That's how it's done, son.

My body is weird. 

Today I lost 4.6 pounds.  Tomorrow I’m sure to gain some of it back, but for today, I’m over 80 and I’ll take it!  It’s like my body just holds and holds weight and then lets it go all at once.  

Also, today I want to talk about things that are not great about losing weight quickly.  The first one is clothes.  Today I’m wearing a shirt that was too small when I bought it.  Come to think of it, a lot of my clothes were purchased when they were too small for me.  I guess I’ve always been an optimist.  However, this shirt is enormous, I was just enormouser at the time, but now since I’m merely quite large, I’m swimming in this thing.  Not only is this just weird to wear, it makes me look worse when I wear it.  I think I own two shirts at this point that actually fit me, and I must say, I look excellent in them.

So I should probably make another run to the Burlington Coat Factory this weekend and see what else I can find.  Now I’m wondering at what point I’ll be ready to shop in actual stores.  However, having been too fat for real stores my entire adult life, I have questions for people who shop in those places.  For one, where do real people shop for clothes?  One thing I know I want once I can fit into it is a Powell’s Books t-shirt, but I’m fairly sure I can’t do all my clothes shopping at Powell’s (or can I?)  One of the few perks of being a fatty is that shopping, while a horribly frustrating experience, has always been relatively simple:  I have my one or two stores that carry things I don’t hate, and I find what fits me that’s not awful.  Now that I have to start thinking about finding clothes that I actually like and that look good on me, it’s a bit overwhelming.

What clothes actually look good on me?  I have clothes that I think look all right, and I’m pretty good at avoiding looking terrible, but I have a feeling that a whole mess of options out there (or I will soon at least) that really look good.  Or maybe I’ll just make the clothes look better than I did. 

OK, enough of that.  I’ve had some people ask me: How have I done it?  I personally find the question fascinating, and I think people find major weight loss fascinating in general because there’s rarely a good answer to why it works.  I’d wager that somewhere between 100% and 100% of people that have lost weight have tried and failed in the past.  It’s hard!  Not only that, it’s really easy to slip back into bad habits.  Why?  Working out is hard, eating unhealthy food is easy, and people are generally nice and won’t tell you when you’re slipping.   So when people suddenly succeed in losing weight and keeping it off, I find it utterly mind-blowing.  But now that I’m on my way to becoming one of those people, and I’ve had more than a couple people ask me how, I want to give a good answer that’s not just made up of clichés and platitudes.

So here goes:  Losing weight isn’t easy.  However, it is simple.  Let me explain.  The numbers behind weight loss are easy to calculate (even easier with smartphone apps) and generally pretty static.  It’s not hard to know what to do to lose weight.  But it’s a lot more difficult to actually make those changes, especially if you don’t know what’s healthy and what isn’t.  It’s not hard to keep your daily calories at 1800; most of us can do math, or at least have a calculator. But what do you need to eat to make those calories count?  How can you eat 1800 calories in a way that you’re not miserable?  If you’re miserable, you’re going to fail.

First thing on my list:  Track EVERYTHING.  No bullshit; everything.  On some days, when you’re doing well, you may have no problem keeping your calories down without tracking.  But when it’s 8:30, and you’ve had a long day and what you’ve eaten just hasn’t been enough?  If you think to yourself, “It’s ok, my brain’s got this,” you might look at what you’ve eaten and think, “That feels like 1500 calories or so” and reach for something that’s going to bite you in the ass later.  If you’ve tracked your calories and you know for a fact that you’re at 1826 calories, then suddenly a few slices of cucumber and a couple tablespoons of hummus (70 calories, plus 5-8 for the cucumber) seems a lot more palatable. 

Speaking of hummus:  eat it.  Eat the shit out of hummus.  It’s delicious, it can go on just about anything savory, it’s low in calories but has healthy fats, plus fiber and protein.  Basically, I focus on three things: What is the most fat, fiber and protein I can get for the least calories?  Go to the tortilla aisle sometime. Ah, Mission Brand Multi-Grain Wraps!  Sounds delicious, and healthy.  I could wrap that around some eggs, maybe throw on a little cheddar and there’s a healthy breakfast!

Here’s the nutrition info for one wrap :

1 tortilla

210 calories

6g fat

33g carbs

7g fiber

6g protein

Not terrible, but throw on two eggs and a quarter-cup of cheddar cheese, and you’ve blown through 460 calories just at breakfast.  That being said, you throw some salsa in there, maybe some spinach and Tapatio (always welcome in my house) and you’ve got a decent breakfast that may be a little high-calorie, but still comes in at 500 calories and should be doable if you budget accordingly the rest of the day.  Still, take a look at the nutrition facts for La Tortilla Factory Smart & Delicious Large Size Tortillas:

80 calories

3g fat

18g carbs

12g fiber

8g protein

5 grams more fiber, two grams more protein, and for 130 less calories?  Try that with just one eggs, two tablespoons of hummus (I recommend Sabra Roasted Red Pepper) and two tablespoons of feta and you have a delicious breakfast for 265 calories that packs a bunch of fiber, protein and good tasty fat to keep you satisfied.

