FatBloggers.net A little push to lose the tush.

I love some of the articles in the Men’s Health RSS in the sidebar. This morning, this one grabbed my eye…

You’re Hereby Sentenced to Lose Weight

Please read the entire article, but this is what caught my eye…

Broderick Lloyd Laswell, an inmate, is suing the Arkansas jail he’s been held in for 8 months–because he’s lost 105 pounds since being booked. Laswell, who’s gone from 413 pounds to 308, says he’s being starved.

Starvation at 3,000 calories a day? If we were the jury, we wouldn’t be convinced. The average guy needs about 2,500 calories a day. Sure, this is an average, so it varies, but still, 3,000 calories isn’t lettuce leaves and tea.

MarkFu brings up an interesting point.

I was raised with the philosophy that the phone was there as a service to ME! I never could understand why someone would tear through their house, knocking over furniture and kicking the dog to answer a ringing phone. The same holds true with my cell phone. If the call is important and I can’t make it without endangering myself or my surroundings. The caller is free to leave a message or call back.

Generally, I leave my phone in the car when I’m at the gym. I hear a number of them ringing from inside lockers in the locker room. Just the other day Mr. To-Damn-Important had one of those beetle looking devices hanging from his ear. I was plugged into my iPod, minding my own business of sweating and he was on the elliptical next to mine. Suddenly I was hearing a blow-by-blow account of the previous nights Dancing with the Stars. I was approaching a rolling boil, so I moved. But who the hell did this guy think he was?

Have you had any bizarre cell phone experiences at the gym (or anywhere else for that matter)?

Sit back.

Put your feet up.

Get yourself a refreshing beverage.

I have a story.

The year, 1990.

Back then Levi 501’s weren’t the trendy jeans that they are now. I was living in Corvallis, Oregon and I could go to the Farm Supply Store in Albany to buy 501’s for about $15. I knew the ‘formula’ (I don’t right now). As 501’s were shrink to fit, the formula was to buy jeans that were a certain number of inches BIGGER in the waist and inseam. When you washed them, they would shrink up to the approximate size you need.

I had just got paid, it was the only time of the month that I had any money. So I purchased 2 pair of 501’s. I took them home, washed them… and they SHRANK TOO MUCH!

I don’t know exactly how much I weighed in 1990, as I was King of Denial! I thought, that I would ‘lose a few pounds’ and the jeans would be just fine. I couldn’t take them back because they had been washed. I never understood that. Because ANYONE who bought these jeans would HAVE to wash them. Right?

So I kept the jeans. FOR 18 YEARS!

They have rode in boxes and trunks and shelves at the top of closets… In Washington, Oregon and Wyoming! The Wife asked MANY times why I kept the jeans. I guess after a few years, I kept them as a matter of principal.

I pulled the jeans out a couple months ago and gave them their SECOND wash. I folded them an set them on a shelf next to the dresser…. to taunt me. I think that I posted a couple weeks ago that I tried them on, I could button the top button, but it was tight.

This morning… as I was getting dressed at 6 am, I grabbed a pair and pulled them on.

GUYS! I’M WEARING THOSE PANTS!

I’M REALLY ENJOYING MY PANTS TODAY!

I really like saying… PANTS, PANTS, PANTS!

Right about now, the East Coast is gorging themselves on alcohol and fattening goodies all the while they are making promises to lose weight. The only way to eliminate that resolution is to do something about it.

If you make weight-loss a serious goal, you can work on eliminating the Fat Tax. The Fat Tax comes in many forms which you may recognize:

• Buy clothing and notice the sign at many of the retailers that says “Big/Plus Size Add $X”. That’s money you could be pocketing if you just lost the weight necessary to get into that smaller size (this won’t work for everyone since some like me have to wear the larger sizes due to shoulder width or chest size). Also, if your clothing no longer rubs together, it may last longer, too.
• No longer pay to “SuperSize” your meals when less food is enough (there will be a slight cost increase in choosing healthy stuff over cheap unhealthy items). You can also have more choices for restaurants when you no longer have to go to the buffet in order to eat enough to be full.
• Some insurance plans will reduce your premiums if you lose weight, stop smoking, etc.
• You may find it easier to get a better paying job when you look healthy.
• Some of you may be able to get a smaller, more inexpensive vehicle because you’ll be able to fit behind the wheel (not to mention the few cents you save because the car has less of a load).
• You no longer have to get first class airplane tickets to have the seats large enough to be comfortable.

I’m sure there are many other ways in which we pay the Fat Tax each day. What are you going to do this coming year to reduce your overall Fat Tax?

It was all Christmas all the time at our house this weekend.

We had a visit with Santa, got our Christmas tree, decorated the house and woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday morning. It was the kind of magical weekend that memories are made of. Naturally I was in a nostalgic mood.

I love Christmas. This month leading up to the holidays is my favorite time of year. I love the music, the lights, the hustle and bustle, the shopping, the crowded malls, the hunt for the perfect gift. I love it all. But mostly I love the time spent with my family and the memories of all those Christmas’ past.

Give me a second to wipe the tear from my eye.

So like I said I was in a nostalgic kind of mood this weekend. My lovely wife and I have been talking a lot about how this will be the girls real first Christmas… at least the first one they will understand. Which got me thinking about the first Christmas I remembered.

As I was thinking about it, I was overwhelmed with memories of my Dad with a mustache. When I was growing up my dad was a dead ringer for Tom Selleck, only like 30 times less cheesy. Even though my Dad hasn’t had a mustache for more than 20-years, all of my Childhood memories feature my dad wearing the “Selleck”. Those first impressions of our parents are hard to change… and I wouldn’t want to.

