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.

WEEK 56 - In the Groove

Week 56 | February 1, 2013 | Weight 262.6 | Loss of 2.6 lbs | Total Lost: 48

I'm quite happy that I seem to be back on track.  I am trying my best to get out of the bad food habits that I formed over the holidays and I've been walking almost every day for 45 minutes.  I can't wait for spring so I can get back to running again like I was last summer.

My wife and I are planning our vacation this summer and we'll be doing our regular camping trip as well as spending a week in New York city.  Us frozen ass Canadians enjoy both a good beach and appreciate a giant city atmosphere, that and the fact that my wife has some sort of obsession with Manhattan that I still don't quite understand.

I've been preaching around the house that I'm not going to let us go overboard like we did last summer and after the vacation, back to strict diet and exercise.  Given I've been doing this a year now, I'm fairly confident in knowing the warning signs of what and how I fall off track and I think I'll be able to catch them before I do any serious damage.  (Christmas was quite damaging).

I'm about 15 pounds from the lightest I've been and I'll consider myself fully back on track once I reach that weight.  As for eating, I'm actually doing quite well on the weekdays but the weekends add several more hours of "awake time" than the weekdays so right now, late night evening snacking are my trouble spot that I'll need to work on.  I remember last year, we turned to fruit platters to help curb it so I may give that another try again.

WEEK 55 - On My Way

Week 55 | January 25, 2013 | Weight 265.2 | Loss of 2.2 lbs | Total Loss: 45.4

I am well on my way once again with my weight loss journey.  I can't believe it's been a year since I started hitting this hard.  There have been many lessons learned, a couple of stalls and one out right screw up but I'm happy to say that things are on their way once again.  I'm now about 10 pounds heavier than I was at the start of Christmas and I'm about 19 pounds heavier than my lightest weight last summer.   My short term goal is to get back to my lightest weight before the end of Spring and then stay on track right through the summer.

There were two major events that occurred last year that have caused me to fluctuate so much.  The first is summer vacation.  It was 2 weeks of not tracking anything, pretty much pig out on whatever we wanted.  I only gained a few pounds from this but the major problem was after the vacation, I just ended up maintaining my weight.  My desire to run and workout disappeared and I sort of just fluctuated within a 10 pound range right up till Christmas.  What's disheartening is that I pretty much didn't make good use of the last 6 months of last year with losing anything.

Then came December and everything went out the window.  I think we had maybe 11 home cooked meals the entire month and the first week of January.  I actually started to really feel like garbage at the end of that as well.  So here we are once again.  Happily I didn't gain back everything I lost last year so hopefully I can get back to my lightest weight in short order.  I won't say I regret everything that happened with my diet and exercise.  Not only did I get to eat a few things I really enjoy but I also learned some valuable lessons in that a couple times a year I can certainly indulge but I must do so in moderation.  A smorgasbord of a meal on a particular weekend is not a problem at all, as long as it's only a few times a year are not weekly or even daily (like this past Christmas season).

So let's get to this!  A total loss of 14 pounds over the past few weeks (yes I know most of which was sodium and water from Xmas) makes for a great head start.

Reboot

So, I fell off the wagon pretty hard and put on a bunch of pounds.  Happily I'm not starting over as my loss from 2012 was pretty big and the gain in the last few months has been disappointing.  That said, I've started again like all good rezzies.  As of today I am still down over 42 pounds from when I started this time a year ago and my goals are still the same.

That said, I've learned a lot over the past year.  One big lesson was to not be over ambitious with anything.  Weight Loss, blogging and everything else.  One tends to peter out fairly quickly and is probably a major factor in why many New Years Rezzies give up and fail after a month in.

I'm back on my diet and started walking again.  I don't think I can run like I did last year without becoming pretty winded so I'm starting up slowly.  I expect in a couple of months I'll be running 5k like I was last summer and be half way to my goal once again.

I don't expect I'll be blogging every couple of days like I did before.  That becomes tiring quickly so I'm going to try my best to post here once a week on my new weigh in day which is Fridays.  I wish you all the best of success and hope we can continue this journey together!

WEEK 37 - Moving Again

Week 37 | September 25, 2012 | Weight 248.2 | Loss of 3.7 lbs | Total Loss: 62.4

I'm finally moving in the right direction!  This past summer was the worst when it came to my weight loss journey.  At the beginning of the year, we didn't get to do a lot of outside activities as it was way too cold but when the summer hit, it was BBQ and backyard camp fires!  Once we took our scheduled vacation and break from dieting, I went back to eating pretty healthy again but every now and then a bad habit would sneak back in such as hitting up a fast food place once a week when we should have made home cooked.

While I didn't gain any during this time, I didn't lose any either.  I was bouncing around the 250's all summer long and now it seems I'm finally into the 240's and plan to stay there.  We're completely back on track to where we were before vacation this summer and eating the same way we did as well.  Exercise took a nose dive and I'm starting to get back into that regularly too.

My wife made her first goal and she is finally in the "Normal" weight category!  WOW!  At almost 50 pounds lost I am very, very proud of her and can't tell you how amazing she looks!  Perhaps this picture from her last 5k race will do :)

WEEK 36 - Birthday!

Week 36 | September 18, 2012 | Weight 251.9 | Loss of 2.8 lbs | Total Loss: 58.7

I am dedicating this post to my daughter.  Today is her 11th birthday so Happy Birthday princess!  Along with a great day for a birthday, I've even lost weight!  And I'm sort of surprised by that because of all the pizza and potato wedges I ate over the weekend.  OMG pizza!  My daughter had a sleep over for her birthday so 8 pre-teen kids were sugared up and looking for food.  5 pizzas came to the door along with chicken wings, breadsticks, potato wedges, pasta and more.

Needless to say I piggied out along with the kids LOL.  It was not one of my better moments but I still somehow managed to drop a couple of pounds during the whole ordeal so that's great!  I'll have to admit that during the week I am eating quite well, under my calorie budget every day.  I just have to get my weekends back in check and I think I'll break into the 240's and stay there!

WEEK 35 - Sick!

Week 35 | September 11, 2012 | Weight 254.7 | Gain of 3.9 lbs | Total Loss: 55.9

Last week was horrible!  I was sick in bed all week long.  I couldn't even get the energy to get up and weigh in.  This also meant very few home cooked meals.  My wife's father took sick as well so she spent a lot of time in the hospital so we were pretty screwed the entire week when it came to the diet front.

That said, we still had to eat, and the kids had to eat so it was fast food pretty much all week long.  Not good!  I started feeling better on the weekend and while I still have a lingering cough I'm able to get to work and cook some meals once again so now it's time to hit it hard!  I am determined to break back into the 240's and STAY THERE!