Entries Tagged 'motivation' ↓
May 24th, 2008 — about, exercise, healthy eating, motivation, weigh in
After 5 weeks on the medically assisted weightless program I have lost 39 pounds… This week I lost 5 pounds which is incredible (the results of this diet and program are remarkable and fast.) 5 pounds was 77% of my weekly goal of 6.5 pounds per week. This week even though I lost 5 pounds I had trouble with portion control at the evening meal… This is been slowly building over the 5 weeks, but this week I asked my doctor if we could increase the Phentermine dose. So for this week I am on 37.5 mg (instead of 30 mg) of Phentermine.
I attribute missing the goal for the same reason as missing last week’s goal… a later than normal and larger than normal (for a 1200 calorie diet) dinner last night and missing my regular movement this morning. I except that there are normal fluctuations in the weekly number as even on a daily basis I can fluctuate 5 pounds from morning through evening with the ups and downs of water loss and water consumption with the Ketosis and exercise.
Here is a graph of my weight loss (if you are reading this in the future this graph will have updated for future weigh ins as well)… Clicking the image will open to a larger image.
So if I am to believe my claim that 1.5 pounds is within a normal fluctuation and that I am still maintaining a 5 pound a week average weight loss (from missing my goal last weigh in.) Then I need to set my weekly goal for 5 pounds plus the pound and a half that the scale failed to recognize lost in previous weeks. So my goal for next week is to end the week at 345 or to have lost 6.5 pounds for the week.
I played 2 hours of basketball twice and 2 hours of volleyball twice and went of several walks and played 9 holes of golf at Harding Park Golf Club. I did not get a chance to swim… My plan is about the same for this week, only with more swimming.
I was able to drastically reduce my fat free cheese intake and plan to continue with more lean meats instead… I feel more satiated and frankly they taste better too. I ran out of sugar free Metamucil (non water soluble) and switched to benefiber (water soluble). If Metamucil is an orange cream shake, benefiber is like dirty water (in plain water) and noticeable but ignorable in crystal light. I plan on switching back as soon as my current container is used.
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May 22nd, 2008 — healthy eating, motivation, trigger food
Starting a diet can be a momentous event and most of us going into it with the best intentions. We want to lose weight and we want to look and feel better, at least for the first few days. Three days in however, and you may be ready to completely chuck your diet so that you can go back to eating real food again.
There are a few keys that will help you avoid cheating on your diet. You can employ any number of them to assist, but remember, even if you do end up cheating a little, it’s not the end of the world. Call it a day and start your diet again. It’s only a problem if you give up and lose focus. Let’s go over a few of these keys that will help you avoid cheating.
1. Don’t start a deprivation diet.
Strict diets usually get fast results initially, but these are usually wiped out if you cave to intense cravings. If you know that you have a hard time giving up your favorite foods, don’t doom yourself to failure by starting a deprivation diet. Instead, find ways to simply eat less of these foods. You won’t end up feeling as though your cravings are controlling your life.
2. Allow yourself a little wiggle room.
You’ll need to have pretty good discipline for this to work, but your diet will be much more successful if you allow yourself a little freedom here or there. If you simply must have ice cream, than allow yourself to have one small portion every few days. Just make sure you can keep it to that portion or you will have sabotaged yourself.
3. Set up rewards.
One of the best ways to avoid cheating on your diet is to set up a rewards system with your goals. Just make sure that the rewards are not food related. For example, once you reach your first five pounds lost, go get a manicure, or do something that you really enjoy. This helps keep you motivated, even when the going is tough. It gives you something else to focus on and makes it easier to stay focused.
4. Stop kicking yourself.
You can preprogram yourself to fail if you believe that you cannot do something. Instead of saying that you can never stick to a diet and always end up cheating, tell yourself that you can do this. When the going gets tough, keep repeating “I can do this.” If you do it often enough, you’ll start to believe it and you’ll be able to make it a reality.
