Biffster’s WeightJournal.com

Current weight: 286.5
Difference from last entry: +2
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -4

So I still don’t have a job yet. and the stress is getting to me, just a little bit. And, as is the norm for me, it shows most in my weight. I have reverted back to some of my old habits - maybe most of them. I have only worked in exercise once or twice this week. I am snacking continually. And I am having more sweets - many more sweets - than I should allow myself. And I’ve been drinking a lot of soda and not drinking much water. All very, very bad habits.

I decided that my life is simply too stressful right now to try to lose weight. Instead, I am going to try and keep my weight steady. I’ll slip into a maintenance mode right now, aiming to keep from gaining. I am going to work on finding some way to deal with stress other than eating. And I am going to try to get some more exercise in this week.

And start with baby steps.

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Current weight: 284.5
Difference from last entry: +3
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -6

So here is something that will come as a surprise to no one: being unemployed has not been condusive to losing weight. I have been unofficially unemployed since Monday, but the previous two weeks were preparing for unemployment, as I worked frantically to transition all of my responsibilities off to others during my two week’s notice. Work went well, I think: the two people who took over my duties should’ve had a pretty good heads up on how to do the job. Though, as my now ex-boss put it, how things go there is no longer my concern. I was able to keep myself busy for two weeks, but wasn’t able to put together two weeks of healthy eating. That’s the big take-away.

Though I do have to give myself credit for some good behaviors. I exercised on a consistent basis during my last two weeks on-the-job, due in large part to my walking buddy Diana. While I was eating too much, I was making mostly good food choices. And I only gained two pounds through that two week period. On a whole, those weren’t bad weeks at all.

This week? Well, that should probably be its own entry, which I’ll write later.

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Beliefnet is running a very interesting interview with Judith Beck, author of The Beck Diet Solution. Those of you who’ve read my journal for a while know that I am not a fan of the diet system du jour. Most are schemes to separate people who need help from the money in their wallets. Weight loss and diet are such a major problem today that there’s oodles of cash to be made. And people are so desperate for help that they will foolishly spend money on pipe dreams, hoping that this time they have found the magic solution to their problem.

So I was not in a big hurry to think much of Ms. Beck’s diet system. However, Ms. Beck does have some very interesting things to day. My favorite regards feeling hungry:

If you ask someone who’s never struggled with dieting, did you get hungry before dinner last night, invariably, they say yes. And then, if you ask them, so, what did you do? they’ll look at you in a very funny way and say, what do you mean? I just waited until dinner. People who have never struggled with dieting aren’t afraid of being hungry. They expect to feel hungry. They recognize that it’s normal. But, people who struggle with dieting are usually afraid to be hungry. If you ask them that, they’ll say, no, I’m not afraid. But, then, if you ask them to do an experiment such as skipping lunch, maybe going for eight hours without eating, they get very nervous because they think that hunger is not natural. They think that they can’t tolerate it.

This is a very interesting insight. When I first read it, I wanted to vehemently disagree. But I have to admit that I am at least partially guilty of this behavior. It’s an interesting interview through out. If you have a few minutes, I’d recommend reading the whole thing.

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Current weight: 281
Difference from last entry: -1
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -9.5

So, you know, every now and then I have a week where I lost weight, but don’t know how or why. This is one of them. The scale showed a one-pound weight loss, but I definitely didn’t expect to see it. I had a couple of bad nights worth of choices, and we went out to eat too many times last week. So yeah, I was expecting to have gained a couple of pounds. Losing a pound? Totally unexpected.

Even more unexpected is the fact that I showed an almost two-pound gain Tuesday at Weight Watchers. I expect to see about the same results gain/loss wise from our two scales. I showed a two-pound loss here, but a two pound gain there, in the space of three days. That was very unexpected. Of course, the week before that I showed a 1.2 loss, but I showed a 4.0+ pound loss at Weight Watchers. What does it mean? Mainly, just that my weight fluctuates through the week. And apparently my Saturday weigh-in reflects what I’ve eaten through the early part of the week, and the Tuesday weigh-in reflects how I’ve done through the weekend.

Which means that my weigh-in at Weight Watchers on Tuesday will probably be really, really bad. Easter weekend, too much available candy, feeling deprived and a whole lot of work-related stress added up to a really, really bad day.

Not just kinda bad, but really, really bad.

Still, I am within striking distance of the 280 mark. I am currently at the lowest weight I have been at since October 2000. We weren’t even married at that point! I have to make sure I remember these small details when times are tough.

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Current weight: 282
Difference from last entry: -2
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -8.5

I actually feel a little out-of-sorts because I didn’t get to follow my now-daily routine of stopping at the rec center for a workout every morning. I didn’t have time to do that on Thursday morning, and it wasn’t an option on Friday now that my wife is back to work. I really noticed the difference, both in energy level and just… I dunno how to put it. I can tell I didn’t get as much exercise in as I normally would.

Not that I didn’t get any in. I actually did a really good job at the early part of last week. And yesterday, the kiddos and I went to the Denver Aquarium and walked around for about 90 minutes. I had our 22 pound toddler strapped to my back, which added to the intensity of the exercise. I am pretty sure that, in the end, that counts as a workout. And a pretty darned good one, too! It was not only working my legs, but my back and shoulders, too.

