I've said it before

and I hope I don't say it again, but my track record so far says otherwise.  What, you may wonder, am I talking about? I am starting over.  I am getting back into the swing of things and tracking my calories in order to make progress in the right direction on this weight loss journey towards a healthier me. I have to come clean here, I have lost weight since the first of the year but it has not been fat.  It has been fluid.

I've been hoping for a miracle, I guess.  Hoping that some magic combination of medications from my doctor will shed a significant amount of what I need to lose.  Obviously that is not the case.  I had dropped almost 50 lbs. by increasing my diuretic to the point that my kidneys had started complaining.  We've backed off on that and I gained back almost 20 lbs. in 2 short weeks.  Since then we've changed medications again and I seem to be fairly stable in the weight department and my blood pressure is OK.

One thing that has been out of control lately is my caloric intake.  I've come to realize that I am a bit of a stress eater and the stress levels have been elevated over the last few moths.  That has not helped.  Not tracking any calories hasn't helped either.  I know what I need to do and starting today I am doing it. I've logged into My Fitness Pal for the first time in almost a month and I adjusted my daily net calories down to 1800 per day.  My goal is to stay within this number every day with my net calories. This number is significantly lower than what the guided number per day would be, but I know that their number is a bit on the high side for me.

Along with the tracking of all my calories eaten, I am also planning on increasing the calories burned on my daily bike rides.  Currently I'm averaging between 2 and 2.5 miles per day on my bike and I will be increasing that rather shortly to 5+ miles per day and then a steady increase from there.  I know I can do it, I just have to get out there and put the time in.

To help increase my mileage I am going to get at least 3 of the bikes I recently purchased in riding shape and I will have some riding partners to keep me motivated and riding. Since they won't be getting up with me in the early mornings, I may go to multiple rides per day in order to help them get ready for the ride as well as increase my fitness.

So, you will see more posts from me with more information on my fitness level as well as increased mileage and a few posts on the work to get the bikes in riding order.

and remember we all need to:

Get on your bikes an ride!!!!!!!!!!

Weight loss and dieting

So, since the first of the year I have been mainly trying to count my calories and basically eat healthier than I had been.  I've been trying to also increase my weekly step count which means an increase in my daily physical activity. I've been using MyFitnessPal (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) to track my food intake and my FitBit (http://www.fitbit.com/) to track my daily steps.  This combination has been working as I have gone from 470 lbs on January 1st to 429 lbs on 2/28. Now the majority of this loss was the fluids from when I was in the hospital.

Unfortunately as I got into March, I wasn't quite as disciplined as I should be and the Biggest Winner competition, part of the Corporate Challenge 2014 appeared.  Because I wanted to do my best in the competition, I was a bit liberal with the food and drink leading up to the initial weigh in on March 4th. My starting weight per the official scale was 440 lbs as detailed here. Since then I've lost some weight, but the results have not been as good as I would like seeing as this is a competition.

With that in mind, I have changed my eating.  Instead of simply limiting my caloric intake to 2000 calories per day, I have changed my diet back to a low carb one.  I started this only 4 days ago and I am already seeing very nice results.  I made this decision because this is a weight loss competition.  Am I going to eat like this for the long term, probably not.  I enjoy too many fruits and vegetables which are high in carbohydrates.

This is a short term adjustment to push for rapid weight loss. I know this is not a permanent change and once the competition is over, I will go back to a slow and steady, sustainable eating plan, but for now I am doing what I can in order to lose weight quickly.

Saturday is the track and field competition and I hope to do well in the softball throw and shot put but we will have to see.

The other thing I really need to do is to get on my bike and ride!!!!

Weight update

I've been a bit neglectful of the blog lately simple because there hasn't been much to tell.  I've been slowly walking farther each day and getting back to where I was before my trip to the hospital.  I've also been taking my medications as I have been instructed and the fluid retention is greatly reduced.  This has also affected my weight.  On January 1, I got on the scale and weighed in at 470.4 lbs.  This morning I got on the scale and it showed 445.4 lbs.  That is a loss of 25 lbs. in the last 21 days.  That is great, but I acknowledge that the majority of it is water weight.  Not all of it, though.

Since my stint int he hospital I have been diligent about watching what I am eating and not over eating.  I set a very reasonable daily calorie intake of 2450 calories per day (MyFitnessPal wants to set it at 2735, but I think that's a bit high.)  The good news is that with one exception, when I was over by 35 calories, I have been within my calorie limit every day since then.  I also have not had a diet Soda (or any soda) since I was in the hospital as well.

These 2 changes have had a very favorable impact on my overall health and well being.  I feel better.  I'm not usually as munchie as I had been before when I ate more, and the weight is coming down.  The next move for me is to add in more exercise in the form of riding my bike as well as weight training when the gym opens next week.

I look forward to getting back on the bike and racking up the miles in 2014.

Get on your bikes and ride!!!

