From overstuffed to understuffed

Overdue update

2006-11-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

Things have been going ok so far and the weight keeps dropping although not at the same pace it has in the past. I really can't expect it to stay at that pace but as long as it's dropping I'm happy.

There have been some bumps in the road though, mainly from boredom. It's the same thing to eat every day. There have been many days that I'll finish work too late to have a "dinner" when I get home and I don't want to go right to bed after I eat so I've been using some of the meal replacement bars from Slim-Fast. The cookie-dough one takes some getting used to and I haven't tried the oatmeal one (yuck) but I really like the brownie one. These are just a crutch though, just for those late nights or days when I'm working overtime. Even when I can eat actual food, I feel so limited by the options I have. Yes I know there are ways around this and I know that this is a very common situation that happens when people are on really strict diets for long periods of time. So I just trudge through it and move on.

When I started this quest it was June 10th, 2006 and I had just seen my parents about 3-4 days prior. In the beginning of July I mentioned to my mom that I had lost 30lbs but that is the last time I've mentioned it (or that she asked about it). I will see them again next week.....95 pounds lighter! I really can't wait to see their reaction when they see me.

My first goal was to be under 300 by the time I turn 40, well I hit that goal about a month ago. :) Now I have my sights on the final goal....225. Only 60 more to go.

Undoing old programming

2006-09-23T08:08:00.000-04:00

I had a bit of a rough time as of late (as seen in the previous post) but I've been able to get through it, finally.

What I found out was there I had an internal sabotage point buried deep in my brain that would not allow me to get below 320lbs. Why that specific weight? No clue. I had seen it happen before so I knew that something was up. The last time that I seriously tried to lose weight was about 3 years ago. I started around 350-360 and got down to 320 and got stuck. I was stuck there for so long (about a month) that I became overly frustrated and found some reason to rationalize ending the diet.

So when it happened again this time, I knew something was at work behind the scenes. What I found was that it was my own mind trying to live up to years of programming that I had been doing to myself. I had always said to myself and others that "I'll never be skinny. I'll always be big" and if you say something enough times, you believe it and it becomes law in your mind. For some reason my mind picked 320 as the place to drawn that proverbial line in the sand and conjured up every weapon it could to thwart my efforts. So, I had a good long talk with myself (meditation) and made sure that my inner psyche understood that what I was doing was for the good of my entire body and that I was not trying to hurt myself or that I didn't love myself anymore. In fact I was doing this so I would be around longer and live a healthier and hopefully much longer life.

Within about 2 days, I felt renewed with my determination to lose the weight. I could see my goal again just like I could from day 1. The cravings and binges I did the week before were gone and that fire was roaring at full blast again. Best of all....the scale started moving again. :)

Another thing I noticed was that people are finally seeing that I've lost a lot of weight. My uniform has gone down 3 sizes (almost ready for a 4th) and when I was 320, no one noticed it but it seems like the last 10 lbs made all the difference. People are stopping me every day at work and saying "What the hell happened to you? You are looking so much better." It's funny that 3 and a half months of hard work finally gets noticed in the past few days. I'm totally not used to getting compliments so this is something new for me but I also find it encouraging. It's not just myself that sees the changes, but now it's the rest of the world that sees them too.

Diving head first into an empty swimming pool

2006-09-06T16:54:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's dumb and yes it hurts and yes....I did just that (well metaphorically speaking).

Things had been going fairly well even with that small plateau I hit but somewhere along the way I think I got lost. 2 out of the past 3 days (Monday and today) have involved MAJOR binges on my part. No it wasn't candy or ice cream or any of the typical ammunition used with such dietetic attacks. This was meat, cheese and mayonaise (at least it was low fat hehehe).

After both times I felt like shit. I was thinking "what the hell did I just do!" Here I am 60 pounds lighter than when I started and fitting into clothes I haven't been able to wear in about 3 years and I'm destroying it all!

Have I given up? No. Have I lost sight of my goal? Maybe a little. Have I become bored with my program? Umm...yes. For nearly 12 weeks I've been doing the same thing day in and day out meal wise. There has been very little variety or change in the routine. I know I used to use non-fat sugar-free yougurt instead of milk for my shakes once in a while (roughly the same amount of calories - Dannone Sillouette brand) but maybe I need to do something else, something more.

I know I've been horrible about going to the gym. I've had ZERO motivation and it's been about 3 weeks since I've been there. I have lots of excuses but no good reasons.

