Saturday, I did great all day – eating light and keeping everything in check. Saturday evening, I went with some friends to see Iron Man. My friend recommended hitting a Bar-B-Que place before the movie and I thought it would be like Bandana’s or Super Smokers. Not the healthiest, but I could just get meats and veggies. Boy was I wrong. First, it was mostly BBQ sandwiches. Alright, so I got a bun, not TOO bad. The next problem was the “healthy” sides were unavailable – so I ended up getting mac and cheese and corn bread. Then I ate it all… every single bit. What’s worse: it didn’t taste good at all! If I was going to cheat, I sure wish I’d gotten something I actually enjoyed. Afterwards, we went to see Iron Man, and that just made the whole experience worth it! Great movie – highly recommend it to everyone.

Sunday – I’m back on track, 100%! I ate healthy, and even spread my meals out to several smaller meals. I spent most of the weekend working, so I really didn’t have time for exercise. It’s definitely something I need to work on.

So, this morning, I got on the scale, terrified at how my indiscretions were going to hurt me. I thought for sure I was going to see weight gained since my weight in last week. My estimate was about 313-314lbs, and it really scared me that I would put myself back that much. So, I stepped onto the scale, closed my eyes and didn’t want to look. Eventually I convinced myself that I would have to look, so I peered down, and saw it read 309.0! That’s a 2.8lb loss for this week!

I’m not sure how it happened, and I really don’t know how to explain it. I weighed myself last on Friday morning, and I was still plateauing right around 311.2, so I was already afraid of no loss at all. Adding on the crap I ate from over the weekend, I thought for sure I was going to gain. I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn’t the case at all.

So, what happened? Right now, I’ve got one theory I’m considering, but it could be completely wrong – I’m eating WAY too little. Everything I’ve read says that I should be having about 2000-2200 calories a day for safe, healthy weight loss. I’ve been aiming much lower than that – 1200-1500/day. Day’s 700-800 calories short of where everyone says I should be. So I guess the question is, should I raise my caloric intake to the recommended levels? It could be my body is in starvation mode and is fighting me left and right to hold on to whatever it gets. Giving it a little extra seems to have helped burn off a little extra. Please tell me your thoughts about this in the comments, I’m really curious to know what you all think.

So, updates! I finally broke the 20lb mark this morning, coming in at 311.8lbs! Still, progress has been MUCH slower than I want, so I need to switch things up. How I’m going to do that has yet to be decided, but something’s got to change. The one thing I will NOT be doing is DROPPING my caloric intake. I’ve had a few people say I should, but I think doing so would actually do more harm than good. I’ve also had several people say to cut back on the carbs. That, I’ve also taken strongly into consideration. In fact, that MIGHT be the one direction I actually take things. The problem with doing that is the level of carbs that I do get each day. I haven’t been tracking, but my meals have all been carb heavy. Subway is mostly bread. BreadCo is mostly bread – nearly ALL of my meals have had a major carb element to them. Could the carbs be hampering my efforts? No real way to tell, besides giving up most of my carbs. That would mean switching up meals and having more produce than bread. This COULD be a good thing, but it will definitely be a more expensive thing as well. Subway especially has helped a LOT with the budget. $5 for lunch and have water back at the office. I really can’t beat that anywhere I look! I’ll need a way to have lunch out without killing my budget. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

So, this weekend, I did some swimming! I’m not going to say I did laps or anything, but I did swim across the pool a few times. Even had a few races as well! Most of the time was spent just treading water, so nothing too heavy. However, I did spend quite a bit of time doing my own flavor or water calisthenics. What that consisted of was utilizing the resistance of the water to get in some resistance training. The primary one was getting to where my head was JUST above the water, have my arms extented out with my hands cupped so that I was like a T. I would then bring in my arms and “clap” my hands under water. I would then turn my hands the other way, and move my arms back into their original position. I would try to do this as quickly as possible so that there was QUITE a bit of resistance against my arms and hands. After about 20 reps, I could feel the burn, and it felt AWESOME! I did about 5 sets of these each day this weekend.

The other thing I did was underwater crunches. For this, I would start off in a standing position. I would then bring up my knees to my chest and bring my elbows in towards my stomach, getting as tightly into a ball as I can. This was all very low impact, but once again, I felt the burn. I did about 5 sets of 20 reps for these as well.

