I've tried to lose weight before, and here I still am. So I'm asking the people around me for help. "How can I help?" I'm sure you're asking right now. Before asking you for anything, let me spell out my side of the bargain:
- Exercise at least 5 days a week, either biking or walking. I'm open to other suggestions, too, but no running/jogging for me.
- Improve my diet.
- Post weigh-ins and exercise log on this blog at least 3 times a week to keep accountable.
"Yeah, yeah, enough about you. How can WE help?" Let me help you help me with these convenient suggestions that spell out INCITE for today's easy anagram!
- INVITE. If you'd like to join me for exercise, I'll sweat with ya.
- NAG. Remind me if you see me behaving badly. I may not smile, but I'll appreciate it.
- CHALLENGE. Intermediate goals will help keep me moving. One friend has already challenged me to lose 15 pounds before he does.
- INCENT. Yep, I'm dieting for charity - this might be my strongest day-to-day motivator. Your tax-deductible pledges will go 100% to the Judy Buffaloe Scholarship fund honoring an incredible teacher. So if you are willing and able, pledge $1/pound. Or $10/100 miles walked. Or $1/workout. Pledges can be made in a comment.
- TEACH. I promise to appreciate all advice even if I have trouble taking it.
- ENCOURAGE. Please hold me accountable, but with a spoonful of sugar on top.
This is what I'm going to do this summer (and fall and winter). Thank you in advance for helping me in any way you can.
You can click here to go directly to the main page of this blog for all of my weigh-in, exercise and food log updates. Please keep in touch so you know when to encourage/nag.
Charles, I am with you brother. 15 lbs in June.
ReplyDelete-Scott
I'm pretty sure that I lost weight by eating oatmeal on weekday mornings. It's the only thing that I changed in my diet and I lost 13 pounds (over a year). But without trying - it's something.
ReplyDeleteYay Charles! Very proud! My brother lost weight by switching to oatmeal for breakfast and by taking french fries out of his fast food meals (substitute salad or baked potato). Every little bit helps!
ReplyDeleteI'll pledge $1 per pound! Also- the only way I was ever able to establish a regular exercise routine was by giving myself one "skip" day per week. Once I had used it, I wasn't allowed to play hookey any more. good luck!
ReplyDeleteDear Charles, I'm already proud of you. :) Congrats on taking that big first step of publicly stating your intentions. Scott has been sooooo much happier since he lost weight, but before he actually did it, he had a lot of doubts it would be possible. And look at him now. If nothing else, just think, one day you can be as obnoxiously all knowing about fitness as he is. ;)
ReplyDeleteChuck, I am excited about your new quest!! I bought an exercise program for the wii and it has worked out well. It logs your activity and helps you to a goal all while working out inside on your time (not the weather's). AND if you get bored easily with exercising this program has many exercises to choose from. Also, be careful with the heat. I know I am preaching to the choir, but, please make sure to drink enough so you don't get dehydrated and not feel good. I would love to come over and exercise together sometime after work.
ReplyDeleteAs someone wise once said, "Do, or do not. There is no try." The first line in your second paragraph points to the truth in this statement.
ReplyDeleteI believe in you and that you can do this, and I will support you the best I can. What is more important is that you believe it yourself. Mentally prepare yourself for setbacks and plateaus. Remember that it is ok to fall off the track now and then, but you *have* to get back on the horse.
When I was working through my nine months of physical therapy from back surgery, I had two quotes on my journal that I looked at every day.
1) "Success is getting up one more time than you fall down." -- Unknown
2) "It never gets easier, you just go faster." -- Greg LaMonde
These may be helpful to you, maybe not. You have to use what motivates you best, but I am happy to be on the team to catch you when you fall and to help pick you back up. Visualize your success, then go make it happen... a little bit every day.
I'm so proud of you for undertaking this life-style change! (Which is really what you're doing). I know this sounds cheesy, but losing weight (and maintaining a solid weight) is pretty simply: to lose weight you burn more calories than you consume; to gain weight, you burn fewer calories than you consume. Right? Here's some sage advice I've learned while trying to find some equilibrium with my own maintaining my own weight -- and adhering to the simple weight loss rule:
ReplyDelete1) Have a Basal Metabolic Rate test performed -- this will tell you how many calories you burn while just being you during the day. As a result, you will then know how many calories you SHOULD be eating to lose weight. (Here's a place in Austin that does this: http://www.austinbariatricclinic.com/services.html)
2) Think about keeping a food journal -- this way you'll know EXACTLY when and what you're eating -- I'm a little too OCD about this, so I can't do it. But a lot of other buddies have found this very helpful.
