Stressed out!

Stress is a major trigger for me.  Instead of wanting to drive to the gym when I'm feeling stressed I want to go to the drive-thru or the store to pick up a bunch of junk food.  Yeah, I'll feel better for a few minutes as I withdraw into a food coma bliss.  But then reality comes back and I'll hate myself for what I just did.  I probably would try to throw it all back up but I had throwing up and that is just gonna cause more issues. 

For years I worried about everyone else, I was there to listen and help for everyone else and never took care of me.  Well it's mine time people.  I have to take care of number 1, numero uno!  I have my own issues and problems I'm trying to navigate thru, I don't need yours stacked on top of mine.  It doesn't mean I don't love you or I don't care about you it just means I need care about me for a while.  I have a few friends that have been great and understanding to me and I will always be there for them.  I'm just trying to keep my stress levels as low as I can so I can get thru this shit called life.

Treat yourself!

You know, sometimes you just have to treat yourself!

You ever have those days that starts off bad and just goes downhill from there?  Things seem to multiply like a snowball on a steep slope?  This is usually followed by a brief period or run of good luck and life is going ok for a bit and then BLAMO!  You get smacked down with one big thing and that starts the snowball a rolling!  

You know that feeling?  Yeah me too. 

 I had one of those days and I decided to do something for myself that would cheer me up instead of continuing on a downward spiral of depression.  I decided I'm not going to continue down the depression spiral and I halted it by doing something nice for me.  In my case, it was hot out and I just finished working out at the gym so I granted myself the pleasure of a snowball.  Just a simple treat.  Something to pick me up and turn around my day.  And it worked.  I enjoyed my small treat (always use the moderation rule when treating yourself) and I got back to working out.  I didn't let the events earlier in the day make me curl up in a ball in my bed or stuff my face with junk food.  

Now a word of caution.  Yes it is ok to treat yourself, but sometimes you can try to be too good and actually wreck your treat.  Don't get the sugar free snowballs.  Get a small regular one and you will be much happier!  

Can I get an "accurate" calorie counter please!?!

Trying to reduce your body mass by at least half is no small process.  In fact, its a very big, long and hard process fraught with many obstacles to overcome.  For me, counting calories has been a big key dropping the pounds.  Several years ago I used the latest and greatest technology to help me which was the body bug.  The contestants on The Biggest Loser used them so if they were good enough for them, good enough for me.  It was helpful as I started on my journey, a bit of a pain to wear a tight strap around my upper arm 24/7 often leaving an imprint on my arm.  But it gave a pretty good indication of how active I was and how many calories I was burning.

Fast forward to the present.  I no long have the body bug to bug me and I'm using other technology to track my calorie intake and burn.  The latest app seems to be the myfitnesspal.com  It's a very good app for free.  It has a large database of foods and exercises you can put in and track your calories.  But here is what was frustrating me today.

So I'm riding on my stationary bike and I'm once again wondering what am I actually burning and how many calories am I actually losing.  The display on my bike will only allow you to put in a max weight of 350 lbs as a way to track how many calories you are burning.  But I far exceed that number.  So no matter what that display says at the end of my ride, it's just not right.  Using the myfitnesspal to enter my exercise for the day they were many options for stationary bike.  There is very light effort, light effort, moderate effort, vigorous effort and very vigorous effort.  Well how the hell do I know which I just did?  There isn't anything that lets you know what the difference is! Also when I put in my strength training it doesn't even count that as burning calories.  Very frustrating.

In my search of the inter webs for some information on how to calculate it I came across several sites that would give you your starting information such as how many calories you need per day to just move and keep going.  I tried several sites and entered the same age, weight, height and sex information to each.  My daily caloric intake ranged from 3600 to over 6500 calories per day on various sites!

In the end I am left with what I have been using.  It seems about 4000 calories a day for me is a good average.  And of course 3500 calories equals a pound.  So I'm left with a whopping 500 calories per day to eat.  If your not careful, you can blow more than half of that on breakfast alone.  So that means I'm basically exercising so I can eat the rest of the day.  :-)    So you can see why I want to get a good idea of how many calories I'm burning when I go for my bike rides.

Just some thoughts from today's journey.  The struggle continues!

Take care, until next time!

Super long time no post (restarting my blog)

So my last post was almost three years ago.  A lot has happened since then.  I want to bring you up to date on what has been going on with me and I'm going to start blogging again.

Ok so three years ago the last post said I had lost 90 pounds.  I actually ended up losing a total of 105 pounds and was doing well with my work outs and cooking for myself.  Then there was a sudden derailment.  I'm not going into long details of what happened but just to say a love one got sick and I lost my focus and so began my back slide.  Over the course of the next two years I slowly went back to bad habits and old depressions resulting in me gaining most if not all of my weight back.