I was feeling awesome after accomplishing this. It’s actually gotten me considering hitting the pool at the gym again. Maybe not for the swimming in general, but if only to do those two exercises. Actually, mix those with the cardio from swimming, and I think I might have a plan for success. The one negative is there’s only 3 swimming lanes at the gym, and they’re almost always being used. :-/ Times like this, I wish I had my own private pool!

Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up for now. I’ll have the video posted later this evening. I’ll have it up online here once it becomes available.

Thanks again for all of your support and well wishes! I’m not going to let you down!

When I woke up on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was down to 314lbs. That inspired me more than anything else to really push to eat well all day Sunday. I started off with oatmeal mixed with vanilla protein powder and a cup of skim milk. A little later, I decided to have some toast with spray butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. For my late lunch (almost 3PM), I stopped by Subway and had my usual – Foot long Oven Roasted Chicken with all the fixings. I figured eating as late as I did, I might be able to squeeze by without having dinner later in the day. I was successful in that endeavor, and that kept my total calories for the day down to under 1200. I was pretty confident that when I stepped onto the scale this morning, I would have dropped another pound, giving me my 5lb goal for the first time since the beginning. Unfortunately, I think dropping my calories SO much went against me, and my body decided to hold onto everything it got instead. So, instead of losing, I actually gained a pound. Not going to complain about it, but it was actually a bit discouraging.

So, this begins a new week, and technically the 2nd month of my new journey. I’m down 17lbs (not the 25/month I’d hoped), but still a respectable loss. And I really didn’t give up much over the last month. I cut out soda cold turkey, and just watched what I ate, avoiding as much processed food as possible. If I can pull another 17lbs the next 30 days, that would put me right about the 10% mark in the middle of May. My minimum goal is to have reached my PREVIOUS weight loss by the time my birthday rolls around. That would put me at 283lbs by early July, a total loss of 49lbs, or 32 that I have left to go. Ultimately, I’ll exceed that number, but if I can’t lose another 32 by then, I’ll be VERY disappointed!

So, it’s a new month – a fresh start once again! Goals for this month are to get the exercise program started. Can’t say I’m going to push myself to my limits, but I’ll at least make it into the gym regularly. Right now, I’m just going to be pushing cardio. I need to burn the fat, and that’s the way to do it. Maybe in a month or two, I’ll ramp up to weight training, though that most likely won’t happen until I hit about 60lbs of loss total. Other goals are to try and post more frequently. I can’t promise daily updates, but I’ll get as close as possible. I’m also looking to possibly put together a weekly podcast, probably teaming up with my old friend Fat Man on a Diet. Lots to look forward to in the upcoming weeks and months!

So, what’s new?   Well, the official weigh-in was this morning.  I came in at 318.4, only down another pound from the previous week.  Yes, it’s good, but not the results I was looking for at all.  I’m convinced my eating habits have greatly improved, and the fact that I haven’t had soda in a month is a true accomplishment that I’m very proud of.  But is it enough?   It seems the better I do with eating healthy, the less weight I lose.  Yes, I could starve myself and cut down to less than 1000 calories, but I think I’d be doing myself more of a disservice by going that route.  My biggest fear is massive loss of muscle mass.  I’m sure I’ve already done harm in that direction, but dropping my calories TOO much would only do more damage than good.  So, what’s a fat guy to do?

Well, there seems to be only one option remaining: exercise!  The problem is, I’m already maxed out with work, to the point where I don’t really have time for much else in my life at this time.  Even my biggest addiction, television, has taken a beating because of my career.  Sure, I usually have the TV on while I’m working, but I haven’t been paying attention to it NEARLY as much and have missed quite a few details in several of the shows.   Lately, it just seems like I’m working around the clock, trying to find ways to generate extra revenue.   Now, with my 3rd job FINALLY looking to take off – free time is going to become less and less available.

The solution – prioritize.   I need to find out what’s more important to me?  Is it my health or my career?   One is going to have to take a backseat to the other.  If my health isn’t up to par, then the career is unnecessary – so the choice is pretty obvious.  I need to spend at least one hour per day on exercise.  That might be a visit to the gym, or using workout tapes at home.  Either way – one hour PER DAY will be dedicated to exercise.  At first I’m going to aim for cardio.  I need to burn the fat more than anything else.  Once I get below 300, I’ll start concentrating on weight training.

