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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IMG_0022

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!

John’s Little Problem — Week 2

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cobler

Cobbler: omg, so good…

Beginning weight: 305 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 5 pounds
Current Weight: 300 pounds

Today begins the second week of my big fat experiment. Last week had a lot of challenges, but I seem to have done all right. If I hadn’t, I would have posted anyway, because I said I would — and that looming embarrassment kept me more or less on track all week. Thanks anonymous Internet people!

Challenge 1: Catering To My Needs

Last Tuesday, my job had three meetings with an unholy amount of catering, and they stacked it all in the common area when they were through. Worst of all, they had my favorite thing in the world: cobbler, in two flavors — peach and apple. Who doesn’t love apple cobbler? Crazy people, that’s who. I avoided the cobbler and settled for a few pieces of chicken (breaded … ugh, I know).

Challenge 2: Dining And Whining

The wife and I went out a few too many times last week (see her Sunday blog post). The problem, I think, is we don’t have a lot of friends in the area. Ok, none, really. Our closest friends live about thirty miles away, and we only see them about once a month, tops. So the wife and I tend to go out. There’s background music, atmosphere, drinks-drinks-drinks (whiskey or wine, not beer), food we don’t have to make, cheerful waitstaff, etc. And way too many opportunities to over indulge.

Challenge 3: Revenge Of The Cobbler

On Saturday, I ended up breaking down and eating some blackberry cobbler on one of our little outings. I felt bad about that. Not the end of the world, and not in unlimited amounts (like those giant vats at the office…), but definitely the end of ketosis for about 24 hours. Sigh. Something to work on.

This Coming Week…

This week’s challenges are mostly unknown, except for Friday. The wife and I joined a meetup group that’ll be going to a bar for happy hour. “Are you out of your mind?!” you say. Not entirely. We’d probably go out anyway at some point. At least this way we can meet a few folks, make new friends. Also, it’s scheduled fun — for Friday. Not “I’m bored, let’s go mess up” fun three days in a row. And we do need more friends in the area. We’ve joined a few other meetup groups as well. Each will have its food challenges. One’s a bowling group. The other’s an eclectic group that does all kinds of odd things, from board games to happy hours to going to museums.

I’m feeling pretty good about where I am. Five pounds is an awful lot to lose in a week, and I’m sure next week will be more realistic. We always lose the most weight in the first week of a “diet,” whereas “lifestyles” produce less spectacular (though longer lasting) results.

See you next week!

John’s Little Problem – Day One

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2Since my last weigh-in, I’ve gained 3 pounds, and now weigh 305.

At the urging of my overworked plumber, I’ve decided it’s time to take my weight loss seriously. Ok, that was a joke. The first part, not number two.

*cheers, laughs, and cries of encore, encore*

Everyone likes a jolly fat man.  Especially coroners and morticians. Which is why I’m writing this post, quite frankly. I just turned forty-five, I’ve had a small scare recently with some very odd heartburn that’s lasted way too long, and I’m worried about my health. The doctor says the heartburn is probably some damage at the bottom of my esophagus, so any amount of acid (even normal) is probably the cause of it, and I just need to heal. But here’s the scary part: if it doesn’t heal, he’s asked that I come back to find “other causes.”

Yeah. Scary.

How I Got Here

A few years ago, after my wife, Dot, quit her job and got serious about her weight loss, I got serious too and did the low-carb thing with her. We both lost a lot of weight right off. She lost like fifty pounds and I lost about the same.  Then she kept losing, and for two years I stayed right around three hundred pounds.

There are a few reasons for this. One, I work in an office, and however well I ate at home, when nobody was around to tell me “no!” and swat me with a rolled-up newspaper, I’d go to town on pizza, cakes, catered sandwiches, cookies, chips, and doughnuts. Sometimes I’d resist and eat what I’d packed for lunch that day. Other times I’d eat what I packed that day and go to town anyway. Still other times I’d go out and pay for lunch.

“But isn’t going out to eat super expensive?” you hypothetically ask.

“Not usually,” I reply to the suppositional you.

At the office I work at, there are always vendors or staffing reps to take me out for free, or team-building outings to all-you-can-eat places, or vendor-paid happy hours with both drinks and appetizers. And yeah, sometimes I’d just go out on my own, rather than stick to the lifestyle I’d turned into a diet.

So basically, what I’m saying is: I can’t be trusted.  And that’s where you, gentle Dot-2-Trot blog reader, come in.

Confessing My Three-chin Sins

For the next however-many months, years, whatever, I plan to show up here every Monday and confess my eating sins (if any) and successes (if any). I don’t plan on going into a lot of sciency stuff, like Dot, but I may post something I find once in a while. I like the science too, but before I start with the talking, I’d like to pack a little success under this overstrained belt of mine … kind of thing.

