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I've called a mulligan and am starting over. You can find my new blog at http://fit--happens.blogspot.com/

Down, But Not Out

Where have I been? Good question, long answer.

So, about two months ago, shortly after my last post, I finally weighed myself. To tell the truth, I was pretty excited. I'd been working hard, going to the gym about 4-5 times per week, eating healthier, and all around feeling good about what I had accomplished. I was finally doing what I always knew I needed to do. So, with great anticipation, I stepped on the scale.

What I saw was so disheartening. Not only had I not lost any weight, but I had gained a pound. A lump formed in my throat as I stared at the scale. I know I'd only been working out for a month, but to have gained a pound? To be in worse shape than I was when I started this? I walked out of the gym and went home, feeling like everything I had done had been a complete waste of time. I stopped going to the gym. I started right back into my old eating habits. It was not pretty.

Skip ahead month or so. After destroying myself for several weeks, I finally decided to see a doctor, maybe get his perspective and get on an official diet instead of whatever crazy food intake theory I had in my head. We talked a lot about different things, from genetics to "fad" diets. In the end, we came up with a simple plan that I'm pretty excited about (more on that in a future post).

So, yeah. I didn't lose any weight, but I'm not sure why I let that get to me. It probably takes the body several weeks to adjust to what we do to it when we make such a radical change. Who knows? My body may suddenly stored fat when I started exercising because it wasn't used to burning that many calories and though it may have needed more. The truth is, I don't know what happened, all I know is that looking at that number hurt. But to quote a line from the greatest fictional boxer of all time, "It ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done." Too true, Rocky. Too true.

So, what does this mean for me? We'll for one, I'm getting right back to the gym. Silly as this sounds, I actually miss going and exercising. Yeah, weird. I know. Heads up, Treadmill. You and me, we're gonna go to work.

Progress...I think...

So, it's been a while since I've blogged (quick side note: I hate that word. Blogged. It sounds like a word someone would use in place of vomiting. IE: "Jimmy was so sick last night. He totally blogged all over your couch."). I've been doing fairly well in terms of both exercise and dieting. As mentioned in my previous post, I've just been heading to the gym right after work, which definitely helps me on cutting back on the after work junk food. Have I been perfect? Of course not. I've slipped a few times with food and missed a day or two at the gym, but for the most part, I'm fairly proud of what I've been able to (more or less) consistently do. So the big question is: How much weight have I lost so far?

I have no idea.

Yes, it's a simple thing to just step on to scale and have it spit numbers back at you, but to tell you the honest truth, I am terrified to see what it might say. Every time I go to weigh myself, I just can't bring myself to do it. Allow me to freak out like a little girl here: What if I get on the scale and it tells me that no weight has been lost, that I'm exactly the same as before? If I find out that I haven't lost anything, then I know I'll just go right back to my old ways, and I really don't want that. I'm actually enjoying this new lifestyle, V8 juice and all, and no matter how much weight I've lost, this is a better way of living for me. So, I ask you, what does it matter what the scale says? Yes, eventually I'll man up get on the scale, but as for right now, I'm perfectly content being a frightened little school girl. That's not weird, right?

...If By Motivated You Mean "Slacker," Then Yes.

So here I am, several weeks into this brand new lifestyle that I'm so excited to begin and what have I done? Squat. Not squats as in the manly, muscle building, wussie crippling squats I should be doing, but squat in the early 90's slang term for nothing. And am I proud of this? Horrifyingly, yes. Let me explain:

Around my apartment, as stated in my last post, I have (or had, as it were) several food items that one would deem "less than healthy." This includes, but is not limited to: carbonated beverages, once healthy vegetables that are now thinly sliced and deep fried, items that rhyme with "Candy," ect. I've almost gotten rid of all of the junk food and yes, before you even ask, I may have consumed them in my efforts to rid my apartment of this filth. Don't look at me like that! I'm the good guy here, sacrificing myself to make my apartment a better, more healthy place! It's the same idea of how casinos don't have clocks: Out of sight, out of mind. Do I really believe that eating this junk food is the right choice? Yes. Was that a lie just now? Yes.

Either way, it's almost all gone. By this weekend, there will be nothing in this apartment that is not at least nutritious in one form or another. Huzzah for accomplishing at least something.

Speaking of accomplishments, I have indeed been keeping this food journal that I hate so much. Yes, it's kind of a pain to bust out this little notebook every time I eat something. However, I do see how it helps. Not only do I think to myself "Brett, you're going to hate looking in this journal tonight and read 'cupcake' right in the middle of all your healthy choices today," but also, and this to me is more important, I'm beginning to see certain eating habits I have. For example: I've noticed that I actually do really well making good choices right up until I get home from work. That's when I really screw up. So how do I fix that? Simple. I'm going to start going to the gym right after work instead of waiting until later that night. This way, I'll beat that habit to the punch and form a new, better one in the process. Plus, I'm much less likely to eat crap after a good workout. "Ha ha! He eats crap!" I said it so that you don't have to. Grow up.

So, I guess you caught me. No, I'm not really proud of doing next to nothing, but at the same time, I'm in a better position to "officially" start my routine off. Again.

Yeah, I'm a slacker.

