An 11 year low

For all the whining and complaining I have done over the past few weeks, today I weighed an 11 year low of 203.1 lbs.  I am hopefully in my last week or so of the 200′s never to return!  I can’t wait for the days when I don’t worry about the scale, that I am at my goal weight and I am in maintenance mode and just living an active healthy life because its a lifestyle and not something I have to really fight for.  That day will come, and I will get there.

Am happy to have my family home finally, and after 6 hours of OT tomorrow morning I will spend the rest of the weekend with them.  I am off on Monday so I have a long weekend.  I will resume posting “progress pics” this weekend, and will post them every Saturday until my birthday Dec 31, 2010, when I arrive at my 38th year in my best shape ever.

Back to Basics

Here I am. No excuses for the last couple weeks. I have been struggling mightily making correct decisions in regards to eating and exercising. This week I am refocusing though (since Sunday) and have exercised 3 days in a row (including at 5:45 am this morning) and I am back on plan. Going to get out of my own way, and just make better decisions every day.

I am getting back to basics and just following the programs I am doing. As always its Weight Watchers for Nutrition, and P90x for exercise. Move more and eat less. You’ve heard it a million times, but thats what I need to do. If I do that everything else will fall into place.

I have thought alot about why I haven’t been writing and why I have struggled so much with food and exercise lately. I was doing so much better when I was writing everyday and taking the once a week pics, and updating facebook. Holding myself accountable was working, and when I started to struggle mindset wise I got away from that. Time to do what I know works. I am 3 days into refocused efforts. I will strive to write, through good and bad 5 days a week minimum. I will not worry about what anyone thinks about the struggles (or the small victories) and I will just write about the journey, because I know that helps me. And thats what really matters.

Weight watchers week 10 Review

Well the week started off sketchy, with hurting my neck getting into my car of all things last Saturday, re-agrivating a very old injury but I had another solid week just the same. On the side there you can see all my weight watchers weighins. Those are taken each Saturday morning in the same clothes at 9:30 am. That is my “official weight” as far as the blog is concerned (210.6) . This am just after getting up, in just boxers I was 208.4lbs on my scale! Lightest I have seen in years! Also I am now down nearly 8 inches off my waist. I am comfortably in size 36 pants, where 10 weeks I was stretching the seams of 42 inch pants. I bought a new belt 2 weeks ago, and have already moved 2 knotches on it. Things are going great!

Here’s today’s pics:

The Pic on the left was 10 weeks ago today, and the other this am.

A lifetime of “Before Pics”

 

So today, I have been looking through some pictures.  I have embarked on this journey to “lose weight” or “get healthy” or “transform” many times over the years.  Those that have known me longest, have heard me say that I was starting training many times over the years, possibly literally 100 times!  This post will show you pictures of my journey going back some 30 years (I am 37 years old.)  This should make for an interesting, and embarassing post, haha.

Here is a picture of me as a child, with my dad who is younger in this picture than I am now.  Yet, we look remarkably alike.

 

This pic was taken at 18 or 19 years old

 

this was about 1996 after coming down from 219, then my alltime high weight, i maintained the weight give or take 10 lbs for 4-5 years, from age 23-27

 

 

taken June 2007, sitting with one of my best friends before a poker game, literally bursting out of my shirt.

 

another from 2007, early August, one of many pictures that should have gotten me moving before now

 

Vegas spring 2007 with two of my buddies, the untucked shirt has been a staple of mine that I want to get rid of for good!

 

picture from 2005, at the base of Laverty falls in Fundy National Park

 

2003

 

One of my attempts in 2004, the pics on the right show me at just over 200

 

last summer                                                     2001                                          2004 

 

the last time i was in really good shape, 2001

 

The goal of this post wasn’t to flood the internet with more pictures of out of shape me shirtless for all the world to see, haha.  More to demonstrate I have been trying at this for a very very long time, and although I have yo yo’d and had mixed results, I never gave up.  I am still here trying.  I am still here dedicated to finally getting healthy, and leave the fat me, the 200+ pound me in the past forever.  This will be the last time I am EVER over 200 lbs.  I am in the final month or so of the 200’s and going forward I will maintain a healthy weight, and lifestyle….for life!