This gave me another thing to be thankful for this holiday season. My girls Christmas memories will not feature a father with a tummy like a bowl full of jelly. If I can continue to make this healthy lifestyle work (and I will) my girls will never know the fat guy that I was for most of my life. To them I will just be Dad, good, old silly dad.

That is about the greatest gift I could ask for this holiday season.

Now I’m getting misty again.

Tony
12/3: 223.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
3.4 lbs. to go

USA Today reported this week about the annual meeting of The Obesity Society where they revealed a study that determined that if you follow a reduced calorie diet and a set regimen of exercise, you will lose weight.

The earth shattering news from this study; many of the women (it was a group of post-menopausal women) in the study felt that since they were exercising, they didn’t have to follow the diet. Surprisingly, they didn’t lose weight.

I guess I going to have to give up the peanut butter cups as an incentive for each push-up I perform.

A funny… courtesy of an email from my Sister-in-law

Yesterday I went to the doctor for my yearly physical.

My blood pressure was high, my cholesterol was high, I’d gained some weight, and I didn’t feel so hot.

My doctor said eating right doesn’t have to to be complicated and it would solve my physical problems.

He said just think in colors…

Fill your plate with bright colors…

greens

yellows

reds

etc.

I went right home and ate an entire bowl of…

Don’t worry, this purge is not proceeded by the word binge. I am talking about my closet.

Last night my lovely wife and I dove into the scary project of emptying all the over sized clothes out of my closet . Technically it’s the guest room, but we call it my walk-in closet.

I have to admit I am a bit of a clothes horse. It’s not so much that I buy a lot of clothes, I just never throw them out. And, over the last few years I have collected a lot of clothes. When you’re going up a size every 6 to 8 months it’s hard not to accumulate.

Needless to say this purge was long overdue.

The main criteria for getting rid of clothes was size. Everything with a XXXL went without even trying it on. A lot of the XXL stuff went as well. I was really surprised at how much stuff ended up in the to go pile. There are clothes that that I haven’t worn in years because they were too tight that are now to big to wear. I missed them going up and coming down.

Last night was the first time in this whole healthy living process that I have felt like a person who has lost nearly 50 lbs. Seeing my old clothes looking like a Mama Cass mumu on me, clothes that used to be tight just 9 months ago, made me really see my body in a new way.

While this was mostly a joyous occasion, there are some things that I will be really sad to see go. I had just received a lot of really nice clothes for Christmas this past year, which I hardly had the chance to wear and now they are 3 sizes to big for me. It made the whole experience a little bitter sweet.

Tonight I tackle pants and sweaters. I have a feeling the purge has only just begun.

The most triumphant moment of the evening:

- One of my favorite shirts is a western / rock star shirt my lovely wife gave me for Christmas 3 years ago. I have never been able to wear it properly, even when she gave it to me. Last night I buttoned it up for the first time.

Here’s me in the shirt this past Christmas weighing 288. I’ll take a new picture tonight to compare and contrast.

Tony
8/28: 239.8 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
19.8 lbs. to go

Cross published at Guess How Much I Weigh.

The wife and I were watching Wyatt Earp on AMC tonight, you know the one with Kevin Costner? Since we are like most Americans, we hold conversations during the commercial breaks in our favorite programs. But tonight an ad came on that, at first, I wasn’t sure I heard them say what I thought I heard them say. Fortunately for us, this is basic cable and if you miss one flim-flam ad, you are sure to catch it again in the next break.

Well, tonight we (you and I) were lucky and I get to point you toward the diet pill website with a million dollar URL.� http://eatallyouwantandstillloseweight.com/

This handy-dandy pill called Akavar 20/50 promises:

A Major medical breakthrough has shattered the weight-loss barrier and a new generation of fast-acting caloric restrictors has been born� an entirely new generation of powerful, foolproof, bio-active weight loss compounds that automatically reduce caloric intake� eliminating traditional dieting, calorie counting, strenuous exercise, fad diets, supermarket �miracle� pills, Japanese wonder diets, rubber suits, belts, creams or anything else you have ever tried before. But most significantly, this new generation of potent compounds has eliminated diet failure and replaced it with guaranteed success. Ak�var�-20/50 makes up for years of overeating, years without exercise, years without being able to push away the extra dessert or midnight snack and, most importantly, years of embarrassment and lack of self-confidence.

My had to practically restrain me from ordering a bottle of these babies for the unheard of price of $39.95 (plus S&H) when I found that they had the backing of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce!

What was the phrase that was uttered that caught my attention you ask? You are lucky to be able to see its paraphrased version on their website.

“And we couldn’t say it on TV if it wasn’t true!”�

I found this in my Men’s Health Magazine.

“A fat belly makes you a bigger man - and less of a man, says a new study in the Journal Of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. When researchers studied 584 men for almost 20 years they found that a 4-point increase in body mass index accelerates your natural decline in testosterone by 10 years. This corresponds to a gain of 30 lbs. for a 5′10 man. ”
-Men’s Health August 2007, pg. 50

I am 5′11′ and still 60lbs. overweight. Which means I have the testosterone of a 55 year old man. Add the extra 40 lbs. I was carrying in January and I had the testosterone of a 70 Year old man.

Hmmmm, I wonder if you get the testosterone back as you lose the weight or if it is gone for ever like youth and innocence and my copy of the first Wallflowers CD that mysteriously disappeared. The one before the band sold out and became crappy.

According to Wikipedia

“Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group. It is the principal male sex hormone and an anabolic steroid. Testosterone plays key roles in health and well-being. Examples include enhanced libido, energy, immune function, and protection against osteoporosis.”

Tony
8/14: 245.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
25.4 lbs. to go

Cross Published on Guess How Much I Weigh