Longtime readers of this blog may remember that what started this successful effort to lose weight was the unsuccessful previous attempt to lose weight. In the summer of 2010 I had tried to exercise more and ended up with a lot of pain in my knees and ankles, which was later diagnosed as bursitis.
When I started the South Beach Diet in May, my doctor cautioned me not to try to exercise beyond walking briskly, until after I had lost 20 pounds or so, and I managed to do very well at that.
Saturday, we had a small family gathering, in which I spent a lot of time pushing children in swings or following them around. So far, so good. But . . . on Saturday afternoon, we broke out a football. We didn't really play football; rather four of us in the "over 40" set tossed the ball around, throwing occasionally to my cousin's 4th grader or my Kindergartner. But once . . . I caught a pass at the edge of the yard, and 9 year old Seth was coming for me -- so I broke and ran, dodging left and right and stretching out to really run for the first time in a long long time. It felt great. The comment was even made (and not by me) that I could really run without that extra 50 pounds.
Of course, by 10:00 that night both Achilles tendons were so swollen and tender that I could hardly walk. By morning my left knee had joined the chorus of complaints.
However, I'm happy to report that repeated applications of ice, heat and Tylenol have allowed me to walk well enough to exercise at least this morning at work. (I'll see how my morning walk goes before I commit to walking at lunch).
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
How many angels can dance on the head of a scale?
OK, I know the question is really "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" But I don't have much use for pins at the moment. . .
Anyway, one of the countless people who have "Lose weight" as a New Year's Resolution was talking to me about our various progress at work this week and she was complaining about her scale. I thought our conversation was important enough to write down . . .
Basically, we tend to think of a scale as showing a super-accurate, unvarying weight. But I know better . . . and in fact, I know that my scale actually rounds off the weights. So, you might ask yourself, where do the suspiciously accurate weight loss claims in this blog originate? I figure that the trend is the thing, rather than the actual number -- that is to say, if the scale's a little off now, it probably was then. So here's a bit on the care and feeding of MY scale. Your results may differ.
First, confession time . . . I was a wrestler in Junior High and High School. Wrestlers are segregated out by weight class, and weight makes a difference. So wrestlers set a goal to get to the lowest weight they possibly can . . . and learn how to lean and shift their center of gravity to make the scale read as light as possible. (Tip: for the old fashioned Doctor's office Scale, standing with your feet wide and pushing down hard with one foot or the other tends to make it read anywhere from 1/2 pound to 2 pounds light.) I try to restrain these habits on my home scale.
Second, I live in a house that was relatively cheaply built in the mid 1970's . . . so there's all sorts of soft spots in the floor. I discovered by accident once that sliding the scale about 18 inches to the right of where we normally keep it in our bathroom will cause you to lose about 7 pounds. . . so we put the scale on the same place in the patterned tile every time. Even with that, both my wife and I tend to weigh ourselves multiple times and try to pick the most reasonable and/or the one that the scale "settles on." This morning, for example, I weighed four times, with a four pound swing between them. The first was clearly unreasonable, a loss of 5 pounds since yesterday, the second showing a half pound loss, the third and fourth were equal at a pound and a half down, so that's what I recorded.
Third, as I mentioned, our scale rounds things off. On our spreadsheet, my wife's weight frequently ends with .2 or .4 or any other even number, but never any odd numbers. My weight, invariably, comes to either an even pound or half pound.
Finally, my home scale reads at least a little bit heavier than my doctor's scale. Even though I'm wearing substantially less clothes on my home scale, and I weigh myself before I eat anything in the morning . . . and I'm fully clothed at the doctor's, and usually have had two meals and two snacks before I see him, plus most of a liter of water. . . I'm lighter at the doctor's office than I was that morning at home.
So you see, the weight that we record each day is a bit of an educated guess.
Anyway, one of the countless people who have "Lose weight" as a New Year's Resolution was talking to me about our various progress at work this week and she was complaining about her scale. I thought our conversation was important enough to write down . . .