I think what added to this (this time) is that I've had 3 days off in a row. Three days of being stuck in the house and being BORED! At work it's not an issue and tomorrow I start my week (4 on, 3 off, repeat) so those days will be easier.

So what will I do? Well first off I'll get over being pissed, angry, depressed, frustrated, and every other bad thing towards myself and brush myself off and start again. It's not the end of the world, just a nasty pothole that I thought was a puddle.

UN-stuck

2006-08-29T07:36:00.000-04:00

I managed to break through my plateau and it seems like my weight loss is going in the right direction again.

Back on the 20th I went to the Canadian National Expo (the Ex or CNE for short) . It's basically a HUGE fair that lasts for 2 weeks at the end of August every year (for over 100 years) and it's full of carnival food and deadly temptations around every turn. Well with my plateau in full swing I decided to stop my program for 3 days and see if that would change things. It did. Even though I was back on regular food I still kept things in reason. My normal 1000 cals per day went to around 1500-1800 a day and I still did my best to make good choices. There were a few bad ones but they weren't any of my major vices (ice cream, pizza, and chinese food).

There have been some very rough days in between. I really wish every day was easy and I could just glide right through it but when I claw my way through the bad ones there is this sense of accomplishment. Some days are battled minute by minute but once that day is done, I can go "Phew, I made it through alive". Then I really feel that I earned what I lost weight-wise that day.

So where am I now? With my lowtech bathroom scale I'm at 322 as of this morning. I haven't had access to the dialysis scales that I prefer to use lately but it's only a matter of time before I do but I know it will confirm what my home scale shows.

Stuck

2006-08-14T07:40:00.000-04:00

I'm stuck in a damn plateau. Granted how my work schedule has been the past 6 days or so it's been really hard to keep to a regular schedule. Since I'm on shift work an occasional monkey wrench gets thrown in (a night shift) that just messes everything up. I've been horrible about going to the gym but there has been no cheating at all so at least there is that.

I don't think this will last long but it's still a bit frustrating when that damn scale needle isn't moving at all. I'm probably just obsessing about it. I can tell because I'm weighing myself nearly every day and I know that I shouldn't.

Oh well....time to get ready for work again.

Killing the flying fat man

2006-08-08T08:37:00.000-04:00

I've been noticing something lately that I know it's not unique to me. When I look at my internal mirror, I still see that near 400 man I used to be. Sure I've lost over 40 lbs so far and I've dropped sizes clothes wise, I can still clearly see how big I used to be. The visualization of how I want to look at my goal weight has been getting a bit fuzzy lately when it used to be crystal clear and in a sense I'm getting frustrated as a result. Again I know this is not unique but it sure is a bitch to go through.

I'm going to have to work on this and actively change how I see myself. It's something that may be hard since I've seen the same overweight person in the mirror for so long I've gotten used to it, doesn't mean I liked seeing it but in an odd way it became comforting. Now I'm changing that and I've lost that stability since I'm in a state of transition.

The Grocery Minefield and other things

2006-08-06T12:51:00.000-04:00

Well with my weight loss back on track (well at least moving in the right direction) I have been feeling pretty good self-esteem wise for the past few days. Yesterday, I was able to comfortably wear a shirt that had not fit me in almost 3 years, but I was still forced to wear long pants since all my shorts are too big and I don't have a belt. At least they were light weight pants so it wasn't any big deal. I think it's funny that I haven't been able to wear these pants because they were a bit too snug, now it's just the opposite. :)

After the weekly movie outing it was time to do the weekend errands and this included grocery shopping. If I stop in on my own, I know what I'm after and grab it and I'm out. I have no need for 90% of the isles so I don't even venture down them. It's just all temptation and it's things that I don't need to face right now. Well with the two of us shopping, we hit every isle. I couldn't believe how hard it was to go down some of those isles and meet up again with some of my old vices/arch-enemies. It was killing me. Mainly because I was hungry, I was a little overdue for a meal and I was getting a bit tired so I was feeling like I could succumb to their siren songs once again. I stayed strong though and only but my dinners and some pickles in the cart. I've been adding in one or two every few days as sort of a treat/variety thing. They have a negligable impact on my daily calorie totals and have been the only "cheating" I've been doing.
Every trip to the grocery store has been a challenge but yesterday's was much worse than normal.

I'm not sure where this "strength" is coming from if that's what it can be called. It might be more like laziness on my part. Because I'm the only one in the house that is on this diet, there are very dangerous minefields in the kitchen, but I have not yielded to them. I've even gone to the extreme as to not even touch the containers. Seems extreme I know but a touch leads to a smell which leads to a taste that leads to the guilt. One of my all-time vices is sitting right now in my freezer less than a foot from my dinners....ice cream. No, I didn't buy it but I know when I open the door I don't even mentally acknowledge it's there. I just look for my white box and close the door.