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

The last couple days have been “interesting”.  I won’t bore you with details.  Suffice it to say, there are some things that are “Worth” your time and concern, and somethings that are not.  Some things that we build up in our mind to be a big deal, but in reality, in a few months or years, will you even remember what you were worked up about?  Nope.  My grandfather, in his late 80′s, and who has fought off Death more times than you can count over his lifetime, may not have one more fight in him.  Unfortunately, we are not as close as we once were, or should be.  Call it pigheadedness, call it what happens in family’s when there is a divorce etc.  There will be no airing of dirty laundry here.  He is not expected to make it through the next few days.  And for this I worry about my dad (its his father).  I hope if it happens, he goes peacefully.

Now that the heavy stuff is out of the way, I will get on with my great day of exercise and family activity.  I walked nearly 14,000 steps today.  My family and I went out and had a great day on some local trails, and also went to a nearby “fitness park” I didn’t even know existed.  All the aparatus to “play” on are bodyweight versions of gym equipment!  They have an eliptical, an “air walker”, a leg press, a lat pulldown, a shoulder press and some other stuff.  It’s very cool!

Below are some pics, from the trails, and from the park.

 

 

 

Also today, I worked out tonight, doing a Power 90 Master Series workout UML that is included with my P90x dvd’s.  New exercises and more pays to punish myself! hehe.  I am growing bored with the two workouts of Power 90, but, I admit I am likely still not ready to really do P90x to full advantage.  So I will continue Power 90, continue “just pushing play” every day and will work in some Power 90 Master series workouts here and there.  I am buying the full set of Power 90 Master series shortly (in the next day or two).   I will work these workouts into the rest of my Power 90 workouts, and just keep trying to get better and better.  Come mid July, I will move on to P90x (if I am ready!)

I don’t have the energy to post a side by side, but here’s my “progress” pic for this week.  I weighed 215.0 tonight when I took this, after a full days eating.  My morning weight yesterday was 214.  I did not go to weight watchers this week as I mentioned yesterday, but will be back next Saturday morning for the weigh in and meeting.

Going to go to bed, this is going to be a long week. 

Weight Watchers week 2 report

Well today I went for my third weight watchers meeting and my 3rd weigh in. The verdict is I am down 0.4 pounds.

I did not expect to be down much if at all this week. I am not upset about it, it is what it is. I am happy with my eating this week as far as food choices. I have not eaten enough weight watchers points this week. I struggle to get to 28 points each day and I am supposed to be eating 34. I am happy with my food choices though as I have been eating proper portions of meat, eating fish and eating salads. This was unheard of for me before.

As I mentioned, I did not get in as much exercise this week as I did in week 1. I was walking many days in week 1 for 2.5 hours or more broken into 3 short walks. With the weather and stuff this week I did not get in as much walking, only hitting 10,000 steps on my pedometer 1 day, where last week, I averaged nearly 13 500 steps a day.

I am not discouraged, or mad about it. This week I will lose more. I am starting Power 90 tomorrow, and I will get in my walks. I am returning to work hopefully Friday. I started a new medication this past week so maybe that had something to do with it, I am not sure. I am encouraged by my eating and I really like the weight watchers plan. You can make it as successful as you choose to in my opinion, and I am almost certain I will be staying on it far longer than the 12 weeks I prepaid for it.

I did not weigh in at all this week, and for me at least I think that hindered me a little. A lot of people become slaves to the scale, and get to confident when down, to discouraged when up. I am pretty good of using it for what it is a tool to see where I am. I don’t get to bent out of shape either way about it. So I will weigh myself a couple times through the week as a progress report.

