Gaming the system.

So after much deliberation (all right, a little deliberation), I’ve decided to go back to daily weigh-ins. The last month has not been particularly kind to me, weight-loss-wise. I think that I just have a personality that wants to game the system. In other words, I like to take the easy way out. When I only weigh in on Wednesdays, I have a habit of overdoing things on, say, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and occasionally Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays, because I have time to “make it up.”  Then, of course, I spend Monday and Tuesday scrambling to lose the weight I gained in the last few days. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.

But even if I was losing weight every week, it would still be a bad policy. It’s not a terrible thing that I’ve started relaxing a little bit about my diet; eating 1800 calories a day instead of 1500 a day is going to make things easier to maintain. But when that’s combined with several 3000-3500 calorie days, it’s no good. And I need that accountability to help me eat right, and keep going to the gym even when I don’t want to, and to push my workouts from mediocre to good. I hopped on the elliptical for an hour yesterday, and I’ve done the elliptical many times in the last 10 months. But yesterday, I pushed it to a new level. By the end, I had sweaty spots within the sweaty spots on my shirt. It felt great to kick my ass again.

I’m also getting excited about the weather turning and the clocks changing. That first week is always rough, because waking up before dawn is depressing and awful. But being able to run outside after work again is a huge relief. It’s been great having a gym membership but having nothing to see but Fox News is not great motivation to hit the gym. Even if I’m running on the same path I’ve run on a hundred times before, just being outside is enjoyable.

Speaking of running outside, I’m excited for the Urban Adventure Run I’m going on tonight. Basically, you start at a running store, and you’re given a map with a bunch of local businesses that are handing out raffle tickets, from ¼ mile to 3 miles away, then you get an hour to hit as many of them as possible and get back for the raffle, where there’s food and beer. Seriously, what more motivation do you need to get out and run?

Finally, I’m 17 days away from my second half-marathon, and the first that I’m going to attempt to run. I’m not supremely confident, if only because a combination of laziness and a nasty flu has set back my training. Still, I’m going to go 13.1 miles, whether I have to run it or walk it. I probably won’t make the pace I was hoping for when I first signed up, but I’ll have gone 13.1 miles further than I did on the last March 24^th, and that’s a win.

Not up to task.

I think I won the Super Bowl of eating yesterday.

All joking aside, yesterday was not a good day, eating-wise, for me.  I went to a Super Bowl party, and this party included a Super Bowl cookoff.  And people cooked it off, that’s for sure.  There was a ton of amazing food, and I ate all of it.  Maybe not all of it, but my share and your share and a few other people’s shares too.  And there was no good reason for it.  Not that the food wasn’t good; there were some amazing things there.  And I wanted to try all the dishes, but that wasn’t really the problem either.

The problem was that I just kept going.  I packed myself so damn full that I felt sick, and then I kept eating.  I could easily have tried every dish, had some snacks and treats, and still have avoided Fatmageddon.  But I didn’t.  I actively chose not to eat the way I should.  Now, of course, I have to really think about the answer to why that is.

I know what I should be doing.  I spent seven months doing exactly what I should and I had the results to prove it.  Since then, though, I’ve been in a holding pattern.  I’m not doing all the things that got me to 400 pounds, but I’m also not doing all the things that got me to 270.  So what’s changed?  Why don’t I seem to have the strength that I had in the beginning?

Really, I’m finding that I’m not challenging myself the way that I did before.  I could have held back yesterday, tried everything there was to try, indulge just enough to satisfy myself, and I could have felt good about it at the end of the day.  But I wanted to eat a pigs in a blanket two at a time more than I wanted to lose weight this week. That would be fine if I felt like I’m where I want to be, but I’m definitely not.  I’m getting complacent and self-satisfied, and that’s not OK with me.

This has extended to my workouts too.  I spent about a week and a half doing very little – first because I was on a trip and I was lazy, and then because I had a nasty flu that forced me to take it easy – and it’s taking a long time to get back.  I had plans for a six-mile run on Saturday and that didn’t happen.  Oh, I started running intending to run six miles, but at the two-mile mark I started walking. In the end, it turned into a relatively good workout; I alternated walking and running, walking around a quarter mile followed by running a half-mile or a mile.  But I was running six and seven miles before and to pull up at a third of that is frustrating.

The worst part is that I can do it.  I believe that I could have pushed through if I wanted to.  Part of the problem is that it only took a couple of weeks for my body to completely forget how to regulate its speed.  I can run at a ten-minute pace fairly comfortably, but for some reason when I started running on Saturday, I was pushing up to a 9:15-9:30 pace.  So I can’t say I’m too surprised that I sputtered out after two miles.

So what’s the solution?  I’ve lost 140 pounds, and I have at least 50 to go.  To do this, I have to work out a lot, eat things that aren’t terrible for me and eat a normal amount of them, and…well yeah, that’s it.  Like my favorite refrain, “Simple, not easy.”  I just need to do it.

