Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Potato Salad...Oh My!

Morning Weight: 185.2lbs

Today we had a division-wide "Morale Event" which basically consisted of gathering everyone on the soccer field at MS and feeding them lunch. There were also some prizes, but alas, I was not a winner! Lunch consisted of sorts of summer treats that I would normally gorge myself on: Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Potato Salad, Ice Cream. I had to stand there eating the occasional Cucumber slice (which they had as one of the garnishes for people's hamburgers). I was tempted, but I resisted.

But the GREAT news is that I have a working grill again! Woo Hoo! Tonight I may grill up some chicken sausage or a steak... Haven't figured it out yet and I have a trainer appointment between now and then.

Seattle Drivers = Crazy

Morning Weight 186.4lbs

OK, so I must have a sign on my car today that says "Please force me off the road". First as I was merging onto 520, some jackhole in a Scion decides that he really does not want me to merge. So at 40 miles an hour with the end of the on-ramp looming I had to force myself into the lane...I had to merge while the front of his car was still about a third of the way overlapped with the rear of mine. Then just after I405, a motorcycle driver on a very big touring bike decided that he could merge in front of me with literally inches to spare. Its not like he was accelerating into my lane to go faster. He merged at the exact same speed and forced me to heavily brake to avoid killing him. Whoever it is parked in the garage below my building, so I am tempted to leave a truly nasty note for him. Finally, as I was exiting 520, at the last minute some idiot in a small pickup truck decided that the HOV lane was not where he wanted to be- he wanted to be in the exit lane. He swerved directly into my path and almost even hit the divider between the HOV lane and exit ramp.

On the diet front- I went to see my dietician yesterday and I am now permitted up to two servings of cheese a day! Woo hoo...naturally it must be low fat cheese, but I'm ok with that. Also, a serving is not necessarily defined as whatever the cheese label says it is. It's defined as 7g of protein. That means for the Laughing Cow Lite cheese, I can have up to 3 wedges per serving!! That's more than I usually eat, so I'm happy about that. I lost 2.4 pounds over the course of the past week, and the dietician told me that I am really doing well in terms of eating well and losing weight. 2.5 pounds/week is a healthy amount to lose. One concept that I will need to get used to is not expecting every day to have lost weight. Today for example I am .2 pounds heavier than yesterday. I will continue to monitor on a daily basis, just because I enjoy graphing it out, but I won't worry about not losing from day to day, so long as I am down by next week's dietician appointment.

Starting Week 3

Morning Weight: 186.2 lbs

Today I will see my dietician for the third time and I will begin week three of this diet. I'm down 2.4 pounds from a week ago, which I am told is about what I should expect for an average week- two and a half pounds. However, since I lost much more than that in the first few weeks, it seems a bit of a letdown for me.  I didn't exercise as much this past week, mainly due to my trip to Austin which killed two days of exercise.

In another 5 pounds, I will have some more clothes to wear. Technically I can now fit into a number of pairs of jeans that I couldn't fit into a few weeks back, but they are still a bit tight.But with five more pounds, they should be good to go!

New Chart

I just saw Lane had posted her revised chart, so I'm going to post mine as well. I agree with Lane that this is just too hard to want to do this again, so I will have to learn how to maintain once I've lost what I want to lose!

My Jeans are loose!

Morning weight: 186.6 lbs

I'm walking around in my jeans today and I noticed that they are feeling significantly looser these days! Today was the first time I have gotten up on the scale after a trip to Austin where I actually weighed less than I weighed before I left. My diet was a bit weird though yesterday in Austin. I had primarily a lot of protein, but not much in the carb department. I forgot that in Texas if you order a vegetable skewer to go with your 6 oz Filet Mignon for lunch, its going to be drowned in butter. So I didn't eat the veggies at all. I didn't really have a dinner, though I had several snacks  (soy nuts) during the day to make sure my calorie intake was where it was supposed to be.

Tonight its back to the gym for a workout. I ran on Saturday but since I wasn't feeling well on Friday I had cancelled my session with my trainer. So it feels like I haven't really exercised in a long time, despite the fact that it hasn't been so long.

Coughing again

Morning weight: 187.2lbs

Well I woke up this morning coughing and congested. I had feared the scratchy throat over the past two days would develop into something like this. It doesn't feel too bad, so hopefully with some good sleep tonight and tomorrow night it will be a memory by the time I get on the plane to Austin on Sunday afternoon.

