An Unofficial New FAT Member

Check out THIS SITE. It belong to a very old friend of mine who I recently came back in contact with. Ends up he's fighting a similar battle to the rest of us, and he's off to a great start.

Good luck, Aron!

Still Doing Well

Down a total of 4.6 pounds in the last three days, so I'll take it. Not much time to blog, but wanted people to know I'm STILL doing alright.

Hoping to be out of the 280's for good by this time next week.

Quickie...

Morning weigh-in is pending, as I have yet to use the big boy potty, but my pre-bathroom weigh-in was down 2.4 from yesterday (which was AWFUL), so if I can drop a little more weight (eww), I should look pretty good.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to my old-school push up routine today to see how that works. And I'll do some high-rep upright rows with the resistance bands tonight. And, as is my new thing, I'm going to stay as active as I can otherwise through the day.

I also have a new visualization this morning. No offense to Big Will, but this dude seems more like where I'll end up in my mind. His name is Alistair Overeem, and he's an MMA fighter. He's 6-4, 225. I'll plan on being 6-8, 240. We'll see if there's any similarities.

Alright, I'll post my updated weight later. Have a great Sunday.

Also...

Great tool for the guys...

Most realistic ideal body weight calculator I've found. Most say I should end up around 205, which is INSANE. This on gives me roughly 235 to 259. Worth checking out.

So Far Today...

It's a kick-start day. No calories until dinner, then something healthy. In the mean time, just got back from a 3 mile-plus walk with the family, been out shoveling and raking for a while, and have worked up a nice sweat.

Today I aim for a massive calories deficit, then I go back to normal tomorrow.

A large portion of the family stress has eased for now, which is allowing me to focus on normal life a little more than I have. I've bought myself about 4 weeks of peace. We'll see if I can stretch it out and do some damage at the same time.

Have a good rest of the weekend...

Because Not Much Has Changed...

This should sound familiar, as I originally blogged it last week. But things on the stress front are finally starting to turn around. For the next little while, at least, my family will be taken care of, which is all that matters.

It's been a bad, bad 10 days. Ten of the worst I've experienced since my mom died. But we're slowly digging out.

So, I proclaim the following, yet again:

I've had enough.

The stress has been KILLING us lately. So many things are a mess right now, I wouldn't know where to begin in explaining it all. I do know that my family is in turmoil, and we're doing all we can to keep our heads above water. It's a bad situation.

Unfortunately, it's nothing we haven't been through several times in our six years of marriage. And while it sucks beyond description, we always seem to make it through.

But we've been letting this control us, and we can't do that. The one thing we can control right now is our health. In all honesty, it seems like everything else in our lives is dependent on someone or something else. But we decide what we eat. We decide how much we eat.

And we've been making awful decisions.

I weighed myself for the first time in a week today. What I saw made me sick to my stomach. Did I jump back over 290? Not quite. But it was about as close I could come, and as close as I ever want to be again.

289.0.

If you're anything like me, you just threw up in your mouth a little.

So now I'm backed against a wall. There are only two options: Get pushed right through that wall, or push back. Getting pushed through that wall will result in a 290, maybe a 300. That's a place I can never go back to.

So, today I push. I'm not going to make any bold declarations. I'm not going to promise to be X pounds by X date. I'm just going to do better. I am going to stop with the late junk runs. I'm going to stop with the "extra" turkey burger. I'm going to stop with the excuses.

I've been in the 280's since late January. Think about that for a second. For the last five months, I haven't lost a single pound. In fact, in December, I was holding in the mid-270's. So, I've actually put anywhere from 8-14 pounds back on, depending on the day.

I lost 94 pounds at my lowest. Hooray for me, right? Yeah, it's a nice accomplishment, and it means exactly nothing right now. I quit on myself, and now I'm headed back in the wrong direction. 94 is nice, but 126 was my goal. Today, I sit back at 77 pounds lost. That means I still have 49 to go.

So here I go...

...again.

Forward

Doing alright. Staying active, eating clean, down three pounds.

I'll take it.

Coming Soon...

http://kevinantcliff.com/

Lots 'O Thoughts

- Resistance is NOT Futile
Did a quick 20-minute resistance band workout last night to see if they were worth the time. I had to use two bands to make it "tougher," and I only did standing "barbell" rows, flies, and curl/row combos with some crunches and knee lifts mixed in, but I gotta tell ya, it wasn't bad. Not my toughest workout ever, but I do feel it in my shoulders today, and I worked up a sweat.

