Courtesy of Studio Ogalthorpe
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
I Am Normal
Sometime in the last week or so my weight-loss put my Body Mass Index number below 25, which is in the green "normal range" of that chart.
A buddy of mine and I started last July 4th with a friendly 10 pound weight-loss contest. I began that contest with a starting weight of 234 pounds. That 234 pound weight had me in the red "obese range." As I wrote in my previous post, October 13, 2010 marks the date I oozed out of the obese range and into the overweight range.
My technique is really varied and multifaceted. One website though has been a key contributor to my weight-loss, it is a database to calculate nutrition and calories of the foods I eat.
Entering my foods is not the alpha and omega of secrets to weight-loss. I found value in the discipline and non-judgement with which I am required to accurately track what I eat. By this I mean, one binger has easily been enough to emotionally derail my enthusiasm and resolve to change, but marrying myself to this daily food diary practice, when I eat unhealthily, there is a sort of baptism from accurately and thoroughly entering in all the damage. Whatever my binge of choice was, I went home and entered it and that daily act went a long way in helping me get up the next morning feeling safe and capable of continuing along my plan. It is the hard way, facing the music as quickly and openly as I can, and then move on. Just like the millions of studies that show people who jump on a scale and weigh themselves everyday lose more successfully. After the first couple of weeks or months entering my foods, what was left in the daily practice is just some nutritional data, maybe a tiny manageable bit of regret or shame, and then the new day begins. It all stems, I repeat, it all stems from opening up MyFitnessPal daily, then accurately and honestly entering in beer, ice dessert, mochaccino, second helping, third helps, container of this, carton of that. Done, I've faced my choice, noted it, and then it is a new day.
I give myself one brownie point and a single pat on the back for entering green smoothies, vegetables, lean proteins, nuts, whole grains. I give myself ten brownie points and long heartfelt appreciation when I sit down and note that I just polished off 3000 calories of crap and topped it off with a pint of something. The daily practice allows me to move on with some dignity after an undignified overindulgence.
I count July 4th and that little 10 pound weight-loss contest as the date things began. Another very important date is last August 16th, when I started entering my foods into http://www.myfitnesspal.com
When I started MyFitnessPal I weighed 216 pounds, and now I am 161 pounds, that works out to 1.5 pounds per week for that last 38 weeks. Losing 1.5 pounds a week is a reasonable goal to shoot for, and one pound a week is good too.
My doctor and I have discuss a goal weight, or a weight where I would shift to a maintenance routine. At the rate I'm going I hope I'll get there right at the beginning of summer.
It feels good to have made progress so far. From what I've read, people excitedly cheer at a weight-loss such as mine, deservedly so, but what is difficult, unglamorous, and more deserving of praise than the initial weight loss is being stable at the new goal weight after the excitement of dropping pounds is over. My plan is to politely golf clap when I hit my maintenance weight, and with a huge red X mark the date six months out. Having my plan work and reaching my goal happens when I get to the goal weight and stay there for six months. The six months of maintenance date is when I plan to celebrate my success. Right now is just enjoying the journey.
A buddy of mine and I started last July 4th with a friendly 10 pound weight-loss contest. I began that contest with a starting weight of 234 pounds. That 234 pound weight had me in the red "obese range." As I wrote in my previous post, October 13, 2010 marks the date I oozed out of the obese range and into the overweight range.
My technique is really varied and multifaceted. One website though has been a key contributor to my weight-loss, it is a database to calculate nutrition and calories of the foods I eat.
Entering my foods is not the alpha and omega of secrets to weight-loss. I found value in the discipline and non-judgement with which I am required to accurately track what I eat. By this I mean, one binger has easily been enough to emotionally derail my enthusiasm and resolve to change, but marrying myself to this daily food diary practice, when I eat unhealthily, there is a sort of baptism from accurately and thoroughly entering in all the damage. Whatever my binge of choice was, I went home and entered it and that daily act went a long way in helping me get up the next morning feeling safe and capable of continuing along my plan. It is the hard way, facing the music as quickly and openly as I can, and then move on. Just like the millions of studies that show people who jump on a scale and weigh themselves everyday lose more successfully. After the first couple of weeks or months entering my foods, what was left in the daily practice is just some nutritional data, maybe a tiny manageable bit of regret or shame, and then the new day begins. It all stems, I repeat, it all stems from opening up MyFitnessPal daily, then accurately and honestly entering in beer, ice dessert, mochaccino, second helping, third helps, container of this, carton of that. Done, I've faced my choice, noted it, and then it is a new day.