So, for the time being, I think I’ll have to cut back on the work and studying.  Usually I spend about 2-3 hours on that, but that’s going to have to drop to one hour max each night as well.  I’m not going to cut back on my sleep in order to make more time.  I’ve actually enjoyed getting to bed about 10:30 each night and waking up for 7 – giving me over 8 hours of sleep total.  I think the extra sleep has been extremely beneficial and has reduced my actual stress levels considerably.

That does bring up a point though, the sleep HAS helped with the stress, but the stress ITSELF has been higher recently than ANY other point in my life.   I usually sit back and let life take me where ever it may, but recently I’ve been working to forge my own path in this world, and that’s been like fighting an uphill battle.   The stress alone might be a MAJOR player in my current battle as it is a major factor in the body holding on to excess fat.   Could it be my career that is fighting against me in more ways than one?   Definitely something I should consider further.   Either way, exercise IS the direction I’ll be going!

Finally, what’s up with the site?  Fat Guy on a Diet is one of SEVERAL sites that I run, but it’s the only blog format site that I maintain regularly.  I’m always learning new tools and technologies, and recently came across a new WordPress theme called Thesis.  Thesis isn’t a theme in the general sense, since it doesn’t provide this really nice look and feel with little developer work.  However, it provides a toolset for developers to build on to and allows for a very clean and consistent look and feel while being SEO friendly, and having VERY clean code displayed to the end user.  Yes, I know, it’s a lot of techobabble for a lot of you!   I’m working to redevelop the site using thesis and things were coming along nicely, but I was pulled in a different direction for a few days, and the site hasn’t looked right since!  I’m going to spend some time on it this evening after my exercise session and SHOULD have it looking pretty decent once that’s done.   Just know that once the work is completed, the site will be leaner, meaner, and ready to take on the world – just like me!

Also tonight, I’ll be posting the French Bread Pizza recipe that I made last night – it’s absolutely fantastic, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!

Sunday went very well. I woke up and made egg sandwiches for breakfast. Just two eggs and toast with Smart Balance butter. This was the first time buying or using Smart Balance, and I’m not sure what to think. It was very tough to spread, and I’m not sure I really tasted it in the sandwich. With those, I had my standard two cups of coffee, both of which were badly needed. A little bit later, I decided to have some fruit, an apple and and orange. The orange was sweet and delicious. The apple, however, was not crunchy and delicious, but rather soft and chewy. Seems I’ve had a run of bad luck lately as far as apples go. Personslly, I like my apples to have a bit of crunch when I bite into them. Oh well…

Dinner was one of my old favorites – tacos! Rather than the unhealthy alternatives, I decided on chicken soft tacos. I’d go into detail, but you can find the recipe over in my newly created Recipe Section. The tacos came out to be absolutely fabulous. I had three last night, and saved the rest for leftovers. This should last me a day or two.

Later on that evening, I had one of my favorite snacks/desserts from when I was growing up: toast with peanut butter, bananas, and honey. Awesome desert that’s filling, healthy and delicious!

This morning, I did my weekly weigh-in. I came in at 320.2lbs – which means a total loss of 12lbs so far! That’s a 4lb drop since last week, which is short of my 5lb/week goal, but still very respectable. I celebrated with a light yogurt for breakfast.

For lunch, I decided to go to Subway. Unfortunately, they’ve ended their “All Footlong Subs for $5″ promotion, so I was stuck with the regular selection of 8. I opted for the roasted chicken breast with all the fixings, and honey mustard. Very tasty and filling. One thing I noticed was that Subway was going to start offering breakfast on April 1st. I’m going to review the calories, but might give them a shot on a few mornings if the stars align.

Dinner was once again turkey soft tacos. They were awesome again, but I refrigerated the tortillas when I was done last night. Warming them in the microwave had the adverse affect of making them a bit tough. Overall, just as tasty as last night, and I’m only about 1/2 way through the ground turkey / taco mix.