Fast forward to November 2014.  Thanks again to my parents who recognized I needed help.  They packed me up and moved me back down to South Carolina.  I have been happy being with my family although I really miss my friends from back home.

I'm happy to report that I am down over 70 pounds from my all time high in just four months.  I'm going to the gym three times a week, riding my stationary bike every day and I have even started walking around the community.  I really want to get to a point where I can walk around the local amusement park with my 4 year old niece this summer.

I have a long way to go to get to Superman...but I'm feeling less like The Blob each and every day!

Stay tuned for more updates!

Long time no blog (Long post)

Hey.  Ok so it has been a while since my last post.  Time to catch you up with what has happened to me over the past two months.  First let me start with, I have continued to lose weight.  I have now lost just over 90 pounds as I approach my fifth month of this journey.  It has been a busy two months since my last post. 

Shortly after my last post back in early May I packed up my belongings and returned home to Maryland.  Three months at my parents house was amazing.  They got me started on my journey and gave me lots of support in those first and probably the most difficult months of changing your life.  I do not believe this would have possible without their love and support.  I had to return to Maryland for other business and I felt that I had the tools and my routine down that I could continue to success on my own at home.  My parents were worried and made sure I knew that their door was always open and I could return if I need to. 

The first week of my return was crazy as my house was in pure chaos with unpacking and just cleaning up the mess I had left behind.  It took about a week of hard work to get the house back in order so I could start my routines back up again.  But the great thing about it was that I was able to do the cleaning!  Being able to move again is so amazing that only someone like me in my former state can truly appreciate.  I don't remember the exact weight losses I had per week but I continued my average of about 5 pounds a week.  Some weeks higher, some weeks lower but I keep slimming down and that's the point.

Just two weeks home and I was heading back to South Carolina.  But I was driving down!  I met one of my first goals of getting on a plane again!  It had been a good decade since the last time I flew.  Not because I am scared, I love it actually, I wish I could be in the cockpit flying it.  (That's a future goal)  Anyway, I was a bit nervous about the whole experience.  I had not flown since before Sept. 11, 2001 so I didn't know the new security procedures and standing in long lines and walking great distances had been a nightmare for me over the past several years.  I gotta tell you, I got thru it all so easy!  Standing in the ticket and security line wasn't a problem.  My back would have been hurting 5 minutes in and the sweat would have started dripping soon after.  These issues were no more.  I was able to endure the lines AND walk to my gate with barely any discomfort.  That was one hurdle passed.  Now to get on the plane and hopefully sit in my seat.  It was a tight fit to squeeze into the coach seat and it was a good thing I had gotten a second seat so I could lean over into that second seat.  My shoulders along were too big for one seat.  It was a short flight to Charlotte so hurdle two was passed.  Now I just had to claim my luggage and meet my ride.  Even though I couldn't find where my baggage was coming out and walked up and back in the whole baggage claim area looking for it, again with little trouble before finding it and meeting my dad outside. 

So the reason I flew back down to my parents was because we were having a family vacation to the Outer Banks!  The last time we were there was for my sisters wedding four years prior.  It was a lovely week but full of struggles for me.  The wedding was on the beach and I could barely walk down there even with the help of a walking stick.  This time none of those past struggles were a problem.  Not only did I walk down to the beach but I actually got into the ocean.  Something I haven't done for probably a good twenty years.  Me and my brother in-law went boggie boarding several times, flew kites on the beach, swam in the pool, went bowling and played at the arcade the day it rained and even played a round of mini-golf and hit some balls on the driving range!  It was a great week but ended too soon. 

Once we returned to Charlotte me and my dad drove back up here to Maryland where we stayed for just a day as we then headed up to my parents summer place in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  The trailer had been closed up all winter and needed to be cleaned and stocked up for the spring/summer/fall and the grass was way over due for a cutting.  My father handled most of the outdoor stuff while I cleaned and organized inside the trailer.  We only spent a few days up there but I enjoyed myself as I hadn't been able to go up there for several years.  Another goal met! 

So after returning to my home and my dad headed back down south it has been about two weeks that I was off my routine.  I didn't dare weight myself but just started back on my routine.  After a week of that I was back to my Wednesday weigh-ins. Thankfully I did weigh less than when I left for vacation.