5. Avoid known problem areas.
If you have a hard time sticking to your diet when you go out with friends, it’s time to evaluate your activities. Stay away from restaurants where you know it’s going to be tough to stay on your diet. Give up going to the bar every week. You’ll be able to see results in less time and you’ll be able to avoid the traps that always derail you.
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May 21st, 2008 — goals, healthy eating, motivation
One of the key components to eating right is getting motivated. While it’s easy enough at first to have grand plans, if you don’t have enough motivation to do the follow through, there’s just no point. In order to make sure that you’re successful with your diet, you’re going to need to make sure that your priorities are in order and that you have the right kind of motivation.
Before you even start your diet, we recommend making a list of all of the things that you hope to accomplish. Divide these into three columns: Physical Appearance, Body Health, Activities. Now, you’ll be able to see all of the things on one sheet of paper. This makes it a lot easier to keep your goals right in front of you. Once you have them all down, redo your list and prioritize the things that are the most important to you. For example, if lowering your blood pressure is a high priority, move that to the top of the health list.
Once you have all of your items prioritized in each column, make a master list that contains them in order of importance. You’ll be referring back to this as you start to meet your goals. By putting it on paper, you’re giving yourself that visualization that makes it a lot easier to see your goals and meet them. While it’s fine to keep it in your head, most people prefer having a hard copy. When you start to check those items off as goals attained, it really is a great feeling.
So, now that you have your list done, you’re ready to start on your diet. Make sure that you select one that will make it easy to keep your goals at first. Rome was not built in a day and a good diet takes time to work. Don’t doom yourself to failure by going on an extreme diet that you have no hope of keeping. Start small and work your way up. You’ll be a lot less likely to call it quits after a few days and you’ll be able to keep motivated.
One great way to start small is simply by cutting out a few of the foods you eat or drink every day that contain empty calories. Soda is the best place to start since you’ll usually see pretty quick results. Try cutting out one or two a day at first, and then increase the amount until you are no longer drinking it. The results you see will keep you motivated and you won’t be depriving yourself of it all at once.
Whenever you feel as though you want to quit with your diet, pull out that list and re-read it. See what you’ve crossed out and remind yourself that these are important goals that will change your life. It is easy to quit and walk away, but you will be paying the price for it for the rest of your life.
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May 19th, 2008 — about, healthy eating, moderation, motivation, nutrition, rewards, weight loss, wellness
I have been tagged by Fat Man Unleashed to write a 6 word memoir. His was Be About It!
My 5 word memoir is Healthy, Happy, Wealthy, and Wise.
At the end of the day, this is how I will remember my life.
- Healthy — this one is pretty self explanatory, but it does require work to get there from here. I am currently perfectly healthy, however I know that without choosing to lose weight and exercise regularly NOW that will not always be the case. It will be the case and I am committed to losing the weight and maintaining the healthy lifestyle. I have had a wonderful first 30 some odd years and I intend to have another healthy 100 or so in front of me.
- Happy — I have met the woman of my dreams, I have a wonderful child, I played basketball in college, I am good at and enjoy my job, enjoying every minute, doing what I enjoy, experiencing the best things in life, fulfilled.
- Wealthy — In spirit and eventually monetarily. Content. Wanting for nothing.
- Wise — At least in my own mind.
And now it is my turn to tag a few people to write their own 6 word memior
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May 15th, 2008 — cardiac arrest, healthy eating, heart, motivation, weight loss
I have a lot of reasons for wanting to lose weight. Right up at the top of the list is be with my family. To be there to watch my children grow up. To spend quality time with my wife. To enjoy all of the great things that come with this wonderful life.
I was reading about heart attacks online and found a great resource. St Jude Medical, Inside Cardiac Arrest. They provide information about the risk factors, warning signs, and treatment of Sudden Cardiac Arrest. It also had a couple of videos explaining cardiac arrest and the anatomy of the heart (http://www.insidecardiacarrest.com/video_suddencardiacarrest.aspx and http://www.insidecardiacarrest.com/video_humanheart.aspx.
