And yes, as the friend who sent this picture to me noted, I did go to high school with a guy who went on to become Governor of Maryland. Matter of fact, I also went to elementary school with him. We were buds. Now stop looking at those girls' legs and let me get back to my story.
That summer I started exercising with weights, and when I came back to the wrestling team for my junior year I was about twenty pounds heavier. Still thinner than Benedict, but getting a little meat on my bones.
After that I didn't keep track, but I was in really good shape through the U.S. Army years, and I know that when I got married I was still packing a six-pack. So probably until age 25 or so, I was thin and in shape. And then began the slow slide into tumescence. So to speak.
I stopped exercising around age 33, as that was when my number one son was born and (1) I had started teaching, which demanded a lot more of my time than a real job, and (2) my wife (still the same one at this point) worked a lot of nights, so I was watching #1son, and it's not easy to lift weights and watch a baby at the same time. But I was still on the thin side. See?
And a few years later . . . probably age 38, judging from the background of this picture . . . I had quit smoking, was not exercising, but still hadn't blown up:
A few years after that, my wife needed a divorce, and I started smoking again, so I was still more or less of average size. Less than a year after the divorce I met she-would-would-be-wife-number-2, and that's when I started to gain weight. For several reasons, the only two of which I will reveal here being that I was really happy and that I had quit smoking again. I would guess that I was hitting 250 (more or less) by the time she decided she needed a divorce. I was 52, and I had just found the best diet ever: heartbreak. I dropped weight like a sonovabitch. In a few months I was down to 200 pounds. (Because, as Christopher Titus proclaimed in Love Is Evol, "that's how much a soul weighs.") In fact, I visited a then-friend in Los Angeles three months after the divorce, and I looked like this:
And, as you can see, I was irresistible to beautiful women. That was December 2009. If I'd stayed heartbroken things probably would have been okay, but it didn't work out that way. And a few years after that . . . I quit smoking. (As the man--apparently not Mark Twain, as I'd previously thought--said, "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.")
And I picked up more and more weight. When I realized that I had hit 270 pounds, I was aghast. I would have been aghast long before then, but I didn't have a scale for years, and I was not fond of looking at myself in the mirror, so I was able to call plausible denial.
I started to get to work. I tried to go on a hunger strike, remembering how well the Loss of a Soul Diet had worked, but I couldn't stick with it. So I started exercising. My knees are not good (most of the cartilage has been worn away), so running or even walking was not a good choice for me. So I started riding my bicycle. For over an hour at a crack. For forty or fifty miles per week. And according to my doctor's blood tests, my health improved dramatically. But I didn't really lose a whole hell of a lot of weight. And that was pretty much how it went until the end of last summer, and then it got cold and I stopped riding my bike, and after a few months of that . . . well, you know.
And then a few days ago I got a stomach flu and spent from midnight to noon the next day throwing up every 45 minutes. When I finally felt that I could keep a little something down, I tried a few crackers and a little bit of soup, and that was it until much later, when I ate a piece of toast. The next day my core was suffering a serious meltdown. I ached as if I'd won first place in the sit-ups-in-one-minute competition. And I found that, as a consequence, I had very little appetite. So two days with not much of anything to eat.
A plan began to form in my mind.
Clearly exercise was good, but I was not going to lose the kind of weight I wanted to lose via exercise. I hated to admit it, but when it came down to it, I had no other explanation: I was taking in way too many calories. I'd never paid much attention to what I ate. When I was young I didn't have to, and when I got older I didn't want to. I just told myself I'd keep an eye on myself and left it at that. But I must have had a lazy eye.
So today I am officially beginning my three pronged attack. I am going to record everything that I eat and the calories contained therein. I am going to record my exercise time. And I am going to weigh myself. Every day.
And I am going to embarrass myself by making this public on my blog. Not that I have any desire to do this. Au contraire. But I have lived long enough to know myself. And I know that if I just do this on my own reconnaissance, that it won't take long for me to falter, and then it won't take long for me to convince myself that it doesn't really matter anyway, and then it won't take long for me to be back to where I was--or worse--again. That may happen even if I do go to the Growing Up in Public With Your Pants Down position, but there's only one way to find out, right? You're bloody well right.
So here we go.
Oh, just one more thing. I checked a website that tells you how many calories you can have per day if you want to lose such and such amount of weight by whenever, and it told me that if I eat 1773 calories a day and maintain "light activity," I can be down to 200 lbs by September 19, 2017. I'm not sure what they mean by "light activity," so I re-calculated and put in "sedentary" instead, and it told me that I could then eat 1670 calories a day and reach my goal of 200 lbs by November 28, 2017. It might be more fun to not exercise and have that extra half of a candy bar every day, but I'm still going to shoot for at least "light" activity. Speaking of which, with another recalculation I found that if I were willing to bump it up to "very active," 1 I could eat 2728 calories a day and be down to 200 lbs by the same date. Hmmm. 2728 calories . . . now we're talking, am I right? But as to this so-called very active . . . .
