Dawn's Weight Loss Tips

So I found Dawn's Blog Fixing Myself Happy and she had a list of tips that I found helpful.  They are:

1. Answer the question, why do you want to lose weight? (better health, easier to get around, feel less tired, etc)

2. Do you really want to lose weight for you or you just feel you should for others? (you really have to answer this question honestly)

3. Are you really ready? (it takes commitment, planning, doing, never giving up, do you want it enough)

4. Stop denying and making excuses for yourself. If you are ready then just start NOW. When you make a mistake don’t give yourself permission to just say “who cares” just get right back on track IMMEDIATELY. Stop feeling guilty about ONE poor choice it’s the 10 poor choices after the first that will cause damage.

5. Set goals for yourself, long term and short. Don’t just set weight loss goals either but physical goals as well. Write them down and read them everyday.

6. Plan rewards for each goal reached.

7. Put a physical reminder somewhere you can see it daily (a thin picture on the fridge or a dress you want to fit in hung on the bedroom door)

8. Make rules for yourself that are unbreakable. (come to TOPS EVERY WEEK, no snacks from the snack machine, no fast food, will walk 2 miles EVERYDAY, etc)

9. Take pictures and measurements of yourself regularly to show your progress.

10. Find motivation from others, join a gym, a pool aerobics group, read inspirational stories, read inspirational/self help books etc.

11. Make yourself accountable by telling everyone in your life what you’re doing, don’t make living healthier a secret. Being accountable to others makes you even more accountable to yourself because you don’t want to let them down either.

12. Figure out how many calories you are going to eat everyday and be faithful to that amount. Think of it like a bank when the calories are gone they are gone and you can’t have anymore.

13. Plan plan and plan some more. Make sure you know what you’re eating for the day before it begins. Have breakfast, lunch and dinner planned in your mind before the day starts, that way you are prepared. Cook in bulk for the coming week, pre-package your breakfast and lunches in advance. Have on the go snacks ready at all times. Carry a healthy snack with you at all times.

14. Journal your food and exercise. Keeping track of every calorie (or exchange) that goes into your mouth is important. Remember too that knowing how many calories you burn each day is a way to know if you are eating enough or too much. It also lets you have a few more calories if you’ve burned a lot for the day.

15. What works best for me is eating 5-6 mini meals a day with a balance of protein/carbs/ fat (30/50/20) at every meal. Timing my meals helps too, every 2 ½ - 3 hours apart.

16. Drink LOTS of water (if you don’t have a medical reason you can’t). A good formula is half your weight in ounces or double your waist size in ounces. Don’t drink any beverages with sugar.

17. Listen to your body not your mind. People become obese because they listen to their minds more than their bodies. Put smaller portions on a smaller plate, eat slower, listen to when your body says it’s full. Remove the plate from the table when you are full. The longer you sit in front of it the more likely you are to want to continue eating more.

18. Talk nice to yourself at all times. Your size doesn’t make you who you are. Give yourself compliments, take compliments well from others and know you are WORTH IT. Also realize you can do ANYTHING. You might think it’s too hard but it’s not. It’s just about trying and having faith in yourself and living healthy choice by choice by choice. It really is just one choice at a time till the good choices are outweighing the bad.

19. If you suffer from depression get help. I think depression is one of the biggest causes/effects of obesity.

20. Get therapy if you feel you have unresolved childhood (or otherwise) issues. I think often obesity comes from learned behaviors started as a child, be it from bad eating habits, to abuse, to neglect. Therapy can be a huge help even if it’s just to have someone to talk with on a regular basis.

21. Stress and anxiety was a biggy for me. Realize that exercise is a mood booster so the more you do the better you feel mentally and physically. I call exercise my ice cream now because it makes me feel at ease like sugar use to.

22. A big one I forgot but needs to be on here is cleaning up your environment. I think it's super important to have your kitchen clean from trigger foods. I know for myself if its not in the house I can't eat it.

