lose 50 pounds

Original weight Jan 1, 2006: 215
Last year weight Mar 8, 2006: 197
Current Weight: Jul 24, 2007: 180

When you make this goal, you expect to stick to your diet and achieve it within a year. Does it really matter that it may take 3 years? I look pretty damn good right now, and its because I didn’t give up. I cheated alot and it is taking alot longer than I wanted it to, but I didn’t give up. Now I just have to get rid of these love handles and I’m set.

I gave up on this goal about a year ago because it seemed impossible. Today I started browsing though all my posts and realized I am 60% there.

Original weight Jan 1, 2006: 215
Weight Mar 8, 2006: 197

Current Weight… 18 months later: 185

I am going to weigh 165, its only a matter of time.

50lbs is too much too chew on. I am going to change my goal to lose 3lbs this week. Then renew that goal for the next 20 weeks. Hopefully I will achieve or exceed my goal 17 times. 50lbs is hard… 3lbs is do-able.

They say it takes 30 days to turn something into a habit. I think it is more like 60 days. I started this goal in November, started eating healthy every once in a while…. still ate out and ate fattening foods alot. After 5 weeks of having this goal, I gained 20lbs. Granted it was the holidays and I was visiting home and all my friends, and getting together with them to catch up and going to restaurants. However, I was still eating healthy when I ate at home, with occasional splurges.

Now, after gaining 20lbs, it took less than 3 months to lose 30lbs. And it was extremely easy. I’m not even trying anymore and it keeps coming off. It has become a habit to eat healthy. I know what salads I like, what fruits and vegetables I like, and I choose those without evening craving junk food… even at restaurants. (of course them nachos do look good).

I was 200lbs in November, 220lbs on Jan 1st and 190 as of today. Eating healthy and losing weight is no longer hard, it has become a habit. It only took about 2 months to learn my likes and dislikes and change my habits. Then another 3 months to actually lose the weight.

Now its time to do the same with exercising. That is going to be a chore.

Original weight Jan 1, 2006: 215
Current weight Mar 8, 2006: 197

I am definately losing weight in a non dangerous, healthy timeline… however I would like to speed it up a bit if I’m to get down to 160lbs. I have hit the way to common plateau, lost 1 pound in the last 2 weeks. I have an extremely healthy diet, so this just means, I need to up the activity level.

The main thing I will need to do is create a plan of motivation to get me to the gym. Motivation is never long term, so I will need to create a short term motivational plan to get me to the gym this week and next week, 4 times a week. As well as a plan to reinforce the necessity to recreate and update a motivational plan, as well as place obsticles along my timeline to remind myself how important it is to stay on path.

This will definately be a hard task with some studying to do. Luckily, I am very contempt at sitting at a computer all day looking for ways to motivate myself…. but maybe thats not a good thing.

A few things I plan to do:

1. Join an athletic group. With me being probably the least fit of the group, it will definately motivate me on a weekly basis that I need to lose weight. I will most likely join a bicycling group… I am also looking to find a volleyball or ultimate frisbee group, but community activities are rare and hard to find in a tourist town.

2. Walk on the beach in my speedos one or two times a week. Nothing gets more attention then a fat guy in speedos… same goes with nothing makes a fat guy lose weight then everyone staring at him in speedos. (Living at the Beach is a plus there)

3. The Scale: I will weigh myself everyday and track my progress. I understand that weight fluctuates alot day to day, and some times you may go weeks without losing weight. Luckily I am not the type who gets discouraged, and I know that weighing myself every morning will plant the thought that I need to lose weight each individual day, making me less likely to forget my healthy lifestyle and indulge in self destructive acts on that day I weighed myself and planted that seed of healthiness.

Thats all the ideas I have for now. If anyone has any addional thoughts, let me know.

I am going to have to quit this goal and switch to lose 100lbs the way I am going. I am now 220lbs, approximately 20lbs more than when I started this goal. Of course I have many reasons (excuses). I am away for the holidays… visiting family in extremely cold weather where I can’t go out and run, no gym membership here, and of course I have so many friends and family here, I go out almost every other evening for dinner with someone. Of course… all that really is just an excuse to do something I don’t feel like doing… I feel like losing weight, I just don’t feel like putting in the effort. And with obstacles like these… its easy to convince myself “I’ll start after Christmas”. I’m not exactly what the plan is, but I definately have to make one immediately and be extremely proactive on it. I have a dinner date with a former coworker tomorrow, thats another 2 lbs I will pack on. I need to figure something out.

After endless studying and researching the most popular and most successful diets, I have finally came up with one that works for me. I read the Atkins Diet book… incredible book, very descriptive and scientific. I agree with alot of it except for a couple of hugh factors. I don’t believe in eating alot of fat and I believe complex carbohydrates are good for you in moderation. In fact I have read that the most successful long term diets are High carb, low fat. However.. the diet I have designed that I believe will work the best for me very much resembles the Atkins diet. The Atkins diet stresses that you should stay away from simple carbohydrates and sugar… and puts a quota of no more than 20grams per day. So this is my limit. I will eat no white bread, no noodles, tortillas, or other flour based foods, and keep my sugar consumption to less than 20 grams per day. Thats pretty hard considering that a half cup of granola has almost 20 grams by itself. My diet will concentrate on green vegetables, plain quaker oatmeal (without salt), lots of fat free turkey and chicken, green barley grass juice, and I will add foods as I find more that fit within my diet. I believe in order to have a successful diet, you have to eat alot, satisfy your hunger, and eat the right foods. I will also stay away from artificially sweetened foods due to studies that show that they increase cravings for sugar. So this is the first phase of my diet. That with regular exercise, I expect to lose about 5lbs over the next week. I now need to find out which type of exercises lose fat quickest. Lots of conflicting information out there. Wish me luck.