All of which just goes to show that it's really a matter of Calories In more than anything else . . . until you hit it on the highest level of exercise, which I'm certain would cause me to lose weight even more quickly than they predict, because I think after I died my flesh would putrefy and slough off way before November, putting me at a nice skeleton weight of 39 pounds. (According to trusted but unnamed sources, your skeleton weighs about 15% of your body weight.)
1 Whatever that means. 2
2 Speaking of which . . . I found another website which seemed reputable and which gave some good examples to help with this ranking of activity levels business. It said that light activities would be things such as walking slowly, sitting at a computer, making the bed, eating, preparing food, and washing dishes. Examples of moderate activities would be things like sweeping the floor, walking briskly, slow dancing, vacuuming, washing windows, or shooting a basketball. And examples of vigorous activities would be running (5 mph), swimming, shoveling, soccer, jumping rope, and carrying heavy loads. So I'm thinking that my bike rides should at least count as moderate, right? So I went back to the calculator and put that in, and it told me that I could have 2376 calories a day and still reach a goal of 200 lbs by November 28, 2017 with moderate activity.
Game on. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it, chile.
Week One: Tuesday, 2/21/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee w/ creamer: 10c, tortilla w/ fried egg 230c, 10 oz water. /+240c./
Lunch: soup 360c, crackers 120c, 15 oz water /+480c/
peanuts /160c/
Dinner: green beans 120c, pork sandwich 210c, 15 oz water /330c/
fat free fudge bar 80c
10 oz water
50 oz water
1,290 calories
Exercise: 20 minute bike ride: -230 calories (first bike ride in quite a few months, hence the truncated riding time)
Weight: 260 lbs
Wednesday, 2/22/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee w/ creamer: 10c, tortilla w/ fried egg 230c, 15 oz water. /+240c./
coffee w/ creamer: /10c/
Lunch: broccoli 30c, pork sandwich 210c, 16 oz water /240c/
peanuts /160c/
banana /105c/
15 oz water
Dinner: Chicken Chow Mein 460c, 10 oz water
mixed fruit 140c, 16 oz water
fat free fudge bar 80c
72 oz water
1435 calories
Exercise: stretching + dumbbells (15m) + 20 m bike ride -290 c
Weight: 260 lbs
And after two days of the watching what I eat and drinking water regularly and a bit of exercising regimen, I have discovered a few things. First, at least at this early juncture, I find that it is quite tedious to write down everything that I eat. Which actually helps me to abstain from some of the calories I'd normally consume without really thinking about them. (A handful of pretzels here, a handful of peanuts there, a granola bar, etc.) Second, I've found that while it can be beneficial for me to delay lunch or dinner by a little bit, it is not a good idea to try to skip a meal. That just makes me more voracious later on in the day. Third, I have heard and read that extra chewing is helpful in making you feel fuller, so I've been trying to be conscious of that.
Thursday, 2/23/2017
Food:
Breakfast: None*
coffee w/ creamer: 10c,
10 oz water
Lunch: pork sandwich 210c, 15 oz water
peanuts 160c, 10 oz water
banana 105c
Dinner: salad 280c, cantaloupe 50 c, corn 110c, black bean and rice burrito 340c
35 oz water
1265 calories
Exercise: None.
Weight: You know, this daily weigh-in is bullshit. From now on it's going to be a Sunday morning thing.
Had to skip breakfast this morning as I had signed up for a biometric screening at Walgreens, and I needed a 12 hour fast. It goes with the health insurance policy I'm signed up for, and seemed like a good alternative to the confusing and tedious questionnaire they ask you to fill out. And I had some good news from it, actually. My cholesterol level was way down: 166, whereas when I last had it checked it was 202. I'm not sure if that was a fasting test, though, but good is good, right? Also, my Glucose level was previously 112, and today it was at 109. The bad news reference that is that it still puts me in the diabetic range, and I really want out of that club. One last bit of good news, though: my weight was 254 lbs according to their scale--and that included socks, pants, and t-shirt.