My waist measurement didn’t move this week either. I think that the fat I have gained over the past few years is going to be stubborn. I gained it over a period of years, its not going to go easily. I can easily gain 10 pounds in a week or so, and of course as we all know losing that same 10 can be a much harder proposition. A blogging friend of mine used to blog about weight watchers years ago ( I have lost touch with her) but she talked about something that has stuck with me. She didn’t talk about “losing the weight” but rather about “releasing the weight”. I always liked that way at looking at it. I have built up a wall of fat on my body as a defensive mechanism of sorts. I make fun of myself and call myself fat etc and make myself the butt of jokes and kind of just fell into a huge rut. I am ready now to “release” this weight. To let it go. I know if I keep on plan eating wise, safely up my activity levels, the weight will go. It has no choice. It may put up a fight, but it will go. It will have no choice.

What I did well this week:
-food choices were good, portions what they should be
-kept track of every morcel of food with the weight watchers online tracker
-started power 90 workouts on thursday
-kept a positive attitude

What I can do better this coming week
-Start 90 days of Power 90 tomorrow (Sunday)
-more water
-get all my points in each day
-more walks, aiming for 10,000 steps a day
-get food accounted for earlier in day so that I can plan what I eat better

This weeks comparison picture

progress:

weight: down 0.4 pounds
waist: remained same

blood pressure today: 132/96

Week 1 in Review

Well I made it through the first week of Weight Watchers.  It was not without drama not related to the program itself.  I spent seven eye opening hours hooked up to a heart monitor.  It turns out that my heart is ok and not affected by blood pressure or anything else, but I got to tell you, lying in a hospital bed gives you alot of time to think.  All I could think about is, the stuff I can control in regards to my health are going to be taken care of.  I have alot going on, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, bad back, contstant neck pain, blah blah blah.  But all of this can in the grand scheme of things is manageable.  But I can’t put it off anymore.  I can’t allow it to get any worse.  I must take responsibility RIGHT NOW and get control of all this shit.

I was taken off work for another two weeks, I return April 2nd.  As I write this Saturday night, my blood pressure is still high, and my neck is killing me, my headache while soooooo much better than it has been still is there.  These early weeks are important weeks for me in the weight watchers journey because they are when I will get some great habits ingrained and I am home and able to measure out my foods and really make sure I have a great start.  The results will be the best in these first few weeks and then the will peter off to a couple pounds a week in all likelihood.  Its time to get some really great habits established so that when I get back to the real world, IE working for a living I already have the good habits in place and I am ready to really do well.

So here’s my first week in review:

What I did well through my first week

-ate cleaner than I have in years
-walked as much as I could, sometimes up to three times a day, getting in over 13000 steps most days
-wrote down every single liquid or food that entered my mouth

What I didn’t do well

-didn’t hit my points most days
-didn’t get enough water in

What I need to do this week to improve

-hit points for the day!
-improve on my water
-get some stretching in for my back/neck
-get a multi vitamin

 

First Week Comparison Pictures

 

 

Progress

Down 6 pounds

Down 2.5 inches from waist

First week on RTP system complete

Well, today marks the end of week 1 on the RTP program. Here are a few random thoughts through week 1.

-I like the program so far, and although I have never used such short breaks between sets, I am finding the workouts challenging and am enjoying them
-can’t say it enough but I am so glad I joined the shreddersphere. People working towards the same goals can/will only lift up eachother to higher levels
-although I stuck to plan nutrition wise I may have been a little low on calories a couple days. I will continue to weigh/measure my foods
-I thought I would find the posting of daily pictures daunting, but its not too bad. I have always wanted to have a John Stone (look him up) or Adam Walters transformation, and I feel I have just started mine
-although I “knew” this, it becomes clearer each day, that the biggest part of a successful transformation is done between your ears, and not in the gym or the kitchen. If you don’t believe you’ll get there, YOU WON’T.

As I think I mentioned earlier, I have been working on visualizing my goals. I am quite a ways were I ultimately want to be. I want to be 175 lbs with a 32-34 inch waist. That is a few missions away, but I will get there. I have made a similar transformation before and I can and will do it again. I turn 37 years old on Dec 31st, 2009, I will do so in the absolute best shape of my life.