Monday, November 24, 2008

Saturday Weigh-In: November 22, 2008

Weight: 364.6 lbs

Total Weight Lost: 27.2 lbs in 28 weeks (0.97 lbs/week)

Okay, this time I'm just being lazy. It was a good week for getting back with the program. This week I'm going to try to be extra good since I'm making Thursday an extra cheat day. (Hard to be good on a holiday built around a lavish meal.)

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Saturday Weigh-In: November 15, 2008

Weight: 367.4 lbs

Total Weight Lost: 24.4 lbs in 27 weeks (0.9 lbs/week)

I haven't been doing a good job keeping up with these entries of late. It's largely because I've been feeling ashamed.

One of the challenges that people trying to lose weight face is their own capacity for denial that a problem exists. I used to work with a woman who was significantly overweight and wanted to shed some pounds. She dieted and exercised but never seemed to make any headway. The thing was, she kept a candy dish of M&Ms on her desk and every day she had to refill it with a 1 or 2 pound bag. If you suggested that the M&Ms might be connected to her inability to lose weight, she'd deny it. The M&Ms weren't the problem, she'd say, because she only ate 4 or 5 at a time. She'd go on to insist that the only reason she had to refill it every day was because other people would come by and grab handfuls. The thing was, while she might only eat 4-5 at a time, as soon as she finished those she'd reach over and grab another 4 or 5 and she'd do that all day long. Yes, other people would come by and get some candy from time to time but she was eating most of it. You can't eat a pound of candy every day and expect to lose weight. It just isn't going to happen.

In my case, I've been letting myself get into the food that I buy for my weekly cheat day. When I first started this weight loss plan, I'd only buy "single serving" size food for my cheat day. For example, I would buy a pint of ice cream instead of a half gallon and I would buy it a day or two before my scheduled cheat day. It was expensive to do that since it's always cheaper to buy in bulk but I knew if I had the food on hand, I'd be eating it all the time. As time went on, I found that I'd built up enough self-discipline that I could start buying bad food in larger amounts and yet only eat it on my cheat day.

Since Hurricane Ike, that's changed. During Ike I broke discipline because there wasn't a lot of food around and it was best to eat what was available when it was available. Then I continued to break discipline because I was eating a lot of meals with my parents and I wanted them to be able to eat wherever they wanted to eat. Since then I've found I no long have the discipline to not eat bad food if it's in the house. If I buy a candy bar to eat on Sunday, it's gone the day I buy it. Usually within an hour of my getting home from the store. So I'm returning to the early stages of my weight loss plan to reestablish my self-discipline.

This is the first week I've been back on the plan and it's been a good one. Starting next week I'm going to start forcing myself to go to the park and take walks in the morning. Rain is the only acceptable excuse for not going. We'll see how that goes.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

One Of Those Days

Today has been the sort of day that can be best summed up by this video:

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election Day

Nothing like a little election day voter intimidation...



Gee, wonder who they're voting for...

Change you can believe in.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Saturday Weigh-In: November 1, 2008

Weight: 363.2 lbs

Total Weight Lost: 28.6 lbs in 25 weeks (1.14 lbs per week)

Felt like I made some progress this week. The bagels and cream cheese are gone and I'm mostly managing to resist the temptation posed by the ice cream in my freezer. Definitely got my exercise yesterday as I helped a friend move out of a third floor apartment into a second floor apartment in a different complex. Lots of schlepping things up and down stairs. I was worried that I'd be too sore today to want to mess with cooking anything but it doesn't seem to be a problem.