Now I just have to follow them........

g

Time to Start Again

I got on the scale and saw 408 and it floored me.  What happened, I got complacent, stopped exercising and just started eating.  Weight went on, knees started to hurt, less movement etc.  I can give all the excuses in the world, but it does not cut it. So here I am, starting over.  According to the Weight loss calculator this is what I have to do:

You should consume about 2,556 calories a day to reach your goal weight of 240 lbs.  This is at a reasonable weight loss average of 1.5 lbs per week, which should be reached by July 16, 2015.

Experts recommend weight loss at the rate of 0.5-2 lbs/week. Remember that this estimate is based on your body weight, height, age, gender, and activity level. It may vary slightly depending on other factors.

Time to change the Blog Name to 240 lbs by July 2015 and here we go again.  This time I will, I must lose because I getting to old for a second chance.

g

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

Interesting quote from the Buddha. I hate to say I made a mistake of not going all the way but then I am not finished the journey.

I love this time of year. I work up this morning and the air was crisp outside, the heat of the summer was gone and the sun is out. After 2 months of rain it’s nice to know the fall has arrived. I read the following poem on Judy’ Jottings and I liked it, so I figured I pass it along.

START OVER

If you've started out in pursuit of your goal and you've really tried with all your heart and soul, but somehow things got out of control

START OVER

When you've tried your best to do what you should and you thought this time that you surely would, but once again you didn't do good

START OVER

When you've worked so hard to follow the plan's way and you fought to win a victory each day, but one more time you went astray

START OVER

When the road to success seemed much too long and each temptation was oh so strong and once again you gave into wrong

START OVER

When you've told your friends what you planned to do and trusted them to help you through and soon discovered its up to you

START OVER

When you know you must be physically fit but your hope seems gone and your stuck in a pit. That's not the time for you to quit

START OVER

When the week seems long and successes few and at weigh in time your feeling blue, remember tomorrow is just for you

START OVER

To start again means a victory's been won and starting over AGAIN means a race well won and starting over AGAIN proves it can be done, so don't just sit there

START OVER

Time to start over

The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you're off it.

The title is by Jackie Gleason and it so true. Here I sit almost gaining back 80 lbs and wondering what happened. I was on track to make my goal and then I just gave up. I look back and can’t see what hit me, sure my business has tanked, so is it emotional eating, comfort food or was I just too scared of success of the weight loss and went back to where I felt comfortable.

Who know but I can’t keep this up. So here the plan, I start again because I don’t like the alternative. Last night someone said that they had everything to live for and the destructive behavior had to stop. I can relate to that.

I came across a quote:

“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time“ by Abraham Lincoln

All I have to do is just concentrate on today and not let the second day come. I can do anything one day at a time.

Back on the bike

After a long cold winter and just staring at the bike this morning I hit the road. Just did a couple of miles and my legs burned, I was soaked with sweat and the butt hurt. Why did I think this was just going to be a ride in the park?

I have been swimming a mile four times a week, so you think I would be in better shape. But apparently riding a bike uses different muscle’s then swimming and you really never notice that you are sweating when swimming.

But back to the ride, now a 53 year old man seems to have fears that a 10 year old kid does not. Riding down a hill at 15 miles an hour brought a chill to my spine and when I was 10 it was like can’t I go faster. Now I ride with a helmet and when I was 10, I would not have been caught dead in one. However, I think the bug bit me because I am looking forward to my next ride.

I was talking to my brother about my goal of riding the Perkiomen Trail / Schuylkill River Trail from Green Lane to the Art Museum in Philadelphia. It’s a 40 mile one way trip and it’s going to take a while to build up from a couple of mikes today to do trail but it’s a goal and I will do it.

I have wasted too many years being fat and just sitting on the chair dreaming of things to do, but never doing them. No more times are changing I so must I.

g

People starting to notice

It’s strange, here I am down 112 lbs and peoples are starting to notice that I am losing weight. I have been on this journey for a year now and it’s funny that people are now noticing that I am losing weight. I get ask how did you do it, what diet are you on or in one case did you have your stomach stapled. No I tell them it’s just eating like I should and moving. There is no secret to weight loss it’s just hard to break old habits and create new ones and it takes time.