Maybe this just my inner self proving to the outer self that there is a new sheriff in town and the old rules don't apply anymore. I know this isn't some devine light of salvation from my food demons so it's probably an intesnse fear of returning to the fatter person I used to be.

Will these demons still haunt me in the grocery store? at home? ....probably, but maybe one day I'll shake them and be rid of them for good.

In the meantime I must fight the good fight.

It's not always smooth sailing

2006-07-31T09:27:00.000-04:00

I really wish I could say that it's super easy for me to lose all this weight but we all know that would be a BIG lie. Friday and Saturday proved to be major challenges for my willpower and determination.

I work shift work and it's rare that two consecutive days start at the same time. Most of my days as of late have started between 7 and 8 am and I'm usually home by 7 to 8 pm. Friday was different, 5:30am start. So I'm out the door by 4:30 and as part of my usual habit I had my "breakfast" before I left. In hindsight I'm not sure that was such a good idea or not. I've been sticking loosely to a schedule of eating every 3-4 hours. This way my blood sugar doesn't dip too much and my stomach always has something to do. So starting my day so early really threw me off and in no time flat I was feeling famished. I trudged on through the best I could still dealing with the only rule I have when I'm at work; "I can eat anything I want as long as it comes out of my cooler bag." By the time I got home at about 4:30 I was already feeling starved beyond belief and it was about 3 hours since my last shake and I was facing only one meal left for the rest of the day.

I think I did what anyone else would do, not wanting to fall off the wagon, I grabbed the dinner that would give me the greatest volume of food. I usually have 4-5 frozen dinners on hand that run from 200-300 calories each so I'm less likely to succumb to the other evils that lie in wait in the fridge.

Saturday was just as bad but to the other end. It was a much later start than usual, 9:30 and none of that helped at all to get me back to any kind of a regular schedule. Sunday I was off and that should have let me get things back to normal right? Wrong.

Went to see Monster House in 3D and because of when we had to leave it meant eating a bit early before and a bit late after. Well wouldn't you know it but someone in the row in front of me had a HUGE order of poutine and boy did that thing smell both amazing and disgusting at the same time. If you've never had it then it's something you must experience if you ever venture north of the border. It's basically overcooked french fries, cheese curd and spiced beef gravy. It's gooey and messy hence the name which loosely translates to "big mess". Well this mess in front of me was driving me crazy. As much as I knew what it was and remembered how much I enjoyed it, the smell was acutally on the disgusting side. Now I don't know if it was because it was movie theatre poutine or it's because my brain is changing how it perceives food.

In the end I was able to stay strong and I have never once deviated from my path. Once in a while (about every 3-4 days) I will treat myself to a XL Timmy's coffee w/double cream & splenda (milk in coffee is just wrong and it tastes nasty), but having just looked at what that's costing me calorie wise I'm going to have to cut that back some, ok a lot. I always thought that coffee was calorie free and it was just the cream I had to worry about oh well...

So what now....

2006-07-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

I needed to know WHY I was overweight; was I an emotional eater (a lot of things fall in this category) ? Addicted to sugar, cake and candy and the like? Or did simply just eat too much at meal time.

I am a recovering emotional eater that ate too much. I would eat when I was depressed (which was a lot), when I was bored (which also was a lot), even when I was happy. Hell, I really didn't need a reason, I would just eat. It was just that it was also how much I was eating. If 2 spoonfulls of ice cream were good then 37 spoonfulls were better. One slice of pizza was great but 6 was about my average with the remaining leftovers eaten at breakfast with mayo smeared all over them. What would really get me is that I would do this kind of eating mainly at night and with how my schedule has been for the past few years dinner has been getting later and later into the evening. It's not so hot to eat a full meal and 20 minutes later head off to bed.

So how did I get this way? Like most kids I was told that whatever I put on my plate, I had to eat no matter how full I was feeling. If I took more than I thought I could eat....too bad, I had to finish it all. Now add this to the fact that I associated food with safety and comfort as I know a lot of people do. Money was always a major issue when I was a kid but no matter what it took, my parents always made sure that there was food on the table (hence the clean your plate bit). From a young age I learned that as long I went to bed with a full tummy that everything was alright. I was safe.

Patterns that are developed at such a young age, under 6, are some of the most deeply routed and most difficult to undo. This will sound goofy but this is the breakthrough I had. I finally realized that if I didn't do anything that I was going to keep gaining weight. I was within sight of crossing over the 400lb mark and I knew that I was at a turning point. I had to fight, to the death. It was either me or the fat and one of us wasn't going to survive.

This was the plan I devised....

SlimFast shake for breakfast
SlimFast shake for lunch
SlimFast shake for afternoon snack or something real to eat
Real food like a Lean Cuisine or similar prepared meal
Grand total of 1000 calories per day
Vitamins everyday and some at night to make sure I wasn't doing any damage

Why so extreme? Well I figured that my eyes were terminally bigger than my stomach when it came to eating so drastic times call for drastic measures. If I only had 20 or 30 punds to lose, this would have been a very bad choice. In my case I have well over 150 to lose so I needed to take my subconscious out of the equasion.

Now when I go to work I pack everything in my cooler bag. Diet soda (yes I'm a soda junkie), water, and my two shakes for the middle of the day. I would have already had my morning one before leaving for work. This way I can tell myself that I can have anything I want to eat today as long as it's in that bag. To me, this forces me to adhere to my program and in a matter of days it's a no-brainer. When I first started I did have hunger pangs but I would just use something like Pepsid or Zantac to get through the day. I was trying to keep to a schedule and spread my meals out evenly through the day. They only lasted maybe two days then they weren't an issue anymore.

Now what funny is that this is only day 2 back on my VLC diet (very low calorie) and I can already feel my mental fog lifting. I have energy again (well it's returning) and I can see my goal again. It feels odd to say this but I'm actually happy to be back on this program. I don't think of it as being very restictive or hard or denying myself things. I think of it as a transition period. I spent over 30 years being fat, yes I used the F-word, so I think I can manage a few months of changing things around so I'm not fat anymore.

I'm back on track now and soon that scale needle will be going in the right direction again.

Why I stopped Atkins

2006-07-27T13:38:00.000-04:00

First off let me say that I do believe that Atkins is a good diet program and I have been very successful on the program before (ok only my first attempt - more on this in a bit). Things have change metabolicaly that Atkins no longer works for me.

I was feeling nauseaous from all the fat that was in the diet.
I had NO energy at all. I felt like I was on the verge of falling asleep all the time.
I had lost my mental focus of seeing my goal and mentally cloudy overall as well.
I began to GAIN weight.

Two weeks of incudtion and I lost ZERO pounds and I felt like crap. I followed the program to the letter and even re-read the book just to be sure. In the end it was an easy decision to make so I went back to what worked.

I had also seen some references to the "Golden Shot". Basically it means that you get one good shot at doing Atkins and any attempts after that don't work. Not sure why it happens but looking back at my attempts I could see that it was happening with me. So there was even more reason to switch back to what I was doing before. Dammit I have a schedule to meet. :P (I'm teasing about the schedule bit, it's just a goal not a deadline)

A change is in the works

2006-07-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

I've been a little frustrated for the past two weeks since I switched from my 1000 calorie a day diet to Atkins. On the first diet, weight was dropping like mad. On Atkins, two pounds in two weeks. That's pretty pathetic compared to the 7 pounds a week I was doing before.

Now I know arguements can be made that it was water weight or something but I can't ignore that I'm down 2 pant sizes and 1 shirt size.

Another thing is that for the past two weeks I've been exhausted yet when I check my urine for ketones, a tell-tale sign of fat metabolism, it consistantly near the top of the range. This tells of that something is not going how it should.

So tomorrow I'm going back to my previous diet plan. Time to get this puppy back on track.

It's late and I have to be up early but I will elaborate more in a day or two.

2006-07-09T08:35:00.000-04:00

Last day of phase one

My 30 days of 1000 calories/day comes to an end today and tomorrow I start Atkins. I'm glad that I did it but damn it's been rough. On the days that I've been working it hasn't been that bad because I would take a little cooler bag and I would tell myself that the only things I could have until I got home was whatever was in that bag. My days off on the other hand were sometimes a whole different issue.

I think my body knows that there is a switch coming up. I was off Friday (wasn't supposed to be) and it wasn't too bad but I didn't do much of anything that day. Saturday was really bad. I went to the gym in the morning and was feeling really crappy afterwards (combination of not going for the longest time and the diet made me really weak). Because of how I was feeling I had my "lunch" early. By the time 5pm rolled around I was famished and my hunger was back in full force. What wasn't helping was that I was watching one of my favorite PBS documentaries that is about how Hot Dogs are made and served all over the US. I really wanted a hot dog after that, I mean REALLY wanted one. I survived and didn't crack.