Basically, we tend to think of a scale as showing a super-accurate, unvarying weight. But I know better . . . and in fact, I know that my scale actually rounds off the weights. So, you might ask yourself, where do the suspiciously accurate weight loss claims in this blog originate? I figure that the trend is the thing, rather than the actual number -- that is to say, if the scale's a little off now, it probably was then. So here's a bit on the care and feeding of MY scale. Your results may differ.
First, confession time . . . I was a wrestler in Junior High and High School. Wrestlers are segregated out by weight class, and weight makes a difference. So wrestlers set a goal to get to the lowest weight they possibly can . . . and learn how to lean and shift their center of gravity to make the scale read as light as possible. (Tip: for the old fashioned Doctor's office Scale, standing with your feet wide and pushing down hard with one foot or the other tends to make it read anywhere from 1/2 pound to 2 pounds light.) I try to restrain these habits on my home scale.
Second, I live in a house that was relatively cheaply built in the mid 1970's . . . so there's all sorts of soft spots in the floor. I discovered by accident once that sliding the scale about 18 inches to the right of where we normally keep it in our bathroom will cause you to lose about 7 pounds. . . so we put the scale on the same place in the patterned tile every time. Even with that, both my wife and I tend to weigh ourselves multiple times and try to pick the most reasonable and/or the one that the scale "settles on." This morning, for example, I weighed four times, with a four pound swing between them. The first was clearly unreasonable, a loss of 5 pounds since yesterday, the second showing a half pound loss, the third and fourth were equal at a pound and a half down, so that's what I recorded.
Third, as I mentioned, our scale rounds things off. On our spreadsheet, my wife's weight frequently ends with .2 or .4 or any other even number, but never any odd numbers. My weight, invariably, comes to either an even pound or half pound.
Finally, my home scale reads at least a little bit heavier than my doctor's scale. Even though I'm wearing substantially less clothes on my home scale, and I weigh myself before I eat anything in the morning . . . and I'm fully clothed at the doctor's, and usually have had two meals and two snacks before I see him, plus most of a liter of water. . . I'm lighter at the doctor's office than I was that morning at home.
So you see, the weight that we record each day is a bit of an educated guess.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Love/Hate Weekends
It's 12:20 as I write this, and I'm getting ready to go make lunch. (Grilled cheese for the kids, salads for the dieters). We've got laundry going, the dog has been walked and bathed, beds are made, kitchen is clean. We're even mostly unpacked from our trip. (True confession, the office is a mess, but it was just too tempting to write in my blog instead of cleaning)
I love weekends like this (3 day weekend for adults and kids alike).
But . . .the piper must be paid. Saturday morning, before we left on our trip to visit an old friend of my wife and her new baby, I hit my latest intermediate goal, and then a little bit. Saturday morning, I weighed 226 pounds, which is 51 pounds less on my scale than Sunday morning May 15, 2011.
The first part of the day, I behaved very well . . . a little bit of yogurt with fruit for breakfast, a snack in the car of whole wheat crackers and light cheese. Starting at lunch, the misbehavior began. :-) Karen's friend made tacos, and refried beans, and Karen contributed sugar cookies (cut into snowflakes -- how appropriate). The tacos were good, and I had two. The cookies were good too, and I had two of them also. For dinner, we had homemade pizza. The "Grownup" pizza was meatless, with red beans as a substitute. And we came away with the recipe -- something to try later. The "kids" pizza was chicken and cheese -- and I had to sample that too. We had a small snack in the evening.
Sunday, we were back to behaving, kinda. . . breakfast was at a Hampton Inn, and we tried to behave. (Honestly, a much much lighter breakfast than I would have had a year ago, but probably a full day's worth of South Beach Diet meals.) Lunch was finally something appropriate -- 97% lean smoked ham on whole wheat, with a slice of fat-free cheese. Dinner, as a reward for children's good behavior involved golden arches, and SERIOUS lapses in the diet.
Anyway, TODAY we're being strict again, but the damage has been done. In 48 hours, I added 5 pounds to my weight. My wife, having much better willpower than I, managed to contain the damage to her waistline at 1 pound.
So, with some exercise and good eating today and through the week, I'm hoping to be back down to 226.
