Just a little less than a year ago, I was a man with a plan and a goal. Starting at 323lbs, I wanted to get myself in shape, live healthier, and actually pull my life together. Over the course of 6 months, I succeeded in every aspect, losing 40lbs and getting down to 283lbs!! I was feeling good about my life and the direction I was going. Then the weight loss stopped coming. I hit a serious plateau, and with the holidays approaching, my diet and goals fell quickly by the wayside. Over the 6 months since, I’ve tried to get back on the wagon. Each time, I soon lost the will and the reasoning to keep going.

I had excuses – too busy to concentrate on the diet – I’m too stressed out to diet … I just didn’t care anymore. In recent weeks, I’d hit rock bottom and I knew it. I started eating at levels WELL beyond what I was doing before I even started the diet…. sometimes having what would easily qualify as 2 or 3 meals at a single sitting. In 6 months, I’ve gone from 283lbs ballooning up to my current weight: 302.5. That’s an almost 20lb gain – regaining nearly half the weight I lost the first time!

This lifestyle comes to an end TODAY! I’m officially relaunching the site. I’ll be posting daily updates to what’s going on and how I’m doing on the journey. I’ve also started a Twitter account specifically for the new journey – you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/FatGuyonaDiet. There you’ll get a more up to date and recent look at the progress I’m making. It’s also where you’ll find me posting and discussing meals as I have them.

So join me, once again, as I begin my journey to lose the weight that’s held be back all these years!!

The last two weeks or so were crazy enough to do what I felt was the impossible, they knocked me off the wagon.  With being sick, all of the election preparations, and various other stress, I fell completely off the wagon and started going back to my old ways.   I didn’t get really bad until about a week ago, but I entered into what I’ve called “The Great Binge of 2008″.  Today, that’s over, and I’m 100% commited to getting back on the wagon and getting my life back in order.   There’s going to be several changes to the site that you will see over the next few weeks.  I’m currently working on a new design, and I’m looking to get that set up pretty soon.  I’m also going to work on beefing up the additional content for the site.  The major change is going to be the reorganization of the weeks.  Friday is now going to be “Weigh-In” day, as well as “Free Day”.   This will allow me to work hard to get to Friday for optimal loss, and not have just come off the weekend and doing my weigh-in.

So, to get this started, I wanted to get a measure of the damage I did over the last two weeks.  Sadly, the damage was immense, and weeks worth of progress was lost in a matter of days!  It’s truly amazing how much the body can begin to store when you don’t eat properly.  It’s really easy to yo-yo when you aren’t watching every single thing you eat!!  I did my weigh-in this morning, and I was at 289.6lbs!  That’s an increase of about 6lbs since my last weigh-in!  There was one diet reason I did this, though I’m starting to have doubts as to whether it will work or not.  I convinced myself that by taking an “off-week” it would allow my body to switch back into “garbage” mode, and once I start up the regiment again, things will pour off as though I’m just getting started again.  It could still work, though I’m not sure if there was enough damage done to cause that to happen.   We’ll see over the next week or so.

So, that’s about it for now… winter is now approaching, and it’s more important than ever for me to get out there and keep active.

I broke it!  The official weigh in as of this morning is 287.2, a 2.8lb drop from last week!  That’s a pretty good return from the extra effort I put in, and I’m really hoping I can keep up that level for at least a month or two.  I really would like to get down to about the 260 level for Christmas.  So, in 16 weeks, I’ve dropped 35.8 lbs.  I’m proud of that, though I’m aiming to lose another 25 in just under 10 weeks.  That’s going to be a serious push, and I’ll have to work hard in order to make that goal.  That would put me at about 2.5lb/week.  I know I can do it, and I’m sure the extra push at the gym will get me the results I’m looking for.  Once I get to that goal weight, I’ll continue the push into the new year.   Keeping up that level of loss, I should be able to drop 70lbs before my birthday.  That would get me a bit short of my overall goal, but still to a very respectable 190lbs, well within range to be able to ride a rollercoaster comfortably!  If I can do better, by golly that would be great.

I’m not sure if it’s even possible to hit my original target of 165-170… though it might be as I continue to push myself harder in the gym.  I just don’t want to set up unrealistic goals and then be dissapointed when I don’t even come close.   I know I can pull at least 10lbs a month… I will put forth the extra effort to see that it happens!!

