole wheat pasta, stuff like that. And with the intensified exersise the past couple weeks, it's all going really, really well.

Walking for the month, I did just over 41 miles. I've been tracking it at www.mapmyrun.com, so that's why I'm not reporting it here so much now like i was doing earlier. I think there's a widget I can put on here that shows my progress from that site, so I'll have to look into that. I only did 8 miles on the bike... mostly just very cold weekends. Now, of that 41 miles, 30 of it came in the past two weeks. So I'm very pleased with all of that.

Two more days until the final weigh in at the Biggest Loser group. Now I'm finding I'm a couple pounds heavier by the end of the day than i am at the beginning, and so adding on 3 pounds for clothes, right now I'm figuring I'd weigh in at 360, which is 8 pounds down from the last weigh in. And of course it depends on progress the next 2 days too... i'd love to nail the 10 pound mark for the week! That would feel like a good sense of accomplishment. But even still, right now that all puts me at 26 pounds down if i'm where i think according to their scale... not bad for 6 weeks.

If I can keep at that pace i'm going to be pushing 300 by the Bolder Boulder... yikes! Or even if I look at the overall pace of 38 pounds in 3 months (including Christmas)... another 3 months like that and i'm at 317. Still very very nice.... this is getting really encouraging, seeing signs of being a bit thinner, feeling a LOT thinner...

Here's to a great March!

Up-Scale.... or is that down-scale?

So just out of curiosity, I got on my wife's scale. Now when I started this whole thing, I had gone out to get a new scale because I was too heavy for hers -- 350 pound limit. In fact the new scale I got wouldn't work to begin, and it had a 380 pound capacity. Sooooooo.... it weighed me in at 356.4. It works!!!! I can use that scale. Which is good because mine took enough of a beating that it's getting kinda incoherent. Well, maybe coherent but way off at times. I mean I'd love to believe it when it weighs in at 335. It was constantly hitting the 340's, so the past week or so it's been really hard to know where I fit in... and so to have this one work and to work so nicely (and other weighins have been rather consistent) is a pretty awesome feeling.

So that puts me in at more than 36 pounds lost!!! Woohoooo.

My brother, who's been getting back into running the past couple years, is going to do the Bolder Boulder on Memorial Day. It's a 10K run, and he's been trying to talk me into doing it. My first reaction was, no way, i'm not getting into running. I'm not ready for that. I think once I get closer to 300 maybe, but I don't want to risk my knee right now. But... as I look through the site they have a lot of different groups or waves, and some of the last waves are set aside for walkers who plan to take 2 hours or more... now I know I can do that, in fact I'm sure I could make it in less than 1:45. I just did a 4 mile walk tonight in 68 minutes, so add half to that. The nice thing is I felt I could easily keep going, so this is a good thing.

All things considered, I could have a 10 pound week... that would make for a nice final weigh in at the Biggest Loser group. I'm really kinda disappointed though that it's ending. There's a nice group of people, but maybe the biggest thing to it is the accountability, there's a group there to weigh in around, and even though the weigh ins aren't public, it's like it's a real guage to how I'm doing. The accountability of a group like that is huge.

Guess that's something to keep in mind, especially if and when I plateau, is to find a group that continues to meet.

So, 36 down, shooting for 40 soon and very soon....

An Awesome Weekend

Okay, so it's Monday night, so I'll get down to details here right away before getting into the weekend. At weigh in I lost 1.7 pounds for the week. I really had no idea what to expect, the scale at home is wonky and then today I had a service call for work that went well into the day, so lunch was rather late, and by that time I was starved. Now I think i did pretty good, it was a grilled chicken salad at Carl Jr's, but with a mongo diet coke. As late as that was, and not really any time to ummm.... process it all? I didn't know how I'd do, so I was pretty pleased.

So there's one week to go, and I know I'm in the running. In fact I'm finding myself pretty ready to go all out this next week. Nothing stupid I don't think, just good sensible eating and good sensible exercise. Maybe the one thing I think I'll do differently though is, I'm kicking diet soda at least for the week. I'm hooked on the stuff, big time, but I think for the next week I'm going to make a big effort to go heavy on the water drinking, which I know I should do anyway, and cut out the other stuff. Okay, maybe a coffee in the morning or a glass of milk, but none of the other stuff.

I'm kinda guessing my weight to be 363 right now, which would be right at 30. My hope is that by next Monday night I can use my wife's scale, which goes to 350. Not that I expect to lose 13 by then, but I'm thinking it will actually go up to 355, and if i can get that to register, I'd be just thrilled with that.

Okay, so... the weekend. It got off to an pretty incredible start. Friday night our church was having a men's retreat down by Colorado Springs, it was a pretty nice little retreat center. Beautiful country! And there was a lot of hurrying to get out the door, but as I got home before taking right off again, there was a letter from my son Josh, the one in Basic Training.

