I Can Has Skinny?

Pounds This Period: -1
Pounds Total: 43
Current Weight: 247
Pounds to Go: 19
Weeks to Go: 12
Rate To Go: 1.6 lbs/wk

BOO! Wong direction! WRONG DIRECTION!

That problem I talked about last week - not being able to stop eating once I start - yeah…I haven’t found a solution to that. There have been many times where I thought I won, only to wake up an hour later surrounded by empty containers of hummus, the partly-chewed remains of string cheese wrappers, what I can only hope are chocolate stains on my pants and the vague scent of bacon.

Creative hyperbole aside, I do lose control over myself. It isn’t a new problem, I have struggled with it since High School. Part of my brain will say, “Dude - you don’t need to eat that”, but the other, much more controlling part will say, “YES I DO!” And with that, I find myself walking to the fridge and gorging myself on whatever I can get my sausage-like hands on, all the while wondering, “Why the fuck am I doing this?”

Sigh.

Any ideas?

In OTHER news (I’m going to say I did this because it was my 20th Weight-Loss post, but really it’s just to make myself feel better), I have compiled the below image to show the evolution of weight-loss. It makes me happy. In order of oldest fattest to newest thinnest:

Couple of questions, though. Why do I hang around such skinny people? And why didn’t anyone stop me from wearing that hideous blue shirt?! All kidding aside, though, it is a nice reminder, no matter what minor set-backs I may encounter, how far I’ve come…and how different I look! Yay for self-congratulations!

August 7th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

First, a note about the title of this post.  Since I was keeping a weight-loss journal on my own site, I’ve decided to simply continue them here.

You can read the backstory, if you’d like.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Pounds This Period: 2
Pounds Total: 44
Current Weight: 246
Pounds to Go: 18
Weeks to Go: 13
Rate To Go: 1.4lbs/wk

My immediate goal for next week is to hit 244 (-2), which will be my lowest weight in six years!

I also have a lot of catching up to do, because my wife just reached the milestone of having lost SEVENTY POUNDS (70!) over the last year-and-a-half.

She shames me.

It’s actually quite exciting, because her 10-year High School reunion is this weekend…and who doesn’t want to win the “HOLY SHIT YOU GOT SUPER HOT” award at their reunion?

Adjusting to life back in the US has been a little difficult.  When you’re on vacation, you walk a lot and your access to food is limited to meal-times.  When you work from home like me, and you sit at a desk that’s less than 20 feet from the refridgerator (what can I say, we live in the middle of Seattle - space is at a premium ’round these parts), temptation raps its filthly knuckles on your forehead all day long.

I’ve tried to be good, and obviously I did something right because I managed to lose weight this past week, but I did notice a disturbing trend: it is considerably easier for me to simply NOT eat than it is for me to eat a reasonable portion of food.  When I start to eat, it’s like flood gates open up and it is incredibly hard for me to stop - I want the feeling of eating to continue.  I do stop, of course, when I’m so full I can’t stand to put anything else in my mouth.  This is bad.

The alternative to this, simply not eating, is equally horrible from both a dieting and general health perspective, so it’s obviously not an option.

That’s the (first) major challenge going forward - to control the in media res urges.

July 31st, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I’m wearing my “skinny” pants. I usually comfortably wear a size 40 - and these are a 38.

July 24th, 2008 | Tags: Tim | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Relevant facts:

I’m 36, 6′2″ and my doctor is worried about pre-hypertension. My blood pressure ain’t so hot.

Weight: at last weigh in was 273.  At the beginning of the month I weighed 280lbs.

First weight goalpost: 250lbs, then maybe 230lbs. 200lbs. would be great, we’ll see if I can get there.

Methodology: This month I was dedicated to only consume water as my beverage - I believe that this alone has helped reduce my weight. I am also using gyminee.com to track my workout and food consumption progress.

Motivation: Ehn, I don’t dig the idea of my heart exploding in my chest at the peak of my adulthood. That and I’m a vain bastard.

July 23rd, 2008 | Tags: Tim | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

My name is Kris and I am fat.

On April 19th of 2007, I started a series of posts on my own blog detailing my weight-loss progress.  My original goal was to lose 55 pounds in a little over six months.

I didn’t get that far, but I did manage to lose 43 pounds in that time period and maintain it.  Sure, there have been ups and downs of about 5 pounds, but even though I failed to reach my original goal I am very proud of what I accomplished.

But I’ll say it again.  My name is Kris.  And I am fat.  Still.  I’m less fat, and that’s nothing to sneeze at, but that doesn’t change the fact that whenever I sit down in public I want to cover my mid-section with a pillow.  It also doesn’t change the fact that I have the breasts of a pubescent girl.  And that most of my body has the consistency of jello.  Jiggle and wiggle…that’s me.

At the end of last year, my wife and I went to Brazil for a couple of weeks and ever since we got back, I have lost sight of what I want to weigh - I got distracted by the relative ease of just not gaining it all back.  I stopped updating my blog on a weekly basis, which I firmly believe was the pillar of my original weight-loss.  I’ve become complacent.

Losing weight, as I’m sure we all know, is hard.  And, frankly, I just got tired.  I got tired of counting calories, I got tired of working out, I got tired of caring.  There is an allure of my old life - eat whatever I want, sit around as much as I want - because it was an easy life.

