FatBloggers.net A little push to lose the tush.

223.4. That is what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of 2.4.

I guess there are two ways to look at this week. I could be happy that I lost more than half of the weight I gained over the Thanksgiving holiday or I could lament the fact that I have had my biggest gain since this whole thing started.

I hadn’t made up my mind on how I felt until I read Lady Rose’s post below. Rose is right. A number is just a number. As long as I continue exercising and doing my best to live healthy, who really cares what the scale says. I’ll get there eventually.

Tony
11/30: 223.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
3.4 lbs. to go

hello everyone!

i know what some of you are thinking right now; “who is this guy named joshua, and where did he come from?” long story short, i had the honor of being asked to come and contribute to this great little corner of the internet.

i have been blogging for roughly nine years now. my most recent endeavor has been on a site called love is the movement, which has gone through a name change, but has been active for about three years now. i only recently (august) came up with the idea to marry the blog with the weight loss journey.

you can check out the blog here. and you can check out the direct link to all the weight loss stuff here.

on to the important stuff. i am twenty-six years old, married, no kids (unless you count a dog and two cats), live in an apartment in northwest ohio, and decided i wanted to start losing weight when i hit 410 on the doctor’s scale. that was in august. since then i have lost fifty seven pounds, and am currently sitting at 353. i have a number of short-term and long-term goals set, those will all be revealed future posts, but for now i’ll tell you that my end goal is to get to 210, a total overall loss of 200 pounds.

it’s going to be a lot of hard work, but i’m glad i’m on this journey with a great group of people, and now even more. it’s great to be here, and i hope someone, somewhere will not only not mind that i do not use capitalization, but may even be able to connect with my weight loss story.

more to come, but until then,

…peace, love, and crunchberries..

Although my family and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation in lovely Iowa, the wonderful trip was not so wonderful on my waistline.

First the good things:

1. I worked out twice while on “vacation”.  I ran 3.1 miles on Thanksgiving and thanks to a little prodding from my sister-in-law and her dog, I posted my best time yet! I also got in some strength training on Saturday morning.

2. I didn’t spend much time eating when no one else was eating. No binges, no sneaking midnight snacks, no hiding food.

3. Despite my best efforts, we avoided all the wonderful Ice Cream shops in Bettendorf, Iowa… and there are some amazing Ice Cream shops in Bettendorf, Iowa!

Now for the bad news!

I gained 5 pounds since my weigh-in last Wednesday.

I wouldn’t say that I went crazy and gorged myself at every meal, but I probably ate the most of everyone at the table at every meal. And I had a lot of seconds.

I am not ashamed or disappointed or upset. I gave myself a free pass for the week and I used it to my full advantage. Now it is time to get back on track! Today I start tracking calories again. And I will hit the gym with renewed vigor.

Here is the other positive. I had been back sliding on my snacking over the last few weeks. Now that I have satiated that craving, I feel a renewed energy for eating healthier again.

In some ways taking a week off may help me get back that passion that I felt when I first started this journey.

Not that I am trying to justify!

Just For Fun

I noticed a lot of overly simplified, “Here’s How Much Your Thanksgiving Gorging Will Cost You” talk in the media over the last few days and I thought I would jump on the band wagon!

To gain that 5 pounds in 5 days I had to consume an extra 17,500 calories. That is above and beyond the normal 13,000 calories I would have consumed in that same time period. For a five day grand total of 30,500 calories! Whoaaaa!

By my rough calculations that is the equivalent of eating five 9-pound turkeys in 5 days!

On the flip side, I burn around 650 calories for every 45 minutes I spend on the Treadmill. It would take me 20 hours on the treadmill to work off those excess 17,500 calories.

Makes my legs sore just thinking about it!

Tony
11/21: 221 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
1 lbs. to go

p.s This mornings weigh-in was not “an official weigh-in”, thus no change to the sign off until Friday.

An early weigh-in this week due to vacation and the Thanksgiving holiday. It just seemed unAmerican to weigh in the day after Thanskgiving.

 221! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of .2 pounds.

I think the scale gnomes messed with the scale because they were ticked at me for cheating and moving the weigh-in!

Actually, I realized this weekend that I have allowed Friday and Saturday to become free-for-all days, where I eat whatever I want. Then, come Monday I workout like crazy and eat healthy and evreything evens out. I guess I just didn’t have enough time to even out this week.

There’s always next week…or the week after that.

Have a great Thanksgving everybody. Don’t go crazy with the Turkey, but don’t make yourself nuts counting calories either. We all need a day off now and then.

Tony
11/21: 221 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
1 lbs. to go

• Who was the most influential FatBlogger?

• Who was the most inspiring FatBlogger?

• Which FatBlogger had an effect on your life?

or…

• Which FatBlogger is simply your favorite?