Each week, I’ll post my current weight and maybe talk a little about the challenges I overcame, or the positive things I’m doing. For example, I plan to join the free gym at my job—not to lose weight, but to gain health. I’ve noticed in the past that when I work out, I’m more likely to pay attention to my eating, and that results in positive change.

By confessing on my wife’s blog like this, I hope to keep myself honest and add a little public pressure/shame to my daily grind. Dot can’t watch me all the time, but I know you guys will be there the following Monday to give me grief if I screw up, because that’s what anonymous friends on the internet are for.

I’m really looking forward to it…

My Food Scale “Is No More. It Has Ceased To Be.”

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My little food scale finally died on me today after nearly 4 years together.

My little food scale – one of the most important tools in my weight loss efforts — finally died on me today after nearly 4 years together.

Sad news this afternoon. My trusty food scale weighed its last grams of kale. After trying three 3 different batteries, I’ve finally accepted that my food scale is no more.

Out of all my kitchen tools, gadgets and appliances, the only two I’ve used more than my food scale these last 3-1/2 years are the refrigerator and stove.

That’s just how I roll.

I picked up that little Weight Watcher’s scale at the start of my journey in 2012. Too bad it couldn’t make these last 20 or so pounds.

Tossing it in the trash seems like a dishonor. After all we’ve been through a lot these last few years. Perhaps a viking funeral is in order. That’s certainly better than this (NSFW).  Actually, the Pythons have the best send off:

Weekly Weigh In: Shed 3 Pounds To Close Out Great Week

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I capped off an awesome week with a weight loss of 3 pounds. That pushes me into the 180s! The march to the 170s begins now!

I capped off an awesome week with a weight loss of 3 pounds. That pushes me into the 180s! The march to the 170s begins now!

When I stepped on my doctor’s scale mid-week, I was so happy I entered the 180s. But the next day I started worrying about my weekend weigh-in.  Ah…I hate the fact that damn scale still can do this to me. Since I talked with my doctor about setting a goal weight, I’ve got numbers on my mind. So it is understandable, but I can’t let it dominate (i.e., derail) me.

Anyway, I worried about today’s weigh-in. At 189 pounds I barely snuck into my new weight range. I could easily go back into the 190s if I didn’t keep my focus.

Well thanks to a lot of running, walking (the weather gods were kind to me), and listening to motivational podcasts this week, I kept that focus and tracked everything.  Thanks to that constant vigilance, I did some course correcting before potential problems hit (man, I love cream in my coffee). The result, I lost 3 pounds this week.

At 187 lbs., I am firmly in the 180s now…but don’t intent to stay their very long. My new mini-target is 179 lbs. Why? When my weight reaches 179, that means I’ve lost 45% of my total weight since this journey began. Just 8 more pounds then onto the next mini-target. Yay!

The last time I took an “after” photo, I was 30 pounds heavier. So I think it’s time to take new measurements and a new “after” photo. Nothing takes away the power of the scale like photography and a good old fashion tape measure.

Weekly Weigh-In: Fat Loss Continues; Down 1.4 Lbs.

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I ended February on a high note, losing 1.4 pounds. For the first time this year I feel like I'm mentally in the weight loss game.

I ended February on a high note, losing 1.4 pounds. For the first time this year I feel like I’m mentally in the weight loss game.

I end February strong. Not only did I lose 1.4 lbs. this week, but my intermittent fast is going great. As of January I’m down 5.8 lbs. which brings my total weight loss to 133 pounds. My weight loss may be off to a slower start than expected this year, but I finally feel as if I’m once again firing on all cylinders.

I’m tracking and measuring everything. My daily activity is high. I just need to remember to wear that blasted Fitbit to track my steps.

Each Saturday, I refrain from eating and drinking anything until after my Weight Watchers weigh-in and meeting. This week I worried a little, because water and coffee are the only things I can consume until noon, due to the semi-fast I’m now doing. Despite the lack of liquids, my stomach didn’t make a peep during the meeting. No hunger pains after, and no growling. Just a general feeling of awesomeness. Read More

Weekly Weigh-In: Breakthrough! Down 3.5 Pounds

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Thanks to a bit of detective work, I'm down 3.5 lbs. this week.

Thanks to a bit of detective work, I’m down 3.5 lbs. this week.

I’m finally going in the right direction. At Saturday’s weigh-in I lost nearly 4 lbs. this week. Sweet! What changed? I played detective. I didn’t make any changes in what I was doing other than tracking and measuring everything. After 3 days I analyzed my food log and quickly found the problem.

My Morning Cuppa’ Joe
I’m brand spanking new to drinking coffee, but it quickly became a morning ritual for me. No, I don’t drink those sugar/carb-laced monstrosities from Starbucks. I only drink what I make at home. That way it’s healthy. Ha!

How can coffee stall my weight loss? It doesn’t have any carbs and is zero points. Plus coffee has a ton of health benefits. Read More