FatBloggers.net A little push to lose the tush.

Sorry I have missed a couple of weigh-ins. I have been swamped at work. I’ve also been doing a lot of yo-yoing in the weight department. I keep losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over again.

Obviously that is not what I am celerbating.

This weekend I made a running milestone that I have been working towards for a few weeks…and then I made another running milestone today…and this is one that I have been working at since March.

Milestone Number 1:

In training for my Triathlon (which is only 3 weeks away), I have started doing “Bricks”. Bricks are two workouts done back-to-back, in my case biking 9 miles then running 2.5. Only problem is I haven’t been able to make it past 2 miles on the run…until this weekend. On Sunday I went out for a workout with some friends and manged to do a 15 mile bike ride followed by a 2.7 mile run.

Milestone Number 2:

Today I managed my first 4 mile run. Usually I die right about 3.5 miles and have to walk for a few minutes before I can start running again. Today I finally broke through that plateau and managed to run 4.07 miles in 37:30.

While my weight loss may have slowed to a trickle, I am finding some seriously renewed energy in my workouts and that has me really excited, becasue in the long run all these goals are working toward the same thing, a healthy me.

Tony
06/30 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

Also Published On I Don’t Want to Die of a Heart Attack When I’m 25

Although I have been steadily losing weight, many of my food choices have not been very good these past few weeks. I’ve been thinking about going back to just having a cheat day once a week, so that I eat cleaner. Of course I want to continue losing weight, but I don’t want to do it eating sesame chicken and french fries everyday. It’s not just about fitting into size medium shirts for me, I want to be a healthy individual as well.

Going cold turkey would be the easy solution to finding a “balance” between eating well and indulging, but I have a feeling that if I completely eliminated all those delicious fatty foods I love, I would end up binging one night due to “ice cream deprivation”. Sigh, I need to find something that works for me.

I want to say hello to everyone and tell you all how happy I was to find this blog / forum.  Not only is it a very cool idea to combine the thoughts of many in blog form, but it looks like we have a lot of guys who are talking about their journey too.  While there are a lot of guys out there trying to lose weight, I am not sure how many are forthcoming with details about their journey.

So I should tell you a bit about myself and my journey thus far.  I am 34 years old, have 9 year old son who is my biggest motivator.  I am a sys admin by trade but could care less about playing on computers once I get home.  I will catch up on blogs and news and email and such but I have no desire to do much beyond that, at least currently.  I enjoy the outdoors but don’t get to spend as much time doing those things as I would like.  I love to play poker, so if anyone id up for a game let me know,  and probably my biggest joy latey (outside of my family) has come from watching my Missouri Tigers on the football field.  Tailgating is a bit of a passion as you can see here (tailgategnome.blogspot.com).  Tailgate season is a big concern of mine as I have been in losing mode since January and have not had to tailgate much during this time.  Which brings me to the reason we are all here.

My weight loss journey began on Jan 17th 2008 when I went to the doctor and weighed in at 400 lbs.  I am 6 feet 2 inches so my fame can hold some weight, but that is almost exactly twice what I should be carrying.  I was scared, heartbroken, embarrassed and ashamed all at once.  I knew I had to do something but what was I to do.  That day I spoke to my doctor about it and I basically was ready to go under the knife and have weight loss surgery of some sort.  After finding that my insurance did not cover it and knowing that I could not afford it I started doing some soul searching.  I had to ask myself if I had ever really given anything a chance.  The answer was no.  I tried atkins for a bit but I was not successful.  I would eat healthy for a week and was not able to tell any difference and I would get discouraged.  So after talking with a number of different people I went to Weight Watchers and began their flex plan.  To my suprise I had lost 14 lbs from Jan 17th to Jan 31st basically just by quiting McDonalds for lunch 5 days a week.  So what has 5 months of healthier living got me.  I am currenly down 82.2 lbs.  I went from 400 lbs on Jan 17th to 317.8 on June 24th.

I am here to try to get as much information as I can and to help other along the way.  I have not had the chane to read through everyones story just yet but I am very excited to do so.  I am looking forward to getting to know all of you.

Good ol’ Israel at Fat Man Unleashed pointed me toward WeightView where I was able to get a visual representation of what I will look like… in 50 lbs!