Of course, my brother-in-law is coming to visit tomorrow, and later this evening the boys will be helping me make chili for dinner tomorrow night. (We'll be pretty healthy, ground turkey and all, but still probably not a lot of weight loss tomorrow)
I still think it was worth it. . .
I love weekends like this (3 day weekend for adults and kids alike).
But . . .the piper must be paid. Saturday morning, before we left on our trip to visit an old friend of my wife and her new baby, I hit my latest intermediate goal, and then a little bit. Saturday morning, I weighed 226 pounds, which is 51 pounds less on my scale than Sunday morning May 15, 2011.
The first part of the day, I behaved very well . . . a little bit of yogurt with fruit for breakfast, a snack in the car of whole wheat crackers and light cheese. Starting at lunch, the misbehavior began. :-) Karen's friend made tacos, and refried beans, and Karen contributed sugar cookies (cut into snowflakes -- how appropriate). The tacos were good, and I had two. The cookies were good too, and I had two of them also. For dinner, we had homemade pizza. The "Grownup" pizza was meatless, with red beans as a substitute. And we came away with the recipe -- something to try later. The "kids" pizza was chicken and cheese -- and I had to sample that too. We had a small snack in the evening.
Sunday, we were back to behaving, kinda. . . breakfast was at a Hampton Inn, and we tried to behave. (Honestly, a much much lighter breakfast than I would have had a year ago, but probably a full day's worth of South Beach Diet meals.) Lunch was finally something appropriate -- 97% lean smoked ham on whole wheat, with a slice of fat-free cheese. Dinner, as a reward for children's good behavior involved golden arches, and SERIOUS lapses in the diet.
Anyway, TODAY we're being strict again, but the damage has been done. In 48 hours, I added 5 pounds to my weight. My wife, having much better willpower than I, managed to contain the damage to her waistline at 1 pound.
So, with some exercise and good eating today and through the week, I'm hoping to be back down to 226.
Of course, my brother-in-law is coming to visit tomorrow, and later this evening the boys will be helping me make chili for dinner tomorrow night. (We'll be pretty healthy, ground turkey and all, but still probably not a lot of weight loss tomorrow)
I still think it was worth it. . .
Thursday, January 12, 2012
More milestones
Today, there's a fun number staring me in the face as I look at the spreadsheet where I track my weight. In Column F, the bottom number is "49". As in 49 pounds lighter than May 15. To celebrate, on Tuesday night I went through my closet and pulled out all of the "fat" clothes I've replaced. . . . and my wife took them to Goodwill. No turning back now.
My wife and I are in this process for the long haul, but it's been interesting to see how perspectives change. I read through every entry of this blog last night, and my file of notes from doctor's visits. In May, when I started, I hoped to lose 30 pounds the first year, and maybe 30 more the year after that, then we'd re-evaluate. In June, I blogged several times about breaking through the "20 Pound barrier". In July, I commented that the belt I wore yesterday evening was a goal of mine -- and as it was a size 40, I needed to lose 5 more inches to get there. (I was measured for sizes on July 5, and bought some clothes. My waist size in May was 48 (if I inhaled a bit) and July 5 it was 45. This morning I'm wearing dockers with a 40 inch waist, and they're loose.
My current goal is to reach 50 pounds of weight loss in the next couple of days and then surpass it next week. (Monday the 16th is a State Holiday, and we're entertaining over the weekend and again on Tuesday night, so it will probably be late next week before I can truly say I've lost 50 pounds and kept it off.)
Last May, I told the doctor that a long term goal was to be 200 pounds, fully clothed, when my son John is old enough to move from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. . . the doctor laughed and said "I don't think it will take that long." Now I'm wondering if 200 pounds by Christmas 2012 is a reasonable goal.
My wife and I are in this process for the long haul, but it's been interesting to see how perspectives change. I read through every entry of this blog last night, and my file of notes from doctor's visits. In May, when I started, I hoped to lose 30 pounds the first year, and maybe 30 more the year after that, then we'd re-evaluate. In June, I blogged several times about breaking through the "20 Pound barrier". In July, I commented that the belt I wore yesterday evening was a goal of mine -- and as it was a size 40, I needed to lose 5 more inches to get there. (I was measured for sizes on July 5, and bought some clothes. My waist size in May was 48 (if I inhaled a bit) and July 5 it was 45. This morning I'm wearing dockers with a 40 inch waist, and they're loose.