I give myself one brownie point and a single pat on the back for entering green smoothies, vegetables, lean proteins, nuts, whole grains. I give myself ten brownie points and long heartfelt appreciation when I sit down and note that I just polished off 3000 calories of crap and topped it off with a pint of something. The daily practice allows me to move on with some dignity after an undignified overindulgence.
I count July 4th and that little 10 pound weight-loss contest as the date things began. Another very important date is last August 16th, when I started entering my foods into http://www.myfitnesspal.com
When I started MyFitnessPal I weighed 216 pounds, and now I am 161 pounds, that works out to 1.5 pounds per week for that last 38 weeks. Losing 1.5 pounds a week is a reasonable goal to shoot for, and one pound a week is good too.
My doctor and I have discuss a goal weight, or a weight where I would shift to a maintenance routine. At the rate I'm going I hope I'll get there right at the beginning of summer.
It feels good to have made progress so far. From what I've read, people excitedly cheer at a weight-loss such as mine, deservedly so, but what is difficult, unglamorous, and more deserving of praise than the initial weight loss is being stable at the new goal weight after the excitement of dropping pounds is over. My plan is to politely golf clap when I hit my maintenance weight, and with a huge red X mark the date six months out. Having my plan work and reaching my goal happens when I get to the goal weight and stay there for six months. The six months of maintenance date is when I plan to celebrate my success. Right now is just enjoying the journey.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Hooray! I'm Overweight
Yes, you read that title right, I'm overweight and ecstatic. You see the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale that we all know of and loathe. The one we call "Crude," and avoid like a brisk :30 minute daily walk, is in fact a very crude measurement tool. That is okay. I don't take it as gospel, but I do accept that by being a crude tool I can look at it and assume what it tells me might be five or ten percent off. By crude, it doesn't mean that I should presume it is probably wrong, it means it may not be precise. So, read it, think about it, consider its weakness, but don't dismiss it as wrong.
That disclaimer said, I plugged 58 inches and 196.8 lbs into my handy BMI calculator this morning and lo and behold I am now a member of "Team Yellow," my body mass index is below 30. Sometime in the dying embers of the last millennium, as I was drearily plotting my newly degree'd, post-Cal Poly existence, at some undetermined black day, presumably over a bowl of ice cream a nearby bag of chips and a beer sidecar I surpassed the line into being clinically obese. There I've remained for over a decade. Obese.
Today, with precision, accuracy, clarity, and a detailed record, on this, the thirteenth day of October, just as Chilean miners arise from their hellish depths, I too, emerge out of the black muck of obesity. Boy, does it feel good.
I've called out my desire to be on "Team Green," what the BMI chart calls "normal." And as always I am aware that it is a crude measurement. My feelings are if BMI is off by 7.2459% and I am 40% above whatever my mythical ideal weight is, I've more important things to concern myself with than the precision of the BMI charts.
Did I mention I was pleased? I am.
That disclaimer said, I plugged 58 inches and 196.8 lbs into my handy BMI calculator this morning and lo and behold I am now a member of "Team Yellow," my body mass index is below 30. Sometime in the dying embers of the last millennium, as I was drearily plotting my newly degree'd, post-Cal Poly existence, at some undetermined black day, presumably over a bowl of ice cream a nearby bag of chips and a beer sidecar I surpassed the line into being clinically obese. There I've remained for over a decade. Obese.
Today, with precision, accuracy, clarity, and a detailed record, on this, the thirteenth day of October, just as Chilean miners arise from their hellish depths, I too, emerge out of the black muck of obesity. Boy, does it feel good.
I've called out my desire to be on "Team Green," what the BMI chart calls "normal." And as always I am aware that it is a crude measurement. My feelings are if BMI is off by 7.2459% and I am 40% above whatever my mythical ideal weight is, I've more important things to concern myself with than the precision of the BMI charts.
Did I mention I was pleased? I am.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Job Hunting or "What do you want to do?"