I am a little bit blah this afternoon, and i am not sure why. I figure it is better to make this a short update than to try and BS my way through a longer one. 

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There are a couple of meals that I’ve been eating on a fairly consistent basis. They are all easy, require no/almost no cooking, and are eay to figure out Points-wise (sorry, I don’t have calorie information). Who knows, I may update my Recipes page with this information.

Breakfast sandwich
1 Thomas light english muffin (1 pt)
1/4 c. egg substitute (1 pt)
1 slice low-fat cheese (2 pts)
2 slices canadian bacon (0.5 pts)
YUMMY! Especially for 5 points or so. I normally have two of these, without the egg substitute, plus a non-fat latte, for a 10 pt. breakfast.

Peanut butter burrito
1 low-cal tortilla (2 pts)
1 tbsp peanut butter (2 pts)
1 tbsp honey (1 pt)
1 banana (2 pts)
7 pts. for a yummy, portable meal which also satisifies one’s sweet tooth. I tend to sacrifice a couple more points and do two tbsp of peanut butter. Or I’ll do one of the above, then another minus the honey and banana, but plus a couple of tablespoons of spreadable fruit.

Broccoli tuna salad
1 c. broccoli slaw (0 pts)
1 can tuna (4 pts)
6 cherry tomatoes (0 pts)
2 tbsp light honey mustard dressing (2 pts)
This makes a hell of a lot of food for a measly 6 pts. The veggies really fill one up, the dressing adds flavor, and the tuna is both yummy and adds a ton of protein.

The above meal ideas are a breeze to put together and take to work. They are mostly healthy, fairly low-Points, and delicious.

let me know what recipes/meal ideas you can recommend!

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Current weight: 284
Difference from last entry: -1.2
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -6.5

I basically challenged myself to have a better week this week. I was more disappointed than I mentioned about gaining last week, even though I had added so much exercise to my routine. Surprised, yes, but disappointed. But I had gained momentum on the exercise front, and I didn’t want to lose it. And I realized that I needed to reign in my snacking and overeating. So I challenged myself to have a week where I stuck close to the Plan.

It seems to have worked. I finally got under the 285 pound mark. And I did it in a convincing fashion. I have integrated exercise deep enough into my normal routine that I feel weird when I have to skip a day. I feel like I’ve forgotten something amazingly important. And really, I have! Exercise is important, being motivated to exercise even moreso. Having a routine, getting into a habit, has helped me build my motivation. Now, I can’t imagine doing without a 35-45 minute walk plus some weight training in the morning. And, of course, a long soak in the hot tub afterwards.

The snacking side continues to be a little bit of a problem. I was encouraged a little bit to find that I am not the only one in our WeightWatchers At Work group who has found their motivation lagging a bit. I guess it is not very nice to be comforted by someone else’s problems… but realizing that there isn’t something wrong with me did make me feel better.

I still do well during the work day and in the evening. It is after 7:00 at night when my problems come up. I keep forgetting that I shouldn’t be eating anything at all at night. It’s easy to forget that! And it is hard to stop once you get into the habit. Habits are a double-edged sword! I need to remember how to make this habit work for me, too.

All in all, I am very encouraged, heartened and motivated this week!

(Note: The sharp-eyed reader may have noticed the change on my weight charts. I had set the Y axis (the bold line on the chart) to 290, which is what  I thought my original 1997 starting weight was. Turns out that it was actually 294. I have updated all of my weight charts to reflect this.)

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“We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change…”We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come…

“Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future….

“And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can.”

Vote Obama

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Current weight: 285.2
Difference from last entry: +0.2
Difference from 2008 starting weight (290.5): -5.3

I was quite surprised to see that I gained weight - even just a little - this week. I had done a very good job of keeping the exercise going (another 50 minutes on Friday, then a 10 minute walk on Saturday). And I thought I was doing a better job staying within my daily Points. But apparently I didn’t do as good a job as I thought. Either that, or I’ve somehow built up a bit of muscle mass over the course of week. Which is always possible, of course. Especially since I got in so much exercise. But it seems unlikely to me. So I don’t know what happened.

I do know that I’ve got the exercise habit building strong, and will have even less problems sticking to exercise while the weather outside isn’t too hot and my exercise buddy continues walking with me. No I just need to re-focus on what I am eating. Once I get that nailed down? The rest of it will work itself out. In a good way.

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Those of you unfamiliar with the Weight Watchers program won’t be familiar with the idea of exercise Points. The concept is straight-forward though: physical activities are given a certain number of Points. One’s goal is to get as many activity Points in a week as they can, depending on their fitness level. I had been lucky to get 3-4 Points a week up until recently. For as fat and out-of-shape as I was when I started, I thought that was pretty good.

I’ve slowly been ramping myself up since then. Getting into an exercise routine has helped immensely. In the previous week, I pulled in 8 activity Points. Last week, I broke an all-time personal record for myself by logging 16 activity Points.

So far this week, I have 10!

Yeah, that is good stuff.

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