- Considering October
Last year, I set a personal goal for 10-10, which would have been my mom's 60th birthday. I fell short, and didn't like it. Now I find myself in a tough spot. I'd love to aim to hit 240 by 10-10 of this year, but that's gonna be tough to pull off. I'd have to lose 2.7 pounds per week between now and 10-10 in order to hit 240. I'd like to just say "screw it" and go make it happen, but if I miss this goal, I don't know how I'd handle it.

- Clean
We ate at a Chinese buffet yesterday. I aced the test. I'll be honest, I wanted to go in there, face so many of my weaknesses there on the hot serving trays, and eat nothing but good food. I wanted to prove I could do it, and I did. Chicken and broccoli, grilled pork, watermelon. I'm kind of proud of that one. Tonight? Turkey burgers.

Everybody have a great rest of the weekend!

Resuming and After

If I'm going to start over, might as well take Day One pics, huh? Also, please read the post below this one...

It Stops Here

I've had enough.

The stress has been KILLING us lately. So many things are a mess right now, I wouldn't know where to begin in explaining it all. I do know that my family is in turmoil, and we're doing all we can to keep our heads above water. It's a bad situation.

Unfortunately, it's nothing we haven't been through several times in our six years of marriage. And while it sucks beyond description, we always seem to make it through.

But we've been letting this control us, and we can't do that. The one thing we can control right now is our health. In all honesty, it seems like everything else in our lives is dependent on someone or something else. But we decide what we eat. We decide how much we eat.

And we've been making awful decisions.

I weighed myself for the first time in a week today. What I saw made me sick to my stomach. Did I jump back over 290? Not quite. But it was about as close I could come, and as close as I ever want to be again.

289.0.

If you're anything like me, you just threw up in your mouth a little.

So now I'm backed against a wall. There are only two options: Get pushed right through that wall, or push back. Getting pushed through that wall will result in a 290, maybe a 300. That's a place I can never go back to.

So, today I push. I'm not going to make any bold declarations. I'm not going to promise to be X pounds by X date. I'm just going to do better. I am going to stop with the late junk runs. I'm going to stop with the "extra" turkey burger. I'm going to stop with the excuses.

I've been in the 280's since late January. Think about that for a second. For the last five months, I haven't lost a single pound. In fact, in December, I was holding in the mid-270's. So, I've actually put anywhere from 8-14 pounds back on, depending on the day.

I lost 94 pounds at my lowest. Hooray for me, right? Yeah, it's a nice accomplishment, and it means exactly nothing right now. I quit on myself, and now I'm headed back in the wrong direction. 94 is nice, but 126 was my goal. Today, I sit back at 77 pounds lost. That means I still have 49 to go.

So here I go...

Yeah...Still Here...

Quickly:

STILL in the freaking low-to-mid 280's, and every time I get close to finally getting out, I screw myself over. This food thing is killing me, man. I have GOT to get it under control.

I ate myself into a stomach ache last night, and I wasn't even hungry. I just ate to eat.

Stupid.

I know I can do it. I've done it before. I know what needs to be done, and I do it for about three days, then I drive the weight loss truck right of the cliff.

In my search for small wins, I can point to the fact that I'm at least aware enough of what's going on to avoid putting any MORE weight on. I've been sitting here for two months. Again, a small victory, but not a real WIN.

I need to see the 270's this week. Absolutely HAVE to.

Quickly...

I'm starting to right the ship. I'm down four pounds in three days, now sitting at 283.6 after another bad stretch.

Here's what Becky's doing:



After just four days, she totally crossed me over yesterday.

I'm working out with her tonight, and we both worked ourselves pretty hard playing yesterday. I'm hoping this is the boost I'm needing.

Familiar Territory

Nothing to be proud of, but the last two weeks have reminded me very much of the life I described in THIS POST - my first here on this blog.

But I can feel the momentum shifting, and I think that I'm close to really zeroing back in.

Some things to note:

Becky is starting a super-cool and confidential training regimen at the Troy Rec Center on Monday. She's going to get her ass worked off. It's part of a 90-day "diary" that we'll be running in MiSports Magazine.

