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Monday - January 14, 2008100-100: A look back at 2007, and forward at 2008There's no way to splenda-coat this: 2007 was a bust on the weight loss front. I began at around 220 lb and ended at around 210. In the first weeks I took off pound after pound, but then... my discipline flagged. It's a PITA to keep writing down every damn calorie you eat in a spreadsheet, and it's difficult to figure calorie counts out on the road. But those are just excuses. I ate more, and my weight stabilized, even though my exercising went way up. My goal for 2008 is to finish my weight loss -- ideally, by the original 100-100 deadline -- which means I must redouble efforts. Both to diet and to exercise. Sunday - September 30, 2007100-100: Take That, DoctorsSo they said I'd never walk without a cane. I did. I've been walking for exercise, with hand weights, for months. They said I'd never get the circulation back in my left leg. I have. They said I could forget about running. I haven't. It's hard -- I see now the doctors at the time were trying to stifle false hopes -- but I have successfully run up to 1.1 miles, and will soon be running 2. And then more. I'll never be a marathoner, but by God I'll never be a cripple either. Friday - August 31, 2007100-100: One YearWell, today marks, not the one year since I began the diet -- that passed unremarked in June -- but one year since I first blogged about it, here. At that point, I had removed 30 lb and was fairly confident that I'd be most of the way to my two-year goal of 102 lb. lost by that point. (I'm trying to lose 100 lb. in 104 weeks, which is where 100-100 comes from). In point of fact, I am today 210 lb. I have lost 52 lb, but 60 weeks have passed. I am well behind. I must lose 48 more pounds. (nothing in extended entry) Friday - August 24, 2007100-100: Frustration RevisitedThis morning, 212. I think breaking below 210 will be a major milestone... if and when it comes. I've been at 212 several times before, and at 211... once. As I write this it's 11 AM; I've been working since 8, but it's only office work. And I've consumed 280 not-the-healthiest calories (a Lean Pocket and a 100-calorie pack of Cheez-Its). I have a few more things to write and send... like this blog entry. Then I'm going out to exercise. I've only had one 12-ounce can of Diet Dr. Pepper. Mostly, it's water to drink these days (more overleaf if anyone cares). Monday - August 13, 2007100-100: Resuming The BattleWell, I'm back on track again -- I think. I'm pretty much healed from surgery. I have nothing to do in my life but prepare for deployment and keep up with grad school (OK, catch up with grad school). I have a hard date by which I need to be healthy in order to deploy: 3rd November. Game on. Wednesday - January 24, 2007100-100: Up and Down and...With many things going on in life, I've seen my
weight swing wildly from 220 to as low as 214 (where it is now), and then,
maddeningly, back.
The problem is less one of backsliding, and more one of no freaking time. What am I doing? Well, I'm working full time at an hour's distance, going to grad school full time, and getting ready to go to war full time -- while working on my instrument rating at Flight Center. At some point, something's gotta give (and you'll notice that one of the things that's "given" has been the blog. Sorry 'bout that. I was supposed to attend an FAA safety seminar tonight... and the hour came and found me at my desk. Paugh. Nothing in the extended entry, just a pro forma note (required by the software. I have to change to a better blogging tool, soon). Wednesday - December 06, 2006100-100: Stagnation, Reinvigoration, and a new Challenge Monday - October 02, 2006100/100: At 100 Days - AlmostWe're at the 100 day point (Correction: we're at
95 days. It's Line 100 in the spreadsheet I track this stuff in... but hey, I'm
leaving the post cause I haven't updated in a while). Today I was 227 lb...
which is good. I spent a very long time (almost three weeks) oscillating around
229-230 so my trend is slowing and/or has experienced a plateau. Looks like I'm
back on track (touch wood).