I made salmon for dinner last night, and although it was quite tasty, I'm starting to think that it's not worth making salmon at home. Reason number one: The house stunk like fish for the rest of the night, despite having the windows open. I even still smelled it a bit this morning. Reason number two: Bones. I HATE having to pick bones out of my salmon. So much so that I prefer to just not eat it!

Today I am taking a rest day - with my cough I want to take it easy.. I canceled my training appointment for the day and will not do any cardio. I'll pick up the cardio again over the weekend.

Vegetables!

Morning Weight: 188.0 lbs

I am now in that part of the plan where consistency will be key. I'm losing little bits of weight each day rather than the large amounts I was losing each day during the first two weeks. But I am ahead of where I thought I would be, so that is great. I have a calendar set up in Excel on my computer which shows how much I will weigh each week on each day if I assume that I can lose 2.5lbs/week. I'm rather excited, because after plugging in my actual weight for this week I'm already 3lbs ahead of plan. This means that I could reach my goal weight of 160lbs three weeks before the end of Phase 1 of my program. That's good because then I will have that much more time to determine how to maintain my weight and build good maintenance habits. That's something that I will really need to learn- I know how to lose weight, but maintaining is a completely different story!

The big news (hard to believe I am calling this big news) is that as of last night I can have vegetables again - at least most vegetables. In celebration of this I cooked up a mixture of zucchini, carrots, peppers, onion, broccoli and asparagus last night. Never in my life have vegetables tasted so delicious. And since I used cooking spray instead of oil, there was no fat content in the mixture. Normally I would have used quite a bit of olive oil, which as far as oils go is a very healthy one to have, but I know that I must use way too much. Also, my dietician told me about numerous ways to substitute foods for the shakes that I'm having to consume. Now I think I may only have to drink 1-2 a day. This morning I was going to cook up an egg white omelet with onions and asparagus, but I couldn't figure out the proportions correctly to get it right. So I just went with the standby strawberry protein shake with blueberries and peanut butter.

Feel a cold coming?

Morning Weight : 188.6

Yesterday I finally got to do some weight training, though not a lot. Since I had hurt my hand at Christmas time, I have not been doing any pushups…let me tell you… they were really tough even though I only had to do 15 of them. Granted it was right after I did 15 reps of bench press, but still I was shocked at how hard they were. I'm looking forward to getting back in shape in my upper body.

I am down a bit more than 5 pounds from a week ago, so I am happy with my first week results in 20/20. I will meet with my dietician today…hopefully I will get to add some vegetables into my diet at this point, if not I'll have to wait a week. One thing is that this morning I woke up with the feeling in my throat that I'm getting a cold or something. I REALLY don't want to get sick again… I was sick almost the entire month of May, and I've been feeling good, eating healthy, getting good sleep, so hopefully I will be able to fight this off.

Today I will take the day off from cardio…my legs are definitely feeling the increase in activity. Yesterday I did 30 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the much dredded stepmill. I hate that thing. At least with my trainer there talking to my while I'm on it, the time does go by quicker than if I were to do it alone. My hope is that I will be in the 183lb range when we go to Warren in two weeks…that will be a good weight. I will have to buy a blender and a food scale for the house in Warren to keep to my diet!

 

Plateau

Morning Weight: 189.2lbs

Well it happened. Despite being 100% on plan yesterday, my weight did not budge at all, which goes to show that now that I've pretty much lost the excess water weight, it may become very frustrating to weigh myself every day. I did weigh myself an hour and a half earlier than usual (5AM vs 6:30AM), but I don't think that should have made much of a difference. Getting up at 5AM for a 6AM meeting was quite the shock to the system…its different than when I travel East and get up at 8AM because even though it is technically the same time, there is no activity in the streets here, and that makes it seem very early!

I'm getting used to the shakes again… There are two flavors that I can tolerate: Strawberry Protein shake with Blueberries, and Vanilla protein shake with Blueberries. For my morning snack, I've made a vanilla protein shake with strawberries, so we'll see how that goes. I will get a free lunch at the ProClub today…I found a coupon in my startup package for a free shake and free protein, and that expires at the end of the month, so I thought I better go ahead and use it!