But there’s a downside.  After a while, I began to hate myself.  I mean really hate myself.  And let me tell you, there is no trade-off for that.  Self-worth is entirely more important than being able to sit around all day in your underwear sucking whip cream out of a can.

“My secret to getting so fat is a simple one,” I wrote in my first weight-loss post to my blog 1 year and four months ago. “I have hated myself. My crushing lack of self-esteem and debilitating self-deprication has allowed me to abuse myself. Part defense mechanism (if I hate myself, if I make fun of myself, it won’t matter if anyone else does) and part laziness (hey, if I don’t care about myself, I can just sit here on the couch and eat chips), this self-loathing of mine has gone too far.”

So I mentioned to Chris that I want to start losing and posting again, and that perhaps we could make a social aspect out of this Battle of the Bulge.

And so, while I was in Sweden for the last three weeks, he did all the hard work and set up this site.  And now I’m back and ready to take full advantage of his effort.

My original goal was laid out like this: “I am 24, 6′1″ and 290 pounds.  I would like to be 25, 6′1″ and 235 pounds.”

Well, my birthday is at the end of October, and I still want to make that a reality…albeit slightly belated (I wanted to be 235 before my 25th birthday, but fortunately I wrote it rather elastically).  Better late than never, right?

So here we are again.

Current Weight: 248 lbs
Goal Weight: 228 lbs
Total Pounds: 20
Target Date: October 28th
Week Span: 14
Pounds/Week: 1.4

July 23rd, 2008 | Tags: Kris | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Worked with a trainer last night. I am feeling very sore, 12 hours after it is elbows mostly, and now moving on to triceps.

The trainer knew his stuff, and kept me on task with the exercise. I am going to try to make it work financially so I can atleast train for 2-3 months to get into a solid habit of exercising.

I will continue to use the WiiFit also, as it is actually still some fun play time and give me mini goals to work with, while still having the meta goals of weightloss (checking with the trainer, 35lbs would actually get me down to 12-13% body fat, which is very healthy, from 26% which is much better than I was when I first did a round of training two years ago).

Aiming for 3 days a week up until my sisters wedding on 16th.

July 15th, 2008 | Tags: Chris, gym | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

So, two weeks in and I have lost NOTHING. *sobs, stuffs imaginary cake in face*

The reason here is threefold:

1. I don’t think I actually started with an accurate weight. I think I may have actually lost about 3 pounds. My weight after the first day was consistently higher than 210, my stated starting point, and I was too discouraged about that fact to just accept it. But my confusion and sadness over the fact led to point number two…

2. I stopped counting. It’s really hard to count, you know. Counting EVERYTHING? *sigh* It makes eating out far less appealing, and is time consuming. But obviously it’s more effective for me than letting it slip.

3. Lots of special events in the past two weeks - four birthdays and the fourth of July - means lots of my most tempting calorie source: booze. Booze, I love you so and it is YOU that makes me fat like this. Worst of all, the more I drink, the more I want to drink! I never get full of you, booze.

I have been reducing my food intake dramatically, really, and yet, I have lost only 3 pounds, and that’s even questionable since my scale went *crack* on that first day so I hopped off of it uncertain exactly where I stood. 0 or 3 pounds lost. In two weeks! That is not what I expect at ALL. It makes me so worried that I’ll never be able to maintain at a lower weight, when I can eat thoughtlessly or so carefully and either way, be 210. I sometimes think that because I’ve always been overweight, to maintain at a lower weight, I’ll have to keep a very, very active lifestyle, like 5 hours a week of high activity. I hope that isn’t true, because that is much harder than just keeping to healthy foods and small portions. We’ll see.

But. I’m back on track and goddammit, I have a goal to meet. Today I had my protein shake from breakfast and I did a 700 calorie workout. I want to do that 5 times this week to guarantee a pound of loss. Dinner tonight is Cioppino, a healthy homemade meal. I’m re-opening the spreadsheet and I’m not giving up.

July 14th, 2008 | Tags: 20in2, accountability, ambrosia, calorie counting, peptalk, persistence, spreadsheet | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Got myself a membership with the gym across the street from the apartment. My goal is to go for a bit of cardio every morning, as often as I can. The barrier to entry is about as minimal as it can be. That, combined with nightly wiifit games should get me going in the right direction.

Next I can focus on getting diet down solid (and grocery shopping and preparing food in an economical way), before considering doing anything like working with a personal trainer.

July 10th, 2008 | Category: Chris | Leave a comment

My best friend of 13 years, the Shelbeast, washed a pen in the laundry and got ink on almost all of her pants. She’s got kind of a funky build, 6 feet tall, not an “apple” or a “pear” but more of a “banana” and has a hard time buying pants that fit. Her size tends to vary because of that, but she’s something like a 12 or a 14 and right now I’m definitely a 14, at 5′8″ and very normal proportions. But hey, she needs some pants and I have about 30 pair I can’t wear, so I got out all the 12s for her to try. For now. In a pinch.

ANYWAY THEY LIKE ALL MAGICALLY FIT HER

So now I have to see my best friend rocking my fantasy pants until such time as I have a reason to ask for them back. Even the maroon pleather ones. D:

Torture!!

July 6th, 2008 | Tags: pants ambrosia sizing sharing clothes | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment