FatBloggers.net A little push to lose the tush.

We enjoy some very good, local microbrews here in the Pacific Northwest.  Oregon is home to some excellent ones, and it seems most of them have their own brand of a holiday brew this time of the year.  My personal favorite right now is the Full Sail Wassail from Full Sail Brewing, just down the road in Hood River.  A few others that are recommended:

• Jubelale from Deschutes Brewery
• Snow Plow from Widmer Brothers
• Santa’s Private Reserve from Rogue Brewing

And remember fellow Watchers of the Waist, most of these beers are about 3 Weight Watchers points, so don’t feel bad about pouring one into a tall, frosty glass as you wait for the Big Guy on Christmas Eve.  Moderation is a good thing ANY time of the year. 

Merry Christmas to you all–hope yours is the best yet.

What’s your beverage of choice this time of the year?

You like me! You really like me!

I would like to thank all the little people… and by that I mean all of you who are getting littler by the day.

This has never been about recognition or fame or fortune. I started writing my blog and subsequently posting here as a last ditch effort to change my life… or maybe I should say save my life. I figured if I could finally be honest with others about my struggle with weight and overeating that I could learn to be honest with myself as well.

As you’ve seen over the last year, the strategy worked. But it had so many more benefits than I could have every imagined. Through Fatbloggers I have meet all of you who have become an amazing support group and an amazing group of friends and that has made a huge difference.

John asked in his last post how I did it. Exercise has been a huge part of my success. Over the past six months, I went from a guy who could barley walk 2 miles in 45 minutes to someone who can run a 5K in 34 minutes. Along the way I learned to love the way exercise makes me feel. I firmly believe I would have no chance of long term success without exercise.

Exercise is not the biggest reason for my success though.

The two biggest differences this time around have been my motivation and the support I get from friends and family.

At first I was doing this for my girls. I want to be around for a long time for them. And I don’t want to be an embarrassment to them. But over the past few months I have realized that my true motivation is me. I don’t want to be the person I was anymore. I don’t want to be controlled by food. I don’t want to be lazy. I don’t want to hurt everyday. And I don’t want to be embarrassed, sad, angry or disappointed every time I look in a mirror. That is my true motivation! With the love and support of my family and so many great friends I no longer am.

I have a ways to go and I know the struggle is far from over, but I feel like everything from here on out is just icing on the cake!

Tony

p.s. Man am I glad I changed my photo last week.

This sure has been a tough month for me.  And the scary part is the real tough part doesn’t come until next weekend when the Holiday feasts start in hot and heavy.  As I wrote in my update today, I gained a pound this week and am now back to where I started the month of December at.  It’s going to be really hard to hit my goal of losing 6 pounds in December.

How do weight loss studs like 2007 FatBlogger of the Year Tony do it?

One thing I have noticed with Tony is he seems really committed to the cardio.  He’s running over 10 miles a week and he seems to be doing that consistently.  I haven’t run since November 26th.  That’s a problem.

The one thing I have in my favor for getting through this tough month is my blog and my support network, of which all of you play a part.  It would be so easy to just slide back into old habits if I didn’t have my own words to keep me in check.  I can’t believe it is been 3 weeks since I last ran, but by writing about it I keep it in mind and it will be so easier to get back to it before I let the habit slide.  If I wasn’t writing about this stuff I could see how you could easily just give up and revert back to your old ways.

I am committed to not let that happen.

I know I’m not the only one struggling this month.  Let’s stick together and get through this.  Don’t wait until January if you can help it!

PS - I am giving away an Omron Pedometer this week - check out the contest entry for information on how to win.  If you already have a pedometer you should still enter - it would make for a good prize for your own contest.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for being a part of this blog that is doing so much good in our world. I think I can say without contradiction that many of us owe a great deal of our success to the FatBloggers. I am truly looking forward to a GREAT 2008!

Now, I don’t know how much campaigning anyone did. I heard that Lady Rose rented an apartment in Ottumwa, Iowa to be closer to the voters. Before I reveal the results, I want you to know that you are all tops in my book…

We had a total of 45 votes in our little poll, 6 from FatBloggers and 39 from guests to our humble corner of the internets.

Los (who hasn’t even posted yet) and Rick - 1%
Yours Truly - 9%
John C - 18%
Lady Rose - 31%

And your FatBlogger of the year and the winner of an official FatBlogger T-Shirt and a prestigious placement in the FatBlogger Hall of Fame ….

Tony with 38% of the vote!

Folks, I am really looking forward to 2008! I hope you are too. We have a couple new members that will keep the site exciting, informative and of course, entertaining.

Now… Bring Tony the finest Wines and Cheeses in the Land!

Hello.  I’m a friend of John T’s from college days.  I’ve been following FatBloggers for a while and decide to come in from the cold.  This is my first post on FatBloggers or any other blog.  Apparently resistance was futile. 

I finally got sick of my knees hurting and running out of breath getting the news paper when I hit about 275.  My official weightwatchers starting weight was 271.1

Today’s weight: 229 

Loss to date: 41.1 pounds

Goal: 196 (what I weighed when I graduated college)

Fatblogger’s has been great inspiration to get over the inertia.  When i was in the best shape of my life (lifting weights & cardio 3x per week) I still weighted 235, so getting under that was a major milestone.  Anything less is unexplored territory for the past 15 years or so.

One new thing to add to the list of benefits of weightloss:  Yesterday I gracefully slipped and fell on my ass.  As I peeled myself off the ground, it occured to me, ”That would have hurt a lot more 4o pounds ago!”

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217.2! That’s what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 1.2 pounds!!!

214 here I come.

I’m not sure what is up with that cheesy smile? I think I am a little brain dead from all the Christmas shopping yesterday.

Here is a feel good story that envolves the Christmas shopping.

My lovely wife and I took yesterday off to try and get all of our Christmas shopping done in one day.

We took a few minutes out of power shopping for others to do a little power shopping for ourselves at Banana Republic. Banana Republic is a store I have been in maybe once in my life . That trip lasted all of 3 minutes. I left once I realized the only thing in the place that would fit me was a $90 cashmere scarf.

This trip was a different story. I browsed around for a few minutes before a sales person approached. Being unaccustomed to the ways and fits of the “Republic”, I asked the salesman about their sizing. I believe my exact words were, “Are your sweaters slim fitting?”

The salesman took a moment to size me up and then uttered these magic words.

“You look like you’d wear a large.”

not. “Ha, Why would you want to know?”
-or- “They’re too slim for you!”
-or- “You wouldn’t even fit in to our Double XL”

Simply, “You look like a large.”

And it was casual and nonchalant, not incredulous or surprised.

I was so overwhelmed at the world of choice now open to me that I left the store without purchasing anything. I am having to readjust my whole fashion world view. This is going to take sometime. But fear not Banana Republic I will return… and soon, there is this slim fitting red zip up sweater that I have my eye on. Size large please.

Not exactly a warm, fuzzy feel good Christmas story I know…but it made me feel good!
Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
12/14: 217.2lbs
Goal: 220 lbs. ACCOMPLISHED
NEW GOAL: 214
3.2 lbs. to go

I am so glad that all the stress eating I’ve been doing on the fear that my name would be included in the Mitchell Report didn’t affect what the scale said this morning.

Just last night I was sitting on the couch with my (almost) 11 year-old son. The Boy and I cannot sit next to each other without it breaking into a wrestling match to one degree or another. Part of this is that he is an 11 year-old and everything he does is a test of his ‘manliness’. At one point he is trying to break my control of him and he grabs my bicep and says, “Dang Dad, you’re huge!” Is that cool or what?!? He doesn’t point out that I still have 80+ lbs to lose, or that I still have a soft layer of gooshiness covering my rock hard biceps, he just knows that my bicep is bigger and harder than his and his will be just as big (probably bigger) than mine someday… soon.

And yes, I am a bit scared.

I love being a Dad.

Anton… a drum roll please…

Starting Weight (Dec. 22, 2006): 392 lbs.
Starting BMI: 51.7
Weight Today (Dec. 13, 2007): 315.4 lbs.
Current BMI: 41.6 (10.1 points off the BMI!)

Weight Change This Week: -1.4 lbs.
Total Weight Lost: -76.6 lbs.
NEXT GOAL: Halfway to GOAL! (4.4 lbs. to go)

This post is cross-published on Reject Your Reality

to Tony and John T. and also congratulations on the goals!!!!  It’s good motivation for me today.  I’ve fallen off of the wagon in a big way the past few weeks, due to a list of excuses as long as your arm.  A lot of stress, depression, etc.  I fed it all.

I was back in the gym today, and walked for 45 minutes and worked up a pretty good sweat.  So far today, I have eaten according to the “Body For Life” plan.

I have to remember that each victory is one step closer to the goal, and each failure is only that.  One failure.  It doesn’t need to continue.

 Back on the horse…….

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!!!!!!

218.4!!!! That is what it said on the scale this morning!!! A loss of 5lbs.

This one is no flu fluke! I hereby declare Goal #1 Accomplished.

This is shaping up to be a good week for the Fatbloggers. Way to go John! Congratulations on reaching 75 lbs. That is huge!

As for me I’m not done yet. 220 was an arbitrary goal I choose at random before I knew what my real goals were going to be. Over the last 26 weeks I have developed a much better understanding of what I need those goals to be.

NEW GOAL #1:
214 by January 1st. A loss of 4.4 lbs. This is a pretty ambitious goal considering the holiday feasting and if I don’t make it I’m not going to beat myself up. To make the goal I will have to lose 1.2 lbs a week.

At 214 my BMI will be 29.8 which would move me out of the Obese classification and into Moderately Overweight. It would be nice to start the new year Overweight.

NEW GOAL #2:
199 by May 29th 2008…my 34th birthday. I’m not sure if I will ever make it under 200lbs, but why not shoot for the moon huh? To achieve this goal I will have to lose .78 lbs. A week.

At this point I’m not really doing anything extra to try and lose weight. I am simply trying to live healthier. Hopefully the way I am eating and exercising now is the same way I will be living years from now.

For now I am just letting my body do it’s thing and find its own equilibrium. If that happens to be 210 instead of 190 I am just fine with that.

Which brings us to…

GOAL FOR LIFE:
Stay Healthy, Look Healthy!

I’d like to tone my body and put on more muscle and I will be able to run a 5k before this is through….but my biggest goal of all is to be healthy, at whatever weight I net out.

Thank you again for all of the support and encouragement. The help we give each other here is a huge part of keeping me on track.

Have a fantastic weekend everybody!

Tony
12/7: 218.4lbs
Goal: 220 lbs. ACCOMPLISHED
NEW GOAL: 214
4.4 lbs. to go

P.S. That first picture is me doing the “Rocky” move…not me trying to show off my muscles!