Losing Weight In Public — Week 7

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Patrick_StarfishWeek 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 293 pounds
Current weight: 293 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 0 pounds
Total weight lost: 12 pounds

Well, that was the same. It’s funny, I got to the middle of the last week and—for whatever reason—I’d dipped to 289. I was on top of the world.

This is a very good example of why we should never weigh ourselves before weigh-ins: we might get cocky and decide to have 2x 22 ounce steaks over the next two days, a Chocolate Thunder From Down Under, and alcohol too. And a custard. (But the rest of the week was fine).

What did I learn? That “Low Carb / High Cake / Two Small Drinks” diets don’t work. But I didn’t learn it because I already knew it. I’m convinced the part of my brain that likes cake has been nibbling on my cerebral cortex.

This Week’s Challenge

1) Avoid sugar comas at all cost.
2) Try not to eat anyone accidentally.
3) Don’t weigh myself mid-week.

Ah well, no sense beating myself up about it. I’d probably lose anyway. See you next week, folks.

Losing Weight In Public — Week 6

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Plateau at Golden Bay, Malta (top/middle)

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 292 pounds
Current weight: 293 pounds
Weight lost since last week: -1 pounds
Total weight lost: 12 pounds

*Woo hoo, my first plateau!

Funny story about a plateau. Years ago, in college, when I was studying abroad, I visited a beach in Malta. Bisecting the beach was an enormous plateau. It looks tiny in the picture, but I promise you, it was huge—and very high. Like an idiot, I chose to climb it rather than relax and enjoy the water like everyone else. I found a crack that ran all the way to the top and used that to make my ascent.

Now, understand: I had no training whatsoever. Nobody knew I was there, and if I slipped I would have died.

At one point, I reached for my next handhold—and then stopped myself. To this day, I don’t know why I stopped. I climbed an additional foot or so using a different, less convenient handhold, and then looked at what I’d almost grabbed. Nestled there like a bomb was a giant wasps nest boiling with wasps. If I’d continued blissfully climbing, I would have grabbed it, and those wasps would have stung me hundreds of times — with me, dangling precariously way up high on the side of that plateau. My guess is I wouldn’t have been able to control myself and then fallen to my death. Instead of that, my dumb ass skirted around the nest (about two feet from me at the closest) and continued the climb.

So as you can see, plateaus are VERY dangerous. (Hmm, wait, that’s not true in weight loss, but whatever, just go with it). But if you conquer them, the journey will have been worth the struggle. (Okay, not true at all as it pertains to spurious rock climbing without ropes or people who know you’re there, but shush).

Last Week’s Successes:
Didn’t eat any catering at work.

Last Week’s Failures:
Went out with my mom-in-law for her birthday and ate more cake than her. (Pie, actually, but it makes a better story if I say cake. Why do you keep interrupting my stories?!?)

See you next week.

*Ok, fine: it would have been a plateau if I’d maintained my weight, but I gained a pound.

Losing Weight In Public — Week 5

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Co-worker Donuts

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 295 pounds
Current weight: 292 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 3 pounds
Total weight lost: 13 pounds

Wow, I lost a lot of weight last week. Eating chicken wings from the wrong place will do that too you. It’ll do it to you the next morning, later again that morning, twice that afternoon, and again that evening. My guess is I really lost about 1-2 pounds of fat, which is still great. But I don’t think I’ll necessarily lose much more (if any) by next week.

Last Week’s Successes

I didn’t eat anything sweet. No pastries, no ice cream or cookies or the donuts my coworker brought in. In fact, I wasn’t even tempted. The last 4 weeks of failure in this regard really put steel in my spine. Way to go, me.

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Not sure what this was (because I didn’t have any!)

Last Week’s Failures

I sure had a lot of wine last week. Bourbon, too. Not all at once, more like every day: at restaurants, while writing, while cooking, while watching TV together, while enjoying the nice weather on the deck. I told Dot I was going to hold off for a few months. It’s not really healthy, and will definitely slow down my weight loss.

This Week’s Challenges

I can’t think of anything specific. Last week, we didn’t do any meetup groups. We might this week, I’m not sure. I don’t think “alcohol” will be a challenge. If I can’t go a week or a few months without it, then it’s a different problem, isn’t it?  So there you go. My only challenge this week is the omnipresent threat of self-sabotage.

See you next week!

Losing Weight In Public — Week 4

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Me, looking at pie.

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 297 pounds
Current weight: 295 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 2 pounds
Total weight lost: 10 pounds

My fourth post. I am a stranger in this land of 200s. Mysterious and frightening be their ways. They eat and then they stop! Their bathroom scales, they do not break! At first, I was but a scared traveler in their midst, scurrying from shadow to shadow, nibbling as I went, afraid at any moment they would see me and shout, “That fat guy has no clothes!” What are they doing in my bathroom at 7 a.m.? I DO NOT KNOW!

