Biffster’s WeightJournal.com

There’s some interesting news about bad habits released by MIT. This can be seen as both bad and good news for those of us who’ve struggled with our weight for a long time. Good, in that there’s an explanation why it’s so easy to re-gain the weight we lose. Bad, ‘cuz it means that we have to continually watch our behaviour for relapses.

“It is as though, somehow, the brain retains a memory of the habit context, and this pattern can be triggered if the right habit cues come back,” Ann Graybiel, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, said in a prepared statement. “This situation is familiar to anyone who is trying to lose weight or to control a well-engrained habit. Just the sight of a piece of chocolate can reset all those good intentions,” Graybiel said.

Technorati tags: habits, physiology

Hmmm… Well, I’m not a big fan of Chipotle (I prefer QDoba, personally), but sometimes you’ve just gotta have a giant burrito. Wanna know how to make that burrito healthier, and reduce the calories? Use the Chipotle Nutrition Facts Calculator.

This is truly awesome!

This is the best motivation I’ve heard in a long time for losing weight: people who lose weight enjoy better sex lives!

If you are obese and then lose weight you will not only look and feel better, most likely your sex life will improve significantly, say researchers from Duke University. Apparently, even if you lose just ten per cent of your bodyweight, the quality of your sex life will improve.

Technorati tags: weight, sex

Weight: 324
Difference from last entry: +2.5

Hmmm… Well, that was unexpected. Though I guess it’s not surprising. I wasn’t exactly eating healthily last week. Though I didn’t think I was eating that horribly, either. I think I might need to start a food journal, so I can see just where the extra calories are coming from. The optimistic side of me says Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s just muscle gain. Muscle weights more than fat, so you gained some weight. No big deal.

But I don’t think that’s what is going on here. Yes, I’ve been exercising a LOT more than normal. But enough to build up enough muscle to increase my weight? I don’t think so. In my experience, muscle doesn’t build that quickly. This is only my second week exercising consistently. It seems too early to have built up that much muscle.

So I am going by the assumption that I simply made poor choices with food. Some are obvious, such as the tuna sub I had from Subway (don’t do the tuna, and definitely don’t do the foot-long tuna. That sucker’s over 1,000 calories).

This shouldn’t be surprising. I have not been careful about what I am eating. And that needs to stop. So, as I mentioned last night, I’m (we’re) going to start following meal plans from eDiets again. These meal plans have three benefits: 1) balanced meals, 2) portion control and 3) planning. I’ve lost weight – a lot of weight – sticking to the eDiets meal plans in the past. There’s no reason to think that I won’t in the future.

On the positive side of things, I’m up past two weeks straight of exercise. In that time, I’ve walked at least a mile a day (normally 1.5 miles), and I’ve been getting consistent on weights (average of two full circuits a week). My best workout was Saturday night: I walked for two miles and did a whole circuit of weights (I normally only have time to do either upper or lower body in one workout). I was exhausted, but in a very good way.

All in all, I’m not too worried about the weight gain this week. I know what I need to do to correct this. And it won’t be that hard to do. Exercise has always been the hardest part for me. And – at least for the moment – I have that handled. Reducing food intake will be the easy part.

Color me: optimistic!

I dunno if this is available to non-eDiets customers or not, but eDiets has an awesome FAQ regarding the Mediterranean Diet posted on their website. Apparently, I am not alone in wondering about this dient. Many of the questions that I have about the diet are covered in the FAQ, including:

3. Is the Mediterranean Diet good for weight loss?

A study published in the October 2001 issue of the International Journal of Obesity showed that people achieved and maintained weight loss better on a Mediterranean-type diet, compared to a low-fat diet. Researchers think it’s easier to stick with a Mediterranean-type diet because the foods are tasty and satisfying.

I should point out that my weight at the current time does not reflect how the Mediterranean Diet works, ‘cuz I haven’t actually followed it yet. I was concentrating on getting exercise worked into my routine. Plus, I’ve been very lazy about preparing meals lately.

However, Erin is getting me on track for preparing meals. We have a new meal plan set up from eDiets. (This includes some really good-sounding meals, including chicken kabobs, ham and tomato toast, chili salmon, dijon sirloin steak and pasta franchese. Yum!) We’ll try to stick with the meal plan, though it may take us a couple of weeks to real get into the flow of eDiets meals again.

Technorati tags: mediterranean diet, diets, weight loss

As I mentioned in a past weight journal entry, I had a rather disconcerting experience in the locker room at the local YMCA once upon a time. I had finished exercising and was in the lockerroom either getting ready to shower, or just getting out of the shower (my memory is hazy on the details, another sign that I need to put this behind me once and for all). Anyway, I was naked, with only a towel around me, and walking towards my locker when this three-year-old boy tells his dad, “Wow! Look at that big fat man!” I was mortified, though I tried laugh it off and act like that didn’t effect me.

But that effected me more than I cared to admit. I felt so embarrassed, and I felt so ashamed that I’ve let myself get as overweight as I am. It was such a horrible feeling that I never wanted to put myself into a situation where that could happen again. And so I’ve steadfastly avoided being even shirtless in a public place ever since. Which means that I haven’t really done a lot of exercise since then.

Of course, neither hiding from my fears nor skipping out on exercise has been healthy for me. The lack of exercise is apparent in my continuous weight gain. Hiding from my fears is apparent in the fact that I can’t even think of going to a swimming pool without breaking out in a cold sweat.

I have had a burst of motivation to get healthy lately, though. And one of the best means of exercise for someone my size is water aerobics. Water aerobics has some amazing benefits for someone my size: it’s low-impact, so it’s easier on my joints and back, water distributes heat very well, so I don’t overheat while exercising, and water offers a lot of resistance, increasing the amount of work and the calories spent per workout. Doing water aerobics is something that I feel I need to do.

Obviously, this is directly at odds with my phobia about being naked in public. Unless I’m planning on wearing a bathing suit to the rec center, then wearing the bathing suit soaking wet home, of course. So I decided that I needed to get over that old fear. I need to pull myself up by the metaphorical bootstraps and realize a couple of things: 1) the little kid wasn’t trying to be mean, 2) even if he was being mean, I’m a grown man. I should have tougher skin than that. And sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me! Who cares if someone makes fun of me, or laughs at me? I’ve had people do that to me all my life. Why be so sensitive about that now?

So this past Sunday night, I decided to take the first step towards changing this. I packed up some swim trunks and a towel, and went to the rec center. I did my standard workout (30 minutes walking on the walking track, followed by a circuit of weights), then I went into the lockerroom and nervously changed into my swim trunks. I then forced myself (and I did have to force myself) to head out to the hot tub (which is on the far side of the swimming pool, as far away from the locker rooms as you can get). I took the tell off, slipped into the hot tub, and then wondered why I had been so silly about this!

One time does not a recovery make, though. So I’ve been trying to get myself to actually go to a water aerobics class this week. We finally decided on going last night. But the rec center only does daycare on Tuesday and Thursday, so Erin and I flipped to see who would take care of Colin, and who would do the class. Erin lost, so she had to take the class. Colin and I hopped into the wading pool and played and played. It was great fun. I still hesitated about going out into the public pool with just swimming trunks on, but after about 10 minutes I just didn’t care. Colin and I splashed and waded and took a walk through the artificial river. In general, we just had a blast. And I realized that I can put the past behind me. Finally.

I will still cling to my new bathrobe for a while, of course. But I won’t be hindered by this fear any more.