Too Few Calories yesterday

Morning weight: 189.2lbs

I underconsumed yesterday. I never thought I would hear myself say that, but its true. I had my normal morning shake with berries and peanut butter. But at lunchtime we were watching the European Soccer games at a bar with friends and all I had was 4-5oz of grilled chicken with no shake. I did have half a protein bar about an hour later to try to compensate, but it wasn't enough. The rest of my day was on plan but I essentially missed the calories from a morning snack and half of my shake calories at lunch.

It was not a good idea. I had trouble getting up this morning despite great sleep and a good amount of it too (8.5 hrs)…and when I woke up I had a bit of a headache…it went away quickly after I had my morning shake, but clearly being under on calories was not a good thing. So I guess I will continue to choke down the shakes and protein bars. '

At least the weather this past weekend was good and Lane and I got to take Lucy out for two long walks, which helped me to get my step count high for the two days. Today I'll do a 30 minute run and then a 30 minute bike ride. Hopefully by getting back on meal plan today I will have enough energy.

Craving Variety

Morning Weight: 191 lbs.

Woo Hoo I'm down another pound to bring the total since start at 9 pounds! Soon I will go double digit. I went to the gym and had another session with my trainer. Today I did 45 minutes on the stationary bike and then an Ab routine. That doesn't sound all that difficult compared to some of the exercise I've done in the past, but I was definitely feeling it. I think with this restricted diet, although I don't have energy problems walking around, it is a bit tough when exercising.

I am looking at the list of food that I'm allowed to have and coming up with a plan… I'm getting a little bit sick of chicken all the time, so I'll probably buy some salmon and some filet mignon at the store this afternoon. Most of all I wish I could have something less sweet all the time… the shakes and protein bars are all formulated so that they are a bit sweet, but I am getting sick of it. I know a lot of people like sweet stuff, but not me.

More progress

Morning weight: 192 lbs

I'm now at the same weight as I was when I started this blog almost a year ago. It's kind of a slap in the face that I had to lose weight to get back to where I started! But this new diet that I'm on seems to be doing the trick. I know, however, that the first 10 pounds will be shed much quicker than the rest, so I keep waiting to step on the scale and find that I haven't lost weight from the previous day. Until then, however, I will enjoy seeing the weight peel off. The point that I am really excited for is still several weeks in the future. I am really looking forward to crossing below 180lbs. I have not been below 180 since the summer of 2004, and so that will be a great milestone for me, and it would seem that its about a month away, which is great because that's when I'll be in Atlanta for a week. I'm going to have to figure out how to follow the plan while there, but that's something that I will start talking with my dietician and therapist about so that I'm prepared.

So now I'm "only" 32 pounds above my goal weight…

Has Spring Arrived?

Morning Weight: 193.2 lbs

I looked at my phone's weather gadget on the way to work today and it said that this afternoon will be sunny and 69 degrees. Could this finally be the arrival of spring/summer? Or will it be just another of several teases, where the weather gets nice for a few days but then reverts to long spells of nastiness? We are all obviously hoping that this time it will be different.

Well, I am down in weight again, and today will be the first true day of being on the diet my dietician gave me. I was almost completely on it yesterday but since I didn't quite know what it was going to be, my lunch ended up being off plan, though it was still a very healthy salad. Right now, I am not allowed to eat anything other than protein shakes, protein bars (as a shake replacement) and lean or very lean protein meats (salmon, tuna, chicken, lean cuts of beef). This morning I also began my morning vitamin/supplement routine: 2 fishoil capsules, 2 multivitamins, 1 calcium tablet and 1 tablespoon of fiber. The recommendation from the club is to keep the fishoil capsules in the freezer to prevent "Fish Burps". My god if that actually happens, I think I will be VERY grossed out.