Lately, I’ve heard about people looking to other methods of weightloss.  I’ve got friends that are looking to get the lap-band surgery, or that may be looking towards certain weight-loss medications to accomplish their goals.  While I cheer and applaud anyone that’s looking to lose weight, I truly don’t believe in the idea of taking a shortcut to get there.   If I had gotten lap band, I don’t believe I would have built up nearly the the level of willpower that I currently have.  It’s not unbreakable, but I’ve been able to resist some pretty major tempations over the last few months.   If I’d taken any shortcuts, I would feel that I’ve done less than I could have for the same results.   The weightloss would be amazing, but I wouldn’t feel as though I actually “worked” for it, almost as if it was a gift given to me.  I know if that was the case, I wouldn’t feel the need to stick with it nearly as much, and In the end, I would just end up being one of the people that puts it all back.  I cannot… I will not ever let that happen!  I’ve worked too hard so far to look back, and once it’s all gone, I will never get back to where I was previously.  What I’ve done is a lifestyle change, and it’s one that I’ve been completely happy with so far.   I love the fact that I want to get out more and experience the world.  I’m actually somewhat saddened that winter is soon approaching, and it will be too cold for most outdoor activities.  My patience will pay off though, and by spring, I should be more than ready to get out there and start finding everything I’ve missed.

I’ve also noticed that several others have started taking up the torch, either dieting or becoming more active in their personal lives.  Some have taken up tennis, started going to the gym, started eating healthier and living overall healthier lives.  I want to encourage them to continue on, as well as to look for other options to keep the energy flowing.

In closing, once again, I just want to thank everyone for their support.  Everyone has played a small part in my success so far.  I just want to encourage everyone to join me and live a healthy, active lifestyle.  The more people that join, the easier it is to stick together and work together to meet all of our goals for health.

Since day one on this diet, one of the major issues I’ve found has been tracking down actual calorie values for many major restaurants in the area.  Either the restaurant doesn’t want to divulge this information, are reluctant to divulge this information, or just have never gathered this information before because it wasn’t a requirement.  Even if they HAVE this information, nine times out of ten, you have to go to their website or other places to find this information, and it’s rarely available at the restaurant itself.    I discovered last night that New York recently passed a law requiring restaurants that have more than 15 locations to have the nutritional information available, posted on the menu itself!  Not on a website, not on a sheet of paper, or a seperate health menu, but right there for the world to see!   When you walk into a Quiznos, for example, you’ll see the calories listed right along side the rest of the menu items, on the big board that you order from.  You can clearly see what you are doing without the need to “look things up”, or do your research before going in to a restaurant.  In my opinion, THIS is the way we should be doing things in this country.   I believe when consumers are presented with this information readily, they will make much better descisions about what they eat.  They’ll see that burger is over 1100 calories, and they’ll consider that before ordering the extra large fries for an addtional 500 calories and large drink for another 300 on top of that!!  I strongly believe that America will become a lot more health conscious, and it will also make those of us watching what we eat feel much more comfortable going into a place we’ve never been before… knowing exactly what we’re getting into!

If you want to find out more information about this new law, and what you can do to have it passed in your state, visit the Center For Science in the Public Interest’s website.    There you can see additional examples of menus posted in New York.  You can also have a pre-written letter sent to the governor of your state, requesting such a law be made in your state as well.  Please pass this on to anyone and everyone that may be interested.   Hopefully if I can get this grassroots movement started, we can all lead healthier and happier lives!

Image provided by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Years ago, I tried doing the “diet blog”.  At that time, I called it Phat2Phit.  I didn’t stick with it at all, and after the first day, I really never went back to it.  I see it as being my first failed attempt before I made the move with this site.  The diet plan sounds interesting, though I’m not sure if it would have worked in the long run.  I was definately cutting down calories, but I’m not sure if I would have been doing enough to actually make a large dent.  One thing I was going to do was a TON of exercise.  That never happened either.   Interesting read… check it out if you want to know my mindset from about 2 years ago.

Phat2Phit

Day 60!?  Wow.. just 305 left until the 1st year anniversary of the diet.  Hehe. Yeah, I know, that’s looking a bit far out.  I’m just wondering where I’m going to be 6 months or 10 months from now.  Will I have hit my goals?  Will I still be working towards it?  Will I be worse off then I was even before?   We’re slowly creeping up to month 3, so I’m going to start reflecting on what’s happened so far, and  I’ll probably do so over the next day or so.  Needless to say, I’m very proud of myself for getting this far, and I in NO WAY am looking back or regretting taking this path!  The diet has been a complete success, and I’m looking forward to moving ahead and getting the remaining 135lbs off of my body!