OK, so that was a long way to go to point out one example, but it’s true, check everything you buy and track everything you eat.  Next is exercise.  I’m the kind of person that gets really into this and I start working out 5-6 times a week, which isn’t always possible for people with busy schedules (it’s not always possible for me).  Now, I could say that working out is easy, or you can just go for a walk three times a week for 20 minutes and watch the pounds melt away!  Not so easy.  You have to get out and exercise.  Walking is wonderful and not to be discouraged, but push yourself.  Have you ever walked four miles?  No?  Go do it.  Today.  Find a path, map it on http://www.mapmyrun.com and go do it.  It won’t be as hard as you think and you might even want to go further someday.  When I started, the idea of walking six miles was scary.  I’ve walked 13 now.  At once.  Go work out.  Try for three hours a week.  Is that hard?  Yes.  Losing weight isn’t easy.

Now the most important part.  This is the one thing that has made losing weight a reality for me, more than anything else that I’ve done. One word: accountability.  I started my whole change (I refuse to call it a “journey”) on May 20^th of this year.  I made my first blog post on June 19^th.  I tried half-assing the accountability.  I posted my daily change on Twitter, but never my weight, and I knew that I needed to make it known that this was happening if I wanted to keep this up.  So I put my weight online.  On June 19^th, I weight 379.4 pounds.  That’s not an easy number to tell to your family and friends. But it made me think about every choice that I’ve made since then.  It would be easy to stop off at the burger place and gorge until I’m uncomfortably stuffed, if I didn’t know that the next morning, I have to step on that scale and announce to the world my weight.

So there you have it.  Track what you eat, exercise (more than a little), and be accountable.  You don’t have to do what I did.  I got the idea from Drew Magary, a writer at deadspin.  The Public Humiliation Diet is my way.  But you don’t have to announce your weight to the world.   Put it on your refrigerator.  Put it on your desk.  Make yourself accountable to yourself, if no one else. There’s no big secret to weight loss.  There’s only reasons why you haven’t.  Once you get rid of those, there’s no way to stop you.

Weight limit.

Today, for the first time in many years, I weighed under 330 pounds.  This is a surprisingly significant number for me. 

First, as you can see above, for the first time in a long time, my driver’s license is actually accurate.  In Oregon, I was actually registered with the state at 340 pounds, and when I got the Washington license, I for some reason decided that License Me had lost ten pounds, even though Real Me wasn’t sniffing 330 any more than 340. 

Second, 330 seems to be a cutoff point for a lot of things these days.  It seems that it used to be (back when it used to be odd to see a person over 300 pounds) that weight limits were set to 300 for most products.  330 seems to be the new number.  It makes me feel good that I can go buy a regular bathroom, spinny-numbers scale and weigh myself on it today.  I can also buy a Wii Fit.  Sure, I don’t have a Wii, but I could.  I’ve found hammocks, recliners, and zip line tours with weight limits of 330 pounds too. 

I’ve also been thinking about something else as it has become more and more feasible.  I haven’t been on an amusement park/fair ride (excluding Ferris wheels) since probably my senior trip to Six Flags in 2001.  I love roller coasters and other such rides.  But there’s no way that I’m getting in those lines without being awfully damn sure that that safety harness is going to fit.  I actually found a website where fat people submitted their experiences attempting to ride the rides at various theme parks that was helpful, but I still plan to wait until the ol’ State Fair next year to make my grand entrance to the ride scene.

That leads me to another question, though.  Who are these people willing to stick their pride out there and hop on into line, not knowing if you’ll fit?  I’m not asking to shame these people; I am impressed.  As a longtime fat person, I know the dread that goes into a lot of seemingly simple activities. It’s a very vulnerable position to put yourself in, and there’s no way I would have done it at 400 pounds.  I’d feel uncomfortable stepping up there at 329 pounds.

I’m also getting very close to a very good milestone.  When I reach 319.6 pounds, I will no longer be classified as Obese, Class III.  There is no Class IV.  At 6’3”, I’ll start dropping through the classes in neat 40-pound increments.  So at 279.6 pounds, I’ll reach Obese, Class I.  At 239.6 pounds, I will cease to be Obese and simply be overweight, and the pie-in-the-sky dream, which I fully admit may not be obtainable, is at 199.6 pounds, to be, for possibly the first time since my age was in single digits, at a normal weight.  Weighing under 200 pounds is an exciting thought, but so is weighing under 300 pounds.  I can’t get myself too wrapped up in the idea that there’s some weight that I HAVE to get to.  If I get under 200 pounds, great.  I should be in damn good shape.  If my weight stabilizes at 205 or 225 or 245, then I’m still miles ahead of where I was just four months ago. 