Anyway, there is one bit of positive news to report.  I bought myself a new pair of jeans this weekend, size 38x32, which is my first pair of jeans in the 30s in at least ten years.  This is all well and good, but if I don’t get my ass in gear I’m going to be back in the 40s, and I have no interest in that.  What I want is to be closer to 200 pounds than 300 pounds.  I want to feel like I’m pushing myself, not like I’m giving less than my best. That’s going to come down to me.

Walls.

Loyal readers, you may have noticed something amiss. Something askew. Basically, I’ve been slacking about as hard as I’m capable.  Really, I’ve wasted the entire last month and it’s time to stop.

It started around Christmas. I didn’t have a great Christmas, diet and exercise-wise, which by itself is not a particularly big deal.  I lost the weight I had gained fairly quickly, and in the week after the new year I was back on track.  Then last weekend happened.  I went down to Anaheim for a work conference and I just went off the rails.  Pizza and chips and beer and liquor and all manner of other unhealthy things, along with workouts that could be described generously as cursory, led to a large gain that I haven’t even figured yet. 

Once I got home, the problems continued.  I got stuck in a deep funk, and those who know me know that I’m prone to bouts with depression.  I wasn’t in a dangerous place, just one where I wanted to hide away from the world and everyone in it.  This usually is in conjunction with unhealthy eating and a lack of any motivation.  To be fair, I did a decent job of keeping things in range, but I haven’t undone the damage yet.

Finally, my body spent the last two days holding the line before giving in this morning and letting loose a nasty chest cold/flu that has just sapped every bit of energy, except for the part of me that wants to eat.  For some reason, when I’m sick, my body either has no interest in eating or I want to eat everything in sight.  This one is unfortunately the latter.  Luckily, I have lots of good foods around that will keep me full.  A couple of recommendations: La Tortilla Factory’s high-fiber tortillas (I know, I’ve talked about these before) have only 80 calories with 12 grams of fiber and 8 grams of protein each.  And All-Bran Buds, in 1/3 of a cup, have 13 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein.  These are the foods you want to eat to get full and stay full.

Finally, I’ve decided that I’m officially stopping the daily weigh-ins.  I’ve been weighing in every day for eight months now and I’ve gotten to the point that I know what I need to do to lose weight. I may not do those things all the time, but I know what they are.  Also, I’m getting to the weight where weight loss is going to be a slower process, and I still get frustrated when I see a gain.  Those are going to happen more now, and weekly weigh-ins will keep me more sane. 

I’ve come a long way, but now comes the hard part.  I’ve hit my first wall, and if Warrior Dash taught me anything, it’s that I need help getting over walls. 

Bad, no and further.

Another holiday season has come to an end, and the question that a large number of people ask (or at least ask themselves) is, how did you do?  Did you make healthy choices?  Are you closer to or further (farther?  I never know) from your weight-loss goals?

The answer:  Bad, no, and further (farther?  Damn!).

I didn’t go off the deep end or anything, and I have some things that I can point to as successes, but by and large, I failed this holiday season.  Over the last seven months, I’ve had a fairly iron will, and my slip-ups have been isolated and short-lived.  Not this time.  I ate badly.  Not just a few bad foods, but I really just threw out every rule that I had.  I ate candy and Mexican dip and cookies and all manner of treats that I usually can resist, and my workouts were spotty to say the least.  I did work out, probably five or six times since I left for my break on the 21^st, but I can’t say that I did my best.

The most surprising thing wasn’t that I had a fall-off-the-wagon moment – those are a nearly-universal occurrence for people trying to lose weight.  What was shocking is how easily I fell back into all my bad habits.  Luckily, this time binging wasn’t a huge concern.  Eating 1500-2000 calories a day has shrunk my stomach enough that I can’t binge very effectively.  However, mindless eating was a huge problem, and eating when I had the slightest urge was an issue.  When I started adding up the calories that I was eating, it was just shocking.  Eating 3000, 4000, even 5000 calories in a day is not that difficult when you eat without thinking.  The worst part is, I know that I wasn’t eating as badly as I did when I was a fat fatty.  Then again, it takes a lot of calories to support a 400-pound body at rest, and even more to gain weight at that size. 

In the end, though, I’m not that bad off.  Despite my best efforts, I’m only 2.2 pounds heavier than I was on the 21^st, from 279.2 to 281.4.  And my terrible terrible eating means that this week should be quite fruitful on the weight-loss front.  Also, my running accomplishments have continued over the break, beginning with Christmas Eve.  As many of my readers will recall, until Thanksgiving of this year, I had never run more than a mile at any point in my life.  In addition to that, the one full mile I’d run in ten years, back in the summer, was over 11 minutes.  And I hadn’t been burning up the track.  The work is finally starting to pay off, though.  On Christmas Eve, I ran six miles in a row, and I did it in 58:58.  Not breaking any records, but that’s six miles in less than 10 minutes each. And yesterday morning, I ran my first sub-30 minute 5K, in 29:07. 

So it’s back on the horse!  The Hop Hop Half Marathon is March 24^th and I want to run the whole thing.  I know that I have some runners that read this blog, so if you have any advice on a training plan, let me know.

But now, I’m back at work, which is incredibly helpful.  I can’t say I’m happy to be back, but a scheduled workday is a hell of a silver lining.