One thing I’m most proud of is the inspiration that I’ve given to several others.  They’ve seen my dedication and progress, and have themselves made the move into a healthier lifestyle.  The first was Jason.  He saw what I was doing with this site and made the move to start his own site, aptly named “Fat MAN on a Diet“.   One of the things I’ve tried to make it a point of doing is overall “healthier” eating, rather than just low calorie or low fat.  Jason, on the other hand, tends to go out and experiment more with the food that he consumes.   This, in turn has given me additional options and ideas, so he has in a way influenced me somewhat.  The master becomes the student, I guess.   Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

The other person I would like to call out is Joanna.  While she’s MUCH more physically fit than I can ever hope to be, she has also taken many steps to get into better shape.  She’s always eaten somewhat healthy, but she’s ramped up her activity level considerably.  She more than anyone has inspired my goals for the next month, and that’s ramping up my physical activity level as well, though I’ll go more into that in a later post.  She has inspired me to keep going, and put forth that extra 20 or 30 percent.  She has also started a blog, which you can find here. It has been fun tracking her journey and cheering for her along the way.

More than anything, I just want to encourage everyone to let them know that this CAN be done!  Weight loss and having a healthy lifestyle is not difficult to do.  I haven’t even started the fitness portion, and I’m already feeling 1000 times better than I’ve felt in years.   I just want to stress that anyone can do this!  It just takes the right amount of willpower to fight the urge to eat foods that aren’t the best for you!   Whether you need to lose 5 lbs or 500… just look at your next meal and think to yourself “Is this good for my body?”  If you answer no, just find something that is!   You can eat and be full.. you just need to eat the right things.

If I had to give one single tip, it would have to be “frozen vegetables”!  I know not everyone likes their veggies, but they are absolutely loaded with important vitamins and minerals.  On top of that, a bag of frozen broccoli is only 120 calories!   Yes, that’s for an entire BAG!  Just have one of those with a smaller meal, and you are completely set!

Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up for now.  I just wanted to thank everyone so far that has been supporting me, and congratulate all of those that have joined me on this quest.   We’ve been going down this road for quite some time, but the end is still nowhere in site.  There’s still quite a bit of adventuring left to do, and I’m looking forward to pushing on, and seeing where this road takes us!

UPDATE:

3PM – Added link to Joanna’s blog.  Now you can track her progress and cheer her on as well!

I just read a story about Micheal Phelps in the New York Post.  It seems in order to keep up his energy levels, he’s consuming massive amounts of food.  Kinda reminds me of the Flash.   This is a sample of his typical day’s diet:

Phelps’ diet – which involves ingesting 4,000 calories every time he sits down for a meal – resembles that of a reckless overeater rather than an Olympian.

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase “Breakfast of Champions” by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread – capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs – what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen – with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

According to the Post, that’s a total of 12,000 calories in a single day! That’s nearly 8 times what I’m currently having per day and probably 3 times what I used to consume before my diet. This just goes to show you can definately eat all you want if you’re going to burn right through it. Maybe I should become an olympic swimmer! Just a thought….

It’s been a week since my last post.  The past week has been probably the most stressful that I’ve had in a long time for several reasons.  Between working with a dear friend to get their website online to house/pet sitting for my friends while they were out of town.   Work was especially crazy, as it seemed every time I had a few moments to myself, another fire would show up, and I’d be pulled in 12 directions at once!   In the end, everything in life was more important than my blog, so it had to be cut.   So, the question of the hour, is what happened?  Did I stick to it?  Will I post the last week!?   The answer to both is unequivocally, yes.   The last week, I’ve found some of the first major challenges to the diet.   I also varied things up a little more and went a little heavier on the calories and fat for some meals than I have done previously.   The biggest issue was not being home and being well outside of my comfort zone.  Frying up chicken breasts on the Foreman grill wasn’t an option, and my cereals were all left behind.  In their place, I resorted to frozen food, breakfast bars, and watermelon from QuickTrip.   On Friday, I had a pretty heavy free-day… culimating in an awesome dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with a friend.     The other issue was being in that situation with lots of different restaurant choices glaring at me constantly.  Each and every day, I wanted to go to WingStop or any of my old favorites that I used to visit regularly when I lived in St. Charles..   this was by far the most difficult of all trials.  In the end, I survived and am happy to report the official weigh-in for this week comes in at 302.5!! It’s not a great drop.. but it’s still coming off!

