Target achieved!

Today's weigh-in: 185.8

Just wanted to check in and let you all know I'm doing great. As of yesterday, I achieved my June goal of 186 early, and this morning came in just under.

Seeing how there's still about a week and a half until June is over, I'm setting a new unofficial goal of 184 by months end.

My eating has been great, but I haven't been able to get to the gym as much as I'd like because my back was hurting a bit. However, I'm committed to getting there as much as possible, I went yesterday, and plan to go back either tomorrow or Saturday.

Hope everyone else out there is also on track this month.

Yellow Zone

Today's weigh-in: 189.8

Well this morning I finally broke back into what I consider the "yellow zone". Here's how it breaks down for me:

Green zone: <185 lbs.
Yellow Zone: 185-190 lbs.
Red Zone: >190 lbs.

Since my original "Omaha" goal was 190, it kinda sucks to get back up above that, and feels good this morning to finally dip below it again. Good eating and exercise, and motivation to continue...

Add it up

Today's Weigh-in: 192.6

A disappointing weigh-in this morning, for a less than stellar weekend. I'll give myself some credit, I'm re-learning how to say "no" to food, but things still got me.

Friday I was good all day. Perfect, in fact. When I came home my lady (pictured above) wasn't feeling well, and asked that I go get her some Ramen noodles and pretzels at the store. You know how it is when you're sick, so I obliged. Unfortunately, they only had giant "One-pounder" bags of pretzels at the store, I had hoped to get her a small bag. Of course, when I got home with them, I started dipping them in mustard and polished off quite a few. Bad. Then I went out with some friends and had 5 beers. Now, lately on Friday nights I easily could have had more than that, I thought I was being "reasonable". I walked home past the cheesesteak places and fought temptation, and I won. Then I got home, and I saw the bag of pretzels (That I had asked my GF to hide from me) sitting there on the table. In my buzzed state, I made light work of the rest of the bag. :(

The next day I did well. I fasted until about 6pm at which point I had a pear, and then we went out to a Spanish-themed restaurant called "Mixto" (pictured above) Again, I was trying to be good. The GF insisted we order empanadas, of which I had one, then I had a reasonable meal of some steak/sausage/egg/bean thing, which I skipped the rice on. I had one beer. Then we went out with her friends, and I again had about 4 more beers. And a couple shots o' whiskey. :(

Next day I had been invited to a friends party at the Manayunk bike race. It started early, so I kicked the day off with some cereal. I was there for about 5 hours, during which time I consumed 4 beers, 1 small cheeseburger, and one chocolate chip cookie. When I got home, I had some vegetables and hummus, and then later a small bowl of chili.

So I felt I had restrained myself reasonably well this weekend, but the fact of the matter is I went out every day, and had a total of about 15 beers. Add my pretzel debacle to it and the whole weekend ends up pretty much being a wash, which was reflected on my scale this morning.

Well, I'm re-learning. It's harder when you're in a relationship, and are trying to still be social and have fun. Moderation for me is much harder to achieve than extreme focus in one way or the other.

I have a lot of work to do this month.

Avocado: Food of the Gods

Today's weigh-in: 192.8

So, while today's weigh in looks bad on paper, I know I was good yesterday, so I'm not sweating it. Just need to keep pushing today.

I just wanted to give a big shout-out to one of my favorite healthy foods lately, the avocado. Tasty, versatile, and nutritious. And so easy to add to things.

I put half of one on a steak, spinach, blue cheese, blueberry, and balsalmic vinaigrette salad last night. yum.

This morning, I put the other half on my eggs with some tomato and goat cheese. Totally delicious. Where I used to put bacon or chicken sausage in my omelets, now I just throw some avocado on top.

At about 250 calories for a whole avocado they're a bit calorie dense for a fruit/vegetable. And at 21g of fat, also a lot of fat. However, it's mostly (15g) monounsaturated. Also packs a punch of fiber coming in at a huge 10g, especially out of only 12g of carbs. 3g of protein doesn't hurt either. Plus lots of other stuff like vitamins etc.