I’m miles ahead of that guy now, literally.  I have 222 miles under my belt, just from the miles that I’ve personally tracked.  I should have at least another 200 by the end of the year.  On Sunday, I’m going on a seven-mile hike with a 2800-foot gain on the way up, and while it’s going to be one hell of a workout, I’m not going to have a problem doing it.  I couldn’t say that four months ago.  I’m not at all sure that I’ve ever been on a hike before, and certainly nothing approaching seven miles.

So I may not get to that mystical number of 199.6.  But as great as my life was before I started losing this weight (it was), every day is even better (it is, and yes, you should be jealous).  It’s simple things, like discovering the place I want to go is six blocks away and being entirely OK with walking.  It’s walking up three flights of stairs and not having to catch my breath. 

Also, I’m finding that I’m enjoying working out again, but there’s a limit.  I’m starting to tire of walking and running, at least the walking and running that’s just on my own time.  I’m really excited to hike on Sunday, and I’m really looking forward to pushing myself at the gym.  I think I’m ready to switch it up.  I’ve lost 74 pounds doing the same routine, but now it’s time to diversify! 

Also, blogging won’t generally be this sparse; dealing with a back injury, being sick and work being crazy has really diminished my time for anything, especially when you throw in working out and my new commitment to eating in.  Basically, I’m super busy because I’m awesome and popular and important.  Enjoy the weekend!

Even Batman needs help sometimes.

Me before Warrior Dash:

Me after Warrior Dash:

In between I found out that I’m pretty good at most of the obstacles. I also found out that I am not good at climbing walls.

Anyway, I came through nearly the first mile doing quite well. I was running most all of it, my breath was good, I wasn’t getting winded. I was feeling great. Then came the wall. It didn’t look so bad. It was about 12 feet tall, but there was a rope with several knots in it. How hard could it be? So I grabbed on, put my foot on the foothold, and pulled.

It’s true, I’ve lost 67.6 pounds. However, that means that I still weigh nearly 340. I can assure you, that’s a lot of weight to get up and over a wall, especially when I haven’t been strength training (more on that in a minute). I was surprised by the difficulty and had to go back to the ground. At this point, I was certain that I was not going to get over this wall.

However, I was helped out by my teammates. I was able to pull myself up to the first foothold on my own, then with a big assist from the Green Lantern and Captain America (my arms were literally unable to do any more work), I got up and over the wall.

So I was able to finish the Warrior Dash, but unfortunately, it was basically a total loss as far as time went. I had exerted so much effort with my muscles that all the oxygen I was taking in was going to them. Even walking, I was breathing heavily the rest of the race.

I’m glad I finished, but there’s no question that I have got to make strength training a part of my routine. Not that I wasn’t already aware of how important strength training is in my routine, but I needed a little bit of failure to kick me in the ass. So this week it’s off to the gym to sign up for a membership. I really should do it anyway, with the winter weather on its way.

Other than that, things are good. The bounces in my weight are starting to stabilize. Each week they’ve been getting better. I’ll lose a bunch of weight during the week and then gain a bunch back over the weekend. It all started with Mancave:

8/10-8/13: +8.4 pounds
8/14-8/18: -8.6
8/19-8/20: +5.8
8/21-8/24: -9.0
8/25-8/27: +4.8
8/28-9/1: -10.0
9/2-9/4: +3.8
9/5-9/8: -7.6
9/9-9/10: +2.6
9/11: -2.2

Each weekend has been getting a little better. And that’s important. I have a goal of getting under 300 by the end of the year (by my birthday on December 10th if I can make it happen) and that’s going to take getting my weight in some sort of order. I lost my first fifty losing 10 pounds about every 18 days. The last ten took almost a month.

So it’s time to shake it up, start upping the effort, start pushing my muscles, and next year, I’ll be the one helping other superheroes over the wall.

Giddy with anticipation.

Today is my third straight day without a workout, and it feels weird. Normally, I work out about 5-6 times per week, I rarely take consecutive days off, and three in a row is nearly unheard of. But I’m taking it easy for a few days. I’ve had some knee pain in the last week and with Warrior Dash tomorrow, I need to give it a chance to recover. I haven’t been doing anything too strenuous as far as exercise goes, but the truth is, even with 65 pounds lost, I’m still dropping about 340 pounds on my joints with each step.

The good news (kinda) is that for the first time in my life probably ever, I genuinely am not enjoying not working out. Oh, back in the day I could not work out like a motherfucker! But now that I’ve cut out watching TV and eating horribly delicious food from my daily life, being a lazy fatass just is a lot less fun. So for now, I am giddy with anticipation for Warrior Dash tomorrow, and I’m sure that that giddiness will last until approximately 9:03 am, when I’m about a quarter of a mile into the Warrior Dash and I wonder who would be crazy enough to run up an enormous dusty hill on a fucking Saturday.