Friday, 2/24/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee w/ creamer: 10c, tortilla* w/ fried egg 230c, 10 oz water. /+240c
15 oz water
peanuts 160c, pickle slice 3c**
Lunch: chicken chow mein 230c, pretzels 110c
Don't know why, but I've been really hungry today. All day. Actually I woke up in the middle of the night because I was hungry. Also, as I sit here Joe is eating a bowl of Cheez-Its. 300 or 400 calories, I'd guess. Mmmmmm. Going to go get an apple. 95 calories.
peanuts 160c, snack 112c, 16 oz water
1110c
Dinner: brussels sprouts 150c, ravioli 500c, 15 oz water
Speaking of dinner, after eating the above=named dinner, a actually felt that my belly was full for the first time in 15 hours. 15 long hours.
56 oz water
1760 calories
Exercise: None.
And I wish that I could leave it there. And I was seriously tempted to do so, but I vowed to be truthful, so I'm going to have to embarrass myself here. Hopefully either there's no one reading these updates or those that are reading are sympathetic to the plight of a fat person trying to diet. I got high last night. And you know what happens when you get high, right? Well, I thought, "I haven't had any Kroger Tortilla Chips With a Hint of Lime in awhile, and I really love those things." So I stumbled out to the kitchen and looked at serving size. 150 calories in 11 chips. I put my eleven chips in a bowl. It was clear that that wasn't going to be enough, so I doubled it. Not only did they disappear very quickly, though . . . they also provided several sensory delights. Oh, the crunch. Oh, the flavors. I went back to the kitchen to get another serving. I'm sure that you know how this ends. So the bag wasn't full when I started, thank God, as a bag contains 1,950 calories. But it was by no means close to empty, either. So I'm going to say that it's possible that I ate as much as 1,800 calories. Which makes this a
3560 calories
day. Yowza. No matter how you cut it, that's way too much. And I actually had to divert myself (by drinking 16 oz of water, so
72 oz water
for the day), because I really wanted to eat more: peanuts and pretzels and maybe a fudge bar . . . in the mood for food, indeed. I don't know how I managed not to do it.
So I am feeling bad about that. Beware, dieters. Dope and diet most assuredly do not go together like a horse and carriage.
** Holy shit, pickles have almost no calories at all. I didn't know that. They are high in sodium and they kind of taste like shit after a couple of bites, though, so I will mos def use them sparingly.
Saturday, 2/25/2017
Food:
Breakfast: 2 coffee w/ creamer: 20c, tortilla w/ fried egg 230c, 15 oz water
peanuts 160c, 16 ounces diet peach tea 10c
Lunch: none
Big difference between today and yesterday. Today I didn't feel the big hunger at all. Didn't really mean to skip lunch, but I just kind of didn't feel like doing it.
420c
31 oz water
Dinner: salad (tomato, reddish, black olive, bacon bits, dressing) 300c, rice 160c, roast beef tips 170c, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower in cheese sauce 30c, 16 oz water
sunflower seeds 165 c, pretzels 110c, banana 105c
1460c
47 oz water
Exercise: calisthenics -65c
Sunday, 2/26/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, fried egg and toast 155c 1 , 10 oz water
peanuts 160c, sunflower seeds 165c, water 16 oz
Looks like this is going to be another hungry day. Eating those sunflower seeds was just so lovely. It made me want to eat about a pound of them. Not kidding. But I resisted. For now, anyway. Drinking my water . . . . Also easy to see where I was going wrong before I started keeping track of everything, because I would have eaten at least twice as many sunflowers AND peanuts without thinking anything more than, "seeds and nuts are good for you." (That's more the power of denial than ignorance, by the way.) And that would have added another 350 calories to the morning, minimum. Makes me wonder how many calories I was putting down before. Probably good that I don't know and can't find out, as it might be depressing to have that information.
Lunch: coffee 10c, pork sandwich 290c
Dinner: soup 340c, crackers 120c, peanuts 160c
110c pretzels
1520c
26 oz water
Exercise: Not exactly, but I did spend over an hour cleaning in the basement, which included lifting, sweeping, etc., so I must've burned a few calories, right?
Weight: 256 lbs
I don't take that to mean that I've lost four pounds, though. There are so many factors that determine your weight at any given time. If you've just had a lot of water, for instance, that can add quite a bit of weight. I just looked it up, and your stomach can hold about a gallon of water, which weighs over 8 pounds. So what if you've got a bellyful of water and a colon full of shit--I just looked that up, and found a site that said your colon can hold 5 to 25 pounds of shit at any given time--that could add a tremendous amount to your apparent weight. So I'm happy that my scale says I'm under 260. But it's not really a very big deal. I am wondering how to get all of the shit out of my colon, though. I guess this is why people do those gross cleanse things. Then again, I think my stomach virus did a pretty good cleanse on me last week, am I right?