3) Don't starve yourself to lose weight. If you eat too few calories, your body will go into starvation mode and begin to store everything you do eat as fat. And that defeats the whole purpose! Not to mention that you can't sustain that anyway -- you want to change your lifestyle, not glom onto a quick fix!
4) I know you'll hate to hear this, but you're gonna have to cut out the Slurpees, sodas, candy bars, fast food, fried food, etc. Again, you're undertaking a LIFESTYLE change here! These things are delicious but are so bad for you it's not even funny. I'm a Southern boy with a giant sweet touch, but surprisingly, I was able to drop fried food and candy bars pretty quickly. Oh! And drink water!!! You must always drink water!!! Hell, use water as a substitute for the things you normally want to munch on that are bad for you.
5) Explicitly schedule workout times for yourself. Waking up early sucks, but if you can get in the habit of waking up and doing a workout (hell, just walk around the block!) then you don't have to worry about making time in the evening (where work, friends, LIFE can sometimes interfere with your plans). Even if you can't do mornings (or miss them from oversleeping), MAKE yourself schedule a workout for the evening.
6) Try NOT to think of exercising as "Working Out". Remember when you were a kid and would run around the neighborhood all day? All of that time was "Working Out", but because it was actually fun, it didn't feel like work. You want to do the same for yourself as a grown up. Go for walks through the neighborhood, but every now and then change up the route. Hop on your bike and just start biking -- explore new areas! Sometimes you'll want to explicitly monitor yourself and that's totally fine; just try and mix things up for yourself so that exercise feels like fun and NOT work.
7) I got into the habit of weighing myself every Friday, in the morning. This way I would not become too OCD about checking weight. Also, you naturally weigh less in the morning (water loss, etc), so there's a bit of artificial reward in simply knowing that you weigh less in the morning than you would in the evening. (it's a little cheap cheat, but the whole point is building up the ego, right?)
8) Most importantly, if you can start making these things a habit/routine, then you'll start planning your days and weeks around YOUR SELF-IMPROVEMENT instead of trying to fit your self-improvement into your existing schedule. And then it's just a matter of time before you achieve the body composition you want!!!
Yay Charles! My dad, the uber science, up-to-date-on-research man says the latest is that excersize does pratically NOTHING to your weight unless you're a crazy 2 solid hours or more every single day for the rest of your life. YES, excersize is vital for health, but not as a core weight-loss plan.
ReplyDeleteThe magic is quite simple: what do you put in your mouth!
While my dad is naturally thin, he was getting a pot belly so he chose to simply leave 1/3 of food on his plate. Now people worry he has cancer because he's so trim! (aah, no, was just porky before folks, thanks for worrying.) His body is just falling apart with joints, his ankle surgery and yet he can maintain his weight because of what he puts in his MOUTH, not by having some heavy excersize routine.
My only starter tidbits are:
1 - go a week, or two, without all the bad stuff. It is shocking how changing your palette for even that short of time can alter how "good" the bad food tastes or how well it sits in your body
2 - any bad food you want to eat, consider if you REALLY love it or if it's "just good." If you're going to eat a cookie, make it an unbelievablly good one to you. Otherwise you are just eatting "happiness-free cookies" and why do that!?
3 - the 8 glasses of water a day is a proven MYTH. Definitely stay hydrated but if your pee is clear, you're fine!
4 - you will need to eat MORE NOW than you will IN A YEAR. Weight Watchers knows this and they give fatter people more daily points at first... as you lose weight you eat less.
5 - Fiber is your friend! Seriously. Fiber is one of the magic compenents to eating well but feeling full.
6 - take a cooking class with Laura and learn how to make _DELICIOUS_ food. "healthy food" is boring, but DELICIOUS food that happens to be healthy? That's a goal to reach :)
7 - learn your trigger points. Mine is being hypoglycemic. If I wait too long, I have limited brain capacity to make any decision, let alone a good decision! Another trigger point is when you want to splurge - either from a stressful day at work, holidays, feeling down. Plan ahead for a non-food way to get out the stress.
8 - do not get rid of Slurpees. Figure out how to add that in a new, healthy life. Anything is possible but lifelong deprivation of an obsession is hardly worth it. It's not like Slurpees are cigarettes!
-Elizabeth Thomas
Charles,
ReplyDeleteGood luck! A couple of thoughts for you...