Also, it’s probably time that I get myself a new belt. But I’m very reluctant. This belt has stuck with me through fat and more fat. Also, it has these loops in it with metal rings in the loops (though about half the metal rings are gone now), and it was always a great benchmark of how mindblowingly fat I’d become. Now it makes an excellent measure of how sexy I’m getting. I started losing weight when I was at the fourth loop. Now I’m at the stage where the ninth loop is just a little too loose and the tenth is just a little too tight. I think I’m going to keep this guy around for a little while longer. I think he needs a name though. All good items of clothing deserve names.

Oh, and a major bummer in my lack of workoutability over the last three days has been my inability to bust out my new shoes! Yes, I broke down and bought a pair of running shoes that required more thought than “what kind of size 14 running shoes does the Payless have?”. In fact, the new shoes I got aren’t even size 14; they’re 12 ½. Are my feet shrinking? Who knows? As long as that whole “guys with big feet” thing isn’t scientifically accurate, I’m not too worried. Wait, is it? Hmm…

Oh yes, the shoes. Here’s a picture:

Aren’t they pretty? They’d better be; I paid $95 for them. Actually, $95 isn’t a bad price to pay for good shoes. The real bitch is when I had to bust out $10 for a pair of god damned socks. Socks! And now I just want to get down to the business of running a hole into them so I have to buy more damn socks. Stupid knee.

But tomorrow is Warrior Dash! I’m getting through/under/over all the obstacles if it kills me. If it does, well, it’s been good knowing you all. Donate my body to a university or something. Just don’t let some asshole 18-year-old pose me with my hand on my crotch or something. Wait, what am I saying? Totally let him do that. In fact, make that one of the conditions of my donation. Happy Friday!

Serenity now!

You know that AA serenity prayer thing? It goes kind of like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, this is not to disparage Alcoholics Anonymous (I have other reasons for that, but that isn’t germane to this issue), but I find this to be at least partially bullshit. Accepting the things that you can’t change sounds like a shortcut to slacking.

So I gained 0.6 pounds on Sunday, 1.4 on Monday, and 1.8 this morning. That’s 3.8 pounds over three days. This was a good weekend, too. I really kicked ass. I went to a baseball game on Saturday, watched a football game at a bar on Saturday night, and went to the Bumbershoot festival on Sunday. And I stayed in line. I had no more than 2500 calories on any day, I put in a hell of a workout on Sunday morning at the hotel (seriously, my shirt plopped when I dropped it on the floor afterward) and I rocked six miles yesterday morning. This leads me to believe that as far as my weight gain goes in the early part of the week, I have no say in the matter. My body seems to like losing quickly during the week and gaining less that that back over the weekend. In the end, the result is still weight loss, right?

So I could accept that. It’s very likely true that even if I had done everything right – and really, all that would entail eating less salt and drinking less beer – I would likely still have gained some weight the last few days. So yes, I could accept that and be a little easier on myself. But let’s say I do that. I accept that weight gain over the weekend is something approaching inevitable. Let’s say that over the next few days, I lose six or eight or ten pounds, and on Saturday night, I’m hungry. I’ve finished Warrior Dash, I’m feeling really proud of myself, and I’m driving by a McDonald’s.

Now I know that McDonald’s is seriously unhealthy food, at least the things I like to eat there. I also will say that I find that shit to be delicious and I would eat it always in large amounts if it would not lead to me being dead. Eat shit Morgan Spurlock, long live McChicken!

So let’s say, again, that I’m driving by this McDonald’s, and I really want something. I know that I’m likely to gain a few pounds over the next several days no matter what I do, and several months of Quarter Pounder-free living has got me craving some fast-food goodness. Who’s more likely to skip it and head home to make some fish tacos? Is it the guy that has accepted that the weight is going to be gained? Or is it the guy that says to himself: 3.8 pounds? Well fuck that. The scale can kiss 3.8 pounds of my ass because I’m losing weight this weekend. I always perform better when I have something to compete with. Even if it’s myself. Even if it’s myself and some benchmark that I’ve contrived for no other reason than to motivate me.

Anyway, otherwise things are going well. I’ve been putting a lot of miles on the new shoes, to the point that I’m planning on retiring them after Warrior Dash after only a couple of months. This is partially due to the large amount of miles I’ve put on them, partially due to the large amount of weight that they bear, partially due to the strange way I walk exclusively on the outside of my feet, and partially because they are $25 shoes. This week I’m planning a trip to the Fit Right NW for a gait analysis and a new pair of shoes that will cost more than I ever intended to spend on shoes that would be used for exercise. However, I will look more like a real runner, at least from the ankle down.