So, it's time for the first serious setback I've experienced. True, I basically left ketosis after the half bag of jerky, and discovering that buffalo wings were low carb led to me only losing 15lbs in July, but I'm genuinely upset with myself after this last week, all thanks to delicious almonds.
yes, almonds are low carb, high in fiber, and are a delicious snack. They're also basically all fat, and when you eat two cans of them a day, that's 2000 calories of just almonds. In case anybody is curious, I have not lost any weight in a week.
My zest for low carb, but extremely caloric foods is becoming a problem. I'm almost never on target with my actual consumption, and I've probably had some sort of improper food 90% of the last 60 days.
I'm mad for two reasons: the first is that I'm not losing weight nearly as fast, and the second is that I'm still depriving myself of a huge number of things. I'm sacrificing too much to tread water or lose a pound a week.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Day 175 - A 299lb weakling
For the second morning in a row, I got a result south of 300lbs when I weighed myself, meaning I've achieved one of my bigger weight based goals. It feels really good, and even if some of the weight loss is due to post humidity/heat wave water loss, its still lost weight. I'm also seeing that I'll have a very good August: I've already lost 15lbs with a week left to go. After losing 15 in July, I was hoping that I could get the 20lbs a month back on track, and it looks like I might be able to get close to that.
There are times when I realize that I'm celebrating being at a weight that most people would be horrified to find themselves at, but there's no value in thinking like that. That I was once 432lbs is a fact, it's done, and I need to celebrate the progress I've made, and not rue how far I have left to go.
I'd commented in an earlier post about how weight loss might be a categorical imperative in the US, with most people either attempting it or thinking about it. Talking to people, I find them genuinely impressed when I tell them what I've lost. While waiting for my wings at the Linden Tavern (my treat for cracking 300), I stopped into the men's clothier next door. The salesman was in his 50's and wasn't wild about helping me at first, but I told him that I'd lost 130lbs and was still losing, he warmed right up. I'm still a ways out from their biggest stuff, but he figured at most another twenty, thirty pounds. After realizing he wasn't going to sell me anything, we still chatted a while about weight loss and diet.
I'm not prone to false (or really any) modesty, yet I still feel odd in taking credit for this weight loss. The program fits me like a glove, I've had ample financial and emotional support from my family, I had tons of time this year to cook properly and not be tempted at work, and I knew that by losing weight I could count on a steady stream of money from back home. I approached it like a job, knowing that if I didn't do it, I'd be broke soon. I'm plenty happy to reap the accolades, I guess, but I still wish more people understood that I'm not some master of human willpower or something. Mostly, I'm a guy that's scared of surgery and/or moving into my parent's basement.
Now that the 300lb barrier has been shattered, Chuck Yeager style, it is time to ponder the next handful of milestones. Next up is 287lbs, at which I will no longer be "morbidly" obese, instead I'll merely be "severely" obese. By a twist of fate, that is also the point at which I'll have lost fully one third of my start weight. Looking ahead further than that is 260lbs, which is a highly personal goal in that it's 100lbs above my "ideal" weight for my height (5'11"), thus totally eliminating me as a candidate for weight loss surgery. Beyond that, 250lbs is of course my goal weight for all of this, and at some point in there I should be able to start fitting into the biggest clothes offered at mainstream stores. I'm broke so I can't buy any, but at least I'll have the option!
All in all, I'm once again happy with the diet. July was rough, for a variety of reasons, and while I kept the faith it's rewarding to see results.
There are times when I realize that I'm celebrating being at a weight that most people would be horrified to find themselves at, but there's no value in thinking like that. That I was once 432lbs is a fact, it's done, and I need to celebrate the progress I've made, and not rue how far I have left to go.
I'd commented in an earlier post about how weight loss might be a categorical imperative in the US, with most people either attempting it or thinking about it. Talking to people, I find them genuinely impressed when I tell them what I've lost. While waiting for my wings at the Linden Tavern (my treat for cracking 300), I stopped into the men's clothier next door. The salesman was in his 50's and wasn't wild about helping me at first, but I told him that I'd lost 130lbs and was still losing, he warmed right up. I'm still a ways out from their biggest stuff, but he figured at most another twenty, thirty pounds. After realizing he wasn't going to sell me anything, we still chatted a while about weight loss and diet.
I'm not prone to false (or really any) modesty, yet I still feel odd in taking credit for this weight loss. The program fits me like a glove, I've had ample financial and emotional support from my family, I had tons of time this year to cook properly and not be tempted at work, and I knew that by losing weight I could count on a steady stream of money from back home. I approached it like a job, knowing that if I didn't do it, I'd be broke soon. I'm plenty happy to reap the accolades, I guess, but I still wish more people understood that I'm not some master of human willpower or something. Mostly, I'm a guy that's scared of surgery and/or moving into my parent's basement.
Now that the 300lb barrier has been shattered, Chuck Yeager style, it is time to ponder the next handful of milestones. Next up is 287lbs, at which I will no longer be "morbidly" obese, instead I'll merely be "severely" obese. By a twist of fate, that is also the point at which I'll have lost fully one third of my start weight. Looking ahead further than that is 260lbs, which is a highly personal goal in that it's 100lbs above my "ideal" weight for my height (5'11"), thus totally eliminating me as a candidate for weight loss surgery. Beyond that, 250lbs is of course my goal weight for all of this, and at some point in there I should be able to start fitting into the biggest clothes offered at mainstream stores. I'm broke so I can't buy any, but at least I'll have the option!