1 Jacqueline and Joe both like biscuits, so I buy them every other week or every third week or so. And one package is enough to give each of them three and me two, which is enough all around. And I've never really thought about it. I mean, three biscuits doesn't sound like much for breakfast, does it? But in my new "trying to be conscious of what I eat" mode, I really let the calorie count sink in: each biscuit was 170 calories. So my two little biscuits would put 340 calories into my stomach. And 510 calories into Jacqueline and Joe's stomachs. Which isn't terrible, but I couldn't help but think that my typical fried egg and tortilla was 230 calories. So I resisted the temptation, put the other two biscuits into Tupperware, and made an eggy in a basket, which weighed in at a mere 155 calories (since I didn't have any tortillas left, I used a piece of whole wheat bread 2 ), and gave me 6g of protein.
2 Speaking of bread . . . I did check out the Ezekiel Bread at Kroger. It was a challenge to find it, but eventually I stumbled upon it--tucked away in a refrigerated corner of the health food section. But it was very expensive. Some varieties were on sale for $4 a loaf, but the regular price was two bucks higher. And it wasn't even that big of a loaf. So I passed on it. I've been using Healthy Life 100% whole wheat bread, which is not expensive and which I thought was good stuff. Until I looked it up a second ago and found a discussion about how Healthy Life uses azodicarbonamide, a chemical additive which has been banned in Europe. Hmm. It is so fucking hard to eat healthy and not spend a fortune on your food, isn't it? Further research ahead. FURTHER RESEARCH: Hmm. I looked at the ingredients list on my loaf of Healthy Life, and azodicarbonamide was not listed. And I checked the date of the comment that I'd read, and it was February 2014. And then I tracked down a Healthy Life Rep's reply to a Facebook question about it, and the Rep said "None of our breads azodicarbonamide!" So I guess it's cool. Makes me wonder, though: does this indicate a change in the recipe, or does it indicate that there's erroneous negative information being disseminated?
Monday, 2/27/2017
Food:
Breakfast: egg, toast, ham 200c, coffee 10c, 10 oz water
15 oz water
165c sunflower seeds
banana 105c, peanuts 160c
Lunch: none
Dinner: salad 5L+7R+45D+30Cr= 87c, broccoli w/o cheese sauce 60c, black beans 385c, chips 150, 16 oz water
Ham 400c
1722c
41 oz water
Exercise: 10 minutes calisthenics -60c
Week Two: Tuesday, 2/28/2017
Food:
Breakfast: egg, toast, ham 200c, coffee 10c, 10 oz water
Sunflower seeds 165c
Lunch: ham sandwich 400c, pretzels 110c, 16 oz water
peanuts 160c
grapes 136c
Dinner: spinach 60c 1 hot pocket 270c, 16 oz water
crackers 300c
1811c
42 oz water
1 That was for 9 oz of spinach. 9 oz of ham would be 369 calories. And 9 oz of Hershey's Milk Chocolate would be 1,277 calories. Kind of puts the whole thing into perspective, doesn't it?
Wednesday, 3/1/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, sunflower seeds 165c, Eggy in a Basket w/ ham 200c, 10 oz water
Lunch: coffee 10c, ham and crackers 200c, 16 oz water
pretzels 110c, 8 oz water
Dinner: brussel sprouts 200c, soup 200c, crackers 150c, 15 oz water
sunflower seeds 160c
pretzels 110c
yogurt 140c
Exercise: 10 minutes calisthenics + 25 minute bike ride = -360 c
1704c
49 oz water
Thursday, 3/2/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, sunflower seeds 165c, cereal w/ milk 160c *
Lunch: smoothie 90c, ham and bean on soft taco shell 248c, 16 oz diet tea 10c
16 oz water, pretzels 110c, banana 105c,
whole wheat crackers 100c
Dinner: salad 100c, pizza 436c
140c ham
pretzels 110c, 16 oz water, crackers 200c, fudge bar 80c
2064c**
48 oz water
* This was a bad choice for breakfast. I was hungry almost immediately afterwards, and stayed hungry the whole morning. As McCartney suggested in 1979, it's time to go Back to the Egg.
** Another over my goal calorie day. This time part of the culprit was that I was trying to stay awake past my too tired to stay awake condition, so I ate 280c's worth of stuff. But I think that it's clear that my calorie count has been climbing, so I need to focus on that a bit. Also drink more water. Here's to a better tomorrow, then.