So the next two weeks or so went by ok.  I just focused on my routine and continued to lose weight.  Then the curveball came.  My god-daughter was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma.  She's thirteen and the daughter of my best friend.  I couldn't really focus on me and what I was doing any more, my thoughts turned to them and how I could help them.  I spent several days up at Johns Hopkins Hospital visiting her and my friends during this time.  The charity and fund-raiser in me popped his head up and I had to do something.  So I focused on building a web site for Catie to try and collect donations to help pay for the medical costs.  www.helpcatiefighthodgkins.com was created.  So far we have received some donations and that's great.  We started a raffle for her and I helped her family clean and paint a new bedroom for her and I was able to purchase a new bed for her so when she comes home from her chemotherapy appointments she will have a comfortable place to recover.  During this week or two there was some stress eating and I had my first no loss week since I started my journey.  It's understandable with what was going on but I needed to refocus on me now that I had set things in place for Catie.  I can maintain the web site and the other things going on while I get back to my routine.  So that  brings us up to date.  Today's weigh-in was great.  7.4 pounds lost this week once I refocused my energies.  I am about 9 pounds short of my first major goal of lossing 100 pounds!  I'm gonna push hard this week and see if I can hit it next week.

Stay tuned!

Take care, until next time!

Have your cake and eat it too!

Hey.  During my weight loss journey I have had to make sacrifices to achieve my goals.  I had to cut out the sodas.  Stay away from the fast food joints and worse of all cut out the sweets and junk food.  As I have been doing this I've been working on collecting and testing recipes that are mostly healthy and won't shoot my calorie intake thru the roof.  I found this great site called Pepperplate.com that you can import your recipes into and use it to plan out your dishes ahead of time.  It even creates a shopping list for you based on the dishes you selected.  Another nice feature is the list of sites that you can import recipes from.  Once such site was called Skinnytaste.com.   I picked up several recipes I wanted to try including some interesting crock pot dishes but then I took a look at their dessert section.  They had several low calorie dessert option that would allow you a taste of what you were craving without blowing your diet.
    Today I tried my hand at one of those recipes called a Homemade Skinny Chocolate Cake. This was a pretty simply cake to make and I think it came out awesome!  Each 2.5 inch square piece are only 163 calories and help quench that chocolate craving you may be having. So if your really craving something sweet and yummy don't deprive yourself.  Treat yourself!  Check out some of the other recipes on Skinnytaste.com and here is the link for the skinny chocolate cake recipe.

Take care, until next time! 

Where there's a will theres a way!

Hey! So today is weigh-in Wednesday. I had a good week losing 8.6 pounds. And that even included a trip out to a restaurant for dinner one night. So not too shabby if I do say so myself. That puts me at just over 60 pounds since I started this journey 10 weeks ago. Every week I post my weigh-in numbers on my facebook page and my friends and family comment and leave supportive statements and it's been great to see those. I have other friends that are currently going thru their own weight loss journey's and between the replies they get and the ones I get, I noticed a recurring theme. "How are you doing it?" and "Where do you get the will power?". That's what this blog is going to be about. The Willpower to improve yourself.

I don't think I have the answer to these people's questions. I believe that everyone has their own reasons for doing what they are doing. I can only tell you mine. My willpower comes down to this. I want a better life for myself!!! For the past several years I didn't care about myself. I tried to help other people when I could but I didn't love myself. I did the bare minimum to get by in the world. As long as I could go to work and provide for myself, pay my bills, I really didn't care about anything else. Eventually it just got too hard to do that any more and I hit rock bottom. I really think this has been like what an alcoholic or drug addict goes thru. I had to hit my lowest point before I woke up and said NO MORE!

 Two years ago I was close and I hired a private trainer to come to my home and help me work out. He was great and I dropped some weight but once the sessions where over I just went back to my old ways. I wasn't yet desperate to change my life. Late last year and early this year I hit that mark. And just like an addict I went away and got into therapy. In my case it was moving in with my parents so I could get proper nutrients and get myself set on a exercise routine. I'm nearing my goal of 100 pounds before returning home to continue my journey. Just like an addict I have to return to the real world and continue what I have learned here. Will I be successful? I think so. I have a lot of goals and things I want to be able to do and I have a solid core group of friends that will help and support me when I return home.

If you are one of the people that wonder where I get the willpower, just ask yourself if your happy with the way you are? If not, make a change. Start off small. Get a food scale and measure your portion size. Count your calories. When you see how much your eating you will make the change. Try to get a small walk in each day. I know its difficult and frustrating when you first start but before you know it you will get into a routine and you will be doing these things like it was perfectly natural. I'm a walking billboard that says you can do it! You just have to flip that switch inside your mind from negative to positive.

Take care, until next time!