The Journey - Part IV: Eating Right

You don't get to 240 pounds by accident. I love to eat. I'm a child of the South, so I love biscuits, fried foods. I love to eat meats and cheeses.

These things are not very good for you.

So, I started to also count calories along with my exercise regiments. Someone at work recommended MyPlate as a calorie journal, and for me it worked great. You sign up for an account, enter your height and weight and how much you want to lose per week; and then you're given a daily calorie allotment. From there, you enter what you eat through the day to see if you're staying at your calorie goals.

I started at 2,500 calories per day, and now based on my current weight and weight loss goals, I'm set at 1940 calories per day. Staying in these limits takes some planning and self control. The good thing is you do get credit for calories burned during exercise.

The nice part about MyPlate is that you can search for most of the major restaurant chains and see how many calories you're consuming from their meals. Since a lot of times I end up eating out for lunch, this let me see where the calories were coming from. For instance, I love Popeye's Chicken. Every Tuesday, I would go there for Two Piece Tuesday, which was only $2.99. You get two piece of chicken, red beans and rice, and a biscuit. It is delicious. But what I learned was that red beans and rice has 320 calories - the highest calories of any part of the meal! I soon realized I could cut that in half by switching to a different side, like cajun rice.

I didn't cut out my favorite foods or restaurants (at least not right away), but using MyPlate helped me see that if I had a big lunch, then I needed to cut back at dinner. So I was able to stay under my calories, and really start to shed pounds. It gave me balance.

So that's how I got from 240 pounds to 205 pounds in less than a year. Counting the calories along with daily exercise is the secret to my weight loss. It's pretty basic stuff. But really what it took was a change in mindset. Making a decision to not just sit around and do nothing, but to take action to change my lifestyle.

Lately, lots of people at work have been commenting on how much weight I've lost. Someone looked at a picture of me from last year and told me they didn't realize how fat I was, compared to the way I look now. This really makes me feel good - but I keep in mind that I still have a long way to go. I'm at 205 now, but I'm still pinching more than an inch. I'm still overweight. And I know if I stop now, it will be real easy for me to get back up to 240 pounds - or more.

So my journey continues.

The Journey - Part III: The Benefits of Playing Video Games

On December 31, I got the Wii Fit, and it was one of the best investments in my fitness that I made.

The Wii Fit met my need for a convenient way to work out, plus it was as fun as playing a video game. It's easy to see the goal in front of you when you're trying to beat someone's high score. Plus, the exercises were low impact, so it was great for getting back into shape and not have to be as concerned with injury.

One of the added benefits was the weight tracking in the system. This is what I think really helped push me over the hurdle for weight loss, since each day I could see the results of my hard work or the consequences of overeating. Along with this, the program lets you set a weight loss goal for a certain time period that you can easily follow to see how close you are to meeting your goals with a handy chart.

Thanks to this, I know how far I've come in the last couple of months. I started the program weighing 225.1 pounds. As of today, I'm at 205.3 pounds - a difference of 20 pounds in 74 days.

The other thing with the Wii fit that help me take things to the next level is that it got me exercising everyday. Over the summer, I was only running 3 times a week. But with the fun and convenience of the Wii Fit, I was soon exercising 30 minutes each day. I figured I wasn't burning as many calories as when I was jogging, but burning 200 or so calories each day was paying off.

Now, it wasn't just doing the Wii Fit that got me where I'm at and is getting me where I'm going. The other component is diet and nutrition, which I'll talk about next.

The Journey - Part II: The Speed Bump

By late October, I was in a pretty good routine of running 2 miles, 3 times a week at our local riverfront park. But then I hit my first speed bump - weather.

Now lots of folks are fine running in the rain and cold. They laugh at the elements. They will run when it's so cold their sweet freezes.

I'm not one of those people.

The temperature was starting to get much cooler. Like "I need a jacket" cold. Plus, we had a really raining October/November. While I had run in the rain in the summer, running in the cold rain was no fun. I'm already miserable running, and so adding in rain and cold did not make it any more enjoyable. I gave it an honest go, but I couldn't make it to the half mile mark without turning around.

Running wasn't going to work for me in inclement weather, and still didn't want to join a gym. But I was still at 220 with more weight to drop, so I wasn't going to give up. For a few weeks, I tried doing aerobics, like Jillian Michaels: Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism program. I thought I could handle it, but that thing was tough. I was able to get 20 minutes into it, and was exhausted. So I was very spotty in my aerobics work, which was no good.

I did learn one positive thing from the Jillian Michaels work out, and that was the importance of doing a good warm up. She makes the point that muscles are like rubber bands - if a rubber band is cold and you start to pull it, it will break. Same things with muscles; if you start to use them before they're really warmed up, then you can pull a muscle. I'm really big on avoid injury, so I took this to heart, and have tried to do a warm up of some kind before starting exercise ever since.

In any event, I got to a point where I had not been exercising for a couple of weeks in December, other than taking some walks on the weekend. I knew I had to do something to get back on track.

Around this same, my 13 year old sister-in-law that was living with us was told by the doctor that she was in danger of developing juvenile onset diabetes. She weighted 217 pounds, only a couple of pounds less than me. We had tried to get her to do aerobics, but she made little effort. I knew we had to do something to get this to change.

So on December 31, I went out and got a Wii Fit. This proved to be the thing that got me over this speed bump.

The Journey - Part I: Jogging

A Chinese proverb says "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." The point being that small, simple steps are needed if your going to get started with a fitness routine. This is the story of the first step in my journey.