Starting Out Slow

So, these past few days have been interesting for me, getting started. I have been going to the gym and running (OK, you caught me, I've been walking) on the treadmill for about 1/2 hour a day. I'm going pretty easy this first week for a few reasons.

One: I still have a lot of not healthy food around the house that I'm trying to get rid of. I'm not becoming a Vegetarian or anything like that, but going and doing a serious workout only to come home and eat some potato chips and a Ding-Dong would nullify any progress I've made for the day. Once I finish enjoying every last bite throwing all the junk food out, I'll be able to not only go home from the gym without the fear that I'm about to ruin the work I've done, but also I can start shopping in aisles of the store that don't prominently feature the word "Hostess."

Two: As I'm first starting out, I just want to get used to going to the gym everyday. I figure that if I try to go all out everyday when I'm still getting used to this whole "exercising" thing, I'm afraid that I could end up burning myself out with thoughts of how much it sucks to go to the gym. Right now, I just want to start working on the habit. So back off.

Today, though, I wasn't able to go to the gym. I could go into details and give you a play by play if you would like, but let's just say, for the sake of visual imagery, that I'm taking a sick day. So, unable to do any physical activity, I spent the better part of the day looking up things like what my daily caloric intake should be (how many calories I need to eat in order to maintain my weight) which is a frightening 3545 calories every day. Should be pretty easy to start cutting those once I eat get rid of all this junk food.

In all of the reading I've done over the past few weeks, one thing that keeps showing up (in regards to dieting) is the importance of a food journal. Personally, I think that sounds silly, to do nothing more than to write down what I eat any time I eat it, but again, it keeps coming up, so I'm going to give it a shot, at least for a week.

So, like the Tortoise and the Hare, my body has started out slow with my desire much further ahead. Stupid desire. Always showing off.

In the Beginning...

326 pounds. That's how much I weighed the last time I found a scale that wouldn't give me an error message and run screaming for the hills, which was probably about 6 months ago. 326 pounds. For kicks and giggles, lets do a bit of conversions: That's more than two full grown Saint Bernard's; or 53 gallons of unleaded gasoline; or, if you prefer, 168,418 M&Ms. Whew. Good to have that out of my system.

When it comes to this weight, I have nothing to blame but myself. I've formed such terrible eating habits over the years with almost no physical activity that I almost don't even know where to begin.

So, the question is, what does one do to fix such a massive problem? The short answer is to get off my butt and work. Coincidentally, that is also the long answer.

I've spent the last several days looking into what I need to do in order to get healthy. I went to the gym (the one that I've had a membership to for nearly a year and have used maybe twice. Go go gadget procrastination!) and asked about a personal trainer. Now, I am a college student, which means of coarse that I have money coming out the wazoo, but for the sake of research, I pretended that I couldn't afford anything too expensive.

I knew right after I asked about a personal trainer that I might have made a mistake. The man at the front counter lit up like a candle and said "Oh, we can certainly help you with that." He then told me that they would even make the first visit free. I felt like I was talking to a dealer who was about to give me an entry drug of some type. He brings me into this dimly lit room that looks like it may or may not be used for police interrogations on the weekends and says that my trainer will be in shortly. I sat down and began to prepare myself for who might walk in the door. Would it be a yoga zealot? A Chuck Norris wannabe? A massive woman named Svetlana from the Ukraine that could benchpress me while brushing her teeth? If only I had been so lucky.

The door opened and in walks the most massive Australian I have ever seen in my life. The size of this man rivaled that of most Japanese cars! This freak of a man is all business, so he takes me out to the weights and goes right for the humiliation factor. He puts me on a bench and give me these two 95 pound weights and says "Go to town." Sweat poured off my face from just looking at those weights. So I lay down on the bench and with the eyes of God and the world on me, I strain and sweat and pop several veins trying to lift these bricks. I couldn't even get them up once. Not Once! So the Australian decides that he is going to be funny and gets these two-pound rubber weights and says "This should be more your capability." What the? Screw you man! So, all eyes on me again. Everyone watching? Great. So I start the exercise and to everyone's disappointment, I actually CAN lift two pounds. Surprise. Hope you enjoyed the show. Sensing that there is not enough humiliation going on, the Australian takes me over to some machines that, if I didn't know better, were once used as medieval torture devices. No one expects the Australian Inquisition! Well, to make an already incredibly long story shot, I went home that day feeling like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to every inch of my body. I couldn't even wash my hair in the shower because I couldn't lift my arms above my shoulders. Needless to say, I haven't been back since.

So, when it comes down to it, I think I'm going to pass on the Personal Trainer. Not because I had a terrible experience. Quite the contrary: I felt amazing once I could feel my arms again. But the main reason (aside from the cost) is that I want to do this on my own. Yes, Personal Trainers are an incredible resource that have far more knowledge of how to lose weight and gain muscle that I ever will, but I felt that this is a journey that I'm need to make on my own. I'll do the research. I'll do the work. I don't want to feel like someone else had to motivate me to lose weight.

So, this is it. I'm going chronicle my own weight loss story, from the beginning. After all, what do I have to lose? I mean, other than the weight of course...You know what I meant.