I did not get to 431 pounds over night and I am not going to get to my goal weight in 30 days on the miracle diet. That’s the hard in this world of instant gratification to realize it is going to take two years or more was forever. Then I took a page from AA, I only had to do this one day at a time or even on meal at a time, and I found out it worked.

Sure I have had my ups and downs and a 2 month plateau which drove me nuts, but I have to remember I am in this for the long haul and it does take time (Things I Must Earn).

It’s been a while since I last blogged so I figured I would set something down on paper, be it electronic, it is still paper to me.

g

The Plateau

A very frustrating place to be. I have been on the plateau for the last month and a half and it finally looks like I found the way down off of it. The definition of hitting a plateau is if you have not lost any weight after 3 weeks, you've hit a plateau. My weight would go up 2 pounds and then down 2 pounds and it was this way for a month, therefore PLATEAU. It was time to hit the internet and figure this out. So I started my research to see how other people figured their way off.

According to Journal of the American Dietetic Association researchers found that weight loss typically halts after 6 months and that stall can last weeks, months, or even longer. Well I had been doing well for 7 months so it looks like I am like the rest of the world. Now the hard part was figuring out what would work.

The first thing I needed to do was try to determine the cause. Could I be eating more calories than I thought? Research shows that most people underreport the number of calories they eat. Well I keep daily track of my calorie intake on my Sparkpeople page. I try to keep it around 2000 calories a day and looking at my charts I do see to stay around that goal. According to my Resting Metabolic Rate or how calories I need to stay at my current weight, I need 2715 calories a day. While I am a little over the recommended 500 to 700 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week I still should be losing 2 pounds per week.

The science behind weight loss is not a mystery. Since I am a mechanical engineer I go back to the law of thermodynamics which express the symmetry of the world. It’s simple if I am at equilibrium with the energy in (in the form of calories intake) is equal to the energy out (in the form of calories expended) I will not lose weight. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed if I decrease intake (i.e. calories) and increase outputs (i.e. energy) the extra energy need for the output comes from me and hence weight loss.

This works well in mechanical systems but apparently not in biology, no wonder I am not a doctor. This thing called metabolism come into effect with the bodies burning of fuel. Metabolism is the number of calories the body burns and is made up of three components: resting metabolic rate, physical activity and a small amount needed for food digestion. The problem it seems that my body has some defense mechanisms when the gap becomes too wide. It slows the metabolism down to preserve itself and its by my age (metabolism naturally slows about 5% per decade after age 40). Great it appears that my bodies working against me.

Since about two-thirds to three-quarters of the calories I burn every day are accounted for in resting metabolism. So by increasing the body's metabolism would help because the number of calories needed each day would be higher.

Now comes the hard part. I weeded through all of those websites that state how to raise your metabolism through gimmicks, pills, natural herbs and stuff and found out metabolism can only be boosted in two ways: increasing the body's muscle mass and increasing the body's heart rate.

Body muscle mass

Metabolism is somewhat a function of genetics, but it seems I can increase basal metabolism by building muscle. Researchers state that muscle cells are up to eight times more metabolically active than fat cells, and muscle burns more calories than fat.

Body heart rate

A person's heart rate has an impact on metabolism – the higher the heart rate, the more calories burned. Exercise or drugs seem to do this and I am too old to do drugs.

Action Plan

Increasing my bodies muscle mass seems to be the clue. Damn that means exercising. Something that I am not great at, hence the shape I am in. For the last 4 months my knees have been killing me and I have not made an effort to swim. In fact the last two months I have not been able to do much walking. Could this be the problem? I had been seeing my general practice doctor about the problem and he had me on 600 mg of ibuprofen three times a day, which did not help. Then finally I went to the orthopedic surgeon and he shot both knees with cortisone injections and within two days I was walking normally and I went back to swimming.

A amazing thing happened I wandered off the plateau.