Plus they're delicious! I used to not love them, but as I got to know them better, I've really fallen in love. Great in sandwiches too! It's hard to think of a meal they wouldn't enhance. Bon apetit!

3 days in

Weigh-in: 191.6

3 days in to the June Pledge and I'm going strong. I've already shed about 3 pounds of "BS Weight" (The extra weight you lose right at the beginning of a diet, some of which is simply water and stomach contents, etc), although I've probably started losing some fat too. I've been trying to keep just under 2000 calories a day, and I've been to the gym once, had a good workout.

Also, I just received a new book I ordered today, Tom Venuto's "The Body Fat Solution". Not that I don't know what I'm doing, but sometimes it helps my motivation to get sucked into a good fitness book. This one has a lot to do with ending emotional eating, and maintaining weight loss, so it promises to be a valuable resource. I'll let y'all know...

The June Pledge

Weigh In: 194.6

If you look through my past few posts you'll see the theme emerging. Guy struggling to maintain, gains a bit of weight, vows to get it under control, fails, expresses frustration, starts cycle over.

Well, here we go again.

It's not that I've been doing so terribly, but I simply haven't been doing enough to actually LOSE weight, to get back down into my appropriate range of around 185. I've been "maintaining". And that's not enough.

It's not enough to eat a salad for lunch, and then overeat at dinner and after.

It's not enough to overeat every day, try to make up for it by skipping breakfast, then overeating at lunch and blowing your day.

It's not enough to drink a bunch of beers with friends several times a week, or have a few beers after work for no reason.

It's not enough to only go to the gym 1 or 2 times a week.

It's just not enough. Those things might be OK if I were maintaining around 185, but I'm not. I'm in the red zone and I need to get out of it, or before I know it, I'll be back over 200. Not going to happen.

I also realize that while weight loss contests help motivate me, they often have me going to far, so that when they're over I rebound.

So here's the solution I came up with for June. The June Pledge.

My girlfriend and I sat down and came up with a realistic weight that we think we can achieve by July 1. For me, the number is 186. That might sound like a lot given that I weighed in at 194.6 this morning, but I suspect that after 1 day of light eating I'll be back around the 192.x mark, meaning that my June Pledge really only has me losing 6-7 lbs in 4+ weeks. Definitely doable.

I won't tell you what my girlfriend's pledge weight was, but the deal is that if one of us fails to reach our goal, we have to pay the other $100. Steep, yes, but hey, we're going for motivation here. Something I just thought of is that we should pledge to give our $100 to charity (or a cause that we are actually against!) should we both fail, otherwise we would just break even.

So, today is day 1. I'm happy to have a set goal that I really feel accountable to. I think that's what was missing before. Here's to the June Pledge.

Frustrated

Weigh In: 192.4

As you can see, my weigh in this morning is the same as when I started. 2.4 pounds over my original weight loss goal, and almost 10 lbs more than where I want to be. Frustrating.

I'm not going to say I've been great, or that I deserve a lot of weight loss, but I feel like putting in the effort that I have, despite setbacks, should have netted something.

Yesterday I woke up and had 2 eggs with goat cheese and tomatoes for breakfast. Then for lunch I went out and had a tuna nicoise salad, which was a good choice, but I added a cup of cream of mushroom soup that I didn't need.

My big mistake was at dinner. I took a small bowl of my famous short rib chili (which is healthy and I eat in small quantities as a delicious, nutritious, low carb meal). Then on top of that I tossed cheese and sour cream (no good), and I opened a bag of tortilla chips that I bought for a Lost party we're having tonight and decided to eat my chili with those instead of a fork.

Oh and I forgot, while I was waiting for my chili to heat up in the microwave, I started dipping the chips in this greek "salsa" I bought which is really just feta cheese, olives, and some other stuff. Bottom line, I ended up eating almost the entire bag of tortilla chips (which I later estimated at about 800 calories), the chili/cheese/sour cream (probably another 700), and 3/4 of the container of feta cheese stuff (who knows, 500 calories?) Dude. That's close to 2000 calories in one sitting. And, I didn't even feel that full, like I had stuffed myself. All I knew was that I had just blown my day.