1) While I do not endorse 'fad' dieting, the concept of cutting out carbs (including sugars) for two weeks that provides the basis for the South Beach Diet had an intersting side effect for Dan & me when we gave the diet a try a couple of summers ago...after a few weeks without my regular sugar intake, many sweet things that I started to re-introduce into my diet just tasted 'too sweet' and I found I didn't want them or could do with less. It was a bit of a personal re-calibration, which I found served me better over the long haul than the whole program (which we did not stick out past the summer, but which did have lasting impacts as to some of our lifestyle reductions of 'excess' carbs).
2) There are two books that I adore that made me re-think my relationship with food (incidentally, both are non-diet books): Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food & Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. They have nothing to do with dieting and everything to do with our relationship with our food and food sources. My most successful food/lifestyle changes have been based on concepts echoed in these books rather than any 'diet' (I am terrible at sticking to artificial parameters).
Warmest Wishes,
Filicia
Accountability is a great motivator, Charles, and you are blessed with friends to help you on your way. My only advice is one I stumbled upon a few years ago - some foods are very high in sugar. Try eliminating corn, potatoes, and carrots from your diet. Yes, even raw. See if that gives you a boost away from overeating and craving sweets, especially sweet drinks. Also, drinking 8 glasses of water may not help you lose weight but it does help you have healthier skin so drink away - good water tastes great!
ReplyDeleteAnd search the scriptures. There are verses there to help strengthen your resolve. Memorize them and when you are tempted repeat them to yourself. Positive reinforcement, you know.
I'll be praying for you.
So, how is your first week going so far??
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Amalia - this is just the first post. You can click here to go to the main page with all of my weigh-in, exercise, and food log updates. I'll add a link to the bottom of the post too, for anyone else who might be confused.
ReplyDeleteThe first week has been great. Lost 11.6 pounds from Monday morning to this morning, have worked out every day (4 of 5 if you don't count bowling), and my eating has been pretty controlled. All made possible with everyone's support.
Thanks to everyone for your comments! I've been considering all of them, and will definitely reply this weekend.
Charles,
ReplyDeleteGood idea! I'm in for $1/pound. I'd recommend nikeplus - it's an attachment for an ipod that works as a step/calorie/mile counter. You can view your results and challenge yourself online. Check out http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/. I can bring mine into work if you're interested.
- Joe
Charles,
ReplyDeleteYou can do it! Losing weight is a challenge for me right now too. I have found sparkspeople.com to be a great motivator and it has lots of free resources. I also love me WII and have found EA Sports a challenge for me. Good luck!
I will be watching your blog and pledge $1.00 a lb for your charity.
Great job on your success so far.
Rachel (Barrett) Schmidt
Charles,
ReplyDeleteI'm in. I'm excited about your blog and your program.
Whitney and I pledge $1/workout. Bowling totally counts.
See you soon!
Andrew
Challenge: I'll lose 10 pounds before you lose... We'll have to figure out the time line that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteIncent: $2 per pound plus a $100 bonus if you hit your goal.
Let's do this thing, Charles. First, you and I will work out a walking program to take place before, during or after work. Second, Jonibeth and I are in for $3 per pound on total weight loss (starting weight: 360) at NOON on December 31st.
ReplyDeleteCharles - good luck. Put me down for $1 / #.
ReplyDeleteBrandon
Thank you everyone for your support! I'll address a few bigger questions (notably skip days and goal-setting) in separate posts, but wanted to reply to a couple of comments:
ReplyDelete1) I used to eat oatmeal every morning, and the nutritionist told me that I needed protein for satiety - hence the usual peanut butter toast. I did like oatmeal, though - will definitely dip into it to increase variety.
2) I'm not getting absolutely rid of anything in particular, just making the daily routine include more good things. There will always be occasions for Slurpees, cookies, and candy bars - the occasion just doesn't have to be every week. I'm actually trying to avoid negative rules for now - they make me want to test and/or break them. I've never lost enough weight to hit a "plateau" - when I do I will definitely look at tighter systems to progress.
btw thanks to the continued generosity of friends and coworkers, I'm up to $17/pound plus $1/workout as of tonight, with $875 pledged when I hit my goal. That's more awesome than I can say. Thank you everyone!
Well now my friend.
ReplyDeleteYou've been receiving lots of advice already. Glad to know you're working with a nutritionist. That's important. Instead of advice right now I will just say: Whenever you get those shoes on, you win. Whenever you step outside, it's a Victory. Hardest thing to do is to just show up. You do that, everything else is gravy.
To that end, Kat, Avery and I pledge $1 per pound lost. Furthermore, if you reach your end-year goal of 75 lbs, we'll match. Keep the faith my friend.
If that doesn't motivate you, imagine your every step out there smashing my face on the ground...sweet...
Steve