It didn’t really change my melon-head, but the trimmed-down torso and legs look GOOD!

“Crud.”

It was the word that summed up how I felt about today’s weigh-in. Actually, one other word directed at myself:

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

I let my guard down. I rewarded myself for having done so well. I let things through my filter that I had not these last few months.

Was it the meal at Olive Garden (including dessert)? What about lasagna and wine and ice cream and cookies at my brother-in-law’s house? Was it actually getting the burrito instead of the burrito bowl at Chipotle yesterday?

No, it was all of the above plus a few other things.

It most certainly was not skimping on workouts. Amy and I did go Wednesday and Thursday morning for workouts. Friday I got to work later than I planned (thank you, dead van battery), but I still went and jogged for 36 minutes (personal longest time). We both went yesterday and today as well. I even went for a 30 min walk today at lunch.

No, it was the food. I just blew the last 3 weeks of losses in one week of indulgences.

Not this coming week. Indulgences are on hold until I reach my goal of 50 pounds (even though it most likely will be after summer starts). I will not let the deadline affect this decision. I will push myself to reach it (but I won’t do anything stupid like fasting for the coming week to make that 50 pounds by next weigh-in).

I’m gonna fight hard though. This week was my indulgence and I won’t give in until I beat myself at my own game. I can obviously do it. I’m gonna do it.

Starting weight: 319.0 lb
Previous weight: 272.2 lb
Current weight: 274.6 lb
Current loss/gain: +2.4 lb
Total loss/gain: -44.4 lb
Distance to 50: 5.8 lb
Distance to WW Goal: 24.6 lb

Cross-posted to WebCudgel.com

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Hi Members of FatBloggers.net. My name is Eric Gamble & I am on a mission not only to lose weight but also do something important with my life.

People say that it doesn’t matter if you fall 12 times as long as you get up 13!! Therefore, I am re-inspired. I have joined a new program at my gym. You can check it out online by CLICKING HERE. Erik Frank & his partner Rebby Riche are teaching essentially a training boot camp and they aren’t letting me out of this program until I have become a lean, mean, healthy MACHINE!!!

Above you will see my before pictures taken on May 14th! You can see them closer, if you can stomach it, by clicking on any individual magazine.

Therefore, I am starting Eric’s 25 for Angel’s Place . I have often promoted donating to children’s charities. Often, I see and help others who are taking pledges or donations to walk/run or do something for Cancer Research, AIDS Research, Education Against Violence, etc. So I am taking donations to lose weight on behalf on Angel’s Place.

On May 24th, I weighed 224.5 lbs. My Personal goal is to get to 199 lbs. The program is a 14 week program that will essentially end on August 20th. I am asking for a $25 donation or $1 a pound. You can donate via paypal right now. If you donate now, I will note the amount donated & if by some horrible chance that I don’t make the 25lbs, I will refund you a dollar per pound I missed. (ie: if I only lose 20lbs by August 20th then, the Angel’s Place will receive your generous $25 donation & I will refund you $5 from my own money…not the Angel’s Place $$$) This goes for any amount you donate. I will take the amount you were able to donate & divide it by 25 to get the amount you are donating per pound. I will also post who has donated weekly on the site. Thanks to all who are generous to donate to the Angel’s Place.

I can really use your help. Of course, making a donation is a great way to help, however, I am also looking for verbal abuse…I mean verbal support. Leave comments here, leave comments on my Recent News button that leads to my forum at www.EricGamble.com, or go to my website and contact me to email me directly. We all know how hard it is to lose weight & get healthy, but it can even be harder if we do it alone. Let me know what you think! I will be giving updates soon on my progress. Thanks again to the members of the FatBloggers.net for giving me this space & Good Luck to US all!

216.4! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 3.6 pounds!

I’d say that is a good way to end a great year

A quick recap of my awesome year.

I started this journey on June 10th 2007. On that day I weighed 280. 1 year later I have lost 63.6 pounds.

My heaviest weight ever was 288. From that I have lost 71.6 pounds.

I am only 3.6 pounds above my lowest weight of 213.

In the past year I have started running.
For the first time in my life I can run more than three miles.
I completed a 5k race in under 27 minutes.
I swam a mile.
I have taken up biking.
I have started strength training.
I have developed muscles.
The clothes in my closet have shrunk from XXL to L.
I can waterski again.
My back no longer hurts.
I have stopped snoring.
I have stopped wheezing when I walk up stairs.

