First of all, I don’t envision doing this every week. The good news is that things are heading in the right direction without a bunch of “pain and suffering” on my part. As I described in prior posts, I’ve been really paying attention to what I eat (i.e. no junk food, good fast food choices etc.). Second, portion control – when I start to get full then stop eating. Also, take smaller portions initially. This goes back to my childhood, but I still feel the need to eat what is on my plate and if I take bigger portions I would still eat even when full. The third element is activity. You’ve just got to keep moving! So, I’ve been swimming, walking and hitting the mini-tramp when the other two are just not options.

Part 1 – Weight & BMI

My weight has dropped from 250lbs to 234lbs. Along with that, my BMI has dropped from 41.6 to 39. Now the BMI drop may not seem like a lot, but it takes me out of the class-3 obesity. The more common name for that is “morbid obesity”. I know the first bit of weight loss can be easier than the road ahead, but this is a nice little milestone. Class-2 still has the nice common name of “obese” thus acting as a motivator. Wondering about the rest of the BMI scale – take a look at the table and chart below.

Part 2 – Physical Change

The biggest change with all of this is that I am thinking about activity. I think about the next round of walking, swimming, stair climbing I will be doing. In the past, I would get absorbed in whatever I was doing and give no thought to activity. Some days I would take stairs, the others the elevator. Again, for just getting started these things are becoming nice habits. As I get into a bit better shape and ramp up the exercise and training, I’ll need to keep these habits I am developing right now. My hope is that I will train my body to expect it and want it.

Part 3 – Mental Change

This is a big deal. There is a difference between going through the motions and trying to make good choices and maybe some exercise. But my “flipped bit” has allow me to really dig into all aspects of accomplishing my goal of Getting into Hiking Shape. This includes taking a little bit more time in the morning to pack healthy snacks and lunch additions to doing research on how much sodium I should be consuming. Using the FitBit website to track my food choices is really eye opening. Knowing what you are eating makes a difference. One other element relates to Part 2 above – the change to get up and take action. Getting away from the “in a minute” and excuse generation to go do something. Attitude play a big part in this as well. My wife has been trying to get me to walk regularly for awhile and I have resisted. In some cases to the point of being a real ass. Granted, I don’t like walking (prefer running), but that was just an excuse.

All these little changes add up to a budding new lifestyle.

Next Milestone – Weight=204, BMI=34 (class-1 obesity)

I had a pretty good day today, though no swim. Ate pretty well, though I did go out for dinner. The salad with grilled chicken wasn’t too bad. Ok, it had some cheese and guacamole (which was all avocado so that should be reasonable). My step count was pretty low when I got home, not a lot of foot traffic at work today. I did make a few extra runs up and down the stairs. I made up for it on the mini-tramp earlier this evening.

I’ve decided to make Tuesday my check in day. I’m not really interested in tracking daily weight. Weekly is likely the bare minimum that makes sense.

I did update my profile with relevant statistics and measurements. I will probably keep that the same over time and track monthly or quarterly progress on another page or a blog entry. I will continue with this program and do a check in with my doctor in a month or two. Curious to see what real work will do to my blood work.

Education

I’ve found a bunch of good websites (Mayo Clinic quality) and have discovered a lot of good information. I need to capture it and think about it. More urgently, I need to keep reading “The Way to Eat” by David L. Katz. I’ll refer back to my initial post, I don’t want a diet that offers short term wins, I want to understand how all this stuff works and then have the ability to make great decisions all the time.

Progress: Page 0 (just re-read the Introduction). Needs work.

Here is the result of my first night trying the sleep function on fitbit.

No wonder I’m a little tired, need to get to bed earlier. Smart eating is tough. Trying to get some protein mixed in and sodium skyrockets. Not sure all the numbers for food nutrition are completely accurate, but they give a good estimate (checked a few other sites) and really open your eyes to the hidden junk.

This was a typical work day (didn’t get a morning swim – will save the stray dog story for another day and need to get some sleep so no walk either). 7200 steps seems pretty good for just “walking around”. I did make sure to take the stairs every time today. Got a friend who has has not ridden an elevator for 3 or 4 years – this is a good next practice.

My calorie count seems a bit low, but keep in mind some of those are estimates. In any event, I am working on portion control as well (um, except for the buffet the other day). I find my self hungry more times a day than I can recall experiencing in a long time. Also adding no eating after 8p. No need to make the body work harder instead of getting good sleep.

Daily Summary
Walk a lot (park far away at work) and always take the stairs
Portion control – stop eating when first sign of “full” hits
Eat breakfast and then snack on fruits and veggies during the day
  – I’ve got to make sure I understand sugar in fruits as well.  *sigh*
Don’t snack in the evening
Go to bed such that you get a good nights rest (7 hours minimum)

Today started as well as can be expected after a very late night. Of course, no beer makes it much easier. Ate pretty well early in the day including fruit, veggies and a chicken breast (plain, no bun) from Chick-Fil-A. Dinner on the other hand was not quite the same. We tried a new Chinese restaurant and it turned out to be a buffet that included sushi, Chinese and the like. Turns out, my estimate for dinner was just under 1200 calories.

So, crazy amount of food – way too much hidden sodium (wow). Carb specifics is something that I need to get more familiar with. Even without a ton of knowledge, nearly 220 is insane. Well, the lesson is very clear: don’t eat at a buffet for a while. A corollary, don’t let the price of the meal influence what you eat. Not rocket science, but when you map it out like this, the lesson seems very straight forward.

On the plus side, I did a fair amount of activity (not exercise per say) including 90m of yard work (lugging and spreading dirt/mulch) along with the readings from my fitbit which say I took 10090 steps today. That is pretty good – will need to watch pretty closely to ensure the reading is accurate. Tomorrow is back to the grindstone and I am very curious to see the step count at the end of the day. Also, my schedule will be returning back to normal with the resumption of work so meals will be at more normal times and sleep will return to human from the vampire hours I’ve been keeping.

I am going to try the sleep mode setting of the fitbit as well tonight.

Things are going well. Calorie intake is less than calorie burn. Continuing to track what I eat and drink. Exercising today consisted of yard work and swimming. Had a 4th of July get-together and stuck to my water and a few munchies.

I’ve been talking and thinking about some of the programs that are out there that provide food and plans to lose weight. These can have some really positive results, but where I am right now, I feel confident with my plan. There is a certain amount of learning that needs to come out of this, especially on the nutrition side. I’m not sure that the programs provide enough – or at least early enough. Time will tell if this will work for me. If not, those certainly become a very real option.

I decided to add the fitbit to my program. This is billed as a “wireless personal trainer”. It is a simple little device that you clip onto yourself and it uses an accelerometer to determine how many steps you take (to determine your activity level). It also has a sleep mode to see how well and how long you sleep. There is a companion website where the data gets uploaded and allows you to track food consumption and other exercise. This will be an interesting element to the exercise aspect of the plan. Its primary focus is on the 10,000 steps a day philosophy. More data coming soon.