A little later I got hungry again, so I decided on my favorite dessert / snack again. Peanut Butter / Banana / Honey on toast. All in all, a good day! Very happy and proud of my progress. Good things are coming and I can’t wait to share the journey with all of you!

Yesterday I ended up skipping breakfast, but I still had my regular two cups of coffee.   As soon as I arrived, I had work poured directly on my desk, and had to be diligent to keep up.   Around lunch, I finally caught up and decided to take a few moments for lunch.  My quick meal was something I’d been wanting for some time, Subway.  I ended up getting a footlong Roast Beef sub, though I did add American Cheese along with all the veggies.  It was tasty, but I did not taste the extra 120 calories that the cheese added.  Next time, I’m skipping that completely.

I wanted something different for dinner last night, so I dug deep into my freezer to see what veggies might be hiding back there.  I found a bag of SteamFresh broccoli, pasta and cheese.  It was 150 calories per serving, and consisted of two servings for 300 calories total.  Along with that I had a single chicken breast with sriracha chili sauce on it.   It was as awesome as the first time I made it.  The veggies were pretty good as well.   Then came the hours between dinner and bed.  Last week I was able to face that time and have little difficulty.  This week, not so much.  I started off small… had an apple, then another.  I figured fruit would be healthy and would calm my hunger.  It didn’t.  I then went for my next weakness, Peanut Butter.  I had a tablespoon full, 200 calories just like that.  It’s good protein, but still just feels like wasted calories.

This morning, I woke up very late.  Just enough time for my shower and getting dressed, so no breakfast again.   I got into work and once again found myself overloaded with work and severely stressed out.  Seemed like I couldn’t get the things I NEEDED to get done because everything else was crawling out of the woodwork.   I’m actually happy that I’ve been able to curtail the stress.  Usually when it gets to me, I reach for a Mountain Dew and a bag of potato chips.  I’ve been good this time.   Now, there has been a weekness that I’ve found at the office, butterscotch.  We’ve got them in a few areas around the office, and I find myself grabbing one a few times each time.  It’s better than having a bag of Cheetos, but it’s still not good.   Lunch again was Subway.  Once again, keeping things under control and not going for the fast food to deal with the stress.  Once again, I had a footlong roast beef, this time sans cheese.

The rest of the day, while busy, was without difficulty.  Once I finally arrived home, I once again started looking for something new and interesting to eat.  I found an old Healthy Choice entree and decided to give it a chance.  Steak Medallions with potatoes, carrots and apple crisp.  It was a decent meal, but at 310 calories, a pretty good deal.  The carrots left a lot to be desired, but everything else was pretty edible.   I was good for a while, then it hit again… hunger and cravings.  I went for the safe apple again.  I sat back, relaxed and before I knew it, I was hungry yet again.  This time, I went straight for the bad stuff – once again I hit the peanut butter!   200 calories, right down the hole.   With the lighter dinner, it wasn’t as bad, but still a BAD habit that I need to break.   So, that brings me to now.  It’s 10Pm and I’m hungry.   Doing my best to resist temptation, and there’s still quite a bit of it around here.

So, what’s a fat guy to do?  The only answer I’ve got is exercise.  I start hitting the gym and that’s an hour or more that I’m not sitting at the house thinking about food.  My problem with the gym is that each time I drive past, the parking lot is absolutely packed.  That just about guarentees I won’t have a spot on the equipment I want to use.   I’m doing great for my meals, but I think the snacking is going to be my ultimate undoing!   Any ideas?

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful.  Didn’t really start getting hungry until just before 5PM.  That was good, as it allowed me to go home and fix dinner without starving myself.  For dinner, I fixed 2 grilled chicken breasts (about 10oz total) and a can of spinach.   Afterwards, I was still hungry, but I gave myself about an hour to make sure it wasn’t my brain waiting to catch up with my stomach.  After an hour, I was still looking for SOMETHING to eat – wonder if it might be my sitting here watching food-filled commercials, so I decided to have an orange.  After consuming the orange, I was on cloud nine.  Delicious and juicy!  I decided to have another; I mean, what can it hurt?   Absolutely amazing!!    I’d gone this far, I wanted at least one more.  Besides, I only had one left.  So, in all, I had 3 “after dinner” oranges.  I’m sure it’s better than most of the snacks I could have chosen, but it did add a few calories to my daily total.