All in all, I'm once again happy with the diet. July was rough, for a variety of reasons, and while I kept the faith it's rewarding to see results.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Day 173 - So close!
I haven't posted in a while, so this is going to be a bit of a re-cap of the last four weeks, plus this morning's news. At the end of July, I visited the doctor for a check up. He was pleasantly surprised by my progress, although still decided he should remind me that people who got surgery keep the weight off longer. I felt like telling him that while that may be true, I'll worry about that the next time I need to lose weight, because right now the diet seems to be working.
My weigh in July 30th was officially 319lbs, for 113lbs lost. Apparently I've been miscalculating how much weight I lost, as my initial weigh in at the bariatric center was 432, not 433lbs. However, my initial weigh in when I went to the doctor for the referral was actually 442lbs, so somehow I lost 10lbs between my first doctor's visit and starting the diet. I haven't been counting that, as 10lbs at 442 is just over 2%, and could be explained through water retention, etc. Still, it is an "official" weigh in, and when the diet is complete, I might count the total weight loss from there, rather than from the 432. In the meantime, all of my progress has been measured against one yardstick, and I don't think it'd be fair to suddenly add 10lbs to my tally.
In terms of progress, this morning's news is mildly frustrating but actually exciting. After a disappointing July (only losing 15lbs, ending right around 315 instead of 310 as planned) I've had an equally uneven august. Today, however, I weighed in at 300.4lbs. I could have take off my shirt or tried some other way to squeak out a half pound, but I think I might just enjoy the feeling of being close to a big goal, and try to stay on course to blow past 300lbs by tomorrow.
I did speak with the doctor about how long I'm to stay on the diet, and he gave what I considered the worst possible answer: "Until you stop losing weight." I've gotten used to the diet, to be sure, but I was very much hoping to have an end date to look forward to. I'm in some sort of Gitmo style diet: I have no clue when I get to leave. Of course, given the increasingly sinister sounding "phase two" the doctor talks about, I'll probably never fully leave some sort of dietary control. I guess I'm to stay on the PSMF until my weight loss completely stops, and then I refeed. This worries me for another reason: I now can just sabotage the diet to leave it. Before, when it was based on time or amount of weight lost, I could focus on a goal. I'm a task oriented person, so that's fine. Now, it's about the process: stay on the diet until it stops working. Since I can make the diet stop working, I now can leave the diet whenever I want: just eat poorly.
I'm not going to do that yet. I'm still working on a few of my big goals. I'm almost under 300lbs, and I'm only about 15lbs from no longer being morbidly obese. I'm fitting easily into size 52 pants, meaning I'm not far from the upper ends of mainstream stores that stock 48s. For a variety of reasons, I think 250lbs is still a very good goal, and is the first point I'd feel comfortable really considering cycling off the diet. There is a part of me that's curious to see where I can end up if I just stay on it till the end.
My weigh in July 30th was officially 319lbs, for 113lbs lost. Apparently I've been miscalculating how much weight I lost, as my initial weigh in at the bariatric center was 432, not 433lbs. However, my initial weigh in when I went to the doctor for the referral was actually 442lbs, so somehow I lost 10lbs between my first doctor's visit and starting the diet. I haven't been counting that, as 10lbs at 442 is just over 2%, and could be explained through water retention, etc. Still, it is an "official" weigh in, and when the diet is complete, I might count the total weight loss from there, rather than from the 432. In the meantime, all of my progress has been measured against one yardstick, and I don't think it'd be fair to suddenly add 10lbs to my tally.
In terms of progress, this morning's news is mildly frustrating but actually exciting. After a disappointing July (only losing 15lbs, ending right around 315 instead of 310 as planned) I've had an equally uneven august. Today, however, I weighed in at 300.4lbs. I could have take off my shirt or tried some other way to squeak out a half pound, but I think I might just enjoy the feeling of being close to a big goal, and try to stay on course to blow past 300lbs by tomorrow.
I did speak with the doctor about how long I'm to stay on the diet, and he gave what I considered the worst possible answer: "Until you stop losing weight." I've gotten used to the diet, to be sure, but I was very much hoping to have an end date to look forward to. I'm in some sort of Gitmo style diet: I have no clue when I get to leave. Of course, given the increasingly sinister sounding "phase two" the doctor talks about, I'll probably never fully leave some sort of dietary control. I guess I'm to stay on the PSMF until my weight loss completely stops, and then I refeed. This worries me for another reason: I now can just sabotage the diet to leave it. Before, when it was based on time or amount of weight lost, I could focus on a goal. I'm a task oriented person, so that's fine. Now, it's about the process: stay on the diet until it stops working. Since I can make the diet stop working, I now can leave the diet whenever I want: just eat poorly.
I'm not going to do that yet. I'm still working on a few of my big goals. I'm almost under 300lbs, and I'm only about 15lbs from no longer being morbidly obese. I'm fitting easily into size 52 pants, meaning I'm not far from the upper ends of mainstream stores that stock 48s. For a variety of reasons, I think 250lbs is still a very good goal, and is the first point I'd feel comfortable really considering cycling off the diet. There is a part of me that's curious to see where I can end up if I just stay on it till the end.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)