Friday, 3/3/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, chia oatmeal 170c
sunflower seeds 165c, 16 oz water
Lunch: tortilla 195c, granola 160c, pretzels 110c, tuna 120c
banana 105c
1035c
Dinner: beef and rice 355c, salad 100c, mashed potatoes 140c, 16 oz water
Fudge bar 80c
1710c
32 oz water
Exercise: 10 minutes calisthenics -60 calories
Saturday, 3/4/2017
Food:
Breakfast: tortilla w/ 2 fried eggs 320c, coffee 10c, 16 oz water
sunflower seeds 165c
Lunch: chicken noodle soup 200c
Pretzels 110c
Grapes 60c
Sunflower seeds 85c
Dinner: Chipotle chorizo burrito* 1355c, 16 oz water
FF fudge bar 80c
2465 c
32 oz water
* Another belly buster of a day--about 700 calories over what I wanted. However . . . dinner at Chipotle was Jimmy's request for his last night in Louisville. So I'm not going to feel bad about this one. Besides, that burrito was Gooood.
Sunday, 3/5/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, hard-boiled eggs and crackers 276c, 10 oz water
black and white coffee 430c *, sunflower seeds 165c, 15 oz water
Lunch: 0
pretzels 110c
Dinner: mashed potatoes 190c, brussel sprouts 150c, salmon 180c, 16 oz water
Sunflower seeds 165c, 16 oz water
1676 calories
57 oz water
Exercise: 20 min calisthenics (-60c) and 27 minute bike ride (-312c) = -372c
Weight: 255 lbs
* Holy fuck, Batman! But (1) it was lunch and (2) it was last coffee at Sunergos with Jimmy, so (3) it's really his fault, ennit?
I know this is not what you would call blinding insight, but sometimes even though you know things, you don't feel their truth, right? So here are a few things that hit me this morning: (1) in the past, it has been very easy for me to grab calories here and there: if I was frying bacon for Joe, I'd throw an extra strip on for me; when Jaqueline brought her plate to the sink, if there were a few bits of syrup and pancake and butter left, I'd "clean it up." Not that that's such a big deal, but it's a way that a hundred calories here and a hundred calories there would climb on to my diet. Because (2) I never really felt like I was eating that much. In fact, when I was biking so much last summer, I was stunned that I hadn't lost weight. I thought it would be falling off of me. And I lost a little, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. (3) Speaking of which, it's not so much "wanted" to. I don't think I've ever wanted to lose weight. I've wanted to lose fat, and I've needed to lose weight (and fat). But those are big differences. (4) This extra chewing business? It works. Aside from whatever else, more chewing allows me to enjoy the flavor of my food for a longer period of time, and it is the quest for flavor which has often led me to eat more than I "should" have. (5) On the days when I drink more water, it's easier not to sneak a snack in. Last night, for instance, I was thinking that I wanted to have a little something something before I went to bed, but instead I drank 16 oz of water. And then I didn't want anything. (Though I did wake up at 2:00 a.m. and needed to piss, so there's that. But it's not like I sleep through the night anyway.)
And now, Monday. Thanks for your support.
Monday, 3/6/2017
Food:
Breakfast: tuna 90c, tortilla and egg 230c, 10 oz water
Lunch: banana 105c, pretzels 110c, coffee no creamer 2 c
16 oz water
Dinner: salad 175c mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables 230c, tuna and crackers 340c
Grapes 60c, yogurt 70c
1412 calories
26 oz water
Exercise: stretching
Week Three: Tuesday, 3/7/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, tortilla w/ fried egg 230c, 15 oz water
Lunch: crackers 120c, soup 200c, pretzels 110c
670c
sunflower seeds 165c
Dinner: apple juice 30c, salad 140c (lettuce 5c, carrots 30c, bacon bits 30c, crotons 30c , salad dressing 45c), spinach pizza 750c
16 oz water
39 oz water
1755 calories
Exercise:
In the last 16 days, I've had 12 days under my calorie goal and 4 days over.
Wednesday, 3/8/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, 2 soft-boiled eggs and crackers 258c*
sunflower seeds 165c, 16 oz water
Lunch: spinach pizza 250c, pretzels 110c, 8 oz water
granola bar 160c
Dinner: vegetable mix 40c, salad 110c, chicken soup 220c, crackers 120c, 16 oz water
pretzels 110c, ff fudge bar 80c
Exercise: 10 minutes calisthenics (-60c) + 30 minute bike ride (-347) = -407
1633 calories
40 oz water
* I'm also becoming much more aware of how to get more bang for your calories buck. Yesterday I had one fried egg in a tortilla, which was quite tasty, but today I had two soft-boiled eggs and crackers for just about the same calories.