Now I'm on my final day and I'm glad it's here. I haven't had my "breakfast" yet but I'm determined to not crack today. The only tough part will be the fact that I'll have to prepare my lunch for work tomorrow and I'm sure that it will be tempting but I'll hold strong. I didn't make it this far to lost it on the last day.

Speaking of last day....how have I done? Well it's been more than a week since I've been able to use one of the Tanita scales (model 3101 Handrail Scale) so I have no official weights for this transition. My bathroom scale however (I don't trust it near as much as the Tanita ones) tells me that I'm 350. So I'm going to do a tiny bit of rounding and call my 30-day weight loss at 30lbs. Once I can get back to one of those scales then I'll have a better idea of how much further I've gone.

30 down and 50 to go before I reach my first goal.

My final goal? You know I haven't decided that yet. I know it will be below 240 for sure but I'm actually toying with the idea of trying to get under 200. I'll set my final goal in the next few weeks and we'll see how reachable it is. I know goal #1 is because I can already see it in my mind.

2006-06-29T09:11:00.000-04:00

So I'm down 25 lbs so far. My bathroom scale put me at 355 this morning but I'll have to wait to weigh myself at work to know for sure. I use dialysis scales at the local hospitals since they have to be accurate since they are medical grade and my $40 Sam's Club one isn't. :) Since I do weight myself in full EMS uniform I allow 8lbs for my uniform, steel-toe boots, and misc crap that I always carry with me. It's too tempting to weight myself every day but I have to resist that.

Over these 20 days I've been doing this so far I've had some days that have been dead easy and some that I've had to claw through hour by hour. I know one thing that has been helping and I know will lead to this being a permanent success is I'm changing how I'm thinking.

I'm using positive affirmations and keeping things in the present tense. "I am losing weight" not "I need to lose weight" or other things like that. I keep telling myself that I'm doing good and I need to stay the course and I will achieve my goal. Plus I'm also visualizing myself at my goal weight. I'm seeing myself buyng and wearing smaller clothes. I'm seeing that the clothes I have now are falling off me because they are too big. I'm seeing the reactions of my family when I see them again in 5 months. All these things I'm vizualizing in my head clearly and with as much detail as I can. I also tell myself that the body I have now is no longer the body I have inside and that it's no longer a reflection of who I am.

Diet and excercise will take the weight off....but rewiring/reprogramming your mind will keep it off.

2006-06-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

Well what can I say to explain why I'm doing this?

Of course the expected answers are that I want to live a healthier and longer life and have a better self-image. Those are all givens and very valid reasons for wanting to lose weight but mine go a bit deeper.

Some background:
When I was just a little cubby I had some very well meaning but harmfull programming put into my head. It's the imfamous "you have to eat everything on your plate." My parents meant well and I do not feel that they caused me to turn out this way. Nope, it's all MY fault, all 100% of it. So growing up I was always the biggest kid in the class. Not height wise, I wish, but weight wise. I've been fat all my life. In High School I was well over 250, in college over 300.

I've never had a great self-image, in fact it's always been a bit on the poor side. I eventually hit a point when I tried to accept my fate of always being fat and try to be happy and "love myself". Didn't work. I was in denial. I did have times when I tried to chage my fate and lose some of my weight with mixed results.

I ended up going to a doctor and was put on Medifast. An all liquid medically supervised diet program that also included group meditation/hypnosis sessions. I dropped 85 lbs in 12 weeks. I loved dropping the weight but I hated what it did to my system. It was all chemicals and junk and it reaked havoc.....and a year later it was all back.

I tried it again but this time with the Bahamian Diet program. It was and all liquid diet and I did lose quite a bit and being all natural and vegetarian my body didn't revolt against me. Same result, it all came back and it brought some friends.

A few years ago I tried Atkins and in about 7 months I dropped just under 80 lbs....and yet again it came back. This pattern repeated to much lesser degrees with other programs and attempts.

I hit my heaviest (that I know of) in September of 2005 when I topped out at 386 lbs. I was in shock. I had no clue that I was anywhere close to that weight and that 400 lbs was in sight. This triggered a massive depression. So I tried Atkins again and my body fought me every step of the way. After 6 weeks of induction I was only down 12 lbs so I gave up till 16 days ago.

So I devised a program for me to force weight loss then throw my body a curve ball and switch gears back to Atkins. I'm just over the halfway mark of my first phase and I'm down 17 lbs so far.

I'll post more details of what I'm doing and my progress every few days.