We bought some resistance bands tonight. Nothing that will turn us into body builders, but we felt the need to try something new.

We need to do something. Not long ago, we'd spend our evenings walking, boxing, etc. Now we spend them snacking, watching movies - the things that got us in this mess in the first place.

Just hanging on right now...

"Ms. Abdul? You're on in five..."

One step forward, two steps back.

I'm a mess right now. No solutions. No answers. Nothing is going right on just about any level of life. A lot of confusion and cloudiness. I need to focus. Soon.

I'm Better Than This

Right?

Ugh.

The Mental Battle

My official weigh in will come shortly, but out of the gate this morning I was 285. Now, that's just about enough to drive me to a buffet. But this is where I need to be strong mentally. I KNEW this was coming, even though I was hoping it wouldn't. To jump up 1.6 for 120 calories annoys me to no end...

But I have to put my head down and keep moving.

In The Books

Day 2 is done, and I give myself a B-.

I went over my calories by about 127. My max should be 2250, and I ended the day at 2377 after a handful of animal crackers. I don't think it's a huge issue, as I was almost 800 under that number yesterday. The good ole' zig-zag.

Also wasn't active enough today. I'm pretty sore from my push ups yesterday, so I couldn't get myself motivated to do more today. Plus I had a whopping four hours of sleep last night, so the energy level was low. Kudos to Beck for gymming it up, anyway.

Lastly, I also didn't have ANY water today. Nothing but diet pop and milk, which probably isn't a good thing. I'll be sure to gulp a little extra agua tomorrow.

So, if you take an A+ and a B- minus and average it out, you're looking at an A (ish), so I'll take that after two days.

On another note, I hope everybody is doing alright. The blogs have been eerily quiet over the last two weeks. Here's to hoping everybody is chugging along and doing alright. If you read this, blog it up! We could always use some more "voices" out here.

Let's Go, Baby

I was all over this yesterday. If anything, my calories were probably a little low, as I ended the day at 1,472. Went back to my old-school push up routine. Not as strong as I used to be, but that's about to change.

Yesterday's weight? 286.6
Today? 283.4

I'm bracing for anything, as I've dropped 3 pounds before, only to put four back on for no reason. I have to barrel through anything this time around. It's not going to be a two pound-per-day loss every day, and some days I might even put weight on after doing everything right. I need to focus on the long-term, now.

It's our anniversary this weekend. We're dropping the kids with my dad tomorrow through Sunday, and we are going to make the most of it. We're going to see John Heffron, one of my writers at MiSports Magazine, on Saturday, and we're planning a day of hoops and movies on Friday. We decided last night that we're NOT using this weekend as an excuse eat poorly. In fact, it's going to be a show of our wills. I'll be upset at myself if I've put weight on when Monday morning comes. In fact, I'd kind of like to see a 279 on Monday.

Also, I've set a new (and lofty) goal. In addition to hitting my ideal weight of 240 by 10.31, I'd also like to be at 11.5% body fat. I have NO idea if that's even possible. Last I checked I was at roughly 21%, so I don't know if I can drop 10% in five months. Even if it's physically impossible, it's a good goal.

So, here's to Day Two. Let's keep moving...

A Message from my Body...

Here I sit, still comfortably in the mid 280's.

What I noticed today, from the deepest part of my being, is that I just don't care anymore. I don't. Buffets? Bring it. Candy? Sweet. Ice Cream? Cool. Workout? Nah.

I don't know what the deal is. The fire is 100% out. There's no gas in the tank. Insert any number of quitter cliche's here.

I have no drive.

So, it's up to me to FORCE myself to keep going. Dieting isn't easy. Transforming your life is not an overnight job. Do I want that Will Smith-type body on my banner? Yes. But I've been hoping it would just magically appear, and I could keep eating like crap and being lazy.

Well, I think it's safe to say that magic isn't something I should count on.

And so, for the 143rd time in the last 18 months, I'm starting over. It's Day One again. I'm talking literal Day One - pics, measurements - the whole deal.

I have to look at it like this from now on: I have not lost any weight. There was no 366. I weigh 285+ pounds, and I need to drop 45 or so pounds to get to where I want to be.

This is going to be a challenge in the truest sense of the word. I find myself at a crossroads.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."