I decided to begin my fitness routine again in July 2009. I made my resolution to start after getting back from vacation, reasoning that I would enjoy my vacation before really worrying about diet and exercise. I thought about everything over vacation and decided to try and take up jogging again.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had tried jogging before, but hurt my knee. Basically, I hurt myself by not really knowing what I was doing. I thought, "all I have to do is run." So I went outside and started running around the neighborhood. I would run until I couldn't run any more. Then I'd catch my breath. Then start running again. Repeat. I just used whatever old sneakers I had. I was running on concrete. In the process, I got some inflammation in my knee, though I would have sworn I tore an ACL or something.

But I chose to try jogging again for a couple of reasons. First, I reasoned that it was the exercise program that requires the least financial investment. You can go and run around the neighborhood for free. Second, I knew that it would be easy and convenient to walk out the door and go rather than drive to a gym, find parking, change clothes, work out, then drive home. Third, I have a little inspiration in my co-worker Rick. This guy has been running for many years, and now competes in ultra-marathons of the 100 mile variety. His stories of running had me convinced that I could do it again.

This time I was determined to be a bit smarter about things. I had gotten some better shoes made for running, a pair Pearl iZUMi I found on eBay. This would give me better support. I also had a knee sleeve I got from the doctor when I hurt my knee the first time. I went ahead and invested a few dollars into a second knee brace for my "bad" knee, wearing the sleeve on the other good knee. I figured this would give me more support on my joints than before.

Next, I looked for a better running plan than what I had before of "run until you get tired." I had read a lot of stories about couch to 5k programs, and found one that I liked. This is what made the difference in my program for me. I was able to set small attainable goals for myself based on the program. First week, run for 1 minute than walk for 2? No problem! It was easy to measure and track my goal, and to just do it 3 times a week. The best part was I was able to see results. I was building endurance, and more importantly losing a couple of pounds a week.

I started the first 4 or 5 weeks running in the neighborhood. This got me out and around and was a nice change of pace compared to just being in a gym and seeing the same thing over and over again. But my knees and legs were really sore. My bones were aching. The pain wasn't to the same degree as before, but and it didn't feel good, and I was worried about injury setting me back again.

I spoke to Rick to ask if he knew of what might be able to help me recover quicker from this pain. He hipped me to something that most experienced runners know - concrete sidewalks are the worst thing to run on. There is not give in concrete so your joints absorb all the shock. All I had been running on was the concrete sidewalks in my neighborhood.

He suggested I try running at our local riverfront park which had an asphalt path, as well as a sand/gravel trail; both of which were better than running on concrete. The park was close to my house, and at this point I was determined to keep up running, so the extra inconvenience of changing clothes and driving somewhere wasn't a big deal; especially with the park only 5 minutes away.

This change really did the trick for me. First, the pain in my joints and bones subsided since I was running on a softer, more forgiving surface. Second, it was a nice change of scenery from the neighborhood. The park is really beautiful. Third, and this was the cool part to me, the mile markers on the trail helped me see my progress in running not just based on time, but distance as well. By week 8, I was able to run a mile flat out, which was a big accomplishment for me.

Now, my goal was never really to run a 5k or 10k. A lot of folks set this as a goal for themselves, and it certainly might work for you. But for me, all I wanted out of jogging was to lose weight, and be able to have a 20 minute or so cardio program I could follow. And I got to that point within the first 8 weeks of the program. I was eventually running 2 miles in the park 3 times a week.

I continued running on this pace into late October. I dropped down to 220 pounds from the 240 pounds I weighed in July. I was feeling great.

Then I hit my first bump in the road.

Starting at the Beginning

I hate exercise. I hate dieting. But you know what I hate more? Being fat. Having high blood pressure, diabetes, and a higher risk of heart disease. I hate the idea of taking a bunch of medicine at a relatively young age. So that's why I knew I had to make some changes.

I guess this all started after I had a physical in June 2009. The doctor told me I was in good shape, but that my blood pressure was higher than it had been. This concerned me (and my doctor) because I have a history of high blood pressure in my family. My grandfather died of an aneurysm in his 50s because of untreated high blood pressure. My father died of renal failure which was a result of untreated high blood pressure. I didn't want to go down that same path. I didn't like the idea of having to take medicine to treat high blood pressure either. My doctor didn't recommend medicine at that time, but she did say I could stand to lose a few pounds.

At the time, I was back up to 240 pounds. I'm 6 feet even, with broad shoulders and broad hips, so I always carried my weight well; but I did have to concede defeat on some occasions and get 40in waist pants. I was overweight, and I knew it.

I had tried in the past to lose weight, and had mixed results. I tried the Atkins diet, but it left me constipated. I tried jogging for a while, but then I hurt my knee. For about 9 months, I did go to the gym at my job pretty regularly, an actually dropped to 220. But then I got caught up with other activities and I started going less and less. Soon enough, I was back up to 240.

So this time, I knew it was time to get serious. So in July 2009, I decided it was time to get serious again about losing weight. I wanted to feel better about myself, and more importantly, I wanted to get in better shape for my health.

As of this moment, I'm down to 206 pounds. I've used a combination of exercise and diet that works for me to get to where I am. I've still got a few pounds to go, and some other fitness goals I want to meet. But I'm happy about losing almost 35 pounds in 8 months.

I'm going to use this blog to talk about my journey. How I got to where I am, how I'm getting to where I'm going, and how I plan to stay there. My hope is that this blog will serve as added motivation for me to continue with my fitness program.

I also hope that others come across it and use the story as inspiration and motivation. I'm in no way a professional trainer, weight loss instructor, doctor, etc. I'm just going to talk about what has worked for me. I hope it helps you too.