So, what did I learn from this week:

• The blog is everything! One of the things from this past week was to see how well I did without tracking everything I ate.  I know for a fact I probably didn’t do as well as I normally do.  I’ve got all the photos of everything I ate, and they will be posted,  though it will take some time to backfill the posts.   In the meantime, I’m going to post from today forward, and it will be done ON TIME!   If I don’t post, I’m not holding myself accountable.  I’m not allowing you, the reader, to hold me accountable.  That’s the entire purpose.  To look back over the day and see exactly what it is I’ve eaten.  Seeing it, right there in living color, is one of the greatest deterrants that I’ve got to prevent overeating.  Eating a huge plate of pasta and then having it haunt me through the blog for weeks after keeps me from eating out of my range.
• Stress needs to be managed: Stress this past week really pushed me to consider going back to my old ways.  I was extremely overworked and overtasked and I wanted nothing more than a Big Mac to make it all go away.  In the end, I kept the Big Mac away and was able to manage my eating pretty well.   WingStop is still calling me, even as I write this!   Overall, I need to prevent my life from taking control and ruining everything I’ve worked towards.
• I need to have options: When I packed for my stay at my friend’s house, I grabbed a few items and picked up others at the grocery.   I blew through those supplies quickly, and some I found I didn’t even want.  That left me looking for other alternatives that just didn’t exist.  I find that I need to have alternatives, or I’m just going to turn to the dark side and have everything I’m not supposed to be having.   This will not end well!
• My scale is my best friend:  Not having that daily or semi daily check of my progress kept me in the dark about how I was doing.  Usually by mid-week I can see where I’m going and make adjustments.  This week, I had no such system and was flying completely blind.  When I take my trip to New Orleans for labor day, I’ll be sure to bring my scale along.  This will keep everything nice and consistent.  I’ll also be sure to bring it with me next time I’m staying away from the house for more than a day or two.

Overall, progress was made, though it was a difficult journey.   I just have to make sure to stay on top of the posts… I can’t get more than a meal or two behind.   I definately can’t leave everything for the next day, or I’ll never get done!   I’ll catch the last week up, but it might take all of this week to do so.  Just keep an eye out and it’ll show up soon!    Thank you for sticking with me during this journey!

After weeks of consideration, I decided I wanted to mix things up a bit more!  The “Office Space” diet has been working great, but with some of the fluctuations in the last few weeks, I’d been worried that just watching calories was not enough, and perhaps I should be looking at fat as well.  If I was going to try something different, I thought I’d go for something that was still balanced that would fit the diet I’m currently doing without changing much.  In the end, I decided Weight Watchers was the way to go.  I’d done Weight Watchers years ago, so firing up the old account was pretty simple.  Using my old information gave me insight into where I was last time I tried Weight Watchers.   I started originally at 304 lbs on 6/8/2002.  That’s just about 2lbs under my weight this morning of 306.2!  By the time I’d stopped doing Weight Watchers a month later, I had gone down 15lbs,  down to 289lbs!!  What’s odd is I picked the diet back up almost 6 years to the date that I stopped.  Also, I’ve made more progress in the one month following this diet than I did back in 2002.  That time I lost 15lbs in one month.  This time, I’ve done just over 16!  The sad part, as I’ve said before, is that I’m not even to my previous starting weight.. and there’s so much further I need to go.

For those of you unfamiliar with Weight Watchers, they’ve got a “Flex Points” system that I’m going to be using.  This system allows you to eat pretty much anything you want!  Depending on your height, age, and weight, you are allowed so many points per day to spend on food.  My starting point level is 42.  That means I’ve got to spend 42 points total per day eating various foods.  Weight Watchers also allows up to 35 “Bonus Points” to spend throughout the week.  This can be used a little each day for something special, or you can save them for a special occasion where you know you’re going to go a little crazy.  This is their answer to the “Free Day”.  35 points is not much though… so I can’t go wildly crazy.  At 12 points each, that’ s just 3 Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supremes… something I used to eat 2 of easily. 

Now, just because I’ve got points to spend, it doesn’t change how I’m going to diet.   I’m still aiming to eat healthier and better foods, this just adds another layer onto the rules as well as giving me some rules set for “Free Day”.  Using the 35 points, it gives me pretty much a single “Free Meal” that I can have whatever I want.   Sounds pretty exciting!   So, keep an eye on my points…  maybe this might be something that would interest you in your dieting endeavours!

You may have noticed a new design for the site that popped up yestereday.  I’m pretty happy with it, though 90% of it is just a template that I downloaded.  The logo, however, is all mine.   I’ve also got 3 new sections for the blog:

• The Road to 323 – This details my life up until the day that I started the diet.  It’s got photos to show me going from somewhat thin to one of the worst photos I’ve ever taken.
• Progress Photos – Definately not the most flattering photos that I’ve ever taken, but I need to display the changes that are going on.  I’m going to keep the current photos at the top always to serve as a comparison to the most recent photos.
• Progress (Pass Req) – These are my more private progress photos.  No, not that bad… but nothing I want out into the complete open public, or else I’ll never live them down.  Basically, they are the same as the other progress photos, but without a shirt.  If you are interested in seeing these, please send me a request, and I’ll forward you the password.