Six months and 36 pounds ago, I didn’t really have a goal for my weight loss - and in the grand scheme of things I still don’t. I sorta pegged 200 pounds as a preliminary goal and put the deadline of June 21st (for personal reasons) as a target date.
I am four pounds away with four days to go so it is likely that I will miss it by a pound or two, but that’s not really important. What is important is that I will shortly have lost 40 pounds and be on my way to looking decent in public with my shirt off. The closer I get to 200, the more I realize that I need to add muscle and still drop some gut, but I am pleased as punch with the results so far.
I am thinking that somewhere around 180 (but with much more muscle) is a good final destination for my fitness goals, but who knows - it will probably remain one of those moving targets. All I can say is that I feel better in general, I have more energy, and a life that was always great anyway, is feeling even better now.
I am pleased to report that the weight loss continues. Just a few short weeks ago, I reported reaching 216lbs (my lowest since this effort began) and I am happy to report that I weighed in at 211 this morning. That’s 29 pounds lost since I made that a goal.
I still need some help coming up with a suitable self-reward for reaching 200 pounds. Originally, I was thinking of something like skydiving or similar, but I’m not sure. I had sorta narrowed to down finding something that was much easier at 200 pounds than 240 pounds, but hell - everything is.
I do have a pretty significant event coming up in about five weeks so if I pick up the pace a little, I could reach my goal around the same time. Maybe I could combine the two into some super celebration - who knows.
I celebrated today’s weigh in with finally being able to wear a shirt I bought when I first got to town.
They didn’t have it in my size (2XL) so I bought the XL figuring I would be able to fit in at some point.
Anyway, wish me luck and be sure to kick me in butt if you see pigging out or being lazy. Thanks for coming along on the journey.
Seems that everything is coming up roses - well, not everything, but even those things that are lagging behind are moving in the right direction. First off the cycling. I now have less than 900 miles to log on my bike before I reach 20,000 lifetime miles. That’s kind of cool.
Another thing (and one of the side effects of the bike riding) is that I have dropped down to 217 pounds. (I maxed out at 240, just before moving to San Marcos.) This is pretty monumental as it has been years since I weighed this little. The combination of cycling every day and the recent addition of weight training to the routine seems to be a good fit. I have also greatly cut down the empty calories from things like soft drinks. I think my end goal should be somewhere around 200 lbs because I am going to continue the weight training, which will add some pounds.
It’s never too late.
I tried something a little different with my diet today. I was tired of the quick, unhealthy lunches so I decided to have a PowerBar (Peanut Butter) and some beef jerky for lunch. I didn’t feel a hint of hunger throughout the day.
The problem was it worked too well. Not only wasn’t I hungry, but I was waaay under for my caloric consumption and my level of fat intake was too low. Seriously, this sort of diet extremely high in protein and absent of fat is not healthy.
So, I fixed things when I got home by making some Queso con Bambi. (hehe) My brother is an avid deer hunter and always supplies me with plenty of deer meat. Not only is it darn tasty, but it isn’t pumped full of all those steroids and chemicals in beef. With it, I make the most amazing dip with Velveeta, deer, Rotel, and a nip of beer.
The cheese took care of getting my fat intake higher, but this stuff sure was filling - and, the deer is also high in protein.
Here is what I did today:
Total Calories: (under 2,100) 1,887
% Fat: (25-35%) 16%
% Carbohydrates: (40-50%) 34%
% Protein: (20-30%) 50%
Minutes of exercise: (30-60) 15
In the end, I lost another couple hundred calories, but went waaay overboard on the protein side. Overall, it is fine as I have gone overboard on the carb side plenty of times.
Here is what I did yesterday:
Total Calories: 1,825
% Fat: 17%
% Carbohydrates: 61%
% Protein: 21%
Minutes of exercise: 0
I continue to come in low in the area of fat and although you would think that would be good, if it drops too much farther, it could be unhealthy. I overdid the carbs by 6% yesterday so I will need to watch that - and of course, the exercise was bad as well.
Now, I am not sure I will do a very good job of keeping up with it, but Pennie was asking me about a formula I had created back in 2004 which really helped when we were working together to drop some weight. The first thing I discovered was that I had a bunch of posts that had never come over when I moved my blog hosting from Blogger.com.
I moved a few hundred of them when I first made the switch, but eventually forgot to move them all over. She was asking about the formula recently and even though I had forgotten about it completely - her prodding reminded me that there were still some posts over there. Sure enough - there they were. I moved about 20 of them a couple nights back and will continue to move the remaining 200+ until I forget - haha.
So for the record, here is the formula: First, you determine your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which will tell you how many calories you need to consume each day to remain exactly the same weight - then you shoot for totals under that. I also broke down the calories into carbs, fat, and protein - based on the research I had done. The focus on carbs is low-glycemic food as they take longer to break down and are healthier. I threw the exercise in as a general goal.
Calories < 2,100
Fat 25-35%
Carbohydrates 45-55%
Protein 15-25%
Minutes of exercise 30-60
Based on these numbers, I report here the totals and then color them according to whether I hit in the range, over, or under.
Here is what I did yesterday:
Total Calories: 1,970
% Fat: 24%
% Carbohydrates: 53%
% Protein: 22%
Minutes of exercise: 35
Here are the totals for the day:
Total Calories: 2,381
% Fat: 39%
% Carbohydrates: 42%
% Protein: 19%
Minutes of exercise: 0
I wasn’t off too far today, overall the trend is improving. I was a bit lopsided until I had a big ol’ apple to end the day. Now I see why “an apple a day…” It really helped the numbers. I actually had green beans, a banana and an apple all in the same day - Pops is spinning in his grave.
Okay, I am adapting my health plan or I should say my diet regimen a little bit.
For the record, I need roughly 2,700 calories a day to continue to at my present weight so I will be shooting for totals under that each day.
I am going to track things a little differently. I am going to also shoot for the following breakdown in my calorie distribution:
Carbohydrates 45-55%
Fat 25-35%
Protein 15-25%
Minutes of exercise 30-60
I know this is going to flip out the anti-carb camp, but it has a sound basis in science, unlike some diet plans that are out there. I intend to try to make those carbs score well on the glycemic index. I.e. those that take longer to breakdown.
I will now only be posting:
Total Calories:
% Carbohydrates:
% Fat:
% Protein:
Minutes of exercise:
If I hit the target area the listing will be in GREEN, if I am over, it will be in RED and if I am under, it will be in BLUE
Need help tracking your own healthy eating? Well, first look at the labels - most everything made these days has good food values information on the label. In the case of things like fruits, vegetable and restaurant food however, you need a place to look things up sometimes. The site Calorie-Count.com is a great tool!