And…I have made some amazing friends.

I am really proud of the things I have been able to accomplish this year. I owe a lot of my success to the friends I have have made here. Thank you guys so much for all the advice and encouragement and support.

I have struggled a little bit in the past few months. The closer I get to my final goal, the harder it gets to keep putting up losses, but my journey is far from over. I still have a lot of goals I want to accomplish before I rest.
The triathlon is coming up.
I am still trying to get to 208.
I want to take my running to the next level.
I want to work on toning my body.

For fans of the white t-shirt, click on the pic to see every white T weigh-in photo from this year, all in one image.

1 year down, 70 more to go!

Tony
06/12: 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go

TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

I have been on Weight-Watchers for two years and celebrated today by having my 6th loss in a row. It was not a dramatic one, but every loss is big to me now. I’m only 3.2 pounds away from 50 pounds by summer (and only two weeks left to do it). My leader was ecstatic at the continued losses. However, I had also sent her a link to my post on Fatbloggers.net showing the old me and the new me and she was floored (actually, I just realized she posted a comment on that entry under “Mb”). She almost couldn’t remember the old me. She insisted I bring the old picture to the next meeting.

I have to say that I was surprised at the loss. I had not made good choices this weekend, but I guess they were tempered with the good choices I made most of the rest of the week along with getting back to working out after our trip (which reminds me that I’m still missing two days of posts on that). I did cut back on sweets, but so much that I ended up having too much on both days of the weekend when we had our normal Sabbath service and then Pentecost on Sunday (with the usual potluck).

I also hate to say that my workout buddy quit today. He said he has so much going on right now that he won’t be doing any more workouts. This saddened me and liberated me at the same time. I am no longer tied down to a specific workout time and having to coordinate workouts around meetings and conference calls between the both of us. This brings me to my next piece of news.

Starting tomorrow morning, Amy and I will be getting up an hour earlier Monday through Thursday to go workout at our respective company exercise rooms before we start our work day. This will free up our lunch time for better things (such as lunch) and it’ll keep us both sticking to a program of exercise. We’re both kinda excited and looking forward to starting tomorrow. The bonus is that we try it out for just two days this week and then we have a breather before we dive into four days a week next week.

We also got our first delivery from the farmer’s co-op we joined this past week. It made us clean out the fridge and junk some old stuff and make room for celery, two heads of lettuce, spinach, radishes, two cucumbers, four tomatoes, two bags of carrots, 4 red onions, a pound or so of yams, 6 pluots, a bag of valencia oranges, a cantaloupe, box of strawberries, and 8 bananas. It was a lot for $50 and all of it was organic and farm-raised. We didn’t have to worry about the tomatoes since we knew the source was not the same as what you got in the stores.

Which reminds me, it was interesting having Taco Bell today with no tomatoes. That was dinner after our weigh-in.

Well, it has been an exciting day and I’ve marked the day with a new photoset on my Weight-Loss Tracker page showing the latest me.

Starting weight: 319.0 lb
Previous weight: 272.6 lb
Current weight: 272.2 lb
Current loss/gain: -0.4 lb
Total loss/gain: -46.8 lb
Distance to 50: 3.2 lb
Distance to WW Goal: 22.2 lb

Cross-posted to WebCudgel.com

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Well, I was in the mountains for school last week. We actually stayed in the hotel that the outside scenes of “The Shining” was filmed at. The whole week was catered with some of the best food that I ever had. I’m sure it was very unhealthy, but i don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to feast like we did all week. I am in New York and New Jersey this week and I have been walking everywhere in some intense heat and humidity. I’m eating much better and will be interested to see if i can undo this week what I did last week. I don’t have access to any scale so I won’t weigh in. I did just want to check in though… have a good week everyone!

215! That is what the scale said this morning! A loss of ….

Hey Deja vu! No loss. No gain. I weigh exactly the same as last Friday. It’s a birthday miracle.

My lovely wife cooked up the most amazing steak dinner last night. That huge steak alone should have put me a pound up for the week. But oh man was it yummmmmmmmy

That makes three weeks without a gain. There may be something to this whole calorie counting thing!

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
05/30: 215 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
7 lbs. to go