A Long Overdue Update

For anyone who does stop in to read, I must apologize for the time that has lapsed since my last post.  We all know that the best of intentions don't always end up with the best results.  Frankly there hasn't been a lot to talk about.  I haven't been riding, I have been watching my diet, through.

I joined a challenge on FitBit.com to lose 50 lbs.  The challenge is simply - whoever loses 50 lbs. first gets the first place prize, second gets second place, etc.  This challenge started on December 1st so I weighed in for the challenge the evening of November 30, after dinner of course.  I couldn't believe what the scale said: 464.4 lbs!  That's the heaviest I have been in almost 3 years - up 80 lbs from my lowest when I did Pumpkinman 2 years ago.

This was an eye opener for sure.  I was glad I had already decided it was time to get back into the process of getting healthy because this was unacceptable.

That was 2 weeks ago and I have to say that combining a bit more walking with truly watching what I'm eating and going back to the low carb diet has paid off.  As of this morning my weight is 441.8!  That is a 22.6  pound loss in only 2 weeks.  Yes I know this is not truly a sustainable trend and that a large part of the initial loss was fluids, but still it is definite progress in the right direction.  I also has me in first place for the challenge as well by a significant margin.

With this in mind over the next couple of weeks I'm going to try to stick to the every Friday updates and monitor my progress on here for even more accountability   Along the way I'll look back over the year to see what I've managed to accomplish and set the stage for new goals for 2013.

Also, here is a picture of me at the Viva Bike Vegas event back in October:

This is my before picture.  Never again will I be this size.  I am hoping to have another picture from this event in 2013 and there will be a dramatic difference between the pictures.

That said here is my FitBit data for the last week:

Steps:  22670
Miles:  11.28
Calories Eaten:  16009
Calories burned:  24612
Net:  -8603

As you can see, this is not bad, but it can be better.

Update on last week's goal...

I had meant to post this sooner, but got side tracked and never actually published the update.

Last week I set myself a short term, achievable goal to simply ride 5 of 7 days.  I made my goal.  I rode Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  My total mileage for the week was just under 50 miles, which according to My Daily Mile, is the most I've ridden in one week since I completed Pumpkinman in October 2010.

When I looked back and saw that fact, I realized quickly how I had put back on some of the weight I had lost.  Its really very simple, I continued to eat too many calories and to burn too few.  I am working to change that by monitoring what I eat as well as what I burn.

For example, if I follow the calorie burns supplied by My Fitness Pal in capturing my rides, I burned an extra 4873 calories in 287 minutes of riding my bike over the same 7 days.

Obviously these are calories I would not have burned if I had not gotten out there and ridden.  For this very fact, I am planning on setting the same goal for this week - ride 5 of 7 days.

Now I actually have applied a bit greater pressure to myself this week because I didn't ride on Sunday.  I did ride this morning, though, so I have to ride 4 of the next 5 days.  My plan is simple - Get up at 4:00 am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Ride my 8 to 10 miles in the morning before work and then ride either Friday or Saturday, depending on the weather and the activities at home.

The good news is that with riding, my weight was down 1.4 lbs. this week to 416.  The big weigh in is on Thursday for the Biggest Winner competition.  I will have lost some weight, but not nearly as much as I had hoped for the 10 weeks of the competition.

Its simple, really...

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my weight loss and fitness journey.  I’ve been
reading many different blogs and articles on such topics as Metabolic Efficiency, vegan lifestyle, and countless miracle diets and exercise plans.  I was trying to wrap my head around all of this very diverse information and figure out which of these was “the” plan for me.  I then happened on a blog written by Shawn Tyler Weeks titled 344 pounds. 

It was like a light bulb went off.  There are no miracle diets, no special foods nor specific exercise routines to lose the weight.  It’s a simple formula really – consume less calories than you burn and lose weight. It really is that simple.  Shawn has lost over 130 pounds doing just that.

One of the hardest things to do is to identify exactly how many calories you are consuming.  This is
where an awesome, free site can help.  Its called My Fitness Pal. It’s a free site that allows you to enter the foods you eat and track calories and fat and carbs.  It also allows you to track the calories you burn through exercise.

That’s the second part of the simple equation – if you want to lose more weight then you have to get off your ass and move – be active.  It really doesn’t matter what the activity is, as long as you are up and moving you are burning calories.

I’ve started tracking my calories, both consumed and burned, and have come to a conclusion that really isn’t much of a revelation if you know me – I have a problem with portion sizes. 

I have always been a big eater and have conditioned myself over decades to grab massive portions of food when I eat.  I have been complimented in the past on how much I could consume.  Obviously if I’m consuming that much then the equation is out of balance and the surplus calories are adding weight on. So, one of my biggest areas of work is to make sure that I watch my portion sizes and keep them reasonable.

 Here's to a new simple lifestyle change - watch the calories and get moving.  Let's see what a powerful combination these 2 things can be.