Protein Lists

Very Lean Protein list:

• Chicken (white meat no skin)
  
• Turkey (white meat no skin)
  
• Chicken Breast
  
• Ground Turkey or Chicken Breast
  
• Cod
  
• Flounder
  
• Haddock
  
• Halibut
  
• Trout
  
• Tuna Steak
  
• Tuna canned in Water
  
• Ground beef (4-5% fat)
  
• Duck or pheasant no skin
  
• Venison
  
• Buffalo
  
• Bison
  
• Ostrich
  
• Egg whites (2)
  
• Egg subs (1/4 cup)
  

 

Lean Protein List

• USDA or Choice grades of Lean Beef trimmed of fat (Round, Sirloin, Flank Steak, Tenderloin, Roast, Steak (T-bone, porterhouse, cubed, filet mignon), Ground Round, Skirt Steak, Pot Roast
  
• Fresh Ham
  
• Canned cured or boiled ham
  
• Canadian Bacon
  
• Pork Tenderloin
  
• Pork Center Loin Chop
  
• Pork Rib Roast
  
• Lamb Roast, chop, leg or cubed
  
• Lean Veal Chop or Roast
  
• Chicken Duck or Turkey dark meat, no skin
  
• Chicken white meat with skin
  
• Ground turkey
  
• Herring, Salmon, catfish,

My Mealplan for the next two weeks

Lane and I visited the dietician today, and here's my meal plan for the coming week or two (she didn't really say, but I think the initial stage is 2 weeks, depending upon my weight progress).

Breakfast:

1 protein shake with ½ cup berries, 1 tablespoon peanut butter, 2 vitamins, 2 Omega 3 capsules, 1 Calcium capsule, 1 tablespoon fiber

Morning Snack:

1 protein shake with ½ cup berries or protein bar

Lunch
6 ounces of very lean or lean protein, 1 fat serving (if very lean protein was choice), 1 protein shake with ½ cup berries

Afternoon Snack
1 Protein shake with ½ cup berries or 1 protein bar

Dinner
6 ounces of very lean or lean protein, 1 fat serving (if very lean protein was choice), 1 protein shake with ½ cup berries

All the vitamins and shakes/bars are 20/20 branded, created for the program to keep things standard.

Fat choices (to meet 45 calorie goal)
1 tsp oil
10 peanuts
6 almonds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 Tbsp Sunflower seeds
2 tsp peanut butter
10 olives
1 tsp reg mayonnaise
1 tbsp low fat mayo
1 Tbsp reg salad dressing
2 tbsp low fat salad dressing
1 tsp butter

A little Self Assessment

I just went through my entire blog archive and plotted my recorded weight in Excel and created this chart. I think its clear to see that when I reported weight and was blogging regularly, my weight did come down. When I didn't record weight or didn't blog, my weight skyrocketed. Interestingly, I got down to the low 180s at several points during the past year, but never kept it going...

A New Favorite

Morning Weight: 194.6 lbs

I have a new favorite protein shake at the gym… Chocolate shake with Strawberries and peanut butter added in. I tried this for the first time on Friday afternoon last week, and I didn't really like it very much because I thought the peanut butter was a bit weird. But I did notice that it filled me up and left me feeling less hungry for quite a while, so I tried it again yesterday morning for breakfast. It worked like a charm- I was not hungry again for four hours. I noticed that the shakes I had been drinking (Vanilla with Strawberries and Blueberries) did not leave me feeling satiated for more than an hour and a half. I had another one this morning after doing a 35 minute run at the gym (it feels good to get my exercise done so early in the day!), and I was really digging it…the taste totally grew on me.

The only thing is that when I logged it into my food log online (which is what I will have to do for the 20/20 program) it shows as only 270 calories. I'm really curious to hear what my dietician has to say, because the online meal tracking system tells me I should be getting more than 500 calories in my breakfast…I'm not sure what I'm supposed to add..the shake is really quite filling. Maybe I'll need to eat something before the shake and then finish my meal off with the shake. I guess I'll find out today!

So last night I was good food wise- I did snack on quite a few triscuits, which I know will be outlawed by my dietician today, but otherwise I ate healthy and only drank water/club soda. Its good to see when I'm good, the weight comes right back down, so my unhealthy weekend (which wasn't really that bad comparatively) is now clearly in the past… And now, I will be forced to behave on the weekends and I'm truly psyched to see how quickly I get back in shape.

It starts this week

Morning weight: 195.4 lbs

This is the week that I start the 20/20 program and I am excited to get going. My weight is up from Friday's weight, but given that I wasn't really following the diet this weekend, I'm not too disappointed. After all, I'm still significantly lower than last Monday morning when I did my weigh in at the gym. I really am looking forward to knowing what I can and cannot eat… Today I've had a protein shake, a protein bar and an Asian chicken salad. I don't think its been enough food but I am hesitant to start eating anything else. I went to the gym at lunchtime and got a good 30 minute run in.