Also, I hate to say anything for fear of jinxing it, but I have felt significantly less hungry today than I have on some of my other days. I also noticed that I seemed to have more energy when I was riding my bike this afternoon . . . and was able to up the ante on that a little bit, too. So even though I haven't lost much weight, I actually am feeling a bit better, which is a rare thing for me. (Cross fingers.)
Thursday, 3/9/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, oatmeal 140c, 10 oz water
Lunch: oopsie coffee 10c
16 oz water, 1/2 Kit Kat Bar 1 , 109c, sunflower seeds 165c
pretzels 110c
Dinner: salad 115c, pizza 435c
I can not tell a lie. I had cake. 620c's worth of cake. But hey, it's Jacqueline's 25th birthday. Kind of wish I had had something other than pizza for dinner, though. And maybe hadn't had that half of a Kit Kat Bar. Forewarned is forearmed, though, and I wasn't either.
16 oz water
1724 c 2
42 oz water
Exercise: stretching
1 Yep, I had a Kit Kat Bar. Or half of one, anyway. It's the first time I've had candy in quite a while. And man, it was gooooood. It's Jacqueline's birthday and she wanted one, so I told her we could split one (since neither one of us has any business eating Kit Kat Bars). Totally worth it.
2 I don't know how I managed to come under the calorie target in a day in which I had a candy bar, pizza, and cake, but there it is. Hey, this diet thing is alright!
Friday, 3/10/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, tortilla w/ fried egg and bacon 290c,
15 oz water
Lunch: coffee 10c, sunflower seeds 165c, pretzels 110c, 16 oz water
Dinner: chicken chow mein 560c, 16 oz water
pretzels 110c, ff fudge bar 80c
1335 calories
46 oz water
Saturday, 3/11/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, tortilla 2/ two fried eggs 320c, 16 oz water
coffee 10c
pretzels 110c
Lunch: sunflower seeds 200c, 16 oz water
Dinner: salad 115c, rice and beef tips burrito 370c, vegetables in cheese sauce 90c
Pretzels 110c
Ginger snaps 280c
1615 calories
32 oz water
Exercise: Exercise: 36 minute (1 mile) walk * + 10 min calisthenics (-213c + -60c = ) -273c
* I'm not much of a walker. Not so much by choice as by pain. I have so little cartilage left in my knees that at the height of My Treadmill Days--when I was feeling so good about going to the Y with the kids and hitting the treadmill for forty-five minutes a shot--that I got up one morning and had to use a cane to get around. When the pain got so bad that I couldn't walk, I went to the doctor, got a referral to another doctor, and finally got a steroid shot. It cut the pain way down, but I didn't like the way it felt. My leg--and especially my knee--felt bloated. It wasn't, but it felt that way. Like an overinflated balloon. I also wasn't very found of that needle. I'm not particularly sensitive to pain, but man, that motherfucker really hurt.
So I started doing the stretching exercises the doctor had given me, and I started riding my bike again, hoping that that would be okay. And it was so. I was really racking up the miles until the weather turned cold. Then I tried using a stationary bike, and had a lot of trouble with that. Which makes absolutely no sense to me, but there it is. So I just stuck with my stretching exercises and started doing a few exercises with dumbbells and waited for the warm weather. Which has been arriving in dribs and drabs, so I've hit the bike trail a few times already.
But today it was just too damn cold to get on the bike, and I felt like getting more of a workout than my living room could provide. So I decided to try going for a walk. I function better with a goal, so I walked up to the Redbox at Walgreens and got a couple of movies. Felt pretty good. Even warmed up a bit. Walked back. The walk back always seems shorter, doesn't it? Anyway . . . I did a full stretching and calisthenics routine when I got back home, hoping that would help my sad old muscles. And so far so good. The real test will be when I get up tomorrow morning, though.
News as it happens.
AS IT HAPPENS: Felt a little pain in the night, but not a very big deal. And when I woke up this morning I could walk. So that went well.
Sunday, 3/12/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, eggs and crackers 240c, 15 oz water
coffee 10c
Lunch: double steak burger 390c, cole slaw 140c, 32 oz water
Dinner: salad 5+60+5+10= 80c vegetables w/ cheese sauce, 90 rice 160c, chicken breast 403, 16 oz water
Yogurt 70 c, sunflower seeds 100 c
1693 calories
63 ounces water
Exercise: stretching
Weight: 252 pounds.
Yep, I ate at Steak 'n Shake today. You know, for the kids. But I did my prep work before we went, so I saw the difference between having french fries (440 c for regular size) and cole slaw (140 c). And I saw the difference between a Wisconsin Buttery Burger (710 c) and a Double Steakburger (390 c). Between a Coke (170 c) and water (0 c). Between a milkshake (610 c regular) and none (0 c).