Given both my current weight (360 at last Friday’s weight in) and my body shape (I carry a lot of my fat in the mid section aka belly fat), I am at risk of sudden cardiac arrest aka a heart attack.
Did you know that sudden cardiac arrest kills 325,000 people a year - or nearly 900 per day? Usually without warning and if you don’t get help in the 1st 4 to 6 minutes it can be fatal.
So, enough of the morbid talk… My apologizes for those with a weak disposition. Having learned more about heart attacks and sudden cardiac arrest I am convinced more now that ever that it is time for me to lose the weight and get into shape for the rest of my life.
Hoping you are have a great day… I plan on swimming and maybe playing some volleyball (although it is supposed to be 100 degrees today so maybe I will just swim.)
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May 14th, 2008 — exercise, goals, healthy eating, motivation, trigger food
How many times have you gone on a diet, only to gain back the weight, plus a little dividend? For many people, dieting is a vicious cycle full of ups and downs, and plenty of discouragement. If you want to keep your weight off permanently, you are going to need to implement a few techniques. For most of us, staying at a healthy weight requires a lot of dedication and hard work, but it will pay off in a longer life span, less sickness and simply feeling better. Let’s look at a few of the ways that you can keep your weight off permanently.
1. Change your lifestyle -
If you want to keep your weight off successfully, more times than not this means changing your entire lifestyle. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. You don’t have to become entirely preoccupied with your weight, that’s not healthy. But you will need to keep focused on eating right, getting enough exercise and avoiding trigger foods that you know will put you back on that wrong path again. It’s fine to cheat now and again, but you can’t let it become a regular event. Allow yourself a nice dinner out every few weeks, but don’t fall back into your old habits.
2. Replace bad foods with better foods -
There are some foods that you may never be able to enjoy in large quantities again. There are also other foods that simply may be too dangerous for you to eat ever again. These are known as trigger foods, like we mentioned above. These are the foods that start you on that downward spiral that can be nearly impossible to overcome. If you simply cannot eat one piece of chocolate cake, it’s better to avoid eating it at all than risk falling back into your old habits.
Replace that cake with something that still satisfies your sweet tooth and chocolate craving but doesn’t trigger that old behavior. This works for any food, not just cake, that you simply cannot control your reaction to. It’s not easy and it’s more than a little sad. But, you can look at this way. Which would you rather have - a few bites of cake or a longer life that you can enjoy? A little extreme yes, but sometimes you need to get tough with yourself.
3. Treat every day as a brand new challenge -
If you’ve fallen off the wagon, don’t let that cycle continue. Every day is a brand new day where you’re going to have that chance to succeed at your healthy lifestyle. We all fall down every now again, but not all of us can get back up. Stop that cycle of falling and staying down, and start realizing that you are on a lifelong path towards getting healthy. It’s ok to take a break for a few days, but don’t let those days stretch into week, months and years. Get back in that saddle!
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May 9th, 2008 — Meals, exercise, goals, healthy eating, medicine, motivation, weigh in
After 3 weeks on the Jumpstart Medicine medically assisted weightless program I have lost 30 pounds… Which is above my expectations… I had hoped for an initial rapid weight loss and in deed I lost an incredible 22lbs in the first 10 days. After a minor disappointment last week (only three pounds), I am back to what I expect to be able to lose on a weekly basis from here on out: 5lbs.
Here is a graph of my weight loss (if you are reading this in the future this graph will have updated for future weigh ins as well)… Clicking the image will open to a larger image.
I achieved 50% of my 10 pound goal. The doctor thinks 5 lbs a week is a very good weight loss rate for me and as such I will fall in line…
My goal for every week from here to the end of my journey is 5 lbs. I have a stretch goal of exceeding 5 lbs, but I fully expect to be able to maintain the 5lb a week pace… With the help of the MIC Injection and the Phentermine, my hunger is in check for perhaps the first time in my life. I really do enjoy excising via competitive sports (golf, volleyball, basketball) and I also enjoy swimming… With summer coming up I might be able to exceed the 5lb weekly mark as my opportunity for swimming will pick up with the warmer weather…
Stay tuned… This site will be ramping up shortly to provide much much more while still tracking my journey down the weight ladder.