Almost forgot, my official weigh in was this morning.  Came in at 332.2lbs.  Not as bad as I was last night, but still not good at all!  I’ve got a lot of catching up to do before I get back to my lowest weight of 283, and even farther to go before my goal weight of 180.  The scale was still having troubles reading my body fat percentage, so until I get that number down, I’ll just go with weight as my main progress tracking method.

One of the concerns that I had the last time I did the diet, and even moreso now, is the idea of loose skin.  What’s the point of losing the weight if I can’t be comfortable without my shirt on?  (Besides prolonging my life, and being healthier overall )    This scares me even more now, since I’m aiming for rapid weightloss, unlike the previous time when I was happy with 1-2lbs/week.  Most of what I’m reading says it’s not the speed that you lose, but the fact that you’ve lost a LOT of muscle along with the fat.  So, now I’m looking for ways to either protect my muscle mass, or gain additional muscle mass.  I’ll do a post this weekend with all of my findings and how it works, but so far, it’s the best information I’ve seen on the subject.   Nonetheless, I’m looking for ways to protect muscle mass during rapid weight loss.  So far, a friend of mine has recommended the one thing I did know, weight training, followed by a heavy dose of protein.   If I’m going to get into the weight training again, I’ll have to get some more ready made protein shakes, specifically the low calorie / low carb kind I used in the past.    Another friend of mine, however, said that he found information on the internet stating that there’s no point in weight training when you’ve got over 30% body fat, and that burning down the fat should be the primary goal.  I’ve tried to get him to send me the link where he found this information, but I’ve had no success on that front.

So, the biggest questions I’ve got so far, besides protecting muscle, is how safe a low calorie diet is?  I’ve heard that hovering in the ranges that I’m aiming for  is dangerous, since that level is more-or-less just the amount needed to maintain brain activity.   Most recommendations are for me to have at least 2100-2300 calories in a day – and I’m aiming between 700-900 LESS than that amount.  So, am I doing the right thing for me and my health?  Honestly, I see gastric bypass surgery as cutting out MUCH more than I’m doing, and yet that’s proven to be safe.   However, that’s usually done under a doctor’s supervision.   So many ways this can go.

Anyway, I need to head to bed, it’s getting late.  I just wanted to get the post in before going to sleep, while it was still fresh on my mind.  Lots to think about and ponder.  I just hope tomorrow goes as well as the last two days have gone.   It’ll be a farewell lunch for a coworker – so we’ll be going wherever he wants to go for lunch.  Unfortunately, that means I’ll have less control over my menu, and will have to be more careful what I order, and what I eventually eat.  Even if it’s something “bad”, I might be able to just eat a smaller portion and cut back that way, saving the rest for dinner later tomorrow night.   I’ll have to let you all know how that goes tomorrow night.

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!!

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.

Last week, I had something wrong with my leg, and that put a crimp on my cardio.  In the end, I just switched over to swimming, and overall, I think I’m getting MUCH better cardio in the pool since it’s really working my arms and legs at the same time.

Also, last week, I started to doubt the path that I’m on.  Since the end of the month is near, I’m starting to ponder changing the current gameplan and going in a different direction.   Too many stalled weeks is really driving me crazy… putting in a ton of effort and get 0 change, especially over the course of weeks, was really wearing on me.  One idea that I was considering was switching over to Atkins and seeing where that took me.  That would mean dropping out the carbs and going heavy on the protiens.

Then late last week, I was doing some reading and came across this article about the benefits of having yogurt when dieting.   A group of people were put on a reduced calorie diet and given three 6oz servings of yogurt each day.  Over the course of the study, the ones having yogurt lost 61% more fat overall, and 81% more fat around their waist than the ones that were not having yogurt.  It then hit me.. when the pounds were shedding off, I was having yogurt almost daily.  Once I switched to breakfast bars and other “non-yogurt” breakfast items, things started to plateau.   As of today, I’m going to work at least one cup of yogurt into my diet each day.. sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for a snack, others for a dessert after dinner.  If I see a noticeable change, I might step it up even more and have additional servings.   I’m anxious to see if this does help with the weightloss, and I’ll report in with my findings.