Monday, 3/13/2017
Food:
Breakfast: fried egg and roll 180c, 16 oz water
sunflower seeds 165c, pretzels 138c
483 c
Lunch:
Dinner: salad 80c, spaghetti w/ chicken, broccoli, and garlic bread 640c, 16 oz water
ham 100c, Yogurt 70c, pretzels 110c, ff fudge 80c
1563 calories
32 oz water
Exercise:
O Frabjous Day!
Sorry to admit that I'm an immediate gratification kind of guy. So when a couple of weeks went by without any really impressive weight loss, I was feeling down-hearted. What's the use of all the foofraw if there aren't any results showing on the scale?
But I did notice that I was pulling my belt in a bit more. And I did notice that my rings were starting to slide off of my fingers. And then this morning I stepped onto the scale and it said 250 pounds. Now, we all know that that might change after lunch, etc., but still, it was good to see. And then as I was putting on my jeans I thought, "I wonder if I could fit into a pair of my older jeans?" Last time I tried that it was ridiculous. This time?
I'm wearing my old jeans. 38 inch waist.
O Frabjous Day!
Week Four: Tuesday, 3/14/2017
Food:
Breakfast: toast * and egg, 155c, coffee 10c
coffee 10c
Lunch: ham sandwich 270c, pretzels 110c, 16 oz water
sunflower seeds 165c
Dinner: salad 55c, spaghetti 270 c, 16 oz water
ff fudge 80c, pretzels 110c
1235 calories
32 ounces of water
Exercise: stretching and calisthenics (-60c)
* And not just any bread. Roman Meal Bread. When I was checking out the Ezekiel Bread I ran across a thing by a guy who was singing the praises of Roman Meal Bread, and since it doesn't cost $5 for half a loaf that you have to keep frozen, I thought I'd give it a try. It seems okay. I'm not feely gushy about it--yet--but it seems okay, and it doesn't have a lot of nasty shit in it. We'll see.
Wednesday, 3/15/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee10c, fried egg and two pieces of toast 220c, 10 oz water
15 oz water
Lunch: spaghetti 270c, pretzels 110c
coffee 10c, sunflower seeds 165 c
Dinner: salad 80c, spaghetti *, 270c, broccoli 60c, 16 oz water
16 oz water
crackers and vegetables 154c, pretzels 110c, ff fudge bar 80c, ginger snaps 140c
1679 calories
57 oz water
Exercise: Cold day--31º with wind chill taking down to 21º. So not the time for a bike ride. But I really wanted to get some exercise in beyond the calisthenics, so I bundled up and went for a walk. And I took Jimmy's iPod with me and listened to Roy Harper. It was good. 40 minutes for a tad over two miles, -106 calories. I'm hoping that my knees continue to do well so that I can make this my go-to when biking isn't a viable option.
* Speaking of spaghetti . . . it's not that I'm such a big fan, it's just that so many times food ends up getting thrown in the trash, so I decided to just go ahead and finish this stuff off while it was still good. And it was pretty good, actually. (Vegetable spaghetti noodles and fake meat in tomato sauce . . . very vegan.) **
** Not that I actually think anyone is reading this at this point. Just talking to myself, you know. The way crazy people do.
8 days under calorie goal, 0 over
Thursday, 3/16/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, oatmeal 140c
sunflower seeds 200c, coffee 10c, 16 oz water
Lunch: ham sandwich 330c, pretzels 110c, granola bar 170c, 15 oz water
Dinner: salad w/ tomato 100c, pizza 475c, 16 oz water
yogurt 70c, pretzels 110c
1725 calories
47 oz water
Exercise:
Friday, 3/17/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, eggy in a basket with ham 255c, 16 oz water
Lunch: pickle 5 c, sunflower seeds (raw) 145c, coffee 10c, ham sandwich 300c, 16 oz water
Pretzels 110c
Dinner: salad 100c, chicken 440c, vegetables in cheese sauce 90c, rice 160c, 16 oz water
ff fudge 80c
1705 calories
48 ounces water
Exercise: stretching
Saturday, 3/18/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, toast and egg 220c, 15 oz water
Lunch: sunflower seeds 145c, apple 95c, ham* sandwich 130+123=253c, 16 oz water
coffee 10c
Dinner: ham 246c, 16 oz water, vegetable mix 190c rice 200 c, 10 oz water
sunflower seeds 145c, ff fudge bar 80c, pretzels 110c
1704 calories
57 ounces of water
Exercise: Too cold for a bike ride, wasn't feeling up to a walk, so I thought I'd give the ancient stationary bike another try. Actually got a pretty good workout, too. If the figures it showed are correct, I rode for 15 minutes, covered 2.6 miles, and burned 152 calories. I checked an online calculator, and it indicated that I would have burned 220 calories. Hmm. 220 does not seem likely. Tried a second one and it said 198 calories burned--and it was much more specific than the first one in terms of personal identifiers. And I tried using the one I've been using when I bike and it said 170 calories. Amazing that I'm seeing that much variation, but it does incline me to believe that that run-down old machine's number actually was accurate. So -152 calories. And I did calisthenics and stretching, so - another 60 there, for a total of -212 c. Going to try to hit that on a daily basis from now on.