I've also been wearing a pedometer to track how many steps I take in the course of a day. My goal is 5,000 and most days I have been able to exceed that. For today thus far I've taken 2,688 steps and I'm about halfway through my day. But I do actually need to exceed 5,000 steps, so if at the end of the day I'm not close, I will have to take a walk outside to get the steps in.

5 days in

Morning Weight 193.7 lbs.

Today is Friday and it's the fifth day for me eating well and not drinking, and the results so far are very promising. My poor eating and drinking habits had led to me retaining water – that's the only obvious answer for having shed close to 7 pounds in the first few days of eating healthy. I've tracked calories and I have not been under-eating- I've been close to my own goal of approx 1750 calories a day. The first four days I found to be quite easy because of my high motivation to stop being a fat-ass. Today I had a protein shake in the AM that was quite good and filling, but an hour and a half later, I was walking to a meeting when the smell of eggs and bacon hit me in the hallway. That was the first time that I've been truly tempted on this diet to just forget my willpower and dig in. But instead I ate a half a protein bar- thank god I had that in my office. At lunch I had an Ahi Tuna steak from the café and a salad…very healthy, but as I was waiting for my Ahi to be cooked, I stared intensely at the Tater Tots. They were calling my name. Good thing I can't hear very well. This is leading me to the realization that this is going to be a very tough few months. But I also know that if I am prepared and have healthy alternatives I will be able to resist temptation for the most part. Looking forward to a casual weekend, but I will have to have my guard up. It's going to be another lousy weather weekend where it seems more like winter than summer. Its even supposed to snow in the mountains tonight and tomorrow!! Ugh. So I'll have to make sure I have some healthy alternatives around to keep from eating and drinking out of sheer boredom. Wish me luck…

20/20 Doctor Visit

Weight: 195.6lbs (down from 200lbs on Monday!)

I had my first 20/20 program doctor visit today and we reviewed my "prescription" as well as all the testing that was done on Monday. I'm not in that bad of a condition- I'm 38 with a Body of a 46 year old, but with the potential through lifestyle modification to get the body of an 18 year old back!! That's exciting to me because it gives me hope that I can really be in great shape coming out of this program. The one thing that the doctor really picked up from my initial evaluation and health screening questionnaire is my drinking… Obviously during the program I won't be drinking anything but even after the program I will have to be very careful. I think the way I will treat it is that I will plan out each week the exact amount of allowable alcohol and also plan out when I'm going to consume that. That way if I go to a football game, for example, I can plan that if I get 3 drinks that week, then I can have them while enjoying the game.

The other interesting thing from my initial reading of the health assessment that the doctor gave me is that I should not use Advil/Ibuprofin but instead Tylenol. Turns out that anti-inflammatories like advil and other brands can lead to water retention and interfere with the way blood pressure works. I had no idea.

I'm really getting excited for the program to start, and I'm really happy with the progress I've made just this week- I've eaten very well and consumed no alcohol- even at a business dinner last night at a great Seattle steak restaurant.

Initial Fitness Assessment

This morning I had my initial 20/20 program fitness assessment. There really wasn't much to it. I had a weigh-in (ugh 200lbs), they took body measurements and also did a bicep strength test and a flexibility test. My body fat is currently at 28%! So clearly I have a lot of progress to make, but that's why I'm in the program. I will meet with my program doctor later this week and I start my training sessions and dietician appointments next week. So even though technically I'm not fully on board with the program until next week, my goal is to start losing weight and adopting the healthier lifestyle this week. This will be kind of a self test- to see if I can be disciplined enough to make the first step on my own- without having trainer and a dietician telling me what to do. I also think that if I can flush through any water weight this week, that will get me started on the real program in a better way. So as of today, no more caffeine (not that I get a lot anyway), no more alcohol, and planned meals with portion sizes under control.

So along those lines, food today will be:

Breakfast: 20/20 Protein Shake with Soy, Whey, Blueberries and Strawberries

Lunch: Grilled Chicken breast + Side salad with oil + Vinegar

Snack: 20/20 protein shake

Dinner: 6 oz filet mignon, steamed broccoli.