My current goal is to reach 50 pounds of weight loss in the next couple of days and then surpass it next week. (Monday the 16th is a State Holiday, and we're entertaining over the weekend and again on Tuesday night, so it will probably be late next week before I can truly say I've lost 50 pounds and kept it off.)
Last May, I told the doctor that a long term goal was to be 200 pounds, fully clothed, when my son John is old enough to move from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. . . the doctor laughed and said "I don't think it will take that long." Now I'm wondering if 200 pounds by Christmas 2012 is a reasonable goal.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Holiday Hangover
The Holiday Hangover is officially over. . . on November 10 I weighed in at 231 pounds. November 10 is my wife's birthday, and we went out for dinner. Since then, we've had 3 more family birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, my wedding anniversary and a few retirement receptions at work. My weight "peaked" at 241.5 on the morning of December 28 and I've been losing ever since.
This morning, after a weekend of being very well behaved food-wise and getting lots of exercise . . . the scale revealed 231 once again. Now it's back to weight loss.
This is down about 9 pounds since January 1, which was our last full day not being at least somewhat strict about the diet.
This weekend we've been rediscovering the joys of fresh seafood.
Last night, as an example: I baked two four ounce tillapia fillets with just salt and pepper and a little brush of olive oil. When they were done (15 minutes at 400 degrees), they went down on a small plate, and I covered them with sauteed vegetables. This was from a mix we got from Schwann's but was just roasted red peppers, onions and tomatoes. I added a few olives to the plate as a garnish. While I was handling fish and vegetables, Karen made us salads. These were 3 ounces of raw spinach, a half ounce each of dry roasted peanuts and fat free grated cheddar cheese, a half strip of turkey bacon cooked until very crisp and broken into pieces and a sesame oil dressing (Newman's own -- low fat and low calorie). This would have been great with a nice white wine, but alcohol is off limits on Phase One of the diet, so we had iced tea.
The boys got mac n' cheese, because they've had strong negative reactions to baked fish. :-)
Hope you're all doing well on your diets also.
This morning, after a weekend of being very well behaved food-wise and getting lots of exercise . . . the scale revealed 231 once again. Now it's back to weight loss.
This is down about 9 pounds since January 1, which was our last full day not being at least somewhat strict about the diet.
This weekend we've been rediscovering the joys of fresh seafood.
Last night, as an example: I baked two four ounce tillapia fillets with just salt and pepper and a little brush of olive oil. When they were done (15 minutes at 400 degrees), they went down on a small plate, and I covered them with sauteed vegetables. This was from a mix we got from Schwann's but was just roasted red peppers, onions and tomatoes. I added a few olives to the plate as a garnish. While I was handling fish and vegetables, Karen made us salads. These were 3 ounces of raw spinach, a half ounce each of dry roasted peanuts and fat free grated cheddar cheese, a half strip of turkey bacon cooked until very crisp and broken into pieces and a sesame oil dressing (Newman's own -- low fat and low calorie). This would have been great with a nice white wine, but alcohol is off limits on Phase One of the diet, so we had iced tea.
The boys got mac n' cheese, because they've had strong negative reactions to baked fish. :-)
Hope you're all doing well on your diets also.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Progress
We went back on Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet starting 5 days ago (we were going to on January 2, but still had a few "forbidden foods" and I'm too cheap to throw away things which will spoil while we're in Phase 1). We've made lots of progress - Karen's lost 3 1/2 pounds and I have lost 7.
While dressing for church this morning I got out one of my "fat suits" -- I bought two suits on a buy one get one free sale before teaching a class for Accenture in April of 2009. I weighed about 275 when I bought them. With a belt, they are still passable at 232. . .
But just barely. I think it's time to have them taken in.
While dressing for church this morning I got out one of my "fat suits" -- I bought two suits on a buy one get one free sale before teaching a class for Accenture in April of 2009. I weighed about 275 when I bought them. With a belt, they are still passable at 232. . .
But just barely. I think it's time to have them taken in.
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