The Rules

1. You can only vote once per IP address!

2. The winner of FatBlogger of the year will win a lavish prize!

3. The winner will also gain the accolades of the passing minions throughout 2008 with a prominent display box designating their triumph!

* Poll will close at Noon (PST) on December 15, 2007
** not connected in ANY way with The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences or ‘Oscar’.

I would imagine that it was time to close the Halloween poll.

How do you handle this Holiday? 

I allow myself treats in moderation - 45%
Shut-up and hand over the bag of Snickers - 33%
I’m scared spitless! - 12%
I have the willpower of 10 men! - 10%

There were a total of 51 voters in this poll. Thanks for your participation.

Since I took on this blog I have been trying to teach myself some of the intracacies of operating a ‘hosted’ blog. I must confess, it is frustrating at times. But one thing I know how to do is clean up dead links and other simple items.

• I dropped the truncated image that linked to a gum promotion, since the promotion has ended.
• Deleted some dead links in the Blogroll and added some new friends (see **).
• Rick added Los from Ragamuffin Soul as a FatBlogger, and even though Los has been extremely busy moving across the continent and hasn’t posted here, I added him to the FatBloggers roll.
• Keep you eyes open for a new template… once I figure out how the heck to do that. One would think that there would be a ‘how to’ list somewhere. But alas, I haven’t found it yet.

Of course if you have suggestions… drop me a line.

For most of 2007 I have set a goal for weightloss that I confessed here and ‘in the real world’ was wildly random. I came up with the 196 lb. goal by simply starting with my weight last December (392 lbs.) and cutting it in half. When I would tell people that I know; family, my doctor, the Weight Watchers staff, etc. this number they would voice some skepticism. I felt that this was the typical family response of, ‘yeah right’ and dismissed it with an ‘I’ll show them’ attitude.

With 70+ lbs gone, I rewarded myself with the purchase of a fancy digital scale that also reads my bodyfat% using bioelectrical impedance. You don’t know how big of a deal this is. I avoided scales like the plague for 20 years. Generally the only place I would encounter scales were at the doctor’s office or at the various diet groups I would committ myself to, but to buy one? Never!

Since I purchased this scale, my weight has fluctuated a bit, but my bodyfat% has steadily gone down (thats a good thing), from 39% to 37%. Using that number, I have 118 lbs of FAT on my body! According to this site, that is the size of an average 20 year-old male! I seriously doubt that. What did they do, measure 5′5″ pipsqueaks? Most 20 year-olds I know are 180-200 lbs.

Anyway, (present weight) 320 lbs (minus) 118 lbs of fat, brings me to a lean body weight of 202 lbs! Since I KNOW that no one can get to 0% bodyfat, how can I get to 196 lbs? I would MUCH rather be a beefy Eastern Oregonian.

So let it be known (and reflected on my weightloss goals page) that my NEW GOAL is … 230 lbs!

That number is only 90 lbs away and I am hitting the iron 3x/week (on average), so it may get tweaked. Let’s assume that my lean body mass stays around 200 lbs. Weighing 230lbs would give me a 15% bodyfat reading.

Not bad.

But the funny thing, according to the government, I would still be obese with a BMI of 30.3!

220.8!!!!! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 2.6 pounds.

Considering the week I have had it is genuine miracle. .. fingers crossed this one is not another fluke worm.

I will admit, I broke down and did a small bit of stress eating this week. It was a crazy, overwhelming week with lots of tight deadlines and late nights and responsibility, oh my. It was also a week where I manged to work out my stress in the gym instead of in the kitchen! A big, big step for me.

I just did 45 minutes and 3.7 miles on the treadmill and I feel like a new man. Still a brain fried man, but a different brain fried man then I was when I went into the gym.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
11/16: 220.8 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
.8 lbs. to go

It has been 2 weeks since I last weighed in at WeightWatchers. I had an In-Service training at work last Thursday that, well, they paid me overtime for… what are you going to do?

Also, over the last 2 weeks, I’ve had a pretty difficult time staying on track.

• Poor choices at ‘food events’
• Stress induced eating
• Technical problems with WeightWatchers On-The-Go. They might do better if they weren’t using 1997 technology.
• I never did very well with the paper trackers, so losing my PDA tracker allowed me to fall off the wagon as well.
• I know that at one point i was up over 10 lbs. from my last weigh-in.  eeeek!

I was certain that I was not going to step on the scale this morning and have to give back 10 paper clips! I spent 3 sessions at the gym with an equal amount of sauna time and …

Anton… A drum roll if you please…

Starting Weight (Dec. 22, 2006): 392 lbs.
Starting BMI: 51.7
Weight Today (Nov. 15, 2007): 320.6 lbs.
Current BMI: 42.3 (almost 10 pts!)

 Weight Change This Week: +1.6 lbs.
Total Weight Lost: -71.4 lbs.
NEXT GOAL: the 75 lb. magnet (3.6 lbs. to go)