Fortunately someone else was driving, so that gave me the chance to read... which I'm really glad because it would have been hard to drive. He started out saying he knew I had ears and eyes and could tell there were areas he'd fallen away in his faith, but... to make a long letter short, he rediscovered his faith. He talked about what it meant when I said I was proud of him, and he wants to make me proud even more.

The thing is... there's nothing else he has to do to do that. Just him being the man he is makes me proud. I hope and pray I do a good job communicating that. He needs to know.

Then the retreat was pretty good as well. It was just good to get away a bit, connect with other men from the church, and we had some pretty good messages. Jim Weidman, formerly known as the Family Night guy with Focus On The Family, spoke. I thought it was pretty cool to get a guy who was already somewhat known to speak to a small group of 40 guys. I thought he was really good, and really stirred up a lot of thoughts about how to grow as a man, a husband, and a father.... The fellowship was great, and it's amazing how good a group of 40 guys can sound singing praises together. Okay, we were also blessed by having a great worship leader...

I'm quite happy right now with the church family I'm a part of. I never thought I'd say that about a church that wasn't from my 'non' denomination. But there's a good group of believers, some great leadership, and just this body of people that have created a good church home.

God does great things...

Congratulations to Mike Weaver

I wrote earlier about Mike Weaver from Big Daddy Weave. He's lost 23 pounds since starting the beginning of the year. Way to go Mike!

6.7

It's been 4 weeks now (this is the 5th meeting for me) for the Biggest Loser fundraiser thingie. I lost 6.7 this past week, which feels pretty good. Okay, I know that if I weighed like from Wednesday to Wednesday, it would have been maybe more like 3 or 4, and there would have been more last week. But... that's 17 pounds since the start. A bit less than 4.4 percent of my total weight, which is what they're basing the winner on. There are 6 of us at 4% or more, so I'm in the running baby!!!

Now, I started a week late, so I have to lose in 6 weeks what everyone else has 7 to do, but that's encouraging to be right on track with everyone else being a week behind. Now there are a couple of people there who... well.... let's just say I think I have to lose nearly 3 times as many points to keep up since it's on percentage. They might be the ones that will be the bigger challenge. But, when I think about it, it's not really an unfair thing, because frankly, if you're only 10% overweight it's a lot harder to lose 5% of your weight than if you're 50%. So realistically, it does say a lot about how well they are doing. And I have to say, there's one or two of those that, i'm not totally sure they HAVE 10 pounds more to lose... even 5 will be a challenge.

So the way I figure it, I need to be at 7% or better to win this thing... that means probably 10 more pounds in 2 weeks. It can be a challenge... but you know, I sure wouldn't mind being at 355 by the end of the month now, would I?

Tonight was kind of a tough one to sit through though because I'm developing some strong opinions about some stuff as to dieting and nutrition. Tonight they talked about some recipes and all these recipes that were being pressed by these books as being healthy and weight loss friendly.... looked downright deadly!!! And I have to realize some diets work well for some people and others maybe better for others. So much of the group is going by weight watchers and other such diets that follow the line that you keep calories down and especially keep fat down. But then, healthy foods are considered those foods with a lot of starches and stuff that I'm becoming more and more convinced are a lot of the reason for the high rates of obesity we're looking at these days.

I'm finding more and more evidence as I read about how our bodies process different elements of our foods, that we NEED the fats that so many of the diets are saying are the first things to go. The mantra is that fat has more calories per gram than other things like carbs. But what that doesn't take into account is that fats are the last things processed by the body, that fats are typically spread through the body more to be utilized by muscles well before they are broken down, that fats play a critical role in telling the body we've had enough (and thus reducing the cravings)... while rices and pastas are being pushed as being so healthy and yet the way the body processes them, for those of us that are severely obese and especially those of us more susceptible to blood sugar issues, that's one of the worst things you can do for yourself.

It's like I ranted and raved about some in the past, it's kind of hard to stand up and say ummm, excuse me, i have no degree in all this but... you're wrong about all this.

The thing is, I know it's not all wrong. I think typically the more severely overweight a person is, the more the low fat low calorie diet is going to hurt them, and particularly it will be harder to follow the diet. For someone who has maybe 15 pounds to lose, maybe a more typical diet is more appropriate?

I know I've come a ways since I was convinced low carb was the only way to go. I'm not in the camp that all carbs are bad. But I do believe very strongly that for someone like myself, very simple carbs such as processed breads, sugars, and high starch foods do more harm than good. But at the same time, something rich in a lot of vegetables, fruits, and moderate portions of meats and cheeses and such is a stronger way to go.