Last week’s big successes:

Ok, I’ll just say it right here: last week was mostly great. We had one round of catering at the office and I didn’t eat any of it. Also, though I went out to a few restaurants, I didn’t order any dessert. Yay for me, please pass the ketchup.

Last week’s failures:

Isn’t the world more fun when you don’t blog about your mistakes? I sure think so. Ok, so last Friday at the team potluck was a total fricking bust. I tried like 4 different desserts, and then I tried them all again. I had carbs up the wazoo. How they got up my wazoo, I have no idea, but they were there when I woke from my sugar coma. Really stupid on my part, and it’s a miracle I lost any weight at all. If anything, that shows you can screw up and still succeed, but therein lies a problem. Now I know I can screw up and succeed. Pandora has left the building, and she’s carrying an open box of Twinkies.

This week’s coming challenges:

I can’t think of anything specific, except for the possibility of a meetup group of some sort. Oh yeah, we might go to a seafood place for happy hour. I can eat seafood until my head falls off. Woot.
One challenge we should go ahead and acknowledge: desserts. Every week of this whole “Losing Weight In Public” thing has shown I can’t stay away from them. So it’s safe to say that’s my biggest challenge this week: not eating desserts.

Conclusion:

I’m really looking forward to getting my eating under better control. I need to plan better. I need to figure out why I do the things I do. Am I trying to escape? If so, from what? Am I trying to fill up a hole of some kind? Or am I just a human with millions of years of evolution weighing me down, screaming, “Eat before you starve! Eat before you starve!”

I’d like to blame it all on Darwin, but you know what happened to him?

He died.

See you next week!

Losing Weight In Public — Week 3

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Sad little fat man.

Stuffing my face with carrot cake. Surprisingly skinny-looking photo. But then, I’m sitting, and I’m 6’5″.

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 300 pounds
Current Weight: 297 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 3 pounds
Total Weight lost: 8 pounds

Yes, I’ve renamed the series to “Losing Weight In Public.” I think it sounds nicer, and I think it’s more descriptive (inspired by Dean Wesley Smith’s “writing in public” series). Hope you agree!

I’m going on the third week of the experiment. So far, I’m fairly happy. I could be making better choices, and I could prepare myself better for various challenges. I have to get out of the mindset that eating is recreation (vs. fuel, which it is).

It’s not so much that I love food, it’s that I like eating. For other people, maybe that’s healthy. For me, it’s just a minefield full of cobblers and cheesecakes and mashed potatoes.

Last week’s big successes:

1) Totally, totally, totally ignored the catering they brought in (totally!). This happened twice. Once with begals, the next with these really great sandwiches. Sigh.
2) Someone on the team brought in red velvet cake or something, super delicious looking. I didn’t even taste it.

Last week’s challenges:

As you can see from that sad photo my wife took, I ate something I shouldn’t have. Carrot cake, at the Outback. Looking back on that dessert, I barely remember it, other than that I enjoyed it. One thing I remember is it being really sugary, particularly the icing. I remember thinking, “If I could just have the cake part, that’d be better, because the rest just kind of overpowers it.”

That’s one thing folks new to low carb will discover: sweet stuff tastes too sweet, if you go without it long enough.

Despite the occasional screw-up on my part, my taste buds have adjusted. For example, I can’t drink Coke anymore (Dot can’t either). And I don’t like artificial sweeteners as much. I still like the occasional Diet Coke, though (with ice), so I’m not completely cured.

Another challenge last week was eating over at our friends’ house. Pork loin, mashed potatoes, carrots, and collard greens. I should have stuck with the pork loin and collards. I shall say no more.

The rest of the week was mostly fine (several drinks on Friday with the meetup group — had a blast).

I realize that I can’t keep screwing up as these weeks start accumulating, because my body’s going to be very miserly when it comes to giving up pounds. That said, I’m optimistic I can get fully back into the swing of things.

This week’s coming challenges:

Catering will always be a challenge, so long as I’m working for a living and not going full time as a writer…

Ok, yes, that’s BS, I’ll turn myself in right now. There are plenty of overweight people out there who don’t work under the constant threat of catering. I have to remember that no matter where I am, I need to be vigilant and always have a plan.

One challenge I need to plan for this week is: my team is having a potluck. Oh. My. God. Potluck?!?! Potlucks are like my favorite thing in the world! If I don’t pig out, that’d be insulting to everyone there, right? Talk about a permission slip to screw up!

I have two options here:

  1. Come with some low carb food I’m happy with and just stick to that (and maybe have anything else there that’s low carb, like salad or whatever, and in the right portions).
  2. Don’t go.

I’m seriously considering option 2, because I don’t trust myself to attend without messing up. I’d just get there and start lawyering with myself, making deals like, “If I pig out now, I have all week to fix it, and didn’t I mess up last week and still lose weight? See, I can do it!”  Pretty lame, huh?

Ok, that’s enough whining. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!