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May 8th, 2008 — exercise, healthy eating, motivation, wellness
To say that my dehydration event earlier in the week was scary is an understatement… The further away from the event the more I realize I should have stopped earlier than I did. None the less, if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, right?
So today I headed back to the open gym for more volleyball. This time however I came prepared.
I bought a gallon of bottled water and brought it with me… That takes care of the water, but the doctor suspected that I also was out of salt… So I ate 5 almonds right before entering the gym and I ate 5 more almonds half way through…
I drank my fill of water in between each game and in total I finished a little less than half the bottle.
Properly hydrated with plenty of sodium I had no trouble playing the full 2 hours… Yes I am tired and yes I am a little sore, but I did not have a single dizzy spell and I feel fine and am having no trouble working this afternoon…
I still think I am a little ways away from playing basketball, but volleyball is very manageable and an excellent workout…
Stokes my competitive fire… Tomorrow is my 3rd weigh in and I have high hopes of losing 5+ lbs this week.
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May 2nd, 2008 — Meals, exercise, goals, healthy eating, medicine, motivation, tools, weigh in
After an incredible 22lbs in the first 10 days, my progress this week seems pedestrian. My weigh in was not with with Dr Sean Bourke as he was on vacation… Instead I meet another of the doctors of Jumpstart Medicine Dr Sooji Rugh.
Here is a graph of my weight loss (if you are reading this in the future this graph will have updated for future weigh ins as well)… Clicking the image will open to a larger image.
While my progress slowed it was still 3 lbs in a week… I expect that my weightloss slowed down because after the 1st week I was a little less careful about portion control and a little less diligent about getting exercise. I also cheated on one day.
I only achieved 30% of the weeks weight loss goal (mine not the doctors) and so I will set the goal again this week at 10 pounds. My take away is that if I want to achieve the weight loss as quickly as safely possible I need to stick to the diet and exercise more. This week I will attempt to exercise every day and not cheat on the diet at all.
At the weigh in the doctor talked about reading the labels on food. Not counting fiber carbohydrates and looking for lean protein. She also talked about how adding fiber to food (yogurt for example) while not reducing the countable carbohydrate count, will actually reduce the glycemic index of the food.
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April 25th, 2008 — Meals, exercise, goals, healthy eating, medicine, motivation, weigh in
All I can say is wow! I didn’t want to believe that my newly purchased bathroom scale was reading the proper weight, but my weigh in with Dr Sean Bourke at Jumpstart Medicine proved it to be slightly high.
Here is a graph of my weight loss (if you are reading this in the future this graph will have updated for future weigh ins as well)…
I have lost 22 lbs in 10 days. Going from 390.1 to 368.0 pounds.
How?
Well I am on a 1200 calorie food based (low carb low fat) medically assisted weight loss program from Jumpstart medicine. I forget the exact term the doctor used, but I think it was something like protein assisted fast. The goal is to put the body into ketosis, which given my weight loss I would assume I have done.
I have a weekly MIC injection as part of the program and I take daily Phentermine, Chromium Picolinate, a multivitiam, a B6 supplement, and B12 supplement.
I stuck to the diet strictly. If anything I ate a too few carbs or at least too few fruits.
I exercised everyday. I varied the routine from a vigorous long walk with my dogs to walking 9 holes of hilly golf carrying my bag, to riding the stationary bike and lifting weights.
I drank lots and lots of water. Way more water than I ever have before.
To get past cravings I have found 2 nifty tricks.
- 5 almonds counts as 1 protein and is a great tasting salty snack.
- 1 cup of non fat chicken broth has 10 calories. Add a little black pepper and cayenne pepper and heat it up in a coffee mug. It is very satisfying and has almost no calories.
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