Just read this morning that one of the side effects of Glimepiride is weight gain. That's not good. This further intensifies my desire to be Glimepiride free asap.
And . . . I've had a weird kind of numbness in a couple of my fingertips for a little while now. I kept expecting it to go away, but it didn't. So I Googled it. And when I read this
"Longstanding or uncontrolled diabetes is one of the major causes of peripheral neuropathy." (MedicineNet.com)
I felt myself flush with heat and my heart rate started going up. It made me more determined that ever to lose fat (and, collaterally, weight), get off of Glimepirade, and lose the pre-diabetes diagnosis. Which is one of the reasons I want to get that 30 minutes of exercise going every day.
This just keeps on getting more interesting.
*Got a food scale today. (Ordered it from Amazon: Nourish Digital Precision Kitchen Scale, Large Glass Top and Display; cost $14.99. Saw the same scale at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $19.99, btw.) And this time I weighed my ham, and turns out I was overestimated the calories by quite a bit. So all of my past ham figures are off by at least 50 calories. C'est la vie. But obviously if you want to be accurate, you need a food scale.
Sunday, 3/19/2017
Food:
Breakfast: coffee 10c, sunflower seeds 145c, 10 oz water
Lunch: ham sandwich 353c, 16 oz water
pretzels 110c
Dinner: brussel sprouts 150c, ham 123c, 16 oz water
200c crackers, 70 c yogurt, 16 oz water, pretzels 110c
1271calories
58 oz water
Exercise: stretching + 20 minutes* on s. bike, 3.2 miles, -211 calories
Weight: Just a shade under 250 pounds. So it took about a month to lose 10 pounds. That's pretty close to Nutrisystem's claim (up to 13 pounds in the first month), so I guess I just saved $240 to $300 there. Hey, who needs those motherfuckers anyway? I am starting to see that all of those programs are basically just a way to get somebody else to do the measuring for you. Plus the "you can eat what's in this package" set up for you, which no doubt does help to avoid temptation. But I've done pretty okay on my own, I think. And I actually have started feeling a little livelier, I've got to admit.
* I really wanted to go for a full on 30 minutes today, but (1) I was really getting tired, and (2) I have almost learned my lesson about pushing too hard rather than slowly working up to a new goal. So I'm going to try to keep it real and not blow myself out. But I want to get to that 30 per asap.
Monday, 3/20/2017
Food:
Breakfast: toast and fried egg 220c, coffee 10c, water 16 oz
Lunch: banana 105c, sunflowers seeds 58c, coffee 10c, ham 127c, 16 oz water
Dinner: salad 100c, spaghetti 200c, fake meat 70c, vegetables in cheese sauce 90c, 16 oz water
yogurt 70c
sunflower seeds 87c, ff fudge bar 80c, pretzels 110c
1337 calories
48 ounces water
Exercise: stretching and calisthenics -60 calories
My body told me that it would be a mistake to try to hit the stationary bike today. My body also told me not to do stretching and calisthenics with weights and sit-ups, but I pushed it on that and it turned out okay.
Week 5: This is getting a little unwieldy--constantly scrolling down through the old entries to get to the new spot--so I'm going to switch to another post. Not that I think that this is interesting to anyone except me. Not at all. But posting it has really helped to keep me on track. Even the chance of someone else reading it is enough to make me more determined to reach the goals I've set for myself. And in keeping with that philosophy, I'm going to post links both forward (to the next applicable post) and back (to this one). Again, not because I think this is of interest to anyone else.
But just in case . . . http://songsofinnocenceampexperience.blogspot.com/2017/03/more-songs-about-calories-fat.html
254@10:21am2-26-2017
318@12:57pm2-27-2017
362@ 6:56am2-28-2017
420@7:44am3-1-2017
645@5:42am3-5-2017
710@8:10am3-6-2017
824@6:50pm3-8-2017
852@7:54am3-12-2017
871@1:07pm3-14-2017
882@3:16pm3-19-2017
888@7:22am3-21-2017
922@11:42am4-23-2017
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