WEEK 4 - Still On Track

WEEK 4  |  February 1, 2016  |  Weight: 294.4 lbs  |  Loss of 3.0 lbs

So here we are on week 4.  With a little bit of a hic-up in week 3, I am happy to say that I am very pleased with this weigh in.  I've been weighing every day but only recording on Mondays so I do get to see regular fluctuations and how a day of certain foods, water intake, and activity can change what the scale shows on a daily basis.  This has helped me start to form better habits again.

I've been doing my best to follow in my footsteps from 2012 and referring back to my activities from then as well.  I was even able to pull up my meals from Loseit from 2012.  Right there that was a valuable thing.  I know exactly what I had to eat every day back then and it's amazing to compare what I was doing then with what I am doing now.

That said, it seemed to be that I was eating lower calories but the quality of the food didn't matter and I can sort of get that when I went from pure takeout and junk to losing weight.  To stay on track back then I had to ensure I was focused more on portion control vs. food quality.  Asking someone who's been eating takeout 4 days a week to start eating veg and other high quality low calorie foods is setting them up for failure.  So this time I'm really only focused on calorie and sodium intake.  As I get further along, I'll do what I did back then and start swapping out foods for better quality ones.  So far, doing this, here I am on week 4 and still dropping!

WEEK 3 - Weaknesses

WEEK 3  |  January 25, 2016  |  Weight: 297.4 lbs  |  Gain of 0.5 lbs

In looking back at my Week 3 from 2012, I saw that while I had a great loss, I also had a cheat day where I indulged in food I should not have had.  This week 3, I had a similar set of incidents.  If I had kept it to one occurrence, I think I would have been fine however it was more than one.  I am calling it a weak week.  Most of the week was actually pretty good but I had 2 events that caused this gain.

First, I agreed to go out to the pub after work with a co-worker.  My plan was to escape early and go home for a home-cooked meal or some other low calorie option.  What ended up actually happening was a giant pizza and hot wings.  Damn you pub food why do you have to taste so good!

The second event was sheer laziness.  My wife and I were going to roast a chicken on the weekend but we were both caught up in doing our own thing that we decided to go the easy route and just order food.  This was my second mistake.

Today (the day of posting, 2 days after my weigh in), I've already lost 2 pounds so I think some of this gain was sodium based water retention which is a good thing and makes me feel like I haven't fallen flat on my face all together.  Onward and Downward!

Week 2 - Movin Along

WEEK 2  |  January 18, 2016  |  Weight: 296.9 lbs  |  Loss of 2.6 lbs

Week 2 is a great success and I'm glad to see 2 solid weeks of positive weigh ins.  As I assumed, week 1 crazy weight loss was just my body's way of correcting itself and preparing for the new me.  This week's weight loss is something I expect to see regularly now.  Perhaps not 2.6 each week but an acceptable loss of 1-2 pounds a week rather than crazy high numbers like 8.

That said, I am not at all disappointed in this weeks weigh in and I am proud of myself for week 2.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of week 3.  If I can get the next few weeks under my belt, I will be confident I am no longer bouncing up and down like I have for the past 3.5 years and I'm moving along the right path.  Let's do this!

Week 1 - New Beginnings

Today is my first re-posting on this blog.  In the beginning of 2012 (as can be seen in this blog) I began a journey that was to change my life, and for a time it did.  I weighed over 300 pounds and at one point I actually made it all the way down to 247.  I was feeling and looking healthy and great.  I went away on vacation that summer and fell off the wagon completely.

Mind you prior to 2012 I ate very poorly in every meal and every day which caused my gain in the first place however between the summer of 2012 and now, I've been in some sort of different place where I sort of eat healthy for a few days and then mess it all up with a bad weekend of bad habits.  This new struggle is even worse than the first attempt at weight loss because not only am I back to over 300 pounds, I'm not even eating the delectable junk food that I like 100% of the time.  For 3 and a half years I've been fooling myself and on my 43rd birthday in December, 2015 I finally said enough.

This blog reminded me of HOW I lost over 60 pounds and how I could have kept going back in 2012 and so, I have decided to start again.  I began Monday, January 4th with a weight of 307.8 pounds and a new resolve to get to my healthy weight however long that takes.  Now today, I am 1 week in and 2016 IS my year to get it right.

WEEK 1  |  January 11, 2016  |  Weight: 299.5 lbs  |  Loss of 8.3 lbs

My first week wasn't that tough simply because I was full of resolve.  I used to smoke and remember trying to quit so many times, right after I finished smoking one.  It's always easy to say you're going to stop doing something when you've just finished having it.  The real challenges are yet to come.

That said, I am still very proud of having a very successful week.  It's been the first FULL WEEK of eating right, avoiding drinking (mind you I'm not quitting, just reducing) and even getting some walks in.

Oddly enough, this week was also the same week I caught a nasty cold and spent some time in bed sick.  Did that impact my weight?  I don't know but I did my best to stick with the meal plans I had laid out for myself for the week and I did just that.

I also came to accept that much of this is water weight from the copious amounts of sodium I ate the previous week so I won't expect to lose these kinds of numbers on a regular basis.  Looking back at my blog, I see that I settled into what I would expect to be normal weight loss of a pound or two a week after the 2-3 weeks.  I hope for the same this time around.

Wish me luck.