I never was a high school dance type of kid. I've found it difficult and unpalatable to stand up and demand what I want. People can freak me out. (I'm seeking help with that one). All this said, I gotta go out and shake my ass and land a job.
"What do you want to do?" There I said it for you dear reader. I'd like to work with nice people who don't freak me out. I'm smart, I can be passionate if something strikes me as important or meaningful, I love love love some people and would do anything for them, a lot of folks freak me out and I'm have a screaming urge to run.
Oh, and a livable wage would be nice.
Well, there I've said. Let the ass shaking begin.
"What do you want to do?" There I said it for you dear reader. I'd like to work with nice people who don't freak me out. I'm smart, I can be passionate if something strikes me as important or meaningful, I love love love some people and would do anything for them, a lot of folks freak me out and I'm have a screaming urge to run.
Oh, and a livable wage would be nice.
Well, there I've said. Let the ass shaking begin.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Life To Date In Review (from a fitness perspective)
I spoke with my old pal Jeff yesterday. He is back living in Cleveland, Ohio after a couple of years working on a remote farm in Hawaii. He is about three weeks off the farm, and told me he's gained a few pounds due to not running around the farm all day. While farming he had really leaned out, and remarked that he hadn't been at the farm-weight since he was fourteen years old. That got me thinking.
At age eighteen my buddy Chris, his sister Liz, and I began a daily trek to a Nautilus Gym. I'd always halfheartedly participated in sports but this was my first foray into being fit and healthy. It worked pretty well. I leaned out and from age eighteen to thirty-five or so I was usually pretty fit. Some times very fit, some times not so much. My weight from age 18 -to- 35 fluctuated between 155 lbs. and 190 lbs. That is right in the Team Green zone up to the lower echelons of the overweight range.
This idea of Jeff reaching the same weight he had at fourteen had me thinking. Before my age eighteen fitness kick I'd always be sort of soft, I wasn't skinny nor was I obese, just soft. I was probably overweight most of my childhood, but I didn't have any data. It occurred to me that at age 14 I played organized kiddie football and toward the end of the season I remember bumping up against the weight limit. I vaguely recall it being 155 lbs. Sure enough the league and the team "The Ventura Packers Youth Football Team" are still up and running and the limits for my age division is 155 lbs. That's it.
I weighed 155 lbs. just after turning age fourteen and I weighed 155 lbs. at age twenty-eight after getting out of the Navy. In that interim I had grown a couple of inches ... well maybe one or two inches. Even though I never obsessed over weight or thought poorly of myself because of my size, I did feel kind of soft and chunky, and in reality I was an overweight kid.
I'm not beating up my inner fat kid here, as a matter of fact in a weird way it is uplifting and motivating, that as I become a member of Team Green, I too will be back to my age fourteen weight.
At age eighteen my buddy Chris, his sister Liz, and I began a daily trek to a Nautilus Gym. I'd always halfheartedly participated in sports but this was my first foray into being fit and healthy. It worked pretty well. I leaned out and from age eighteen to thirty-five or so I was usually pretty fit. Some times very fit, some times not so much. My weight from age 18 -to- 35 fluctuated between 155 lbs. and 190 lbs. That is right in the Team Green zone up to the lower echelons of the overweight range.
This idea of Jeff reaching the same weight he had at fourteen had me thinking. Before my age eighteen fitness kick I'd always be sort of soft, I wasn't skinny nor was I obese, just soft. I was probably overweight most of my childhood, but I didn't have any data. It occurred to me that at age 14 I played organized kiddie football and toward the end of the season I remember bumping up against the weight limit. I vaguely recall it being 155 lbs. Sure enough the league and the team "The Ventura Packers Youth Football Team" are still up and running and the limits for my age division is 155 lbs. That's it.
I weighed 155 lbs. just after turning age fourteen and I weighed 155 lbs. at age twenty-eight after getting out of the Navy. In that interim I had grown a couple of inches ... well maybe one or two inches. Even though I never obsessed over weight or thought poorly of myself because of my size, I did feel kind of soft and chunky, and in reality I was an overweight kid.
I'm not beating up my inner fat kid here, as a matter of fact in a weird way it is uplifting and motivating, that as I become a member of Team Green, I too will be back to my age fourteen weight.
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