227 is still fat. Still a long way to go. Beats the living daylights out of 262, though. More PT Drill Sergeant I have redoubled my PT efforts, which, for a guy that can't run, are limited. I do walk briskly carrying hand weights. I have been using the excellent Heavyhands, but was at their limit with 5 lb, so I bought some eight-pound dumbbells at Target. Not as comfortable as Heavyhands, and they are already looking a bit weathered after a couple of uses, but they're 8 lb. each (3.6 kg to those of you using Robespierre's system of weights and measures -- you know who you are). The extra weight brought me to a remarkable and kind of delightful pass I hadn't been at in recent years -- complete muscle failure, at least in my left arm. Yeah, just a two mile walk pumping my eight pound weights fails my weak arm. At the end of the adventure, I can only raise that dumbbell by swinging it... if I just look at it and try to curl it from a standstill my bicep quivers but nothing happens. By this time my young SF buds are rolling on the floor, belly-laughing out loud. Ah, youth. Your time will come. I had forgotten how good muscle failure PT feels. So far I've taken the eight-pounders out twice, and they've wiped out my left arm twice. It's a little better each time but it will be quite a while, I think, before I can walk with 8-pounders without any inconvenience. It helps that there's a huge hill on my walking course -- I go downhill for a mile and a half or so, and then uphill for half a mile. The question becomes, what happens when it no longer fails my arm? I expect I will sometime soon double my walk... I'll do that without weights, or with the little ones. I wish Heavyhands were available with weights above 5 lb. though. They are really a well-designed, superior product. I've torn part of my neoprene, but then this set of Heavyhands is over 20 years old!! Summing Up I hadn't updated some aspects of my spreadsheet in seven days, so the Resting Pulse graph has a lot of interpolated data in it. Graphs and stats overleaf. At 100 days, I am over 1/3 of the way to my planned loss of 102 lb and continue to lose weight at a sustainable pace, and ahead of my conservatively planned 1-lb-a-week minimum. Likewise, four inches plus have come off my waistline since I began this journey. The possibility glimmers on the horizon, of completing my initial weight loss in one year vice two (52 weeks instead of 104). In actuality, I think the slowed weight-loss of the last weeks probably portends more plateaus and frustrations to come. Like everything in life, if it was easy, it wouldn't be half the challenge. And like everything else in life, this weight issue could have been prevented with less effort than is now being used to fix it. Friday - September 15, 2006100/100: Week Eleven - A Tough Week - WrapsIt's been a bad week as far as getting exercise
done... as far as getting anything
done. People don't return calls, friends show
up needing this and that when I need to be working, deals fall through.
Things fall apart. The center does not hold. And so it is with my diet. I held to the diet pretty well, but still... at the end of the week am only down one pound, after being the same weight -- 230 -- pretty much all week, I close at 229. Is that creative scalature? I hope not. I should bounce back with more loss in this coming week. If not, I don't know what's next. FDA says an adult man should use 2900 calories a day, and I'm only taking in 1700. That should leave me 8400 calories down every week... calories that my organism should be sucking out of my fat cells. On the plus side, I've added a new cooking gadget -- a microwave steamer, which lets me make really, really good corn on the cob, and should lead to good green beans if I can figure out how long to cook them. The less said about my attempt at nuking sugar snap peas in the steamer, the better. But the corn is good. Corn is always good; I could eat corn every day. Also on the plus side, I've added a new graph to my quiver: Resting pulse. I thought my pulse had gone down, and by George, it has. The stats and graphs follow overleaf. Thursday - August 31, 2006100/100: A Health ChallengeWhat's "100/100," you ask? It's a heading that
will be appearing here from time to time, with the scale icon. (I'm hoping to
phase in category icons). But what does it
mean?
OK. Here's the deal.
I have set myself a goal: to lose 100 (actually 102) pounds in 100 weeks (actually, two years, 104 weeks). I will occasionally report progress here. I am not using any sophisticated diet, simply managing my food intake, with a view to returning my weight to what it was (actually 3-7 lb lighter than) when I was at peak fitness, which I define as the summer of 1982, when I was in 10th Special Forces Group, before going to Ranger School. When I reach that goal, I may reassess my position, because I'm not as muscular now as I was then. Still, it's a simply mind-boggling number. 100 pounds? Am I out of my mind? Can I do it? Why Are You Doing This? Because, while I once was extremely fit, I'm not; I came danger close to extremely fat. In fact, I peaked just two pounds from "morbidly obese" by BMI. Further, I have serious joint problems resulting from a career in Special Forces, chronic joint pain from gout, and a January, 2004 accident. This makes my youthful approach to health -- eating mass quantities of junk food and running it off, essentially full-time carboloading -- a really, really bad idea. Not to mention, it doesn't work. I was already 40 lb. over when I broke my heels. I added 60 lb. since then. These pounds are not welcome in my neighbourhood -- not one of them. They must go. (continued) |