Maybe I've just read too much propoganda. But I've just found it to be true for myself that the more that I'll eat of breads, pastas, sugars, the more likely I am to crave more of it. And since I've been letting off those things, I've been very well satisfied, felt like I managed to eat a very well balanced diet, and it hasn't been really difficult at all. It's not that hard passing on stuff, and I've had a lot of opportunities to have that tested.

Maybe the simplest way to go without getting all complicated is Dr. Gott's diet: No flour, no sugar. Pretty simple.

Checking In

It's been almost 2 weeks since I posted. The typical death knell of any blog I suppose. Part of it is being busy, part of it finding the mapping and logging tools on MapMyRun.com. But I think it's been going good.

Okay, so, progress.... This morning I weighed in at 365.8. And it's been a good weekend, good week actually. I was down a half pound at the biggest loser weigh in, part of that being Sunday last week wasn't great. It wasn't bad, I didn't go overboard or anything. We had some lasagna for lunch, but with whole grain noodles, but it might have been a bit much still. Then a soft shell taco, whole grain again, but i think the two together were enough extra, that it probably undid some progress, especially being the day before weighin.

On the exercise front, I didn't really get out any this past week. I can probably make excuses about weather and being busy, but I just didn't get out. But I think I did well enough on the diet that it hasn't really hurt. I'm expecting to be down by at least 5 for tomorrow's weigh in. Maybe closer to the 8 or 9. Everyone's kinda bogged down lately in the group, sounds like it's a pretty normal thing for progress to slow way down at this point. So I feel pretty good about having good progress right now. If I don't make some huge mistake tomorrow.

And... Valentine's Day can be amazingly sweet when you have someone special....

Breaking Even

Well, I wondered about how I'd do at the Superbowl, and another Biggest Loser group meeting comes and goes.... sooooo????

Okay, so, Superbowl first. What a game!!! (no, that's not me being evasive, I really meant it). Okay, I'm not sure I'd rank it as one of the best SuperBowls ever. As I heard people talk about the game ESPN called the 'greatest game ever,' the 1959 championship game, it was said that enough of the game itself was rather sloppy and not so well played, but the finish and drama still were pretty big. I think that's how I felt about this game... both teams just made some dumb mistakes along the way and it wasn't the best played of all games, but the finish still made it pretty great. I'd have loved to have seen Arizona come back, just for Kurt Warner.

All I can say is, the clean shaven look doesn't work for Kurt.

Anyway, the important stuff.... Superbowl food! Actually, I think I did pretty well. Buffalo wings aren't too taboo, probably the worst I did was some beanie weenies, just cuz there's likely a bit of sugar in the sauce. I did really well staying away from the brownies and breads and chips that for me can be pretty lethal. All in all I felt I did pretty good, not too terrible in volume though maybe not the best either. But it definitely didn't feel like I sabotaged myself.

I do wonder how many diets go to die at the superbowl. You know, you get a lot of new years resolution folks who start off good for the first few weeks, and then it all falls apart then. Sometimes there's just something about once you crack, it's so easy to crack again and soon. I know that's been the case for me in the past when I've been on again off again about things, I'd be great a few days and then totally blow it for one day, and it's like once that resolve cracks even for a short bit, it's so hard to find it again. But I felt good, and felt on track still when it was all said and done Sunday.

Last night was weigh in again, and... I'm up 2 tenths. Which probably didn't surprise me too much. I do believe I made real progress the past week, but it's like the timing of it all just didn't work out as well for having a good loss at the weigh in. But it wasn't discouraging.

I did manage to do a 2 mile walk right after work. it was a good, very brisk walk, I managed to do a 16 minute pace per mile through 1 3/4 miles, and then slowed it down the last quarter. When I was younger, a 4 mph pace was pretty easy for me, being a bit long legged. I'm walking as fast as I can without breaking into a jog now, and making a full mile in right at 16 minutes. I hope to get that to 15 soon. Part of the slower pace at the very end was right at the 3/4 mark on the second mile I did break into a brief jog, about 100 paces. I do think that's where I'm seeing some real progress as a result of the more regular exercise is that I am finding myself able to jog a little. In the past if i had to jog even a few steps it was like a major effort to do so. My right knee seems to be weaker than my other and probably is feeling the effects more of the weight, and it would be a real forced hobble. Yesterday I could go fairly steady. That doesn't mean I'm going to start getting into running right now. I have a long way to go weight wise before even thinking about that much would be wise, if for no other reason than that knee. Even though I think all the walking and biking has strengthened it quite a bit compared to even a month ago, the worst thing i could do right now is tweak the knee and have that interfere with the exercise bit.

Sales is sucking for me lately at work... I may be getting into doing some cold calling now and that could be a good way to work in a lot more walking without taking time away from family and stuff. We'll see how that goes.....