Wishing you a Merry Christmas

Though this is not a particularly festive time of year for my family, I still wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Now I realize not everyone shares my religious beliefs. All I can say is, if you are offended by my wishing you Peace, Love, and Happiness at this time of year then I suggest you deal with it.

Saturday Weigh-In: December 20, 2008

Weight: 364.8 lbs

Total Weight Lost: 27 lbs in 32 weeks (0.8 lbs per week)

Thought I was doing well this week but in retrospect I wasn't. The recent bout of cold weather has brought an increased desire for hot food and beverages. Picked up a box of a hot apple cider drink mix that I thought would be just the thing but looking at the ingredients I see it's mainly made out of sugar. Other hot foods I've given in to the craving for this past week have included English muffins, pasta, and potatoes. All too much starch. I also still haven't really gotten into exercising like I should though with the weather it ought to be easier to get out and do it.

I'm going to work on being good this week but it will be difficult with Christmas. Saturday was the 10^th anniversary of my brother's death so my family doesn't feel particularly festive at this time of year but we'll still gather and Dad will want to go out to eat and the only place we know of that's open on Christmas Day is Brady's Landing over on the Houston Ship Channel. It's a long drive, the restaurant will be crowded, the service is usually poor, and the food on their Christmas buffet really isn't all that good despite it being rather expensive. But it will make Dad happy so we'll go and we'll enjoy each other's company and hopefully I won't do too much damage to my waist while I'm there.

Stop It, Evil Hand! Stop It!

Wednesday it snowed here in Houston and as I was standing outside, in my capacity of usher at church, watching it snow I couldn't help but be reminded of the Angel episode where Angel cuts off Lindsey's hand and then Lindsey's bosses at law firm Wolfram & Hart arrange for him to receive a hand transplant only it turns out that his new hand is evil.

What? You don't see the connection? Well, once Lindsey realizes he has this evil hand he also realizes that he can blame all sorts of bad behavior on it.

If I had an evil hand I'm pretty sure it would want to grab Stephanie Romanov's ass too.

Still not seeing the connection? Okay, it's like this. As I was watching one of Houston's extremely rare snowfalls I couldn't help but give thanks for global warming. Were it not for global warming, obviously Houston would have been in the middle of an intense blizzard rather than just receiving a light dusting of snow that kids could play in but which would be gone by morning. I'm being sarcastic for those who can't tell. I mean, all this catastrophic global warming is supposed to be going on but here we were having a slightly colder than average December.

Of course this is why global warming has been replaced by climate change. They can't accurately predict what's really going on with the climate and were starting to look foolish pushing global warming so now they talk about climate change instead. You can't count on things continuing to warm up but you can be pretty sure the weather is going to change from day to day. It's hot? Its climate change. It's cold? Its climate change. The sun is shining? Climate change. Rain? Climate change. Snow? Climate change. Like an evil hand, anything can be blamed on climate change. Me? I'm a bit skeptical of any alarmist claims that can attribute anything to a cause that can't be accurately modeled or predicted.

That's not to say that we shouldn't do something about trying to develop sources of clean energy or eliminate pollution. A clean environment is its own reward. But we shouldn't cripple our economy out of fear of a phantom evil hand that may not even be there.

Saturday Weigh-In: December 13, 2008

Weight: 383.4 lbs

Total Weight Lost: 28.4 lbs (0.9 lbs per week)

As expected I gained weight over Thanksgiving, then dropped back last week and lost more weight this week. I made a couple of mistakes this week.

Wednesday night I had dinner with my parents. Because the weather has been cold, I was craving hot food. I normally don't order pasta, except on my cheat day, but since I was going to be standing out in the cold ushering at church I thought it might be nice to have something warm and dense in my belly. As an added bonus, pasta came with a bowl of soup so that was something else to raise my core temperature. Well, the French onion soup was as good as it always is. The shrimp scampi, on the other hand, left something to be desired. It wasn't particularly hot by the time it got to the table, the pasta was overcooked, and I really didn't need the starchy carbs.

Then the next day I was at the store and saw some sea salt and pepper cashews which I decided I wanted to try. Figured it would be okay as long as I limited myself to a reasonable portion a day but wound up eating most of the package that day.

I'd also like to point out that just because you have a cheat day doesn't mean you have to cheat. Last Sunday night I wasn't feeling particularly hungry but kept thinking about what cheat I could have for dinner. Fortunately I came to my senses and wound up not having anything bad for dinner. Why stuff yourself with food that's bad for you when you're not even hungry?

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 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.

One Of Those Days

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