It was one of those perpetual motion munching scenarios. Once you get started with those chips, sitting in front of the tube, it's extremely hard to stop. I paid the price this morning.

I'm frustrated because I'm having a hard time this time around. I know that I know what to do, and how to do it, and I've done much harder before. I'm having a hard time in 2 areas:

1) although I'm going to the gym, I'm not really into it. I'm reluctant and somewhat forcing myself.

2) I'm finding it very difficult to go hungry. I know better than anyone that in order to lose weight, you need to accept being hungry sometimes. Hell, I used to go to bed early sometimes just because I was hungry at night and wanted to escape it. This time, I'm too quick to just eat every time I feel a little hungry, and that's just not working. Like last night, I guess I was hungry, and I went way overboard.

Well, it feels good to get it out. Here's to a better day today. Of course, people are coming over tonight to watch the Lost finale. It will be a challenge, I'm sure.

Checkin in

Today's weigh-in: 191.2

Had not the greatest weekend. There have just been a million events, and I've been having trouble being moderate with the booze. It's like at every event, I have 10 beers. This is not helping. Because a) this causes weight gain from all the extra calories, b) it lowers testosterone levels, c) it causes me to eat while I'm drinking, and d) it makes it hard to eat right and/or exercise the following day.

So, I need to do better with that. I need to limit my alcohol to the weekends, and when I do drink, try to exercise some control. Have fun, but don't get drunk.

Other than that, I've been doing ok. Making it to the gym, although surprised at how much weaker I am than when I was going regularly. Annoying.

In other news, please visit Chris' blog, as he is just starting out.

Slow and Steady

Today's weigh-in: 191.4

Not much to report today, little bit of weight loss, which is good. I have this nagging cough every morning when I wake up, then I'm pretty much fine all night, then it comes back at like 10pm. Odd.

Yesterday wasn't perfect but was not bad. I made reasonable decisions:

Breakfast: Omelet/Frittata thing with 2 eggs, spinach, tomato, goat cheese, garlic

Lunch: Grilled shrimp salad with walnuts, cranberries, Gorgonzola, balsamic vinaigrette

"Dinner": We had a Cinco De Mayo party at work at like 4pm, so I had some guacamole and chips, and 3 of these little chicken/cheese enchilada things (they were pretty small). Also allowed myself Uno Cervesa, which turned into Dos Cervesa, but it was OK because after that, I had absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

Still going strong... Drinking a fruit smoothie this morning as I type.

The cold, hard, truth

Today's weigh-in: 192.2

Well, this morning I pulled together the courage to finally step on the scale. Not good. I would say I've gained a solid 10 lbs from where I was, hovering in the 181-183 range for a while there.

That being said, I still say this isn't too bad. I can get this under control in a month. And NOT a crazy, insane month like January was. But a slow, steady, and sane approach should get me where I'd like to be by June 1st, and that is below 185.

Yesterday was pretty good despite some less than ideal circumstances. I skipped breakfast because I had eaten plenty the day before and wasn't even hungry. For lunch I had a pizza meeting, but I did pretty well, only had one slice of tomato pesto pizza, and that was it. Later I had a handful of prunes and a small bag of peanuts. Came home, went to the gym and did a half decent workout considering I haven't been there for like 3 weeks. After that, I had some leftovers of my girlfriends vietnamese food; some sort of noodles with chicken and chinese broccoli. Not too much, probably around 700 cals.

Then later I did something that has become somewhat of a bad habit. Feeling hungry and with nothing much in the house to eat, I grabbed the jar of peanut butter and scooped some with a knife and ate it. Yeah, kinda gross, but delicious, and not unhealthy, although it can be highly caloric. Probably another 200 calories or so there. All told, I'd say I had about 1700 calories yesterday. My target moving forward is around 2000.

This morning I had an omelet with spinach, garlic, tomato, and goat cheese. Pretty delicious, under 500 cals. Here's to another good day. One day at a time...